Over six years after
the departure of the occupying Indonesian forces,
the small half-island nation of Timor-Leste faces
numerous development challenges. The poorest country
in the region, its people are forced to cope with
poor health services, civil unrest, and limited opportunities
for employment. Despite substantial international
aid and increasing revenue from oil revenues, most
citizens of newly independent Timor-Leste continue
to scrape a meager living while their government and
international agencies work to establish a functional
state that might address the challenges of basic service
provision and sustainable growth.
In 2006, a military dispute erupted,
in which western East Timorese soldiers went absent
without leave and were subsequently dismissed. The
soldiers claimed that their eastern commanders were
discriminating against them, and the tension between
the two led to a rise in east-west tension in the
capital, Dili. In late April, the "591"
dismissed soldiers demonstrated in Dili, and the protest
ended in violent riots. This sparked a chain of civil
unrest that brought down key political figures, resulted
in the deaths of over 30 Timorese military, police
and civilians, and caused over 150,000 people to become
internally displaced. The photographs in the Civil
Unrest gallery are a detailed documentation of the
beginning of this sequence of events, which remain
unresolved to this day.
Please click on the links above to
view the photographs in this gallery, or choose from
one of the following options:
|
