We see it when we partner to keep the peace -- from East Timor to the Balkans -- and when we pursue our shared vision: a world without nuclear weapons.
WHITEHOUSE: President Obama Speaks to the Australian Parliament
DILI, East Timor (CNN) -- As the presence of an international peacekeeping force in East Timor grows, so do the hopes of pro-independence East Timorese after weeks of terror and violence.
Were Aceh ever to get an East Timor-style referendum, few people doubt that the independence option would win.
The pro-independence commanders in the hills have been outspoken in their refusal to disarm, arguing that Indonesian security forces must first leave East Timor - a precondition totally inconsistent with the New York Agreement which entrusts the Indonesian Police with the task of maintaining security and law enforcement.
But recently democracy and civil society have begun to blossom, the public finances have been repaired, a peace agreement has been struck to end Aceh's separatist conflict and the country has come to terms with the loss of East Timor (now independent Timor-Leste).
Only the downfall last year of the long-lived regime of President Suharto turned East Timor from a foreign-policy irritation in the West to an issue that could be championed without risk.
After a 24-year Indonesian occupation, a referendum in East Timor had voted four-to-one in favour of independence.
Searching further, he discovered that easttimor.com had been registered, and by the pro-independence East Timor International Support Center in Darwin.
And in times of crisis -- from the Bali bombings to East Timor to relief after a tsunami -- Darwin has been a hub, moving out aid, caring for victims, making sure that we do right by the people of this region.
WHITEHOUSE: President Obama Speaks to U.S. and Australian Service Members | The White House
Results from the "fraying edges" - the restive regions of Aceh, East Timor, Irian Jaya and Maluku - have been slow to come in as well, and official tallies from those areas are still unavailable.
It was Mr Howard who had written to Mr Habibie in December suggesting a process of self-determination for East Timor.
One of Mr de Mello's final acts was to launch East Timor 2020, an easy-to-understand version of the government's development plan, drawn up with input from East Timor's 13 districts.
ECONOMIST: After centuries of oppression, the birth of a nation
Yet there are reasons to doubt that Papua can follow East Timor into the independence it has now, as Timor-Leste, enjoyed for ten years.
That said, even these people chafe at the endless reports in the international media--especially the Australian press--of atrocities in East Timor.
This has even meant a resumption of training Indonesia's controversial special forces, accused of past human-rights abuses in East Timor, West Papua and Aceh.
Then, in 1999, an eruption of violence in what was the Indonesian province of East Timor required an Australian-led intervention force to restore order.
But they seemed to symbolise one thing now within East Timor's grasp - real hope for the future and with it peace at last.
Nobel Peace Prize laureates Archbishop Desmond Tutu and East Timor president Jose Ramos-Horta have signed an open letter calling on Iran to unconditionally drop the charges against the Baha'i educators.
One records donations of cars and rice from the Batara Indra Group, a military-controlled company operating in East Timor.
CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia | East Timor: Step Forward, With Caution
On March 14th, Indonesia finally convened the first of its special human-rights courts on the 1999 East Timor violence.
The autonomy package would give East Timor a system of genuine self-government, making it distinct from any other Indonesian province.
UN-run referendum that led to East Timor's freedom, so her presence indicates an attempt to heal the relationship between the two countries.
ECONOMIST: After centuries of oppression, the birth of a nation
Whereas Mr Suharto was sternly authoritarian, Mr Habibie has been ready to reform: he has given freedom to the press, emptied the jails of political prisoners and offered self-determination to the people of East Timor.
Habibie, Mr Suharto's little-liked and hand-picked successor, has said that East Timor could instead be granted independence.
Texas Gov. George W. Bush was able, time and time again, to cite specific international hot spots -- literally, from Sierra Leone to East Timor.
Twenty-three years after the Indonesians invaded East Timor, and 22 after they annexed it as a province of their own, many Timorese still insist they live in a foreign country.
Gen Richards has extensive operational experience in East Timor, Sierra Leone, and first-hand knowledge of the challenges in Afghanistan, gained as commander of Nato coalition forces there between 2006 and 2007.
Australian peacekeepers in East Timor shot dead an Indonesian policeman and wounded others during a skirmish along the ill-marked border with neighbouring West Timor.
Not even Australia, although East Timor looks like turning into its biggest foreign-policy crisis since the Vietnam war.
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