Tom Hyland – Listen carefully: that scratching you hear is the scribbling of commentators, furiously re-writing history.

It is no secret that public trust toward police has been falling, and the recent threats and the version of terrorism carried out by groups claiming to represent certain ethnicities and

Annemarie Evans – Australian armoured vehicles patrol the streets of East Timor's capital, Dili, amid the burned-out shells of houses and food warehouses looted by marauding gangs, who

When the former prime minister Paul Keating produced a bilateral security treaty with Indonesia in 1995, his conservative opponents thought he had gone troppo.

Jon Lamb – While the fighting between different factions of the East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and the East Timor National Police (PNTL) has ceased with the arrival of the Australian-l

Maire Leadbeater – Two Herald contributors, John Roughan and Michael Richardson have now gone into bat for the virtues of a unified Indonesia.

Peter Boyle – Commenting on the Australian troop deployment to East Timor on May 31, the Australian's Paul Kelly said, "this intervention is both military and political.

Diane Farsetta – Is the Southeast Asian island nation of East Timor a success story or a basket case?

The unfortunate thing about overseas is that it is full of foreigners, and they have different traditions from us.

Maryann Keady – Three years ago, I wrote a piece talking about attempts to oust Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri in East Timor, then a new struggling independent nation.

Max Lane – On May 24, East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and the speaker of East Timor's parliament Lu'olo sent a letter to the governments of Australia

The entire country and the world have once again reacted with solidarity following another natural disaster here, this time the magnitude 5.9 earthquake that devastated Indonesia's dens

Television reports of disasters in the country now come with melancholy tunes, most notably the ballads of Ebiet G. Ade.

James Dunn – East Timor's descent into violence and anarchy, and towards civil war, chaos came as a shock, including to this columnist who has been involved in the affairs of this commu

Lawrence Bartlett, Sydney – The explosion of violence in East Timor was the result of an accumulation of ethnic, economic and historical grievances in the young country and the failure

Tom Hyland – The UN, Australia and the East Timorese Government had multiple warnings of the looming internal security crisis that has plunged Dili into violent chaos.

Prime Minister John Howard had ignored the difficult task facing East Timor in the wake of the ruinous Indonesian occupation, Australian Democrats Leader Lyn Allison said today.

Hamish McDonald – Australian warships silhouetted in the calm blue waters, a squat Hercules on the airfield surrounded by young soldiers armed and wired to the teeth, and John Howard wa

Mark Forbes – Wide-eyed youths brandish machetes, armed militias rampage through the streets, terrified civilians flee, soldiers lay siege to police headquarters and your sleep is broke

George Quinn – On its independence day almost exactly four years ago, the people of East Timor seemed literally to be singing on the same page.

Events in East Timor and the response internationally have given rise to a variation on gunboat diplomacy. It is gunboat democracy.

Damien Kingsbury – Australia's renewed intervention in East Timor will help defuse what was growing into an explosive situation, and which threatened the fledgling state.

Ambitious politicians misjudge the mood in the military and soon the shooting starts, with the factions fighting over the pathetically small spoils of power.

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Widespread disenchantment with East Timor's government, a poorly led military and widespread poverty and unemployment are fuelling the worst unrest since the

Mark Forbes, Dili – Crowds danced to a cover version of Van Halen's Jump in the forecourt of East Timor's battered government headquarters on Saturday night – celebrating the anniversar

Patience is thin, and memory short.

Max Lane, Jakarta – It was an amazing experience to translate the works of Pramoedya Ananta Toer, to have had to think deeply about what he wrote, to discuss with him the situation in I

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri avoided a leadership challenge this week but it is doubtful his rule will ensure any peace in the world's youngest

Loro Horta – It was a hauntingly familiar scene. Large-scale riots broke out in East Timor late last month, attended by looting, arson and the murder of five civilians.

Endy M.

Damien Kingsbury – The recent Indonesian ban on academic contact with Deakin University over the West Papua issue is the latest shot in a wider political battle.

The House of Representatives is scheduled to deliberate a number of important bills, including the long-awaited Freedom of Information Bill.

Max Lane – Scores of activists and young writers, as well as family members, were at the Karet Bivak cemetery in central Jakarta on April 30. Many were crying, tearful.

Bronwyn Hurrell, Canberra – Australia has an affinity with East Timor that dates back to World War II when Australian soldiers were supported and sheltered by the locals, who paid a hig

Aguswandi, Banda Aceh – Aceh is currently still in a transition to peace.

If there was one thing John Howard wanted as Prime Minister it was to differentiate himself from his Labor predecessor, Paul Keating.

Kenneth Davidson – The Government is playing with the lives of West Papuans. Australia's foreign policy establishment seems incapable of learning from recent history.

Were it not for the corruption-infested public procurement system and the potential conflicts of interest of several members of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's Cabinet, the propose

Australia's relations with Indonesia are at their lowest ebb since East Timor.

When is Australia not Australia? When Papuans want to land on it. The Howard Government is planning yet another contortion of the immigration laws and refugee treaties.

Damien Kingsbury – The diplomatic row between Australia and Indonesia has highlighted the increasingly critical situation in the already troubled territory of Papua.

Roy Tupai – World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, who served as US ambassador to Indonesia from 1986-89 and more recently as hawkish deputy defense secretary, has been back in town this

Max Lane, Sydney – The arrival of 43 Papuan refugees in Australia followed soon after by the violent dispersal of otherwise peaceful student demonstrations in Papua has resulted in two

Tom Allard – In the sad, bloody history of Papua, there have been fleeting moments of optimism, the last of which, dubbed the Papuan Spring, occurred in 2000.

The Australian Government's latest responses to the problems of West Papua and asylum seekers contain an ugly echo of previous times when the underlying causes of human suffering were i

John Birmingham – What was Bill Leak thinking last weekend?

Peter King – The fracas between Indonesia and Australia over West Papuan refugees may blow over, but the underlying issues won't go away anytime soon.

Cartoonists might make light of it, but the view from Jakarta of separatist unrest in Papua is anything but funny. Papua is many times larger than East Timor and Aceh combined.

Some people following the case of the three Christians awaiting execution for their alleged involvement in the Poso violence in 2000 have no doubt recalled the movie In the Name of the

Damien Kingsbury, Melbourne – In asking the question, is Papua in danger of becoming another East Timor, Ahmad Qisa'i does little more than highlight a number of misunderstandings about