East Timor
East Timor Cynthia Chapman Contemporary World Issues The eastern part of Timor - an island among many in the Pacific ocean - is a small territory of the area of 19,000 square kilometers, located between Australia and Indonesia. With a population of 700,000 people, the original people of East Timor are called the Maubere. In December 1975, just one and a half years after the Portuguese revolution which had put an end to a 48 year dictatorship in the metropole and less than a month after East Timors unilateral declaration of independence, Timors giant neighbor, Indonesia, with a population of almost 200 million, invaded the territory by air and by sea. The action was promptly condemned by the United Nations, who maintained that East Timor was a colony of Portugal. ... In the years that followed, it was estimated that one-third of the population of East Timor lost their lives. ... Torture, rape, and all kinds of physical, sexual and psychological violations, violent repression and brutal murder have been the daily life of the Maubere people living in East Timor. Because the UN has never recognized the Indonesian annexation of East Timor, there have been several United Nations resolutions for the right of the Timorese / Mauberes to have self-determination. The international community had been blind to the fight of the Maubere for its inhabitants in East Timor until November 12th 1991.