Why does violence recur in some places, over long periods of time? Douglas Kammen explores this pattern in Three Centuries of Conflict in East Timor, studying that island's tragic past, focusing on the small district of Maubara. Once a small but powerful kingdom embedded in long-distance networks of trade, over the course of three centuries the people of Maubara experienced benevolent but precarious Dutch suzerainty, Portuguese colonialism punctuated by multiple uprisings and destructive campaigns of pacification, Japanese military rule, and years of brutal Indonesian occupation. In 1999 Maubara was the site of particularly severe violence before and after the UN-sponsored referendum that finally led to the restoration of East Timor's independence. The questions posed in Three Centuries of Conflict in East Timor about recurring violence and local narratives apply to many other places besides East Timor-from the Caucasus to central Africa, and from the Balkans to China-wherever mass violence keeps recurring.

The terror campaign by pro-Indonesian armed groups before, during, and after East Timor's independence referendum in 1999 was a blatant challenge to the international community as many of the acts of murder, political intimidation, destruction, and mass deportation took place before the eyes of the world. Yet still the ultimate responsibility has been denied and obscured. Masters of Terror provides an authoritative analysis and documentation of the brutal operations carried out by the Indonesian army and its East Timorese allies. The authors carefully assemble detailed accounts of the actions of the major Indonesian officers and East Timorese militia commanders accused of gross human rights violations. This indispensable work explores a horrific frontal attack on democracy and calls for the establishment of an international tribunal for crimes against humanity in East Timor.

This Element explores the primary modes by which rulers have exercised power and shaped political relations in Timor-Leste across four distinct periods. The contrast between coercion under colonial rule and consent expressed through the 1999 referendum on independence exerted a powerful influence on scholarship on Timor-Leste's politics and future. Since the restoration of independence in 2002, however, politics in Timor-Leste are best understood in terms of powerful economic constraints during the first Fretilin government (2002-6), and thereafter, thanks to revenue from the country's petroleum reserves, a ruling strategy based on a wide range of inducements (rather than genuine consent).

This is a study of the internal dynamics of the Indonesian Army in the decade and a half leading up to the fall of Soeharto. While the empirical analysis is limited to the Army, the findings have implications for the military as a whole. Throughout the work, we use the word Army when referring to the single service branch, and the terms "ABRI," "Armed Forces," and "military" interchangeably to refer to the four service branches together.

Chapter one examines change in the Army officer corps during the 1980s and 1990s. In contrast to the existing literature, it argues that the increasing frequency of large scale reshuffles of military personnel was primarily neither a response to particular political developments nor the product of individual personalities and cliques. We argue instead that this was a reflection of changes in the size of the officer corps. Tracing these changes to the National Military Academy in Magelang, Central Java, we demonstrate that many of the current changes taking place in the Army are a result of internal structural features of the Army.

Chapter two explores the career patterns of Army officers during the 1990s. Through a detailed analysis of succession patterns and the examination of class cohorts from the National Military Academy, this chapter further refines the basic model presented in chapter one. This analysis highlights several forms of institutional rationalization within the Army during the late Soeharto era.

Drawing on the macro-level analysis of the Army officer corps in the preceding chapters, chapter three discusses the political implications of these structural changes for military rule in Indonesia. While the changing size of the officer corps has presented the Army with certain new opportunities, it has also raised new conflicts and tensions. Primary among these are questions of changing career prospects, alterations in the nature of the military and its ability to continue its direct role in socio-political affairs, and emerging divisions between active and retired officers.

One of the most troubling but least studied features of mass political violence is why violence often recurs in the same place over long periods of time. Douglas Kammen explores this pattern in Three Centuries of Conflict in East Timor, studying that region's tragic past, focusing on the small district of Maubara. Once a small but powerful kingdom embedded in long-distance networks of trade, over the course of three centuries the people of Maubara experienced benevolent but precarious Dutch suzerainty, Portuguese colonialism punctuated by multiple uprisings and destructive campaigns of pacification, Japanese military rule, and years of brutal Indonesian occupation. In 1999 Maubara was the site of particularly severe violence before and after the UN-sponsored referendum that finally led to the restoration of East Timor's independence. Beginning with the mystery of paired murders during East Timor's failed decolonization in 1975 and the final flurry of state-sponsored violence in 1999, Kammen combines an archival trail and rich oral interviews to reconstruct the history of the leading families of Maubara from 1712 until 2012. Kammen illuminates how recurrent episodes of mass violence shaped alliances and enmities within Maubara as well as with supra-local actors, and how those legacies have influenced efforts to address human rights violations, post-conflict reconstruction, and the relationship between local experience and the identification with the East Timorese nation. The questions posed in Three Centuries of Conflict in East Timor about recurring violence and local narratives apply to many other places besides East Timor-from the Caucasus to central Africa, and from the Balkans to China - dash;where mass violence keeps recurring.

The terror campaign by pro-Indonesian armed groups before, during, and after East Timor's independence referendum in 1999 was a blatant challenge to the international community as many of the acts of murder, political intimidation, destruction, and mass deportation took place before the eyes of the world. Yet still the ultimate responsibility has been denied and obscured. Masters of Terror provides an authoritative analysis and documentation of the brutal operations carried out by the Indonesian army and its East Timorese allies. The authors carefully assemble detailed accounts of the actions of the major Indonesian officers and East Timorese militia commanders accused of gross human rights violations. This indispensable work explores a horrific frontal attack on democracy and calls for the establishment of an international tribunal for crimes against humanity in East Timor.