the damage it does is just too much for it to be acceptable in a civilised society.
Here are a few quotes from the Wiki article on East Timor...
"Prior to and during colonisation, Timor was best known for its sandalwood. In late 1999, about 70% of the economic infrastructure of East Timor was laid waste by Indonesian troops and anti-independence militias, and 260,000 people fled westward. Over the next three years a massive international program led by the UN, manned by civilian advisers, 5,000 peacekeepers (8,000 at peak) and 1,300 police officers, led to substantial reconstruction in both urban and rural areas. By mid-2002, all but about 50,000 of the refugees had returned. This successful UN effort was headed by Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Sérgio Vieira de Mello, later to become High Commissioner for Human Rights, who was killed in Baghdad in August 2003.
The country faces great challenges in continuing to rebuild the infrastructure and strengthen the infant civil administration. One promising long-term project is the joint development with Australia of petroleum and natural gas resources in the waters southeast of Timor, a location which became known as the Timor gap following the signing by Australia and Indonesia of the 'Timor Gap Treaty' when East Timor was still under Indonesian occupation. East Timor inherited no permanent maritime boundaries when it attained independence, and the Government of East Timor is seeking to negotiate a boundary with Australia halfway between it and Australia. As of May 2004, the Government of Australia wanted to establish the boundary at the end of the Australian continental shelf. Normally a maritime dispute such as this could be referred to the International Court of Justice or the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea for an impartial decision. However, Australia withdrew from these organisations when it realised that East Timor might invoke these dispute resolution mechanisms. Many advocacy groups claimed that Australia deliberately obstructed negotiations because the existing arrangement benefited Australia financially. On July 7, 2005, an agreement was finally reached under which both countries would set aside the dispute over the maritime boundary, and East Timor would receive A$13 billion (US$9.65 billion) in revenue.
The Portuguese colonial administration granted a concession to Oceanic Exploration Corporation, of Denver, Colorado, to develop the petroleum deposits of the Timor Gap. Before the concession could begin to be developed, the Indonesian invasion made it impossible (ConocoPhillips is developing it on behalf of Indonesia and Australia.)OCEX currently has a $30B lawsuit against ConocoPhillips pending in US District Court in New York. This lawsuit is the company's sole significant asset; to fund the suit, it relies on the deep pockets of its majority owner, James Neal Blue, who also owns General Atomics (maker of the Predator drone aircraft).
East Timor also has a large and potentially lucrative coffee industry, which sells organic coffee to Starbucks.
Currently three foreign banks have a branch in Dili: Australia's ANZ Bank, Portugal's Banco Nacional Ultramarino, and Indonesia's Bank Mandiri.
East Timor has the lowest per capita income in the world (USD 400 per annum) according to the CIA World Factbook, 2005.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_timorNeedless to say the ownership of East Timor's oil resources are at the root of their problems... now where have we seen that before???
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