Journey of Timor-Leste

Timor means East in Malaya, and Leste means East in Portuguese so its East-East.

Let's look at the geography of this place.

Indonesia

West and East Timor

West Timor is in Indonesia, Let's find out where was East Timor in history.

Indonesia has more than 17000 islands and back in time Timor Leste or East Timor was part of Timor island and under Indonesia.

Purushada was a Hindu king ruling these islands in early days then came Buddhist Sutasoma, there is a mention of fight between Purushada and Sutosoma over religion. This was resolved by priests saying Shiva and Buddha are same but different forms. So their beliefs coexisted since then.

Then in medieval times Rajasa dynasty ruled the region during 13^th century. In late of 13^th century few years before Kertanegara died in 1292, he fought Mongol army of Kublai Khan and defeated them. Mongol came back after few years and were finally destroyed by Sutasoma son in law of Kertenegara. Mongol never came back again. Sutasoma was coronated as first king of Majapahit Empire on the 15th of Kartika month that is 10 November 1293. Sutasoma gave the Motto which is the current motto as well for Indonesia “Mhinneka Tunggal Ika” that means “Unity in Diversity”.

Singhasari period:

Ken Arok (1222—1227)

Anusapati (1227—1248)

Panji Tohjaya (1248)

Vishnuwardhana-Narasimhamurti (1248—1268)

Kertanegara (1268—1292)

Majapahit period:

Raden Wijaya (1294—1309)

Jayanegara (1309—1328)

Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi (1328—1350)

Hayam Wuruk (1350—1389)

1331 Majapahit conquered all the islands of Indonesia.

During this time Muslim missionaries were coming as merchants from India and Saudi Arabia and were propagating Islam and converting people, they were getting married to rich merchants and ministers, and this followed through generations, since Hindus and Buddhist were not doing any conversion and not opposition any other religious teachings, by 1400 it started becoming Muslim dominant state.  

Sultanate of Malacca came into existence in 1400 with Chinese merchants supporting Sultanate of Malacca, empire of Majapahit declined in 15^th century. And Indonesia became Muslim majority country but rulers remained tolerant to other religion as well. And there was no resistance among communities that kept the culture of Indonesia intact. There was no big war or destruction for religion. 

1512 Portuguese came followed by Dutch and others. And now Indonesia was captured by Dutch and Portuguese.

About Timor Island it was captured by both Dutch and Portuguese West Timor was with Dutch and East Timor was with Portuguese. They had fight for border till they had treaty of Lisbon in 1859 and they come to agreement for border between east and west.

Dutch left after 2^nd world war. And Indonesia was a free country, but Portuguese did not leave east of Timor island till 1975. During this time East Timor was Christian majority now.

In 1975 after Portuguese left, there was political fight in east Timor, but by December 1975 Indonesia took back East Timor. But there was resistance against Indonesia, 20% of East Timur population died in the fight against Indonesia. With growing international pressure from west and UNO, East Timor was declared as "Timor-Leste", it became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century on 20 May 2002 and joined the United Nations and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. In 2011, East Timor announced its intention to become the eleventh member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It is one of only two predominantly Christian nations in Southeast Asia, the other being the Philippines, as well as the only country of Asia to be located completely in the Southern Hemisphere.

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