Word: timorously
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...remote and primitive Portuguese fiefdom of East Timor in the Lesser Sunda islands may have been the closest thing ever to a colony that no one really wanted. Discovered by the Portuguese in the 16th century, it has been theirs by default ever since. A mountainous wilderness roughly half the size of Maryland, East Timor has 650,000 inhabitants, mainly illiterate natives. Colonial mastery, such as it was, lay in the hands of an appointed governor, several hundred Portuguese militiamen, and a handful of coffee planters...
...that began changing rapidly two years ago. The Portuguese, spurred by their anticolonial revolution at home, wanted out. Led at the time by Marxist Premier Vasco Gonçalves, they encouraged formation of a pro-Communist Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin), which finally seized control and began butchering members of opposing political factions. Suddenly, East Timor became a minor source of international tension. Indonesia, which holds adjoining West Timor, professed horror at the thought of a Communist toehold. In turn, that renewed neighboring Australia's suspicion of Indonesia's expansionist ambitions in the region...
Various armed groups had been struggling for post-Independence power in East Timor for six months. In August the Timorese Democratic Union (U.D.T.), a right-wing group favoring Portuguese federation, fought its way to power in Dili, only to be driven out by the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor (Fretilin), a leftist group that advocated immediate and total independence. Amid what some Western witnesses described as "bloody carnage," which included children being bashed to death against the trunks of trees, Fretilin troops forced the Portuguese colonial governor and his aides to flee to an island 20 miles offshore...
...allies, including the pro-Indonesian Timorese Popular Democratic Association (APODETI), for a counteroffensive. Fretilin forces, described by an Australian reporter as "looking like a Dad's army of hippies," had set the stage for last week's showdown in November, when, already in retreat, they declared East Timor an independent free state...
Call to Surrender. Lisbon severed diplomatic relations with Jakarta following last week's invasion. It also called upon the United Nations to "protect the territorial integrity" of East Timor. From Jakarta, Indonesia's Foreign Minister Adam Malik coolly dismissed the Portuguese protest, insisting that Indonesian troops had landed in Dili "at the request of the people of East Timor...