A Troubled land

Nov. 28, 1975: East Timor declares its independence from Portugal. Nine days later, Indonesian troops invade. Jakarta formally annexes East Timor the following year as Indonesia's 27th province.

Nov. 12, 1991: Indonesian soldiers gun down hundreds of Timorese protesters in Dili's Santa Cruz Cemetery. Footage of the incident broadcast around the world galvanizes international opinion against the occupation.

1992: Rebel leader Xanana Gusmão is captured and later sentenced to life imprisonment in Jakarta's Cipinang prison.

1996: East Timor independence activists José Ramos-Horta and Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo jointly win the Nobel Prize for Peace.

August-September 1999: As East Timor votes for independence in a U.N.-supervised referendum, Indonesian soldiers and militias loyal to Jakarta rampage through the territory, killing hundreds and displacing nearly half the country's population.

May 20, 2002: East Timor wins formal independence under U.N. auspices. Gusmão had been elected President a month earlier.

March-May 2006: An army revolt sparked by tensions between rival soldiers leads to riots that cause more than 150,000 people to flee their homes. An Australian-led force returns to East Timor just one year after international peacekeepers had left.

March 2007: Australian peacekeepers clash with the forces of renegade Army commander Alfredo Reinado (pictured here, wearing a bandana), who escaped from prison the previous year and remains at large.

April 9, 2007: A crowded field of candidates is expected to go to the polls, vying to be East Timor's next President.