UK's "Prevent Strategy" linked to rights abuses in Indonesia

[Helpful Herbert]

Aussies did not fleece them (much) and if Indonesians kept the country, there would be nothing, as it was the case (i.e. Bob Hasan choped all the sandalwood from the island,which TL was famous for).

18 billion USD for1 million population is enough pocket money to do what you want.

I think the Aussies gave them a pretty good deal, although the Timorese have been challenging it in court. I don't think there is much difference between East and West Timor in terms of living standards. One has the oil fund, the other has transfers from the Indonesian government. The main problem Timor has is that its politicians spend all their time fighting with each other and very little time developing the country. 10 years ago it was on a good path, but now it is a place where little happens and little progress gets made.
Also there is big pressure to give money from the oil fund to fund pensions of veterans of the war against Indonesia. If as many people as are claiming to be veterans actually fought against Indonesia they would have won the war in 5 minutes.

 

[centurion]

I think the Aussies gave them a pretty good deal, although the Timorese have been challenging it in court. I don't think there is much difference between East and West Timor in terms of living standards. One has the oil fund, the other has transfers from the Indonesian government. The main problem Timor has is that its politicians spend all their time fighting with each other and very little time developing the country. 10 years ago it was on a good path, but now it is a place where little happens and little progress gets made.
Also there is big pressure to give money from the oil fund to fund pensions of veterans of the war against Indonesia. If as many people as are claiming to be veterans actually fought against Indonesia they would have won the war in 5 minutes.

The oil fields are in TL ownership. The new gas field has already been split between AU and TL and have reserves for next 50 years on the TL side.

Giving pensions to veterans started in 2014. As I remember it was 100 USD/month. This is a good way to stimulate the economy too, as that money backs in circulation almost completely.

Infrastructure in TL is better than in Indonesian Timor, and they do actually have excess electric capacity, contrary ti the Indonesian side that had blackouts. Be aware that the country was leveled by the Indonesian after exit, so the startingpoint was zero.

 

[Helpful Herbert]

Timor Leste has very frequent blackouts these days, sometimes lasting several hours a day, even in Dili.
West Timor may well be worse, I've never been there.
The other advantage Timor Leste had is that from 2005-2017 they received large amounts of funding from international donors, for things like building roads, bridges, hospitals etc. However in recent years donors have moved on to other hotspots and a lot of the old infrastructure built with donor money is not maintained well.