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TIMOR
COVER INTRODUCTION
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ESSAY
On January 28, 1999 I flew into Dili, East Timor for the first time
in my life. I was reading a copy of that morning's English daily
newspaper. It was talking about the recent killings in Suai, East
Timor, a small village near the capital of Dili. The killings had
taken place in response to an announcement the previous day by the Habibie
regime that there was a possibility of the 'province' being granted autonomy
from Indonesian diactatorial control.
Not too many people have visited East Timor since its violent annexation
by the Suharto regime in 1975. I was excited and scared. I
was also cold - the Merpati Airlines airplane's heating system was not
working properly. It was freezing in the plane. Or maybe it
was nerves. I had no idea what to expect. One good thing was
that the windows were relatively free of forehead or finger smudges.
As we flew in I admired the green cliffs and thought to myself
'Hmm...greener than I expected.'
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