East Timor is half of an island in Indonesia, about 300 miles north of Australia. In the 1500's, Portugal colonized the island of Timor, and its inhabitants today are primarily Catholic. The Dutch colonized much of the area, eventually including the western half of Timor as part of the Dutch East Indies. Before 1975 it was a lush paradise that had remained virtually untouched by the western world. In 1975 Indonesia invaded and annexed the now defenseless East Timor. It was an act based upon greed and corruption that was conceived by several international governments. Since 1975, Indonesia's m