Jon Lamb – In response to ongoing clashes between the East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and rebel soldiers and police, the East Timorese president, prime minister, foreign minister and speaker to the parliament sent a joint communique on the evening of May 24 to the Australian government requesting that it send troops as part of an international force to restore security.

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, earlier this year, started out as basically an industrial dispute between disgruntled soldiers and the East Timorese Government, in April escalated when the armed forces split along both ethnic and political lines.

Dili – East Timor dumped its defense minister Tuesday and the government showed signs of further unraveling, as desperate residents scuffled over scarce food in the capital and looters ransacked the prosecutor's office of vast numbers of files.

Lawrence Bartlett, Sydney – The explosion of violence in East Timor was the result of an accumulation of ethnic, economic and historical grievances in the young country and the failure of the government to address them, analysts say.

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 been involved in the affairs of this community for more than 4 decades, especially their ordeal during Indonesia's harsh occupation.

Tom Allard and Mark Forbes in Dili – A humanitarian and political crisis was escalating in East Timor last night, as mobs looted government food warehouses, burnt properties and shot and bashed ethnic enemies.

Mark Dodd, Dili – East Timor President Xanana Gusmao has assumed sweeping new executive authority, invoking emergency powers under the country's constitution to help resolve the political crisis.

Washington – A US-based pressure group has warned Australia that its invited military intervention in East Timor to quell unrest did not entitle it to interfere in the country's government.

Prime Minister John Howard had ignored the difficult task facing East Timor in the wake of the ruinous Indonesian occupation, Australian Democrats Leader Lyn Allison said today. Australia should have done more to help, she said.

Tom Hyland – The UN, Australia and the East Timorese Government had multiple warnings of the looming internal security crisis that has plunged Dili into violent chaos.

Anthony Deutsch, Dili – East Timor's capital descended into chaos Saturday as rival gangs set houses on fire and attacked each other with machetes and spears, defying international peacekeepers patrolling in armed vehicles and combat helicopters. The prime minister said a coup attempt was underway.

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

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 point. Like others, we do not have complete information about the current situation and its causes. Below are our initial reflections:

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. The independence movement had grabbed a massive win in the referendum of 1999. Indonesia's sour response and the brutality of its militias had been a gift to the new country's sense of solidarity.

Mark Forbes – Wide-eyed youths brandish machetes, armed militias rampage through the streets, terrified civilians flee, soldiers lay siege to police headquarters and your sleep is broken by rifle bursts, heavy machine guns and the thump of grenades. Welcome to East Timor, the world's youngest nation on the brink of becoming its next failed state.

Hamish McDonald – Australian warships silhouetted in the calm blue waters, a squat Hercules on the airfield surrounded by young soldiers armed and wired to the teeth, and John Howard warning the nation that it's all very risky.

Aren't we seeing a bit too much of this in our region? What happened to preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping?

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 yesterday carrying the men locals pray will deliver them from the carnage enveloping Dili.

Events in East Timor and the response internationally have given rise to a variation on gunboat diplomacy. It is gunboat democracy. In colonial times, a country would position a gunboat off the coast of a minion and that would be enough to sort out the native unrest.

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

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

Rory Callinan, Dili – The large rock flying past the windscreen raised the alarm. For the previous two days I had travelled with impunity through the Dili suburbs of Becora and Fatuahi, where residents of the East Timorese capital had been engaged in running battles, armed with knifes, bows and arrows, spears and swords.

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

Ambitious politicians misjudge the mood in the military and soon the shooting starts, with the factions fighting over the pathetically small spoils of power. And an impoverished people scrambles to get out of harms way, while watching their aspirations for a better life disappear.

Jon Lamb – Heightened tensions within East Timor and rumours of further violent clashes have subsided with the passing of the Fretilin congress, held in Dili on May 17-19. The congress was a test of support for Fretilin leader and East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Widespread disenchantment with East Timor's government, a poorly led military and widespread poverty and unemployment are fuelling the worst unrest since the small country's 1999 vote for independence, analysts say.

Guido Guilliart, Dili – A surge in violence in East Timor's capital left one soldier dead and seven others wounded Tuesday, the government said, as Australia and New Zealand offered to provide troops to help restore calm.

Vera Devai – The Australian Government was hampering the investigation into the death of a TV news cameraman in East Timor because of its political ties with Indonesia, NSW police said today.

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 Saturday night – celebrating the anniversary of independence – the scene of last month's rampage by youths and rebel soldiers that left at least five civilians shot dead.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri avoided a leadership challenge this week but it is doubtful his rule will ensure any peace in the world's youngest nation.

Mark Forbes, Dili – East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri's leadership has been overwhelmingly endorsed in raucous, joyous scenes at the ruling Fretilin party conference, after a challenge collapsed amid allegations of intimidation and bribery.

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 police that the Australian government received intelligence ahead of East Timor's 1999 independence referendum about the likelihood of post-ballot violence.

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 nation

It has been easy not to remember the tragedy of East Timor, so overwhelmed did we become by September 11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and terrorist bombings in Madrid, Bali and London.

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Mari Alkatiri was so confident he had stitched up the leadership of East Timor's ruling Fretilin party that by morning tea at the party's national congress yesterday he was belting out a melancholy nationalist anthem over the PA system, accompanied by an organist with a push-button rhythm machine.

Loro Horta – It was a hauntingly familiar scene. Large-scale riots broke out in East Timor late last month, attended by looting, arson and the murder of five civilians. But rather than a rebellion against foreign occupation, the recent melee in the capital, Dili, was purely a domestic affair.

Mark Dodd and Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Police in East Timor have failed to restore law and order following last month's deadly violence because the Interior Minister is too preoccupied with his personal business interests, a damning UN cable has revealed.

Paul Toohey – The dirt roads and hills in the western districts of the country are now their home. In Australian terminology, the 591 East Timorese soldiers – a third of the military – who abandoned their barracks in protest in March would be mutineers or traitors. In the delicate language of East Timor, they are "petitioners".

Former People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) chairman Amien Rais said for the sake of justice former East Timor pro-integration fighter Eurico Gutteres should be freed from all legal penalties for the human right abuses he was accused of because other parties who were more responsible for the atrocities had been acquitted.

Dili – East Timor's foreign minister Jose Ramos-Horta said his country does not need foreign peacekeepers, shortly after Australia said it had sent two warships close to Timorese waters.

Jon Lamb – Fearing renewed violence, tens of thousands of East Timorese have fled Dili to outlying villages and districts. The situation remains extremely tense in the capital following the police crackdown on an angry demonstration of former Falintil independence fighters and disaffected youth on April 28.

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – An East Timorese policeman was stabbed to death yesterday after security negotiations broke down in the western district of Ermera, where more than 600 rebel soldiers and police are defying a government call to return to their posts.

Jakarta – A number of members of the House of Representatives' Commission I dealing with security, political and foreign affairs paid a visit to former commander of the pro-integration fighter force PPI Eurico Guterres in the Cipinang state penitentiary here on Tuesday.

Stephen Fitzpatrick – The would-be guerilla fighters playing hide-and-seek in misty highlands far beyond East Timor's capital, Dili, are a mixed lot but they have one thing in common: they're prepared to die violent deaths to get what they want.

Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin – An East Timorese police commander has moved to calm panicked residents of Dili, telling them he only took his armed men into the mountains to protect people who had fled there.

Bronwyn Hurrell, Canberra – Australia has an affinity with East Timor that dates back to World War II when Australian soldiers were supported and sheltered by the locals, who paid a high toll at the hands of the Japanese.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Last week's protests in East Timor were sparked by a group of sacked soldiers, but a combination of disaffected youth, poverty and anger as the government turned them into deadly riots, analysts say.

Guido Guilliart, Dili – Rumors circulated by mobile phone text messages of an imminent attack by disgruntled ex-soldiers who clashed violently with police last week prompted thousands of residents to flee East Timor's capital on Friday, officials and witnesses said.

Stephen Fitzpatrick and Mark Dodd – More than 20,000 East Timorese, fearing renewed ethnic violence, have fled the riot-torn capital of Dili as the Government made desperate calls for calm yesterday.

After an appeal process that dragged on for over three years, former East Timorese pro-Indonesia militia leader Eurico Guterres has finally begun serving his 10-year jail sentence for crimes against humanity, but the Indonesian generals who ordered and financed his crimes remain free.

Time and again, the Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) continuously reminds that the East Timorese people's struggle did not end when it acquired its independence.

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Liandro de Jesus's body lay in the morgue at Dili's Guido Valadares hospital for four days before his family was allowed to see it. They claim they were warned that if they pushed the matter, they too, like the star university student so recently lost to them, would be shot.