East Timor, once the centre of considerable international preoccupation and support as the symbol of a small country struggling for freedom, faces an uncertain political, economic and social destiny that could even go as far as threats on its territory and resources by outside forces, according to informed parties there.

The small state of some 800,000 people on the end of the Indonesian archipelago was a Portuguese colony for some 400 years until it was momentarily set free following the revolution in Lisbon in 1974, but almost immediately annexed by Indonesia. Following the ouster of Indonesian President Soeharto in 1998, his successor Robert Habibie permitted a referendum there in 1999 that led to an overwhelming vote in favour of independence, but a bloody rampage by Indonesian military and militias that precipitated an Australian-led international military intervention. Australia which led the INFERET action in 1990 and still has some 400 troops there has said they would remain until the population felt secure. More recently, Singaporean and Malaysian commanders have led the international peacekeepers there.

But in 1999 the economic infrastructure of Timor-Leste was devastated by Indonesian troops and anti-independence militias, and 260,000 people fled west. Although significant reconstruction work has been undertaken, the country still faces challenges. Since 2002, floods and drought in the highlands of the Western region of Timor-Leste led to food shortages and malnutrition. An estimated 110,000 people required emergency food aid during the 2003 to 2004 winter period, according to European Union statements.

Amnesty International says it is estimated that some 1300 people were killed in Timor-Leste in the months proceeding and in the immediate aftermath of a UN organized ballot on independence on 30 August 1999. More than a quarter of a million people were forcibly deported or fled across the border to West Timor in Indonesia, where an estimated 28,000 remain in refugee camps today. An unknown number of people were subjected to other human rights violations, including torture and rape.

These crimes were not spontaneous, AI claims, but part of well coordinated efforts by members of the Indonesian military, police and civilian authorities to influence the outcome of the ballot and to disrupt the implementation of the result.

One of the poorest countries on earth, the new state of Timor Leste, is now seeking to defend its potentially rich offshore oil resources against encroachment by neighbouring Australia and Indonesia. Despite its independence sanctioned and monitored by the UN, the country inherited and remains embroiled in territorial disputes with its much larger neighbours. European officials have also pointed out that the question of some 28,000 of the original estimated 200,000 East Timorese refugees in West Timor remains unsettled.

Timorese, Indonesian and Indonesian Foreign Ministers have held two trilateral meetings in recent years, on matters of security including terrorism and international crime.

Some in the country are still bitter about the way the UN sanctioned the referendum but did little to protect its people from the violent backlash by Indonesian and their Timorese supporters against the vote for independence. These Timorese are also distressed that the eventual UN effort was radically reduced before the base for democratic institutions or a sound economy were established. And they now fear that the UN will further reduce its security presence before law and order have been secured and external threats neutralised.

There was also initially considerable resentment against ASEAN for having, as Jose Ramos-Horta charged, been “accomplices of Indonesia.” But Dili has more recently indicated a desire to join ASEAN.

Deliberations are now underway in the United Nations Security Council on whether the 1400-strong UNMISET peacekeeping presence should be withdrawn, slimmed down, or transformed into a police force of a few hundred when its mandate, which was prolonged for a year, expires May 20. A security vacuum there is feared by some countries in the region and elsewhere if the UN force was withdrawn completely or even replaced by a lightly-armed civilian police presence. Some inside and others outside feared possible chaos if the UN withdrew completely. The UN Ambassador to East Timor Jose Guterres had been hoping to double the contingent in view of what he said was infiltration by armed criminal gangs, militias and Timorese opposition forces into refugee camps and even into the country to destabilise the situation;

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in January 2004 recommended that a reduced peacekeeping force including air support should remain during a “consolidation phase,” a view supported by the Irish representative in his capacity as the temporary president of the EU. Australia and the US, other key participants in the tiny Southeast Asian country, were originally for withdrawal of the peacekeepers and replacement by a police detachment, but the US is seen as perhaps wavering. Australia’s representative in the UNSC discussion on the subject February 20 contended that the main security threats to the country were internal and better handled by a police presence. Annan in his report said a relatively modest continued effort could make a major contribution to stability there.

Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta told the UNSC that peace was still fragile, as were the institutions of law and order. He did not anticipate an external threat, but said it was wiser to be overcautious. The peacekeeping component would provide time and space to the country to strengthen its defence and police force. He believed all responsibilities could be taken over by his country by the end of 2005.

Richard Ryan of Ireland on behalf of the EU said that the Organisation should weigh carefully any continued threats in considering its security presence there and believed that further assistance would be required to consolidate gains.

If many in the UNSC discussions referred to the operations there as a success story for both the UN and the Timorese, others directly involved have differing and critical views, claiming that the international community had precipitously withdrawn without fulfilling its responsibilities to establish stability.

Where international troops rushed to the tiny Southeast Asia state in 2000 in the aftermath of tragic slaughter by occupying Indonesian troops and militias, the now-independent state considers that the UN left precipitously without living up to the Security Council mandate to establish a democratic system.

Elections in 2001 resulted in a victory for the rebel movement FRETELIN with 57% of the vote but nearly two-thirds of the seats in the Parliament. The system established there, according to some is a one-party authoritarian one with an alleged high level of corruption, which they hope will be ousted if free and fair national elections can be held as planned in April 2006. At the worst, some in Dili, the capital of the new state, fear that the elections could be cancelled by the current Prime Minister Mari Bim Amude Aklatiri.

Xanana Gusmao, the rebel leader against the decades-long Indonesia occupation of the former Portuguese colony who spent nine years in prison and house arrest, emerged as President of the new state in elections supervised and monitored by the UN, EU and others in 2002. He visited Europe in January to sensitise political opinion about the possible deterioration of the polical and economic situation. Some analysts indicate that while he had been reluctant to remain in politics, he may be considering forming his own political party to contest elections 2006.

And while the world donor countries still contribute funds for the impoverished state and numerous non-governmental organisation remain to build the necessary services, residents say the health, educational and other necessities are so short that one in three infant dies from malaria, tuberculosis or other disease.

While some aid agencies and NGO struggle to cope with this deterioration, the predominantly Catholic population and the church are said by critics to be stoically resigned to their fate.

The UN, Australia, its Southeast Asian neighbours, Portugal, the former colonial power, the EU and others seemed to have declared the emergency over and withdrawn to concentrate on other failing or conflict-ridden states.

In contrast, international interest have tended to focus more on the offshore oil deposits off the Timor coast in the gap between the tip of Timor island and Australia. Australia rushed to sign a contract with the newly-elected Timor authorities in the hopes of solidifying a working relationship. But the new government has proven to be a troublesome partner who has challenged some of the provisions in the treaty at various times.

Timor Leste in 2002 laid claim to a 200-mile area off its coastline as permitted under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, an area that overlaps and competes in part with similar claims by Australia. Such overlapping boundary claims are generally settled by bilateral negotiations or international dispute settlement procedures. However, Australia and Timor Leste have been unable to resolve the dispute. Instead of meeting regularly on the problem Australia has said it will only attend such talks twice a year and that it would not agree to have the issue forwarded to the UN Law of the Sea Tribunal in Hamburg or the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

As a result of this unsettled boundary, impoverished Timor Leste has been said not to have benefited from the potentially rich oil field off its coast line while Australia has been the major recipient. A spokesman for an American-based NGO supportive of the Timorese remarked that “It would be painfully ironic if East Timor remains the largest contributor to Australia’s government budget over the next four decades.” Australian NGOs have also contended that successive Governments in Canberra have exploited the situation in Timor and that even aid has tended to benefit Australian NGOs, contractors and personnel rather than the Timorese.

East Timor has also accused Australia of pocketing hundreds of millions in disputed royalties while stalling negotiations on sharing the rich oil and gas resources of the Timor Sea. East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri also denounced pressure from the Australian Government that he said forced him to sign a deal on developing the oil and gas reserves. Prime Minister John Howard rejected accusations that Australia had "blackmailed" East Timor into signing an agreement over the future development. Howard, made a special statement to Parliament to deny allegations that he had tried to ``intimidate or strongarm" the East Timorese leaders over the deal to grab a larger slice of an $80 billion oil and gas accord signed between the countries.

Australia has said Timore Leste would receive 90% of the oil and gas revenues which should go a long way to assuring the stability and prosperity of the new state.

In addition, some knowledgeable analysts from the country say they are concerned about the attitude of neighbouring West Timor. Their anxiety arises from declarations of the West Timorese to the Indonesian Government in Jakarta of interest about sharing in the in the natural resources in the regions, which in Dili triggers sombre warnings of possible designs on what they regard as their property. The Timorese and some others in the international community were especially disturbed by an unannounced show of force by the Indonesian military in an exercise on an uninhabited island nearby recently. On January 29 a group of West Timor villagers had also entered East Timor, burned structures there and may have stolen cattle, the UN was told.