[DOWNLOAD] "Bitter Flowers, Sweet Flowers" by Richard Tanter " Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Bitter Flowers, Sweet Flowers
- Author : Richard Tanter
- Release Date : January 19, 2012
- Genre: Politics & Current Events,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 15886 KB
Description
East Timor is at last, and at terrible human cost, firmly on the road to independence. The significance of its passage to freedom-for its people, for Asia, and for the world-is manifold. This volume offers a comprehensive overview of East Timor's travail and its triumph in its international context. East Timor's independence constitutes one of the final and most poignant moments in a long and bitter history of European colonization and decolonization. For the people of East Timor, independence from Portugal in 1975 was only the beginning of a new struggle against Indonesian invaders—a struggle that took the lives of 200,000 East Timorese—and one that is by no means over. The case of East Timor, both during and after the Cold War, provides a litmus test for issues of international responsibility, posing questions of double standards in unusually clear-cut form. It reveals the active support by the United States and other powers for the military forces of Indonesia throughout the years of that nation's invasion and repression of East Timor, until 1998 when the collapse of the Indonesian dictatorship ushered in a new phase in the East Timorese struggle. The essays in Part I, 'East Timor: Resistance, Repression, and the Road to Independence,' explore the dynamics of the long struggle for independence, from Portugal and then Indonesia, focusing particularly on the role of the National Council of Timorese Resistance and the Catholic Church. Part II, 'Referendum and Independence,' provides four eyewitness accounts of the 1999 UN-sponsored referendum and the concomitant militia violence supported by the Indonesian military. Part III, 'East Timor, the United States, and the World Community,' examines international dimensions of the struggle. Part IV, 'East Timor and Indonesia,' looks at the changing character of the Indonesian state and the significance of East Timor in Indonesian political developments. The final section, 'The Future of East Timor,' considers the prospects for an independent East Timor, charting the potential shoals that lie ahead.