Oil rig in the Timor Sea. Timor Leste's oil wealth has not benefitted the people.
By Mericio Akara, translated by Vannessa Hearman
September 30, 2009 -- Dili -- What is commemorated as Timor Leste’s (East Timor) “liberation” is the United Nations-facilitated referendum on August 30, 1999.
East Timor, which
had been a Portugese colony, was already an independent country, as a result of the
pro-independence political party Fretilin declaring East Timor independent on November 28, 1975.
But barely days after the independence proclamation, on December 7, 1975,
the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia used all its military firepower
to invade Timor Leste.
The invasion was brutal and the occupation lasted 24 years before the UN referendum in 1999. During the occupation, the Indonesian military tortured and slaughtered
our people. Such terrible acts became an everyday spectacle in Timor
Leste.