East Timor: Note 2

28 Nov 1975 a political party known as Fretilin unilaterally declared its independence from a distracted Portugal. Less than two weeks later on 7 Dec, a date that will live in infamy, Indonesia invades. By mid-Feb 1976 an estimated 60,000 Timorese were dead.

Indonesia, after 15 a year of occupation, might have pulled off the annexation of East Timor were it not for the Santa Cruz cemetery massacre in Dili on 12 Nov 1991. An estimated 250 pro-independence demonstrators lost their lives that day.

Indonesian military action during their 24 year occupation is considered by many to have been genocide. Indeed Yale University includes this dark chapter in its Genocide Studies.

Yet we know so little about this.