Bitter Flowers, Sweet Flowers: East Timor, Indonesia, and the World Community

East Timor is at last, and at terrible human cost, firmly on the road to independence. Exploring the significance of its passage to freedom-for its people, for Asia, and for the world-this multi-voiced volume offers a comprehensive overview of this newest nation’s travails and triumphs in an international context. The contributors-a mix of scholars and activists-explore the dynamics of the long struggle for independence and show how the case of East Timor, both during and after the Cold War, provides a litmus test for issues of international responsibility and reconciliation. The book includes remarkable eyewitness accounts of the 1999 UN-sponsored referendum and the concomitant militia violence supported by the Indonesian military. Compelling poetry and photographs bring an additional rich dimension to the work.