Wed, 05 Jun 2002

East Timor in 'The Boston Globe'

Responding to Prof. Jeffrey A. Winters' article as published in The Jakarta Post of May 27 and May 28, in which it is mentioned that according to The Boston Globe more than 200,000 East Timorese had been killed during the Indonesian occupation, I would like to get clarification about the year when the killing of these people occurred.

According to the census conducted in 1980, the population of East Timor was about 555,000 people while in 1990, there were about 748,000 people. Further, in 1995, according to the Intersensal Population Survey, there were about 840,000 people.

With regard to the matter, I would like to ask Prof. Winters to find the data on the number of East Timorese people when Portugal still occupied the land.

SUNARTO PRAWIROSUJANTO

Jakarta