The tiny half-island nation's independence followed a 1999 UN-supervised referendum in which 78 percent of Timorese voted to separate from Indonesia, triggering a wave of scorched-earth violence by pro-Indonesia militias before UN peacekeepers restored order. Xanana Gusmão, the resistance leader imprisoned for years by Indonesian authorities, became the country's first president, symbolizing decades of struggle finally rewarded.
East Timor's path to independence was soaked in blood. Portugal abandoned its colony amid its own 1974 revolution, and Indonesia invaded just months later, beginning an occupation historians estimate killed between 100,000 and 200,000 Timorese, roughly a quarter of the population, through violence, disease, and starvation over 27 years.
International attention finally turned decisive in 1999 when the UN organized a referendum on independence. Timorese voters, defying threats and intimidation, voted overwhelmingly, nearly 80 percent, to separate from Indonesia. Indonesian military-backed militias responded with a rampage of arson and killing, destroying much of the territory's infrastructure before an Australian-led international force intervened to restore order.
After three years of UN transitional administration rebuilding shattered institutions, East Timor formally raised its flag as a sovereign nation at midnight on May 20, 2002, in the capital Dili. Xanana Gusmão, who had led the armed resistance from the jungle and later spent seven years in an Indonesian prison, was sworn in as the first president of Asia's newest and one of its poorest nations, a moment of vindication after a quarter century of occupation few outside observers believed would ever end peacefully.
Key people: Xanana Gusmão