Crisis in Timor Leste: Looking Beyond the Surface Reality for Causes and Solutions

Abstract

What caused the current upheaval in East Timor? The World Bank’s President, Paul Wolfowitz, visited the country in early April, 2006 and hailed it as a model of post conflict recovery. He praised Timor-Leste’s social and political harmony and stability, due to the ‘country's sensible leadership and sound decision making which have helped put in place the building blocks for a stable peace and a growing economy’. However, the World Bank did state in July 2005 in a major assessment of the state of the country that: ‘Despite considerable progress, the current stability in Timor-Leste is fragile, and the country remains vulnerable to conflict’.