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Travel to East Timor — Unbiased reviews and
great deals from TripAdvisorEast Timor
| Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste National name: Republika
Demokratika Timor Lorosa'e/Republica Democratica de Timor-Leste President: José Ramos-Horta
(2007) Prime Minister: Xanana
Gusmão (2007)
Current government officials
Total area: 5,641 sq mi (14,609 sq
km) Population (2008 est.): 1,107,432
(growth rate: 2.0%); birth rate: 26.5/1000; infant mortality rate:
43.0/1000; life expectancy: 66.9; density per sq km: 75
Capital and largest city (2003 est.):
Dili, 50,800 Monetary unit: U.S. dollar
Languages:
Tetum, Portuguese (official); Bahasa Indonesia,
English; other indigenous languages, including Tetum, Galole, Mambae,
and Kemak
Ethnicity/race:
Austronesian (Malayo-Polynesian), Papuan, small
Chinese minority
National Holiday:
Independence Day, November 28
Religions:
Roman Catholic 90%, Islam 4%, Protestant 3%,
Hindu 0.5%, Buddhist, animist (1992 est.) Literacy rate: 58.6% (2002) Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2004 est.):
$370 million; per capita $800. Real growth rate: 1.8%.
Inflation: 1.4%. Unemployment: 50% estimated;
note—unemployment in urban areas reached 20%; data do not
include underemployed (2001 est.). Arable land: 5%.
Agriculture: coffee, rice, corn, cassava, sweet potatoes,
soybeans, cabbage, mangoes, bananas, vanilla. Labor force: n.a.
Industries: printing, soap manufacturing, handicrafts, woven
cloth. Natural resources: gold, petroleum, natural gas,
manganese, marble. Exports: $10 million; note—excludes
oil (2005 est.): coffee, sandalwood, marble; note—potential for
oil and vanilla exports. Imports: $202 million (2004 est.):
food, gasoline, kerosene, machinery. Major trading partner:
Indonesia (2004). Communications:
Telephones: main lines in use: n.a.; mobile cellular: n.a..
Radio broadcast stations: n.a. Television broadcast
stations: n.a. Internet hosts: 68 (2006) Internet
users: 1000 (2004) Transportation:
Railways: total: 0 km. Highways: total: 5,000 km; paved:
2,500 km; unpaved: 2,500 km (2005). Waterways: n.a. Ports
and harbors: n.a. Airports: 8 (2006 est.). International disputes: UN Mission of Support
in East Timor (UNMISET) has maintained about a thousand peacekeepers
in East Timor since 2002; East Timor-Indonesia Boundary Committee
continues to meet, survey, and delimit the land boundary, but several
sections of the boundary especially around the Oekussi enclave remain
unresolved; Indonesia and East Timor contest the sovereignty of the
uninhabited coral island of Palau Batek/Fatu Sinai, which prevents
delimitation of the northern maritime boundaries; many of 28,000 East
Timorese refugees still residing in Indonesia in 2003 have returned,
but many continue to refuse repatriation; East Timor and Australia
continue to meet but disagree over how to delimit a permanent maritime
boundary and share unexploited potential petroleum resources that fall
outside the Joint Petroleum Development Area covered by the 2002 Timor
Sea Treaty; dispute with Australia also hampers creation of a southern
maritime boundary with Indonesia.
Major sources and definitions
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Geography
East Timor is located in the eastern part of
Timor, an island in the Indonesian archipelago that lies between the South
China Sea and the Indian Ocean. East Timor includes the enclave of
Oecussi, which is located within West Timor (Indonesia). After Indonesia,
East Timor's closest neighbor is Australia, 400 mi to the south. It is
semiarid and mountainous.
Government
Republic.
History
Timor was first colonized by the Portuguese in
1520. The Dutch, who claimed many of the surrounding islands, took control
of the western portion of the island in 1613. Portugal and the Netherlands
fought over the island until an 1860 treaty divided Timor, granting
Portugal the eastern half of the island as well as the western enclave of
Oecussi (the first Portuguese settlement on the island). Australia and
Japan fought each other on the island during World War II; nearly 50,000
East Timorese died during the subsequent Japanese occupation.
In 1949, the Netherlands gave up its colonies in
the Dutch East Indies, including West Timor, and the nation of Indonesia
was born. East Timor remained under Portuguese control until 1975, when
the Portuguese abruptly pulled out after 455 years of colonization. The
sudden Portuguese withdrawal left the island vulnerable. On July 16, 1976,
nine days after the Democratic Republic of East Timor was declared an
independent nation, Indonesia invaded and annexed it. Although no country
except Australia officially recognized the annexation, Indonesia's
invasion was sanctioned by the United States and other western countries,
who had cultivated Indonesia as a trading partner and cold-war ally
(Fretilin, the East Timorese political party spearheading independence,
was Marxist at the time).
Indonesia's invasion and its brutal occupation
of East Timor—small, remote, and desperately poor—largely
escaped international attention. East Timor's resistance movement was
violently suppressed by Indonesian military forces, and more than 200,000
Timorese were reported to have died from famine, disease, and fighting
since the annexation. Indonesia's human rights abuses finally began
receiving international notice in the 1990s, and in 1996 two East Timorese
activists, Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo and José Ramos-Horta,
received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to gain freedom
peacefully.
After Indonesia's hard-line president Suharto
left office in 1998, his successor, B. J. Habibie, unexpectedly announced
his willingness to hold a referendum on East Timorese independence,
reversing 25 years of Indonesian intransigence. As the referendum on
self-rule drew closer, fighting between separatist guerrillas and
pro-Indonesian paramilitary forces in East Timor intensified. The
UN-sponsored referendum had to be rescheduled twice because of violence.
On Aug. 30, 1999, 78.5% of the population voted to secede from Indonesia.
But in the days following the referendum, pro-Indonesian militias and
Indonesian soldiers retaliated by razing towns, slaughtering civilians,
and forcing a third of the population out of the province. After enormous
international pressure, Indonesia finally agreed to allow UN forces into
East Timor on Sept. 12. Led by Australia, an international peacekeeping
force began restoring order to the ravaged region.
The UN Transitional Authority in East Timor
(UNTAET) then governed the territory for nearly three years. On May 20,
2002, nationhood was declared. Charismatic rebel leader José
Alexandre Gusmão, who was imprisoned in Indonesia from 1992 to
1999, was overwhelmingly elected the nation's first president on April 14,
2002. The president has a largely symbolic role; real power rests with the
parliament and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, also a former guerrilla
leader.
The first new country of the millennium, East
Timor is also one of the world's poorest. Its meager infrastructure was
destroyed by the Indonesian militias in 1999, and the economy, primarily
made up of subsistence farming and fishing, is in shambles. East Timor's
offshore gas and oil reserves promised the only real hope for lifting it
out of poverty, but a dispute with Australia over the rights to the oil
reserves in the East Timor Sea thwarted those efforts. The oil and gas
fields lie much closer to East Timor than to Australia, but a 1989 deal
between Indonesia and Australia set the maritime boundary along
Australia's continental shelf, which gives it control of 85% of the sea
and most of the oil. Under these terms, Australia was to receive 82% of
the oil revenues and East Timor just 18%. Finally, after years of
wrangling, the two countries agreed in May 2005 to defer the redrawing of
the border for 50 years and to split the oil and gas revenues down the
middle.
East Timor's capital, Dili, descended into chaos
in April and May 2006, when the prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, fired
almost half the country's soldiers for striking. The fired soldiers, who
had protested against low wages and alleged discrimination, then began
rioting, and soldiers loyal to the prime minister started battling them.
Soon the violence had spread to the police force and the civilian
population, causing about 130,000 to flee their homes to avoid the
bloodshed. Australian troops were called in to control the unrest. On June
26, Prime Minister Alkatiri resigned in an effort to stop the country's
disintegration. Alkatiri has been criticized for doing little to stem East
Timor's grinding poverty and social problems, but the former independence
fighter has remained immensely popular. In July Alkatiri was replaced by
José Ramos-Horta, winner of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize.
In April 2007 presidential elections—the
first since the country gained independence—none of the candidates
won a majority, necessitating a runoff election. Francisco Guterres took
28.8% of the vote, Prime Minister Ramos-Horta garnered 22.6%, and Fernando
de Araujo won 19%. Ramos-Horta prevailed in the second round of voting,
taking 69% to Guterres's 31%. Estanislau da Silva took over as interim
prime minister, replacing Ramos-Horta, who held the post since 2006. In
August, President Ramos-Horta named independence activist Xanana
Gusmão as prime minister. The move sparked violent protests led by
supporters of the Fretilin party, the former governing party. Fretilin won
the most seats in elections, but Gusmão formed a majority
coalition, called the Alliance of the Parliamentary Majority (AMP).
President Ramos-Horta survived an assassination
attempt in February 2008. He was shot in the back and stomach in a gun
battle outside his home between his guards and supporters of renegade
general Alfredo Reinado, who was killed in the altercation. Reinado and
several other generals were fired in 2006 after lodging complaints of
discrimination. Their case became a rallying cry against the government
and sparked a wave of protests. Shortly after the shooting, Prime Minister
Gusmão's motorcade was attacked by the same rebel group, suggesting
a coup attempt. He was not injured in the ambush.
See also Encyclopedia: East Timor.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
East Timor
Information Please® Database, © 2008 Pearson
Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
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