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DILI, East Timor: East Timor’s leaders thanked the international community on Friday (Aug 30) as the country marked the 25th anniversary of its independence referendum from Indonesia, with visiting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calling on the world to provide more support for the young democracy.
Thousands of people packed into a stadium in the capital, Dili, to mark the small Southeast Asian nation’s 1999 elections that paved the way for its current democratic system.
“Remember that our country’s independence was also due to the solidarity and the efforts of the international community … in particular the United Nations, which helped to make the referendum of August 30, 1999 a reality,” East Timorese Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao said at the ceremony, which was also attended by Guterres and East Timorese President José Ramos-Horta.
Polls show nearly 80 percent of East Timorese have voted to secede from Indonesia, ending a brutal 24-year military occupation that has killed as many as 250,000 people in fighting, disease and starvation.
The vote briefly sparked joy before Indonesian security forces and militias destroyed infrastructure and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee to other parts of Indonesia.
The mainly Catholic nation of 1.34 million was recognised as an independent state after post-referendum terrorist attacks killed about 1,400 people.
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