G

HOTSPOT

EAST TIMOR

Located on the island of Timor, at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago and about 650 kilometres to the northwest of the Australian city of Darwin, East Timor has had a turbulent geopolitical history. Famous for its sandalwood, Timor was initially colonised by the Portuguese during the 16th century. It was then divided between the Dutch and the Portuguese during the 1850s. Imperial Japan occupied the island during the Second World War, and after its defeat, the Portuguese resumed control of East Timor, before relinquishing it in November 1975. On 7 December, nine days after the Democratic Republic of East Timor was declared an independent nation, it was invaded and occupied by Indonesia in an act that was widely condemned for its brutality. It has been estimated that between 100,000 and 250,000 East Timorese lives were lost (out of a total population of around 600,000–700,000) as Indonesian military forces ‘pacifi ed’ the local population. It was widely believed that the USA had secretly approved the occupation by one of its key Cold War allies. In August 1999, a UN-sponsored referendum confi rmed that the people of East Timor wished to be independent from Indonesia. Anti-independence groups immediately initiated a violent campaign of revenge against those who voted for independence. The cumulative eff ect was severe – lives were lost, people displaced and about 70 per cent of the country’s infrastructure was destroyed. An Australian-led peacekeeping force of about 5,000 eventually brought the violence to an end, but by then, 300,000 people, out of a total population of 850,000, had fl ed as refugees into West Timor. In May 2002, East Timor was internationally recognised as independent for the second time. Key to the country’s reconstruction has been revenues from oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea, but these have been mired in disputes over ownership. In 1989, Australia and Indonesia collaborated with one another in order to delimit portions of the Timor Sea that were thought to contain hydrocarbon reserves.

On the day that East Timor’s independence was established, the governments of East Timor and Australia signed the Timor Sea Treaty, which provides a legal framework for commercial development of resources and provides for ownership of petroleum in the ratio of 90:10 in East Timor’s favour. In June 2005, the national parliament created a petroleum fund designed to store up monies accrued from the region. As there are no production facilities in East Timor, gas is piped to Australia. Elsewhere, economic growth in East Timor has been extremely modest, and Indonesia remains the country’s most important trading partner. In March last year, then-Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri fi red a third of the nation’s tiny army following a mutiny, provoking a military strike and gun battles between rival security forces, which in turn led to outbreaks of gang warfare and looting. At least 37 people were killed and some 155,000 fl ed their homes before the government collapsed. A peacekeeping and police force led by Australia, New Zealand and Portugal was deployed at the end of May and quickly brought the violence under control. UN police offi cers have now replaced some of those peacekeepers, but Australian soldiers remain in the country. President Xanana Gusmão and Prime Minister José Ramos-Horta have sought to promote political and economic stability, but further outbreaks of violence and instability took place earlier this year in the run-up to presidential elections.

G

EAST TIMOR

� Klaus Dodds is professor of geopolitics at Royal Holloway, University of London

14 www.geographical.co.uk JULY 2007

Zainal Abd Halim/Reuters