Damien Kingsbury
Deakin University’s Professor Emeritus Damien Kingsbury was leader of the Australian volunteer observer mission to East Timor’s 1999 ballot for independence and was advisor to the Free Aceh Movement’s 2005 successfully negotiated conclusion to its three-decade war with Indonesia, among other conflict resolution advisory roles. He has been visiting and writing on Timor-Leste for more than three decades.
Damien's recent articles
16 March 2025
Sultanistic or neo-fascist? President Trump and 21st century ideology
In trying to understand US President Donald Trump, the proposition has been put that he is sultanistic. In many respects, Trump’s second presidency does appear to be sultanistic.
3 March 2025
Trump Mk II, McKinley and late-imperialism
Donald Trump’s first term as president tested the US’s political boundaries, but his second term has demolished them. A month in and his second presidency is already notable for upending US domestic democracy and completely recasting US foreign policy. Some of this was predictable.
28 February 2025
Timor-Leste appears to abandon sustainability
More than two decades ago, the then soon to be independent country of Timor-Leste planned to embark on a future marked by sustainability, avoiding the economic traps that befall many other newly independent countries. Former resistance leader, future president, later prime minister, Xanana Gusmao extolled the virtues of using local materials for housing while there was consensus that the government would only use sustainable withdrawals from its then fledgling Petroleum Fund to finance the state budget.
22 January 2025
The coming failure of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire
The Israel-Hamas ceasefire has been all but universally welcomed but, as with all ceasefires, it will end, probably in failure. That problems with the agreement have surfaced before it was even implemented, in particular over the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, did not bode well for its longer term success.
11 October 2024
East Timor is not Palestine
Peter Job’s article in P&I, ‘Palestine – The Lessons of East Timor’, is an interesting foray into the link between international law and moral condemnation as offering a possible insight into the future of Palestine. As Job argues, one generally does need international law to be on one’s side if a just resolution is to be possible.
19 September 2024
Why voters are deserting traditional parties
The changes to, and challenges confronting, representative government as we know it have been canvassed by a number of journalists, most recently Niki Savva in the Nine Entertainment newspapers. Like others, Savva correctly identifies the drift away from major parties and the repudiation of politics as we know it.
11 September 2024
China holds whip hand in Myanmar’s civil war
As civil war rages, Myanmar is the most fragmented it has been since 1949. Back then, the recently established post-colonial government was beset on all sides, its various detractors challenging its ideology and its composition.
19 August 2024
Comparing Palestine’s prospects for independence and peace
In trying to Palestine’s prospects of independence and peace with Israel, one is reminded of Tolstoy’s observation that ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’. This is to say that, successful claims to independence share common features, but the circumstances of Palestine’s aspiration for independence are distinctively its own.
8 August 2024
Myanmar junta on back foot with loss of key town
Myanmar’s civil war, underway since the 2021 coup, may have reached a tipping point. The battle for the strategic northern garrison town of Lashio appears to have ended with victory for an alliance of anti-junta forces. Rebel claims of taking the town have been verified by a number of local sources.
18 May 2024
Some day the Gaza war will end
In the movie Apocalypse Now, Robert Duval’s character, Colonel Bill Kilgore, reflectively observes that, despite the smell of victory, ‘Someday this war’s gonna end’. So too, the war in Gaza is going to end. The only questions are how and when.
31 January 2024
The Australia-US relationship right or wrong?
The likely nomination of Donald Trump as the Republican candidate for Novembers US presidential election has many asking whether Australia should remain as committed to its close relationship with the US as it has been. Setting aside that a vocal minority has long questioned Australias commitment to the relationship, two matters make this time around different to Trumps election in 2016.
18 October 2023
The Voice: caught between a socio-economic hammer and anvil
As the shock waves from last weekends Voice referendum reverberate, a deeper reality is beginning to more fully reveal itself. The division that Voice opponents claimed the proposition would create already exists among non-indigenous Australians and it is reshaping how politics is done in this country. We are moving ever closer towards a politics of grievance.
4 September 2022
Ramos-Horta's gesture to Gusmao on China is an empty threat
Australias bid to counter growing Chinese regional influence appears to have hit a hurdle in Timor-Leste with Foreign Minister Penny Wongs meeting with Timor-Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta. Following the meeting, Ramos-Horta demanded the Australian government intervene to help resolve a stand-off with Australias Woodside Petroleum over the development of the contentious Timor Sea liquid natural gas (LNG) project, or else Timor-Leste would seek Chinese involvement.
11 April 2022
Negotiation by other means over Ukraine
With Ukraines resistance beating Russian forces to a standstill around Kyiv and Russia appearing to redeploy towards the eastern Donbas region, negotiations to end this war are crawling towards a resolution.