TABLE OF CONTENTS
NEWS & ISSUES
* Timor officer cleared by inquiries
* UN acts at last on sex crimes in Timor
* AFP made me strip, says Timor officer
POLITICAL/SOCIAL CRISIS
* Alkatiri says foreigners plotted coup against
him
* Officer at centre of Timor violence in mass
jailbreak
* East Timor - Downfall of a prime minister
* Police, military liaison officers authorised for
Timor
* Even in camps, East Timorese fear for their
lives
* Timor government ’saddened’ over latest violence
* Houses burnt down as gangs of youths terrorise
Dili
* Darkness brings fear in East Timor
* Youths arrested in wave of violence across Dili
* Despite peacekeepers, Timor’s refugees stay in
squalid camps
INDONESIA
* Official admits mistakes in Timor
* Former Indonesian official speaks out on East
Timor
* Jakarta-Dili ties on the mend
POLITICS/POLITICAL PARTIES
* Alkatiri’s ouster sought through extraordinary
party congress
* Show-of-hands vote to endorse Alkatiri ’legal’
ECONOMY & INVESTMENT
* East Timor doubles security spending
* Horta says confident gas pact will get OK
* Timor parliament passes delayed US$315 million
budget
DAILY MEDIA REVIEWS
East Timor daily media review - August 1-29, 2006
OPINION & ANALYSIS
* East Timor’s story, lessons for Indonesia
* Timor Leste: Present problems, future strategies
* East Timor’s blighted independence
NEWS & ISSUES
Timor officer cleared by inquiries
Sydney Morning Herald - August 30, 2006
Lindsay Murdoch, Dili — The Australian Federal
Police has defended an officer accused of ordering
a senior East Timorese policeman to take off his
uniform in public, saying two inquiries had found
the officer had acted appropriately.
But in a statement released by East Timor’s
parliament, the country’s powerful Interior
Minister, Alcino Barris, disputed the agency’s
interpretation of regulations governing Timorese
police and said he would lodge a formal protest
about the incident with the Australian embassy in
Dili.
"The Australian police did not respect either the
dignity of the Timorese police institution or the
dignity of Timor-Leste [East Timor] as a sovereign
country," Dr Barris said. The statement said Dr
Barris told MPs there was no instruction by the
Timorese Government that directed Timorese police
not to wear their uniforms in public. "The
minister defined the event unacceptable," it said.
The confrontation between an unidentified
Australian Federal Police officer and the chief of
East Timor’s police academy, Julio Hornai, on a
main road in Dili on Saturday prompted an angry
response from East Timorese MPs, several of whom
argued that the Government should retaliate by
asking the Australian police to leave the country.
The commander of the 200-strong Australian police
contingent in Dili, Steve Lancaster, told
reporters late yesterday that Inspector Hornai
became “agitated” and took off his uniform shirt
and handed it to the Australian officer, who had
explained to him that there was an agreement in
place that Timorese police should not wear their
uniforms in public. Commander Lancaster said the
Australian asked Inspector Hornai to put the
uniform back on.
But Inspector Hornai has given a different version
of the incident, saying that the Australian
repeatedly demanded that he take off the uniform.
He said he was “humiliated” by doing so in front
of about 40 onlookers.
Inspector Hornai said he and his men were ordered
to wear their uniforms to an official briefing at
police headquarters that was attended by
dignitaries including the head of the UN’s Dili
mission, Sukehiro Hasegawa, and Dr Barris.
Commander Lancaster said an inquiry conducted by
UN police had supported his own findings that at
no time did any Australian police officer direct
East Timorese police to take off their uniforms in
public.
Commander Lancaster said the Australian police had
acted in good faith in the incident. It was for
the safety and wellbeing of the East Timorese
police that they had been directed not to wear
their uniforms in public because of "mixed
community feelings" towards them, he said.
Inspector Hornai is one of the most senior
officers still serving in the Timorese police
after the 3200-strong force disintegrated when
violence erupted in Dili in late April. The
academy he runs will be at the centre of UN
efforts to rebuild the force.
UN acts at last on sex crimes in Timor
Sydney Morning Herald - August 30, 2006
Lindsay Murdoch, Dili — For years the United
Nations tried to cover up perverted and outrageous
behaviour by uniformed and civilian personnel who
have served in East Timor since 1999.
But as a new wave of more than 2000 UN-employed
police and staff prepare to travel to the capital
Dili, Sukehiro Hasegawa, the top UN official in
East Timor, has acknowledged for the first time
that the UN system failed to bring anybody to
justice for crimes that included sexual abuse of
children and bestiality.
Dr Hasegawa declared that the UN’s Integrated
Mission in East Timor, which officially became
operational on Monday, would enforce a "zero
tolerance" policy towards sexual exploitation and
abuse committed by uniformed and civilian UN
personnel.
He said several UN staff would be employed solely
to enforce the policy, which will include
briefings for all staff at which "they will be
made aware of the consequences of any activity
they may carry out that could blacken the
authority of the United Nations".
Dr Hasegawa, a special representative of the
Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, said the UN "places
a great deal of importance" on the efforts to
prevent the abuse of East Timorese. The latest
mission will be made up of 1608 international
police, including 130 Australians, 34 military
liaison officers and about 500 civilian staff.
Among deeply religious East Timorese, the
behaviour of a small number of the 18,000 UN
personnel from 113 countries who have served in
the country in the past was spoken about only in
whispers.
But the UN establishment in New York was shocked
when it received an internal report last month
exposing a culture that covered up behaviour that
enraged many UN staff, several of whom resigned in
disgust.
The report revealed that peacekeepers left behind
at least 20 babies they had fathered to poverty-
stricken Timorese women who are now “stigmatised”
and in some cases “ostracised” by their
communities.
It revealed that one UN peacekeeper from an
unnamed country sexually abused two boys and two
girls in the enclave of Oecussi. In early 2001,
two Jordanian soldiers were evacuated home with
injured penises after attempting sexual
intercourse with goats.
The report warned that the UN’s credibility can be
“seriously compromised” by its inability to ensure
prosecutions of UN personnel who commit sex
crimes.
A resolution passed last Friday by the UN Security
Council, which established the integrated mission,
urged countries sending personnel to East Timor to
conduct pre-deployment awareness training about
sexual exploitation and abuse of the local
population.
It also urged countries to "take disciplinary
action and other action to ensure full
accountability in cases of such conduct involving
their personnel".
AFP made me strip, says Timor officer
Sydney Morning Herald - August 29, 2006
Lindsay Murdoch, Dili — An Australian federal
policeman allegedly demanded that a senior East
Timorese police officer take off his uniform in
public in an incident that has angered Timorese
MPs and may lead to a diplomatic protest.
The president of the East Timorese parliament,
Francisco Guterres, said yesterday that the
alleged behaviour of the unidentified policeman
was an abuse of East Timor’s rights as an
independent country.
Mr Guterres has summoned the Interior Minister,
Alcino Barris, to appear in parliament today to
explain to MPs what happened. "All members of
parliament want to complain about this," Mr
Guterres said.
The head of the East Timorese police academy,
Julio Hornai, told the Herald yesterday that he
was humiliated by the incident, which, he said,
“violated the dignity of East Timor”. "I don’t
have a problem with the Australian police who came
to help solve our problems," Inspector Hornai
said. "But it doesn’t mean that they can come here
and not respect us."
Inspector Hornai said that on Saturday afternoon
the police vehicle he was driving along a main
street in Dili was stopped by an Australian
Federal Police vehicle with two Australian
policemen and two Malaysian soldiers on board.
One of the Australians confronted him, saying that
the seven other Timorese police in the vehicle
should not be wearing police uniforms. Inspector
Hornai said that he tried to explain that he and
his men were returning to the academy after
attending briefings at police headquarters.
Inspector Hornai said that Mr Barris, who was also
present, had ordered him and his men to attend the
briefing in uniform. Inspector Hornai said the
Australian demanded that he take off his uniform
even though he had made a call on his mobile
telephone to Mr Barris to confirm that he had been
ordered to wear it.
As a crowd of about 40 on-lookers gathered,
Inspector Hornai said, he took the top part of his
uniform off. "I felt humiliated ... people were
watching,“he said.”The Australian then said,
’Put the uniform in the vehicle’, and they would
escort us to the academy."
Inspector Hornai said that before they reached the
academy one of the Timorese policemen in his
vehicle got out near his home. "The Australian
called out and demanded that the policeman take
his uniform off before he went home," Inspector
Hornai said. "The agent took it off in the middle
of the road ... in full view of the public."
An AFP spokesman in Dili could not provide any
information about the incident. However, Antero
Lopes, head of the international police in East
Timor, said the AFP commander "assured me that no
AFP officer under his command has stripped a
[Timorese police] officer of their uniform".
POLITICAL/SOCIAL CRISIS
Alkatiri says foreigners plotted coup against him
Associated Press - August 30, 2006
Canberra — Former East Timor Prime Minister Mari
Alkatiri said in an Australian television
interview that unidentified foreigners had
approached army commanders in a failed bid to
organize a coup against him.
He also said in the interview, aired Wednesday by
public broadcaster SBS, that Australian Prime
Minister John Howard had pressured him to step
down.
Alkatiri was forced to quit in June over
allegations that he had recruited a secret hit
squad to target his political opponents. He has
denied the allegations.
He had also been under intense political pressure
for weeks because his decision to dismiss 600
rebellious soldiers triggered a wave of violence
in the capital, Dili, that killed at least 30
people and forced 150,000 to flee their homes.
Alkatiri told SBS that “foreign nationals” tried
to organize a coup against him because he was "too
independent" and threatened Australian interests
in oil and gas fields in the seabed between the
two countries.
"I was informed by the commanders of the (East
Timorese) army of the situation," Alkatiri told
SBS. "They (the army chiefs) were approached by
some Timorese and some foreign nationals but I was
fully aware and confident in the command of the
army that I didn’t think it was an issue that
could worry me and it was nothing," he added.
Alkatiri said the commanders were not certain of
the foreigners’ nationalities, but they were
either Australian or American.
Asked if he had any evidence that Australia was
involved in the alleged coup attempt, he said he
did not. "Evidence? No. But the only prime
minister in the world that was really ’advising
me’ — quote, unquote — to step down was the
prime minister of Australia during... these
difficult days," Alkatiri said.
Howard was not immediately available for comment.
Howard had blamed a failure of leadership in East
Timor for the worst violence the country had
experienced since the bloody aftermath of its 1999
vote for independence from Indonesia.
But Howard was always careful not to publicly
single out Alkatiri for criticism, saying the
political crisis was a matter for the East
Timorese to resolve.
Alkatiri has long complained of foreign interests
attempting to destabilize his leadership but has
never before suggested alleged Australian
involvement in a plot to violently overthrow him.
Officer at centre of Timor violence in mass
jailbreak
Sydney Morning Herald - August 31, 2006
Lindsay Murdoch, Dili — Alfredo Reinado, the
swaggering military police officer blamed for
plunging East Timor into chaos, has escaped from
Dili’s main jail with 55 other prisoners,
including police accused of serious crimes during
the violence in May.
Scores of Australian and Portuguese police rushed
to the jail in the suburb of Becora after the
dramatic mass breakout late yesterday. The escape
has created a new crisis for international
security forces in East Timor, who have been
struggling to curb gang violence.
Reinado has become a cult hero for some East Timor
youth since the 39-year-old Australian-trained
major ordered his men to open fire on government
troops on Dili’s outskirts on May 23.
No one was hurt in the escape. A Timorese security
guard at the jail said "they walked out through
the front door". An Australian policeman refused
to give details. "It’s still sketchy — its mayhem
in there," he said.
East Timor’s Prime Minister, Jose Ramos Horta,
said two weeks ago after visiting the jail —
where New Zealand forces have been deployed —
that security should be improved.
Reinado had been detained by Australian soldiers
in Dili on July 26 on charges of illegally
possessing weapons. He was angered by his arrest
and refused to sign court papers. A judge ordered
that he be remanded in custody with eight of his
men.
Paulo Remedios, one of Reinado’s lawyers, said
last night that he had raised the subject of
security at the jail, which houses about 200
inmates, with authorities on Monday at Reinado’s
request.
"Threats have been made against Alfredo and he was
taking them seriously,“Mr Remedios said.”He told
me of a plan to snatch him from the jail and to
take him out of Dili on a boat — that was the
rumour that my client heard," he said. Mr Remedios
said Reinado’s concerns about being kidnapped had
been recorded in court documents.
Mr Remedios said he was shocked and surprised
Reinado, who earlier yesterday was visited by
members of his family, had arranged his own escape
without being forced. "He was settled, his case
was coming up," he said.
Another Dili lawyer, Benevidos Barros, also said
last night that he had seen Reinado on Tuesday.
"He never said anything about planning to escape,
but I can confirm he is no longer in Becora
prison," Mr Barros said, adding that Reinado
should give himself up to the President, Xanana
Gusmao, who he respects, so he could pursue a
claim for wrongful arrest.
Mr Barros said the arrest warrant used by the
Australian soldiers to detain Reinado was not
properly executed under existing laws in East
Timor.
At the height of East Timor’s crisis in May,
Reinado declared war on the then prime minister,
the embattled Mari Alkatiri, saying: "I don’t care
if I die tomorrow."
A charismatic braggard, Reinado was hailed as a
hero, particularly in the west of the country,
from where comes, for helping to bring about the
Mr Alkatiri’s downfall.
East Timor - Downfall of a prime minister
SBS Dateline - August 30, 2006
Two months back, when East Timor’s then Prime
Minister, Mari Alkatiri, was dramatically forced
to resign after weeks of violence and chaos, from
many quarters, there was an audible sigh of
relief. Gone was the man variously described as
undemocratic, alleged to have armed a hit squad to
eliminate his political opponents and a crypto-
bloody-Marxist to boot! Alkatiri, of course,
maintains he was the victim of a concerted effort
to oust him. Meanwhile, Australia has spent
millions of dollars supporting the idea of
constitutional democracy in East Timor and has
hundreds of troops there maintaining the fragile
peace.
But, post the violence, there are key strategic
and security issues at stake for both countries.
Indeed, as we’ll see in a moment, new information
is coming to light that demands scrutiny. Dateline
sent David O’Shea and John Martinkus, two Dateline
reporters with a long history of covering East
Timor, back to the troubled fledgling nation to
our near North.
Reporters: David O’Shea and John Martinkus
David O’Shea: Although he is putting on a brave
face, 2006 will go down as a bad year for Rogerio
Lobato. Even the cake-maker got his birthday
wrong.
Rogerio Labato (Translation): The birth date is
25-7-2016.
Following the violence in May, the former interior
minister resigned. Tainted by allegations he’d
armed a hit squad and under intense pressure,
Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri was forced to resign
one month later. According to Rogerio Lobato, a
great injustice has occurred.
Labato (Translation): The prime minister, who was
democratically elected, was shamelessly
discredited because of a film.
The film Lobato refers to is the ABC ’Four
Corners’ program broadcast in June containing the
damning hit squad allegations. Lobato has been
charged but despite the very public crucifixion of
Alkatiri, there have never been any charges laid
against him.
Mari Alkatiri, former prime minister: I am fully
confident because I have said I have nothing to do
with these kinds of things.
Major Alfredo Reinado, (Translation): This is your
last warning young men!
On 23 May, Major Alfredo Reinado fired the first
shots of the crisis. He was Australian army-
trained and was leading a group of rebel soldiers
who had split from the army and, along with some
policemen, were now firing on their former
colleagues. Reinado insisted that he had fired in
self-defence but I was there and I clearly saw and
heard him shoot first. The soldiers who were fired
on that day said the attack against them came out
of the blue.
Soldier (Translation): He counted up to seven, I
heard him. Seven, yes, I heard that. I didn’t hear
anything after seven. I only heard gunshots. I
thought they were allies so why were they firing
at us? As an officer I had to respond.
Curiously, just days before, politician Leandro
Isaac, a staunch opponent of prime minister
Alkatiri, told me that something big was about to
happen, ’I didn’t realise how big it was going to
get.’ So why did Major Reinado attack? The former
prime minister insists that what happened here at
Fatu Ahi was the launch of a premeditated campaign
to oust him.
Alkatiri: I think Alfredo Reinado was instructed
to come down to Fatu Ahi and to restart everything
with violence because this is the only way they
can provoke everything — to start violence to
justify everything.
This was the beginning of four days of chaos in
the capital, Dili, before the arrival of
Australian forces. As a witness to that upheaval,
I have come back with colleague John Martinkus,
who has covered East Timor for 10 years. Following
Reinado’s opening volley, the second major attack
of the crisis was led by a man called Rai Los. He
told ’Four Corners’ that he was the leader of the
so-called ’hit squad’ and was supposed to be
killing people on behalf of Alkatiri.
Well, how then does he explain this amateur
footage? The man that filmed it told Dateline
these are Rai Los’s men and they were fighting
alongside the forces they are meant to be killing.
They are all fighting the national army and, by
extension, the government of Mari Alkatiri. But
Rai Los is adamant he didn’t join the forces
rebelling against Alkatiri.
Rai Los, hit squad leader, (Translation): I didn’t
go there to join them, I went to stop them. I
talked to them, I’d been told to stop them by
force, but I had other ideas. I wanted to stop
them by using negotiation and dialogue.
You would have to say that taking up arms and
firing at the army is an unusual method of
dialogue. East Timor’s Prosecutor-General is still
investigating the incident and confirms Rai Los’s
role in the fighting in Taci Tolu, on the
outskirts of Dili.
Reporter: So it was confirmed that Rai Los was
involved in the fighting in Taci Tolu, they led
the attack, and they began the shooting?
Longuinos: Yes, thank you very much.
Just as Alfredo Reinado had started the battle and
then withdrawn, so did Rai Los. All that’s left
today of this crucial event in May is a pile of
empty cartridge shells. Rai Los’s claims about his
role in the attack raise serious questions about
his credibility and his damning allegations
against Alkatiri.
Over the days that followed it seemed everyone had
a gun. And many of them were handed out by this
man — Police Commissioner and Alkatiri critic,
Paulo Martins. The Commissioner admits to emptying
the police armoury and distributing the weapons
just before the violence began, a fact confirmed
by former Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.
Alkatiri: The Police Commander, Paulo Martins,
said the weapons were not in storage and they had
been allocated to different police units. He was
saying one of the units was in Ailieu and in Dili
and in Liquica.
By coincidence or otherwise, the anti-Alkatiri
forces were concentrated in precisely the areas
named by Alkatiri.
Reporter (Translation): The weapons you sent to
Ailieu, where are they now?
Paulo Martins, Police Commander (Translation): The
guns that were transferred from Ailieu are now
back in Ailieu.
Reporter (Translation): Where?
Martins (Translation): The Police Reserve Unit.
It’s common knowledge that members of the police
reserve unit had joined the rebels, along with
many civilians.
Martins (Translation): The fact is that no one has
proved that the civilians used police guns.
If that is the case, how did this police weapon
end up in the hands of Leandro Isaac? He is a
member of East Timor’s Parliament and he’s
carrying a police issue Steyr rifle.
Leandro Isaac, independent member of parliament
(Translation): Because East Timor, especially Dili
was in a state of war! WAR! And if I had nuclear
bombs, I’d use them.
Reporter (Translation): Some people might be
asking why a member of parliament is using a gun?
Isaac, (Translation): There’s a difference between
using and owning.
Reporter (Translation): And now the gun is?
Isaac, (Translation): It is back with the owner. I
am not the owner.
Reporter (Translation): Who is the owner?
Isaac, (Translation): A policeman that was here at
the time.
The most horrific incident of the four days was
the massacre of unarmed police on 25 May. It was
carnage. 9 police were shot dead and 27 were
wounded, all of this done by three soldiers, so
the story goes.
The UN is investigating the incident. We can offer
a dramatically different scenario. This footage
suggests there were many more than three soldiers
firing. One eyewitness we spoke to claims he saw
civilians shooting at the police from these palm
trees. And this group of armed men, some of them
in civilian clothes, were among many unidentified
gunmen at the scene. Who were they and does the
presence of groups like this cast doubt on the
accepted version of events?
Dateline was told the UN has video evidence
supporting the version we have offered. Was this
deadly confrontation part of a pattern to
discredit the army and further undermine the prime
minister? With security spiralling out of control
in East Timor, Australian troops arrived to more
damaging allegations against Alkatiri, which were
big news in Australia.
SBS news story: East Timor’s Prime Minister, Mari
Alkatiri has today dismissed a string of serious
allegations and repeated his claim that he is
being forced from power.
Forces loyal to Mr Alkatiri have also been accused
of massacring 60 unarmed protesters and dumping
their bodies in a mass grave. Mr Alkatiri also
stands accused of trying to kill opposition leader
Fernando Araujo.
Alkatiri: It is just completely false. I think
this kind of accusations and allegations is part
of the whole plan trying to demonise me but
nothing is true, it is completely false.
True or false, Australia apparently took the
threat against opposition leader Fernando Araujo
very seriously. They flew his wife and son to
Darwin on two Black Hawk helicopters from this
isolated airport in the south-west of the country.
She arrived just in time to make the Australian
news bulletins.
Mrs Araujo: In Australia where you can speak and
you can debate and your house will not be burned
down and be threatened to be killed.
It’s worth noting that neither the death threats
nor the allegations of mass graves have ever been
proved. While Australia protected Araujo’s family,
many East Timorese say his Democratic Party, or
PD, is actually responsible for coordinating the
anti-Alkatiri mobs.
Reporter: You provide the trucks to bring them in
to town. PD is involved in organising the
transport to bring these people into town.
Fernando Araujo, opposition leader: For
demonstrations this is the people’s right. If they
burn house, this is a crime, they should be
arrested. It’s not my responsibility.
And Araujo had plenty of help stirring up anti-
Alkatiri sentiment. Take for instance Rui Lopes —
a man made wealthy through his close connection
with Kopassus, the notorious Indonesian Special
Forces.
Rui Lopes (Translation): We are ready to die,
we’re ready to defend, and ready to kill.
When Dateline went looking for Rui Lopes, we found
he had crossed the border into Indonesia.
Martinkus: It’s a shame. Rui Lopes is not at home.
He has had lots of meetings with those people and
has provided money and logistics to the PD party.
And what we wanted to ask him was — where was the
money coming from?
Araujo: I, er, I never get any money from Rui
Lopes. Actually we have the same view that Mari is
threatening this country, is destroying this
country. We organise the demonstration together.
Another of Araujo’s associates and supporters is
Nemecio de Carvalho. He’s a former leader of one
of the most bloodthirsty militia that terrorised
Timor during 1999. De Carvalho is under house
arrest for his militia activities.
Nemecio de Carvalho: So Rui Lopes, I and other
people and, according to me, now most Timorese are
against Fretilin because they are undemocratic.
Another influential player in this drama is the
Catholic Church. The church was openly opposed to
Alkatiri and his government, as this April 2005
letter shows.
Church letter: ’The citizens of this country don’t
identify with the model that this government wants
to impose on Timorese society. It’s completely
alien and cut off from the roots of our cultural,
social and historic realities.’
Both of East Timor’s bishops signed it and sent it
to the president of parliament, asking that
Church letter: ’they decide on the immediate
removal of the current prime minister, Dr Alkatiri
and his government, and the appointment of a new
prime minister who would immediately form a
government.’
The letter was ignored. But the church has
apparently been involved in more than letter
writing. Reliable sources in the army high command
told Dateline that two priests personally urged
them to oust Alkatiri. Father Apolinario was one
of them.
Reporter: Is that true?
Father Apolinario: I can’t say anything.
Reporter: Is it true you went to visit, to talk or
not?
Bishop Ricardo da Silva, a co-signatory of the
letter, also wasn’t to keen to discuss the
church’s alleged approaches to the army or FFDTL.
Bishop Ricardo: Not true — people want to extend
everything — not true.
Reporter: Thank you, Bishop.
Alkatiri: It means what they couldn’t do at that
time they decided to plan it better and to do it
in a different way. I don’t think we can really
blame the church as an institution.
And there was more. According to top level army
sources, in late 2005, armed forces chief
Brigadier-General Taur Matan Ruak and Lt-Colonel
Falur Rate Laek were approached by two Timorese
leaders accompanied by two foreigners on two
separate occasions. The four also asked the army,
or FFDTL, to remove Prime Minister Alkatiri. Again
the FFDTL refused.
Alkatiri: I was aware. I was informed by the
commanders of the FFDTL of the situation, that
they were approached by some Timorese and some
foreign nationals, but I was fully aware and
confident in the command of the army that I didn’t
think that it was an issue that could worry me and
for me it was nothing.
Martinkus: The two foreign nationals who were
involved with approaching the military here to
convince them to mount a coup against you, Were
they Australian?
Alkatiri: Even the commanders were not clear on
this, if they were Australian or American —
between these two. But I still have no clear
information from the command if they were
Australian or American but surely they were
English-speaking.
So who would want to mount a coup in East Timor?
And why? Mari Alkatiri says it’s simply because he
was too independent and threatened Australian
interests in the oil and gas fields of the Timor
Sea.
Alkatiri: What I was doing in my term was to
defend the interests of my people in having the
resources to develop this country, independently.
Not to be dependent. I was fully aware we have our
right and we still have our right on the Timor Sea
and we have to defend it. Not because I am anti-
Australian. I like very much Australia as a
country, as a nation, as a people. I would never
be anti-Australia.
Martinkus: Do you have any evidence that Australia
was involved at some level in the effort to seek
your resignation?
Alkatiri: Evidence, no. But the only prime
minister in the world that was really "advising
me" quote-unquote, to step down, was the Prime
Minister of Australia during these days, these
difficult days.
John Howard, on the other hand, is far more
disposed to Alkatiri’s replacement as prime
minister Jose Ramos Horta. Just days after being
sworn in, new PM Ramos Horta presided over the
historic signing of the first oil production
sharing contract between the two countries.
Jose Ramos-Horta: When you deal with oil and gas
and economics, well, you have to be fair and
realistic and pragmatic. Australia cannot always
be philanthropic with everything it does for East
Timor.
I asked Horta’s Energy Minister, Jose Texiera,
whether he thought East Timor was getting a fair
deal in the lucrative oil and gas agreements.
Jose Texiera, energy minister: It’s not the ideal
outcome but it’s the pragmatic outcome — to give
us an outcome.
It seems pragmatism has won the day but the former
prime minister says he wanted to ensure East Timor
had greater control over its natural resources,
particularly the Greater Sunrise oil and gas
field.
Alkatiri: What I have been doing up until now is
to really get some independent feasibility study
of getting the pipeline to Timor Leste and an LNG
plant in Timor Leste. And this is very important.
What Australia is trying to achieve is having
Sunrise sent to Darwin. This is Australia’s
interests. But my interests can’t be always
coinciding with Australian interests and vice
versa, and this is the reality.
In the midst of the crisis today, there’s a media
event being staged at President Xanana Gusmao’s
house. He’s taking local journalists on a tour of
his much loved garden.
Reporter: Is gardening one way you can forget the
troubles?
Xanana Gusmao: Yes.
Xanana Gusmao is the man who holds the greatest
moral influence in East Timor and is often
portrayed as staying above the political fray, but
this murky affair — with its many unanswered
questions — has seen him at the very centre of
events. In March this year, in a nationally
televised address, he responded to the recent
split in the country’s army, speaking out about
discrimination against recruits from the west of
the country.
Whatever the President’s intentions, his words had
immediate effect. That very night the first
easterner’s houses were burned down and the first
refugees fled their homes. Many felt that the
President had taken sides with East Timorese from
the west of the country, who are mostly anti-
Alkatiri.
And again today he is very proactive. On his front
doorstep, literally, two guns and a man who said
he got them off the former interior minister.
Man: (Translation): In the name of the government,
they distributed weapons. Coming from the
mountains as we do, how can we afford to buy these
weapons?
This media event draws an intriguing cast of
characters, including Rai Los, whose hit squad
allegations brought down the prime minister. Rai
Los is warmly received by the President, but as we
pointed out earlier, Rai Los attacked the national
army, which under the constitution is headed by
President Gusmao.
Kirsty Sword Gusmao is East Timor’s Australian-
born first lady. In May she was quoted in the
’Australian’ newspaper saying that Alkatiri should
resign. Many here regarded her comments as
symbolic of Australian meddling.
Kirsty Sward-Gusmao, East Timorese First Lady:
There was some rather mischievous reporting going
on by the ’Australian’ newspaper. I did not call
for his resignation. I said there were increasing
demands for him to resign but I didn’t make any
forceful demands for him to resign but I did
express an opinion on that issue.
Reporter: It’s been picked up here as meddling
Australian intervention in the internal affairs of
East Timor.
Sword: No, it was a misquote.
Reporter: Some people are suggesting what happened
was Australia’s first coup. What do you say to
that?
Gusmao: No, I already told people that we are
aware of our own mistakes, our own wrongdoings. We
are very aware of this.
Reporter: So the coup is...?
Gusmao: No, no.
Reporter: Thank you.
Dateline made multiple requests for an extended
interview with President Gusmao, but he declined.
Nemecio de Carvalho: He is the boss in the
struggle. Now he get nothing. Just a symbolic role
according to our constitution.
Whatever his motivations, Nemecio de Carvalho, the
former militiaman is prepared to say what many
East Timorese now believe but are afraid to spell
out — that the President and/or others wanted
Alkatiri removed and the only way to achieve it
was through drastic means.
Carvalho: There must be a crisis and instability,
including war. So he can play in such a situation.
Without conflict, without instability, without
anarchy, war, maybe he will never get more power.
Reporter: There are also a lot of people — much
of it is whispers — saying the President is
behind all this stuff?
Kirsty Sward-Gusmao: There are bound to be
comments like that made, I can say with absolute
confidence, as an insider and someone who has
accompanied very closely this whole situation,
that it’s nothing but a load of codswallop.
Meanwhile, 150,000 East Timorese sit in refugee
camps, waiting for their leaders to sort out the
mess.
George Negus: The question marks still hanging
over our troubled northern neighbour. And with
Australia and the East Timorese committed to
constitutional democracy in the fledgling nation,
Xanana Gusmao as President may find it impossible
to remain silent and aloof about these violent
events.
And in a dramatic, late-breaking development,
Alfredo Reinado, the Australian-trained rebel
leader David O’Shea was with when he got caught in
the crossfire that started the May hostilities,
earlier today escaped with 55 other prisoners
being held in Dili’s Becora jail. Reinado had been
arrested and charged with murder and firearm
offences.
Reporter/Camera — David O’Shea, John Martinkus
Editors — Wayne Love, Scott Fergusson
Subtitling — Robyn Fallick, Silvia Lemos
Producer — Mike Carey
Police, military liaison officers authorised for
Timor
Associated Press - August 25, 2006
United Nations — The UN Security Council voted
unanimously Friday to authorize 1,600
international police and 34 military liaison
officers for a follow-on mission in East Timor —
but no troops.
A UN political mission had been scheduled to shut
down on May 20 of this year. But violence erupted
in East Timor in March after then-Prime Minister
Mari Alkatiri fired about 600 soldiers, sparking
clashes between rival security forces in the
capital that later spilled into gang warfare,
looting and arson.
The Security Council decided to extend the mandate
of the political mission until Aug. 20, and then
for another week because of division among council
members over whether the foreign troops helping to
restore security at the government’s request
should become part of a new UN peacekeeping
mission or operate without a UN umbrella.
Australia, which is leading a multinational task
force that includes troops from New Zealand,
Portugal and Malaysia, told the council it was
prepared to continue the current arrangement and
finance it, an offer supported by the United
States, Britain and Japan. Other council members
backed East Timor’s call for a UN military
contingent.
Ghana’s UN Ambassador Nana Effah-Apenteng, the
current council president, said including a
military contingent in the new UN Integrated
Mission in East Timor, which will be known as
UNMIT, was dropped because of the differences.
"We think that stability is a reflection of
underlying forces, social and economic, and I
think those issues should be addressed, but
ideally it would have been better to have a
military component, but this was not acceptable to
all the members of the council," he said.
The resolution notes that "while the
manifestations of the current crisis... are
political and institutional, poverty and its
associated deprivations, including high urban
unemployment, especially for youth, also
contributed to the crisis.“The council expressed support”for the deployment
of international security forces" by Portugal,
Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia "and their
activities aiming to restore and maintain
security" in East Timor. It called on all parties
in East Timor to cooperate fully with the
deployment and operations of the UN mission and
international security forces.
The council authorized the new mission to deploy
"an appropriate civilian component, including up
to 1,608 police personnel, and an initial
component of up to 34 military liaison and staff
officers.“Effah-Apenteng said the resolution shows”the UN
is still engaged there... the UN is not abandoning
them, and there are a whole lot of things that
should be done."
Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in
1975 and ruled the tiny half-island territory
until 1999, when a UN-organized plebiscite
resulted in an overwhelming vote for independence.
Withdrawing Indonesian troops and their militia
auxiliaries destroyed much of the country’s
infrastructure and killed at least 1,500 people.
The United Nations sent a UN peacekeeping force
and administered the territory for 2 1/2 years,
then handed it to the Timorese on May 20, 2002.
The resolution, sponsored by Japan, establishes
the new mission for six months "to support the
government and relevant institutions, with a view
to consolidating stability, enhancing a culture of
democratic governance, and facilitating political
dialogue among Timorese stakeholders, in their
efforts to bring about a process of national
reconciliation and to foster social cohesion.“The UN mission will also support the government”in all aspects" of its first presidential and
parliamentary elections since independence,
scheduled for 2007. The council said the elections
"will be a significant step forward in the process
of strengthening the fragile democracy in East
Timor."
Even in camps, East Timorese fear for their lives
Agence France Presse - August 23, 2006
Nelson da Cruz, Dili — At this makeshift camp,
thousands of East Timor’s displaced people fear
for their safety as youths intermittently hurl
rocks at their temporary homes and rumours swirl
of more serious attacks.
"United we are, in peace and building our
country!" reads a banner in the local Tetum
language stretching above the gate to the high-
walled Obrigado Barracks in the East Timorese
capital.
Those remaining at the camp — a motley array of
yellow, white and blue tents — feel however that
permanent peace is still a distant hope.
"We are often pelted with stones. Even this
morning, stones were thrown here," said Dominggos
Gomes, a 34-year-old father of six. "I am
constantly worried and on guard," he added.
Despite the presence of some 3,000 international
peacekeepers deployed to East Timor in May, when
violence rocked Dili and led to 21 deaths,
sporadic bouts of low-level unrest have continued
to plague the capital.
The original fighting between factions of East
Timor’s security forces — triggered by the
sacking of 600 deserting soldiers — degenerated
into communal violence on the streets.
Gangs played up previously unimportant differences
between ordinary people from the east and west of
the tiny nation.
This gang activity appears to have persisted, with
few of the 150,000 people estimated to have fled
to makeshift camps returning home.
Last weekend around 200 youths — some wielding
spears, knives, darts or slingshots — torched six
homes and assaulted an Australian police officer
over the weekend. Twenty-five people were
detained.
On Tuesday two Australian police officers were
slightly injured and three of their vehicles
destroyed as they attempted to break up a battle
between two groups of rock-throwing youths in an
area near another camp.
Australian police fired live rounds into the air
after coming under attack and called in Portuguese
police reinforcements who fired rubber bullets to
disperse the crowd, the Lusa news agency reported.
Last week petrol bombs were thrown into this tent
camp, which provides shelter to some 3,700 people
— even though the United Nations headquarters in
East Timor is just across the road.
The UN expressed alarm over security at the
temporary shelters last week, with a security
advisor saying they appeared to have been singled
out for attacks. At Obrigado Barracks, most people
hail from the east.
Liberio dos Santos, a camp coordinator, said that
just over 3,300 people have left the camp as
rumours of attacks flared in recent weeks. "The
main reason for their departure is that they heard
that the Obrigado Barracks camp will be burned
down and people from eastern East Timor
eradicated," he said.
Many of those who have left shifted to other camps
not seen as being under threat, he said, rather
than returning home.
Camp-dweller Gomes said he believed dozens of
local youths were behind the stone-throwing,
adding that he and others here were now too afraid
to leave the camp after dark. "If I venture out of
the gate, I could be the target of the stones or
even killed by those outside," he said.
A small security post at the entrance gate is
manned by four uniformed security guards provided
by UN headquarters, armed only with walkie-
talkies.
Before it was turned into a camp UN staff parked
their cars at the barracks. It was used by
peacekeepers sent to restore calm in 1999, when
the East Timorese voted for independence from
neighbouring Indonesia.
Militias backed by the retreating Indonesian
military launched bloody retaliatory attacks,
leaving some 1,400 people dead.
Zita Maria Soares, 24, is another at the camp
living fretfully. "I am constantly worried. Stones
and fuel bombs are still being thrown at us. It is
only a matter of time before someone throws a
hand-grenade," she said, clutching her
four-month-old son.
Coordinator dos Santos said demands for better
security have fallen on deaf ears.
International police have defended their decision
not to place troops at each of the refugee camps.
"It’s not part of the plan. It’s never been the
case that police and military are positioned at
the camps," Tim Dodd, a spokesman for the
Australian police contingent, said on Saturday.
Timor government ’saddened’ over latest violence
Agence France Presse - August 23, 2006
Dili — East Timor expressed regret Wednesday over
two Australian policemen injured in a mob attack
by youths overnight, the latest unrest to hit the
tiny nation.
"The government is very saddened that violence is
still ongoing," second deputy prime minister Rui
Maria de Araujo told a press conference in Dili.
He confirmed that three youths had been arrested
by international police for the attack near Dili’s
Comoro neighbourhood on Tuesday.
Portuguese police told the Lusa news agency that
the clash took place after Australian police tried
to break up a battle between two groups of around
30 rock-throwing youths in an area located near a
refugee camp.
Australian police fired live rounds into the air
after coming under attack and called in Portuguese
police reinforcements who fired rubber bullets to
disperse the crowd, Lusa reported. The mob also
destroyed three patrol cars used by the Australian
police.
Some 82,000 people are living at camps set up in
Dili for those who were displaced by a wave of
violence by machete-wielding gangs which swept the
former Portuguese colony in May, killing at least
21 people.
East Timor invited a 3,200-strong international
peacekeeping force to the country of around one
million people in the wake of the unrest, which
was sparked by infighting among factions in the
military and police.
Houses burnt down as gangs of youths terrorise
Dili
Sydney Morning Herald - August 20, 2006
Youths burnt several houses to the ground in the
East Timorese capital yesterday in the latest
outbreak of unrest to hit the strife-torn country,
eyewitnesses and international peacekeepers said.
“There were around 50 houses burnt,” said Marito,
a 46-year-old resident of the Comoro neighbourhood
where gang battles raged earlier this year.
He said about 1000 people came from the Comoro
market area and Lurumata. However, he said it
wasn’t clear if the attacks were targeting a
particular ethnic group.
A Portuguese policeman who declined to give his
name said only a handful of houses had been burnt.
"Only four to five houses were burnt this morning,
so maybe there were 10 houses burnt since
yesterday," he said.
Hundreds of houses in Dili have been unoccupied
since May when 150,000 people fled to refugee
camps to escape violence which wracked the
capital.
Infighting among factions in the military and
police sparked the violence, which killed at least
21 people and degenerated into ethnic warfare on
the streets, prompting the deployment of
peacekeepers.
The ethnic violence pitched youths from East
Timor’s eastern districts against those from the
west.
Darkness brings fear in East Timor
Reuters - August 17, 2006
Jerry Norton, Dili — During the day, Fernanda
Gomez stands at her tiny roadside kiosk selling
canned goods and sundries in front of the
blackened remains of burned-out houses in her
village near Dili.
At night, the 25-year-old mother of two retreats
to a refugee camp near the city’s airport. "It’s
difficult to return home in the evening," she
tells Reuters, because people were still fighting.
Nearly three months after an international force
of soldiers and police arrived in this tiny
country — which had been racked by violence for
weeks — calm has returned during the day.
But some Timorese say in their home neighbourhoods
night still belongs to gangs who fight one another
with stones and homemade weapons, looting and
harassing those brave enough to stay.
Such fears are sometimes exaggerated, Prime
Minister Jose Ramos-Horta told reporters on
Thursday. "Here we deal with a traumatised
society. There is a collective problem that goes
back many, many years," and even rumours or youth
with fireworks scare people away, he said.
East Timor suffered decades of conflict and
brutality in 24 years of Indonesian rule that
ended with a 1999 vote for independence marked by
bloodshed and chaos.
Justified or not, many Timorese remain worried.
"The situation is not safe in the evening. Last
night, there were people throwing rocks at each
other... so we don’t feel good to sleep at our
house," says Jubelina Gusmao, 36, at the small
jewellery store she owns in Dili.
Her shop was closed for two months during the
height of the violence, which was sparked by
protests from sacked soldiers.
The protests spiralled into fighting that split
East Timor’s own security forces, and brought the
deaths of more than 20 people as well as
widespread burning and looting. More than 100,000
of the country’s one million people fled their
homes for camps.
East-West divide
Why things got out of control is a matter of
debate but differences between the eastern and
western regions of the tiny country half the size
of Belgium are most often cited.
Holding a fidgety grandchild in one arm and
setting down a water jug with the other, Pasquela
Pereia tells Reuters: "We don’t feel safe to go
home because the people from the western part
during the night are still looking for the people
from (the east) to fight against them and ask them
to move out from the village."
Some from the west say easterners did not help in
the independence struggle against Indonesian
forces.
Pereia, at 45 already a grandmother of 12, says
her home in a village amidst banana trees and rice
paddies was burned even though she is from the
east and her husband is from the west.
Jobs are scarce in East Timor, and the country is
full of young men with little to do who make up
most of the gangs.
More than a dozen unemployed youths materialised
when this correspondent stopped to ask questions
near Tasitolu village, but they said they banded
together to protect their homes.
"During the day it’s O.K. but during the night we
have to organise ourselves to control our
village," says one, Janurio Braz, 25. He says
Malaysian troops from the international force are
visible during the day but stay in their camps
after dark.
Similar complaints are heard over and over about
the 2,000-plus foreign troops and police led by
Australia and also comprising forces from Portugal
and New Zealand.
"...police and the military better not stay in
just one place, but have to stay in each village
and walk in the evening so people can feel safe,"
says Carla Carvalho dos Santos, 22.
Business is slow at the hardware store where she
works because people are too worried to repair and
rebuild, she says.
Steve Lancaster, commander of the international
forces’ near 600-strong police component, said
this week plans were almost set to begin returning
East Timorese police to Dili streets, after they
were removed because some took sides in the
fighting. But it could be weeks or months before a
significant Timorese police presence will bolster
international forces.
Ramos-Horta said a new mission of 1,600
international police the UN Security Council is
expected to approve would make a big difference,
enabling creation of "permanent 24-hour police
posts in some of the more sensitive areas of the
city".
The government believes a variety of measures will
get a majority of people out of camps by the end
of September, he said.
Meanwhile, Timorese like Fernanda Gomez remain
scared. "We are the innocent people. We don’t know
anything. We have to save ourselves and our
children and family because we’re afraid," she
says.
Youths arrested in wave of violence across Dili
Sydney Morning Herald - August 8, 2006
Violence erupted again in Dili at the weekend as
gang members armed with slingshots and rocks
roamed the streets. Several people are believed
injured and up to six houses burnt down in the
worst attacks in the city since the prime
minister, Mari Alkatiri, was forced from office in
June.
In one incident, young gang members pushed their
way into a church screaming “Kill all easterners”.
Australian and other international police
dispersed between 300 and 400 people on Friday,
days after Australia announced it was preparing to
reduce further the number of its troops and amount
of equipment in the country.
The acting commander of Australia’s 200-strong
police contingent, Tim Dahlstrom, said last night
that police had made more than 40 arrests in three
days. He said police were investigating what had
prompted the violence after weeks of calm.
Some of the gang members were believed to be
supporters of the rebel military officer Alfredo
Reinado, who was recently arrested on firearms
charges by Australian peacekeepers, observers in
Dili said.
Others are believed to be western East Timorese
who have vowed to force easterners from the city.
Several Australians living in Dili said yesterday
that sporadic violence had broken out since
Friday, with gangs of up to 100 people seen in
different locations. Extra police were called to
disperse rock-throwing youths in the Comoro
district and near the Australian embassy in the
early hours of yesterday.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Secretary-General,
Kofi Annan, has backed attempts to bring to
justice hundreds of people, most of them
Indonesians, responsible for atrocities committed
in East Timor in 1999. He recommended the
establishment of a new UN program to help the
country achieve justice and reconciliation. It
would include a UN-funded serious crimes unit that
had its funding withdrawn in May last year.
East Timor’s Prime Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, and
President, Xanana Gusmao, have said prosecuting
Indonesians would not be in the best interests of
their country.
Despite peacekeepers, Timor’s refugees stay in
squalid camps
Agence France Presse - August 5, 2006
Nelson da Cruz, Dili — More than two months after
battalions of foreign troops arrived in East Timor
to restore calm, tens of thousands of refugees are
still living in grim camps, saying they are too
terrified to return home.
Sitting under a plastic tarpaulin offering scant
protection from rain and mosquitoes, Paolo Soares
says he prefers to stay at this crowded convent,
even though his youngest daughter contracted
diarrhoea and died here.
"Last Sunday, after I went past my house on a
motorbike, I was hit by a rock thrown by my
neighbour," said Soares, who originally hails from
Baucau in the country’s east.
Usually non-existent divisions between east and
west were tapped into during the violence that
rocked Asia’s poorest nation in May, leaving at
least 21 people dead.
"I and my family still want to stay here because
there is no security guarantee for us," added the
43-year-old father of nine, whose gaunt face shows
the strain of losing his child.
Soares and his family fled to the Canossian
convent on April 28, when a demonstration by
deserting military troops erupted into violence
that left two dead and triggered thousands to
initially flee their homes.
That demonstration was followed in May by fighting
between rival factions of East Timor’s security
forces, which degenerated into ethnic warfare.
Some 3,200 international peacekeepers were rapidly
deployed while an estimated 150,000 people left
their homes. Barely any have returned.
Some 72,000 people in Dili are still receiving
food aid, while about 80,000 people are displaced
outside the capital, UN Humanitarian Coordinator
Finn Reske-Nielsen said, adding that it was fear
keeping them there.
"There’s no doubt that the international forces
have reestablished peace and security in Dili, but
I think there’s a perception among many of the
IDPs (internally displaced people) that the
fundamental issues have not been resolved," he
told AFP.
Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta said Thursday he
was confident the camps would be emptied within
the next two months, promising to set up security
posts in each of Dili’s suburbs.
"We are certain that within a maximum of two
months, the problems of the refugees will be
resolved. In the opinion of the president and the
government, in September, everyone will go home to
their houses," he told reporters.
But refugee Soares said he was tired of
politicians pressuring them to leave. "In my
opinion, if the leaders can’t lead, it’s better we
surrender this country to foreigners to lead. They
urge us to go home, but they don’t know what the
reality of our lives here is," he snapped.
Soares and his family are among some 17,000
refugees living cheek-by-jowl inside the thick
walls of the convent in Balide, on the outskirts
of the seaside capital. Just four unarmed guards
patrol the single entrance but refugees say they
are safe at such revered religious institutions in
the predominantly Catholic nation.
A sharp, foul smell oozes from the emergency
toilets. At least 2,000 people shelter under
makeshift tarpaulin covers, with the remainder in
aid-agency tents or inside the convent. Since May,
four children and one adult have died of
preventable disease here, said camp director
Sister Gueilhermina Marcal.
The convent courtyard has been turned into an
informal market, with a dozen vegetable, fruit and
noodle sellers vying for space. Nearby mothers
bathe their children in an open shower, while
adults doze on tarpaulins.
Another refugee, Hipolito Marques, a slim
40-year-old security guard for a Chinese-owned
company who heads out to work each day, said he
was also staying as the security remained
uncertain.
"I want to stay here because I see that the
country’s leaders haven’t sat down together to
discuss and resolve the problems in the military,
and problems between the military and national
police," said Marques.
Director Marcal said the sisters had tried to send
some of the refugees back to their villages and
Dili’s suburbs.
"We have tried to advise them to return to their
houses, but three to four days after they return
home, the results are not good. People throw rocks
at them, threaten them,“said the 47-year-old nun.”They all want to go home, but the problem is
there is no security."
INDONESIA
Official admits mistakes in Timor
The Australian - August 10, 2006
Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta — One of Indonesia’s
most senior officials has admitted that his
country was directly responsible for failing to
stop the murderous chaos that accompanied its
withdrawal from East Timor in 1998.
Dino Patti Djalal, a senior Foreign Ministry
staffer at the time, said the withdrawal was
conducted in an “irrational” manner and that
Jakarta never displayed the "heart and will to
rein in" Indonesian-backed militia groups who
slaughtered thousands after East Timor’s
independence referendum in 1999.
Speaking at the launch of an analysis of the
period by former foreign minister Ali Alatas, Mr
Djalal — now President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s
official spokesman — made an impassioned plea for
Indonesia to learn from its mistakes in East
Timor.
He said that if those lessons were not learned "by
political officials and security officials, it
will not be possible to solve the problems of
Aceh, Poso and Papua" — all regions that have
experienced extreme ethnic and nationalist revolt.
Aceh has recently come under a new autonomy law
after a decades-long independence struggle.
Launching his book, The Pebble in the Shoe: The
Diplomatic Struggle for East Timor, Mr Alatas
claimed that the Suharto regime’s 24-year
occupation of the tiny country had been more
benign than was generally recognised and that it
was Suharto’s erratic successor, BJ Habibie, who
was responsible for the poor decisions.
Speaking from the floor during a question-and-
answer session afterwards, Mr Djalal went further,
saying Indonesia had misruled East Timor but
laying the blame for the chaos that accompanied
its withdrawal squarely at Dr Habibie’s feet.
Dr Habibie, who had replaced the dictator Suharto
in 1998, responded petulantly to a letter from
John Howard at the end of the same year suggesting
an autonomy option for East Timor. His offer of a
referendum proposing independence or integration
with Indonesia was made in haste and without
regard to “the situation on the ground”, Mr Djalal
said.
"When you sent me to East Timor to assess the
situation (in 1999), it was clear that the people
were not ready there, they did not know the
concept (of independence)," Mr Djalal told his
former boss, Mr Alatas.
"I have spent many sleepless nights thinking about
this because we put a timetable straitjacket on
the referendum and all because BJ Habibie wanted
to take the result to the MPR (Indonesia’s upper
house of parliament). It was not rational.
"We thought we could just splash lots of money
about and that would signify something. We were
wrong. East Timor became a police state, we were
bribing people we thought were loyal to us, and
doing horrible things to people we thought were
not loyal to us."
Dr Habibie’s eccentric and unpredictable rule has
been criticised from outside Indonesia but last
night’s statements were among the strongest to
have been made at official levels in Jakarta.
Mr Djalal’s assessment was backed last night by a
one-time senior Suharto administration figure,
former industry minister Hartato, who said from
the floor that the occupation of East Timor was
"still an extremely important problem for
Indonesia“and that it”must become an issue of
extreme introspection for us — I very much agree
with what the young man has said".
Mr Alatas responded to Mr Djalal’s comments by
agreeing that Indonesia must learn from its East
Timor mistakes and be careful "not to disregard
our problems in the regions, such as in Aceh and
Papua".
Former ambassador to Australia Sabam Siagian,
unlike Mr Djalal an official speaker at last
night’s launch, warned that there was still an
overwhelmingly Java-centric approach to the way
Indonesia’s outer islands were administered,
something that had contributed to the disaster of
East Timor and could continue to create problems.
Former Indonesian official speaks out on East
Timor
Radio Australia - August 10, 2006
Reporter: Geoff Thompson
Tony Eastley: One of Indonesia’s most senior
officials has said that his country ran East Timor
like a police state and used bribes and allowed
militia violence in a failed attempt to defeat the
1999 referendum on independence.
The unprecedented admission came from Indonesia’s
presidential spokesman, Dino Patti Djalal, who was
a senior Foreign Minister official when the East
Timorese overwhelmingly voted for independence.
He was speaking at the launch of a new book about
East Timor by Ali Alatas, who was Indonesia’s
Foreign Minister at the time. Jakarta
Correspondent Geoff Thompson reports.
Geoff Thompson: The Pebble in the Shoe is the name
of a new book by Indonesia’ former Foreign
Minister Ali Alatas, a title which repeats
something he once said about how Indonesia was
affected by East Timor’s long struggle for
independence. Ali Alatas has a different view now.
Ali Alatas: I have to admit that in its final
years the East Timor problem was no longer a mere
pebble in the shoe, but had become a big boulder
dragging down Indonesia’s international reputation
to one of its lowest points.
Geoff Thompson: Ali Alatas’ book catalogues the
long diplomatic path to East Timor’s troubled
freedom and confirms that it was John Howard’s
letter to BJ Habibe which sent the then Indonesian
President suddenly rushing towards the
independence option without consulting his then
Foreign Minister.
But last night it was Indonesia’s current
presidential spokesman, Dino Patti Djalal, who
stole the show. He spoke from the floor, not on
behalf of Indonesia’s President, but as a former
senior Foreign Ministry official who played a part
in East Timor’s militia-bloodied passage to
independence.
Dino Patti Djalal: We never really succeeded. We
never really had the heart and will to rein in on
the militia, at our own cost, and at the end that
is what burned Timor in the end, and that is what
ruined the whole peace process.
Geoff Thompson: In 1999, Dino Patti Djalal had the
job of putting positive spin on Indonesia’s
disastrous attempt to defeat the independence
momentum. Now he admits Indonesia had no idea what
it was doing as it splashed money and permitted
violence in a failed bid to win hearts and minds.
Dino Patti Djalal: And in fact what happened was
East Timor became sort of a police state, where
intelligence controlled all activities.
You could sense that there was tension at the
basic level of society. Our strategy for winning
hearts and minds was bribing people who we thought
were loyal to us and fighting off and probably
doing horrible things to those who did not... we
thought were not loyal to us. And in such
circumstances, there was no way we could win the
hearts and minds of the Timorese.
Geoff Thompson: It was an extraordinary speech,
made before an audience of dignitaries, including
Indonesia’s current Foreign Minister, Hassan
Wirajuda. Dino Djalal said that Indonesia must
learn lessons from its Timor experience, lessons
which, he said, made peace in Aceh possible.
In Jakarta, this is Geoff Thompson for AM.
Jakarta-Dili ties on the mend
Straits Times - August 24, 2006
John McBeth — For three years now, the small
white house across the street from the football
field in the heart of the frontier town of Atambua
has been used as a mess by Indonesia’s
paramilitary Police Mobile Brigade. But they have
still failed to repair some of the smashed windows
that bear a lasting testimony to the brutal murder
of three United Nations High Commissioner For
Refugees (UNHCR) aid workers in September 2000.
The killings by a mob of frenzied militiamen came
a year after then-East Timor’s vote for
independence triggered widespread bloodshed across
the former Indonesian province and sent 250,000 to
300,000 refugees fleeing into neighbouring West
Timor. About 30,000 to 45,000 of those never
returned, preferring to retain Indonesian
citizenship and eke out a living in temporary
camps and resettlement villages.
The UNHCR pulled out of Atambua after the three
workers from the United States, Croatia and
Ethiopia were hacked to death with knives and
machetes and their bodies burnt.
But despite that horrendous crime — and the
ridiculously light sentences subsequently handed
out to six men charged with the brutality — the
commission returned 18 months later to help in
resettling the refugees, some of them the families
of militiamen.
That comes as little surprise to those who have
admired UNHCR operations in other parts of Asia.
Without a doubt, the agency’s greatest
achievements were during the 1980s, assisting the
Vietnamese boat people, Laotian tribal refugees
and the tens of thousands of starving, malaria-
ravaged Cambodians who flooded into Thailand —
particularly from the Khmer Rouge zones —
following the 1979 Vietnamese invasion.
In Indonesia, however, the UNHCR earned the ire of
the government for its strong public statements on
human rights violations in East Timor, a position
also taken by the UN Human Rights Commission in
calling for an international inquiry into the
abuses.
In his newly published book, The Pebble In The
Shoe, ex-foreign minister Ali Alatas criticises
then-commissioner Mary Robinson for acting on her
own initiative at the request of a hostile non-
member — Portugal.
The Indonesians also acted unreasonably in blaming
the UNHCR for being in the wrong place at the
wrong time in Atambua, setting off a series of
international repercussions that, after the 1999
bloodshed, only served to isolate Jakarta further.
Still despite the worst atrocity in its history,
the agency persevered, albeit under restrictive
’Phase Five’ security precautions that were only
lifted last year.
When it finally ended its mission late last year,
all but 4,000 refugees had been permanently
resettled, mostly in West Timor. A handful moved
to the neighbouring islands of Sumba, Flores and
Bali and even fewer accepted a government offer of
free migration to Central Kalimantan, where they
would have been given 2ha of marginal land. The
main reason for not going: It was too far from
Timor. Other refugees were taken in by relatives
and friendly villagers or settled on land owned by
the Catholic Church.
Although 224,000 East Timorese had returned to
their homeland by 2002, the 400 or more
repatriated in the next three years has slowed
even more, to just 20 so far this year. The rest
took part in the 2004 parliamentary and
presidential elections, marking them as bone fide
Indonesian citizens.
Figures vary considerably. The UNHCR says it
reintegrated 28,800 East Timorese in 11
resettlement sites around West Timor, but local
officials put the number of refugees in the border
district of Beru alone at 45,000, or 12,480
families. Aware of the envy that can be aroused by
giving too much help to outsiders, the local
government has been careful not to ignore the
needs of impoverished local residents.
In the village of Naiola, south of Atambua, a
mixture of landless West Timorese farmers and
refugees from the East Timorese enclave of Oecusse
live side by side in apparent harmony. Each of the
290 families has been allotted a plot of half a
hectare, many of them planting cashew trees
provided by the World Food Program, which could
eventually earn them a tidy income. How to survive
in the meantime is a daily concern.
Farmer Augustinus Soares Oki, 29, and his wife
Josefina, 24, say life is hard, with the nearest
water 1.5km away and the newly tilled soil lacking
the nutrients to grow corn and other productive
crops. The couple tend papaya trees in their
backyard and are also feeding two rented cows,
whose second calves will become their own in
exchange.
"We work so hard, but the yield is so
disappointing," sighs Mr Oki, echoing a sad
refrain that is often heard in villages across
this sun-burnt province. On occasion he has had to
sell rocks from a nearby river to feed his family
but, for all of the difficulties, Mr Oki has never
thought of returning to his former home. "We came
here to save ourselves from the violence," he
says. “Why go back?”
It is the same for Ms Magdalena Rekomendosa, 26,
who joined the exodus from Dili in 1999 and still
lives with her husband and three children in
temporary housing on the outskirts of Atambua.
Even today, she is not sure what happened back
then when the panic began and they ran like
everyone else. "The situation was bad, but we
really didn’t understand it ourselves,“she says.”I’m Indonesian and East Timor is still so
chaotic."
Relations between East and West Timorese have been
through some testing times. No doubt irked by what
they feel was a government betrayal, many East
Timorese have a reputation as complainers whose
demands for special treatment are not always
appreciated by their equally impoverished
benefactors across the border.
The Indonesian-backed militias, blamed for causing
much of the bloodshed in 1999, have long since
been disbanded and the military which once
supported them has now entered a new, if
uncertain, era. The only recent border incident
occurred close to the town of Maliana last January
when East Timorese police shot dead three former
members of the Red and White Iron militia,
including one man who was on the UN list of war
crimes suspects.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda
accused the East Timorese of using excessive
force, but Dili claimed that the three were among
five Indonesian infiltrators who attacked the
patrolling policemen and tried to disarm them.
Whatever the truth, Indonesian troops near the
site of the incident overlooking the gravel-filled
Talau River were not happy to see recent visitors
and instructed them to leave.
With the border demarcation now largely settled,
and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
and his East Timorese counterpart Xanana Gusmao on
cordial terms, the main issue between the two
countries these days appears to be Dili’s
reluctance so far to implement a 2004 memorandum
of understanding to introduce border passes and
open three traditional markets along the 175km-
long frontier.
New Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta is said to
have promised action on both during his recent
visit to Jakarta, but no one is holding his breath
just yet. "The local East Timorese don’t have any
basic necessities," says deputy Belu district
chief Gregorius Mau Bili, a former Unicef
official. "But if we sell to them, the East
Timorese government accuses us of fostering
illegal trade. We always seem to be in the wrong."
Still, seven years after the Aug 31 referendum
that ended Indonesia’s brutal 25-year rule over
East Timor, Jakarta may finally have good reason
to complain and to trumpet the goodness of its
intentions.
POLITICS/POLITICAL PARTIES
Alkatiri’s ouster sought through extraordinary
party congress
Lusa - August 21, 2006
Dili — Intra-mural opponents of former Prime
Minister Mari Alkatiri’s continued leadership of
East Timor’s dominant FRETILIN party said Monday
they hope to convene an extraordinary congress to
elect new party leaders.
Vicente Ximenes, an organizer of the FRETILIN
Mudanca, or “change” in English, faction told Lusa
anti-Alkatiri activists were working for an
extraordinary party congress by November, at the
latest.
The Timorese are expected to go to the polls in
general elections by May of next year.
Ximenes said some 200 FRETILIN activist had met in
Dili Saturday to outline strategy for mobilizing
support for calling an extraordinary congress in
the wake of Alkatiri’s unopposed re- election as
party secretary-general in May during the
country’s spiral of violence.
Foreign Minister Jose Lums Guterres would have the
faction’s backing if he again challenges Alkatiri
for the leadership post, Ximenes said.
In anticipation of the faction meeting, FRETILIN’s
National Political Commission called Friday on
party bodies to apply “adequate treatment” to
“acts of indiscipline” by party members.
The faction failed last week in its court
challenge of Alkatiri’s re-election, when Dili’s
high court ruled that the May congress vote
through a raised-hand ballot violated neither
national law nor FRETILIN statutes.
In demanding the ouster of Alkatiri, who resigned
as prime minister on June 26, President Xanana
Gusmao also publicly questioned the “legitimacy”
of his re-election as party leader through the
show- of-hands vote.
Alkatiri is under investigation on allegations, he
denies, that he set up political hits squads
during the wave of violence.
Guterres, at the time Dili’s ambassador to the
United States and the UN, withdrew from the party
leadership race when the congress delegates opted
for the raised-hand ballot.
Facing no opposition, Alkatiri and his running
mate for party chairman, Parliament Speaker
Francisco Guterres, took nearly 94% of the vote.
Ximenes said an extraordinary party congress could
be convened in one of two ways, either through the
resignation of the current leadership, based on
statutes that interdict leaders who face
investigation on criminal charges, or the demand
of two-thirds of the party’s district committees.
Show-of-hands vote to endorse Alkatiri ’legal’
The Australian - August 15, 2006
Mark Dodd — East Timor’s highest court has
declared legal the controversial “show of hands”
vote that endorsed the leadership of then prime
minister Mari Alkatiri at a national party
congress in May.
The decision is a blow to President Xanana Gusmao,
who attacked the Fretilin party congress for
acting unconstitutionally in its bid to reassert
the authority of the Alkatiri government in the
face of worsening political violence.
The challenge was made by eight Fretilin party
moderates on behalf of Jose Luis Guterres, a
former UN ambassador who tried to unseat Dr
Alkatiri but dropped out of the running when the
party adopted a show-of-hands vote instead of a
secret ballot.
Mr Guterres’s supporters said the show of hands
was designed to intimidate voters. Mr Gusmao
agreed and later accused the Alkatiri camp of
vote-buying. But on Friday, East Timor’s Court of
Appeal ruled that voting procedures adopted at the
party congress were not in breach of the
constitution.
"This panel of judges of the Court of Appeal
decides (that) article 18 (constitution) does not
require a vote of the representative assembly of
members to be ’direct and secret’," it found. The
court said there was no basis to call on Fretilin
to reconvene a party congress to elect a new
leadership, a demand made by Mr Gusmao.
The result of the leadership spill sparked
widespread rioting in the capital Dili. On May 25,
Australian troops were sent in to restore order.
ECONOMY & INVESTMENT
East Timor doubles security spending
The Australian - August 23, 2006
Mark Dodd — East Timor will double its spending
on police and defence this financial year, under a
national budget worth $US451.9 million ($601
million).
Interim Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta’s first
budget includes $US315.5 million in spending from
the national treasury and $US136.4 million from
foreign donors, eclipsing ousted prime minister
Mari Alkatiri’s proposal for a $US215 million
budget. The Alkatiri administration spent only 37
per cent of its $US247.4 million budget last year.
Political analysts say the Horta budget is
designed to stimulate the moribund East Timorese
economy and improve security in the aftermath of
the political violence earlier this year. But with
national elections scheduled for next May, the
budget reinforces suspicions that Mr Horta is
wooing popular support with his spending plans,
which include controversial community handouts.
The budget makes an allocation for a patrol boat,
as the Government focuses more on border security.
The country’s petroleum fund savings have
increased from $US623.4million last financial year
to $US1.04billion for 2006-07.
Oil and gas revenue is up 63per cent from last
year to $US732 million, while East Timor’s
estimated petroleum wealth is calculated to have
reached $US9.4 billion.
The budget was passed by the Dili parliament on
August 14 by 64 votes to five, with one
abstention. The main feature is an increase in
spending in all categories, including salaries and
wages, which are up 30 per cent.
East Timor will open four diplomatic missions in
addition to the 14 foreign embassies it now runs.
The new missions will be in Cuba, Kuwait, the
Vatican and The Philippines. Several hundred East
Timorese are enrolled as medical students in
Havana, and many Cuban health workers work in East
Timor.
The increased defence funding covers
implementation of a new directorate of procurement
to enhance transparency in defence spending.
Defence responsibilities have been expanded to
include control of East Timor’s southern maritime
border security — a move that will require the
purchase of patrol boats.
The vice-president of parliament’s foreign
affairs, defence and security committee,
Clementino Amaral, said he hoped Australia would
assist East Timor to develop an effective maritime
patrol capability. "Most of our ocean riches are
being stolen by foreign boats," Mr Amaral told The
Australian.
"We need at least two or three new patrol boats.
This year we can afford one. We need help from
Australia, our neighbour." He said two
Portuguese-donated patrol boats were unable to
patrol in heavy seas.
Under the budget, additional police funds will be
used to open six new border security posts, build
a new police training centre and a new warehouse
for the use of riot police.
Another 249 police will be hired, bringing to 3500
the total number of officers serving in the
National Police of East Timor. The new police will
be deployed in paramilitary units, with 100
officers going into the border patrol unit, 50
into the riot police, and 99 expected to join the
Malaysian-trained counter-insurgency police
reserve.
And given the widespread arson attacks that
occurred in recent political violence, budget
approval has been given for the purchase of two
new fire-trucks to be based in Dili.
Horta says confident gas pact will get OK
Reuters - August 18, 2006
Jerry Norton, Dili — An agreement critical to
advancing development of the Timor Sea’s biggest
gas resource could go to East Timor’s parliament
in September or October, and would likely be
approved, the country’s prime minister said.
Oil and gas producers have said they are waiting
for the deal to be ratified before committing to
development of the Greater Sunrise area, estimated
to hold 8 trillion cubic feet of gas and up to 300
million barrels of condensate.
“I am confident it will be approved,” East Timor
Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta told Reuters in an
interview on Friday, but he added he wasn’t sure
whether the agreement would go to parliament, now
in recess, in September or October.
About 20 percent of Greater Sunrise lies in a
Joint Petroleum Production Area (JPDA) between
Australia and East Timor and the rest in what
Australia calls its exclusive jurisdiction.
Under the JPDA 90 percent of royalty revenues go
to East Timor and 10 percent to Australia, while
the new agreement would share remaining revenues
50-50, potentially delivering up to $14.5 billion
to impoverished East Timor over 20 years.
Australia has been putting off its own
ratification waiting for East Timor to act first.
Greater Sunrise operator Woodside Petroleum Ltd
froze the $5 billion project in 2004 while waiting
for Canberra and Dili to iron out their
differences.
Another sticking point has been whether to build a
liquefied natural gas processing plant for Greater
Sunrise in East Timor and a pipeline to feed it
the field’s production, or to send it to a plant
being built in northern Australia.
"The remaining issue to be resolved is the
direction of the pipeline, where the pipeline
goes, to Darwin or to Timor,“said Ramos-Horta.”We believe it makes more economic sense,
commercial sense, that it comes to East Timor, but
we don’t deal with it in a dogmatic, Biblical
manner,“he said.”If we are persuaded through an independent
study... that it makes more sense to go to
Australia, then (so) be it, but we would then want
some downstream compensation because of the loss
of additional revenues that we know would come to
our side if the pipeline were to come to East
Timor."
Ramos-Horta said he hoped the study could be
finished by the end of the year.
In addition to Woodside, Greater Sunrise’s
stakeholders include ConocoPhillips, Royal
Dutch/Shell and Japan’s Osaka Gas Co. Ltd..
Woodside is 34 percent-owned by Shell.
Ramos-Horta also said he was receiving next week
"a significant delegation from the Middle East,
from the Gulf countries, from Kuwait, from India
to negotiate with them serious investment in
infrastructure," including, among various
projects, an "oil refinery to refine oil and
export to Australia, Indonesia and so on".
The prime minister said he had just given the
green light to an East Timorese company to build
new oil storage facilities in the country which in
nine months would have a capacity of up to 10,000
tonnes, "which is far more than the current oil
storage facility we have with far better price".
Indonesia’s state-owned Pertamina supplies the
existing facility, while the new one would deal
with Malaysia’s Petronas, Ramos-Horta added.
Timor parliament passes delayed US$315 million
budget
Agence France Presse - August 9, 2006
East Timor’s parliament has passed the 2006-7
fiscal year budget, the young nation’s largest
ever at 315 million dollars, after a delay caused
by violence and political upheaval in May.
East Timor’s fiscal year began on July 1, days
after Mari Alkatiri stepped down as prime minister
in the wake of deadly unrest sparked by the
dismissal of some 600 soldiers who deserted
complaining of discrimination.
Nobel peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta was sworn in
to replace him last month and is leading a
government that will rule until elections in May
next year.
Ramos-Horta has already presented the government’s
planned program to parliament, which focuses on
stimulating Asia’s poorest economy through
infrastructure projects.
Sixty-six members of the 88-seat parliament voted
in favour of the budget, which is 121 percent
higher than last year. Two voted against. The
government will also tap into 100 million dollars
provided by international donors, an increase of
300 percent on 2005-6.
"With the 66 votes for, two against and zero
abstaining, it was a true, good process and the
prime minister has already said that the
government promised to implement this budget,"
deputy prime minister Rui Araujo told reporters.
Of the expenditure, 122 million will be for goods
and services and 120 million is slated for capital
development, a government statement said.
Ramos-Horta plans a meeting with all district and
subdistrict heads at the end of August to discuss
kickstarting the economy.
East Timor’s economy grew by 2.3 percent last
year, up from 0.4 percent in 2004. About 40
percent of the population lives below a poverty
line set at 55 cents a day, according to United
Nations figures.
Despite the millions of dollars expected to flow
from its rich reserves of oil and gas in the
coming years, the UN has warned that the income is
fraught with uncertainties and the country still
needs financial support from donors.
May’s violence left at least 21 people dead and
forced 150,000 to flee their homes. The refugees
remain in camps, too afraid to return home despite
the presence of some 3,000 international
peacekeepers in the nation.
It was the worst unrest to hit East Timor since it
gained independence in 2002, after a 1999 vote to
breakaway from neighbouring Indonesia which ruled
it for 24 years.
DAILY MEDIA REVIEWS
East Timor daily media review - August 1-29, 2006
[Compiled by the UNOTIL Public Information Office
from national and international sources.]
August 29, 2006
Homes burnt in Wailili
MP Norberto Esperito Santo told the media on
Monday that violence between two sub-villages
resulted in the burning of 25 houses in Wailili,
Baucau sub-district. According to Esperito Santo
the grave of former Falintil commander, Rubliki
was also destroyed in the fire as well as some
coconut, breadfruit and Kami trees. He said that
the Baucau PNTL detained a suspect and also found
ammunition, which includes a pistol, a magazine
and a heavy weapon. The people whose homes were
affected by the fire have received assistance from
the Ministry of Labour and Community Reinsertion
of Baucau, although life has returned to normality
the population is too traumatized with the events
to resume their daily routine, Norberto Esperito
Santo said. According to Diario Nacional, the
information could neither be confirmed with Baucau
PNTL commander nor the District Administrator via
telephone. (DN)
MPs question actions of Australian police
Various MPs spoke out strongly during the
Parliament plenary session on Monday against the
behaviour of the Australian Federal Police (AFP)
for ordering the PNTL members to strip off their
uniforms in public in Comoro on Saturday (26/8).
The MPs said that the behaviour of the AFP was a
serious disregard to the sovereign state of
Timor-Leste, and wanted the Parliament to ask
those responsible to clarify the issue. MP
Francisco Branco (Fretilin) said that apart from
the attitude which not only violated human rights
and the dignity of each person but also that of
the state institution, adding that the order by
AFP to PNTL to remove their uniforms, was not a
dignified attitude and that the Parliament must
strongly protest against it. Others MPs that spoke
against Saturday’s incidents were from PSD, UDT,
KOTA, UDC.
In a separate article in Diario Nacional, MPs,
Jooquim dos Santos (Fretilin) and Maria Paixao
(PSD) said that the bilateral forces, commanded by
Australian forces were not stopping the violence
but creating it as shown by the reality amongst
the youths. Joaquim said that the international
forces restoring order must follow the country’s
law and order as per the agreement ratified by the
National Parliament. The agreement Timor-Leste
signed was to provide security and not to provoke
conflict, adding that the international forces had
been handing over youths detained by them to
others youths to beat them up. These actions,
Santos said, showed that the forces were creating
conflict in the country. He added that if the
forces wished to create conflict it would be
better for them to leave the country. MP Maria
Paixao (PSD) said that if the international forces
were neutral they should not have ordered a member
of PNTL to remove his police uniform in the public
as the Timorese culture is different from the
international forces. She said that the Parliament
must speak to the Australian commanders and take
action against the members of the international
forces who acted in that manner, which was not
well received by the population and was against
the Timorese culture. (DN, STL, TP)
New mission must provide good advisors
The American Ambassador to Timor-Leste, Joseph
Grover Rees told the Timor Post on Monday that the
new UN mission must provide good advisors to
Timor-Leste in order to quickly help resolve the
problems the people were currently facing. The
Ambassador gave the example of the absence of an
investigator in the Prosecutor General’s office,
adding that an international investigator must be
employed to train a Timorese to take over the job.
On the judicial system Joseph Rees said the
international prosecutors and judges must
reinforce the judicial system in Timor-Leste to
help the Timorese judges, prosecutors, and public
defendants to perform their duties in a better
manner in order for the judiciary to serve with
capacity. According to him the judicial system
must perform better following the crisis and that
could be achieved with the mutual cooperation
between the international and national police. The
US Ambassador said that back in 2004 he was sad
when the Timorese judges and prosecutors stopped
their judicial training, leaving a few expatriates
to take care of the system, but was overwhelmed
when he participated in a ceremony in June for
Timorese who became judges, prosecutors, public
defenders and legal officers.
Speaking at a press conference on Monday held at
the UN compound in Dili, SRSG Sukehiro Hasegawa
said that the new United Nations Integrated
Mission in Timor-Leste would restore justice and
continue to investigate the crimes against
humanity in 1999. SRSG further said that the UN
Security Council encouraged Timor-Leste to put
into use the available electoral legislation
packet for the 2007 elections. Hasegawa explained
that the adoption of resolution 1704, to establish
UNMIT, which would be composed of an appropriate
police contingent of 1608 and an initial component
of 34 military liaison officials. UNMIT would
assist the government of Timor-Leste in all
aspects ranging from institutional to election
support said the Head of the UN in Timor-Leste.
On the same occasion the UN Acting Police
Commissioner, Antero Lopez told the participants
that the UN could not provide better training for
the PNTL because the Timorese State kept on asking
the UN to transfer the powers to the Timorese
police. Lopez said that Timor-Leste like any new
country required time to perform their duties and
that maturity could only be achieved step by step.
He said that the mistake was the lacking of a
strong culture in the training area which could
not sustain the existing police service. The
Acting UN Police Commissioner said that mechanisms
must be put in place in order to have a system for
the police that would not to be under political
pressure in order to avoid crisis in the rule of
law.
MPs Branco (Fretilin) and Ximenes (UDC) said that
Timor-Leste at the moment only required
international police under the auspices of the
United Nations to maintain law and order and
restore PNTL. They are of the opinion that the
country did not yet require a peace keeping force.
(TP, DN)
UN Security Council commends people, government
Timor-Leste Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jose Luis
Guterres said that the United Nations Security
Council had praised the people and the government
of Timor-Leste for putting in the efforts to
improve the situation in the country. The Council
had also praised the work of the international
forces currently in Timor-Leste such as the
Australian, Portuguese GNR, Malaysian, New Zealand
and has asked the forces to work together with the
United Nations to protect the UN personnel and the
installations throughout the country, said the
former Timor-Leste Ambassador to the UN. He added
that the negotiations for the new mission, UNMIT
were not easy due the problems in other part of
the world like the Middle East and Africa,
therefore he reminded the Timorese people that
although the international community still
sympathized with the Timorese people, it was up to
them to be conscious of the problems around the
world and to put in efforts to resolve their
problems and not wait for the international
community. The new Foreign Minister further said
that the international community voted unanimously
in support of the new mission and that the
Security Council was concerned about the IDPs
especially women and children. He added that due
to the many global problems, the Timorese must try
and resolve their political problems or face not
having any help if similar problem arose. On the
new Special Representative, he said that it was
not yet known who would be heading the new
mission. (DN)
Better to wait for the results of investigation of
PNTL members: Freitas
The chairperson of National NGO East Timor
People’s Action (ETPA), Cicilio Caminho Freitas
thought that it was better for the Ministry of
Interior to wait for the result of the
investigation from the UN Independent Special
Commission of Inquiry for East Timor before
reactivating the PNTL. The members of the PNTL
should be vetted on their involvement in the
crisis. In addition, in relation to the
government’s plan to promote the reconciliation,
Mr. Freitas said that the reconciliation planned
by the government should start from the political
elites, particularly those who were from the
1975’s era. (TP)
Re-structuring of the F-FDTL and PNTL should
depended on recommendations: Amaral
Vice President of Commission C, National
Parliament, Clementino dos Reis Amaral told the
journalists that before re-structuring the
institution of both PNTL and F-FDTL, it was better
to wait for the result of the Assessment Team.
(STL)
Reconciliation will not resolve all problems:
Basilio
Bishop of Baucau, Dom Basilio do Nacimento told
the journalists that the reconciliation promoted
by the government should be implemented step by
step. They had to separate the problems according
to political, ethnical and judicial grounds. So
that both political and judicial decisions must be
carried out separately. (TP)
Prime Minister and Bishop Nacimento meet to
discuss the government budget for the Catholic
Church
On Friday, 25 August 2006 Dr. Horta and the Bishop
of Baucau, discussed the government’s support of
the church projects. Apart from this discussion,
Dr. Horta also asked for the advice of Dom
Nacimento in relation to the crisis and a reunion
plan meeting that would be held in Dili on August
29th 2006. (STL & TP)
August 26/28, 2006
New mission starts with traffic campaign
The New Expanded United Nations mission in Timor-
Leste began with a community awareness education
campaign, focusing on traffic rules and
regulations for safety and security. United
Nations police currently in the country handed out
leaflets to motorists at various locations in
Dili. A motorist by the name of Amandio dos Reis
said that the distribution of information was
important in reminding the motorists to follow the
rules, as the traffic in Dili had been in disarray
following the recent conflict. (DN)
It’ll be another month before UN police arrive:
Horta
Prime Minister Ramos-Horta said that although the
UN approved the new mission for Timor-Leste on
Friday, it would take another month before the
1600 police officers arrived in the country,
adding that all nations supported the Security
Council’s decision to send the police force. In
relation to the peace keeping forces, the Minister
said that the Security Council would make that
decision in the month of October. Ramos-Horta
stressed that the Timor-Leste government was
prepared and ready to work with the UN since
Timor-Leste was the one requesting the UN to send
its forces in order to assist in the
reorganization of police and the F-FDTL. He
further added that the government will try and
work closely with the United Nations and with all
the nations that want to help the country, but the
problem of Timor-Leste has to be resolved by all
the Timorese people through dialogue and
reconciliation not only at the level of the
leaders but also that of the youth. (TP, STL)
Police detained 62 people in Comoro
In an early Saturday morning operation, the
international forces detained 62 people including
the head of the gang who had attacked a police
officer a week earlier. The operation lead by the
Australian command with the support of the
Portuguese Guarda da Republica (GNR), and the
Malaysians, caught the residents of Comoro by
surprise and confiscated various items used by
youths during violent attacks.
In a separate article, there were reports of
assaults in some areas of Dili especially in
Becora area. An IDP in Becora parish said many
people have tried to go back to their homes but
had to return to the parish due to threats made by
unknown people in their area. (TP)
UN will attend to security demands: Hasegawa
During his visit to the districts of Bobonaro and
Suai, SRSG Sukehiro Hasegawa told the government
officials and PNTL officers that the UN would
guarantee the security demands through the
increased presence of police with the new mission.
SRSG Hasegawa said that a third of the police
incorporated in the new mission will be stationed
at the districts and would be in charge of the
executive policing especially in Dili, but
stressed that they would work together with the
PNTL officers to help develop their capacity in
community policing. In Maliana a senior PNTL
officer presented some of the difficulties faced
by the institution such as lack generators,
transport and computers, and also suggested
reactivation of the solar system to help with
running water.
The concerns raised in Covalima by government
officials were the improvement of security,
transport, electricity and the need for better
communications including radio and television. The
officials also feel that the political situation
has to be resolved but believe that the
reconciliation must start with the national
leaders. The Head of UNOTIL said that he will
present to the Prime Minister and the President of
the Republic their concerns and through the UN
agencies in Timor-Leste would try to find the
resources contributed by the donor countries, but
the most important thing was for the government
officials in the districts to be responsible and
guarantee that the funds allocated in the national
budget to the district must be carefully spent so
as to benefit the people, reported STL Monday.
Diario Nacional reported that the visit of the
SRSG to the two districts was to listen to the
concerns and observe the conditions of the
population at the base level in terms of security
and politics. According to DN, during the meeting
in Maliana, the Administrator of Balibo, Lucia
Fina informed that some of the sub-villages had
resumed illegal trading with West Timor and vice-
versa. Also a few people had taken some young
women to Atambua in order to sell them to
Malaysia, adding that to-date these girls have yet
to return. The Administrator of Bobonaro, Beatriz
Martins said that the government had not been
functional since May 5 due to the commission’s
boycott as there were allegations of unknown
groups terrorizing the population, so the leaders
had to flee and take refuge in Dili. (STL, DN)
No tolerance for companies that violate law: Zito
In relation to the case of Makikit Hardware
Company that sacked several East Timorese workers
during the ET crisis, the Confederation of the
Syndicate (trade union) in East Timor through Zito
da Costa said it will not tolerate any companies
that violate the law that existed in East Timor
particularly the labor law. According to Zito
based on the labor law article 36 said that any
company can sack its employees but should be based
on the fundamental reasons stated in the East
Timor law.
In order to execute the budget well, government
should modify the Organic Law: Tilman
The president of the Commission C, Manuel Tilman
told the new decree law is too centralized and in
order to execute the current budget successfully,
the government should modify the organic law. (TP)
August 25, 2006
Reorganization of defence will follow commission’s
report: Horta
Speaking at the Parliament plenary session on
Thursday, Prime-Minister Jose Ramos-Horta who is
also the Minister for Defense said that the
reorganization of the National Defense Forces must
await the results of the Notable Commission
previously established by the former Prime
Minister Mari Alkatiri. Ramos-Horta told the
Parliament that the legislation for the Defense
Force will be ready by September and it will help
with the restructuring of F-FDTL and the new
recruits. He added that the government had not
forgotten the ’petitioners’ case and was putting
all the efforts to hold a dialogue with the group.
The Minister also told the Parliamentarians that
according to the Government’s plans for 2007, the
Ministry of Defense will select officers from the
national defense force at the Major level to work
in Timor-Leste’s embassies. He stressed that the
purpose is to cooperate with the defense forces of
the nations where they will be stationed at in
order to have a better Timor-Leste Defense Force
in the future.
Jose Ramos-Horta informed the MPs that the
government had already approved the budget to
build 100 homes in Metinaro for F-FDTL officials,
adding that the defense force budget will also
include new uniforms for F-FDTL, who had been
wearing uniforms donated by various countries.
(TP, DN)
August 24, 2006
National hospital insecure
The national hospital is becoming vulnerable due
to the constant stone fighting and the presence of
unknown faces, said Antonio Caleres Junior,
Director of the hospital. According to Caleres
there have been a few incidents where people
seeking medical treatment could not proceed to the
hospital. He pointed out that many pregnant women
came to the hospital to give birth but could not
proceed into the compound and had to have their
babies delivered at a private clinic. Antonio
Caleres further said the facilities of the
hospital cannot be used by patients as it is being
used by other people. He said he has observed a
few people carrying light weapons such as
machetes, walking into the hospital. He believes
some of people currently in the hospital have
moved from Obrigado Barrack and Jardim (opposite
port) camps. The Director of the national hospital
asked the international police to set up a police
post at the hospital so that the public can seek
medical treatment safely. (STL)
Permanent police posts
At Wednesday’s plenary session of the National
Parliament, Minister of Interior, Alcino Barris
told the MPs that the International and National
police will establish six permanent police posts
around Dili, in areas where conflict still arises.
Barris said PNTL will work with the International
Forces in these posts.
Vice-Prime Minister Rui Maria de Arazjo said the
government is carrying out an evaluation process
on the commanders and agents of PNTL, adding that
those involved in crimes would be handed over to
the courts, while the ones who are found not
guilty of any crime must resume their duties and
work with the international police. He said the
Evaluation Commission comes under the Minister of
Interior and will work with the evaluation panel,
which is composed of the Vice-Minister of
Interior, UN Police Commissioner, a representative
from the Prosecutor General’s Office, Superior
Council of Defence and religious leaders.
On the issue of security, Nicolao Freitas, a 31-
year-old-man from Manumeta Raihun said around
11p.m. on Monday night while he was sitting on the
street outside his house with four of his friends,
international forces dressed in GNR uniforms with
their faces covered and speaking in Portuguese
beat him up. He said they suddenly appeared out of
the dark and went straight for him. They picked
him up and beat him with iron bars and gun butts.
According to Freitas, as he was hand cuffed and
taken away as he yelled to the neighbor to inform
his wife that he was being taken away by the
international forces. Upon hearing this they
punched him a few times and then let him go.
Nicolao Freitas was taken to the hospital by a
priest from the Cathedral Parish who decided to
visit the neighborhood following the shootings on
Monday night. He appealed to the international
forces to inform the communities of their patrols
and to act in a way so as to avoid further
violence. (TP, STL)
Civil society supports UN presence
The civil society welcomed the UN presence, as it
continues to provide better support in the area of
security for the population, said Director NGO
Forum, Angelina Sarmento. According to Sarmento,
the conflict in the past months has affected many
people. She said the forces in Timor-Leste should
be under the command of the United Nations.
Angelina Sarmento also said the NGO Forum is
promoting dialogue in the suburbs and targeting
the youths as many of them have chosen the wrong
path and they must be encouraged to resort to
dialogue and learn to listen to each rather than
following those that want to create problems.
(STL)
Yudhoyono sent plane for PM to participate in
meeting (TPp1)
Prime Minister Ramos-Horta flew out of Dili on
Wednesday morning in a special plane sent by the
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yodhoyono to
participate in a meeting in Jakarta. The meeting
of the ASEAN leaders took place in Jakarta on
Wednesday. According to the Vice-Prime Minister
Rui Maria de Araujo, the head of the government
was not scheduled to participate in the meeting
but the Indonesian President wanted Ramos-Horta to
be present, therefore he sent a plane specifically
to pick him up. The meeting was about bilateral
ties and security in the region. The Prime
Minister is due to fly back to Dili on Thursday
morning.
On the issue of security, Vice-Minister Araujo
said the government is sad as violence continues
in the capital Dili, referring to the attacks in
Comoro on Tuesday night, which left an
international vehicle totally destroyed. (TP)
August 23, 2006
Ministers must put aside political interest:
Bishop Basilio
The Bishop of Baucau Diocese, Don Basilio do
Nascimento said the Timor-Leste government has a
large composition compared to some other nations
twice as big as Timor-Leste and yet those nations
still manage to carry their country forward even
with a smaller government composition. Despite the
number of ministers and secretaries of state, the
Bishop said he hopes the main objective of the
government is to carry the country forward adding
that each minister knows his/her duty to the
nation and personal and political interests should
be left aside. He said an accusation made by
President Xanana Gusmao that some secretaries of
state carry out their work influenced by personal
interest is based on information the President,
himself, received. He congratulated President
Xanana for having the courage to point a finger
starting at those who are not performing their
duties with integrity.
In reference to the court process against the
former Minister of Interior and former Prime
Minister, Bishop Basilio do Nascimento is of the
opinion that the court must be allowed time to do
their work but the court must also be aware that
the longer it takes the more the public will begin
to doubt the process. (STL) UN has agreed on
police force but still discussing military
presence
Francisco ’Lu’Olo’ Guterres, President of the
National Parliament said the UN has accepted the
presence of a UN police force in Timor-Leste but
it is still debating over a military component. In
response to the concerns of some MPs regarding the
security situation, Lu’Olo said the police
including the 360 military should all be under the
command of the UN. (STL)
Government allocates US$10 million to rebuild
homes
The President for Commission A of the National
Parliament responsible for Constitutional Affairs,
Rights, Freedoms and Guarantees, said the
government has allocated US$10 million for the
people whose homes were destroyed during the
crisis. Vicente Guterres said the fund is part of
the State budget for the fiscal year 2006/2007. He
said the people who lost their homes must present
a report with concrete data to government, which
will be double checked by a team established by
the government on the accuracy of the report and
which will take time to resolve. He further said,
according to Prime Minister Ramos-Horta, UNHCR
will provide tents for temporary use by IDPs who
do not have a house to return to. Ramos-Horta said
the government will only help the owner of the
houses burnt during the crisis and not those who
are illegally occupying state houses or those
belonging to others. On the question of a new
suburb, the Prime Minister said it was an idea
raised to create a suburb for those people who did
not have homes or were illegally occupying the
houses that do not belong to them. (TP)
Petitioners reluctant to approach government
Lieutenant Colonel Salsinha Gastao, the
spokesperson for former military group ’the
petitioners’, said he is not reluctant to approach
the government to try and resolve their problem
but some of their demands to the government have
not been met. Gastao pointed to the detention of
Major Alfredo who received an order from President
Xanana Gusmao to move to Dili but was later
detained and put in prison. He said apart from
this, together with his group, they were prepared
to travel to Dili to meet and work with the
government to resolve their problem as requested
by Prime Minister Ramos-Horta. Salsinha added that
Prime Minister Ramos-Horta must also resolve the
small problems in Dili. For the time being Gastao
said, the ’petitioners’ will wait for the results
of the International Inquiry Commission with whom
they have already met and for its report to be
made public. (TP)
August 22, 2006
Prosecutor General must not close Alkatiri’s case
President of the National Parliament, Francisco
’Lu’Olo’ Guterres said the Prosecutor-General will
address the Parliament soon to explain the
investigation results on former Prime Minister
Mari Alkatiri in relation to allegations of guns
distribution to civilians. Guterres told the media
on Monday that MPs are concerned with the
investigation results regarding Alkatiri which has
not been made public, adding that the MPs’
concerns are fundamental and just because the
Prosecutor-General presents his report to the
Parliament each year but this year he has not yet
been called due to the crisis. ’Lu’Olo’ said the
results of the investigation process of
allegations against Mari Alkatiri should be made
available by now but for unknown reasons the
Public Ministry keeps delaying it. The President
of the Parliament stressed it is important for the
results of the investigation to be made public for
Mari Alkatiri to exercise his function as Member
of Parliament and concentrate on legislation.
According to Jornal Diaro Nacional, Francisco
’Lu’Olo’ Guterres will also invite the Minister of
Defence and the Minister of Interior to explain
the security development of the nation starting
from the crisis up to the present.
In a separate article, MP Francisco Branco
(Fretilin) appealed to Parliamentarians with
evidence in relation to allegations of some MPs’
involvement in arms assault, distribution of guns
to civilians, and commands to attack the
government food warehouse during the crisis, to
report to the judicial sovereignty. According to
Diario Nacional, Branco suggested the Parliament
plenary session on Monday establish a
Parliamentary Eventual Enquiry Committee to
investigate MPs allegedly involved in the crisis.
(TP, DN)
According to media reports Tuesday, a former
Falintil member accused of being involved in May
25 incidents is currently under pre-trial
detention as per Dili District court decision on
Monday (21/80.
People wishing to divide Timorese are not
nationalist: Belo
Former Bishop of Dili Diocese, Don Carlos Ximenes
Belo told Diario Nacional, the terms Lorosae and
Loromonu are used by people wishing to divide the
Timorese people, adding these people are neither
nationalists nor patriotic. Belo said he cannot
comment further on the situation as he is not
presently in the country but stressed people from
’east’ or ’west’ are all Timorese people and one
is not above the other. He further said the youths
involved in thefts and the destruction of
properties should not consider themselves
Christians and Timorese. Belo said political
leaders, for their own interest, are creating the
’issue’ of Lorosae and Loromonu adding that the
capital Dili belongs to all Timorese. He appealed
to the people to be humble and forgive each other.
(DN)
Youth attitude positive: Goncalves
MP Joe Goncalves (PSD) congratulated a group of
youth from Ermera District for their initiative in
overcoming the division of Lorosae-Loromonu, by
participating in Falintil commemorations in Baucau
on August 20. According to Goncalves the youth
initiative is a positive step towards peace and
stability in the nation. MP Francisco Xavier
(ASDT) said the attitude the youth demonstrated
must be honored for showing a good example to the
leaders, the population and other youths in
forgiving one another. On Sunday, around 100
youths from Ermera traveled to Baucau to
participate in Falintil’s commemoration day.
According to media reports, F-FDTL Chief of Staff,
Colonel Lere Annan Timur and Commander Falur Rate
Lae welcomed the group in tears. (DN)
’Fretilin Grupo Mudanca’ will hold extraordinary
congress
’Fretilin Grupo Mudanca’ will hold the second
extraordinary congress following extensive
consultation with former delegates as well as
representatives from the districts. The
extraordinary congress will be held at the end of
the month of September. According to Victor da
Costa, leader of the group, the second
extraordinary congress has the full consent of the
members.
In the meantime, former coordinator and founder of
Ojetil, [a youth group of Fretilin] called Traccoa
stated that it is necessary to hold the second
extraordinary congress in order for Fretilin to
win the 2007 elections. Traccoa further said that
in 2001 many members left and joined other parties
due to their dislike of the system applied by Mari
Alkatiri in Fretilin. Therefore, he added, it is
important to hold the extraordinary congress to
change the leadership. (STL)
August 19, 2006
Debate on restructure of defence force and police
Prime Minister Ramos-Horta said debate on the
future of PNTL and F-FDTL, especially the future
defence policy, will take place in the National
Parliament with the participation of some entities
including the civil society. The Minister stressed
there will be restructuring for F-FDTL as a
defence institution but not to the commanders,
adding his Ministry has presented the restructure
plans to the Council of Ministers for discussion
before presenting it to the National Parliament.
Following the weekly meeting with the President of
the Republic on Friday (18/8) Ramos-Horta told the
media that on September 14 he would hold a meeting
with District Administrators and heads of villages
regarding the allocation of the budget to the
districts. He said the meeting would be held in
Baucau and Suai. (TP, DN)
Public defenders should be active: Ramos-Horta
On Friday the Prime Minister visited Becora Prison
where he met with prisoners to check on their
living conditions. According to Ramos-Horta, the
conditions have improved a little but he stressed
that the government needs to look carefully into
the situation to make sure the prisoners are
treated with humanity. He also said the government
would strengthen the security of the prison as a
measure to prevent threats from outside. During
the visit, the Minister also appealed to the
Public Defender to work harder on pending cases
because all are entitled to the right to defense
in the courts. (TP)
Former Falintil members surrenders to
international forces
A former Falintil members from region III, known
as Oan Kiak turned himself in to the international
forces on Friday afternoon in relation to
accusations related to May 25 incident. According
to the commander of international police, Steve
Lancaster, Oan Kiak has been accused of murder,
possession of illegal weapons and other offences
though none related to the shooting of PNTL
officers in Caicoli. Lancaster who refused to
reveal the place of the surrender said a member of
F-FDTL accompanied Oan Kiak who gave himself up
peacefully and said he will appear in court next
week. The Commander of the international forces
also said they are aware of other people currently
the subject of arrest warrants and having been
involved in the incident and he appealed to them
to surrender peacefully like Oan Kiak has done.
On Monday Suara Timor Lorosae reported MPs from
UDT and ASDT as saying they totally agree with the
statement of Parliament Vice-President Jacob
Fernandes that the international forces are not
serious in disarming armed groups. According to
the two MPs, the international forces have been in
Timor-Leste for a while now but the situation
remains the same and even though the disarmament
process has taken place many groups continue to be
armed. The two MPs also claim they received
information of shootings from the districts which
has been reported to the international forces but
the incidents have not been looked into by the
forces. Alexandre Corte-Real (UDT) said the
’door-to-door’ campaign for next year’s elections
should start now and he’s worried that the
political parties cannot proceed with the
activities due to the number of people still in
possession of illegal weapons.
In a separate article, MP Elizario Ferreira
(Fretilin) said F-FDTL must correctly explain to
the population the misunderstanding or behavior
that led to the crisis. Ferreira said the defence
force must reconcile themselves and try to
approach the population to explain the motives
that led to the crisis. He said that the Timorese
people have been forgiving provided the mistake is
acknowledged. He cited the experience of 1999 as
an example of that. He suggested that the armed
forces put their professionalism above all and
embrace all Timorese from east to west. (DN, TP,
STL)
SRSG believes international forces can act to stop
violence
SRSG Sukehiro Hasegawa said during a press
conference on Friday, he believes the
international forces are sufficient to handle any
type of violence up until the elections in 2007.
Hasegawa said the groups attacking the refugees’
camps are not of east or west ethnic background.
He added that the UN is concerned about how to
scale down the violence that continues on the
streets. The Head of UNOTIL said the attack on
Obrigado Barrack refugee camp was committed by
unknown group as the camp has a mixture of people
from east and west. He added that in order for the
population to return to their homes, the
communities must work together with the
international forces. SRSG stressed that the work
the UN is currently doing requires the assistance
of other agencies to analyze and study the reasons
leading to the behavior of the people committing
these acts and to remind the offenders that their
behavior is not helping the community.
According to Diario Nacional Monday, Deputy Prime
Minister Rui Araujo said the government will fund
NGOs ’not to keep their mouth shut’ but with the
intention of becoming partners in the
implementation of the state budget for fiscal year
2006/2007. Arazjo said the support will stop the
mistrust between the civil society and the
government which is crucial to the development of
the country. He said the funding to the NGOs
varies from social activities to development and
will help to implement the program in the
communities. The state budget has been approved by
the Parliament and is awaiting the President of
the Republic to promulgate it. (DN, TP, STL)
Alkatiri’s statement will lead to Fretilin loss
Leader of ’Fretilin Mudanca’, Egidio de Jesus said
the declaration of Mari Alkatiri regarding his
group like a ’pest’ will lead to the loss of
Fretilin in 2007 elections. De Jesus said in order
to save Fretilin, Mari Alkatiri and Rogerio Lobato
should no longer be speaking on behalf of the
party. He added both should not take part in
Fretilin’s Central Committee (CCF) due to the
allegations of guns distribution and they will
soon to appear in court. (STL)
August 18, 2006
Court of appeals is independent
In response to Xanana’s statement made in June
that current leaders of Fretilin were illegal and
illegitimate, Akatiri said that the president has
no competency to interpret law or even if he can
he could not make any decision. After of Court of
Appeals made decision that Fretilin’s leaders are
legal and legitimate last Friday, he added that
the Court of Appeal is an independent body and
made its decision based on facts not opinions.
Lucia Lobato, MP from PSD party told the media at
National Party that all citizens have right to
interpret law and have right express their
opinions but the court is the one would make any
decision. (DN, STL)
International troops not serious about disarming
civilian groups
Vice President of National Parliament (NP) Jocob
Fernandes told the media at NP that political
crisis in Timor-Leste is still tense because
international troops are not serious about dealing
with the armed civilian groups. "In the districts
many armed civilian groups still carry weapons
around but international troops are not serious
about disarming them" said Fernandes. According to
Fernandes the current situation would not help
facilitate general election due to the civilian
arms still around threatening people and political
parties would not be brave enough to campaign
their political programs. "We don’t know who still
carries weapons around and how many weapons have
been recovered by the international troops but
when you see television some of weapons are not
owned by PNTL and F-FDTL for example model SKS and
GRM" said Fernandes. To follow general election
schedule internationals must work with PNTL and
F-FDTL to disarm armed civilian groups because
they know people who are involved in crimes
Fernandes added.
Government will hold open debate about future of
defense
After weekly meeting with the President Xanana
Gusmao at the Palace of Ashes, Prime Minister
Ramos Horta told the media that reformation of
PNTL and F-FDTL must be discussed seriously and
the government will hold open debate in National
Parliament so that civil society can be involved
in discussion about the future of F-FDTL. TP
reported that Horta’s weekly meeting with the
president also discussed the national budget which
has been approved by the National Parliament and
also the government will hold an extraordinary
meeting with the civil society and 13 district
administrators to see the implementation of the
budget fiscal year 2006/2007. In the meantime
Horta also mentioned two candidates Zacarias Costa
& Nelson do Santos for as possible new UN
Ambassador candidates, to replace Jose Luis
Gutteres who was appointed as Foreign Minister
last month. Horta explained that he had discussed
with the President of Republic to choose one of
them to be a new ambassador. (TP, STL)
Longuinhos should announce result of Alkatiri’s
hearing
MP from Fretilin Party, Osorio Florindo told TP
that Prosecutor General Longuinhos should announce
result of Alkatiri’s hearing because people are
waiting to hear who is the most responsible for
this crisis in which thousands of thousands people
have lost their properties and live in IDP camps.
"People are waiting the result of the hearing and
why still not been announced?" asked Florindo.
Florindo also asked Prosecutor General to
investigate Rai Los and Labadaen groups who gave
evidence of weapons distribution in this country.
MP from UDT party Alexandre Corte-Real also agreed
that in order to accelerate the process of Rogerio
Lobato and Mari Alkatiri’s case, Prosecutor
General should investigate those people who were
involved this crisis. (TP)
August 17, 2006
Too early for new F-FDTL recruits
Two opposition parties, KOTA and UDT have
expressed discontent with the announcement by
Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Ramo-Horta
on planning for new recruitment for the armed
forces. MP Clementino Amaral (KOTA) is of the
opinion that new recruitment should proceed
following the investigation by the notable
commission on claims of discrimination within the
defence institution by the 600 soldiers dismissed
a few months ago. UDT spokesperson, Alexandre
Corte-Real is of the opinion that the problems of
the petitioners must first be resolved as there is
no urgency for new recruits since the
international forces are now guaranteeing
stability if there is an external threat. He
stressed that it is better for the government to
concentrate on the general elections as it is
nearing close to that time. (TP, STL) Xanana does
not have the capacity to interpret law: Alkatiri
The President of the Republic does not have the
competence to interpret the law or he may
interpret it but he cannot decide on legitimacy"
said Mari Alkatiri during a press conference on
Tuesday, following the court decision on Friday,
ruling legitimacy of the re-election of Mari
Alkatiri as Secretary-General and Francisco
’Lu’Olo’ Guterres as President of Fretilin during
the party’s second congress on May 17-19. On
claims that Fretilin distributed guns and bought
votes during the congress, Alkatiri said the
decision of the Court of Appeals constitutes
legitimacy for leaders of the party, namely
Guterres and Alkatiri, to make claims of
defamation against the party.
In a separate article in Diario Nacional, Alkatiri
said there is only one Fretilin which has
registered in the Court of Appeals. If other
people want to create a new party, he said
referring to ’Fretilin Grupo Mudanca,’ to enable
them to run for the elections, that is fine or
they have the option of voting for other parties.
He added that Fretilin’s door is open to anybody
who wants to rejoin the party with the intention
of improving it and defending democracy and the
rights of the state (direito de estado). He is
confident, he said, that the party will win the
2007 elections.
Francisco ’Lu’Olo’ Guterres said the decision of
the Court of Appeals means ’Fretilin Grupo
Mudanca’ has lost their claims and according to
article 62 of the party’s constitution, an
extraordinary congress can only convene by
Fretilin Central Committee following a district
meeting decision. (TP, STL, DN)
Interference in court decision
MP and spokesperson of PD, Rui Menezes said in
order to have a transparent judicial process for
former Minister of Interior Rogerio Lobato and
former Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, the Court of
Appeals should distance itself from political
intervention of CPLP (Communidade Pamses Lingua
Portuguesa) panels. Menezes stressed the court
must make the decision based on facts and without
influence from CPLP panels, pointing out that most
of the decisions of the court lately have
political influence from CPLP. He said one example
was the Court of the Appeals’ decision of
Fretilin’s second congress as legitimate although
many argued that the voting procedures were
against the Constitution and political party laws.
Commenting on Menezes’ claim, Vice-President of
the Parliament, Jacob Fernandes said the decision
of the court was based on the law currently in
motion in the country.
In the meantime, the Director of Justice and Peace
Monitoring Program Tiago Sarmento said there was a
declaration by the Prosecutor-General in relation
to allegations of guns distribution against former
Minister of Interior Rogerio Lobato and former
Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri but there has been no
follow up on the status of this claim. Sarmento
said it is imperative for the Prosecutor-General
and the Public Ministry to explain to the
population the dynamic process as everyone is
following this case. He added that if the process
is kept quiet, it will have a negative impact on
the justice institution and on the situation if a
similar case of instability occurs. (TP, STL, DN)
What is Timor achieving with violence: Bishop
Nascimento?
The Bishop of Baucau Diocese, Don Basilio do
Nascimento appealed to all youth to stop the
violence once and for all as the violence that
occurred lowered the dignity of Timor-Leste. The
Bishop said his message might not be welcomed by
some people but he would ask what is Timor-Leste
achieving by using violence. Don Basilio stressed
that if a violent mentality continues to be the
root of the nation, the little that Timor-Leste
has achieved in the last four years as a positive
step forward will be completely lost. He appealed
to all to sit together and reflect on the present
violence and ask themselves where will it lead
Timor-Leste and who will benefit from the
violence. He said the enemies of Timor-Leste today
are its own people. The Bishop of Baucau Diocese
stressed that it’s a big problem if the Timorese
don’t realize that that could be their own enemies
and that their courage was only displayed against
others but not among their own people... (STL)
August 12, 2006
Commission of inquiry will publish results
Paulo Pinheiro, the head of the United Nations
Special Independent Commission of Investigation
for Timor-Leste said the results of the
investigation for 28 April, 23, 24 and 25 May will
be made public in October. Speaking during a media
conference held in Dili on Friday, Pinheiro added
that the Commission will appeal to Timor-Leste
judiciary to follow up on the facts gathered as
the Commission does not have the authority to
detain anyone. The first phase of the
investigation concluded Saturday and the team will
return to Timor-Leste in September to continue the
investigation, said Pinheiro. He said they have
spoken to the President of the Republic, the Prime
Minister, the former Prime Minister, leaders of
the political parties, members of the Timorese
police, community residents, UN Representatives,
the Diplomatic Corps, the Provedor for Human
Rights and the Prosecutor-General. According to
Saturday’s media report, Pinheiro stressed that
the Commission’s work will result in a complete,
accountable and impartial report. The completed
report will be submitted to the National
Parliament, UNHCHR and the UN Secretary General.
(DN, TP)
Fretilin will not hold extraordinary congress
The Court of Appeal ruled out on Friday that the
recent Fretilin congress vote by show of hands is
legitimate, therefore Francisco ’Lu’Olo’ Guterres
and Mari Alkatiri would retain their position as
President and Secretary-General of the party until
2011. According to Claudio Ximenes, President of
the Court of Appeal, the vote by show of hands did
not violate Fretilin’s regulations of 2004. He
said that the Court has no fundamental base to ask
Fretilin to hold an extraordinary congress to vote
for new leadership. Fretilin’s II congress was
held between 17-19 May 2006. (TP, DN)
Dialogue between F-FDTL and PNTL
Prime Minister Ramos-Horta said, according to
information he received, the willingness of F-FDTL
and PNTL to reconcile is important for the nation
and for the people to again trust the two
institutions so they feel safe to return to their
homes. Ramos-Horta also said the dialogue between
the two institutions is the best solution to
resolve the crisis that led to the explosion
between them resulting in the loss of life and
property. He also said the dialogue must take
place urgently. Speaking to participants in a
dialogue process program in Bebonuk, organized by
youths of that area, Ramos-Horta said the majority
of the leaders are to blame for leading the
population down the wrong path but he added that
part of the problem has also come from the
communities as well.
He told the youth that the UN Security Council
will make a decision this week on whether to send
1600 police to join those police already on the
ground to strengthen security. The Minister
appealed to the youth not to accuse the
international forces of taking sides, as they do
not know who is Lorosae or Loromonu but are in the
country to provide security to everybody. He also
asked the youth to work together and resolve the
problems and to see him if they cannot work out
the problems.
On the same occasion, Ramos-Horta also told the
participants from three sucos that Timor-Leste has
negotiated with Kuwait to open a highway between
Lospalos-Dili-Maliana that will create job
opportunities to thousands of Timorese but the
main concern is to maintain the tranquillity
within the country.
The Prime Minister added that the State budget,
for the fiscal year 2006/2007 expected to be
approved by the National Parliament today (14/8)
will boost the economy of the country by six to
seven percent and there will be new jobs as per
studies carried out in 2000. He has asked all the
ministers to open their doors to the public once a
week to listen to problems that exist within the
communities and for members of the government to
report within the Parliament once a month the work
that has been undertaken as a measure to make the
government carry their duties and expend their
budget more effectively and efficiently.
In a separate article in Timor Post Saturday, the
youths of Kolmera and the IDPs in the same area
have taken the initiative to hold a dialogue to
stop the constant conflict between them. (TP)
Confrontation between groups leaves one dead
According to Timor Post Saturday, the
confrontation between two groups in Zumalai,
Covalima sub-district has left one-person dead.
Minister of Interior, Alcino Barris said police
have identified one person dead following a
confrontation between “Saka Izoladu” and “Kolimau”
a week ago. Barris said members of the group
“Saka” have fled to the jungle but that he
believes that it won’t be long before they emerge
as it is a dense jungle area and the group would
not be able to cope too long under those
conditions. He said the police are aware of who
belongs to the group. He added that, following the
incident, the population has become alarmed and
fled the area. (TP)
August 11, 2006
Slater: Put peace first
After attending a workshop on the "The Mission of
the Multilateral Forces in TL" organized by the
NGO Forum in Villa-Verde, Commander of the
International Troops Brigadier General Mick Slater
told the media that if East Timorese transform
their mentality about peace, then police and
military will not be needed. "To put police and
soldiers on every corner is not the solution
because according to Timorese history, the
presence of police and military under the
Indonesian occupation did not change the spirit of
the Timorese; therefore if peace is what is wanted
then it must be prioritized above everything
else", said Slater. Slater asked all Timorese
people to support the government in the
implementation of its programs to rebuild this
country and stated that all international troops
are here to maintain security and to create an
environment of peace and harmony. "We are not here
to implement the government program so Timorese
have to get involved in the development process
for the future of this country", Slater added. In
response to the rumors that international troops
are not showing impartiality, Slater said that
they are here not to defend any groups from East
or West but to "act according to Timorese laws and
everyone is under the law so the law should be
protected".
In a separate article, Slater stated that the
International Force will remain here for as long
as the government wants and that their mission
here is to protect Timorese people who want to
live in peace. (STL, TP)
Horta: Our priority is to eliminate corruption
After the swearing-in of a new Inspector-General
Manuel Cuntinho Bucar, Prime Minister Jose Ramos
Horta in his speech stated that the priority of
his government is to try to eliminate all kinds of
corruption. "I give all my support and power to
the Inspector-General to investigate all kinds of
corruption in the public services and bring it to
the Prosecutor-General to process them according
to the law" said Horta. If any members of the
government or public servants abuse their power or
are involved in corruption, the Inspector-General
must take it seriously, Horta added. (STL, TP)
NFJP insists on processing of Alkatiri’s group
Spokesperson and Coordinator of National Front for
Justice and Peace (NFJP) Major Agusto de Jesus
Tara insisted in his press release yesterday that
all Timorese leaders who have committed crimes
must be brought to justice. Tara said that justice
has not been applied to those who have committed
crimes including Mari Alkatiri’s and Rogerio
Lobato’s group. He further added that to have
reconciliation in this country people must see
justice first because they have suffered from the
crimes committed which led to the crisis. (TP)
Bano: Will work hard to bring back the population
to their homes
Minister of Labour and Solidarity Arsenio Bano
told STL that his Ministry and the Government will
work hard to bring home the population in the IDP
camps. The Government has begun a dialogue with
the community leaders including Chief of sucos,
aldeias and District Administrators to create a
good environment and provide security when the
refugees return to their homes. "The aim is to
create a peaceful environment in every suco and
aldeia so that when the refugees return to their
homes they will be well received by the
community", said Bano. If people live in peace and
harmony then we don’t need security anymore," Bano
added.
August 10, 2006
Secretary of State should not work just for the
party: Xanana After the swearing-in of new members
of the second constitutional government, President
Xanana Gusmao in his speech appealed to Prime
Minister Jose Ramos-Horta to make sure his
Secretary of State goes beyond working solely for
the party by implementing government programs in
districts and sub-districts. He also asked
Minister of State Administration Ana Pessoa to put
a stop to district administrators who just attend
political party meetings and don’t pay attention
to the lives of the people. "To gain confidence
again from the people, the government must work
with all groups and implement the government’s
program effectively," said the President.
In a separate article, Gusmao appealed to all
youth in Timor-Leste to stop drinking alcohol
because alcohol can control their minds and create
more conflict. He appealed also to the vendors who
sell alcohol not to sell it for a while until the
situation is normalized. (STL, TP)
Timor would never have gained independence if not
for Portugal
Prime Minister Ramos Horta made an official visit
to the Headquarters of Guarda Nacional da
Republicana (GNR) yesterday. Horta in his speech
stated that "If Portugal hadn’t brought Timor-
Leste’s case to the United Nations’ agenda, the
struggle for independence would never have come
about. He said Portugal played a very important
role in Timor’s fight for independence and
advocated for the Timor-Leste at the United
Nations.
In response to the statement of the National Front
for Justice and Peace (NFJP) which had asked GNR
to stop their mission in Timor-Leste allegedly
because GNR are not exercising impartiality, Horta
said that the GNR are here because the government,
President of Republic and the President of
National Parliament asked them to come to maintain
security and protect people from any kind of
violence. He appealed to the Timorese people and
MPs not to speculate that GNR are not showing
their impartiality. He said any such statements
must be based on facts. "Don’t just make
speculations based on rumours; come with facts,"
said Horta. (TP, STL)
If leaders have no sensitivity people will take to
the streets
Coordinator of National Front for Justice and
Peace (NJJP) Vital dos Santos told the media that
if the leaders have no sensitivity to bring
justice to those who have committed crimes then
the people would take to the streets to demand
justice. The crisis that happened in this country
is due to the failure of East Timorese leaders to
resolve the petitioners’ case. Santos added. He
further explained that National Parliament and the
government have no confidence from the people
anymore because they have no political goodwill to
solve the petitioners’ problem. (STL).
Major Alfredo, Tara and Salsinha are innocent
President of Christian Democrat Party Antonio
Ximenes told the media at National Parliament that
Major Alfredo, Tara and Salsinha are innocent
because the leaders ignored their problem. "We all
know that Major Alfredo, Tara and Salsinha are
innocent but they are victims of the leaders in
this country" said Ximenes. According to Ximenes,
to solve the crisis the second constitutional
government must hold a national dialogue so
everyone can get involved and express their
feelings to find the best solution for this
country. (TP)
August 9, 2006
Government presents formal budget to parliament
Prime Minister Ramos-Horta and his cabinet members
presented the formal budget for fiscal year
2006/2007 in total US $315 million to National
Parliament yesterday. The budget is expected to be
finalized and approved by National Parliament in a
few days. Horta in his speech stated that the
national budget is quite large and that he hopes
it will help to resolve the crisis with the
employment of more people through government-
sponsored projects. Most of the budget comes from
the Petroleum fund and should help to accelerate
development in this country especially in the
education, health, and agriculture sectors. "The
government doesn’t want to depend on the Petroleum
fund but to build this country we need it" said
Horta.
In a separate article, Director of East Timor
Institute Development Study (TIDS) Joao Saldanha
told the media that if the Government implements
the budget well, then Timor-Leste’s economy will
be increased by 15 percent. (TP, STL, DN)
Salsinha: Resolve the problem first then dialogue
MP from KOTA party, Manuel Tilman told the media
at National Parliament that to resolve the problem
of F-FDTL it must create a regional military and
implement a restructuring of F-FDTL. According to
Tilman, F-FDTL must be divided into two regions
East and West so that the army could do their job
properly and not function only in Baucau and
Metinaro. In response to the dialogue between F-
FDTL and petitioners, Tilman said that dialogue is
important to resolve the discrimination issue
within F-FDTL.
Spokesperson for the petitioners, Gastao Salsinha
told the TP via telephone that he and his group
are ready for dialogue but the discrimination
problem within F-FDTL needs to be solved first so
that people can live in peace. (TP, STL)
GNR will stay in East Timor
In response to the statement of the National Front
for Justice and Peace (NFJP) which had asked GNR
to stop their mission in Timor-Leste, Minister of
Interior Alcino Barris said that the GNR will stay
in Timor-Leste to maintain security and protect
Timorese people. "All international troops are
here to protect us and paid by their own
governments so don’t creates rumours that the GNR
and Australian troops are not showing
impartiality" said Barris.
MP from PD party, Rui Menezes told the media that
only President Xanana can bring an end to the GNR
mission in Timor-Leste. Regarding NFJP’s demands,
Menezes said that Timor-Leste is a free and
democratic country so people have the right to
express their feelings but that does not mean they
can act on everything they want. (DN, STL)
UN mission in Timor, Jose Luis attend Security
Council meeting
Foreign Minister Jose Luis Guterres told the media
at Nicolau Lobato International Airport that the
reason for his visit to New York is to attend the
UN Security Council to discuss the issue of the UN
police who are expected to arrive in Timor-Leste
with the objective of maintaining security and
stability in this country now and during the
general elections in 2007. "I think this meeting
is really important for TL to see the resolution
of UN Security Council according to what we have
asked for from the UN," said Guterres. The
government and civil society have to work together
to find the best solution to help people emerge
from the crisis, Guterres added. (STL)
August 8, 2006
F-FDTL and petitioners will hold dialogue
Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta told the media at
International Airport Nicolau Lobato, that the
President has sent a letter to Brigadier General
Taur Matan Ruak and members of F-FDTL to hold a
dialogue with the petitioners. "We have to hold
dialogue between F-FDTL, PNTL and the civil
society to share different ideas that enable them
to serve this country" said Horta.
In response to the reformation of F-FDTL and PNTL,
Horta said that reformation within PNTL has been
started but F-FDTL’s 20:20 package is still
underway with international advisors. When that’s
finished, a report will be sent to the government
and the National Parliament for approval.. He
further explained that the President and the
Minister of Interior are looking into the problem
of how to reform the two institutions so that PNTL
and F-FDTL could serve the nation and act in a
professional manner according to law.
In a separate article, Horta said that his
government has no plan to buy more guns as was
reported in yesterday’s news, but does plan to buy
equipment for the Marine Unit, particularly ships
to patrol the maritime area and control illegal
fishing in the country. However, he said, this
plan will take time to implement. (TP, STL, DN)
International force must return PNTL guns: Amaral
Vice President of Commission B for Defence and
National Security in the National Parliament
Clementino Amaral told a DN reporter that
international troops (IT) must return PNTL’s guns
which they took from PNTL members. "I think
international troops should investigate all PNTL
members to make sure that they are not involved in
any of the recent violence" said Amaral
In relation to the government’s plan to buy
equipments for the Marine Unit, Amaral said that
it is important to buy equipment and ships for the
Marine Unit to patrol and maintain security in the
maritime area. (DN)
Justice first before reconciliation
MP from PSD party Lucia Lobato told the media at
National Parliament that justice has to be
implemented first before reconciliation can begin
and all people who committed crimes must be
brought to justice. "The East Timorese want
reconciliation and it’s necessary because people
want to rebuild this country in peace and harmony.
Reconciliation is a fundamental principal that
everyone should defend but those people who
committed crimes first must be brought to
justice." said Lobato. She added that East/West
issues would not be resolved unless people who
were involved in incidents 28 April and 25 May are
summoned to court. (TP)
Stop GNR mission in East Timor
National front for Justice and Peace (NFJP) asks
Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR) to stop their
mission in Timor-Leste because their presence here
is not bringing peace to the country.
Coordinator of NFJP Augusto Araujo Tara stated in
his press release yesterday that all judges from
Portugal and the GNR have not shown their
impartiality and commitments to bring justice for
East Timorese people. "As we all know the former
Prime Minister Alkatiri’s case has not been
brought to justice and also judges in the court of
Appeal are controlled by the Portuguese and they
can manipulate regulations of UNTAET No 1/1999,
section 3 so that Mari Alkatiri will not be
brought to justice" said the press release.
Tara further stated that when GNR captured Alfredo
they detained him in prison but Mari Alkatiri and
Rogerio Lobato still remain at home like nothing
has happened to them. (STL)
Youth must together to resolve the security
problem: Xavier
In relation to the fighting between youth groups
in Dili, President of ASDT party and Vice
President of National Parliament Francisco Xavier
appealed to the youth for calm and to contribute
to efforts to restore peace and stability to this
country. "Independence does not mean to fight and
create instability but to come together to rebuild
this country. There is no East and West but we are
all Timorese and we all fought for independence"
said Amaral. To maintain security and stability
the youth must joint their hands together and only
we bring peace and unity to this nation. We all
want to see East Timor as a great country in the
world" Amaral added. (STL, TP)
August 7, 2006
Gusmao appeals to the youth for peace
After the arrest of Major Alfredo and his
followers, there has been fighting between youth
groups in Dili for the past three days. President
Xanana Gusmao has appealed to the youth for calm
and to contribute to efforts to restore peace and
stability in this country, so that Timor-Leste may
not lose its dignity as a nation. "I appeal to all
youth in Timor-Leste to stay calm and maintain
national unity and restore peace in this country",
said Xanana. He further stated that this
government is trying to find the best solution to
help people emerge from the crisis through to
national reconciliation.
In a separate article, PDN MP Juliao Mausiri told
the media that national reconciliation must begin
with Xanana Gusmao and Taur Matan Ruak because
they were not united in dealing with the
petitioners’ case. "People were not fighting
before, so they should not be blamed; if Xanana
and Taur promote reconciliation between
themselves, there will be no problem among the
people", said Mausiri.
Director of LABEH, Christopher Henry Samson, told
STL that the crisis has come about due to a lack
of unity among the leaders. "The conflict has
occurred because the leaders have no capacity to
bring this people together; when talking about
reconciliation it is necessary to first implement
justice", said Henry. (STL,TP).
Horta will have regular dialogue with political
parties
After attending PD’s National Congress, Deputy
Prime Minister Dr Rui Araujo told the media that
the current government led by Dr. Ramos Horta will
hold regular dialogues with all political parties,
civil society and the Catholic Church. He
explained that the government will work together
with all different groups to normalize the
situation and return all refugees to their homes.
"It is important to have dialogue to share ideas
that will enable development in this country",
said Araujo.
Regarding the 2007 General Election, Araujo said
that all political parties will have subsidies
including those who do not have seats in
Parliament, but that they will have to wait for
the Electoral Law which has not yet been approved
by the National Parliament.
On the same occasion, Araujo announced that the
government has plans to buy more guns and ships
for the F-FDTL in particular for the Marine Unit.
"The budget has been approved by the National
Parliament and the money will be allocated to the
Ministry of Interior to implement it but only when
the F-FDTL has been reformed", said Araujo. There
are many MP’s complaining about this matter
because they believe that it will create more
problems but Araujo said that it is necessary to
increase the capacity of the F-FDTL to act in a
professional manner (STL, TP).
Transition government has no right to sign new
agreement
President of PD Fernando Lasama told the media
after PD’s National Congress that the transitional
government led by Dr. Ramos-Horta has no right to
sign any agreement with any country because it
does not hold the confidence of the people. Lasama
added that the National Parliament is also a part
of the conflict which led to the crisis, and that
it has no legitimacy to ratify any treaties made
by Alkatiri’s government, because Fretilin has no
credibility in the eyes of East Timorese. He also
demanded that the government work hard to end the
crisis and bring all people who committed crimes
to the court. "PD demands that the President
create and lead a small transition government to
only focus on humanitarian, health and refugees,
and on measures to return refugees to their
homes", said Lasama. (STL)
Members of PNTL who committed crimes must be tried
After meeting with Prime Minister Ramos-Horta at
the Ministry of Interior, PNTL Commander Paulo
Fatima Martins told the media that members of PNTL
who committed crimes must go to court according to
the law of this country. "I appeal to all members
of PNTL that anyone who has committed crimes
please present these to the court and that those
who are innocent please return to PNTL to continue
their job" said Martins. Martins further added
that he and other commanders of the PNTL have been
investigated and if found guilty they will take
responsibility for the crimes they have committed
according to the law.
In a separate article, Prime Minister Ramos-Horta
said that to resolve the problem and to serve this
country again PNTL and F-FDTL must hold dialogue.
"Dialogue is important to resolve two
institutional problems: first, we have to show our
maturity and responsibility by talking to each
other and confess that what we have done was wrong
so that we can together serve our nation", said
Horta. (STL)
August 4, 2006
Everybody should be calm and observant: Hasegawa
SRSG Hasegawa has quoted by STL in Friday’s
edition of the daily appealing to the Timorese to
remain calm and observe the rule of law in the
country. In a press release, the head of UNOTIL
further said the international community would
respond to the demands of the Timorese to seek
justice for those allegedly involved in crimes
that led to the violent incidents of April and May
this year. He added that the UN is assisting with
mechanisms to investigate the facts and the
circumstances that let to the incidents and that
the Independent Special Commission of Inquiry for
Timor-Leste has already commenced its
investigations through a Secretariat in Dili led
by the Commission’s Executive Director, Mr. Luc
Ctte. SRSG said the investigation is progressing
well and Commissioner Prof. Paulo Sergio of Brazil
will head the Commission. (STL)
Barris rejects proposal for reintegration of PNTL
and Interpol
Minister of Interior Alcino Barris has rejected
the proposal of the international police to
integrate PNTL with the international police
saying the proposal needs to be carefully planned
so as not to contradict the current regulations.
The Minister called a meeting with members of the
government, commander of the international police
and the United Nations to discuss the proposal and
the terms of reference for the evaluation and the
reintegration of the national police. Barris said
the proposal is of good intention but it might not
follow the rules of Timor-Leste, adding that the
Ministry will issue new identification cards for
PNTL to allow them to travel and cooperate with
the international police.
In a separate article, Alcino Barris said PNTL are
not yet active due to the lack of conditions and
they would only resume duty following the
evaluation of each member of police force. He said
a permanent police post will be established in
every suburb in order to enable the population to
physically see the police presence and return to
their homes. (STL)
FNJP is gathering everybody to dissolve the
parliament
National Justice and Peace Front (FNJP) held a
meeting yesterday in Tuana-Laran, Dili to
encourage organizations to advocate for
dissolution of the National Parliament. This
meeting was attended by representatives from Youth
Unity for Transparency and Justice (UJTJ), and all
opposition’s parties. FNJP believes that to end
the crisis, National Parliament must be dissolved.
General-coordinator of FNJP, Tara told the media
after the meeting that the "objective of the
meeting was how to dissolve the National
Parliament because Mari Alkatiri uses National
Parliament to hide behind and people insist on
doing so". In response to a question as to when
demonstrations would be held, Tara said that they
need to prepare well so that their demands can
successful but if not they will blockade NP to
stop them from their activities.
In a separate article, representative of Youth
Unity for Transparency and Justice (UJTJ), Joao
Chogue who also attended the meeting said that his
organization disagrees with the FNJP’s plan to
dissolve the parliament because there is no reason
to do so and it will create more problems. "If we
dissolve the parliament, will it solve the
problems?“Choque asked.”Our plan is how to
resolve first the issue of east and west and the
violence which happens everyday" said Choque.
MP from PSD party Lucia Lobato told the media that
National Parliament must be dissolved to resolve
the crisis because many people have no confidence
in Parliament anymore. "We PSD think that the best
solution is to dissolve the parliament to end the
crisis" said, Lobato. (TP)
Horta wants public servants collaboration in
investigation
In relation to the International Investigation
Team who will be investigating April and May
incidents, Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta
appealed to all public servants to cooperate with
the investigation process if the International
Commission Inquiries contacts them for
information. "This is an obligation to cooperate
so if you have any evidence please give it to the
Commission so they can do their jobs effectively"
said Horta. He further explained that the
Commission will be working with the Prosecutor-
General to investigate thoroughly into the
incidents which led to the crisis in Timor-Leste.
(TP)
August 3, 2006
One person injured following attack
One person was injured and two kidnapped by an
armed civilian group following attacks to the
population in Holbese village, sub-district of
Bobonaro. Minister of Interior, Alcino Barris told
the media he received information from PNTL
commander in Bobonaro saying an armed civilian
group threatened and attacked people in that area
but PNTL is currently investigating the case and
Barris believes the culprits will eventually be
captured. The injured person is receiving medical
treatment in Maliana hospital. (STL)
UN will independently respond to aspirations of
the people
SRSG was quoted by Timor Post that the UN will
respond to the aspirations of all the people
independently, asking the Timorese to collaborate
and to maintain a calm and let justice take its
course.
According to Timor Post, SRSG Hasegawa stated in
the press release that " I appeal to all to be
calm and observe the rule of law of the nation.
The International Community is aware and will
respond to the aspirations and demands for
justice, a just and fair treatment for all the
people allegedly involved in the acts of crimes
during the period that led to the violent
incidents in the months of April and May this year
including 28-29 April and 23, 24 and 25 May." The
Head of UN Mission in Timor-Leste further said the
mechanisms would be provided to carry out an
investigation of the fact and circumstances
relevant to the aforementioned incidents, through
the Secretariat for the Independent Special
Commission For Inquiry in Dili under the
leadership of Luc Ctte, the Executive Director who
plans to present their report on October 7 2006.
Hasegawa further said the UN will continue to
provide assistance to the Prosecutor-General’s
Office to strengthen the capacity of the
institution in order to carry out the work
independently and with integrity according to the
rule of the State. He appealed to the people of
Timor-Leste to have the courage to open their
hearts and have faith in starting the
reconciliation process with their neighbors,
friends from the districts either east or west and
to work together to achieve their objective
democratically, adding that with the upcoming
general elections next year it is important that
there is peace and stability in the nation for the
elections to be totally free and democratic and
without fear, violence and intimidation.
Australia troops are not leaving Timor: Slater
Brigadier General Mick Slater shot down rumors
that Australian troops are going to leave East
Timor soon. "We have heard the rumors but it is
not true; we will stay here to protect the people
as long as the East Timorese government wants us
to stay, "Slater said. He stated that a few
Australian troops have left with the ship but most
of them stayed with armored cars and helicopters
to provide protection to the Timorese people. He
said that the international police from Australia,
Malaysia, New Zeland and Portugal (GNR) are also
in Timor-Leste to maintain security and stability,
helping to normalize the crisis situation by
providing information. (STL, DN, TP)
Identity lost if church and customary authorities
ignored — Horta
Prime Minister Ramos-Horta said under the Mari
Alkatiri leadership he repeatedly urged the
government to work with the church but he was
ignored because he was the Foreign Minister. He
was told by some to focus on foreign negotiations
or reconciliation, Ramos-Horta told participants
during a dialogue with members of the Church in
Baucau Diocese on Wednesday. Ramos-Horta further
said whenever he spoke of his respect for the
Church, he was accused of conspiring with that
institution. He said that the government must
study traditional values and implement them with
democracy values. He stressed that he became Prime
Minister as a result of the crisis and was not
elected democratically. He said that his
government has nine months to implement a budget
at the value of US$315 million to improve the
condition of the nation. The Minister said the
State requires partnership with the civil society
to work together with the support of the
international community, adding that it is
important for the State to be in partnership with
the church to form the Timorese identity. He has
acknowledged that the State institutions are young
and therefore the government is conscious that it
must work with institutions like the Church and
customary authorities. Therefore, he said, in the
next three months the government will hold
discussions with heads of villages to mobilize the
society towards the development process. The new
Prime Minister said the recent problems were the
result of the government being ignorant of the
problems developing which began in 2003/2004. He
said the government did not have the vision to
honestly address those problems. He added, that if
Timor-Leste had had a strong institution or a good
police force to prevent the situation, the
conflict in Dili would not have occurred. But, he
said, this was not the case; the Ministry of
Interior was not intellectually capable of leading
the police and worse, PNTL had been used by the
former Minister of Interior and a few secretaries
of regions for political interest rather than for
that of state or national interest. As for F-FDTL,
the new head of the government said that had they
not left their headquarters, their prestige would
have been higher but since they followed the
orders given by the former Prime Minister, they
lost their prestige. He added, that as Minister of
Defence, he wants to build bridges and heal the
wounds between the two institutions, lift their
morale and work on dialogue from the top to the
bottom with the objective of pulling Timor-Leste
out from this crisis. ( STL)
Court must be fair with Major Alfredo
Unidade Juventude Transparensia Justisa (UJTJ)
requests the court to carry out a just process
regarding Major Alfredo Reinado’s case in order to
avoid ’mafia law’ in the justice system in Timor-
Leste. During a meeting with President Gusmao on
Tuesday (1/8) the youths stressed they want a
transparent process that will reveal those
responsible for the crimes committed during the
crisis and the leaders who have distributed guns
and ammunition to the population to kill each
other. According to the group, youths were the
victims of 28 April and 25 May and they demand
that the State be responsible for those cases, and
that the justice system urgently make a decision
and condemn those responsible for the distribution
of weapons. They also asked for clarification from
Prime Minister Ramos-Horta regarding his statement
that "youths with long hair, unwashed are the ones
burning and looting." The youth also made an
appeal for those who have burned houses not to
continue hiding in the IPDs camps but to give
themselves up as is just. They also want a
government team to visit the camps and persuade
those people whose houses have not been destroyed
to return home. (TP)
August 1, 2006
Horta: Don’t obstruct justice or international
troops
In response to the protestors who demand the
release of Alfredo, Prime Minister Jose Ramos
Horta told the media that Alfredo’s case is now in
the hands of justice as is the case of former
Minister of Interior Rogerio Tiago Lobato. Horta
appealed to Alfredo’s supporters who want to
protest on the street to free Alfredo that they do
not obstruct the justice and if they do so it
means they are against state and international
troops. "People insist on justice and let’s not
interfere with justice. I appeal to all of you to
trust the justice system and also to trust the
international commission inquiries to do their
job" said Horta.
MP from UDT party Alexandre Corte-Real asks
Australian troops to take responsibility for the
military equipment that they took from Major
Alfredo because during the crisis Australian
troops are the ones who guard him and his group.
According to Corte-Real, Alfredo is still part of
the F-FDTL. (STL, DN)
Horta presents government’s programs to parliament
Prime Minister Ramos Horta presented the
government’s programs and budget plan for fiscal
year 2006/2007 to National Parliament yesterday.
Horta said that the programs he presented to
National Parliament are based on a national
development plan which majority of Fretilin
parliamentarian defends and represents people’s
vision. Horta further stated that the objectives
of the government plans are to create national
reconciliation and humanitarian programs, also for
reformation of institutions of PNTL and F-FDTL to
maintain stability in this country.
In a separate article, MP from Democratic Party
Mariano Sabino said that the programs of the
government presented by Prime Minister Ramos Horta
were good but to implement the programs in nine
months is impossible. Sabino said that fiscal year
budget 2006/2007 is really big but it spends most
to structure of the government not the people. "We
think better to minimize the ministries so that
the money could spend effectively in development
and for people’s need" said Sabino.
MP from UDT party Queteria da Costa told the media
at National Parliament that the budget for fiscal
year 2006/2007 is big but will the government
implement it? If not don’t make people dream in
the afternoon. "There are many programs from the
government but we don’t know which the priority is
for the people, especially in the crisis
situation." Said Queteria. She said that according
to the constitution this government has mandate
only for nine months so it is hard to implement
all the programs. (DN, STL)
Alcino Barris: Guns for PNTL together 2.483
Minister of Interior Alcino Barris told the media
at National Parliament after National budget
discussion that PNTL has 2.483 big guns and more
than 2000 pistols. Barris said that he still
doesn’t know how many members of PNTL have already
handed weapons to international troops because
international troops are still doing inspection of
all weapons in Timor-Leste. "The inspection
started from Maliana, Ermera, Liquica and other
districts on how many guns still in the hands of
members of PNTL" said Barris. He appealed to all
members of PNTL or civilians who still carry
weapons to hand them over to international troops
or National Police headquarters. "It is a crime if
any members of PNTL does not want to hand over
weapons and we will process them according to law"
said Barris.
In response to reformation of PNTL, Barris said
that Paulo Martins is still the commander of PNTL
"if no reformations in PNTL, Paulo Martins still
the commander under old PNTL structure" said
Barris. (STL)
Coalition of PSD, ASDT and PD for 2007 elections
Secretary-General of Social Democrat Party (PSD)
Joao Goncalves told DN reporter that PSD, ASDT and
PD will have coalition parties for general
election in 2007 because the leaders have capacity
to run the country. "We want a coalition not just
because our party has great program but the
leaders have capacity to implement the program
when we win the election’ said Goncalves. He said
that PSD and ASDT already have an agreement and
still waiting for PD to joint them. He believes
that if it happens in the general election in 2007
they will get a high percentage of vote but it
depends on the people. "In the reality it depends
on the people which political party they would
vote but if they vote for PSD to win the general
election 2007, PSD would put national and people’s
interest first above everything" Goncalves, added.
In response to Alfredo’s detention, Goncalves said
that Alfredo’s case is different to Mari and
Rogerio because both of them only allegations but
Alfredo was carrying weapons. "I was so surprised
when I heard that international troops captured
Alfredo with weapons in his house because Alfredo
himself already declared in Maubisse that he and
his followers already handed over their weapons
but why they still have it?" He asked.
MUN gives proposal to prime minister
Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta visited
demonstrators who called themselves as National
Unity Movement (MUN) in Matadouro, Dili. In his
visit, MUN gave its proposal to the Prime Minister
to maintain national unity in Timor Leste. Horta
told the demonstrators that to build the nation we
have to avoid any kind of violence because we
won’t gain anything from it. "I support the
initiatives of MUN to promote national unity and
avoid any kind of violence" said Horta. He further
explains that as the head of the government, the
door is always open for the poor people because
the policy of this government is to try to reduce
poverty in this country. (DN)
OPINION & ANALYSIS
East Timor’s story, lessons for Indonesia
International Herald Tribune - August 14, 2006
Jakarta — For more than two decades, the brutal
military occupation of East Timor, a distant,
impoverished, peripheral territory, brought
Indonesia little but disdain and dishonor on the
world stage.
The ending, a bloody rampage by Indonesian-backed
militia after a vote for independence in 1999,
further tarnished the nation’s reputation abroad,
and left a bitter mood at home where the loss of
East Timor was a subject best left untouched.
The seemingly closed chapter was reopened this
month in a new book by Ali Alatas, the former
foreign minister and ambassador to the United
Nations.
It is the first account by an Indonesian insider
who tried to steer some of the sorry events that
at critical moments involved the United States,
the United Nations and at all times, the heavy
hand of the Indonesian Army. Alatas, always
amicable, always accessible, was respected in New
York as a quintessential diplomat handed the
tricky task of representing his country during the
rule of the secretive and authoritarian General
Suharto.
In "The Pebble in the Shoe, The Diplomatic
Struggle for East Timor," Alatas traces events
from the Indonesian invasion in 1975 to the exit
in September 1999, and the handing over to a UN
peacekeeping force.
For the most part, he sticks to the narrow
diplomatic history, rarely veering into what the
Indonesian Army was doing on the ground, and
mostly hinting, rather than asserting, that the
army’s actions made the diplomatic track so
tortuous. "I decided I would try to open up a
debate and leave it to the reader to draw his
conclusions," Alatas said in an interview.
The debate came immediately. A launching of the
book here Aug. 9 fashioned as a public seminar in
the stately courtyard of the National Archives and
attended by former army generals, Indonesian
officials and foreign diplomats turned into an
initial round of soul-searching, even catharsis.
An Indonesian official, who served under Alatas
and is now President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s
most senior foreign policy adviser, told the
audience that Indonesia had many stark lessons to
learn from East Timor.
The official, Dino Patti Djalal, described the
period leading up to the UN administered
referendum of Aug. 30, 1999, when the East
Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence.
Djalal said he had been sent by Alatas to visit
the East Timorese leader, Xanana Gusmao, when he
was still being held by the Indonesians in prison
in Jakarta. He had received and passed along a
warning from Gusmao that the militias backed by
the Indonesian Army would create mayhem. Nothing
was done to prevent it, he said.
“One thing that stuck with me from that visit,”
Djalal said. "He said: ’Dino, this thing about the
militias is going to be a cancer.’
"We never had the heart or the will to rein in the
militia,“Djalal said.”For the government as a
whole that was a lesson. That’s what killed us. We
paid very dearly." According to UN estimates,
about 1,000 people died in the violence that
analysts have said was turned on and off like a
spigot by the Indonesian military.
In his book, Alatas recounts that the looting,
burning and killing after the voting was so bad
that a delegation of Indonesian officials,
including Alatas, was unable to leave the airport
when they flew to East Timor for a first-hand
look. At that point, Alatas acknowledges the
nature of the Indonesian Army’s complicity with
the militia. “Privately,” he said, he began to
have serious doubts whether, even under martial
law, Indonesian troops could control the
situation, "because of wavering and indecisiveness
to act strongly against the militias."
Djalal was more forthright in his remarks, saying
Indonesia deluded itself during its rule of East
Timor. "We spoke of winning the hearts and minds,
but we didn’t know what we were doing," said
Djalal. "We thought we could just splash lots of
money about and that would signify something. We
were wrong. East Timor became a police state, we
were bribing people we thought were loyal to us,
and doing horrible things to people we thought
were not loyal to us."
At another point in the seminar, the former
Indonesian ambassador to Australia, Sabam Siagian,
recalled how Secretary of State Henry Kissinger,
in a visit to Jakarta just before the 1975
invasion of East Timor, had told Suharto the plans
for East Timor were acceptable as long the
operation was done “quickly and cleanly.” Siagian
noted: “It was neither quick nor clean.”
In his account, Alatas says that the gunning down
of East Timorese protesters in November 1991 by
the Indonesian military at a cemetery in the
district of Santa Cruz was a “turning point” from
which Indonesia never recovered. The massacre was
captured on video tape by a British filmmaker and
shown worldwide. "Since that date, international
support for Indonesia’s position inexorably
declined, while that for the independence movement
in East Timor markedly increased," he writes.
Soon after the Santa Cruz killings, the United
States cut military aid to the Suharto government.
With Indonesia’s international image suffering so
much, Alatas writes that he tried in 1994 to
persuade Suharto of the wisdom of granting East
Timor autonomy, a status that Alatas long favored.
Suharto turned him down.
If autonomy had been granted in the 1980s or 90s,
then independence would not have been necessary,
Alatas suggests. To the astonishment of many,
including Alatas, after Suharto’s downfall the new
president, B.J. Habibie, quickly set the path for
independence.
The book’s title comes from a remark Alatas once
made to a Portuguese journalist who had asked him
how he felt about the stigma over East Timor.
Yes, he had answered, it was a problem for
Indonesia, "but only as bothersome as a pebble in
a shoe,“Alatas said.”In retrospect, however, I
have to admit that in its final years, the East
Timor problem was no longer a mere pebble in the
shoe but had become a veritable boulder."
The troubles of East Timor came at a personal cost
to Alatas. In the 1990s, he was a serious
candidate for secretary general of the United
Nations.
But Alatas has told people that Suharto did not
want his candidacy pursued. Friends of the former
foreign minister say that Suharto did not want the
spotlight on East Timor that a campaign for Alatas
would have attracted.
Timor Leste: Present problems, future strategies
The Guardian - August 9, 2006
Andy Alcock — For those who have supported the
independence of Timor Leste (TL) for over 30
years, Timorese and others, the events occurring
there over the past few months are heartbreaking.
Many world leaders are describing TL as a failed
state — this is particularly so of Australia’s
political leaders who have worked tirelessly to
push for the removal of former TL Prime Minister
Mari Alkatiri.
Much of the media analysis about events in TL have
centred around the performance and personality of
Alkatiri. In my view this is very naove and it has
overshadowed attempts to highlight the many other
contributing factors that led to the crisis.
It has to be admitted that TL’s leaders have made
some mistakes. Probably, the worst one was to sack
almost 600 members of the FDTL (TL’s defence
force) following protests over conditions in March
2006. This led to divisions that could have been
avoided if there had been some attempt to address
the grievances more sympathetically. One FALANTIL
(National Armed Forces for the Liberation of East
Timor) I know personally complained to me that
Alkatiri did not listen to the concerns of the
veterans and did not treat them with respect.
Many of the problems within PNTL (TL’s police
force) have been laid at the feet of the disgraced
former Interior Minister, Rogerio Lobato, who has
been accused of training its members to be an
opposing force to the FDTL.
It has to be said that Australia’s politicians
have contributed largely to the problems being
faced in TL. For the 24 years of the Indonesian
military (TNI) occupation, Australia gave military
and diplomatic support to Indonesia.
In 1999, when the UN was planning for TL’s
independence referendum, it was Australian leaders
who insisted that UN peacekeepers were not needed
and that a policing operation would provide
sufficient security. The result was that TL gained
its independence, but saw the deaths of a further
2000 of its citizens and the destruction of 80
percent of its infrastructure.
Poverty
TL, the poorest nation in SE Asia, has the lowest
per capita GDP in the world ($400 pa) with over 40
percent of its population living below the poverty
line of 55 US cents per day.
Eighty percent of the population is under 18 years
of age and unemployment exceeds 50 percent. In
addition, the British Medical Journal Lancet,
which carried out a study of mental health needs
in TL identified that significant numbers of
people have post traumatic stress disorder and
other psychological problems because they
witnessed the torture, rape or murder of relatives
or friends.
In addition to the actions taken by rebel members
of the PNTL and the FDTL, little mention has been
made in the main stream media of former militia
groups and millenarian groups (eg Colimau 2000)
that have contributed to much of the opportunistic
violence.
Despite the criticisms of him, it must be
acknowledged that Alkatiri has actually played a
vital role in TL’s leadership. He was one of the
main architect’s of the National Council of
Timorese Resistance (CNRT). The reason he is
disliked by Australian political leaders is that
he stood up to their bullying over the Timor Sea
oil and gas negotiations. He has played a major
role in keeping the TL economy out of the hands of
the World Bank and the IMF. It will be interesting
to see if interim PM Jose Ramos Horta will be as
successful in this regard.
Alkatiri is responsible for bringing Cuban doctors
to TL to work in rural areas and established a new
medical school at the national university. He is
known to have concerns about environmental and
women’s issues and is an opponent of the
privatisation of TL’s electricity.
If it is proven that he was responsible for arming
unofficial militias, obviously this is a serious
matter. However, in most democracies, he would
have been asked to stand aside — not resign —
until the allegations had been disproved. I think
Xanana’s decision to force him to resign was wrong
and unwise. It will further antagonise the hard-
liners in FRETILIN who have been critical of him.
With all of these problems, what steps need to be
taken return TL to effective development and
rebuilding TL?
Security
The following actions need to be taken to assist
TL to protect its security:
– UN peacekeepers need to remain in TL for some
years to come
– TL certainly needs more assistance with the
recruiting and training of its police force
– international peacekeepers and police will need
to have a continuing presence in the border region
until the TL border police and FDTL are able to
effectively stop incursions by the TNI, its
militias and its black marketeers
– the UN needs to pressure the Indonesian
Government to ensure that all militia groups
trained by the TNI on the TL/West Timor border are
disbanded and remove the present TNI divisions
away from the border
– the UN must insist that all member nations cease
all forms of military cooperation with the TNI
until all the war criminals in its ranks have been
brought to justice
– the UN needs to establish an international war
crimes tribunal to try the scores of war criminals
in the ranks of the TNI and its militias this
tribunal will need to have powers of extradition
and UN member nations will have to be prevailed
upon to cooperate with the tribunal and extradite
any alleged TNI criminals who are found within
their borders
The economy
The Australian Government needs to be pressured by
the UN and the world community to:
– sign the International Law of the Sea
– hand over all the oil/gas profits it has taken
from TL’s half of the Timor Sea since drilling
began
– the Indonesian Government be compelled to pay
reparations for all the destruction that it has
been caused by its military in TL.
The UN should provide interest-free loans and
grants to:
– fund urgently needed humanitarian programs
– establish industries and job creation schemes
– rebuild the rice growing industry
Training and administration
It will be necessary for the UN with support from
friendly nations to stay longer in TL to provide
administrative support and training to the new
nation. The UN is presently committed to remain
for another two years. PM Ramos Horta believes
that a 10-year commitment is necessary.
Respect for TL’s sovereignty
There has been much debate about the motives of
Australia in wanting to send its soldiers before
being asked by TL’s political leaders. There has
to be some international agreement between all
nations dealing with TL to respect its sovereignty
on both land and sea and not to seek to profit
unfairly from this nation at this early and very
precarious stage of its rebuilding and
development.
I believe that if the above strategies are
undertaken, TL will be able to overcome its many
problems and build a more successful future for
its long suffering and courageous citizens. [Andy
Alcock is the Information Officer of the
Australia East Timor Friendship Association (South
Australia Inc) Inc.]
East Timor’s blighted independence
Asia Times - August 2, 2006
Todd Crowell, Hua Hin, Thailand — The turmoil in
East Timor and the subsequent deployment of
Australian and other peacekeeping troops has
prompted much soul-searching, especially among
human-rights activists for whom the cause of an
independent East Timor was an article of faith.
Has East Timor become, four years after it gained
formal independence from Indonesia, just another
failed state or, as Australian Defense Minister
Brendon Nelson said recently, "a haven perhaps for
transnational crime, for terrorism and indeed
humanitarian disaster and justice"?
Such a description seems too strong for East
Timor, which, though sunk into lawlessness, has
not, to my knowledge, harbored any terrorists. The
question is more whether this territory of fewer
than a million people is or can become a viable
country. Was independence a mistake?
Writing in The Monthly magazine, Don Watson,
former Australian prime minister Paul Keating’s
speechwriter, created something of a stir when he
wrote, "Life under a murderous occupation might be
a little better than life in a failed state,
albeit one perennially dependent on Australian aid
and Australian policing.
"What was more, in an imperfect world, Suharto’s
Indonesia was a lot better than its critics were
willing to concede, or able to see from their
lofty Pilgeresque perches" — a reference to John
Pilger, a fierce critic of Suharto.
Keating, his country’s last Labor Party prime
minister, took a markedly pro-Indonesia position
(and took a lot of flak for it from the left wing
of his party) because he was keen on positioning
his country as being a part of Asia. (His
successor, John Howard, is much less interested in
the “Australia is a part of Asia” business.)
Wrote Watson: "The relationship was important
because Indonesia was the most populous Muslim
country in the world. It was a developing country
offering numerous complementary interests. A
successful relationship was a precondition of a
successful engagement with Asia."
Watson went on to argue that the years of
stability in Indonesia under president Suharto’s
New Order government made it possible to drop the
“White Australia” policy, welcome Asian immigrants
and make Australia a more open and tolerant
country.
"Suharto gave us nothing less than an ability to
shed our ancient fear of Asia. Liberalism in
Australia profited from despotism in Indonesia.
What we took for our own courage was just the
profit of Suharto’s ruthlessness."
Nevertheless, the history of appeasing Suharto
still leaves a bad taste in Watson’s mouth, since
he concludes, "It was good policy, but
nevertheless cowardice as well."
Pilger would no doubt agree. The fiery,
unreconstructed activist recently wrote a piece in
Antiwar.com accusing Canberra of deliberately
provoking disorder to remove East Timorese prime
minister Mari Alkatiri, in effect an act of regime
change.
Civil order has returned to East Timor. Former
foreign minister Jose Ramos-Horta has replaced
Alkatiri as premier. It is probably too early to
dismiss East Timor as a failed state. But it is
certainly a fragile state.
Instead of becoming what it is and likely to
remain for many years, a poor, independent country
and perpetual ward of the United Nations, non-
governmental organizations, Australia and
Portugal, it could have remained part of a dynamic
and now democratic Indonesian nation.
This notion, of course, would be heresy to many,
even as they lament the chaos that overtook the
country a few weeks ago. Did not the Indonesian
army murder tens of thousands of Timorese during
its 25-year occupation?
It can certainly be argued that Jakarta long ago
lost the mandate of heaven to govern East Timor
because of its harsh occupation. But one also has
to ask whether it is right that a national border
in Asia be determined by which European colonizer
settled where.
Why couldn’t the Timorese have followed the
example of Goa? India and Indonesia were in very
similar positions at the close of World War II. In
both cases the main European colonizer — the
British in India and the Dutch in Indonesia —
withdrew but left behind small Portuguese
enclaves, which Lisbon clung to fiercely.
New Delhi finally lost patience, and in 1961
invaded the largest of its enclaves and forcefully
expelled the Portuguese. The world condemned
India, but the affair was soon forgotten. Goa
settled down peacefully, eventually becoming a
full-fledged state of the Indian union.
Fast-forward to 1975. The Carnation Revolution
ousted Portuguese dictator Antonio de Oliveira
Salazar, and Lisbon was shedding its overseas
empire. East Timor declared independence, and the
Indonesian army invaded. But in this case years of
guerrilla warfare against the occupation ensued
until in 1999 East Timorese voted for
independence.
One wonders whether East Timorese might be having
buyers’ remorse today. Are they so different from
their former countrymen in other parts of
Indonesia that they should be independent? If this
is true for East Timor, why not for Aceh or Bali
or Papua? That, of course, was always Jakarta’s
argument.
And if ethnic differences are such important
criteria, then how important is it that East Timor
is divided into the Kaladis of the west and the
Firakus to the east? Should the country be further
divided into the Republics of East East Timor and
West East Timor (throw in a Republic of Oecussi-
Ambeno, the small enclave in West Timor
administered from Dili)?
On independence, East Timor adopted Portuguese as
one of its official languages, presumably as
another way to set itself apart from its former
countrymen. Portuguese teachers flocked to the new
country to offer instruction, so that in addition
to their other disadvantages, the Timorese would
learn a language that is virtually useless for
them in Asia.
By contrast, Indonesians couldn’t care less about
studying Dutch or learning about their Dutch
heritage. Instead they cultivated Bahasa Indonesia
as a language that would unite the disparate
groups that make up their nation.
The great irony of the East Timor struggle is that
just as it finally reached its goal of
independence in 2002, Indonesia was becoming fully
democratic. Meanwhile, in Goa they celebrate
December 16, the day India invaded, as "Liberation
Day".
[Todd Crowell is an Asia Times Online
correspondent based in Thailand.]