The island of Timor lies to the north of Australia, and has at various times in its history been controlled by Portugal, the Netherlands, Japan and Indonesia.

It’s only as recently as 2002 that the eastern part of the island officially became the independent country of East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste. The western half of the island, apart from a small enclave of East Timor, is part of Indonesia.

Colonisation

The Portuguese traded with the island in the early 16th century and eventually colonised it, but disputes with the Dutch led to the western half of the island being ceded to the Netherlands in 1859.

Japan occupied Portuguese Timor during the Second World War, but Portugal once again resumed control in 1945.

East Timor declared its independence from Portugal on 25th November 1975. By now, the western half of the island was part of Indonesia and the country invaded and occupied East Timor just nine days later.

Independence

Two decades of attempts began to integrate East Timor into Indonesia, during which an estimated 100,000 to 250,000 people lost their lives.

Xanana Gusmão was one of the guerrilla rebel leaders against the Indonesian occupation. His arrest in 1992 by Indonesian forces was captured on video, which Dateline obtained in 2011 for this report. Gusmão spent more than six years in an Indonesian prison and under house arrest.

But in 1999, East Timor finally gained independence after a UN-supervised referendum overwhelmingly backed a split from Indonesia, and it was internationally recognised as an independent country in 2002.

Controversy

However independence didn’t come without controversy and more violence… anti-independence militia, backed by the Indonesian military, killed 1,400 Timorese, forced 300,000 from their homes and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure.

Australian-led peacekeeping troops were deployed to bring the violence to an end, but unrest continued until the establishment of a UN mission and official police force in 2006.

During this period, from 2002 to 2007, the country was led by one-time rebel leader Xanana Gusmão as President.

Largely peaceful elections were held in 2007, voting in former Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta as President. He appointed Xanana Gusmão as Prime Minister. Both currently remain in those posts in one of the most stable periods in the country’s recent history.

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Sources: CIA World Factbook, BBC