The Timorese Resistance Archive and Museum (Arquivo e Museu da Resistência Timorense, AMRT) is the place to start if you want to understand modern Timor-Leste. The exhibition takes you from the Portuguese withdrawal in 1975 through 24 years of Indonesian occupation, the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, the 1999 independence vote, and the violence that followed it.
The displays are bilingual (Portuguese and English), and rely heavily on documents, photographs, and personal effects: a guerilla radio, the typewriter used to draft proclamations in the jungle, the bullet-pierced clothes of resistance fighters. Allow at least an hour and a half. The building is on Rua Formosa near the seafront; entry is free.