ABSTRACT
On September 4, 1999, the wave of violence and destruction that had been building across East Timor over the preceding months broke in a fury. Within a few clays, it had swept staff of the UN Assistance Mission to East Timor (UNAMET) out of the territory, more than 250,000 East Timorese into forced exile, and almost all the rest of the population of more than 800,000 from their homes into the mountains, to seek sanctuary. The burning of homes and the murders of key leaders that had been increasing up to this point gave way to a scorched earth campaign. More than 70% of all dwellings and business premises were burned, while almost all infrastructure, apart from roads and bridges, was either destroyed or stolen. When soldiers of the UN-sponsored International Force to East Timor (Interfet) arrived in the territory, toward the end of September, they found a scene of almost total destruction, with soldiers from the Indonesian army burning and looting what little remained intact. East Timor had always been among the poorest of the territories ruled by Indonesia, and had been a neglected economic and social backwater under the Portuguese before that. Now the plans for rebuilding East' Timor as an independent state had been set back, effectively, to starling with a sheet that was blank but for the three quarters of a million people who had returned to find almost total devastation.
