-
Source: ONE News -
Related
This week ten years ago nearly half a million people voted in the referendum that put Timor-Leste on the road to independence.
The United Nations-backed ballot ushered in Asia's youngest nation and ended a bloody 24-year occupation by Indonesian forces.
It celebrated freedom while the country's leader dismissed calls for an investigation into human rights violations committed during the occupation.
Jose Ramos Horta says his country has moved on and it was not a place to "experiment with international justice".
More than a thousand people were killed by pro-Indonesia militia in the run up to the 1999 referendum.
"The day the referendum was announced we had to evacuate from Liquica. All our vehicles got shot up quite badly, the American that was with us took three rounds in the stomach," says Wing Commander Logan Cudby, a referendum observer.
Booted out by way of referendum, East Timor's Indonesian occupiers were not ready to leave without a fight.
More than 1,000 New Zealand military personnel were sent to help.
"They found people who'd been raped, bullied and tortured. People that were scared and feared for their lives," says Lieutenant Colonel John Howard.
The multinational force was largely successful in driving the militiamen back into Indonesia as Timor-Leste secured its independence in 2002.
The New Zealand Defence Force played a vital part in the creation of the new nation with its biggest deployment in 35 years.
So has our long-standing contribution been worth the price?
Five New Zealander's have been killed in Timor-Leste: Warrent Officer Class Two Tony Michael Walser, Staff Sergeant William Edward White, Private Leonard William Manning, Private Boyd Reagan Henare Atkins and Private Dean Russell Johnston.
"Staff Sergeant Billy White was my Quarter Master Sergeant he died on Anzac Day. I pulled him from a truck after it had slipped down a bank. He gave his life because he believed in what he was doing," says Howard.
Remarkably, regret is not a word used by the mother of the first New Zealand soldier killed in action since the Vietnam war.
"Their struggle is ongoing and it will be for a long time and I think it's really important that, as New Zealanders, we're prepared to help them," says Linda Manning, Leonard Manning's mother.
The Manning's now foster change by offering scholarships to Timorese students.
For others, their impact is more obvious.
"I went though immigration at Dili airport, when I landed in '99. Immigration consisted of kicking the door to the terminal away clearing the building and walking though to the next building. Now it is a proper international border," says Howard.
A decade on and 140 New Zealand defence force personnel are still in Timor-Leste as a one-time colony strives to become a stable country.
