How much consideration has also been given to the geopolitical issues of being reliant on imported fuels (not to mention logistical, as we've seen in the U.S. when storms knock out oil refining or imports into the Gulf)?

"Replacing Timor-Leste’s three thermal power generators – which together are less than 270 MW – with a combination of wind, solar power and battery storage does not seem to have been considered, despite plunging costs and Timor’s abundant renewable resources."

Seb, no competent electrical engineer would consider a grid powered by wind, solar power, and battery storage as a suitable replacement for natural gas.
That such a grid is even possible is an imagination of those with plenty of reliable gas, coal, or nuclear generation to come to the rescue whenever the sun, the wind, and dead batteries (even the best lithium-ion batteries need to be charged) conspire to rob consumers of their lifeblood in any modern economy.
It happens more often than many think, and it's not a matter of buying more batteries. Batteries could be free, and there could never be enough of them to power an electrical grid. And yet it seems to be the mission of many groups, Greenpeace chief among them, to thrust the burden of cost and unreliability on the people least capable of dealing with it.
"No," say the people of East Timor. "Climate change? That's a problem for the developed world. Our problem is survival, and until you figure out the details of a carbon free grid, please take your plastic solar panels, your microgrids, batteries, good intentions, and go home."