Tom Hyland – Listen carefully: that scratching you hear is the scribbling of commentators, furiously re-writing history. And if you look closely,…

Annemarie Evans – Australian armoured vehicles patrol the streets of East Timor's capital, Dili, amid the burned-out shells of houses and food…

Peter Boyle – Commenting on the Australian troop deployment to East Timor on May 31, the Australian's Paul Kelly said, "this intervention is both…

Jon Lamb – While the fighting between different factions of the East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and the East Timor National Police (PNTL) has…

Diane Farsetta – Is the Southeast Asian island nation of East Timor a success story or a basket case?

The former view has been promoted by…

The unfortunate thing about overseas is that it is full of foreigners, and they have different traditions from us. That seems to be the gist of…

Maryann Keady, Dili – East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri says that he is a marked man and vows to not leave his government post without a…

Up to 2,000 protesters paraded through Dili in a convoy of trucks and motorcycles to call for the dismissal of East Timor's prime minister Mari…

Mark Dodd – The column of unarmed East Timorese police had walked less than 100m when the shooting began.

Two soldiers stepped forward, one…

Tom Allard – Rosinha Erica Nunes is the kind of young woman that East Timor needs to cherish if it is to emerge as a viable country. A final-year…

Ian McPhedran, Dili – East Timor is a nasty little political jigsaw that will keep Australia guessing and engaged for decades to come. As rival…

Peter Symonds – Just over a week after its first troops landed in East Timor, the Australian government is conducting an unrelenting and barely…

Lindsay Murdoch and Tom Allard, Dili – Two of East Timor's most powerful ministers resigned from the embattled government in Dili yesterday,…

Paul Toohey – Saturday morning, things went crazy. The Australians had landed but, apart from a group of some 30 commandos nursing SR-25 semi-…

Tom Allard in Dili and agencies – Soldiers loyal to the East Timorese Government say rebels led by Major Alfredo Reinado ambushed them as they…

Helen Hill – The Australian Government and media have demonised East Timor's PM without knowing all the facts,

Ever since the August 2001…

It is almost a week now after the arrival there of Australian peace-keepers but peace, you'd have to say, still seems a way off.

What,…

Jon Lamb – In response to ongoing clashes between the East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and rebel soldiers and police, the East Timorese president,…

Maryann Keady – Three years ago, I wrote a piece talking about attempts to oust Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri in East Timor, then a new struggling…

Max Lane – On May 24, East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and the speaker of East Timor's parliament Lu'olo sent a…

Dili – East Timor dumped its defense minister Tuesday and the government showed signs of further unraveling, as desperate residents scuffled over…

Mark Dodd, Dili – East Timor President Xanana Gusmao has assumed sweeping new executive authority, invoking emergency powers under the country's…

Tom Allard and Mark Forbes in Dili – A humanitarian and political crisis was escalating in East Timor last night, as mobs looted government food…

Lawrence Bartlett, Sydney – The explosion of violence in East Timor was the result of an accumulation of ethnic, economic and historical…

James Dunn – East Timor's descent into violence and anarchy, and towards civil war, chaos came as a shock, including to this columnist who has…

Prime Minister John Howard had ignored the difficult task facing East Timor in the wake of the ruinous Indonesian occupation, Australian Democrats…

Tom Hyland – The UN, Australia and the East Timorese Government had multiple warnings of the looming internal security crisis that has plunged…

Washington – A US-based pressure group has warned Australia that its invited military intervention in East Timor to quell unrest did not entitle…

Anthony Deutsch, Dili – East Timor's capital descended into chaos Saturday as rival gangs set houses on fire and attacked each other with machetes…

We have watched the unfolding situation in Timor-Leste this past week with deep concern. We do not believe that events had to escalate to this…

Rita A. Widiadana, Sanur – The joint Indonesia-Timor Leste Truth and Friendship Commission will continue its work despite the outbreak of violence…

George Quinn – On its independence day almost exactly four years ago, the people of East Timor seemed literally to be singing on the same page.…

Mark Forbes – Wide-eyed youths brandish machetes, armed militias rampage through the streets, terrified civilians flee, soldiers lay siege to…

Hamish McDonald – Australian warships silhouetted in the calm blue waters, a squat Hercules on the airfield surrounded by young soldiers armed and…

Damien Kingsbury – Australia's renewed intervention in East Timor will help defuse what was growing into an explosive situation, and which…

Mark Forbes, Dili – The thud of grenades and chatter of machine-gun fire was drowned out by the drone of a huge, grey Australian Hercules…

Events in East Timor and the response internationally have given rise to a variation on gunboat diplomacy. It is gunboat democracy. In colonial…

Dylan Welch – Fighting was raging around East Timor's capital today ahead of the promised deployment of up to 1300 Australian troops to restore…

Jill Jolliffe and Rob Taylor, Dili – Heavy casualties have been reported in the centre of Dili where a fierce gun battle raged between rival…

Rory Callinan, Dili – The large rock flying past the windscreen raised the alarm. For the previous two days I had travelled with impunity through…

Ambitious politicians misjudge the mood in the military and soon the shooting starts, with the factions fighting over the pathetically small…

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Widespread disenchantment with East Timor's government, a poorly led military and widespread poverty and unemployment…

Jon Lamb – Heightened tensions within East Timor and rumours of further violent clashes have subsided with the passing of the Fretilin congress,…

Vera Devai – The Australian Government was hampering the investigation into the death of a TV news cameraman in East Timor because of its…

Guido Guilliart, Dili – A surge in violence in East Timor's capital left one soldier dead and seven others wounded Tuesday, the government said,…

Mark Forbes, Dili – Crowds danced to a cover version of Van Halen's Jump in the forecourt of East Timor's battered government headquarters on…

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri avoided a leadership challenge this week but it is doubtful his rule will…

Katrina Strickland – There is a scene in the ABC's new mini-series, Answered By Fire, in which a journalist tells a couple of United Nations…

Graeme Blundell – David Wenham and a cast of East Timorese amateurs are stunning in a new ABC drama about the bloody history of the world's newest…

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Mari Alkatiri was so confident he had stitched up the leadership of East Timor's ruling Fretilin party that by morning…