Crisis in Timor-Leste

The Crisis in Timor-Leste: Understanding the Past, Imagining the Future

Edited by Dennis Shoesmith

This book offers a collection of papers originating in a symposium, 'The Crisis in Timor-Leste: Understanding the Past, Imagining the Future', held at Charles Darwin University on 13 November 2006. Together, the papers in this volume address the historical, social and political causes of unrest in Timor-Leste, explaining the violence and rebellion of 2006 in a larger context. By doing this they identify ways to respond to the causes of unrest, particularly the social and developmental strategies the East Timorese can pursue in order to negotiate the transition to a stable, democratic and viable state.

Contributors: James Cotton, Jennifer Drysdale, Steven Farram, Trevor Le Lievre, Andrew McWilliam, Ron May, David Mearns, Rod Nixon, Kate Reid-Smith, Dennis Shoesmith.

Dennis Shoesmith is Associate Professor of Politics at Charles Darwin University. He has worked as a consultant in Timor-Leste with the United Nations and USAID.

"The impact of the 2006 crisis, not least on identity formation…, inspires reflections on this small country as the famous ‘grain of sand’ offering lessons applicable also to other countries. East Timor still lives with the repercussions of the crisis. This book… holds a high standard throughout and can be recommended as a useful, condensed, up-todate introduction to the country." Sven Gunnar Simonsen, Book Notes, Journal of Peace Research volume 45, number 6, November 2008.

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