East Timor News Digest 14 - June 2-8, 2003

Dili -- Foreign donors have confirmed their support for the struggling new nation of East Timor, a World Bank spokesman said at the end of a semi-annual meeting here.

Sixteen delegates including Japan, the European Union, United States and multilateral agencies gathered for the day and a-half meeting. "The donors will continue to support Timor Leste's [East Timor's] development regardless of what has been achieved," the spokesman, who declined to be named, told AFP.

On Wednesday East Timor signed a memorandum of understanding with Finland for 1.2 million dollars to be channeled through the World Bank for "capacity building." The spokesman said he was not aware of any other new aid pledges at the meeting.

Upon independence just over one year ago East Timor was the poorest country in Asia. The economy is contracting and still greatly reliant on foreign assistance. Forty percent of the population lives below the poverty line of about 55 cents a day.

Basic human needs such as health, food and shelter are a top priority, Sukehiro Hasegawa, the United Nations' second-highest official in East Timor, said at the start of the meeting.

Hasegawa urged East Timor's development partners to provide more support so that "tangible results" can be achieved in agricultural production, water supply, sanitation and basic infrastructure.

Other challenges include bridging the gap between East Timor's cities and the rural areas where most of the people live, the need for strengthening public administration, the prevention of corruption and nepotism, support for Portuguese-language education and empowerment of women and vulnerable groups, the UN said.

Despite the challenges that remain, the meeting began with widespread praise from development partners for how much has already been achieved, the UN said.

The country remains burdened by an unemployment rate estimated at more than 70 percent, although Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta said recently employment is higher than it was two years ago. He said the agricultural sector has returned to pre-1999 levels of production but admitted East Timor lacks foreign direct investment.

East Timor became independent after a UN administration lasting 31 months attempted to rebuild the country's infrastructure from scratch. Departing Indonesian troops and their militia proxies carried out a scorched earth policy that left much of the country in ruins in 1999.

Timor's ex-guerrillas paying a high price for the freedom

Time Asia - June 2, 2003

Lisa Clausen, Dili -- Domingos Ximenes pulls off his T shirt to reveal a body that tells the story of two decades of war and suffering. On his left arm is a map of East Timor in the grip of a fist; on his right arm and across his chest tumble rough tattoos of a sacred bird, a Bible and crucifix, and a spear. In many places scars show through the faded images, souvenirs of countless battles in the bush.

Four years after the end of the war against Indonesia's occupation, this former guerrilla fighter has no job and little sense of purpose. He wonders what there is for him and his comrades in this new nation they fought so long to secure. "Where is our home? We do not have one. Where is our land? We do not have any," he says. "Who will understand our situation? Who will solve our problems?"

Unlike Aceh, East Timor no longer suffers at the often brutal hands of the Indonesian military. But now, a year after winning its freedom, this tiny nation faces a slew of daunting challenges, from constructing a viable economy to repairing lives ravaged by more than 20 years of violence and misery.

None have endured more than the former members of the guerrilla group Falintil, those most responsible for liberating East Timor. For two decades these defiant fighters clung to what President Xanana Gusmao, himself a former guerrilla leader, once called the "sacred ideal" of independence. Now that they have achieved it, these same men are struggling to find a place in the country they helped create.

Many are maimed and traumatized, or find themselves without a family, a home, an education or a job. "We are the people who organized the war, which is why we have independence," says Antonio Salsinha, who works on a fledgling governmental program to identify former fighters who might one day receive financial aid. "But we feel forgotten."

The government, for all its good intentions, has scant resources to ease their pain. East Timor is poor, its needs many. Of the 1,500 guerrillas who survived the war (out of some 27,000), about 600 have been absorbed into the East Timor Defense Force (FDTL), Timor's new army. The rest were too damaged in body or mind, or, like Zacarias de Fatima, considered too old. Average life expectancy in East Timor is just 57, so at 51, De Fatima should be a grandfather. Instead he is a first-time father, belatedly resuming the life he abruptly gave up in 1975, when he joined Falintil at 25. It wasn't until 2001 that he had the chance to marry.

Life has been hard since independence, says De Fatima. He and his wife have no job, and they and their 18-month-old child survive on handouts from relatives. Sometimes De Fatima wonders if things weren't better in the bush. "There, my only focus was how to get independence," he says, standing in the abandoned house in the central town of Aileu where he's temporarily residing. "Now there is a lot of thinking about things, like how to look after my family."

Former Falintil commander Taur Matan Ruak acknowledges the frustration. Now the FDTL's commander in chief, he meets regularly with ex-combatants, listening as they accuse their leaders of forgetting them. "During the war we had such large expectations of the future, that we would solve all of our problems immediately," says Ruak. "But the dream is one thing, the reality another."

Even those with jobs struggle. Mario Baptista joined Falintil at age 13 along with his father. He killed an Indonesian soldier for the first time at 15, and prayed every day for the "miracle of independence." Now an FDTL officer, the 31-year-old tries to pay for the education of five young relatives out of a salary of $130 a month. Another soldier, who still uses his code name Mausae Lary, came home in 1999 after 24 years in the bush to find that his wife, assuming he was dead, had remarried. His relatives are disappointed in him: "They say, 'You have sacrificed so much, why haven't you got a house or some materials?'"

Idleness can breed mischief, and the authorities worry that deep disappointment among former Falintil fighters could lead to unrest. In the remote Hatolia area in the mist-filled forests south of Dili, villagers accuse the shadowy group Colimau 2000, composed of ex-guerrillas and disaffected East Timorese villagers, of extorting money from them. In Hatolia town, locals tell of being robbed at night by a gang led by a disgruntled Falintil veteran. Australian peacekeepers now patrol the area. "We are scared," says Antonio Salsinha, a resident from the nearby town of Ermera, "because we hear (Colimau 2000) rejects the authority of the government."

Half an hour away in the city of Baucau, Domingos Ximenes is on security detail at a compound that houses about 200 of his fellow ex-guerrillas. Most of them are jobless and live here in a crumbling, white building with boarded windows and a high fence topped with barbed wire. Ximenes had gone back to his wife and child in the town of Laga, east of Baucau, but was told they couldn't afford to support him. With nowhere else to go, he went to the compound, which at least provides shelter for displaced former fighters like him. "I was a brave man," says Ximenes. "I am not anything now."

Security & boarder issues

Timor wants demilitarised border with Indonesia: Gusmao

Agence France Presse - June 2, 2003

Dili -- East Timor is training police not troops to guard its border with giant neighbour Indonesia because it wants a demilitarised frontier zone, President Xanana Gusmao said Monday.

"We want a demilitarised border with our neighbour Indonesia, so it will not be our armed forces but the BPU [police Border Patrol Unit] that will be on the frontiers," Gusmao said at a meeting on bolstering the fledgling police force.

Gunmen killed seven civilians in two separate attacks near the border with Indonesian West Timor in January and February. They were widely believed to be former pro-Jakarta militiamen trying to destabilise the new country, but not on orders from Indonesian authorities. Gusmao said UN peacekeeping troops are due to pull back from the border at the end of this month. The entire UN mission will leave at the end of May next year.

The president said the police force established in August 2000, "as some of the events of late last year demonstrated, is still a very fragile institution indeed."

Police opened fire during riots in Dili last December, in which two people died and many buildings were damaged. Some observers accused them of over-reacting.

Gusmao said a Rapid Intervention Unit, being formed to handle riots in urban areas, must show restraint. [missing text] cannot be acceptable in such situations, no matter how grave the provocation," he said. He said a Rapid Deployment Service would also be set up to counter criminal gangs or armed groups in rural areas.

East Timor voted in August 1999 to break away from Indonesia despite a bloody campaign of intimidation by militias backed by the Indonesian army. After 31 months of UN stewardship it became independent on May 20, 2002. Gusmao has made reconciliation with Indonesia a priority since then.

Land/rural issues

Timor aims to be agriculturally self-sufficient by 2008

Associated Press - June 4, 2003

Dili -- East Timor President Xanana Gusmao said Wednesday his government would implement a plan that would make the impoverished nation agriculturally self-sufficient in five years.

"We now urgently need a phased program able to guide towards self-sufficiency in basic agricultural commodities," Gusmao said at a meeting with the World Bank in Dili.

The program should eliminate the agricultural price fluctuations and create a reserve of basic necessities such as rice, corn and beans, along with a national-level distribution and processing system.

"The people complain that their produce is either not sold or sold at ridiculous prices," he said. "This prevents most of the population from having the purchasing power to buy other commodities or even have the cash to pay school fees of 50 US cents monthly."

In much of East Timor, residents live on as little as US$0.55 a day. Outside of the capital of Dili, basic services remain woefully inadequate. Only four of 13 districts have phone service, 75% don't have electricity and 60% don't have access to clean water.

Gusmao said that while East Timor would remain committed to reducing poverty, it will also begin to focus on building up a strong agricultural base and industry.

After hundreds of years of Portuguese and then Indonesian rule, East Timor voted in August 1999 to become independent in a UN- sponsored referendum.

The Indonesian military and its proxy militias responded by laying waste to the former province, killing 1,500 Timorese and forcing 300,000 from their homes.

West Timor/refugees

Timorese group able to stay in Northern Territory

Australian Associated Press - June 4, 2003

Two-thirds of East Timorese asylum seekers living in Darwin have been told they can stay in Australia, subject to further checks.

Federal Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock indicated that more than 1,500 East Timorese asylum seekers were expected to be granted permanent residency in Australia by October.

Mr Ruddock has already intervened to reverse decisions to return a group of 379 asylum seekers, subject to health and character tests, and is reviewing another 200 cases, which he promised would be dealt with as quickly as possible.

Of the 84 East Timorese asylum seekers living in Darwin, 56 had received letters indicating they needed to undertake health and character tests, a spokesman for federal Country Liberal Party Senator Nigel Scullion said. Of those, 36 applicants had already completed the tests and were awaiting final approval from the minister, he said.

NT Ethnic Affairs Minister Kon Vatskalis welcomed Mr Ruddock's decision, but said it was long overdue with some residents living on no money and surviving on charity from friends and supporters. "I welcome Mr Ruddock's move but I feel that people have been put through hell and back before this decision was eventually made," Mr Vatskalis said. He said he was concerned about the remaining East Timorese whose futures remained unclear.

Asylum seeker Domingos Da Silva, who has not yet received a letter, said he was happy for those allowed to stay but anxious about his own family's future. Mr Da Silva, who set up home in Darwin nine years ago after fleeing Indonesian-controlled East Timor, said worrying about whether his family of five children would be deported to East Timor kept him awake at night.

"I'm just worrying about the future of my kids," he said. "If I have to go back I have to start from zero again ... especially my kids, they have to start from zero. "They [would] have to learn tetum again, to learn Portuguese again."

The family is one of several in Darwin living on charity after their asylum seeker assistance payments were cut when they lost their Refugee Review Tribunal appeal several months ago.

Ruddock to grant Timorese visas

Sydney Morning Herald - June 3, 2003

Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock said he would intervene to grant 379 East Timorese asylum seekers permanent residency in Australia. He said he had made the decision to intervene before the Labor Party began suggestions he had been bribed to grant visas.

Labor last week questioned Mr Ruddock's decision to give Lebanese asylum seeker Bedweny Hbeich a visa after he allegedly donated $3,000 to the Liberal Party. This week the focus has been on Mr Ruddock's granting of religious worker visas after the Maha Budhi Monastery donated $100,000 to his local electorate office.

Mr Ruddock said most of the representations regarding East Timorese asylum seekers in Australia on temporary protection visas had been from Labor MPs. He said he had decided to intervene in 379 cases involving East Timorese, as long as those people pass character and health tests.

"I can say generally on behalf of some ... 379 people that I have stated a preparedness, subject to character and health issues being resolved satisfactorily, to intervene," Mr Ruddock told parliament.

He said there were two cases where he had refused to intervene and three he was still investigating.

"There are some 200 that are still being considered," Mr Ruddock said. "I simply make the point that the sorts of factors that people have suggested that I took into account in other matters, have been very much to the fore in my consideration of these matters well before any issues were raised in the House."

Human rights trials

No hope for justice

Laksamana.Net - June 5, 2003

The pathetic performance of Jakarta's special human rights court dealing with atrocities perpetrated by the military and its militia proxies in East Timor in 1999 will no doubt inspire the notoriously corrupt and brutal Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) to act with virtual impunity in Aceh province, where troops are waging a campaign to destroy separatist rebels.

Senior generals unleashed carnage in East Timor in the months surrounding the territory's vote for independence on August 30, 1999, in a referendum organized by the United Nations.

The Indonesian military and its militia proxies staged a series of often deadly attacks on independence supporters in an effort to intimidate locals not to vote for secession. Massacres and devastating looting and arson attacks continued until after the arrival of a UN-sanctioned international peacekeeping force in September.

In response to international pressure to bring those accused of responsibility for the carnage to justice, Indonesia established its special human rights court to hear cases against 18 defendants.

Human rights activists immediately complained that several senior generals suspected of masterminding the carnage were not on the list. Activists now say the court is a sham because it has acquitted 12 members of the security forces and a civilian.

Only five defendants have been found guilty and sentenced to jail terms ranging from three to 10 years, although all faced the death penalty. All of them remain free pending lengthy appeal processes. Meanwhile, pro-democracy activists are being thrown in jail for defacing pictures of President Megawati Sukarnoputri.

The last remaining defendant in the East Timor trials is Major General Adam Damiri, who was regional military chief at the time of the mayhem. He has skipped his last four trial sessions, ostensibly due to his involvement in the ongoing Aceh offensive.

He is charged with crimes against humanity for failing to prevent his troops and pro-Indonesia militiamen from killing dozens of people in several massacres.

Damiri now appears set to walk free, after the prosecutor handling the case against him said Thursday he had dropped the charges due to a lack of evidence.

Chief prosecutor Sarani Hozie claimed he had not been pressured to drop the case. "This is purely my own decision," he was quoted as saying by state news agency Antara. The court will reconvene on July 1 to hear a statement from Damiri and then decide whether to proceed with the "trial".

Hendardi, head of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association, has said the results of the East Timor trials would make the military behave more arrogantly in Aceh.

Blame the UN

Although Damiri has generally been reluctant to appear in court this year, he has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. When his trial commenced in July 2002, he said: "I understand the charges but I categorically reject all of them. I was not on the ground [at the time of the violence]."

Testifying earlier at the trials of other suspects, he blamed the post-referendum carnage on the now defunct United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor (Unamet). "Many irregularities done by Unamet were not processed legally and this is one of the reasons for the riots," he said in May 2002. "So it was the irregularities done by Unamet that triggered the riots after the ballot," he added.

In April 2002, Damiri said that Unamet's decision to speed up the announcement of the referendum result from September 7 to September 4 sparked anger among pro-Indonesian East Timorese, who felt the UN had cheated them.

"Rather than giving a positive response to the report by the pro-Jakarta group over the cheating by Unamet, they [Unamet] decided to move forward the announcement of the results from September 7 to September 4," he said.

He singled out Unamet chairman Ian Martin as the person responsible for making the early announcement that 78.5% of East Timorese had voted to secede from Indonesia.

Damiri also accused Unamet of not hiring pro-Jakarta East Timorese. "Unamet treated the pro-Jakarta East Timorese unfairly by recruiting only pro-independence people as its local staffers. This, of course, affected the ballot process," he said.

A former Unamet worker now based in Jakarta says the claims of "irregularities" in the referendum are nonsense. "We had at least two pro-Jakarta guys working with us in one area and there's no way that they or anyone else could have done anything to cheat, because there were at least a dozen checks and balances to ensure the votes were legitimate," he told Laksamana.net.

Adam Damiri: A soldier's record

Melbourne Age - June 6 , 2003

Major-General Adam Damiri was commander of the Bali-based military area, which included East Timor.

He is believed to have co-ordinated Operation Clean Sweep in January 1999 aimed at killing pro-independence activists.
It is likely that General Damiri was central to training, funding and arming anti-independence militias.
He held many meetings with militia leaders, clandestinely and openly, in East Timor and Bali throughout 1999. He described the militias as "patriotic organisations".
Militia leader Eurico Guterres boasted to journalists that he took his orders directly from General Damiri.
On April 17, 1999, he was present at a militia rally in Dili at which Guterres urged his followers to "capture and kill" independence supporters -- 12 were subsequently murdered.
On July 1, 2002, General Damiri was indicted for crimes against humanity in relation to massacres in Liquica, the Dili homes of Isaac Leandros and Manuel Carrascalaos, the Dili Catholic diocese office, Bishop Carlos Belos's residence and the Suai church.
In February this year he was charged in absentia with crimes against humanity before the Dili special panel.
In December 1999, General Damiri was promoted to operational assistant to the armed forces chief of staff in Jakarta. He was responsible for troop movements to Aceh.
He is currently serving in Aceh, where the army has launched a renewed campaign to crush the independence movement.

Source: Masters of Terror: Indonesia's Military and Violence in East Timor in 1999 (Australian National University, Canberra, 2002)

Charges against general dropped

Agence France Presse - June 6, 2003

Jakarta -- All charges against a general accused of crimes against humanity in East Timor in 1999 were unexpectedly withdrawn yesterday.

Major-General Adam Damiri, who headed the regional military command overseeing East Timor, is the last and most senior of 18 defendants to appear before Indonesia's human-rights court over the army-backed wave of bloody militia violence against East Timorese independence supporters in 1999.

Prosecutor Hozie withdrew all charges against him, saying he did not have enough evidence to back them up.

The court was set up to deflect pressure for an international tribunal into the bloodshed.

Prosecutor demands court clears general

Melbourne Age - June 6, 2003

Telly Nathalia, Jakarta -- An Indonesian prosecutor yesterday demanded a court acquit a top general on trial over violence in East Timor in 1999, saying it had not been proved that he was guilty of committing crimes against humanity.

Prosecutors had been expected to announce their sentencing demands for Major-General Adam Damiri yesterday. But in a surprise move, and insisting he had not been pressured, prosecutor S. Hozie asked the court to rule "the defendant had not been proven guilty of crimes against humanity" in East Timor when it voted to break from Jakarta's rule.

The chief judge said the court would reconvene on July 1 to hear a statement from General Damiri before passing judgement.

Mr Hozie later said the demand did not mean prosecutors had dropped the charges against General Damiri, the regional military chief with responsibility for East Timor during its independence vote in August, 1999. He did not explain the difference between that and demanding General Damiri be declared not guilty.

General Damiri is the last of 18 suspects on trial over the violence. The majority have been acquitted, drawing harsh criticism from international and local human rights groups.

When he went on trial last July, prosecutors told the special human rights court he was guilty of crimes against humanity for not taking proper action to prevent violence.

East Timor was left in ruins after the UN-organised ballot triggered a killing rampage and wave of destruction by militias backed by the Indonesian military.

The United Nations, which ran East Timor after the vote until formal independence, estimates more than 1000 people were killed. General Damiri has denied any involvement.

Wearing military battledress and with a number of regular troops and special forces soldiers in the court, General Damiri wept when Mr Hozie said he should be declared not guilty.

Referring to one incident, an attack on the home of East Timorese bishop and Nobel Peace laureate Carlos Belo, Mr Hozie said there had been no military involvement.

The court hearing should have been held weeks ago but had been snubbed a number of times by General Damiri.

The human rights court -- set up to hear cases over the East Timor violence in the wake of international pressure on Jakarta -- has convicted two civilians, both of them East Timorese, and three security officers. All are free pending appeal.

The trial is the latest test of the judiciary's independence in a country where the military wields considerable clout. Rights groups say other elements of the trial process are farcical, including the failure to try General Wiranto, Indonesia's military commander at the time of the violence.

Days before East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri will pay his first official visit to Jakarta, prosecutors in Dili yesterday announced they would try an Indonesian national for crimes against humanity.

Beni Ludji, deputy commander of the Aitarak militia group, will be the first Indonesian to face trial in East Timor before a special UN-backed court judging war crimes committed during the 1999 referendum.

He was formally charged with the murder of independence campaigner Guido Alves Correia as a crime against humanity. Correia was hacked to death in September 1999.

[With reporting from Reuters, Jill Jolliffe.]

Retrials may be needed in East Timor

Radio Australia - June 3, 2003

East Timor's court system could take months to clear a backlog of cases relating to the bloodshed before and after the United Nations-backed ballot for independence in 1999.

The landslide vote to break away from 24 years of Indonesian rule unleashed a wave of killing and destruction by gangs of pro- Jakarta militia which were backed by elements of the Indonesian military.

East Timor's Special Panel for Serious Crimes has had to suspend all trials since the departure of two foreign judges in April. Under United Nations law the panel must have two international judges to operate, and the vacancies have been filled only this week.

An international monitoring group, the Judicial System Monitoring Program (JSMP), says some cases had been running for two years and will have to begin again. The Court of Appeal meanwhile has been unable to sit since November 2001, creating a backlog of about 60 cases.

Bu Wilson, the Director of JSMP says priority must be given to those cases where suspects have already been convicted. "The ones that are of particular concern to us are the ones where people have been sentenced and jailed, and have lodged appeals, but it's not been possible for those appeals to be heard." he says.

Prosecutor seeks acquittal of general in Timor trial

Reuters - June 5, 2003

Telly Nathalia, Jakarta -- An Indonesian prosecutor demanded on Thursday a court acquit the top general on trial over violence in East Timor in 1999, saying he had not been proven guilty of committing crimes against humanity there.

Prosecutors had been expected to announce their sentencing demands for Major-General Adam Damiri on Thursday.

But in a surprise move and insisting he had not been pressured, prosecutor S. Hozie told the court to rule that "the defendant had not been proven guilty of crimes against humanity" in East Timor when it voted to break from Jakarta's rule. The chief judge said the court would still reconvene on July 1 to hear a statement from Damiri before passing judgement.

Hozie later said the demand did not mean prosecutors had dropped the charges against Damiri, the regional military chief with responsibility for East Timor during its bloody independence vote in August 1999. He did not explain the difference between that and demanding Damiri be declared not guilty.

Damiri is the last of 18 suspects on trial over the violence. The majority have been acquitted, drawing harsh criticism from international and local human rights groups. When Damiri went on trial last July, prosecutors told the special human rights court he was guilty of crimes against humanity for not taking proper action to prevent violence.

East Timor was left in ruins after the UN-backed ballot triggered a killing spree and wave of destruction by militias backed by the Indonesian military. The United Nations, which ran East Timor after the vote until formal independence, estimates more than 1,000 people were killed.

Damiri could face the death penalty if convicted. He has denied having anything to do with the carnage. Wearing military battle dress and with a number of regular troops and special forces soldiers in the court, Damiri wept when Hozie said he should be declared not guilty.

Referring to one incident, an attack on the home of East Timorese bishop and Nobel Peace Laureate Bishop Carlos Belo, Hozie said there had been no military involvement.

The hearing should have been held weeks ago but had been snubbed several times by Damiri. His lawyers had said he was busy with a major military offensive against rebels in Aceh province, where independence demands have simmered for decades.

The human rights court -- set up to hear cases over the East Timor violence in the wake of international pressure on Jakarta -- has convicted two civilians and three security officers.

Human rights/law

Timor becomes 191st country to sign Geneva Conventions

Agence France Presse - June 6, 2003

Geneva -- East Timor, which became the newest nation on the planet in 2002, has joined the Geneva Conventions on human rights in time of war, Red Cross officials said Friday.

East Timor, the tiny half-island and former Portuguese colony, was engulfed in violence when it voted for independence from its Indonesian occupiers in 1999 when Indonesian-backed militias and the military rampaged through the territory.

At least 1,000 people are estimated to have died and whole towns were burnt to the ground.

Now East Timor has become the 191th member of the Geneva Conventions after sending in its accession letters to the Swiss authorities last month.

The four conventions deal with improving the fate of those wounded in the armed forces; regulating armies at sea; the treatment of prisoners of war and the protection of civilians.

East Timor cases will always haunt Indonesia: Activist

Jakarta Post - June 2, 2003

Muninggar Sri Saraswati, Jakarta -- Pressure for the establishment of an international tribunal to try Indonesian Military personnel accused of gross human rights violations in East Timor will never end following the poor result of a series of trials by the country's ad hoc human rights tribunal, an activist says.

Hendardi, chairman of the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI), said on Saturday that calls by the international community to bring military personnel to an international court was "logical as Indonesia's judiciary has failed to convince them" that justice was being served.

"East Timor is not be the only country in the world that will continue calling for the establishment of an international tribunal [to try Indonesian Military officers accused of human rights violations there]," Hendardi told The Jakarta Post over the weekend.

East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri has called for the establishment of an international tribunal in a neutral country to try Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel allegedly involved in the 1999 mayhem.

In response to Alkatiri's statement, foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa said on Sunday that the Indonesian government had summoned the East Timorese ambassador to clarify Dili's request.

Marty said Ambassador Arlindo Marcal would fulfill the summons on Monday. "We would like to seek a clarification as to the request, as it goes against our countries' stance toward developing relations," Marty told The Jakarta Post by phone.

He asserted that Alkatiri's statement, if true, would be "a source of concern" for Jakarta. "We consider the statement to be a premature judgement on the ongoing ad hoc human rights tribunal here," he said, adding that some of the cases remained unresolved pending appeals.

Eighteen civilian leaders and security personnel, including three Army generals, were charged with gross human rights violations for their failure to prevent a violent rampage carried out by pro-Jakarta militia members and their military backers in 1999. The Jakarta ad hoc human rights tribunal, which was set up under strong international pressure, has so far acquitted 12 defendants and convicted five with jail sentences of three to 10 years, including former militia commander Eurico Guterres and former East Timor governor Abilio Soares who remain free pending appeal at the Supreme Court.

Alkatiri said after a meeting with Gusmao on Friday that he was not satisfied with the prosecution of 18 civilian leaders and security personnel. He also said that he and several ministers would discuss the issue of an international tribunal with President Megawati Soekarnoputri during their visit to Jakarta on June 10.

Hendardi, who once served as a defense lawyer of Xanana Gusmao before he became East Timor president, said Alkatiri's comment, which contradicted a previous statement by Gusmao, reflected mounting pressure from East Timor people for fair trials for perpetrators of the bloodshed.

Gusmao had said earlier that East Timor would prefer to maintain ties with Indonesia rather than pursue the trials of those accused of human rights violations in 1999.

"The United Nations gave Indonesia a chance to try the perpetrators of violence in East Timor. Unfortunately, Indonesia squandered the opportunity," Hendardi said. Hendardi said the tribunal was merely a trick to avoid an international tribunal to try the East Timor cases.

He admitted it was not easy to get the United Nations to set up an international tribunal for the East Timor case. "But Indonesia cannot escape from this issue as the UN might set up an international tribunal due to the poor results of the country's ad hoc court," Hendardi warned.

The United Nations set up an international tribunal to prosecute those accused of fomenting the 1994 Rwandan genocide after Rwanda failed hold fair trials itself.

The appeals court still has an opportunity to correct the verdicts of the East Timor cases, Hendardi said. "But I think it would be a bit difficult because most of the defendants have been declared innocent," he said.

News & issues

Rough justice, buried truths

Sydney Morning Herald - June 7, 2003

Deborah Snow -- "The downer was having to pick up two corpses (very smelly) We placed them inside our Land Rover Discovery and it was putrid ... In the evening I was called to see a detainee ... very agitated and trying to escape by any means, including self-harm. I therefore sedated him ... I confess I do not like being involved in the detention of people.'

October 8, 1999, Dili.

When she wrote this Major Carol Ferguson was 31 and a medical officer attached to the Australian Army's elite Special Air Service (SAS) Regiment in East Timor.

She'd often send letters in diary form back to her husband, Graham, in Perth. This one struck him with its graphic content, but he didn't give it much further thought at the time. That changed dramatically in December 2000, when he got a call from military police in Canberra.

They were investigating allegations of misconduct by some troops in Timor and they wanted access to portions of Carol's diary. By the time Graham Ferguson got this call, his marriage had disintegrated.

Soon after her return to Australia at the end of 1999, Carol Ferguson had become emotionally involved with a fellow soldier she'd got to know during her posting, Warrant Officer Wayne Douglas. He was the intelligence officer attached to the SAS in Timor, and the "we" in her diary entry referred to him. In time, Carol would end up living with Douglas and his wife, Teresa.

Carol Ferguson was not among the targets of the Timor investigation herself. Indeed, she was one of most highly decorated women in the Australian Defence Force, with a gallantry medal for service in Rwanda.

Wayne Douglas, however, was a target. He stood accused of assaulting wounded prisoners in a Dili hospital in the early weeks of Australia's military mission to Timor in 1999. And Carol had been the doctor officially accompanying him at the time.

Graham Ferguson, a former SAS colonel, was hurt and angry. He handed over the diary extracts as requested. He heard nothing more until 18 months later, when military police asked for a sworn statement detailing the relationship between his former wife and Wayne Douglas. Its purpose, he understood, would be to challenge Carol's impartiality as a witness if the case came to court.

Graham submitted a detailed chronology of the whole painful affair to investigators in July last year. Then abruptly, just a few weeks later, he heard Douglas had been cleared. Douglas left the army shortly afterwards, insisting, with Defence Department backing, that he'd been exonerated by the internal investigation.

Ferguson was mystified. He understood the matter had been forwarded with a brief of evidence to a prosecutor, who would make the decision on laying charges. "At the time it was looking good for a prosecution," a well-placed source told the Herald.

Why the matter was not tested in court is one of many questions which have been left hanging by the 3-year official inquiry into the claims of misconduct by Douglas and other SAS and intelligence officers in Timor.

Of 19 allegations in all, only two concerned Douglas. The rest ranged from harassment through to an allegation of "unnecessary amputation of suspected militia member's arm", and an allegation concerning the "suicide of Australian soldier". The most serious was a suggestion that a senior SAS soldier had unlawfully killed a Timorese militiaman in an execution-style shooting.

So concerned was the army over this last claim that it authorised the exhumation by United Nations investigators of two bodies from a mass grave outside Dili late last year. The contents of the resulting pathology report have never been revealed. Nor has much else.

Despite the Defence Department's original promise that the inquiry into all 19 allegations would be "open and transparent", the whole affair took place behind closed doors.

The investigation itself was a marathon. Three hundred and fifty people were interviewed across four countries. SAS and intelligence units bore the brunt of the inquiry, even as the the SAS undertook high-risk deployments to Afghanistan, and then to Iraq.

But the legendary team spirit inside the regiment -- its greatest strength in times of peril -- became in the eyes of investigators a near-impenetrable barrier. Many involved in the process profoundly doubt the truth has been established.

Said one: "Heard of the Cosa Nostra? It was that sort of brick wall. The regiment [SAS] is family. It does not shit on its own. They think they're above the law, beyond the law, can do what they damn well like and they're never going to be held accountable."

Compounding the air of frustration was the army's failure to issue a final, detailed report when it declared the investigation over on April 16 this year. The upshot was that one soldier, understood still to be serving in the Special Forces, would stand trial on a date yet to be fixed on a charge of kicking a dead body. No other charges were to flow.

As to the rest, the army chief, Lieutenant-General Peter Leahy, declared: "I don't think it's appropriate for something that's unsubstantiated that we release the details of the investigation."

Now Graham Ferguson has decided to break his silence. And Wayne Douglas, who previously has told only part of his story in public, gives it in full for the first time. All strands in this tale flow from events near the town of Suai on October 6, 1999, just 2 weeks after Australian troops arrived in East Timor to help quell the brutality which erupted after the independence ballot.

It was a time when Canberra had still not openly said whether it thought the Indonesian army was behind the anti-independence militias. But within the SAS, says Douglas, there was little doubt.

"There was a great difference in the way the SAS and the rest of the army thought about the situation," says Douglas. "We believed the militia had a number of Indonesian special forces [Kopassus] among them." On October 6, the SAS and elements of the New Zealand and British Special Forces had set up a roadblock at Suai on the main road leading to the West Timorese border.

Some 120 Timorese were detained as the day wore on. Of these, 10 were culled as particularly suspect and flown by helicopter to Dili for questioning. At one stage, a vehicle failed to stop at the Suai roadblock and was fired on, wounding two of its occupants. The two injured men were also flown to Dili for questioning and medical treatment.

Late that afternoon, the SAS formed a convoy of the Timorese who remained at the checkpoint and were escorting them back to the border area when the SAS vehicles at the rear of the column were ambushed from bush beside the road.

The ensuing firefight left two Australian SAS troops seriously wounded, one in the neck and the other in the leg, and two Timorese militiamen dead. The troops were medically evacuated and the militia corpses flown back to Dili by helicopter.

Emotions were on a hair trigger. It was the first time the Australian army had taken serious casualties in a clash with an enemy since the Vietnam War, and no one had any idea what might lie ahead.

Douglas, who was in Dili as these events unfolded, recalls the backdrop as chaotic. "We had never gone out as an army and practised what we were doing. No one had trained and made it all fit together.

"The SAS couldn't talk to the rest of the army because we had our own special spooky-type communications that didn't fit with theirs. At one stage they hooked the secret computer system up to one that the Malaysians and all that had access to. It was just one catastrophe after another."

In this charged environment, a number of vivid rumours began circulating within days of the Suai clash: the claim of an execution-style killing at the ambush site; a rival version saying the body had been abused after death; and claims about the abuse of prisoners.

A hasty initial inquiry at Dili headquarters which focused on the wounded prisoners found nothing. But within a year, the Department of Defence had reopened and broadened the investigation.

Earlier this year, Perth's Sunday Times newspaper published claims from an anonymous army witness that the prisoners flown from Suai to the SAS base had been held there and tortured. Now Douglas has confirmed some key aspects of the newspaper's report, but he puts a different spin on them.

The source said the prisoners were held without food or water for 90 hours, deprived of sleep and forced to sit blindfolded and with bound hands in positions designed to maximise stress for lengthy periods. They were terrorised by being paraded past the two dead militiamen, and had their faces thrust within centimetres of the corpses, one of which had a "head that looked like a smashed pumpkin". Several prisoners soiled themselves with fear.

Douglas, the SAS intelligence officer, was at Australian commander Peter Cosgrove's temporary headquarters when he got the call that the Suai prisoners were being brought to Dili heliport, which doubled as the SAS base.

He says he found few SAS left when he arrived (most were still at Suai) so he "grabbed anyone who was available -- mechanics, cooks, clerks" to act as guard. Two weeks into their deployment, he maintains, the army still hadn't set up a formal reception centre for prisoners.

Douglas confirms the detainees were bound and blindfolded. "Sure," he says. "But it was an open field, no fences. We had less people on guard than the detainees. If they had seen the set-up they would have bolted." He denies the captives were deprived of food and water: "We had no kitchen up and running, so they had hard rations, same as us." The periodic banging of a gong was not to terrorise the prisoners, he claims, but to "get them to stand up and sit down ... to get the circulation going in their legs".

He concedes the prisoners were forced to look at the two corpses, but claims this was part of "tactical questioning" to find out if they and the dead militiamen were linked.

"After we had identified the 10 prisoners, bagged and tagged them [removing and bagging their possessions], we then had to ID the two bodies. We did an exploitation of the bodies for intelligence, looked for maps, documents to tell us who they were. They had nothing on them.

"I needed to find out if there was a link between this group who'd been in the vehicles and the ambush party. How many were there? What were they armed with? What other threats they might pose?" The SAS mess tent at the heliport became a makeshift morgue, with the two bloodied corpses laid out on wooden tables. The tables later had to be burnt.

One by one, the detainees were brought in, only then having their blindfolds removed. They were forced to confront the bodies. Douglas claims the fifth or sixth prisoner identified both dead men, and the grisly parade stopped.

"They were never put that close to the bodies," he insists. "They were blindfolded ... because if they'd escaped they would have had a good idea of the detailed layout of the base." Douglas says the 10 flown back from Suai for interrogation at the SAS base were selected because they looked too fit and well-fed to be impoverished villagers. The suspicion was that some were Kopassus. However, the Herald has been told one of the group was a 17-year-old, nearly deaf and mute, and unable to understand either Indonesian or Tetum, the local language spoken in Timor.

Nor has it been clearly explained why any of the prisoners might have had special knowledge of the ambush, as they had been flown back from the roadblock earlier in the day and were not part of the convoy that came under attack.

Douglas is adamant he had charge of the prisoners for 24 hours, the maximum time he could hold them under the Rules of Engagement. After that he passed them for further questioning to an Australian Army intelligence group known as MISC (the Military Information Support Company), which by then had set up what it called a primary interrogation centre at the heliport.

After their exposure to the prisoners, the bodies were taken to the Red Cross hospital but were later retrieved because "they were homicides due to clashes with the military and they [the Red Cross] didn't want to accept them", according to Douglas. [These were the "putrid" bodies Carol Ferguson records herself and Wayne Douglas collecting and which, down the track, would be disinterred as part of the investigation.] According to Graham Ferguson, Carol was disturbed by what she saw at this time. His sworn statement to military police of last July states: "On at least two occasions [after returning from Timor] she told of her discomfort with the interrogation of some detainees by members of Int [Intelligence] at the Heliport, particularly the way the Int people treated them." The defence Department has consistently tried to draw a veil over this episode. Liam Bartlett, the author of the Perth newspaper allegations, says Defence has not contacted him to try to speak to his source, although the department maintains it contacted the newspaper's editor.

The army's subsequent pronouncements on the affair have been cryptic. When Leahy, the Chief of Army, put out a press release on April 16 announcing the end of the Timor investigation, he alluded to four allegations which had been found to have "substance", although not sufficient to constitute an offence.

Only at a press conference did it later emerge that these related to the treatment of the prisoners at the heliport. Leahy admitted the prisoners were held in "robust situations" and deprived of sleep. However, he said they hadn't been deprived of food, water and sanitation.

He talked broadly about the army learning "some lessons" and amending some of its "operational procedures". But he denied there had been any breach of the Geneva Convention.

On the sensitive issue of the display of the bodies there was silence. When the Herald later approached the head of army personnel, Colonel Gerard Fogarty, for clarification he said it was "inappropriate" for him to "get into a discussion of interrogation techniques".

Fogarty added: "This was not meant to be a pleasant environment. This [was] about capitalising on the shock of captivity and getting information." He was also dismissive of Wayne Douglas's role at the heliport. "The now Mr Douglas ... had no formal function at the PIC [primary interrogation centre]. He was not formally involved. It was set up and run by other people ... The persons of interest [the prisoners] were flown to Dili and were received and looked after by the then Warrant Officer Douglas until the PIC was established, and the PIC was established at 1800 hours [6pm] on the night of the 6th [October, 1999]." In total, Defence maintains Douglas had charge of the prisoners for about four hours at most.

Yet Douglas insists he was in charge of the prisoners overnight, for nearly 24 hours. Other sources say they have no doubt Douglas was involved in the interrogation process for considerably longer than the army concedes.

Douglas has provided the Herald with a small portion of his formal record of interview, which shows the only official allegation against him from events at the helifield was the claim he had "created a disturbance" by grabbing and yelling at detainees and by shoving one into the back of a helicopter.

He says this was because "one of them had a vial around his neck, a substance they called 'mad dog'. He was struggling because he didn't want it removed." His explanation to military interviewers was that "all the principles ... taught to me through my time at the Military Intelligence ... is to maintain a shock. And that is to unbalance persons who are not in a steady state of mindset; they're more likely to answer the questions truthfully and straight up ..." The other complaint against him centred on the two prisoners wounded in their car at the roadblock on October 6 -- before the ambush. The two had been flown to Dili for treatment, and Douglas and Carol Ferguson, as SAS medical officer, collected them from the army field hospital on October 8 to take them to the SAS base for questioning.

Why they needed to do so is unclear, because by now two days had elapsed since the ambush and, according to Defence's timetable, responsibility for the prisoners had long since passed from Douglas to the PIC.

Douglas says he was initially accused of kicking and dragging the wounded Timorese from the hospital, and of throwing one into the Land Rover which he and Carol Ferguson were driving.

At Douglas's instigation, the Provost Marshal in East Timor, Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Grutzner, conducted an immediate informal investigation which on October 21, 1999, found no evidence to support the claims.

But the allegations surfaced in more substantial form, and a year later Graham Ferguson received the email from Major Sally Reeves, then head of the investigating team in Canberra, asking him to go through Carol's diaries.

"I am interested in any entries concerning the treatment of detainees," Reeves wrote, "in particular one that she and Douglas removed from 1 FST [the army hospital] on or about 6 Oct name is [sic] Nadus Bua or similar. Also of interest is any entry concerning the Regt's activities at SUAI on or about 6 Oct where the two guys were shot," the investigator wrote.

Exactly what happened at the hospital remains the subject of conflicting witness accounts. Douglas maintains that when he arrived he was angered by the way a military police corporal was sitting on the bed playing cards with the two injured detainees.

"He [the MP] was fraternising with potential combatants. I said to the MP, 'They're part of a group that's just shot two guys from our unit.' I was concerned because when you go to interview someone you want them apprehensive; it lowers their ability to resist questioning.

"This MP had singlehandedly undone their susceptibility to questioning. They were there for medical treatment, not for a holiday." Yet Douglas denies meting out physically abusive treatment to the two men wounded at the Suai roadblock.

"Half the hospital came out to watch me collect the detainees ... Major [Carol] Ferguson was driving the vehicle because they had to be released into a doctor's care. I backed the vehicle up to the ward, one guy was on crutches, and I carried the other."

The rival version of events at the hospital is that two junior military police were on duty when Douglas arrived, showing family photos to the detainees who were lying on stretchers in a small treatment room off the main emergency area. Douglas grew angry, as he has stated, but in this version ordered the MPs out and assaulted the prisoners in the room, which was out of view of other witnesses. The Herald understands one military police corporal allegedly saw and the other allegedly heard the assault.

Douglas insists this angle was never raised with him at the time or in the investigators' interview and that the MPs "re- engineered" their claims as payback for his rebuke of them. It is understood the interview did not run its full course because, after an hour, Douglas invoked his right to say nothing.

Douglas also insists that his closeness to Carol Ferguson was irrelevant. "Our relationship didn't start until after we got back to Australia ... If she was the only person who'd spoken on my behalf I could understand it. But if they've interviewed all the people at the hospital I don't see what my relationship has to do with it ... There were dozens and dozens of witnesses." But in his formal statement to investigators, Douglas talks of "probably half a dozen witnesses". These were Carol Ferguson and three other doctors, who, it is understood, couldn't see into the treatment room, while the others were the military police.

According to one source, the matter "went nowhere because of a difference of opinion" over how to weight the conflicting witness accounts.

Investigators later tried to track down the two wounded Timorese, but it became impossible once they'd returned to West Timor. At least one needed treatment for severe wound infection after his spell at the interrogation centre.

Institutionally, the army chose not to concern itself with the relationship between Wayne Douglas and Carol Ferguson.

In July 2001, Graham Ferguson wrote a letter of complaint to the army's then Director of Personnel Operations, Colonel Terry McCullagh, who also happened to be overseeing the Timor investigation at the time.

McCullagh replied: "The relationship between your wife and Warrant Officer Douglas would only constitute fraternisation if it entailed certain public expressions of intimacy or affection within the workplace, or if sexual relation took place within the workplace. Your letter has provided insufficient evidence of either ..." McCullagh concluded by saying he did not intend to order a formal investigation because he didn't believe it would be "conclusive". GRaham Ferguson has been accused of betrayal by some former SAS colleagues for going public with this story, and faces partial ostracism from those circles. But he's convinced the secretive and erratic response to that part of the Timor investigation which intersects with his own life has made a mockery of the entire inquiry.

Defence, he says, "did not have the moral courage to prove or disprove the allegations without a shadow of a doubt. They took the soft option." Douglas, for his part, believes he has been persecuted because of Graham Ferguson's support among the SAS old-boy network, and because the military police wanted to settle old scores, pursuing him for three years and "finding nothing." He says it was only when he threatened Federal Court action that Defence agreed to discharge him.

"Socially [getting together with Carol] was the dumbest thing I've ever done." Many others close to the inquiry have been left with no sense of closure. For them the human and institutional costs, the friendships torn apart and the lives left in turmoil have been for virtually nothing.

Says one: "It is the old SAS syndrome -- 'We stand between society and absolute anarchy. We are entitled to run everything the way we want to and they ought to be damn well grateful for it.' That sort of thinking makes it perfectly understandable why people will not speak.

"My feeling is the same as it is with most military investigations -- it leaves a lot to be desired." The army claims it has "comprehensively run [the allegations] to ground" . That claim appears hard to support in the face of the unanswered questions, and the public and private contradictions running to the heart of the matters this inquiry was meant to settle.

The whiff of a cover-up, somewhere in the system, will persist until the army releases a full and detailed report on how far the investigation was able to get.

Amputation, execution, suicide: Timor troops accused

Sydney Morning Herald - June 7, 2003

Deborah Snow -- Misconduct allegations against Australian troops during their 1999 deployment to East Timor included a claim of "unnecessary amputation" of a suspected militia member's arm, and suspicions about the reasons for the suicide of an Australian soldier.

These are among the claims outlined in a full list of the 19 allegations, released for the first time by the Defence Department after an investigation by the Herald.

More than half of the remaining allegations relate to controversial practices at a prisoner interrogation centre set up by some members of the elite Special Air Service regiment and army intelligence in Dili on the day two SAS troops were wounded in a militia ambush on October 6, 1999.

Despite a 3-year army investigation that found no offences proven in relation to the treatment of detainees, the Herald has uncovered disturbing new questions about who was in charge and what occurred at the Dili interrogation centre, where prisoners were blindfolded and bound, deprived of sleep, and paraded past the bodies of two militiamen. There are also new questions about the treatment of wounded detainees.

Sources close to the inquiry are concerned that the truth has not been fully uncovered about a range of allegations, despite the marathon investigation that ended earlier this year.

One source complained that trying to question the SAS had been akin to tackling the Cosa Nostra. "It was that sort of brick wall. The regiment [SAS] is family. It does not shit on its own. They think they're above the law ... and they're never going to be held accountable."

The army released the findings of its inquiry into the 19 allegations in April, declaring that only one claim, "misuse of deceased", had been found to be substantiated. That allegation, which arose from the aftermath of an ambush of the SAS by suspected militia members near the East Timorese town of Suai, has led to a former senior SAS soldier being charged with kicking a dead body.

There have been unexplained delays in bringing the case to trial, despite Defence promising early last month that a date was about to be set.

Among the allegations not previously known was a claim of "inappropriate behaviour" toward exhumed bodies in the enclave of Oecussi, and use of excessive force against a militia member who tried to escape. The department says neither was proven.

The investigation also found no evidence to support an alleged summary execution by an SAS soldier of a militia member. The suicide case, of an Australian soldier soon after his return from Timor, was eventually dismissed as being due to domestic causes.

The amputation allegation concerned a militiaman nicknamed Stumpy wounded in a clash with pro-independence Fretilin fighters, whose arm was amputated because of infection. There was a question mark over the amputation and also whether the stump had been "manipulated" during interrogation. Defence says these allegations too were shown to be groundless.

East Timorese may starve in months: UN

The Australian - June 6, 2003

Natasha Bita, Florence and John Kerin -- Starving East Timorese may be forced to eat rats, cats and dogs unless they receive food aid within six months, the UN warned in its first report on the food crisis on Australia's doorstep.

The UN's Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Food Program said yesterday 150,000 residents of East Timor -- at least one in every six people -- did not have enough to eat.

A two-year drought, combined with subsistence farming and a depleted fishing fleet, meant the East Timorese needed 14,000 tonnes of donated rice, wheat and other cereals by summer.

A UN investigation team sent to interview the locals in April reported one of the "coping mechanisms" for East Timorese facing "medium to high-severity" hunger was to eat rodents, cats, dogs, horses and seeds. In less serious cases, they hunted wildlife such as monkeys and tree kangaroos, logged rainforests illegally to sell firewood and pulled their children out of school.

As Defence Minister Robert Hill revealed yesterday that Australia would halve its almost 1000-strong peacekeeping force by the end of the year, the UN report said UNICEF had found 12 per cent of East Timorese children younger than five were "moderately to severely wasted", half were moderately or severely stunted, and 43 per cent were moderately or severely underweight.

Chief of the FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System, Henri Josserand, described East Timor's food shortage as "serious and in some cases severe".

"Starvation to the point of dying would be rare but there is a risk people would suffer greatly as people are weakened to the point they are susceptible to disease," he said in Rome yesterday. "If Australia finds that it has ways to make food available, East Timor could certainly use that."

International solidarity

Solidarity with people of Aceh

Green Left Weekly - June 4, 2003

Rachel Watts, Dili -- As official celebrations took place in Dili on May 20 to mark the first anniversary of East Timor's independence, more than 120 demonstrators gathered outside the government palace to express solidarity with the Acehnese people.

It was the first public action by the Timor Leste Solidarity Network for Aceh, West Papua and the Moluccas, a new group composed of Dili-based activists. Carrying placards, with slogans such as "Celebrate May 20, but don't forget the Aceh struggle" and "Stop the war in Aceh", the protesters declared their support for Acehnese independence. They also demanded that the East Timor government take a stronger stance on the issue.

The Fretilin-dominated government in East Timor is pursuing a policy of "normalisation" of relations with Indonesia and is reluctant to comment on the conflict in Aceh. This has angered activists, who believe East Timor has a moral duty to support the Acehnese people.

Alexander Almaart, a Dili-based member of the Aceh Sumatra National Liberation Front, has been lobbying political parties in East Timor and has received support from the Socialist Party of Timor, the Democratic Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Christian Democratic Party. However, his negotiations with Fretilin have been less successful.

"Fretilin is waiting to see if the international community will openly support Aceh before committing itself. It does not want to criticise Indonesia and this is very disappointing", Almaart said.

Almaart believes a pressing task for the Acehnese movement for self-determination is to gain the support of the international community: "The situation in Aceh is not just an internal problem. We need international solutions. To continue the December 9 peace agreement, we need an international peacekeeping force in Aceh. We also need the international community to stop arming and training the Indonesian armed forces."

Indonesia deplores GAM flag raising in East Timor

Jakarta Post - June 2, 2003

Kupang -- The military in West Timor strongly deplored the East Timor government's inaction over the recent raising of the Aceh Free Movement (GAM) flag in Dili, saying it could affect the two countries' bilateral ties.

The GAM flag was raised in Dili, the capital of East Timor, when the East Timorese people celebrated the small country's first anniversary on May 20.

West Timor military district chief Col. Moeswarno Moesanip said the East Timor authorities could have prevented the raising of the GAM flag if they had wanted to, to maintain friendly ties with Indonesia.

"According to intelligence reports, a group of GAM rebels are in East Timor to seek work. But, they are there to establish an underground movement to help fight for Aceh's independence," he said. He said he would also bring the case to the two countries' joint border meeting here early this June.

Economy & investment

Job creation is government's Number 1 priority: Alkatiri

Lusa - June 4, 2003

Dili -- The creation of jobs to invigorate East Timor's feeble economy is the Dili government's main objective, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said Wednesday at the opening of an international donor conference in the Timorese capital.

Alkatiri told the conference, the eighth of international representatives and Timorese leaders, that two-thirds of his country's GDP was dependent on government spending and this reliance has to be reduced. Eighty percent of state spending is financed by international aid, he added, making it difficult to cut back the state's pivotal role in the national economy.

The Timorese leader gave the conference a blow-by-blow account of the evolution of his country's dire economic situation and warned this could deteriorate further in 2004 with the withdrawal of the United Nations mission. The current scenario has been worsened by the delay of Timor's rainy season, which has led to "a significant increase in agricultural prices", which could affect Timorese farmers competitiveness and foment a "more severe cycle of crisis", warned Alkatiri.

The reduction of Timor's unemployment, which affects 50 percent of its young people, is "the main challenge faced by the government", Alkatiri said, noting that 16,000 people annually were becoming jobless. Specific action to tackle the structural unemployment will comprise "special interventions, including the improvement of agriculture by improving production techniques", Alkatiri said, adding that the Dili wants more national and foreign investment to support family and cooperative farming and the participation of SMEs in the development of national infrastructures.

Alkatiri told the donor meeting his government had taken over a country "with little governmental experience" and inherited a state "with no memory and a lack of know-how, discipline and institutional and cultural life", which hindered policy implementation.

Dili's head of government wound up his introductory address by saying his government will follow Norway's example in managing Timor's future oil receipts, which will be invested for future generations, in addition to supporting current state spending.