FIVE years after being liberated from Indonesian occupation, the tiny country of East Timor is in a downward spiral of poverty, poor health and illiteracy, according to a United Nations report.

East Timorese die on average 15 years younger than other East Asians and four out of ten subsist on less than 30p a day. One child in a hundred dies before its first birthday, and only half the population can read and write, says the UN Development Programme, which launched the report in the capital, Dili, yesterday.

“This is the poorest country in the region, with a per capita income of only $370 (£213) per year. And it is getting poorer: following the withdrawal of the UN personnel and other aid workers the economy has continued to shrink,” the report says.

In September 1999, East Timorese won international sympathy after shocking violence by the Indonesian military. In the previous month, the UN had supervised a referendum on independence. After 80 per cent of Timorese voted for independence, the army went on a rampage of violence, killing 1,500 people, deporting hundreds of thousands more and burning down 70 per cent of the territory’s buildings.

A multinational peacekeeping force restored order, and East Timor became independent in 2002, under Xanana Gusmao, a poet and former guerrilla leader who had spent years as a prisoner of Indonesia. Since then the world’s newest country has struggled with meagre natural resources and a poor, uneducated population traumatised by decades of oppression.

East Timor’s great hope lies in the Timor Sea, where oil and gas reserves in the Great Sunrise Field are expected to bring in billions of pounds in the long term. It has signed a treaty with Australia to share the oil and gas income, but many Timorese have accused Australia of exploiting their country’s desperate need for cash.

“You’ve got the poorest country in Asia, one of the smallest countries in the world, and then you have Australia,” Tom Clarke, of the Timor Sea Justice Campaign, said. “It’s a bit like if someone was dying of thirst in the desert: you’re not in a good position to negotiate the price of a glass of water.”

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