East Timor: A Case of Genocide

Far from the newsrooms and awareness of North America and Europe is East Timor. It is half of an island in the Indonesian archipelago. It is east of Bali and 400 miles north of Australia. East Timor was a Portuguese colony for four hundred years. It became independent in 1975. In that same year it was invaded by Indonesia, an ally of the United States. A murderous occupation has ensued. East Timorese resistance, against tremendous odds, continues. The ongoing tragedy is rarely mentioned in media reports yet it is the greatest proportional genocide since the Nazis.