Word: timor
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Portuguese Timor (pop. 650,000) in the Indonesian archipelago, the colonial government radioed that "many dead bodies are lying in the streets" of its capital of Dili. Other reports told of barrages of mortar shells and a continuous small-arms crossfire. Fighting broke out when the Timorese Democratic Union (U.D.T.) seized power two weeks ago to forestall what it said was a coup attempt by the radical Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretelin). At least 100 persons died in the initial outburst, and the toll was expected to go much higher. Lisbon was said to be sending...
Portuguese authorities on Macao, the country's other remaining Pacific possession, declared that Lisbon's troops would not "open fire against the people of Timor no matter what the outcome of the current crisis." Similarly, Indonesia announced a policy of noninterference. The main danger seemed to be that the three independence parties would begin to bicker among themselves, à la Angola...
Main Danger. Trouble also broke out in another colonial quarter-the tiny island of Timor (pop. 650,000), situated in the midst of the Indonesian archipelago. Last week one of the island's fledgling independence parties, using ancient Mausers, Sten guns and Timorese cutlasses, staged a bizarre coup, seizing the police headquarters and the radio station and demanding independence from Portugal...
...instigator of the coup was the Timor Democratic Union (U.D.T.) which had always advocated a gradual approach to independence and a continuing association with Portugal. One possible explanation for the U.D.T.'s action was that it had joined forces with another independence party, Fretelin, to crush a third party that advocates eventual union with Indonesia...
When the explosion went off, it blew a huge hole in a Greek Cypriot's ground-floor apartment but caused relatively little damage to Timor's quarters. Nobody inside the building was injured. The dynamiter himself was flung to the ground, however, and the getaway car was wrecked. The other three guerrillas left their comrade behind and commandeered another vehicle at gunpoint. They got only 50 yards before they rounded a curve and crashed head-on into a police car looking for the traffic violators. They surrendered, and the injured dynamiter was arrested later at a hotel where...