Timor-Leste: As Xanana Gusmao Departs, Timor Must Prepare for When the Oil Runs Dry

Feb 13, 2015 | Tom Allard, Sydney Morning Herald
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In the annals of East Timor's extraordinary emergence as a nation state after 500 years of foreign domination, no figure has loomed as large as Xanana Gusmao.

As a young man, he filmed East Timor's declaration of independence from Portugal in 1975, fleeing to the hills nine days later when Indonesia invaded.

After 17 years as a resistance fighter and seven years as a political prisoner in Jakarta, Gusmao was transformed from a global symbol of the country's fight for freedom into a statesman.