Word: timorously
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Every day, the fancy jeeps cruise past Palmira Pereira's shack on the northern coast of East Timor. Sometimes, the passengers inside the air-conditioned vehicles raise their hands in greeting, and Pereira, or one of her 10 children, waves back. But the occupants of the cars-owned by the government, the U.N. or other organizations that are helping to run this infant country, which gained independence from Indonesia in 2002-have never stopped to meet the Pereiras. If they did, they would find a family that has not eaten rice in three months because of shortages that have nearly...
...Pereira's wistful recollection of 24 years of brutal Indonesian rule shows just how little progress East Timor has made in its five years of freedom. As the nation prepares for its first post-independence presidential election on April 9, East Timor's 1 million people are ranked by the U.N. as Southeast Asia's poorest. Eight politicians have announced their candidacies, ranging from populist former resistance fighter Fernando de Araujo to Nobel Peace Prize laureate and current Prime Minister José Ramos-Horta. But even as such democratic rituals play out, the capital Dili has erupted into a battleground...
...After the disasters of Somalia, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, tiny East Timor was supposed to prove that nation building was a feasible exercise. An independence referendum in 1999 forced the Indonesians out, but not before departing soldiers and sympathetic local militias practically leveled the country in a paroxysm of violence that claimed hundreds of lives. All in all, up to 200,000 East Timorese are believed to have perished during the Indonesian occupation. Determined to help reconstruct a country that had been birthed in such chaos, the U.N. set up shop in 1999. A constitution was written, universities were...
...Just weeks later, East Timor again descended into conflict, and the country still simmers with strife. What went wrong? In reality, the simple narrative of East Timor's success hid a far more complex story line. Yes, the Timorese cherish independence. But no amount of freedom masks the fact that nearly 45% of the country lives on less than $1 a day. When the international community began decamping in 2002, thousands of jobs associated with its presence disappeared. The current government, run by the political party Fretilin, a key resistance force during the Indonesian occupation, hasn't improved the economic...
...Afonso soares was supposed to be one of East Timor's bright hopes. The 22-year-old son of a vegetable vendor from the eastern town of Baucau had done well enough in school to earn a place at Dili's Universidade da Paz in 2002, the same year his homeland gained independence. Soares chose to study law, believing that a strong legal system was a key institution for the young nation. But all that changed last April, when the army revolt ignited clashes between Dili residents from the country's east and west. "Before the crisis, east was where...