Report on Citizenship Law: East Timor (Timor-Leste) universal ballot (Article 1).48 A separate agreement among the United Nations and the Governments of Portugal and Indonesia, of the same date, established the ‘modalities’ for the popular consultation,49 including the rules on who would be entitled to vote, i.e. who would be recognised as East Timorese in the absence of a formal East Timorese citizenship.50 The approach was deliberately inclusive (Carter 2011: 668-669). Eligible to vote in the popular consultation were the persons, aged 17 years or above, who (a) were born in East Timor, (b) were born outside East Timor but with at least one parent having been born in East Timor, and (c) whose spouses fell under either of the two previous categories.51 The agreement also established that voter registration and balloting would take place not only in East Timor but also abroad, ‘at locations of major East Timorese concentration’.52 Pursuant to the Agreement on the Question of East Timor, a United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) was established to organise and conduct the popular consultation.53 Amid security concerns, UNAMET was able to register 451,792 voters from a population of over 800,000 in East Timor and abroad (Sousa 2001: 299). The vote, which had been initially scheduled for 8 August 1999, took place on 30 August 1999, per decision of the Secretary-General (Schreuer 2000: 19-20). The turnout was very high and the position of the Timorese people unequivocal. 98% of registered voters went to the polls, 78.5% of whom rejected the constitutional framework for autonomy proposed by Indonesia (Sousa 2001: 299; UNHCR EPAU 2004: 11). The announcement of the results by the Secretary-General, on 4 September 1999, was followed by a period of extreme violence, in which pro-Indonesia Timorese militias, with the complacency and/or support of the Indonesian military, engaged in a widespread scorched-earth campaign, killing, looting and destroying everything in sight, including government buildings, water supplies and the country’s electrical grid (Harrington 48 Per Article 6 of the New York Agreement, if the Secretary-General were to determine, on the basis of the result of the popular consultation and in accordance with this Agreement, that the proposed constitutional framework for special autonomy was not acceptable to the East Timorese people, the Government of Indonesia would have to take the constitutional steps necessary to terminate its links with East Timor thus restoring under Indonesian law the status East Timor held prior to 17 July 1976, and the Governments of Indonesia and Portugal and the Secretary-General would have to agree on arrangements for a peaceful and orderly transfer of authority in East Timor to the United Nations. The Secretary-General would then initiate the procedure enabling East Timor to begin a process of transition towards independence. 49 Agreement Regarding the Modalities for the Popular Consultation of the East Timorese through a Direct Ballot, of 5 May 1999, available at http://peacemaker.un.org/sites/peacemaker.un.org/files/ID% 20TL_990505_AgreementOnEastTimor.pdf [05.01.2017]. 50 There was not even a ‘Timorese definition’ that could be used as reference, since the FRETILIN Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste, of 28 November 1975, had not set any criteria for identifying those who were to be considered Timorese citizens. The text of the 1975 Constitution is available at http://cedis.fd.unl.pt/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/CONST-TIMOR-75.pdf [06.01.2017]. 51 It is worth noting that the Constitutional Framework for a Special Autonomy for East Timor (CF), annexed to the Agreement on the Question of East Timor, included a section on ‘East Timorese identity and Immigration’, which set the criteria for considering a person as having East Timorese identity, irrespective of nationality. East Timorese would be any person (a) who was a lawful resident of East Timor prior to or in December 1975, (b) whose father, mother, grandfather, or grandmother was a lawful resident of East Timor prior to or in December 1975, or (c) who had permanently resided in East Timor for a period of at least five years at the time of the entry into force of the Agreement on the Question of East Timor (Article 16 of the CF). Persons considered as having East Timorese identity would be entitled to permanent domicile in East Timor. The Government of the Special Autonomous Region of East Timor (SARET) would have the exclusive right to establish the rules and procedures under which persons who did not have East Timorese identity could acquire such identity (Article 17 of the CF). 52 These were the cities of Jakarta, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Denpasar, Ujung Pandang, Sydney, Darwin, Perth, Melbourne, Lisbon, Maputo, Macau, and New York. 53 Security Council Resolution 1246 (1999), of 11 June 1999, available at https://documents-ddsny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N99/174/13/PDF/N9917413.pdf?OpenElement [06.01.2017]. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2017/7 - © 2017 Author 13