East Timor, 2008 — dissident coup attempt
Event Summary
On 11 February 2008 rebel soldiers in East Timor mounted simultaneous armed attacks on the country's two top leaders, shooting and seriously wounding President Jose Ramos-Horta at his Dili residence and ambushing the convoy of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, in an episode variously described as an attempted assassination, kidnapping, or coup. The attackers were led by Major Alfredo Reinado, a charismatic fugitive who had deserted the military in 2006 along with some 600 soldiers protesting regional discrimination in the armed forces, an act that had triggered the deadly 2006 East Timorese crisis. In the pre dawn raid, Reinado's men stormed Ramos-Horta's compound; the president was shot and gravely wounded, and Reinado and another rebel were killed by presidential security.
A separate group fired on Gusmao's car, but the prime minister escaped unharmed. Ramos-Horta was flown to Australia for treatment and survived after weeks in hospital. The government declared a state of emergency, Australian and other forces reinforced the country, and the surviving rebels, whose true intentions remained disputed, later surrendered or were captured and tried.
East Timor's fragile order held.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
86002112008
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Jose Ramos-Horta was shot and seriously wounded in the February 2008 attack but survived; rebel leader Reinado was killed.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; injured. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
The Wall Street Journal
The Canberra Times
The Irish Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →