Monday, May 20, 2002. The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste is proclaimed as a new independent state to international applause. The day marks the end of a very long and winding road initiated in the wake of the Portuguese Carnation Revolution back in 1974. Before reaching this point, Timor-Leste travelled from a backward, half-forgotten Portuguese colony freed from the Japanese domination at the end of World War II – a time when the world started moving from “the age of Empire to the age of super-powers,” including the overarching Cold War (Hilton and Mitter 2013) – to a dramatic annexation by neighbouring Indonesia. The “first wave of decolonisation” began right at the territory's vicinity with the unilateral proclamation of independence by the Republic of Indonesia on August 17, 1945. Indeed, the Southeast Asia colonies occupied by the Japanese created, at the time of its debacle, “an opportune moment making it difficult if not impossible for colonial powers to recover their positions” (Shipway 2008: 61). This long process first witnessed the return and then a continuation of the Portuguese domination in fierce opposition to the winds of change that rocked the foundations of European colonialism in Asia and Africa before the mid-1970s, staging resistance to the proclamations of a new, emerging international law supported by the United Nations (Alexandre 2017; Santos and Pereira 2022). This was followed by a short, nineteen-month period during which post-authoritarian Portugal tried to develop a self-determination programme for all its colonies. This was a period in which “a series of weak and unstable provisional governments in Portugal could exercise little agency and were often reduced to hapless observers” (MacQueen 2018: 62). In the case of Timor, efforts to secure an “exemplary decolonisation” failed dramatically. A unilateral declaration of independence on November 28, 1975, was short-lived and was never recognised by more than a handful of countries.