The East Timorese flag was raised at the Mansion House in Dublin yesterday afternoon at a ceremony to mark the country's independence.
Before raising the flag, Mr Dino Gandara Rai, an East Timorese student at Trinity College Dublin, expressed thanks to the Irish Government and people for their "enormous help" in his people's struggle for independence.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mr Des O'Malley, former chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee for Foreign Affairs, suggested that Indonesia should be obliged to pay war reparations to East Timor because of its destruction of the country's infrastructure.
"Hardly any nation has suffered as much as East Timor in achieving independence," Mr O'Malley said.
Senator David Norris, a former member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, went further, arguing that the US, Australia, Britain and France should also pay reparations because of their acquiescence in Indonesia's occupation of East Timor.
"While I'm glad that those countries are represented at the independence celebrations, I hope they are ashamed at what they have done to Timor," he said.
Mr Norris praised the role of Mr Tom Hyland in the fall from power of President Suharto of Indonesia and in the achievement of Timorese independence.
"If an unemployed bus driver from Dublin can put the skids under a powerful dictator, that should send a lesson to us all that one person can achieve a lot."
The ceremony was organised by the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign and Trócaire.