Free Republic

These highly unusual firearms were captured by Australian forces after the occupation of East Timor by Indonesia. In 1999 and later, Australian forces were part of the UN forces used to keep order after Indonesia pulled their military forces out after 24 years of occupation. Some of the unusual design features include the welded together three stacked barrels with the non-functional trigger guard and trigger. The ignition system is said to be designed for cigarettes, but any source of flame or a heated wire could work.  Using flash holes for open match ignition is usually a bad idea in...

A 35,000-year-old piece of carved bone found on Timor, an island between Java and Papua New Guinea, indicates that complex hunting weapons were manufactured much earlier than previously thought in Australasia. A team led by archaeologist Sue O’Connor of Australian National University in Canberra has unearthed, in a project that began in 2000, what it regards as the broken butt of a bone harpoon point. Three closely spaced notches were carved on each side of the artifact, above a shaft that tapers to a rounded bottom. Wear on the notches and residue of a sticky substance close to the bottom...

DILI, East Timor (UCAN) – The Baucau diocese has expressed dismay over the rape of convent girls there and the burning of Church property following the announcement of the appointment of the country's new prime minister. Father Francisco Pinheiro da Silva, vicar general of Baucau diocese, says that around 2 a.m. on Aug. 10, unidentified men raped about nine girls, one of them only 8 years old and the others 15-17, at the Salesian-run convent school in Baguia subdistrict, 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) south of Baucau. "Indications show that the brutality and immoral actions were done by Fretilin supporters,"...

AUSTRALIAN troops have killed four East Timor rebels, but their leader Alfredo Reinado has escaped an attempt to capture him. President Xanana Gusmao today said Reinado remained a fugitive after escaping a raid on his camp in the East Timorese town of Same. Four people fighting with Reinado were killed by Australian troops, he said. No civilians were injured. The president said the operation to capture Reinado was continuing. A Defence spokesman in Canberra said no Australians had been killed or wounded. "The purpose of the operation was to apprehend Alfredo Reinado and his associates," he said. "We have not...

Timor cave may reveal how humans reached Australia Jerimalai shelter in East Timor, where Dr Su O'Connor of ANU has discovered the oldest evidence of occupation by modern humans on the islands that were the stepping stones to Australia. Deborah Smith December 22, 2006 AN AUSTRALIAN archaeologist has discovered the oldest evidence of occupation by modern humans on the islands that were the stepping stones from South-East Asia to Australia. A cave site in East Timor where people lived more than 42,000 years ago, eating turtles, tuna and giant rats, was unearthed by Sue O'Connor, head of archaeology and natural...

THE aggressive anti-Australian tone of East Timor's response to the Becora prison breakout is a sure sign that Canberra will have great difficulty winning an extension when the joint "green helmet-blue helmet" security arrangement is reviewed by the UN Security Council next month. Under the UN mandate passed by the council 10 days ago, the Australian-led stabilisation force has authority to operate in East Timor separately from the UN's 1600-strong police deployment. But as a concession to the many opponents of this shared security system, the council ordered UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to review the arrangement and report back within...

FOR years the United Nations attempted to cover up perverted and outrageous behaviour by uniformed and civilian personnel who have served in East Timor since 1999. But as a new wave of more than 2000 UN-employed police and staff prepare to travel to the capital Dili, Sukehiro Hasegawa, the top UN official in East Timor, has acknowledged for the first time that the UN system failed to bring anyone to justice for crimes that included sex abuse of children and bestiality. Dr Hasegawa declared that the UN's Integrated Mission in East Timor (UNMIT), which became operational on Monday, would enforce...

THE kumbaya crowd which pressed for East Timor's independence must shoulder much of the blame for the failure of its dysfunctional Government. But while the collective of liberation theologists and civil rights lawyers cheered Fretilin's Portugese-educated Marxist guerrilla leaders, the same candle-wavers protested against the toppling of the mass murdering Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein. Yet East Timor, with a population estimated at about one million, whose independence was internationally recognised on May 20, 2002, is now arguably in proportionately worse shape than Iraq, population 26 million, where the first election under its new constitution took place just last December. The...

A US-BASED pressure group has warned Australia that its invited military intervention in East Timor to quell unrest did not entitle it to interfere in the country's government. The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network said it was concerned about the situation in East Timor, where the government, with the stated support of rebel leaders, requested the deployment of foreign forces to stem escalating violence. "Timor-Leste must find ways, with respectful support from the international community, to deal with problems in a manner that will not require troops," ETAN said. "Statements by Australian government leaders that providing security assistance entitles...

* NEARLY 600 heavily-armed soldiers were sacked from East Timor's army, the F-FDTL, at the beginning of this month after going on strike. They took their weapons and set up camp in the hills. * Most are born in the western areas of Timor. They complain of discrimination at the hands of eastern-born officers. Their probably-justified complaints have largely been ignored by the Timorese Government. * Riots broke out and law and order deteriorated. The 600 soldiers launched sporadic raids on the capital Dili. They are led by Alfredo Alves Reinado, an officer born on the western side of Timor,...

HUNDREDS of terrified East Timorese gathered outside the Australian embassy and other foreign diplomatic missions as gang fights raged in Dili. Outside the high walls of the Australian mission a squad of Australian Federal Police set up roadblocks and tried to keep control of a growing crowd of terrified civilians. A similar scene was unfolding on Dili's waterfront outside the US Embassy and other foreign diplomatic compounds. Several Australian troops were trying to maintain order. Among the crowd near the American compound, one man complained there were not enough Australian troops on the streets. "Where are the Australians?" asked the...

A MOTHER and and her five children were burned to death when a mob torched their Dili home. The family died in one of seven houses torched in the suburb of Delta-Comoro about one kilometre from the airport yesterday, just hours before the first Australian troops touched down. AAP today saw the charred remains. Inside the house of horror, the mother's blackened body was found clutching that of her four-year-old daughter in a bathroom. Four bodies of her other children, some of them adolescents, were found in other rooms. Details of the slaughter emerged as conflict continued to affect sections...

Asia Rising Donald Rumsfeld infamously made a distinction between Old Europe and New Europe. He has been scored ever since for his sweeping and impolitic language, but he wasn't sweeping enough: In geopolitical terms, all of Europe is old, the world's most tourist-friendly museum piece. For the future of high-stakes U.S. diplomacy and of great-power politics, look no further than Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the U.S. It is Asia that should occupy an outsized place in our strategic thinking, and it is Europe that should be the relative afterthought, not the other way around. The media and foreign-policy...

Warning sent via text messaging announces Kupang will suffer the same fate as Bali on New Year's Eve. The area is largely Catholic and Protestant. More than 2,000 soldiers and police officers are deployed. Jakarta (AsiaNews) – Police are on a high state of alert in the predominantly Christian province of Nusa Tenggara Timur (East Tenggara Timor or NTT, the eastern part of the island of Timor) after a series of threats was made against local churches to coincide with New Year celebrations.On December 28, Radio Timor Voice received an anonymous text message (SMS) via cellphone announcing imminent bombings on...

[Free Republic Note: For those who missed the news story (buried by US media outlets) about the rape of children and animals in East Timor by UN Peacekeepers, I suggest you first read the following article published by "The Australian" on 26-Mar-2005: Hushed rape of Timor.] US Congressional Leaders Fight for Victim's Rights in East Timor By LEIF TEEST Associated Press Staff Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation in Congress today they hope will provide relief for Jordanian UN Peacekeepers currently embroiled in an international sex scandal in East Timor. Allegedly, Jordanian peacekeepers routinely engaged in lovemaking with...

IT caused outrage among East Timorese and Australian troops sent to protect them, raised tensions among UN peacekeepers to a deadly new level and caused senior UN staff to resign in disgust. The deployment of Jordanian peacekeepers to East Timor was probably one of the most contentious UN decisions to follow the bloody independence ballot. It was eclipsed only by the cover-up and inaction that followed when the world body learned of their involvement in a series of horrific sex crimes involving children living in the war-battered Oecussi enclave. Children were not the only victims - in early 2001, two...

The United Nations has not faced such a crisis in confidence since its founding in 1945. News reports naturally focus on the corruption of the UN Oil for Food program and the allegations against Secretary-General Kofi Annan for his son's employment by the Swiss firm hired to oversee its implementation. The UN and US congressional committees are investigating this aspect of the scandal. But a more corrosive issue is whether Saddam Hussein had manipulated the program to help win the support of UN Security Council members. True, Oil for Food required Iraq to deposit its oil earnings in a French...

In places like Congo and Kosovo, peacekeepers have been accused of abusing the people they're protecting. By Michael J. Jordan | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor PRISTINA, KOSOVO – It's nighttime in this trendy neighborhood, and the three-story villa sits serenely behind an iron gate and tall bushes. Half a block away, almost undetected, a man in a parked car keeps watch. As this reporter approaches, the man radios ahead. 04/22/04 Quickly emerging from the doorway is the middle-aged boss, dressed in a Miami Vice get-up, with stringy, combed-over hair and capped teeth. He and a young lieutenant hustle...

Print this page Timor more dangerous than Iraq By Sian Powell 19jan04 A DELEGATION of senior Australian diplomats last week toured an Indonesian region considered by the UN to be more dangerous than Baghdad. Australian deputy ambassador in Indonesia Peter Rowe and several other diplomats made an official visit to West Timor, an impoverished half-island in eastern Indonesia. West Timor is rated phase 5 by the UN, the highest danger-level alert, warranting immediate evacuation. Phase 5 bars UN officials from working without extraordinary security clearance, stifling aid to a dirt-poor district now home to thousands of East Timorese refugees. The...

East Timor in flames after five die in student riots By Kathy Marks in Sydney 05 December 2002 East Timor was placed under a virtual state of emergency yesterday, with a curfew in the capital, Dili, after student riots in which up to five people were killed and the Prime Minister's house was burnt down. The anger erupted after police shot dead a demonstrator, according to witnesses. Hundreds of protesters looted shops and set fire to buildings, leaving part of the city in smouldering ruins. Witnesses said police fired into the crowd, but the number of deaths was unclear. One...