Some East Timor Facts.
In response to a staypuff article by David - I thought I’d post up some facts and figures about just how poor the East Timorese really are.
GDP: - $440 million (2001 est.)
GDP - real growth rate: -3% (2003 est.)
GDP - per capita: $500 (2001 est.)
GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 25.4% ; industry: 17.2% services: 57.4% (2001)
Population below poverty line: 42% (2003 est.)
Household income or consumption by percentage share: lowest 10%: NA ; highest 10%: NA
Distribution of family income - Gini index: 38 (2002 est.)
Inflation rate (consumer prices): 8% NA (2003 est.)
Labor force: NA
Labor force: NA
Unemployment rate: 50% (including underemployment) (1992 est.)
Budget: revenues: $36 million
expenditures: $97 million, including capital expenditures of NA (2003 est.)
Thank you to the CIA world fact book, now have a quick look at Australia
And I’ll just include a quick paste from this website about the history of East Timor Pre-1990.
“Western” Complicity
(Western in a cultural sense, most of the countries named are in fact to the north-west, south and north-east of East Timor).
On the 22nd of December 1975, the UN Security Council condemned the invasion of East Timor. Since then numerous resolutions supporting the East Timorese have been passed. Portugal, in 1988, managed to secure both European Commission and Parliament support. In 1989 the UN Human Rights sub-commission also expressed concern. But despite this, East Timor was effectively off the International agenda. Why ?
Most of the major western states tacitly supported the invasion. US President Gerald Ford was in Jakarta just prior to the invasion. The Australian Government was one of the first to recognise the Indonesian takeover as legitimate and its failure to pursue the death of five journalists working for two Australian news agencies in October 1975 may have encouraged the Indonesian government to proceed.
Sales of weapons and aid to Indonesia have been significant. Without the large supplies, including counter-insurgency aircraft bought in 1977, the Indonesian victory would have been far from inevitable. America supplied large amounts of military equipment. Both Britain and France supplied aircraft. Indonesian military personnel were trained in the west.
It is unlikely that Indonesia would have succeeded in their takeover without this support.
So there are some facts about East Timor. Morally we owe them for a few things, for helping Australian Soldiers in WW2 against the Japanese, for the fact we did not help them when they were invaded. However, some conservative apologists probably believe that we owe nothing, that the East Timorese should probably have defended themselves. Think about this: What if it was Australia that was invaded and in our time of need, other countries turned away and do what we did, and buy shares in the natural resources that this country has, for doing nothing.