East Timor's Unfinished Struggle: Inside the Timorese Resistance

The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the principal international spokesperson for the Timorese independence movement, Jose Ramos-Horta and to Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, the spiritual leader of most of the people of East Timor. The Nobel citation honored them for their "sustained and self-sacrificing contributions for a small but oppressed people -- the Nobel committee hopes this award will spur efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict in East Timor based on the people's right to self-determination". East Timor's Unfinished Struggle offers a first-hand account of life inside the Timorese independence movement. Called "a land of crosses", East Timor is dominated by the gravestones of more than 200,000 people who have died as a result of the U.S.-supported Indonesian invasion and annexation of the former Portuguese colony. In this emotional and inspiring memoir, Constancio Pinto, a leader of the resistance movement, describes Portuguese colonialism, East Timor's brief moment of independence in 1975, the U.S.-backed invasion, life under more than 20 years of Indonesian occupation, and the formation of a courageous movement for Timorese self-determination.