In September 1999, just five days after the East Timorese voted for independence, Indonesian militia groups supervised by the army and police destroyed, looted and left hundreds of artefacts from the then Provincial Museum in Dili to rot in the monsoonal rains. The director and former resistance veteran Virgilio Simith, who had over the years of struggle made an inventory of the collection, could only watch in horror as hundred-year-old carvings, weavings, jewellery and other…
