Timor-Leste is coming of age, and has learnt from Sri Lanka’s mistakes

Looking out from Wata Bo’o beach, I saw a calm blue sea, the water unruffled, disrupted only intermittently by the splash of a leaping silvery fish. This serene tropical outpost, a thousand miles east of Bali, felt like it might have always been like this. Except the beach has had a troubled history. The Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese and most recently, the Indonesians, battled over it. With mass atrocities in living memory – they only gained independence from Indonesia 21 years ago – the focus her