Books on Timor-Leste

East Timor: A rough passage to independence

Author: James Dunn / ISBN: 1920681035

Book Description

East Timor: A Rough Passage to Independence is a story of political intrigue and the hidden world of international diplomatic deals. It is also the story of countless individuals, governments, and international bodies who, ultimately, pulled together to change the luck of this tiny island.

From the days of colonial Portuguese rule, through the tumultuous years of the Indonesian invasion, to the present day this book is a disturbing portrayal of the complete failure of the international community to deal with the East Timor situation. With expert analysis and clarity of writing, James Dunn highlights the disturbing gap between the noble rhetoric and the heartless reality of our international commitment and resolve.

About the Author

James Dunn spent his career as an Australian government official specializing in international relations, first as a defense analyst, then a diplomat, serving in Portuguese Timor, Paris, and Moscow. Sent on a fact-finding mission to East Timor in 1974, his report recommended self-determination, and he testified before the US Congress and the UN General Assembly. In 1999 he was a UN observer at the plebiscite in East Timor. Since resigning from Parliament in 1986 Dunn has dedicated himself to work on international human rights.

Lonely Planet East Timor

Author: Lonely Planet / ISBN: 1740596447

Book Description

A land of amazing variety, of crumbling Portuguese churches, misty mountains, pristine reefs, translucent seas rich with fish, and an inspiring people who wouldn't accept anything less than an independent homeland. Experience the pleasures and treasures of the world's newest nation with the first guidebook since independence - this is your ticket to a brand-new journey.

This is the only guide on the market to Southeast Asia's newest nation and it's written by our very own company co-founder Tony Wheeler, with contributions from President Xanana Gusmão and First Lady Kirsty Sword-Gusmão.

East Timor is a brand new destination, a place where you can still be a pioneer. Apart from that fine feeling of being first on the scene, visitors can also enjoy the country's Portuguese colonial flavour and the pristine underwater scenery without worrying about crowds. After the long and sorry story of the 24-year Indonesian occupation from 1975 and the horrific violence that wracked the independence referendum in late 1999, East Timor is a country still finding its place in the world. Independence came only in 2002, and there is still a great deal of damage to be repaired from the 1999 upheaval.

Lonely Planet East Timor Phrasebook

Author: Lonely Planet / ISBN: 1740590201

Book Description

Celebrate the birth of East Timor through its national language – Tetun. Seize the opportunity to communicate with the locals in this, the most widely understood and spoken native language in East Timor. You’re ensured a unique cultural experience and guaranteed an enthusiastic response.

• Foreword by independence leader Xanana Gusmão
• Essential cultural information for any visitor
• Key phrases for discovering the beauty of the countryside
• Explore the flavours of East Timorese cuisine – savour saboko & sample tuaka
• Get in step with traditional dance, celebrations & loron bot
• Extensive health care section. Includes Portuguese & the indigenous languages Fataluku, Makasae, Kemak

A Not-So-Distant Horror: Mass Violence In East Timor

Author: Joseph Nevins / ISBN: 0801489849

Book Description

On August 30, 1999, in a United Nations–sponsored ballot, East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia and for an end to a brutal military occupation. Upon the announcement of the result, Indonesian troops and their paramilitary proxies launched a wave of terror that, over three weeks, resulted in the murder of more than 1,000 people, the rape of untold numbers of women and girls, the razing of 70 percent of the country’s buildings and infrastructure, and the forcible deportation of 250,000 people.

In recounting these horrible acts and the preceding events, Joseph Nevins shows that what took place was only the final scene in more than two decades of atrocities. More than 200,000 people, about a third of the population, lost their lives due to Indonesia’s 1975 invasion and subsequent occupation, making the East Timorese case proportionately one of the worst episodes of genocide since World War II. In A Not-So-Distant Horror, Nevins reveals the international complicity at the center of the East Timor tragedy.

In his view, much if not all of the horror that plagued East Timor in 1999 and in the 24 preceding years could have been avoided had countries like Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, and especially the United States, not provided Indonesia with valuable political, economic, and military assistance, as well as diplomatic cover. The author explores issues of accountability for East Timor’s plight and probes the meaning of what took place in terms of international institutions and law. Examining issues such as violence, the geography of memory, and social power, Nevins makes clear that the case of East Timor has much to tell us about the contemporary world order.

Tetum Ghosts and Kin: Fertility and Gender in East Timor, Second Edition

Author: David Hicks / ISBN: 1577662652

Book Description

In the second edition of this study of religion and kinship in East Timor, David Hicks argues that reproductive rituals and ideas regarding fertility and gender direct the notion that for the Tetum-speaking people of Caraubalo suku, in the district of Viqueque, life and death derive from the same source. This source is the world of the ancestral ghosts (the mate bein). The soul of a person (the klamar mate) who has died becomes transformed by ritual action into an agency for life-affirming fertility, that is, an ancestral ghost, and it is from the ancestors that fertility, which sustains life down the generations, originates.

Incorporated into this complex of ideas regarding life, fertility, gender, and death, are two recreational institutions, cockfighting and kick-fighting, which Dr. Hicks argues are ritualized manifestations of fertility and infertility respectively, as well as gendered aspects of the sacred (lulik) and secular (sau) worlds. In addition to contributing to the comparative study of ritual and indigenous notions of reproduction, the second edition of Tetum Ghosts and Kin: Fertility and Gender in East Timor provides an ethnographic portrait of village life among a people whose traditions were about to be abruptly devastated by war and conquest. In a summary retrospect he outlines the events that overtook the East Timorese between the time of his first period of fieldwork and East Timor's becoming a nation on May 20, 2002, and concludes with a brief description of the present condition of Caraubalo.

Bitter Dawn: East Timor - A People's Story

Author: Irena Cristalis / ISBN: 1842771442

Book Description

Part memoir, part history, and part journalistic profile, this work explores the recent past of the world's newest independent nation, East Timor.

Journalist Cristalis spent the last couple years preceding the end of Indonesia's brutal occupation of the island nation interviewing student activists, guerilla resistance fighters, and others as the Timorese attempted to struggle for independence and, sometimes, just survive the murderous onslaught of the Indonesian army and its affiliated paramilitary groups.

Her story veers between wide-range historical treatments of the origins and events of the conflict and personal portraits of the people she met while she was in the country. Annotation c. Book News, Inc.,Portland, OR