Political & economic crisis

Police arrest Dili riot suspect

Jakarta Post - December 18, 2002

Yemris Fointuna, Kupang -- Dominggus dos Santos, the suspected main actor in the deadly riot in Dili, East Timor on December 4, was arrested on Monday night in the Indonesian territory of Atambua, Belu regency, when he was trying to escape from the United Nations Civilian Police (CivPol). Kupang military chief Col. Moeswarno Moesanip said that the suspect was being detained at the Belu military headquarters for further investigation.

"During the preliminary questioning, he admitted to being one of the rioters in Dili on December 4 and 5. He was running away to West Timor to escape the CivPol," Moeswarno told The Jakarta Post here on Tuesday.

Moeswarno added that his office was coordinating with the CivPol to deport the alleged suspect.

Dominggus admitted to having torched some buildings, including the residence of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, the Pantai Kelapa mosque, and the Hello Mister supermarket belonging to an Australian businessman.

After hiding for a while in Comoro, Dili, Dominggus decided to flee to West Timor.

At least two people were killed and dozens of cars and motorbikes were set ablaze. Hello Mister supermarket was looted before being burned down.

The riot was triggered by angry students who demanded the release of an arrested student. Shots were fired and one student was killed.

However, government and UN officials and some analysts agree the violence was far more than a simple student protest against police which got out of control.

Internal Affairs Minister Rogerio Lobato blamed people linked to a group called CDP-RDTL and called the violence a plot to overthrow the government.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta said former pro- Jakarta militias were involved, although he did not suggest they were acting under Indonesia's orders.

In other news, Antara reported that 60 coordinators from various refugee camps in Atambua urged the local administration to quickly distribute rice donated from the Italian government.

The refugees continued their cries when Mathias Morok, an official with the Belu administration, said that his office did not have enough money to finance the distribution.

He revealed that the province only transported the rice donation to the Belu administration in Atambua, and that the distribution should be handled by the regency administration.

An official with the social affairs agency, Untung, said of the total 116 tons of rice donated, only 48.5 tons had passed through the Belu administration. The remaining rice was still with the provincial administration in Kupang.

The Belu administration would distribute the rice donation to the 22,886 refugee families only after all donations had been transported to the regency administration.

Violence erupts in East Timor despite UN presence

Red Pepper (UK) -- January 2003

Shravanti Reddy -- What began as a peaceful student protest on December 4 in the East Timor capital city of Dili ended in the largest violent conflict the nation has seen since independence.

On that day, two people were shot and killed and 26 people were injured as a state of emergency was declared and the city was placed on curfew. Peace returned the following morning, with the help of the UN Peacekeeping Force (PKF) and the UN Police (UNPOL).

However, local civil society organizations believe that while the East Timor Police Service (ETPS) was most likely responsible for the two deaths, the UN is ultimately accountable for not acting quickly enough to stop the violence.

Economic and social problems within the country are also largely considered to have played a role and many also believe that the violence escalated due to the political manipulation of the crowd by opponents of the current government under President Xanana Gusmao.

The government has set up two independent inquiries into the matter and local organizations have urged all criminal acts to be prosecuted.The event reminded many of the violence carried out by anti-independence militias in 1999 when close to 1,000 people were killed following a referendum concerning independence from Indonesia. East Timor was under Indonesian rule for twenty-five years.

The level of violence in 1999 sparked the intervention of the international community that ultimately led to a two-year UN transitional administration and independence for East Timor in May. While a UN evacuation was not ordered, many foreign workers hurried to the airport fearing that this was only the beginning of further violence. Only last month a mob had also attacked Baucau police headquarters

On December 3, a group of students and teachers from a local high school gathered in front of the National Parliament building because of their concern for fellow student, Daniel Soares, whom they believed was arbitrarily arrested by the ETPS.

Soares was arrested on November 24 on suspicion of murdering a member of a rival martial arts group who was stabbed to death in Bebonuk.

The protest stemmed from an arrest of a student for murder. According to an agreement made with Parliament, the group agreed to leave and return the following morning to continue their protest. However, they were soon joined by others and violence shortly ensued as people were reportedly incited to throw stones at the Parliament building by some in the crowd. Several windows were broken and one Member of Parliament was injured. As the crowd rapidly grew to some 500 people, the protest moved on to ETPS headquarters where the violence escalated after the ETPS shot and killed two students.

The presence of Gusmao, a respected individual within East Timorese society, did nothing to stem the violence. While he was successful in inviting a small group of students and teachers back to the Parliament building to talk, the majority of the crowd continued on its rampage, looting and attacking foreign- owned stores and burning vehicles and houses in different parts of the city including the Muslim area in and around the Kampung Alor mosque.

The homes of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and some of his relatives were also burned down before the crowd dispersed. PKF, UNPOL, and ETPS were able to secure the city the following morning. In addition to the dead and injured, 77 people were arrested on suspicion of looting and rioting. All but ten were released by Friday. No trial date has been set for those still detained and Soares has been remanded to custody in Becora Prison for an additional 30 days.

Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta believed that the violence was a product of political manipulation. Horta called the incident "an agenda of pure political manipulation" and UN Chief Kamalesh Sharma also stated that the riots may have been a "a planned attack against selected targets."

Local organizations concurred, reporting that protesters were manipulated by dissident political leaders. Aiming to destabilize the new government, they led the mob to certain targets, the main ones involved evidence of the unequal wealth between foreigners and locals, the Prime Minister, and the Muslim minority.

Many, including Gusmao, also believe that poverty played a major role in sparking violence last week. Local civil society organizations added that depressed social and economic conditions made the mob an easy target for manipulation by the political dissidents.

With a population of close to 800,000 people, the average annual income for last year was a mere US$857. Many people do not even have enough money to send their children to school. In addition, an attempt to increase University fees has been an ongoing sore spot for students.

In fact, the Australian newspaper, Financial Review, has claimed that East Timor's main problems are "its large, under-employed, poorly educated, youthful population" and the overall "unrealistic expectations of the economic benefits that independence would bring."

With international donors pledging close to US$520 million in reconstruction aid back in 1999 and the presence of vast old and gas reserves located in the Timor Sea, drastic changes were expected.

An agreement with Australia last year will provide the government with 90 percent of future oil revenues that should provide the country with billions of dollars over the next 20 years.

However, the pace of economic development remains slow and most East Timorese have yet to reap the benefits of international aid or oil and gas revenues. Instead, many continue to rely on subsistence farming and fishing for survival. Unemployment is high and there are few social services.

The juxtaposition of such poverty with an emerging elite, coupled with the influx of UN workers and military personnel who sometimes receive up to US$100 per day, helped to fuel frustration. The decision to make Portugese, the language of the erstwhile colonist, the new official language is another cause of disenfranchisement.

Most East Timorese do not speak Portugese, but rather Bahasa Indonesian or Tetum, an indigenous language. This is particularly true for the younger generation who grew up under Indonesian rule.

The result is that almost 90 percent of the population is blocked from obtaining lucrative government jobs. They are also at a disadvantage when participating in government decision-making and seeking justice in the courts. Harsh criticism was leveled against the PKF and the UNPOL for their slow response to the violence last week.

In a joint statement, 17 East Timorese civil society organizations condemned the violence but claimed that the UN and the international community were ultimately accountable, despite the fact that the ETPS clearly acted with unnecessary force.

Upon independence, the UN Security Council replaced the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) with a new peacekeeping mission, the UN Mission in Support of East Timor (UNMISET). UNPKF and UNPOL, which are under UNMISET, have a mandate to maintain law and order within the country and the ETPS operates under the guidance and supervision of UNPOL.

As the attacks and looting were occurring, there was no sign of the PKF, UNPOL, or ETPS. Despite wide access to vehicles, motorcycles and communications equipment, they arrived at each site only after the mob, that was traveling by foot, had moved on.

Foreign Minister Ramos Horta attributed the slow response to the reluctance to deploy peacekeepers "without a mandate or training to confront civil disturbances."

Horta explained that the riots were dispelled only after the Portugese faction of the UN peacekeeping troops acted outside of the UN chain of command, that had hesitated to act quickly.

In addition, local groups have criticized the PKF and UNPOL for making the security of UN and government facilities a priority over ending the violence. People reported seeing PKF forces passing areas of violence, without stopping, on their way to guard UN and government facilities.

In any case, the inability of the ETPS to handle the protests underscores the need for further training, particularly in dealing with civil protests, and a review of the timeline for withdrawal of PKF and UNPOL. The Portugese have already pledged to provide some such training.

Despite fears that it would be postponed, the two-day Dili Donors' Conference was held as scheduled, ending on December 10. With UN Peacekeepers providing security for the 200 delegates, the real need to increase aid for police training and programs that address the social and economic problems within East Timor could not have escaped them.

[Shravanti Reddy writes for the Digital Freedom Network www.dfn.org where this article first appeared.]

'Political profit' behind Dili riots: parliamentary inquiry

Lusa - December 16, 2002

Dili -- The parliamentary inquiry into Dili's deadly rioting found that street demonstrations began "spontaneously" but appeared to have turned into mob action for "political motivations", the commission's chief told Lusa Monday.

The parliamentary inquiry into the December 4 rioting has been turned over to the government for its appreciation along with a second independent inquiry that the cabinet was expected to discuss Monday.

Attorney General Longuinhos Monteiro, who headed the legislature's inquiry commission, told Lusa he had "sufficient evidence" to press criminal charges against "tens of people". However, he declined to identify the suspects, saying he expected the government to broaden the investigations.

Monteiro told Lusa that the report found that the demonstrations December 3-4 began "spontaneously" with students demanding news of an arrested schoolmate, but unspecified "third parties" triggered mob violence for "political profit".

The rioting left two people dead, about 40 injured, and many shops and homes, including that of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, burned or looted.

The parliamentary report, Monteiro added, also raised questions about the UN mission's slow response to the violence, urging parliament to demand that UNMISET assure that police and UN peacekeepers work closer together to maintain security. UNMISET remains primarily responsible for security in East Timor, which gained its independence last May 20.

In a related development, the military commander of Indonesian West Timor was reported Sunday as denying suggestions from Dili that former anti-independence militiamen had been behind the violence. Colonel Moeswarno Moesanip, according to the Jakarta Post, rebuffed such comments from Dili's foreign minister, Josi Ramos Horta, saying they were "offensive" and "insulting". Attempts to blame the rioting on "external factors", he said, were Dili's excuse "for having failed to resolve problems at home".

Timor Gap

Australia welcomes passing of Timor Sea Treaty

Dow Jones Newswires - December 18, 2002

Veronica Brooks, Canberra -- The Australian government Wednesday said it welcomes the passage of East Timor's legislation implementing the Timor Sea Treaty.

A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer also told Dow Jones Newswires that Australia's legislation on the treaty will be ready for introduction into parliament in early 2003.

The Timor Sea Treaty sets out the terms for exploiting oil and gas reserves in the Joint Petroleum Development Area of the Timor Sea in which East Timor has a 90% entitlement and Australia has 10%.

Australia has pushed back its parliamentary debate to early next year to provide time to sort out a dispute over the Greater Sunrise gas field, which falls largely outside the Joint Development Area, and is therefore not covered by the Timor Sea Treaty.

Greater Sunrise contains an estimated 8.35 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Under current maritime boundaries, agreed with Indonesia in the 1970s, 80% of Sunrise falls in Australian waters.

But East Timor -- which became formally independent in March after three decades of Indonesian occupation -- is claiming a maritime boundary with Australia that would potentially take in all of the Sunrise fields.

Dili MPs ratify Timor Sea pact

The Australian - December 18, 2002

Nigel Wilson -- The East Timor parliament has ratified the Timor Sea Treaty with Australia, further embarrassing the Howard Government.

The office of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri confirmed last night that parliament had voted 65 to 13 to approve the treaty on the administration of petroleum reserves between Darwin and Dili.

Gas discoveries covered by the treaty will be East Timor's main source of revenue, with the country's potential earnings estimated at up to $US40 billion over the next 30 years.

The document was signed by Prime Minister John Howard and East Timor President Xanana Gusmao in Dili, on the country's foundation day on May 20, with the understanding it would be ratified by December 31.

But Foreign Minister Alexander Downer last week reneged on that understanding by refusing to introduce the treaty in time for it to be debated before the parliament rose for the year. It will now not be introduced until February.

Australian officials have angered the East Timor Government by insisting an agreement covering the terms for development of the Sunrise gas reservoirs about 450km northwest of Darwin should be concluded before the treaty was ratified.

East Timor has been accused by some Australian officials and company representatives of holding up the treaty's ratification to secure better terms from the Sunrise negotiations.

The suggestion has infuriated East Timor, with Dr Alkatiri insisting his parliament would ratify the treaty inside the agreed timetable.

He said Australia's decision to withdraw from the UN laws of the sea convention on maritime bound aries ahead of the Timor treaty being signed was an unfriendly act.

In Darwin yesterday, talks on the Sunrise deal appeared to have made progress, with negotiations to continue until at least tomorrow.

Human rights trials

Indonesia's court for East Timor a 'Whitewash'

Human Rights Watch - December 20, 2002

New York -- The Indonesian ad hoc court for East Timor has utterly failed to bring to justice the perpetrators of the 1999 violence in East Timor, Human Rights Watch charged in a new briefing paper released today.

To date, only twelve people have been tried before the Ad Hoc Human Rights Court for East Timor in Jakarta, and ten have been acquitted. All nine Indonesian military and police personnel charged have been acquitted. The court has convicted only two people; both are East Timorese.

"The trials in Jakarta have been a whitewash," said Brad Adams, executive director of the Asia Division at Human Rights Watch. "Indonesia has failed in its promise to hold the military accountable for the atrocities in East Timor."

The United Nations secretary-general should commission an experts' report examining the failure of the ad hoc court, Human Rights Watch said.

In the 13-page briefing paper, Human Rights Watch stressed the obligation of the UN and its member states to ensure accountability for the 1999 violence, which occurred after the people of East Timor voted for independence in a UN-administered referendum. In 2000, the secretary-general pledged to "closely monitor" Indonesia's trials to ensure that they were a "credible response in accordance with international human rights principles."

The briefing paper describes the refusal of prosecutors to indict senior leaders such as then-chief of staff General Wiranto, named by the Indonesian Human Rights Commission as responsible for the 1999 violence. President Megawati Sukarnoputri later described many of the military leaders involved in the violence in East Timor as "national heroes" for their role in fighting for their country and publicly urged the military to "carry out your duties and responsibilities in the best possible manner without having to worry about human rights abuses."

"Indonesia's political leaders have created an atmosphere of impunity for these trials," said Adams. "It is clear that the most senior members of the Indonesian military responsible for the violence will receive only perfunctory trials. Some Indonesian military officers implicated in atrocities have actually been promoted."

While all of the accused have been charged with crimes against humanity, the indictments only allege that they failed to control their subordinates, not that they actually planned and ordered the attacks themselves.

Verdicts in remaining cases are expected in the next few weeks. The tribunal's mandate is due to expire on January 3, 2003. Among the cases still to be decided are Major General Adam Damiri, former chief of the Udayana Regional Military Command, who has been indicted on two counts of crimes against humanity.

"We do not recommend an extension of the mandate, since this process has proven to be fatally flawed," said Adams. "We urge the UN and donors to think of a different means of achieving justice based on international standards."

Human Rights Watch commended the efforts of a parallel process in East Timor, while noting serious technical weaknesses. The UN has created a special investigation unit and a special court in East Timor to hold perpetrators there accountable. Human Rights Watch urged donors to provide more training and resources to judges, prosecutors, and investigators and called for an extension of the mandate of the special court and investigators in Dili.

In September 1999 the Indonesian National Army and Timorese militias carried out a campaign of murder, arson, and forced expulsion after the people of East Timor voted for independence in a United Nations-administered referendum. After almost twenty-five years of brutal occupation, an estimated 1,000 to 2,000 East Timorese civilians lost their lives in the months before and days immediately after the voting. Approximately 500,000 people were forced from their homes or fled to seek refuge.

Bishop Belo vows never to appear at rights court

Agence France Presse - December 21, 2002

Dili -- East Timor's outgoing bishop, Carlos Belo, hit back Friday at accusations he had made a fool of an Indonesian human rights court hearing charges against Indonesian military officers, saying he would never appear before it.

Belo vowed in a written statement to reporters that he would only testify before a United Nations court, amid widespread criticism that the legal proceedings in the Jakarta court were a sham.

"I will only give evidence in front of an international court carried out by the United Nations in East Timor," Belo, a Nobel peace prize winner, said in a statement written in Portugese.

The Jakarta court expected Belo to testify through a live television link with East Timor this week. His absence sparked an outburst from Binsar Gultom, a judge of the human rights court, who accused Belo of "making a fool of the court."

Quoted in Thursday's Kompas daily in Jakarta, Gultom said Belo's testimony was badly needed to explain discrepancies between statements in the official investigative report and witness testimony.

"If he doesn't appreciate the court then he doesn't need to be appreciated. It's useless for him to become bishop," Gultom was quoted as saying.

A World Bank-funded satellite link was set up for three days this week for witnesses in Dili to appear before the Jakarta court but Belo said no one had bothered to ask him to testify.

"Not even one person has contacted me as an individual to give testimony in the ad hoc court," Belo said. "Not even one person told me how, where and when I am to give testimony."

Belo said rather than his showing a lack of appreciation for the court, the court itself has shown no appreciation for the victims and people of East Timor.

Jakarta's rights court has been trying military and police officers, as well as militia members and civilians, charged with human rights abuses surrounding East Timor's 1999 vote for independence from Indonesia.

However human rights workers have criticized the Jakarta trials as a sham. The most senior Indonesian officers were not charged in connection with the violence and nine army or police officers and one civilian tried before the court have so far been acquitted. Two East Timorese civilians have been sentenced to prison but they remain free pending appeal.

The international community has threatened to convene an international court if Indonesia's efforts at justice are deemed unsatisfactory. However many foreign observers now consider such a tribunal unlikely.

United Nations officials and Indonesian human rights investigators have said the pro-Indonesian militias were armed and organized by the Indonesian security forces.

They carried out a brutal campaign of intimidation before East Timor's August, 1999 vote to break away from Indonesia and a revenge campaign of murder, arson, looting and forced deportation afterwards. An estimated 1,000 people died that year and much of the territory was laid to waste.

Troops stood by as militia attacked church: witness

Associated Press - December 16, 2002

Chris Brummitt, Jakarta -- Indonesian security forces looked on but did nothing when a pro-Indonesia mob attacked a church in East Timor, killing at least 27 people, a witness said Monday during the trial of an army general accused over the violence three years ago.

Noer Muis, East Timor's former military chief, is accused of failing to prevent pro-Indonesia militiamen from attacking the Ave Maria church in Suai on September 6, 1999. He faces the death penalty if convicted.

The massacre was typical of the violence that swept East Timor before and after the territory voted to break from Indonesia in a U.N-sponsored ballot in August 1999.

The police and military were outside the church but "were only overseeing" when the massacre took place, Suai police detective Tobias Santos told the court.

Prosecutors didn't ask Santos what he meant by "overseeing," or why he and his colleagues did not try to prevent the attack.

The 27 victims were hiding in the church. Three were Roman Catholic priests.

Muis is one of 18 officials charged over the violence. Ten of them have been cleared of all charges, prompting local and international human rights groups to describe the trials as a sham.

Two of the accused _ East Timor's former provincial governor and a notorious militia leader _ have been found guilty, sentenced to three and 10 years respectively. Both are East Timorese natives. Muis is Indonesian.

Legal observers say that the prosecutors appear not to understand the charges, and often fail to press the accused or witnesses on important points.

Monday's trial was the first to use video-conferencing technology to bring live testimony from witnesses in East Timor. At least one East Timorese witness has complained of intimidation when appearing in Jakarta.

Nearly 2,000 civilians were believed killed and 250,000 forced to flee their homes when Indonesian troops and their militia proxies launched a campaign of terror aimed at forcing people to vote for continued integration with Jakarta.

East Timor gained full independence in May, after a period of transitional rule by the United Nations following Indonesia's brutal 24-year occupation.

Rights court hears first televised testimony from Timor

Agence France Presse - December 16, 2002

Jakarta -- A human rights court trying an Indonesian army general heard the first live televised testimony Monday from witnesses in East Timor.

In a broadcast funded by the World Bank, a former Indonesian soldier and a former police detective gave separate accounts of deadly attacks on a church in Suai town and the Dili Catholic church diocese offices in September, 1999.

Few East Timorese have travelled to Jakarta to testify directly before the human rights courts and Marek Michon, officer in charge of the serious crimes unit in Dili, said Monday's testimony was the first by live television link.

The two witnesses, Tobias Dos Santos and Nonato Soares, were concerned about their security, Michon told AFP from Dili. "They didn't want to go to Jakarta," he said.

Soares testified that one of his children and a nephew died during an attack on the Dili diocese offices where they had sought safety on September 5, 1999, with about 300 other people.

Soares, a former village chief and Indonesian soldier in Dili, said he did not know who killed his relatives but that militias, Indonesian troops and police had been outside the waterfront buildings.

He said he heard that 30 people died in the attack. Asked whether Indonesian soldiers joined the assault, he said: "That's not clear."

But Soares said he was later stabbed by an Indonesian soldier at the Dili port. He lifted up his shirt to show the wounds, one brown mark clearly visible below his left breast and another on his right side.

Soares was testifying at the trial of Brigadier General Nur Muis, the then East Timor military commander.

His testimony appeared on a large projector screen standing at the end of the prosecutor's bench. Another screen faced the spectators' seats where about 10 members of the Indonesian special forces, Kopassus, watched the proceedings. Major General Adam Damiri, who is undergoing a separate human rights trial, also watched from the public gallery.

In earlier televised testimony, Dos Santos said he did not know who attacked the Ave Maria church in Suai on December 6, 1999 but he said he was told militias were responsible. Asked whether Indonesian soldiers or police had joined the attack, Dos Santossaid: "I didn't see."

Dos Santos was a local police detective and testified that he checked the bodies of 22 people including three priests killed in the attack. He said he went to the church after hearing gunfire for four hours.

United Nations officials and Indonesian human rights investigators have said the pro-Indonesian militias were armed and organized by the Indonesian security forces. They carried out a brutal campaign of intimidation before East Timor's August, 1999 vote to break away from Indonesia and a revenge campaign of murder, arson, looting and forced deportation afterwards.

An estimated 1,000 people were killed and much of the territory was laid to waste.

All seven army or police officers tried before the human rights court have been acquitted. Two East Timorese civilians have been sentenced to prison but they remain free pending appeal.

Human rights workers have criticized the trials as a sham. The most senior Indonesian officers were not charged in connection with the violence.

Human rights/law

Legal system in crisis

Radio Australia - December 19, 2002

[The United Nations and legal workers in East Timor have accused the international community, including Australia, of failing to offer continuing support to the country's reconstruction. More than six months after independence, there is broad agreement that the justice system is in crisis. Some observers are linking riots in Dili earlier this month to rising frustration, in a community still waiting for the promised peace that was to have come with hard-won independence.]

Presenter/Interviewer: Sonya De Masi

Speakers: Patrick Burgess; Head of Human Rights Unit, United Nations Mission in Support of East Timor (UNMISET), Charles Scheiner; East Timor Institute for Reconstruction, Monitoring and Analysis, La'o Hamutuk, Nelson Belo; Outreach Co-ordinator, Judicial System Monitoring Program, Maria Netersia Gusmao Pereira, Judge, Dili District Court

Scheiner: We would say that the international community has not met its responsibility, both in terms of providing the support and expertise and administrative work to make the judicial system function better. Hopefully the result of disturbances last week, is that the international donor community, and I include of course Australia, needs to look at the fact they need to continue to support East Timor.

De Masi: Charles Scheiner, from the East Timor Institute for Reconstruction, Monitoring and Analysis, La'o Hamutuk, is not alone in linking the Dili riots earlier this month with the slow pace of reconstruction.

For some in East Timor, the wheels of justice are turning very slowly. There are 47 cases pending appeal after trial in the lower court. But there isn't a Court of Appeal because the judges haven't been appointed.

Some of those convicted have reportedly been waiting in jail for more than two years, in violation of international human rights standards.

Patrick Burgess is the head of the Human Rights Unit at the United Nations Mission in Support fo East Timor, in Dili.

Burgess: Certainly I think it's completely unacceptable for an Apellate Court not to be staffed and it's my understanding that administrative problems have failed to produce people who the government feels acceptable to be appointed.

And people who have been convicted are unable to appeal, adn that includes crimes against humanity trials that have already been completed. I don't have any explanation other than that the people have been put forward at this stage have been found to be unacceptable by the government.

De Masi: Most East Timorese are unable to afford legal representation, and government-run legal aid is still in its early stages of development.

There's also a massive shortage of experienced legal professionals and no lawyers with court experience.

Burgess: It is hard to find the right people to help. In East Timor all the young judges, lawyers, prosecutors, public defenders were educated in Indonesia. They speak Indonesian. All the international assistance sought, most were people who couldn't communicate with their East Timorese counterparts. We had to use interpreters, the law is so technical, the interpretation is not accurate. The East Timorese government keen to impose the decision that's been made here to use Portuguese as national language, but the lawyers don't speak Portuguese.

De Masi: Nelson Belo, from East Timor's Judicial System Monitoring Program says local people who come into contact with the court system can often not even make themselves understood.

Belo: East Timorese speak in Tetum, and some ordinary people who've committed crimes or witnesses, they come from the countryside, they cannot speak Tetum, they speak their local language, and there are no interpreters. So it's really hard for the court to function in a proper way.

De Masi: Add to this a pastiche of international, East Timorese and Indonesian law, and UN regulations, and Nelson Belo says it's clear why the entire system is failing.

Patrick Burgess, from the UN's Human Rights Unit says these shortfalls are not the only factors in undermining trust in the legal system.

There's also a lack of progress in prosecuting crimes against humanity from the post-election violcence in 1999.

Burgess: The East Timorese people can see very clearly the Indonesian military who they feel were responsible for that violence, in fact they know them personally. They see the trials in Jakarta having failed to produce a single successful prosecution of military personnell, the international community backing away from pushing for stronger answers from the Jakarta tribunals, and they're very very disappointed about that.

De Masi: Closer to home, confidence was further damaged when the East Timor government refused to enforce a court ruling, casting doubt on the separation of powers.

The decision was untimately upheld, but not before a lawyers strike and a dangerous precedent of goverment interference in the judicial system.

Maria Natersia Gusmao Pereira is a judge on the Serious Crimes Special Panel of the Dili District Court, that hears cases from the post-independence ballot violence.

She says the government and the community must take ownership of the judicial system and some responsibility for its success.

Gusmao Pereira: I believe that my people, my community, they trust us. They trust us to be independent, impartial in our work. If everybody in this government and in this country has the good will to support the courts, I think there'll be no crisis in the future.

De Masi: Meanwhile, the United Nations' Patrick Burgess says that future has been made more tenuous by the failure of the international community to follow through on its commitment to help East Timor rebuild.

He says assistance is needed not just in the short term, but for as long as it takes.

Burgess: Recruiting people, finding the right people, the right buildings, there were no law books, there were no experienced personnel, no vehicles, there wasn't a computer. The judges used to have meetings sitting on the floor, scribbling on pieces of paper. There's a long, long way to go but the entire future of the country rests, in my opinion, on whether the justice system is effective and functioning.

News & issues

Timor's lost boys

Time Asia - December 23, 2002

Simon Elegant, Venelale -- During the bloody insurrection that produced the new nation of East Timor, Hasan Basri presented residents of the small town of Venelale with a proposition: give me your youngest children. I will feed them, I will educate them, and most importantly, I will protect them.

At the time, Jose Pereira, a poor local farmer, awoke each morning wondering if that day the truckload of Indonesian soldiers would appear in their vengeful hunt for independence fighters and attack his family. He listened carefully to what the stranger offered. Hasan said he had government funding. He would take the children to a school in the town of Bacau, an hour's drive away, where they would be safe. The only requirement was that the children convert from Catholicism, which is practiced by most East Timorese, to Islam, the religion of their Indonesian overlords.

"He said that they could convert back later, it didn't mean anything, that they only had to pretend so the Indonesians would give the money for them to go to school," recalls Pereira, a Christian. "I trusted him and let him take away Jacinto and Marito," the youngest of his eight children, who were then five and eight years old, respectively.

Four years have passed. East Timor is peaceful and its people are getting on with the business of nation-building. Yet Pereira has not been reunited with his sons. Hasan refuses to let them go. He holds them, as he does about 50 others, in orphanages far from their birthplaces.

They are part of a lost generation of East Timorese children cut adrift from their parents by civil unrest. The United Nations estimates there are 400 children like Jacinto and Marito scattered in orphanages and homes throughout Indonesia. Despite the intervention of international agencies and repeated requests from parents for their return, many remain under the guardianship of believers like Hasan who want to raise them as Muslims-as markers in the ancient struggle between Islam and Christianity. "Hasan Basri has stolen our children from us," says Pereira. "Why won't he let them come back?"

A thousand miles away, Hasan is sitting on a stained mattress in a wooden hut in the compound of his orphanage near the Javanese city of Bandung. He rages against the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), whose members have been working with parents to locate their offspring and arrange for their return home. Hasan says the children in his charge are now part of his family, and that UNHCR officials "have been lying about me for too long.

If the UNHCR comes here, I'll hit them myself," he vows over and over, as he chain-smokes clove cigarettes. "I'll get the boys to hit them. I won't allow those liars to take a single one of my children away. Never."

Yes, Hasan acknowledges, he has been informed that Pereira and his wife want their sons back. "More lies," he says. He rejects all claims made on behalf of the boys' parents, alleging that documents produced by the UNHCR to prove their case are forged. Hasan does acknowledge that initial UN queries about Jacinto prompted him to relocate the boy to another orphanage administered by Hasan's Lemorai Foundation. A UN official says they believe Jacinto was moved to the remote island of Sumbawa to complicate their efforts to secure his return. "I don't understand the game the UNHCR is playing," Hasan says.

"I'm no destroyer or kidnapper. I'm just a person trying to do some good in the world by giving children a better future. Ask the children. They are my witness."

But the 20 or so children in Hasan's compound in the village of Sumedang aren't talking, at least not when Hasan is around. Most avoid eye contact with visitors and disappear around corners in the orphanage, which consists of a small chicken run, four huts fashioned out of wood and bamboo where the children and adults sleep, an open air concrete toilet and a musholla, or prayer room. A skinny 9-year-old gathers his courage to speak: "I was named Joni by my parents, but that was when I was still an infidel. I am Zulhakim now that I'm a Muslim." He looks around to make sure he isn't being watched.

"Sometimes, when no one sees me, I cry at nights because I miss my mother so much. They told me she had died." Another boy, 15- year-old Zachariah, seems to want to talk. But when Hasan is near, Zachariah lowers his eyes and tries to slip away, only to be drawn back again when a visitor produces a personal letter from East Timor addressed to Hasan, complete with photos of villagers back home. The letter prompts Hasan's wife, who is from the island, to burst into tears, but Hasan shouts at her and she retreats into a rear room. Zachariah picks up the letter.

Hasan has repeatedly told the teenager-who was spirited away by Hasaan's associates in 1999 without his father's acquiescence- that his parents are dead. Zachariah asks if it's possible to take a letter back to East Timor.

Hasan overhears. "Shut up," he snaps. "What's the use of sending letters to infidels?" Later, Zachariah takes the visitor aside again: "Could you help me to return to East Timor next year?" he asks in a whisper. "I've heard my parents are still alive and I'd like to go back."

Although he was raised a Catholic in an East Timor village and was originally named Roberto Freitas, the 39-year-old Hasan became a Muslim when he was still a teenager. He is not the only Indonesian running questionable shelters for East Timorese children. The nephew of the former Governor of East Timor, Octavio Soares, has 156 children in his charge and has clashed frequently with UN officials seeking their return. Critics claim people like Soares and Hasan are motivated less by altruism and their religious beliefs than by greed. Hasan uses children "as an asset or a bargaining chip" to get donations, charges Soni Qodri from Riantara, a Jakarta-based non-governmental organization that has helped locate many of the missing.

People who have worked with Hasan claim he's simply a con man, a real-life Fagin who uses children for profit. Hasan "is a man of bad character," says Idris Luis Freitas (he is not related to him), who helped find recruits for Hasan in the 1990s. "It's nothing to do with whether he's a Muslim or not, he's just bad. He takes the names of the children and uses them to make proposals to charities for funding, then uses the money for himself. Without the children it would be impossible for Freitas to raise funds to maintain his orphanage."

Hasan vehemently denies he is doing anything wrong. He says funds for his Lemorai Foundation come from "alms given by Indonesian Muslims who care about our misfortune." He proffers documents indicating everything is on the up-and-up. Children's surnames written on the papers are frequently either "Freitas" or "da Silva," Hasan's family name and that of his wife. Filling out the documents that way strengthens his claim over the children, making Hasan appear to be their nearest relative, says Qodri of the Riantara NGO.

Hasan also produces other papers, these relating to what he cheerfully calls "my terrible past." The documents indicate he was once a low-level agent for the Indonesian military intelligence service in East Timor, a group blamed by human rights activists for hundreds of killings and disappearances. Hasan, a small man who on this day is wearing a cotton sarong, tracksuit top and traditional pillbox hat, is proud of his service as an informer. He seems puzzled as to why others might not be. In fact, he says, it was through the military that he first set out on the path to conversion. One day when he was about nine, he recalls, some soldiers visited his village accompanied by an Islamic cleric. Accustomed to regarding the military as the ultimate incarnation of power, Hasan was deeply impressed by the reverence the soldiers showed the holy man: "Can you imagine how I felt? Those powerful men in uniform looked up to the frail-looking old preacher. I decided I wanted to be like that."

Backed by government money, he says he spent six years helping East Timorese escape violence and poverty, and converting them to Islam. His best year was 1999, he says, when he smuggled 661 refugees-about two-thirds of them children-out of East Timor. "I have the right to turn my people into Muslims.

And why not when others were allowed to turn East Timor to Catholicism?" His viewpoints are not universally shared by other Muslims. "I don't care about how he earns his living these days," says Salim Musalam Sagran, who has known and occasionally worked with Hasan since 1990 and is a former senior official in the influential Council of Islamic Preachers, which among other roles gives out government money to orphanages and other charities. "But I have every interest in ensuring the children's future. Freitas must realize that the children have the right to communicate with their parents, and he must let them go if they want to reunite with their families."

The UNHCR is handling requests from 33 parents who want their children back from Hasan's Lemorai Foundation, some of them scattered as far afield as Sumatra and Sulawesi. Reunions, however, are not likely to happen quickly for those in Hasan's care-or for hundreds of other displaced East Timoreese children. The UN can only make requests. After that it's up to the Indonesian authorities. I. Gusti Wesaka Puja, the official handling the issue at the Foreign Ministry in Jakarta, says the government is doing all it can to help. But "the fact is we have other priorities that demand much more of our attention than just these children," he says. Bureaucratic inertia and a lack of funding-it costs $500 to bring a single parent from East Timor to Sumedang-all combine to hinder progress. "It's an agonizingly slow pprocess," says Jake Moreland, a UNHCR spokesman in Dili, East Timor's capital. "And time is precious. The longer they are apart, the looser these children's links are with their parents."

Nevertheless, a few do make it home. Two months ago, Hasan's compound in Sumedang received a visit by a team of officials from the West Java provincial authorities, the Foreign Ministry and the UNHCR. Accompanying them was Agustino Pascual, Zachariah's father, very much alive. The father hugged his boy. "He is my only son," said 56-year-old Pascual, who spent three years trying to reclaim his child. "It's just been too long. Praise the Lord, I have him back with me now."

Hasan put up no resistance, despite his repeated threat to "hit" any UN representatives who showed up on his doorstep. He, too, must answer to his conscience, his God-even his own family. Back in his home village off Liasidi, where he hasn't been seen in four years and until recently was presumed dead, Hasan's father stands stiffly trying to put his feelings about his son into words. Finally, he speaks: "I don't care what religion he is or what he has done. Tell Roberto I want to see him one more time before I die. I just want him to come home." The parents of East Timor's lost children may worship different gods, but they share the same pain.ot arrest the seven suspects. Barreto said the group decided to surrender to Baucau District Administrator on December 8 after the head of the sub-district approached them. STL reported that two suspects, including the one who snatched the police gun, surrendered on December 10 with the pistol. (STL) STL reported Thursday that the relatives of Calisto Soares, the 27-year-old man wounded by a shotgun during the attack at Baucau police station demanded a judicial enquiry into his death. They accused the Government of being responsible by the incident and said that those guilty (including police) must be tried said the newspaper.

In a 2-part series interview with Timor Post, Bishop Basilio do Nascimento said Security and Justice are the two main pillars of the country at present. The bishop said all the Timorese dreamed of independence but the country still lacks intellectual and economy capacity.(TP) The Principal of 28 November school, Jaime Soares told the media on Wednesday that he is not responsible to the riot that took place on December 3 and 4. Soares said the school has been running under the supervision of priests and nuns. He said reports about the school are incorrect and the investigation team must investigate the case including the police.

Religion/Catholic church

The kid who became bishop and hero calls it a day

Melbourne Age - December 18, 2002

Jill Joliffe, Dili -- The recent resignation of Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo as head of the Catholic Church in East Timor has brought to a close a courageous and painful period in the life of the Nobel laureate. And, in the current volatile climate, it has also heightened the feeling of political insecurity in the newly independent nation.

Officially, Bishop Belo resigned because of ill health. In a letter, issued on November 26, he said he was suffering from "exhaustion, physical and psychological tiredness" and needed a long period of rest to recover his health. But church insiders say he was fed up with the Vatican's long-standing practice of making changes to the structure of the East Timor church without consulting local clergy.

Belo embarked on the journey that led him to become a Timorese hero in 1981 when he returned from exile after fleeing from the 1975 civil war. At this time he was being groomed to become the new head of the East Timorese church.

In 1983 he was appointed apostolic administrator, then, in 1988, he was confirmed as bishop.

I first saw Carlos Belo soon after Pope John Paul II had informed him of his appointment. He was pointed out to me by a Timorese friend as he trudged through the winter mud of a Lisbon refugee camp. "There goes the new bishop," he said. "Don't you want to interview him?"

I thought he was joking. I saw a slim young man who looked little more than a schoolboy. Back in East Timor, the tough and wily acting bishop, Martinho Lopes da Costa, was doing serious battle with the Indonesian military, going into jails to pull prisoners out and preaching no-holds-barred nationalist sermons.

This young man didn't appear to be made of the same stuff. "No, I don't think so," I said, making a snap decision that I would forever regret.

The slim young man, who was, in fact, 35, replaced the elderly Martinho Lopes after the Vatican yielded to Indonesian pressure to dismiss him. Lopes arrived in Lisbon soon after with a deep sense of betrayal.

Weeping crowds had farewelled him in Dili, fearful that there would no longer be a church leader to stand between them and the occupying Indonesian army.

Belo had been hand-picked because he came from a family in Baucau that had connections with the pro-Indonesian Apodeti party, and was thought to be malleable.

Years later he told his biographer Arnold Kohen he had felt completely inadequate for the job. "I was just a kid," he said.

In the years that followed, this saintly "kid" confronted one of the ugliest military machines in the world. He provided leadership to a whole new generation of nationalists, practising non-violence and moral firmness in an atmosphere of unremitting violence.

If he had any thoughts of taking an easy way out, they were quickly dispelled. Soon after his appointment, Indonesian troops executed civilians at Kraras, near Viqueque, in reprisal for an attack by East Timorese guerrillas. He travelled to the site and publicly denounced the atrocity.

Henceforth the Indonesian Government had a new nationalist cleric with which to contend.

Belo was literally the father of the 1999 UN-supervised referendum that brought East Timor its freedom. In 1989, he had smuggled out a letter to UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar requesting a referendum and reminding the world body that no act of self-determination had ever been held.

While the letter attracted the ire of the Catholic hierarchy, it became a benchmark in the fight for independence.

By the time of the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, Bishop Belo was a besieged, internationally-recognised champion of the nationalist movement. Captured on videotape by Yorkshire Television, the massacre changed world perceptions of the situation in Timor, but put Belo under even greater pressure.

Journalists hounded him and Indonesian intelligence agents threatened him.

Would-be helpers, whether solidarity organisations or governments, pulled him in opposite directions, pursuing their own vested interests. Lesser men would have collapsed under the strain, but he maintained a strong front.

After Santa Cruz, there was much lobbying for him to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, which he finally won in 1996 as co- laureate with exiled Timorese activist Jose Ramos Horta.

In 1998, to relieve Belo's workload, the Vatican decided to create a second diocese in East Timor. Father Basilio Nascimento, a Timorese who had spent many years in Portugal, became the Bishop of Baucau.

At the height of Indonesia's scorched earth withdrawal in 1999, militia gangs attacked and burnt Bishop Belo's residence. Shots were fired at him and he was bundled into a car by Indonesian officers and flown to Baucau to an unknown fate. He had no wish to abandon East Timor, but Nascimento met him in Baucau and counselled him to fly on to Darwin for his own safety.

Since Indonesia's withdrawal, he has continued to work tirelessly, but stress has manifested itself in his growing irascibility and at times outright rudeness, even to his own priests. He has also made himself unavailable to journalists.

When Bishop Belo made one of his habitual visits to Europe in September, it did not draw much attention in East Timor. Had his countrymen known his intent they would have been distressed -- he was carrying a letter of resignation to Pope John Paul II.

He was in Europe again in November and visited the Pope with Nascimento. Soon after, the Portuguese weekly Expresso ran a story saying he intended to resign because of poor health and Vatican plans to reorganise the Timorese church hierarchy. Confronted with the story by journalists, Belo first denied it, but then said: "Let's see, it all depends on the evolution of my health."

On Monday, November 25, Monsignor Renzo Ratini, the papal nuncio (diplomatic representative) in Jakarta travelled to Dili. The following morning he met the two Timorese bishops and told them the Pope had accepted Bishop Belo's resignation.

While the Vatican never formally recognised Indonesian sovereignty in the former Portuguese colony, with the Timorese church being administered directly from Rome, it did waver in that direction, as the dismissal of Martinho Lopes demonstrated.

But throughout the years of Indonesian rule in East Timor, the nationalist struggle was reflected in the local church's determination not to answer to the Indonesian Bishops' Conference.

Having contributed so much to independence, the clergy wanted to see the changes made in independent East Timor also reflected in the church structure.

The Vatican has decided to create a third diocese in three years time. Under canon law, only then can the church have its own council of bishops and be entitled to its own nuncio.

Meanwhile, the Jakarta nuncio will continue to be the intermediary between the Dili diocese and the Vatican, as it was during the occupation.

Father Luisito Caupayan, an episcopal vicar for the diocese and a special assistant to Bishop Belo, says the Timorese clergy are disappointed at the slow pace of change and that this sense of being put in abeyance may have contributed to Belo's resignation.

[Jill Joliffe is an Australian journalist working in East Timor.]