ABSTRACT

In 1974, after dictatorship was ended in Portugal and Lisbon began taking steps to wind up its overseas empire, the East Timorese were granted the right to form political parties. Indonesia formally integrated East Timor as its twenty-seventh province in 1976 and succeeded in gaining recognition of its action by some Western powers. The International Force in East Timor handed over the control of the territory to the United Nations Transitional Administration of East Timor, which had been organized after the Cambodian model, in November 1999. The divisive situation in the country was reflected in the 2007 presidential and parliamentary elections. One major factor boosting the survival and prosperity of the new state was a border treaty with Australia that had tremendous economic implications. Australia had wanted to preserve the boundary agreed with Indonesia in 1972, which was about a hundred miles from East Timor, effectively keeping the Greater Sunrise gas field under Australian control.