West Timor/refugees

UN lowers security status in West Timor

Jakarta Post - June 29, 2004

Kupang -- The United Nations Security Council lowered its security status in West Timor regency to Alert IV from Alert V after an evaluation by the UN Security Coordination team on May 13 this year, a senior military officer said here on Monday.

The evaluation concluded that security in West Timor had returned to normal following the murder of three employees of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2000, according to Col. Moeswarno Moesanip, chief of the Wirasakti Military Command overseeing East Nusa Tenggara province.

The lowering of the security status clears the way for UN employees to resume humanitarian activities in the regency, said Moeswarno.

Trapped by fear: The forgotten refugees of East Timor

The Independent (UK) - June 14, 2004

Kathy Marks -- From the refugee camp of Sunkaer Laran, the mountains of East Timor are so close you can almost touch them. It is so close, and yet so far, for people gazing towards the border from their scruffy plywood huts in Indonesian West Timor.

The inhabitants of Sunkaer Laran, and other miserable camps like it, are the forgotten victims of the violence that convulsed East Timor after its independence vote in September 1999. When Indonesian soldiers and their East Timorese militias ran riot, slaughtering villagers and burning their houses, 250,000 people fled or were forced over the border. Nearly five years on, 30,000 remain in West Timor, unwilling -- or too fearful -- to return.

Some refugees, such as former members of the Indonesian bureaucracy, have made a pragmatic decision to stay. Others have been brainwashed by black propaganda about conditions in East Timor. And some dare not leave, after being threatened with dire consequences by the pro-Jakarta militias who still rule the border region.

East Timor wants the refugees and, officially at least, Indonesia also wants them to go home. But the efforts of refugee organisations are hampered by insecurity in West Timor and in any case, their encouraging words are no match for the menaces of the feared militia gangs still keen to stir trouble in the former Indonesian province.

The militia commanders and their supporters, who opposed independence in their homeland, live close to the border. Many are in the town of Atambua, where most of the refugee camps are clustered. International observers say their influence has waned, but that is not the experience of people in the camps.

"They control everything," one elderly woman in Sunkaer Laran said. "They tell us what to do."

Agus Dos Santos, 29, lives in another camp, Rai Katar, by the Borluli River, in a hut made from palm branches and tarpaulin. A former farmer, he scrapes a living selling petrol and a locally brewed alcoholic drink, tuamutin, by the roadside. He has not seen his parents since 1999, but is scared to return to his home town of Liquica, in East Timor.

"We are small people and we do what we are told," he said. "We have been told to stay here. If we are told to go back, we will go, but not before then." Asked who was giving the orders, Mr Dos Santos frowned and stared at his hands.

Indonesia has disowned the former militias and tried to curb them, but not everyone follows the official line. A few weeks ago, in the border area, Indonesian TNI soldiers looked the other way when a carful of armed militiamen drove past. After one militia commander, Beny Ludji, was arrested in East Timor, soldiers sat down convivially with his comrades at the border and invited them to help man roadblocks, a blatant gesture of support by the TNI.

Such incidents do little to instil confidence in villagers on the other side.

There have been intermittent militia raids into East Timor, and a red and white Indonesian flag was recently raised in the border town of Balibo. Three markets that operated in no-man's land have been closed since a man was shot dead last year while crossing the river into East Timor.

There, anxieties have been heightened by the withdrawal of the bulk of the United Nations peacekeepers stationed at the border since an international force restored order in 1999. As of last month, East Timor's fledgling police and armed forces have responsibility for security, and there are grave misgivings about their ability to cope.

People fear the militia gangs will take advantage of the departure of the troops and return to their homeland. Their fears, echoed by some of East Timor's leaders, were stoked when local TNI commanders reported a month ago that militia fighters were congregating near the border and stockpiling weapons.

Even in the capital, Dili, a three-hour bus ride from West Timor, people are jittery. "I'm afraid the militia will come over and attack East Timor," a hotel worker said. "They will make big trouble now that the UN has gone."

In Batugade, a dirt-poor town on the border, residents say the East Timorese police are too few and poorly armed. Some fear that Indonesia, which occupied the country for 25 years, might invade again. The village head, Sergio Soares Pereira, said: "On the other side, they have infantry with high-class equipment. When they look over here, they see that they can easily attack us."

Patricio Pereira, an elderly Batugade resident, said there had been spats between East Timorese border police and the Indonesian military. "If things continue this way, one day there will be big problems," he said. "We feel abandoned by the peacekeepers. If something happens, we can't protect ourselves, and no one is going to protect us."

Over the border from Batugade lies Atambua, home to an estimated 1,000 militia members, as well as their most influential leader, Francsico Soares. In Atambua, three workers for the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) were hacked to death by militiamen in 2000.

Mr Soares, sipping tea outside his spacious home in Atambua, scoffed at the notion his supporters were plotting to infiltrate East Timor. "We are good men now; not bad men any more," he said, with a hearty laugh. "All the militia people are retired. They are farmers now. If we were still active, the Indonesian military would crush us." He smashed a fist into his hand.

A leader of the East Timorese People's Front, an anti- independence group, Mr Soares -- known as "Sico" -- has close links with the Halilinta militia.

Local militia leaders meet at his house every night. He said: "We have no guns, but if we wanted them, we could make them ourselves. Last time we made many weapons out of metal pipes."

He wants to go home, but only with a guarantee of immunity from prosecution. "East Timor is my country, and I don't forget it," he said. "I want reconciliation, but not justice. Justice is very difficult. The violence came about because of different political views. I am a political leader. If there was a massacre, I'm not to blame. If I kill you, it's my crime. My organisation can't be held responsible. But the UN wants to go after the organisations."

Some observers believe the militias are pinning their hopes on General Wiranto, the former Indonesian military commander who was in charge at the time of the 1999 bloodshed. General Wiranto, who has been indicted for war crimes by a UN-backed tribunal in Dili, is a candidate in presidential elections to be held in Indonesia on 5 July.

General Wiranto has been courting East Timor's President, Xanana Gusmao, who outraged many people by meeting his former foe in Bali recently. Mr Gusmao, who regards good relations with Indonesia as more important than seeking justice for victims of the atrocities, was accused of aiding the Wiranto campaign. On his return to Dili he was greeted at the airport by the first demonstration of his two-year presidency.

Refugee organisations say it is unclear how many East Timorese are being intimidated into staying in Indonesia. Some are former members of the Indonesian armed forces and civil service, who can draw pensions in West Timor and might face retribution if they returned to their villages. Others say they lost everything in 1999, including their families, and see no point in going home while the economic situation in East Timor remains poor.

They have been displaced for so long they have lost their refugee status and are now classed as Indonesian citizens. Half have been resettled in purpose-built communities, although conditions are scarcely better than in the camps.

There is no electricity and little water; access roads are atrocious.

Those remaining in the camps have exchanged their tents for makeshift huts, but little else has changed. Sanitation is basic, and food shortages are common. Luis Vieira, head of the Dili mission of the International Organisation for Migration said: "The militias still retain influence in the camps, but so do organised criminal elements involved with the black market and smuggling. The militias are taking a wait-and-see attitude, now the peacekeepers are no longer responsible for security."

Stephane Jaquemet, the UNHCR's deputy regional representative, said: "It's a very difficult transition period, because there will be a security gap as a result of having a much reduced international force. So it's quite logical that some people would like to take advantage of that, but I think the militia threat is much diminished."

A diplomatic source in Dili said, however, that the East Timorese security forces were weak and the TNI was dismissive of them. But he pointed out that the 700 UN troops and civilians left behind in East Timor included a rapid-reaction force that would act as a deterrent.

"Will there be trouble?" he said. "Perhaps. Are there people on the other side of the border who bear this country ill-will? Probably. Will they try something? Maybe. Will it be like before? It remains to be seen. The history of this place, and the fragility and newness of the institutions, probably make people a bit more scared."

Meanwhile, families remain divided by the border. Refugees used to meet their relatives at the markets in no-man's land. Now people on both sides need passports and visas to cross the border, and few can afford it

In Sunkaer Laran, villagers have given refugees a patch of land. They grow corn and sweet potato, tending them with care. Looking over at the mountains that rise up so close, they joke, wistfully, that East Timor is really their back garden.

East Timorese refugees seal off South Sulawesi high court

Jakarta Post - June 16, 2004

Andi Hajramuni, Makassar -- Hundreds of East Timorese refugees who hail from South Sulawesi sealed off the province' high court on Wednesday to vent their frustration over the court's verdict in an embezzlement case.

The refugees, who are from Pangkajene Islands regency, smashed three windows of the high court building and prevented court officials and employees from entering the building. They have protesting at the court since Monday to draw attention to what they regard as an unjust verdict.

Last week, the South Sulawesi High Court found the director of the Pangkajene Islands Social Affairs Agency, Bisman, guilty of embezzling Rp 128 million (US$13,700) our of Rp 500 million intended for the refugees, and sent him to jail for 15 months.

The sentence was much more lenient that handed down in February by the Pangkajene Islands District Court, which sent Bisman to jail for 5 years, and ordered him to return the embezzled funds or face an additional one year in jail.

The district court also ordered Bisman to pay a fine of Rp 250 million, or face another six months in jail as well as the confiscation of his assets.

The refugees became violent after failing to meet Supreme Court chief Bagir Manan, who was rumored to be on a stopover at Makassar's Hasanuddin airport. It turned out to be that Bagir had not actually made a stopover at the airport.

Meanwhile, South Sulawesi High Court Deputy President Dalil Achmad said it was impossible to vary the sentence unless the South Sulawesi Prosecutor's Office appealed to the Supreme Court.

Ex-militia chief run out of town again

Sydney Morning Herald - June 12, 2004

Matthew Moore, Jakarta -- The notorious former East Timorese militia leader Joao Tavares has again been forced to leave a border town near his old homeland where he was living in breach of an agreement he signed with the Indonesian military, TNI.

The commander of the TNI in West Timor, Colonel Moeswarno Moesanip, said Tavares had gone from Atambua to the West Timor capital of Kupang this week and flown back to Yogyakarta, where he promised last year to remain for two years as part of a United Nations-sponsored deal.

The former militia chief, wanted in East Timor for crimes against humanity, moved to Yogyakarta in Java last year after the UN High Commissioner for Refugees arranged for the TNI to buy his house in Atambua.

The UNHCR organised to move Tavares from the border area because they believed his presence there was disrupting efforts to deal with the problems of more than 20,000 East Timorese refugees still in West Timor, to which they fled in 1999.

The Herald visited Atambua last month and found Tavares building himself a big house there. He said his house in Yogyakarta had been attacked and said he was free to return to Timor as he had not signed an agreement promising to stay in Java.

News of his return to Atambua prompted the UNHCR's Jakarta-based representative, Robert Ashe, to raise his concerns with the military.

Mr Ashe said yesterday that he had been told Tavares, now in his 70s, had returned to Yogyakarta this week and that his departure from the border would ease tensions in the sensitive area.

Timor Gap

God could punish Australia: Timor

Melbourne Age - June 30, 2004

Mark Baker, Jakarta -- East Timor has invoked the wrath of God upon Australia in the bitter feud over the division of oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea.

Timorese Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta warned yesterday that God might strike to dry up the ocean between the two countries if Australia refused to give a fair share of the resources to his nation.

Mr Ramos Horta also claimed Australia's tough stance in negotiations on the issue was like Microsoft mogul Bill Gates stealing from his cleaning lady.

"God will punish them one day," the Nobel peace prize winner told journalists when asked how tiny East Timor might eventually achieve justice with its big neighbour.

"I've asked the God Almighty that one day He will do justice if they don't recognise our rights. Who knows, one day God will dry up completely the sea where they are operating, like happened in the Bible."

Mr Ramos Horta said Australia, which is insisting that its rights over maritime resources extend close to the Timorese coastline, had been reaping revenue of $1 million a day since 1999 from oil and gas exports that rightly belonged to East Timor.

"I don't like to use strong words like stealing. Australia is a very sophisticated, civilised country, so they are not supposed to steal oil or other resources from anyone, especially a poor country," he said. "It would be like Bill Gates stealing from an unemployed person, or from his driver, or stealing from his cleaning lady ... so I don't like to use those words."

East Timor is arguing in negotiations begun earlier this year for the major share of revenue from several big new oil and gas reserves being developed in the Timor Sea. It claims the reserves lie closer to its territory than Australia's, but Australia says its rights extend further because of the reach of the continental shelf.

"Australia's activities in the Timor Sea are not consistent with our interpretation of international law. We believe they are violating our sovereign rights," said Mr Ramos Horta, who is in Jakarta for regional security talks.

But he said differences on the issue should not be allowed to undermine an important relationship. "We are friendly neighbours," he said. "We can have our differences, but Australia is very important to East Timor."

East Timor - Australia's shame

ZNet Commentary - June 28, 2004

Andre Vltchek -- What can you do if your country is tiny and poor and your wealthy neighbor shamelessly exploits commonly shared area rich in natural resources depriving you of funds so much needed to feed your people?

East Timor, Asia's poorest nation that recently celebrated its second anniversary of independence is still desperate and unable to feed itself. Almost half of its population is unemployed and at least half is illiterate.

Right from the beginning, East Timor also feels deeply humiliated by its mighty neighbor -- Australia. Both countries are locked in a long, bitter dispute over enormous oil and gas reserve beneath the Timor Sea.

Potential profits from this reserve are so high that, if fairly divided, they could easily guarantee East Timor's full economic self-sufficiency and tackle most of its urgent social problems.

However, Australia had opted for bullish and intimidating approach, disregarding international law, often openly and directly laughing to the face of a relatively helpless East Timorese government. Until now, it accepts only one border agreement signed by Suharto's government and Australia during the time when East Timor was still firmly under brutal Indonesian occupation.

The Economist, British weekly newsmagazine, summarized the situation by saying: "Some of the disputed resources lie in a zone known as the Timor Gap that Australia and Indonesia excluded when they delineated their seabed boundary in 1972. Seventeen years later the two countries signed a deal to divide government revenues from this zone evenly between them. Mr. Gusmao now describes that deal as 'illegal and illegitimate' because of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor at the time.

At independence, Australia signed an interim treaty with East Timor, giving the nation 90% of revenues from within the 'joint development area', as the gap is now called, and Australia 10%. This agreement covers the Bayu-Undan gas field, due to start production this year. But it excludes most of Greater Sunrise, a more lucrative gas field that lies mostly outside the area, and all of the Laminaria-Corallina oil field, from which Australia has been taking all revenues since it started pumping in 1999'."

President of East Timor, Xanana Gusmao, offered several solutions, one of them being potential arbitration by the third party. However, Australia refused to negotiate. Arbitration by the International Court of Justice is now also impossible, because Australia withdrew from its jurisdiction on maritime boundary questions right before East Timor gained independence.

East Timorese Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, claims that 'East Timor would get access to up to US $12 billion worth of oil and gas' if the resources would be divided fairly. For the present time, his government is suggesting that Australia and East Timor form an escrow account to which money from oil and gas exploration will be deposited until the issue is resolved.

But, according to The Star, Australian newspaper, "Australia refuses to accept maritime boundary in the middle of 600 miles of sea separating two countries", exactly what East Timor is demanding. In the meantime, the Australian government is using insulting language towards its East Timorese counterpart. Alexander Downer recently declared on the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) News: "East Timor poverty is no reason for Australia to give ground in a maritime border dispute involving energy reserves"

With the greatest of respect, grow up. We are enormously rich compared to Papua New Guinea. We would be six or seven times richer than New Zealand. That doesn't mean that solution to that problem is to cede a lot of our territory to those countries. You address that issue of economic disparity through your aid program.'

And aid programs there are, including coming from Australia. However, they amount to approximately 10 percent of the profits made by Australia from exploring gas and oil in the disputed area. And exploration is only at an infantile stage.

After the fruitless April meeting between two governments (East Timor is insisting on monthly meetings, but Australia agreed on only two meetings a year, therefore the next one will not take place before September), Alexander Downer threatened: "East Timor made a very big mistake trying to shame Australia, accusing us of being bullying and rich and so on, considering all we've done for East Timor".

Australia likes to brag about its "help" to East Timor, often forgetting about the not too distant past. In February 1942 the Japanese Imperial Army landed an army of 20 thousand men in Dili (the capital of East Timor) and occupied the then Portuguese colony. The Japanese were ready to launch an attack on Australia from there. East Timorese, alongside a small Australian force, fought fiercely against Japanese invaders, inflicting tremendous losses. This resistance is often described as an act that saved Australia from a terrible war on its own territory.

After Australians were evacuated, the Japanese performed a terrible revenge. The population of East Timor declined from 472 thousand in 1930 to 403 thousand in 1946 (the two closest available censuses).

After gaining short-lived independence from Portugal, East Timor was occupied by Indonesian troops on December 7, 1975. During the occupation, the country lost more than one third of its population in one of the most brutal genocides known to the 20th century. The US and Australia gave an unmistakable green light to Suharto and his military clique. Until now, East Timor received no substantial compensation from Indonesia or from those countries which encouraged invasion.

It is true that Australia led a multi-national force that helped East Timor after the independence referendum and consequent massacres by pro-Jakarta militias. However, Australia's withdrawal from the International Court of Justice's jurisdiction on maritime boundary questions just before the full independence of East Timor may lead to many unfavorable speculations about the motives for such help. It is easier to bully a small and defenseless nation over the issue of enormous natural resources, then to confront the fourth most populous nation on earth -- Indonesia.

760 thousand people of East Timor, descendents of those who survived colonial neglect and terrible invasions and occupations, form the poorest nation in Asia. The country is too far from the main focus of cameras belonging to the large broadcasting corporations. Few journalists bother to venture to the far corner of the earth where it is located. It has no navy and no air-force to defend its interests.

But it has oil and gas that can pay for new schools and hospitals, roads, and housing. It doesn't need aid -- it needs a fair deal arbitrated by international institutions. The trouble is that it is being told, directly and squarely, by its mighty neighbor to "forget about it", to take what it's being offered (a pittance) and shut up. And it seems that no international body is able or willing to challenge a huge economic power like Australia, no matter how wrong it may be, how arrogantly and unjustly it behaves.

"We are not shaming Australia. We are only telling the truth", said Mr. Gusmao, recently. The question is whether anyone is willing to listen and above all, to take action in defense of the penniless but proud nation that suffered tremendously due to our geo-political interests.

[Andre Vltchek is a writer, journalist and filmmaker, recently living and working in Southeast Asia.]

All eyes on the Timor Sea

Green Left Weekly - June 30, 2004

Jon Lamb -- As the pre-election hype takes off, the issue of the disputed maritime boundary between East Timor and Australia has slipped from the mainstream political spotlight. Nonetheless, the big oil and gas companies with investments in the Timor Sea remain concerned about the stand-off between Dili and Canberra.

Both Labor and the Coalition parties are seeking to reassure the companies involved that they have their interests at heart. Both Labor and the Coalition want to reassure the big oil companies that Australia is a secure place for investment and that when resource-rich countries in the region, like East Timor, are deemed to threaten these investments, they will be pressured to toe the line.

An indication of this was the discussion at the recent South-East Asia-Australia Offshore Conference (SEAAOC), held in Darwin on June 7-9. This conference included representatives from all the key corporate players in the Timor Sea, including some of Australia's and the world's largest oil and gas mining companies, such as the US-owned ConocoPhillips, the Anglo-Dutch-owned Shell and the Australian-owned Woodside Petroleum companies.

The conference opening and most of the proceedings on the first day focused on the situation in the Timor Sea. Speaking on behalf of the Coalition government, Warren Entsch, parliamentary secretary to the resources minister, reaffirmed that Canberra was not going to shift its position on the maritime boundary and that it is still opposed to having the dispute settled before the International Court of Justice.

Entsch also restated the Coalition government's opposition to East Timor's appeal for more than two rounds of talks per year. According to Entsch, holding more regular negotiations is "not realistic given the complexity of the issue and the national interests of both countries in ensuring that the permanent boundary is located in a position acceptable to both countries".

A repeated focus of discussion between Dili and Canberra has been on resolving the boundary dispute so that developments in the Greater Sunrise field -- the largest gas field in the Timor Sea -- can go ahead. The key stumbling block is the refusal of East Timor to cede its sovereign territory and billions of dollars in royalties.

The total government share of revenue from Greater Sunrise is expected to be at least US$7 billion, of which Australia is attempting to swindle 82% through the Greater Sunrise Unitisation Agreement. If the maritime boundary was drawn according to international law, most of the gas field would fall under East Timor's jurisdiction.

Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin proposed a "solution" to the impasse in her speech at SEAAOC by calling on the federal government to make a more generous offer in relation to Greater Sunrise. Martin suggested that the federal government "make a substantial one-off offer to allow for the development of the Sunrise resource".

Does Martin's solution represent a better deal for East Timor? Martin's Labor government is desperate to secure the largest infrastructure project in the NT's history -- the multi-billion dollar Wickham Point gas processing plant. The project will not survive if the Greater Sunrise deal is held up for a lengthy period of time.

Supporters of East Timor are questioning what difference a Labor federal government would make in the dispute between Dili and Canberra. At its national conference in January, the ALP indicated that it is in favour of "fairer" negotiations. But what this means has remained vague, with only the promise that a future Labor government would "negotiate in good faith".

In March, Labor allowed passage through parliament of the Greater Sunrise Unitisation Agreement Implementation Bill, thus supporting the theft of East Timor's hydrocarbon resources.

In a recent Dow Jones interview, Labor energy and mining spokesperson Joel Fitzgibbon declined to state if Labor would accept East Timor's maritime boundary claims. "We're in no position to say what should be the starting point of the negotiations. It's difficult to do that from opposition", said Fitzgibbon.

For East Timor, energy riches lie just out of reach

Wall Street Journal - June 10, 2004

Timothy Mapes and Patrick Barta, Dili -- Tiny East Timor fought for nearly a quarter of a century to free itself from Indonesian invaders. Now it faces a struggle with this region's other giant, Australia, over lucrative oil fields critical to its economic survival.

When East Timor became the world's newest country just over two years ago, it needed immediate international life support. Almost a quarter of its population had died during a brutal 24-year civil war. Rampaging Indonesian forces burned about 80% of the territory's government buildings and infrastructure after its 800,000 people voted for independence in 1999.

Massive injections of foreign aid have kept the country afloat since then, allowing rebuilding to begin. But with almost no local industry -- the country booked just $6 million in exports last year -- East Timor is pinning its economic hopes on large oil and natural gas fields that lie off the island's south coast.

But that plan has hit a surprising obstacle: Australia. Though it led the United Nations peacekeeping force that restored order after the 1999 violence, and has been one of East Timor's biggest aid donors ever since, Australia lays claim to most of the Timor Sea's energy fields.

It cites a treaty it signed with the former Indonesian military dictatorship some three decades ago. That treaty also gives Australia control over the Timor Sea's biggest prize: a vast, underwater natural-gas field called Greater Sunrise. It holds an estimated $30 billion in oil and natural gas -- enough to transform East Timor's future. Sixty percent of the tiny country's residents live on less than $2 a day, according to the World Bank.

East Timor believes it has a strong claim to the Greater Sunrise field, which lies just 95 miles south of its coastline and 250 miles north of Australia. Many of the foreign charities that helped keep East Timor's fight for independence alive during the Indonesian occupation are now promoting its case against Australia.

"It is, quite literally, a matter of life and death," said Mari Alkatiri, East Timor's prime minister, sitting in a low, white colonial building facing the sea. Outside, battered taxis puttered up and down Dili's quiet and dusty streets, trying to encourage the city's few pedestrians to take a $1 ride.

Currently, more than 10% of East Timorese children die before they reach the age of five due to illnesses like diarrhea and malaria, according to Oxfam Australia, one of East Timor's most active charities. That rate is roughly three times the level of other Asian countries. Oxfam recently released a statement arguing that Australia's position on the Timor Sea oil fields is obstructing East Timor's efforts to reduce infant mortality and lift itself out of poverty.

A rugged tropical nation about the size of Connecticut, East Timor languished for three centuries as a generally forsaken Portuguese colony. The territory declared independence on Nov. 28, 1975, only to be invaded by Indonesia nine days later. Indonesian rule brought a massive military presence -- aimed at defeating Timorese guerrilla fighters who took to the hills -- and Indonesian civil servants who filled most of the top government jobs. In a 1999 referendum supervised by the United Nations, the territory's people voted almost four to one in favor of independence.

Despite East Timor's woes, Australia insists that it has already been sympathetic to the country and refuses to go further by giving up territory it has held for more than 30 years. Australia also insists it won't be swayed by East Timor's efforts to try to win over public opinion by showcasing its poverty and characterizing Australia as a bully.

"We were very generous given the role we played in helping to free the Timorese and give them their own country," says Alexander Downer, Australia's foreign minister. "We weren't asking for a kick in the teeth for our generosity." He says redrawing Australia's boundaries to accommodate East Timor would be like the US volunteering to cede Texas to Mexico, just because Mexico is less wealthy and would benefit from added territory.

Much is also at stake for the oil and natural gas companies that have investments in the region. The four companies involved in the Greater Sunrise field -- Royal Dutch/Shell Group, ConocoPhillips, Japan's Osaka Gas Co. and Woodside Petroleum Ltd. of Australia -- have spent some $150 million so far in exploration and development costs related to the field.

While the companies aren't likely to produce significant amounts of natural gas until 2009 or 2010, even that target date could be put in jeopardy if the dispute drags on much longer. "We need markets [for the gas], and to get markets, we need certainty" about the boundaries, says Rob Millhouse, a spokesman for Woodside, the field's operator.

Some natural gas from the region is already flowing. Rushing to get some initial projects off the ground, East Timor agreed with Australia in 2002 to set up a joint development zone in one section of the waters between the two countries.

Under that treaty, East Timor will get 90% of the revenue from projects within the joint development zone, while Australia will get 10% -- a significant shift from a 50-50 split that Australia and Indonesia planned before East Timor broke free. In February, Houston-based ConocoPhillips began tapping natural gas and liquid condensates from a $1.8 billion venture in the zone.

But the treaty didn't resolve the status of Greater Sunrise, which lies mostly outside the zone. As a new state, East Timor insists it has a right to negotiate a new sea boundary with Australia. Moreover, it argues that the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea supports the use of a midpoint boundary in cases where territorial claims overlap, as they do in the Timor Sea.

By drawing a midpoint line, all of the area's major energy deposits would sit on East Timor's side, including Greater Sunrise.

Some international observers believe East Timor has a strong case, despite considerable ambiguity in international law on these kinds of boundary disputes. "There's a substantial body of modern maritime law that supports East Timor's position on this issue," says Elisabeth Huybens, the head of the World Bank's office in Dili.

If East Timor can enlarge its maritime boundaries to include Greater Sunrise and other nearby fields, she says it could triple its spending on health, education, roads and other badly needed infrastructure. Currently, the East Timor government's entire annual budget amounts to just $75 million; about 40% comes from foreign aid.

Preliminary discussions over the issue began last year, and an initial round of negotiations was held in April. But so far the talks have been bogged down, with East Timor accusing Australia of dragging its feet to force it to accept a weaker deal, even as Australia continues to receive revenue from disputed areas.

While East Timor wants to discuss the issue every month, Australia has only agreed to meet twice a year. At the same time, Australia is getting an estimated $1.5 billion in royalties from projects in other parts of the sea that East Timor claims, and is selling new licenses to companies that want to search for more oil and natural gas in disputed areas.

As the dispute began to heat up in 2002, Australia also withdrew from an arbitration system for maritime disputes at the International Court of Justice. East Timor denounced the move as an "unfriendly act" and complains it now has no legal recourse if negotiations fail.

Australia counters that its 1970s boundary with Indonesia -- which extends along the continental shelf off Australia's coast -- would hold up under current international law. Foreign Minister Downer argues that debating Australia's boundaries could expose it to disputes with other countries, including Indonesia.

Since the 1970s, some international courts have favored boundaries that lie at the midpoint between countries whose claims overlap, absent compelling reasons to do otherwise. But courts have also been reluctant to dramatically overhaul boundaries that have been in place for many years, such as the Australia-Indonesia boundary.

In a meeting on the matter between Messrs. Alkatiri and Downer in November 2002, Australia took an extremely hard line, according to minutes of the exchange that appeared after the meeting on an Australian independent news Web site, called crikey.com.au. "We are very tough. We will not care if you give information to the media. Let me give you a tutorial in politics -- not a chance," Mr. Downer warned, according to the minutes.

Mr. Downer said the minutes were released by East Timor officials and reflected their views. He otherwise declined to comment on them. But he added, "If in the end they think they're going to get us to agree, they might find they're wrong.... We're not offering any concessions."

As the fight unfolds, life in East Timor remains unusually harsh. In Mota Kiik, a village an hour outside of the capital Dili, about 300 young students sit quietly in a makeshift primary school, jury-rigged from the remains of a burnt-out agricultural laboratory. The facility, surrounded by pumpkin fields and dense green foliage, has no electricity or working toilets. Only two teachers supervise eight classrooms.

"The government can't afford to give us anything," says Thomas Soares, the school's 26-year old principal. In some rooms, 8-to- 10-year-old students sit on the floor because they have no desks. A wall covered in black paint serves as a chalkboard.

Mota Kiik is better off than many other villages. Schools and medical clinics become scarcer farther away from Dili. In the fishing village of Behau, about an hour's drive east from the city, few of its 150 children receive any education or medical care at all. No teacher has ever come to work in a one-room schoolhouse built five years ago by a Canadian charity. Only a handful of older kids are able to walk six miles under the equatorial sun to reach facilities in the next town.

"Can you please ask the government to send us a teacher? We will pay him ourselves," says Mario da Cunha, a 32-year old fisherman. Surrounded by a group of preteens, many with eye infections and runny noses, he frets that his village's isolation is destroying its hope for the future. "If we don't get a teacher, our kids will grow up knowing nothing," he says.

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are working with East Timor to set up a special fund for its share of the expected oil revenue to direct money to the schools and other dire needs. Another aim of the fund is to avoid the government corruption that has plagued some countries with sudden inflows of energy wealth, including neighboring Indonesia.

Some East Timor politicians, including Prime Minister Alkatiri, have already been accused of accepting bribes related to the oil business. In a March lawsuit filed in US district court in Washington, Oceanic Exploration Corp. of Englewood, Colo., accused ConocoPhillips of paying more than $2.5 million to Mr. Alkatiri and other East Timorese officials, as well as to Australian officials.

In its filing, Oceanic claimed its Portuguese unit, Petrotimor Companhia de Petroleos SARL, was awarded development rights in the region by Portugal before the 1975 Indonesian invasion. It accused ConocoPhillips and the governments of Australia, Indonesia and East Timor of conspiring to illegally seize those rights.

Mr. Alkatiri denies the charges, as does ConocoPhillips. Mr. Alkatiri says he uses an Australian bank account mentioned in Oceanic's filing to pay for his children's school fees, but says it has never contained more than $6,000 of his own money. ConocoPhillips says it will vigorously defend itself in US court, and notes that similar claims by Oceanic have already been dismissed by an Australian judge.

In East Timor's makeshift presidential palace -- a tiny bungalow behind a burnt-out government office -- President Xanana Gusmao says his people do not intend to give up this fight. A neatly- bearded 57-year-old who led East Timor's guerrilla army through years of jungle fighting against Indonesia, Mr. Gusmao now has a largely ceremonial role in government but is widely viewed as East Timor's founding father.

"In 1975, when East Timor was invaded by Indonesia, we were told that it was a fact and we had to accept it," says Mr. Gusmao. "Nevertheless, we did not accept it, and we fought and we won."

World Bank wants speedy Timor Sea resolution

Dow Jones Newswires - June 9, 2004

Veronica Brooks, Canberra -- The World Bank's representative in East Timor, Elisabeth Huybens, is keeping a watchful eye on the protracted maritime border dispute playing out between Canberra and Dili.

Well aware that East Timor's economic well-being rests on Dili's bid for a major redistribution of royalties from the Timor Sea oil and gas fields, Huybens wants a quick and fair resolution to the boundary negotiations.

But also mindful that the World Bank is only an observer, Huybens is diplomatic when questioned whether the Washington-based multilateral institution favors a particular timetable under which a permanent boundary should be finalized.

Dili wants it settled in three to five years, but Canberra refuses to be locked in. "By our mandate, we can't recommend anything to anybody on this issue," Huybens, who has been the World Bank's country manager in East Timor for almost two years, told Dow Jones Newswires in a telephone interview.

"We would hope at least discussions evolve swiftly and fairly. We don't have a particular timeframe." Huybens does point out, however, the World Bank doesn't want the oil and gas deposits located in the disputed areas "prejudiced" while the negotiations continue.

Asked if that means Australia should desist from issuing new exploration permits in the area of overlapping claims, she said: "Either that or the resources should be held in such a way that when the ultimate boundaries are drawn, it is possible to partition the resources according to the permanent boundaries."

"Oil and gas revenues will be Timor-Leste's principal resource of government revenue. Of course the level of those revenues will determine what kind of government Timor-Leste can establish," she said.

Under current boundary arrangements, East Timor will be able to finance a government budget of approximately US$100 million a year perpetually "because the government of Timor-Leste is determined to save much of its oil and revenues such that future generations can benefit as much as current generations," said Huybens.

That compares with an existing annual government budget of about US$75 million and would be enough to fund "a very lean government and very spare public services."

Earlier this week, East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said his country will look at a "creative solution" to help speed development of the Woodside Petroleum Ltd.-operated Sunrise gas field in the Timor Sea.

But Alkatiri said Dili isn't prepared to back down on its border dispute with Australia over ownership of petroleum reserves that could be worth US$12 billion to the island nation. The World Bank agrees with this estimate, which is well north of the US$4 billion in likely revenues flowing from the temporary arrangements.

World Bank cites East Timor pipeline benefits

Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin also weighed into the political debate this week at a regional energy conference, urging Canberra to negotiate a more generous, one-off revenue deal with East Timor over Sunrise.

Her comments came after one of the Sunrise partners, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, cautioned that the long-running border row is hurting marketing efforts and the company will be "very reticent" about significantly increasing investment on Sunrise until a deal is ratified.

While Australia and East Timor have agreed to a treaty to carve up an area of the Timor Sea, the deal is only an interim arrangement pending a fixed boundary.

The Joint Petroleum Development Area deal gives East Timor 90% of government revenue from the ConocoPhillips (COP)-operated Bayu Undan field which is due to begin exports of liquefied natural gas in early 2006.

However, East Timor has so far refused to ratify a second revenue-sharing deal known as the International Unitization Agreement. Under this deal, 80% of Sunrise -- the largest prize in the Timor Sea -- falls within Australian waters and the remaining 20% in the JPDA.

Just two months before East Timor became independent from Indonesia in May 2002, Australia announced it would no longer accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice on maritime borders.

That left the East Timorese without an independent forum to deal with their claim that the border should be drawn in the middle of the 600 kilometers of sea separating the two countries. Dili's claim will place the vast Sunrise gas fields and the nearby Bayu Undan gas field wholly in East Timor's waters.

But Australia is adamant its continental shelf should be the border as was agreed with Indonesia. In some places that is just 150 kilometers from East Timor's coastline and more than 450 kilometers from Darwin. Australia also has refused to meet with East Timorese negotiators more than twice a year.

Huybens wouldn't be drawn on the Northern Territory's pitch for Canberra and Dili to negotiate a one-time Sunrise revenue deal with Timor. "That would have to be something for the government of Timor to take a view on," she said.

Woodside needs to decide on a development plan to provide certainty to potential buyers of the gas, which includes Osaka Gas (9532.TO) along with other Asian energy utilities. Woodside is finalizing studies on design options which include a pipeline to East Timor, a pipeline to Darwin and a floating LNG plant.

Huybens noted Dili will benefit significantly if Woodside chooses the East Timor pipeline option. "If that is something that is feasible then Timor should look at it carefully from the point of view ... it could bring downstream benefits to Timor Leste and employment opportunities in a country that has very little resources right now and has a very high unemployment rate."

Partners in the 7.7 trillion cubic feet Sunrise field are ConocoPhillips with 30%, Woodside with 33.4%, Shell with 26.6%, and Osaka Gas with a 10% stake. ConocoPhillips leads the Bayu Undan joint venture as the operator, partnering Italian firm Eni S.P.A. (ENI.MI), Australian producer Santos Ltd. (STO.AU) and Japan's Inpex, Tokyo Electric Power (9501.TO) and Tokyo Gas (9531.TO).

Woodside warns on Timor delay

West Australian (and agencies) - June 8, 2004

John Phaceas, Perth -- Woodside Petroleum might have to defer its Sunrise gas project for at least five years -- costing it billions in delayed revenue -- if the impasse over Timor Sea production rights was not resolved by Christmas, the company warned yesterday.

Woodside said it had to start detailed design for the $7 billion Sunrise project by the end of the year if it was to capitalise on a window in the gas market it believed would open in 2010.

If Sunrise was not in production by 2010, the development would have to be delayed until the next suitable marketing opportunity arose, Woodside said. Industry experts predicted that could be as late as 2015.

Such a postponement would have a big effect on Woodside's long- term profit projections, based on the Greater Sunrise fields' expected output of 5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas a year, and substantial quantities of condensate.

The fields, 400 kilometres north-west of Darwin, contain almost 8 trillion cubic feet of gas and 300 million barrels of condensate, and are tipped to generate up to $12 billion in royalties.

An interim revenue-sharing agreement between Australia and East Timor was signed last year, granting the fledgling nation 90 per cent of all royalties from projects within the zone, including the $4 billion Bayu-Undan project operated by US group ConocoPhillips.

But 80 per cent of the Sunrise fields lie inside Australia's maritime border, which is now being challenged by East Timor.

The two nations have been at loggerheads since March, when East Timor President Mari Alkatiri warned that the interim agreement would not be ratified unless the maritime boundary was redrawn.

East Timor wants the boundary shifted from the edge of the Australian continental shelf to the midpoint between the two countries, giving it total jurisdiction over the Sunrise project.

A delay would have a big effect on Woodside's long-term profit projections based on Sunrise's expected output.

In Darwin yesterday, Woodside's gas business chief, David Maxwell, said the Sunrise partners would be unable to meet their tight development schedule unless the impasse was broken over the next few months.

"Securing foundation LNG customers and the Timor-Leste Government's ratification of the International Unitisation Agreement ... are the prerequisites for Sunrise to enter the detailed engineering and design phase," Mr Maxwell told the South-East Asia Australia Offshore Conference.

Mr Maxwell said Sunrise had to be in production by 2010, when several major LNG supply contracts in Asia were due to expire and demand from China and the US was forecast to take off.

Any delay would cause Sunrise to lose out to a raft of other bigger projects slated for development in Russia and the Middle East, many of which could later be expanded at significantly lower cost than Sunrise.

"It is a compelling piece of logic that reminds us of the importance of getting the jump on them," Mr Maxwell said.

Protestors in campaign for Timor oil, gas negotiations

Radio Australia - June 7, 2004

A small group of protestors is rallying outside an international oil and gas conference in the northern Australian city of Darwin, angry over Australia's treatment of East Timor in natural resource negotiations.

Our reporter, Danielle Parry, says senior players in the Australian and Asian petroleum industry are meeting in Darwin to discuss new developments and opportunities in Asia and Northern Australia.

It is the 10th SEAAOC conference and the Timor Sea gas development is on the agenda. About a dozen people have gathered outside the conference waving banners and chanting "Hands Off Timor's Oil".

The rally has been organised by the Timor Sea Justice Campaign, which believes East Timor is being treated unfairly by Australia in oil and gas negotiations regarding the Timor Sea.

At the heart of the dispute are billions of dollars worth of royalties from oil and gas reserves, which lie in the waters between Australia and East Timor, known as the Timor Sea.

East Timor wants the maritime border to be renegotiated to ensure a greater share of the reserves.

East Timor wants end to oil row

The Australian - June 4, 2004

Lisbon/Portugal -- East Timor said today it is willing to reach a compromise with Australia to solve a long-running territorial dispute over seabed oil and natural gas deposits between the two countries.

"Our government is totally available to find creative ways to reach a solution," East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta told a conference in Lisbon. "And when we speak of creative forms obviously we mean reaching some form of a compromise where neither of the two parts insists on having their main demands met."

Australia wants to keep the maritime border agreed with Jakarta when East Timor was an Indonesian province, which follows the country's continental shelf. That border leaves about two-thirds of the oil and gas deposits in the Timor Sea in Australia's hands.

But Dili argues that under current international maritime law, the border should be in the middle of the 600 kilometres of sea between the countries, which would give it 90 per cent of the underlying oil reserves.

East Timor, which recently celebrated its second anniversary of independence, says Jakarta only agreed to that deal in exchange for Canberra's recognition of its illegal annexation of East Timor.

The boundary has been the centre of a protracted dispute between impoverished East Timor and its giant neighbour, with energy deposits worth an estimated $US21 billion ($30.3 billion) dollars in royalties at stake.

A report issued last month by international aid group Oxfam said Australia's refusal to cede more royalties from the seabed resources to East Timor risked turning the poverty stricken new nation into a failed state.

Just two months before East Timor became independent from Indonesia in May 2002, Australia announced it would no longer accept the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice on maritime borders.

The move left Dili with no independent forum to judge their claim that the border should be drawn in the middle of the sea separating the two countries and was described by East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri at the time as "a hostile act".

With much of its infrastructure destroyed by violence by Indonesian-backed militias that accompanied its 1999 independence referendum, East Timor is one of the poorest countries in the world.

More than half of adults in the former Portuguese colony are illiterate, only one in three houses has electricity and one in five has drinking water.

Rights group denounces Australia over Timor oil

Associated Press - June 5, 2004

Dili -- A US-based rights group denounced Australia yesterday, saying Canberra should be "ashamed" for allegedly robbing East Timor of much-needed oil and gas revenues from the disputed seabed between the two nations.

Australia has been accused of pressuring East Timor into signing a temporary agreement that favors Canberra when it comes to divvying up oil fields in the Timor Sea.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard is visiting Washington this week.

East Timor leaders, desperate for any oil revenue, say they signed the deal believing it soon would be superceded once the two countries agree on their disputed maritime border. They now accuse Australia of dragging out the border negotiations.

In March, Australia ratified legislation giving it a majority stake in Greater Sunrise oil fields pending a new border agreement to replace the one it concluded with Indonesia's former dictator Suharto, who invaded East Timor in 1975 and ruled it with an iron fist for 24 years.

"Australia should be ashamed to continue to profit from this," said John Miller from the New York-based East Timor Action Network in a statement received yesterday.

Howard's policies "betray Australians' sense of fair play and legality when he justifies today's continuing occupation [of the oil fields] by citing Australian complicity with Indonesia's brutal invasion," Miller said. He urged Canberra to resolve the matter "quickly and legally."

In March, a group of US con-gressmen wrote to Howard urging him to establish a fair, permanent maritime boundary and an equitable sharing of the resources in the disputed oil field.

East Timor's legislators have yet to ratify the new agreement, complaining that their country was pressured into accepting the current temporary agreement that gives it only 18 percent of an expected US$30 billion in gas and oil revenues. They have also slammed Canberra for issuing exploration licenses in the disputed area.

Australia casts a shadow over East Timor's future

The Independent (UK) - June 3, 2004

Twelve-year-old Julmira Babo collapsed unconscious while playing outside in her village in East Timor's Ermera district. Her family carried her to a hut and gave her traditional medicines but, a few days later, she died.

An autopsy was performed by a United Nations pathologist, who was astonished by what he discovered. Inside Julmira's body were hundreds of large worms that had travelled from her stomach up her oesophagus and into her mouth, blocking her trachea. She died of asphyxiation. "In my entire career as a pathologist in the Third World, I have never seen anything like it," Dr Nurul Islam said last week.

Julmira's death could have been prevented by a tablet that costs a few pennies. Thousands of children in East Timor die prematurely or suffer from malnutrition, anaemia and stunted growth as a result of intestinal parasites. The poorest nation in Asia cannot afford a national deworming programme in schools.

Lack of funds for health services is common in developing countries but tiny East Timor is a special case. Off its shores lie vast oil and gas reserves that could transform the economic fortunes of the world's youngest nation. Using revenue from the energy deposits, it could develop industries, repair crumbling infrastructure, invest in health and education, and alleviate poverty.

There is one hitch: East Timor's large and affluent neighbour, Australia, claims ownership of two-thirds of the lucrative resources. The riches lie beneath the Timor Sea, the 400-mile stretch of water that divides the two countries, and negotiations on a new maritime boundary have just started.

The outcome, said President Xanana Gusmao, literally spells "life or death" for his homeland. With access to the fuel royalties, East Timor -- which recently celebrated its second anniversary of independence -- could become self-sufficient. Without them, it will remain trapped in a cycle of poverty, massively reliant on foreign aid. And children like Julmira will keep on dying.

The origins of the maritime dispute lie in East Timor's long and brutal history of foreign occupation. The oil and gas fields are located close to its coast; in fact, the richest field, Greater Sunrise, is just 90 miles away. But a boundary agreed by Australia and Indonesia in 1972, as 400 years of Portuguese colonial rule were about to end in East Timor, placed most of the reserves inside Australian territory. Canberra showed its gratitude in 1976 when it became one of the few governments to recognise Indonesia's annexation of the half-island.

The sea border was enshrined in a treaty in 1989, and Australia kept silent during a quarter-century of oppression of the East Timorese by Jakarta's military forces. In 1999, it finally woke up to the atrocities being committed on its doorstep, leading an international force to end the violence that followed East Timor's vote for independence.

Nearly five years on, as the poverty-stricken nation struggles to build a future, Australia has decided that generosity has its limits. In talks that began in April, Canberra insisted on keeping the 1972 boundary. In vain, the Dili leadership invoked international law to support its claim for the border to be redrawn halfway between the two countries.

There is much at stake. Greater Sunrise alone, as yet undeveloped, contains $25bn worth of deposits. If the boundary was set along a median line, East Timor would receive $12bn in tax revenue over the next few decades. Under the status quo, however, its share would dwindle to just over $4bn.

As the diplomatic language sharpens, ordinary East Timorese -- who welcomed the Australians as liberating heroes in 1999 -- are angry and disappointed.

Demonstrations including a hunger strike were staged outside the Australian embassy last month, and graffiti has been scrawled on walls around the potholed capital, accusing Canberra of stealing Dili's oil. Protesters say that, having escaped the yoke of Indonesian occupation, they now face "economic occupation" by Australia.

In his modest presidential office, behind a burnt-out former vehicle registry with a fagade of smashed tiles, Mr Gusmao spoke of broken dreams. "Our people fought for so many years, not to have a flag or a president, but because they believed independence would bring them a better life," he said.

"We have had four and a half years of begging from foreign governments, but we still have to import rice, we still have schools without roofs and desks. The money could produce a miracle here. We are a small country and we could eradicate poverty, illiteracy, disease." Mr Gusmao echoed a recent warning by the aid agency Oxfam that, without the royalties, East Timor could become a "failed state". Eyes flashing, he said: "What we are claiming is not in the Gulf of Carpenteria [off Australia's Northern Territory]; it is very, very near us. We are not doves; we are a proud people with dignity. We only claim what is ours."

Hardship is widespread in a country where, despite all the foreign aid, 41 per cent of people live in extreme poverty. But it is the children who suffer most. Twelve per cent die before the age of five, mostly from preventable diseases. Malaria and tuberculosis are common killers.

Hospitals are short of medicines and equipment. There are no vaccination programmes. East Timor has only 16 doctors.

Dr Islam, the sole pathologist, said: "All these diseases could be easily eradicated, but they are short of money. They are short of everything here." He was deeply affected by Julmira Babo's death. "In this century, people are dying of worms, my God," he said. "Can you believe it? How can anyone believe it? But this is the reality of life in East Timor."

That reality is evident in villages such as Hera, east of Dili. In Hera, people eke out a subsistence existence by catching fish or growing rice or maize. Two-thirds of homes have no electricity. Twelve standpipes serve the entire community. Residents have to walk miles to the nearest clinic.

"Life is very, very difficult," said the village head, Antonino Da Silva. Mr Da Silva said: "We are politically independent now but economically we are not free. The oil belongs to us; it's the riches of East Timor. Our country has a vision but, without the oil, East Timor will get poorer and Australia will get richer and the vision will remain a dream."

Half of East Timor's 800,000 people are illiterate but, in Hera, many villagers cannot afford to educate their children. Primary school costs 50 cents a month; high school $2. One teacher, Antoni Tetibuti, said: "In the beginning the children come, then gradually they stop coming, because their parents can no longer pay." Mr Tetibuti said his pupils had a poor diet devoid of protein. "They only eat corn and cassava. No meat or fish, no eggs or milk. Their physical and mental development is retarded. They don't have energy and they find it hard to concentrate."

This is the context in which Australia, the wealthiest nation in the region, is demanding the lion's share of resources in the Timor Sea. It has refused to submit to third-party arbitration; it was no coincidence, many critics believe, that it withdrew from the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea just before East Timor's independence.

Boundary rows are generally resolved by these bodies and, in recent decades, a median line has been the norm. Australia, however, believes the border should follow its continental shelf, which extends far out into the sea. Since 1999, it has reaped $1.5bn -- equivalent to $1m a day -- from exploitation of a field called Coralina/Laminaria, beneath East Timor's half of the seabed.

Australia claims it is being exceedingly generous because it gave East Timor 90 per cent of a so-called "joint petroleum development area" in 2002. But it fails to mention that Greater Sunrise -- of which it currently controls 82 per cent -- is worth triple that area. Dili is furious that Canberra is already issuing exploration licences close to Greater Sunrise, which remains disputed. The Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has accused the Dili leadership of using emotional blackmail.

"They've made a very big mistake, thinking that the best way to handle this negotiation is trying to shame Australia, is mounting abuse on our country, accusing us of being bullying and rich and so on, when you consider all we've done for East Timor," he said recently.

"The tactics that are being used by East Timor, a country which we helped to bring to independence and to which we have been enormously generous and supportive over recent years ... are to try to create public controversy in Australia by a lot of emotive criticism."

Questioned about the moral dimensions of the issue, Mr Downer said: "It's a curious principle that if one country is richer than another and the two countries are adjacent, the richer country should cede territory to the poorer country ... on that principle, I suppose the United States should cede Texas to Mexico." No one denies Australia has been supportive of East Timor. It is giving Aus$40m (#15m) in aid this year, and its soldiers have formed the backbone of the UN force that has guaranteed the nation's security. But the money it has spent on financial and military assistance is dwarfed by the revenue it has already received from the Timor Sea.

Many Australians deplore their government's stance. Bob Brown, an opposition Green Party senator said: "Australia is behaving like a wealthy neighbour that has jumped the fence and pinched vegetables from the garden of the poor family next door. The pirating of East Timor's resources makes it embarrassing to be Australian."

Others, including East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, point out that it is in Australia's regional interests for its neighbour to be stable and prosperous. Mr Alkatiri said: "We fought for 24 years against the dictatorship regime of [the former Indonesian president] Suharto. We always dreamed of becoming a democratic country and Australia was an example for us in the region. Australia preaches the rule of law around the world, but now it is resisting the application of international law."

He wants the international community to exert pressure on Canberra to reach a fair solution. In the meantime, Australia -- which has declined to set a timetable for the boundary talks -- can afford to drag its feet. When you're earning $1m a day, the status quo looks fine.

Horta attacks Australia's oil fields policy

The Courier - June 3, 2004

Catherine Best -- Jose Ramos-Horta exudes a warmth and charisma that belies his nation's bloody struggle for independence.

A freedom fighter for more than three decades, the Foreign Minister today champions the cause of East Timor on a global platform.

Sitting in his home in Aeria Branca, in the East of Dili, Dr Ramos-Horta contemplates a hectic ministerial schedule which involves meeting a foreign dignitary at the airport that afternoon. Days later he will be at a rock concert in Lisbon, Portugal, speaking alongside performers Sting and Britney Spears.

But today he has made time for a foreign reporter and her Ballarat entourage. Speaking over a glass of coconut water about his homeland, which includes comical references to pigs and Martians, it is hard to believe the genial presence of Dr Ramos- Horta. This is man who in 1970 was exiled from East Timor for three years for advocating independence against Portugal. A man who for almost 25 years lived outside his homeland to galvanise international condemnation of East Timor's Indonesian oppressors.

Ask Dr Ramos-Horta what buoyed his determination at a time when his fellow countrymen were being slaughtered, and the affable minister is blunt but humble.

"Justice in terms of improving the living conditions of the poorest, respecting individual freedoms and choices, honouring pride and dignity," he said.

"I am very happy for the people, for the country. Happy that I contributed somewhat to the success of the struggle. I feel privileged in the course of the 24 years of my own involvement, I came to know some extraordinary people around the world whose own commitment and generosity really strengthened me. I probably would have given up if I did not meet the many hundreds of people around the world who were so generous so kind and gave me support."

Dr Ramos-Horta is a realist. While he celebrates his country's triumph, he acknowledges that East Timor still has a long way to go.

In 2002, East Timor became an independent state, inheriting from the United Nations a nation still reeling from the destruction following the 1999 independence ballot.

East Timor is one of the world's poorest countries and supports a people beset by poverty and disease. Forty per cent of the population is under five, unemployment and domestic violence are rife and almost half of the population live on less than a dollar a day.

Dr Ramos-Horta said the fledgling nation had made "enormous progress" in developing basic infrastructure, services and education, but said the country was stymied by a poor justice system.

"One of the problems that we do have with a weak judiciary is that potential foreign investors are discouraged because one thing foreign investors want to know is what are the rules of the game. They want legal certainty they want to know that whenever there is a dispute there is a strong independent judiciary that handles it professionally with integrity, this is not the case in East Timor at the moment."

And then of course there's the pigs. According to the Foreign Minister, the four trottered vermin have got to go, but convincing the Muslim Prime Minister could be difficult.

"This country must be one of the countries in the world with the highest per capita population of pigs. They're the ugliest species on earth, the ugliest and dirtiest.

"They roam all over every town, every backyard, every frontyard, they walk into people's living rooms dragging along a lot of diseases.

"If I were to become Prime Minister of this country I would give one week's notice to every pig owner and dog owner in this country -- have your pig or dog contained in an area that can be looked after and kept clean, or I'll have them slaughtered and [the meat] given to orphanages and hospitals."

On an economic front, East Timor is still wrangling with the Australian Government over rights to oil and gas reserves in the East Timor Sea.

Dr Ramos-Horta will meet with Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer on June 17 to try and secure a better deal for East Timor.

Under a maritime boundary agreement signed with Indonesia in 1972, Australia has rights to oil and gas reserves at the boundary of the continental shelf, which Dr Ramos-Horta said extends up to 50km from the East Timor coast.

He said the agreement was "extremely disadvantageous" for Indonesia (and East Timor) and had enabled reserves, believed to be worth $1 million a day, to be "vacuum cleaned" by Australia.

The East Timorese perceive oil and gas as their tickets to economic stability. "We have demanded respect for international law and practice which establishes an equal distance between two coastal states. If we follow the equal distance principal all the existing oil and gas fields would all be 100 per cent East Timorese," Dr Ramos Horta said.

"Australia is one of the richest countries in the world. East Timor is one of the poorest in the world. Australia's attitude in the Timor Sea reminds me of a great photo montage in the UK in the 80s showing Margaret Thatcher, the then Prime Minister known as greedy and ruthless, stealing the purse of a very poor British pensioner."

When the Foreign Minister has finished talking politics, he excuses himself for being "unkind" and offers a personalised tour of his home. Inside his house -- which our host proudly announces is designed, built and decorated by him -- are relics of an extraordinary life. Under the thatched cathedral roof, university certificates share wall space with a Nobel Peace Prize and pictures of Dr Ramos-Horta with celebrities including Harrison Ford.

It's a humbling experience. And who knows, one day the inspirational leader may even visit Ballarat. There are rumours East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao will be in Ballarat for the 150th anniversary of Eureka in December this year. But don't count on Dr Ramos-Horta making it.

"It is a possibility, who knows," he said cheekily. "By then East Timor could be invaded by the Martians [and] I could have been proclaimed governor of the new Martian province of East Timor."

Government & politics

Parliament OKs budget proposals, despite opposition boycott

Lusa - June 29, 2004

Dili -- The state budget proposed by East Timor's ruling Fretilin party was approved Tuesday by the Dili parliament, although most opposition parties boycotted the debate and final vote in protest at the "arrogant" attitude of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

Dili's budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 is for USD 75 million expenditure, with Timor's hydrocarbon sector expected to generate USD 40 million in receipts for the exchequer.

The head of the opposition Timorese Democratic Association (ASDT), Francisco Xavier do Amaral, said Timor's main opposition groups had not attended the budget debate in protest at the low number of government ministers who sit on parliamentary committees.

In undervaluing the committees' work, Alkatiri was being "despotic", charged Xavier do Amaral, who is also a deputy speaker in the Dili parliament and was the first leader of Fretilin in its days as Timor's main independence movement.

Xavier do Amaral, whose party has six seats in parliament, unsuccessfully ran against President Xanana Gusmco in Timor's first presidential elections.

Responding to the opposition criticism, Alkatiri noted there was "no obligation on the government to send ministers to committees".

Corruption/collusion/nepotism

Alkatiri challenged answer bribe charges in US court

Agence France Presse - June 6, 2004

Darwin -- A US oil company challenged East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri to appear in a US court to respond to allegations that he accepted a multi-million dollar bribe from a rival firm.

Denver-based oil company Oceanic Exploration issued the challenge in a letter handed to Alkatiri as he flew into the northern Australian city of Darwin to address an oil and gas conference, a company official told AFP.

The move came after Alkatiri complained on SBS television that he was unable to defend his reputation in the case because Oceanic had not named him as a respondent and he had not been called to court.

The prime minister said "Thank you very much" after being handed Oceanic's letter by a private detective, and made no further comment, the official told AFP.

Alkatiri has strenuously denied allegations made by Oceanic Exploration in March that rival oil giant ConocoPhillips paid him 2.5 million US dollars to advance its lucrative investment interests in the Timor Sea.

Oceanic Exploration has also implicated other unidentified East Timorese politicians and an Australian diplomat in the case.

A lawsuit filed by the company in the US District Court claimed Australia, Indonesia and ConocoPhillips had conspired to steal a concession it was granted by former coloniser Portugal, before Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, to develop resources in the Timor Sea.

The claim against ConocoPhillips, made under US anti-racketeering laws, seeks 10.5 billion US dollars in compensation, which could treble if the case is proven and found to be the result of a criminal conspiracy.

Alkatiri told SBS television that he would have preferred to have been named as a respondent in the case so that he could defend himself.

"Unfortunately I was not present as a defendant in court," he told the programme. "I would prefer them to accuse me and put me in the place of a defendant too, but it was made intentionally and was based on American laws."

In the letter handed to him Sunday, lawyer Dale Oliver quoted the television interview, writing: "We will take you up on your challenge. We accept your offer to be named as a defendant."

He said to do so East Timor's first prime minister must agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the Washington court, adding: "Oceanic does not ask you to admit liability or guilt nor would it expect you to make such admission."

Oceanic lost an action in a Canberra court last year accusing the Australian government of breach of contract over its Timor Sea claim.

The 93-page document outlining its case against ConocoPhillips covers a sweeping array of charges including racketeering, money-laundering and embezzlement.

Bribery allegations in the document extend to other unidentified East Timorese politicians and charge that an Australian diplomat was involved in the payments.

The document alleges Alkatiri kept two bank accounts in Australia's northern capital of Darwin to receive payments.

Independent investigations have failed to back these claims, and Alkatiri told said on the SBS programme the accounts in question were set up to pay bills for his relatives in Darwin and the amount of money alleged to be in them were "completely false". "I had, maximum, in this bank account of a few thousand, very few thousand," he said.

Justice & reconciliation

The truth of the matter

Neil Barrett - June 17, 2004

[While President Xanana Gusmao makes overtures of friendship towards Indonesia, there are many East Timorese who may never be able to forgive their country's former oppressors. Filmmaker Neil Barrett took their testimony.]

"They beat me, my nose was bleeding and my face was all broken, but I told them nothing. They electrified my penis and my tongue, I felt I was dead already. They treated us like animals not people ... Now when I go past that place I cry when I remember my brother and friends who died there. That was the place of our suffering." Saturnino Belo, rice farmer, Bacau, East Timor, former resistance supporter...

Xanana Gusmao may be right to embrace former Indonesian general and presidential candidate Wiranto in the interests of East Timor's long-term survival. Perhaps Timor's president will also be able to convince the majority of his people to forgive the terrible crimes committed against them without so much as an apology from perpetrators such as Wiranto, who has been accused of being responsible for the deaths of 1500 of Gusmao's countrymen. But my recent experience tells me that, for some East Timorese at least, this will be near impossible.

For the past 18 months, I've been producing a series of videos for East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (commonly known by its Portuguese initials as CAVR), which is investigating human rights violations during Indonesia's occupation. The commission has also set up a "truth- telling" process for victims and abusers to acknowledge what happened.

The videos comprise 20 interviews conducted with former resistance supporters who were captured by the Indonesian military and interned in what a veteran Portuguese priest has called East Timor's Auschwitz.

Between 1975 and 1999, a jail in Dili known as Comarca Balide was used by the Indonesian military as an interrogation and detention centre. Many thousands of terrified East Timorese men and women, and some children, found themselves at the mercy of the worst excesses of the occupying power.

The message was the same: for most of its Indonesian incarnation, Comarca Balide was a place of almost unbelievable suffering.

There were frequent disappearances and executions without trial; inmates spent months without bedding or clothes in grossly overcrowded, dark cells in which human excrement frequently fouled the floor; there were horrific beatings, torture with electricity and water; and, not surprisingly, appalling food. Death due to illness, violence and starvation was common.

For many people, the first hours spent in the prison were a foretaste of what was to come. Jacinto Alves -- now one of CAVR's commissioners -- was arrested in 1992 and taken to a rock in the quadrangle that had the words "Welcome to Comarca" painted on it.

"We had to say 'Welcome to Comarca' repeatedly for hours in the heat of the sun -- from early in the morning until we fainted. Then we were splashed with water in order to get up. 'Welcome to Comarca, welcome to Comarca,' until we fainted again," Alves says. "Then they beat us until we were swollen, puffy and bloody, and we couldn't stand it anymore. Then we lay down over there and slept exhausted in the mud."

My sample of 20 videos includes testimony from people who are now highly respected leaders of East Timor. As well as Alves, those interviewed included David Ximenes, who is now in charge of East Timor's internal security; Francisco Branco, a member of parliament; Julio Alfaro, the chief executive of one of Dili's largest companies; and Father Jao Felguieras, a Portuguese priest who came to the country 33 years ago. I also spoke to ordinary people, like Saturnino Belo, who are now trying to make a life in their new nation.

All spoke with an integrity and a passion that I'd rarely encountered in several decades of documentary making. And while each had a powerful and distinctive story to tell about prison life and its effect on them, the message was the same: for most of its Indonesian incarnation, Comarca Balide was a place of almost unbelievable suffering.

There were several common threads running through the interviews. One was the dread of being among the "disappeared". A large number of prisoners were simply taken out during the night and executed at one of the many killing sites around Dili.

According to Felguieras, for several years prisoners were taken during the night and trucked to nearby Lake Tacitolu to be killed. They were thrown in the lake or buried in some other way. At that time people used to say: "Today Tacitolu is red."

Alves recalls: "Most of the time people, including some of my friends and family, who were brought to these cells disappeared. They simply disappeared."

Alfaro was thrown into Comarca in 1975 because he had been in the Portuguese army: "I trembled at the thought of interrogation. But I was grateful if I was called in the morning because I knew I would return to the cell. Most of the prisoners who were called in the night never returned. Nighttime meant death, to disappear forever."

Another thread was the fear of the Mabuta cell block. This block contained seven cells, each about eight square metres in size. In six of the seven cells there was only a thin shaft of light to fracture the blackness. The seventh, the so-called Dark Cell, was totally black.

Usually, there would be 13 or 14 men in a cell and at times up to 30. The toilets were frequently blocked -- perhaps deliberately -- so that the contents spilled over the cell floors.

Needless to say, there were no beds, no private possessions and certainly no books. Conditions were so cramped prisoners had to take it in turns to sleep on the wastecovered floor either completely naked or in their filthy underwear.

Not surprisingly, many of the interviewees spoke of frequent deaths due to illness, especially TB and malnutrition.

One of the cells was called "the submarine". Soon after the Indonesians took over the jail from the Portuguese, they bricked up the doorway to a height of one metre so that the cell could be filled with foul water, thereby providing an effective place of punishment. Prisoners had to stand for long periods or drown. How many people were forced to choose the latter option is not known, but it was just one of the many horrors of Comarca.

David da Conceisau, now a taxi driver in Dili, spent a year in the Mabuta cell block when he was 20. "During the first week, they used to beat me up every morning. My face was so swollen that I couldn't see. After that, they locked me up in the Dark Cell for six months. There was no light, I was naked. I slept on the floor. I was not given anything to drink. I survived on the water in the food. Because I didn't have a bath, my skin was all peeled and itchy."

Torture was systematic and, it appears, unlimited. The methods of choice were electric current, water immersion, cigarette burns and beatings. All interviewees refer to it.

Ximenes survived the electricity but came very close to drowning in a water tank. And he still wouldn't talk. "They brought in someone called Norberto and another man called Jordao. We all sat there, being interrogated. Those two were stabbed to death in front of me and their bodies thrown outside. They did all this before my eyes. The truth is, people just kept dying here, one after another."

Another common thread was the appalling treatment of women. At any time, there were up to 24 women in the prison, some of them with children. The three women interviewed all referred to severe beatings, torture and gross sexual humiliation.

One of them, Maria da Costa, was arrested in 1977 when she was 18 and imprisoned for several years. She was frequently kicked and beaten and often forced to shower naked for the amusement of the Indonesians.

On top of that, she says, "I had one child from an Indonesian soldier. When we were due to be released, we had to make a promise to become a soldier's temporary wife. [Before that] I had conceived another child in Comarca but [it] died before it was born."

Felguieras says prisoners communicated with their relatives and friends by throwing notes over the wall for children to deliver. "I remember a prisoner called Marcelina. The message she sent me said, 'Father, we are living in hell'."

In January this year, Pak Ian Dion, the Indonesian civil servant who managed Comarca Balide for six years until 1986, and his wife spoke to Peter Carey, a tutor in modern history at Oxford University. Initially, both husband and wife lived inside the prison, next to the interrogation rooms. But because the prisoners' screams kept her awake at night, she decided after four months to move back to their home in West Java. The torture, she says, was done to extract information and "to give sadistic pleasure to the military interrogators".

Dion admitted that "there were no human rights in East Timor at that time" and that one of his biggest problems was that, although he only had enough in his budget to feed 50 prisoners, he often had to cope with up to 500. This helps to explain the high death rate referred to by survivors.

The stories told by the 20 people whose testimony I recorded are now being used by CAVR in the writing of its final report. Some of the alleged perpetrators may, like Wiranto, be charged with crimes against humanity, although the chance of them coming to trial is becoming increasingly remote.

On the 10th and last day of interviewing, five of the oldest survivors from Comarca Balide reunited outside the Mabuta cellblock. One of them, Alfaro, spoke on their behalf. When he mentioned the suffering they had all endured, he and others on both sides of the camera began sobbing and the interview came to a temporary halt. For their sake, I hope Xanana is right.

[Neil Barrett was the founder and for 20 years the chief executive of Video Education Australasia Pty Ltd, a leading company in the production of videos and other educational resources. His work for CAVR is being done on a voluntary.]

National for the future... and Supermie

Tempo Magazine - June 8-14, 2004

The meeting between Xanana Gusmao and General (ret) Wiranto reaped condemnations in Timor Leste. As soon as he landed at Nicolau Lobato Airport, Dili, unlike his usual self, Timor Leste President Xanana Gusmao descended the steps with a sour expression. Carrying his son, accompanied by his wife, Kirsty Sword Gusmao, he stepped outside the airport on Monday, two weeks ago. His return from Bali, as reported by Tempo correspondent, was greeted by one presidential officer and a handful of guards only.

Once he was inside the special room in the airport, dozens of youths crowded him in demonstration. From outside, the demonstrators screamed and shouted, "Arrest Wiranto, arrest Wiranto." Banners of protests were waved.

"Xanana has deceived the people of Timor Leste," yelled a number of protesters from the Timor Leste Alliance for International Trial. The Alliance demanded that Wiranto, the former Indonesian Military (TNI) commander, be put on trial on human rights violation charges during the unrest in the area leading up to the separation of Timor Leste (formerly known as East Timor) from Indonesia in 1999.

Xanana instantly turned red. Apparently, his trip to Kuta, Bali, two days earlier, was also fraught with protests. The president, the former Timor Leste guerrilla leader who is often referred as the "King of the Jungle", met with Wiranto. The two former foes embraced warmly. The picture of the event-with Xanana laughing openly and Wiranto smiling happily-immediately reached all corners of the earth. People can still remember how Xanana had to remain in the Cipinang Prison, East Jakarta, as a result of his actions in the jungle. Today, in different positions, with Xanana as president and Wiranto as a presidential candidate, both looked like close buddies.

They chatted in a closed meeting at Cottage 212 of the Oberoi Hotel, Legian, Kuta. As Xanana claimed, the nature of the meeting was "personal not state -- related." Wiranto referred to the meeting as "a meeting between two best friends discussing national interests." After the meeting, Wiranto held a press conference. There was nothing much that Wiranto could say to the reporters at that time. Unfortunately, Xanana was not there. He immediately left and later had dinner with Wiranto and wife.

As far as Wiranto is concerned, the meeting was like a sip of fresh wine. As a presidential candidate from the Golkar Party, he is being haunted by accusations of human rights violation in Timor Leste. His trip to the Presidential Palace is wobbly because of this. In Timor Leste, February 2003, Prosecuting Attorney for Serious Crime from the Serious Crime Unit (SCU), a trial body of the United Nations in Timor Leste, charged Wiranto and seven military officials and civilians with violations of human rights in Timor Leste.

The charge stemmed from his position as the then TNI Commander in Chief. After a poll which was won by the pro-independence group, East Timor was nearly totally destroyed by the clash between pro-integration and pro-independence sides. "Of around 1,041 murder cases which took place at that time, some TNI officials were involved," said Timor Leste Attorney General, Longuinhos Monteiro, to Faisal Assegaf from Tempo News Room. As the highest in command, Wiranto was blamed.

Timor Leste did take a next step. An order to arrest Wiranto was issued by the Judge of the Special Panel on Serious Crimes, Phillip Rapoza, on May 10. The Special Panel is a mixed court for serious crimes. Some of the judges come from Timor Leste and the other half come from the UN.

However, the letter that was signed by Rapoza, a judge from the United States, lasted only a day. The very next day Attorney General Longuinhos Monteiro vetoed the letter of arrest. The reason? "I don't want to have a confrontation with Indonesia," he said. Monteiro's other reasons were, the charge requires a number of revisions and in view of the national political developments in Timor Leste.

Previously, before meeting with Wiranto, Xanana met with President Megawati Sukarnoputri, at the Patra Hotel, Kuta, on May 15. At that time, the discussion was more about bilateral relations. "We did not specifically discuss the letter ordering the arrest of Wiranto," said Xanana.

However, he said, there was one important agreement: the two countries agreed that human rights violation cases would be resolved by reconciliation. If Xanana seems to be softening, it is not without careful consideration.

In Xanana's eyes, Indonesia remains an important country to Timor Leste. "We still eat Supermie [noodles], even our clothes and sandals are from Indonesia," he added. The economy of the new country is still facing tough challenges. More than half of the Timor Leste population is unemployed. According to Xanana, that is why he places people's welfare above international court.

However, Xanana's diplomacy was not well received by all of his people. One proof was the rally at the airport. In response to them, Xanana defended himself. He is willing to resign as president if "the Bali meeting impacts the Timor Leste people negatively," he said. With regard to holding an international trial, said Xanana, that authority is in the hands of the United Nations.

The state of his country has made Xanana opt to act pragmatically. That was why he accepted Wiranto's invitation to Bali. A Tempo source in the Timor Leste presidential office said that the meeting took place because of a letter and a phone call from Wiranto who invited Xanana to meet in Bali.

On the so-called Island of the Gods, the two chose the Oberoi Hotel. The reason was, said the source, Xanana, Minister for Foreign Affairs Ramos Horta, and the Attorney General of Timor Leste had met with Wiranto for the second time in the same hotel. The second meeting was in February 2004.

Previously, Xanana and Wiranto met in Cilangkap in 1999. At that time, Xanana's status was still as a rebel leader who was imprisoned in Cipinang Prison. And in Bali, the former war leader and former prisoner were "affectionate".

That was what Xanana's comrade-in-arms, Minister for Foreign Affairs Ramos Horta, criticized. According to Horta, Xanana should have postponed the meeting until after the presidential elections in Indonesia have concluded.

Xanana's step, said Horta, had degraded the dignity of the Timor Leste people. Like it or not, said Horta, the prosecuting process by the Special Panel must be respected. "The meeting has harmed the legal process against Wiranto," he said.

Wiranto's reaction was obviously more relaxed. He claimed that the meeting had taken place repeatedly and was an ordinary thing. "It was a common meeting, a meeting between two best friends," said Wiranto at a presidential campaign event in West Nusa Tenggara on Friday. His meeting with Xanana, said Wiranto, was a meeting of two best friends who understood that a war would only cause sufferings to people.

That was it? The Wiranto camp denied any charges that there were any political promises behind his meeting with Xanana. "What political deals? I witnessed it myself," said Suaidi Marasabessy, a retired three-star general, one of the motors in Wiranto's campaign team. According to Suaidi, even if there had been political deals, it would have been more in connection to cooperation to build the future of Timor Leste than to question the past.

But is it true that the Wiranto camp facilitated the meeting? Suaidi was evasive. He claimed that he did not know how the meeting process started. His reason was, the meeting was not the first, it was for third such meeting. "I myself do not have personal contact with President Xanana," he said.

Whoever made the initial contact is now a moot point. Wiranto seems to have been dealt a new card in the presidential nomination, but it is Xanana who has had to explain his Bali visit. Nelson Correia, Deputy Secretary-General of the Timor Socialist Party (PST), called the move a realistic one. As a new country, he said, Timor Leste would face great challenges in tackling the agenda left behind by the UN. "One of them is the charge brought forward by SCU against Wiranto," said Correia to Selma Hayati, Tempo correspondent in Dili.

The case bequeathed by the UN is officially not closed yet. Attorney General Monteiro threw the case documents to the National Council.

Chaired by President Xanana, the National Council comprises representatives from the parliament, supreme court, and the people. According to plan, the council will take over the government policies from the UN, which will leave Timor Leste in December. The council will also decide on legal policies, such as the trial for those violating human rights. "In one or two months, the council will be established," said Monteiro.

It is certain that, while Xanana leads the National Council, he will not drag Wiranto to court, especially if Wiranto wins the seat of President of the Republic of Indonesia. It is for the sake of good relations-and, of course, Supermi.

[Nezar Patria, Alexandre Assis (Dili), Sujatmiko (Mataram).]

Human rights trials

Special privileges for Timor violence prisoners

Agence France Presse - June 12, 2004

A former East Timor governor sentenced for human rights abuses will be housed in a prison cell with an en suite bathroom because of his service to the Indonesian nation, reports say.

The Koran Tempo reports the attorney-general's director for gross human rights cases, I Ketut Murtika, says a special room is being readied for Abilio Soares at Jakarta's Cipinang prison.

"He shouldn't be put in an unsuitable room. We should not forget his service defending the integration of East Timor," Mr Murtika said. Soares's detention room measures four-by-six metres and includes its own bathroom.

Neither the spokesman for the attorney-general's office nor the prison director could be reached for confirmation.

Other high-profile Indonesian prisoners have also been detained in special cells. Terrorism suspect Abu Bakar Bashir is being held in a newly-renovated detention room at Jakarta police headquarters.

Soares has remained free pending a Supreme Court ruling on his case, and completion of the cell. The Supreme Court in April upheld a guilty verdict and three-year prison term issued by the Jakarta human rights court against Soares in connection with the 1999 violence surrounding East Timor's vote for independence. He has complained he has been made a scapegoat for the military.

Jakarta's rights court acquitted a total of 12 people and sentenced six during trials that ended last year. Most of those charged are security force members.

Jakarta established the court in 2001 to deflect pressure for an international tribunal into the violence, which the United Nations says was organised by Indonesian security forces. At least 1,400 people were killed.

The United States and the European Union dismissed the trials, saying they failed to deliver justice. The most senior Indonesian officers, including then-armed forces commander Wiranto, were not indicted.

Kopassus chief in clear over East Timor

The Australian - June 10, 2004

Sian Powell, Jakarta -- The acquittal of an Indonesian military commander accused of human rights breaches in East Timor in 1999 has been upheld by the Supreme Court in Jakarta, prompting activists to again condemn the entire process as a whitewash.

Of the many East Timor human rights cases it has reviewed so far, the Supreme Court has convicted just one man: an East Timorese civil official, and he has yet to be jailed.

In a split decision, the court this week upheld the acquittal of Dili district commander Lieutenant-Colonel Endar Priyanto.

Earlier acquitted by the Ad Hoc Tribunal on Human Rights, Liuetenant-Colonel Priyanto was originally charged with having permitted soldiers under his command to connive at the murder and torture of East Timorese independence supporters in the house of independence leader Manuel Vegas Carrascalao, on April 17, 1999.

Lieutenant-Colonel Priyanto, a special forces Kopassus commander, had been accused of crimes against humanity for failing to prevent the violence that roared through East Timor in 1999.

The Indonesian military and their militia proxies have been found responsible for the violent deaths of as many as 1400 East Timorese, countless rapes and assaults, the forced deportation of one-quarter of the population and the destruction of most government buildings in the half-island. The slaughter of 12 people in the Carrascalao house, including the leader's teenage son, was a watershed in the violence that blanketed East Timor during that bloody year.

The Supreme Court has already reviewed most of the 18 cases heard by the tribunal, and upheld the conviction only of former East Timor governor Abilio Soares.

Supreme Court upholds acquittal in Timor rights case

Associated Press - June 8, 2004

Indonesia's Supreme Court has upheld a special court ruling acquitting a former military commander in East Timor of gross human rights violations in East Timor in 1999, when its people voted to separate from Indonesia, a court source said Tuesday.

"The court rejected an appeal by government prosecutors Monday because they failed to prove the defendant has been responsible for the violations," the source told Kyodo News.

The defendant was Dili District Commander Lt. Col. Endar Priyanto at the time of the mobilization and arming of East Timorese militia groups in early 1999.

According to the source, Priyanto, who is a member of the army's special force command KOPASSUS, was acquitted of charges of having allowed soldiers under his command to murder and torture people in the house of independence leader Manuel Vegas Carascalao on April 17, 1999.

At least 12 people were killed in the attack, believed to have been carried out by the militia group Aitarak led by Eurico Guterres, who has been sentenced to 10 years in jail, and the militia group Besi Merah Putih, with assistance from the military.

"The defendant's subordinates did not take part in the attack, thus he cannot be held responsible," the source said.

Earlier, prosecutors asked the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal to sentence Priyanto to 10 years in jail. The tribunal also acquitted him.

The Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal tried 18 people accused of involvement in the East Timor violence, but acquitted most of them, mainly military and police officers.

East Timor, which was a Portuguese colony for more than 400 years before being invaded by Indonesia in 1975, gained independence May 20, 2002, after more than 24 years under Indonesian occupation and two-and-a-half years under UN administration.

Timor attorney general denies Wiranto probe closed

Antara - June 2, 2004

Denpasar -- East Timor Attorney General Longuinhos Monteiro denied reports that his government had closed its investigation into the alleged involvement of former Indonesian military chief Wiranto in human rights violations in East Timor in 1999.

"We have never closed the investigations into Wiranto's case. What we have done was to put the probe on hold pending a decision of the State Council on whether or not we will continue the investigation," Monteiro said here Monday.

The East Timor government, he said, had sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan regarding the postponement. According to Monteiro, the State Council was expected to announce its decision on the case in August.

Monteiro said his government had never made any statement that it had closed the investigation into human rights abuse cases allegedly involving Wiranto in the former Indonesian province. On Saturday Monteiro and East Timor President Xanana Gusmao held a two-hour meeting in Bali with Wiranto, who is the Golkar Party's presidential candidate.

Wiranto told reporters after the meeting that he and Xanana had not touched on the human rights cases in East Timor. "He [Xanana] has already met and talked with President Megawati, so the issue is a government-to-government issue. Let us just wait for the result," Wiranto said. During their meeting, Wiranto told Xanana that if elected president, he would encourage all efforts to enhance bilateral ties.

The Serious Crimes Unit (SCU), which was established by the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), has issued an arrest warrant for Wiranto for his alleged involvement in murder,deportation and torture in East Timor in 1999.

However, the Indonesian government refused to respond to the arrest warrant saying that the SCU lacked any sort of extraterritorial jurisdiction. In addition, it claimed the arrest warrant was invalid as UNTAET was dissolved in East Timor on May 20, 2002.

Indonesia

Gunning for the General

Bulletin - June 30, 2004

At the height of the East Timor crisis, Australia gave General Wiranto a stark ultimatum: back off or else. Now the former army chief has a strong chance of becoming Indonesian president, and Canberra is feeling nervous. Paul Daley reports.

The last time Australia had official business with Wiranto, the Indonesian former four-star general, it offered him a choice: let international troops into East Timor or face the consequences. Next time, Wiranto could be president of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, and an archipelago central to Australia's strategic interests and the global war against terrorism.

Wiranto, an ambitious, fiercely nationalistic egoist with matinee-idol good looks, is known as "the singing general". But there is a sinister streak behind his penchant for belting out cheesy ballads and handing out his CDs at shopping centres.

To Australia's leading politicians, diplomats and spies, Wiranto remains foremost an indicted war criminal, an Indonesian military (TNI) leader who, at best, watched while his troops encouraged pro-Jakarta militias to raze East Timor and kill some 1500 of its people after the 1999 autonomy ballot.

The official candidate for Golkar -- Indonesia's largest, most nationalistic party, it also has the strongest TNI base -- Wiranto enjoys the patronage of the old Soeharto cronies. His opponents believe he has already promised 50 cabinet posts and that he has an unmatchable war chest of some $US50m ($72.78m).

While a Wiranto presidency would present, in the words of a senior serving Australian diplomat, "a complete and utter diplomatic nightmare" for Australia, the message from Canberra to Jakarta is unambiguous: we have no choice but to work with whoever wins.

But Canberra dreads a Wiranto presidency. It fears he'll take a strong military approach in West Papua, a strategic hot spot because of its border with Papua New Guinea, and that military tensions could rise correspondingly in East Timor, where 450 Australian troops face thousands of TNI across the border with West Timor.

As presidential aspirant, Wiranto has spoken kindly about Australia. He has even promised a priority visit if he's elected, something neither the Coalition nor Labor, which both anticipate huge protests, wants.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer's reaction could not have been more telling when he learnt of Wiranto's nomination. "If we started attacking General Wiranto, that might turn out to be a bit of an election winner for him, so we won't comment."

Wiranto doesn't much like Australia either. He has good reason. The Bulletin can reveal that, at the height of the East Timor crisis, Canberra issued Wiranto a stark ultimatum: let international troops secure East Timor or face daunting possibilities, including a joint United States-Australian military force, crippling trade sanctions, a tarnished international reputation and international criminal action.

It was not the first showdown Wiranto had with Australia. But will it be the last? This is how it happened.

New York, September 10, 1999

East Timor, having recently voted for independence, is ablaze. Indonesia's special forces, Kopassus, and the hand-picked goons from their militias are killing hundreds in the streets and churches. Perhaps 200,000 are being pushed into Indonesia- controlled West Timor, the phones are dead and United Nations staff and most of the international media have fled to the UN compound. There's little accurate information about what's happening and the world is talking genocide, of possibly tens of thousands of East Timorese being slaughtered. Who knows?

Here in New York, there's big talk of sanctions against Indonesia -- and even war crimes charges against Wiranto -- unless Jakarta quickly authorises an Australian-led military force to restore security. There's a catch: Indonesia must invite the force in, otherwise it would be an invasion.

No chance. Indonesia's erratic president, B.J. Habibie, seems immovable. His military keeps declaring that foreign troops who enter "Tim Tim" [East Timor] will pay with their blood. The time for talk is over. And everyone knows that when Habibie says something, it's really Wiranto talking. There is, it seems, just one way to change Habibie's mind: get to Wiranto -- and do it quickly.

Meanwhile, an outraged Australian public is demanding John Howard's intervention. The PM has already decided enough is enough. He summons his Chief of the Defence Force, Admiral Chris Barrie, and asks: can we get a message to Wiranto? We must get Wiranto to move on this.

Manhattan at dusk. Allan Behm sits in a 33rd-floor office on East 42nd Street, Australia's permanent mission to the UN. Behm, head of the Australian Defence Force's International Policy Division, is a multilingual TNI expert with many contacts in the Indonesian military. He has even helped run seminars for the Indonesians on military-civilian relations.

He is an accomplished musician and a family man who -- not foremost though infamously -- steadfastly bucks late-20th-century sartorial dictates with his persistent, almost defiant, sporting of loud bow ties. Coupled with his somewhat fruity delivery, it lends Allan Behm something of an air of an Oxbridge don. The phone rings. It's Barrie.

Can we get a message to Wiranto so we can get him to move on this? asks Barrie, who knows Wiranto well, having played golf with him in Indonesia. Behm says he has three choices. "First, you can ring Wiranto directly. Second, you could get somebody else in Australia, maybe [Deputy CDF Air Marshal] Doug Riding to call [Indonesian Security Chief Susilio] Bambang [Yudhoyono], or third, we can go in at a much lower level and inform someone who can get a message to Wiranto -- to let him know what's actually happening here today is that, for the first time, the UN is talking war crimes against him unless the force is allowed in."

Barrie goes back to Howard. Howard tells Barrie he wants to keep his options open. In the words of someone else in the loop: "The prime minister's direction was that we might need to give ourselves a few goes at this. That if, for example, Wiranto refused to take Barrie's call, we would have cracked our egg but not got it in the bowl."

Barrie calls Behm back. Someone else should get the message to Wiranto through an intermediary, he says. What about you?

It's the middle of the night in Jakarta when the phone rouses Rear Admiral Yoost Mengko. A former Indonesian defence attache to Australia and now general chief of staff and intelligence assistant to Wiranto, he knows Behm well. Mengko, Wiranto and some UN special rapporteurs are due to fly to Dili at 5am aboard Wiranto's VIP Hercules. Behm's timing could not be better.

Today, four years later, Behm -- who now works as a private risk analyst and strategy consultant -- will not detail his conversation with Mengko. But it is understood Behm asked Mengko to tell Wiranto that unless Indonesia acquiesced, "there could be serious downstream consequences both for Indonesia and for you [Wiranto]". There was also an ambiguity that hinted at a potentially heavy military threat.

Whatever Behm's precise words, they had the desired effect; the next day, Sunday, September 12, Habibie said the international force could enter East Timor. Eight days later, the TNI welcomed the force, led by then Major General Peter Cosgrove, into the province.

"The fact of the matter was we knew that we'd got the message through to Wiranto because the result that we got was exactly the result that the government wanted," Behm told The Bulletin.

"The consequences would have been that if the Indonesians had decided they would oppose the UN Security Council resolution, we would have had to think very, very much more seriously about the consequences of leading a party in, in the short term -- I suppose the second thing that was implicit in it was that if they weren't going to accede to our advice, the nature of the force going in would change. The force would have had to have been much heavier, which would have meant a serious American component, probably coming from the Third Marine Expeditionary Force at Okinawa. And I mean they could work out what the likely second step was -- while [US 7th Fleet flagship] Blue Ridge was sitting there in the water off Dili, just to make it very clear that the Americans had an interest. So I don't think the Indonesians were going to say no."

Hugh White, the Defence Department's deputy secretary and chief strategist during the East Timor crisis, does not believe "Indonesia feared a unilateral military operation if they hadn't acquiesced".

"But then I'm not sure," White says. "I just don't know. We certainly in Australia did not, at that point, contemplate deploying forces to East Timor without Indonesian permission. If Indonesia had not given us permission and the situation had continued to deteriorate, who knows what would have happened. And who knows what TNI feared might have happened.

I have never asked, but it would be very interesting to ask the Indonesians what they thought the message was." Mengko, now retired from the Indonesian military, told The Bulletin: "Yes, Allan called me that time in the middle of the night to inform me that -- there would be sanctions against Indonesia if -- Indonesia rejected inviting the international force [into East Timor]. That was the story. I really got that message. I delivered it [to Wiranto] right after I talked with Allan."

The Bulletin: "Was the threat to Indonesia only of international sanctions or was there an implied military threat too?"

Mengko: "No, I didn't get these things -- he said there would be sanctions against Indonesia if there is not a clear response regarding a multinational force -- I don't think it went so far [as the threat of military action]. We were thinking of the session in the UN, and how we will be the subject of an embargo or whatever. Yeah, I heard that it could be developed that far [to military action] but, to me, I got the point already that the session at the UN would be the critical point. So I reported to General Wiranto and his response was very quick -- one of his responses was: 'It is really not fair for the UN to take that step before they get feedback from its special envoy who is still in Jakarta and on their way to Tim Tim'."

There was a curious calm amid the usual maelstrom of East Timor as Wiranto's VIP aircraft touched down in Dili that Saturday morning; it was proof, the general's many critics argue, that Wiranto could switch the violence on and off, on call.

Before returning to Jakarta that afternoon, Mengko says Wiranto had decided to let the international force in. "Actually he had decided already, in his capacity as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, that we will go in that direction. General Wiranto had made that decision on the end of the day of the visit, so before we took off from Tim Tim, he told me he had decided to grant the wish b says.

The Bulletin: "So was it Wiranto's decision that mattered?"

Mengko: "I cannot make a comment like that, but that's what I know. The decision was made and he [Wiranto] conveyed this message that he had made, that we will go in this direction and you will hear it from President Habibie tomorrow."

Asked if Wiranto was angered by Australia's intervention, Mengko said: "No, no, he welcomed it as very nice and sincere advice from a friend, through my personal contact Allan. Emotional -- yes. But angry, I cannot say that he was angry. Upset, maybe."

If Wiranto was upset then, he'd been angry five months earlier when he, Habibie, Howard, Downer, Defence Minister John Moore and Australian officials met in Bali.

One observer recalls Wiranto "metaphorically exploded and thumped the table with his fist, before telling Habibie that he [Habibie] would not let foreign troops enter East Timor" when Howard stridently suggested Habibie allow an international security presence before the August ballot.

"Wiranto was fuming, telling the Australians to butt out and telling Habibie that he would not be dictated to," the observer says.

White, a participant, recalls: "My recollection is that he didn't bang the table but that he expressed himself very strongly, very unambiguously -- he was very focused on limiting an international peacekeeping presence in East Timor during the lead-up to the elections. It was very clear that he was putting real pressure on Habibie at that meeting."

The big questions are, of course, whether Wiranto's resentment is residual and whether Australia's leaders will bury the past, forget about the UN-sanctioned charges against Wiranto and deal pragmatically with the singing general if he emerges victorious from Indonesia's presidential election process, beginning on July 5.

Six candidates will contest the first ballot. If none wins 50% of the vote -- as seems likely -- there will be another vote on September 20 to decide between the two top candidates. Wiranto is running a distant third behind the unpopular incumbent Megawati Sukarnoputri, and the favourite, another, but reputedly more moderate, military man, the aforementioned Susilio Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), who is Australia's favoured candidate. Wiranto is gaining on Sukarnoputri.

"Nobody could predict how this will turn out. With the force of Golkar behind him, Wiranto could make big gains between a first and second ballot," says James Castle, a Jakarta-based business consultant and Indonesian political observer. "He is definitely in the race."

Having been a forceful proponent of democracy throughout the Asia-Pacific for so long, Australia will find it difficult to turn its back on Indonesia's first truly democratically elected president. Even if it is Wiranto.

"The point, I think, is that if you're an advocate of democracy, you need to accept the results whether you like them or not," says Richard Woolcott, a former Australian ambassador to Jakarta and DFAT secretary. According a diplomatic source: "The point is that neither Australia nor Indonesia has put enough into government-to-government contacts. Mega [Megawati] doesn't like Howard at all, their foreign minister doesn't like Downer. Do you think things are likely to get any better if Wiranto's elected?"

But would the relationship fare any better with a Latham government and a Wiranto presidency? Mark Latham has been suitably cautious. In government, the ALP leader and his probable foreign minister, Kevin Rudd, could face internal dissent if they adopted a "softly, softly"' approach to a Wiranto presidency.

Canberra hopes SBY wins. SBY also has the greatest ability to attract the confidence of the Europeans and Americans. He is a demonstrated TNI reformer and, like all the major candidates, committed to a nationalist secular state. But his fledgling Democratic Party does not have the depth of Golkar's support.

President Wiranto would rankle in Washington and throughout the European capitals where he is a pariah on par with Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe. But it will mean nothing to Indonesia's 145 million voters that Europe, the US or Australia do not want Wiranto to win. And it is they that Wiranto must convince. He may yet succeed.

Wiranto says sorry for first time over violence

New Straits Times - June 17, 2004

Amy Chew, Jakarta -- Indonesian presidential candidate and former armed forces chief General Wiranto publicly apologised for the first time for the violence in Timor Leste, then called East Timor, that killed more than 1,000 people in 1999.

Wiranto was the armed forces chief when Timor Leste voted to break away from Jakarta rule under a United Nations referendum, triggering a rampage by pro-Jakarta militias who killed, looted and burnt the tiny territory.

Wiranto has never been charged by Jakarta's on-going ad hoc trials for rights abuses and has always maintained he never "ordered or planned" the killings. Human rights campaigners, however, assert he should be held responsible as he was the commander at that time.

"I have been examined by the ad hoc trials and they concluded I cannot be categorised as being guilty or a suspect in that case," Wiranto told the New Straits Times in an interview at the end of a campaigning trip in Central Java.

"But despite that, morally, I have asked for forgiveness from all parties over what has happened in Timor Leste. As a human being, I feel very sad over what happened there. I also lost a child whom I love while I was on duty in Timor Leste."

In 2002, the Serious Crime Unit (SCU), a unit within Timor Leste's attorney-general's office, indicted Wiranto for crimes against humanity and issued a warrant for his arrest. In early May this year, however, Timor Leste's A-G's office cancelled the arrest warrant and dropped all charges against him.

The annulment of the charges is expected to help smooth Wiranto's road to the July 5 presidential elections. He is one of the major candidates along with incumbent President Megawati Sukarnoputri and former Security Minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. In an effort to burnish his international standing and to forge reconciliation, Wiranto met Timor Leste's leader Xanana Gusmao at the end of May under the full glare of the international Press in Bali. The two men hugged and smiled for the cameras, but revealed little of the meeting.

In the latest edition of Indonesia's leading news magazine, Tempo, Gusmao said: "I assure you, the cancellation of the arrest warrant for Wiranto by Attorney-General Monteiro is not the result of pressure from Indonesia. This is our principle."

Asked whether he was not worried of being branded a traitor, Gusmao said: "We have to be realistic. We still eat Supermi from Indonesia. Other things like aqua [mineral water], clothes and sandals are also from Indonesia. In an era of globalisation, we need support from all parties, especially from our close neighbour."

Gusmao also said it was untrue that the people of Timor Leste disliked Wiranto. "I don't believe that at all. Timor Leste's problem in the past is not of Wiranto as an individual. It was a problem of the country," he reportedly said. " When Wiranto is elected as the president of Indonesia, I will send my congratulations as quickly as possible."

Wiranto described his relationship with Gusmao as one of friendship and commitment to rebuilding both countries together. "If I am elected president, and I understand East Timor's problems, I want both our countries to forge co-operation to improve the welfare of the people in our respective countries."

Gusmao interview: 'It's easy to shout arrest Wiranto!'

Tempo Magazine - June 15-21, 2004

The name of 58-year-old Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao has once more caught the Indonesian public's attention. Two weeks ago, Xanana met with Wiranto, former defense and security minister/armed forces commander, and now Golkar's presidential candidate. The meeting in Bali succeeded in softening Wiranto's negative image as the violator of human rights in East Timor during the mass killings which were suspected to have been executed by the Indonesian Military (TNI) and the pro-Jakarta militias following the 1999 referendum in the "province of East Timor".

Xanana did not only meet with Wiranto. As East Timor's head of state, Xanana has been kind enough to annul the warrant for Wiranto's arrest. That arrest warrant was issued three weeks ago by the Serious Crimes Unit, a special body formed by the United Nations. "East Timor does not need to arrest Wiranto. Let sleeping dogs lie," Xanana said.

Many are puzzled over the sudden change in Xanana. East Timor is being strangled by poverty. Just look at the "presidential palace" located in a building which had once almost burnt down at Rua de Caicoli in Dili. When Tempo News Room visited there the palace was not guarded by any security guards.

There were weeds among the tall mowed grass in the courtyard. There did not seem to be any strict protocol. The walls dividing the office were made of unpainted plywood. Inside the waiting room, there was only one pink sofa splattered with black spots, a 21-inch television monitor and a trash can. Nothing else.

Why did Xanana release Wiranto? Is he just being pragmatic? How is East Timor today? Tempo News Room reporter, Faisal Assegaf, last month interviewed Xanana, who smoked only two Marlboro cigarettes during the entire session. To complement the interview, Tempo reporter Setiyardi communicated with Faisal Assegaf by telephone. Excerpts:

You met with Wiranto in Bali. What were the topics of discussion?

We spoke about many issues of interest to both countries. Pak Wiranto, in my opinion, represents an important figure in Indonesia. As a new nation, Timor Leste has much to learn from such figures and leaders in Indonesia.

Was the warrant for Wiranto's arrest, issued by the Serious Crimes Unit also discussed?

Yes, it was mentioned, but we spoke more about the major principles of our two countries.

Are you aware that the meeting has become a political commodity for Wiranto?

I am aware that Wiranto is a presidential candidate of Indonesia. Of course, he is bound to take advantage of a variety of issues. But for my part and that of Timor Leste, Wiranto and Indonesia are important elements. We are unlikely to progress without Indonesia's support.

Did Wiranto promise any compensation to have this meeting?

There was no compensation at all. I can speak with Pak Wiranto. I always act on principles. So there was no pressure or special request from Pak Wiranto.

We spoke of existing issues. The discussion took place in a very open environment.

Is it true you had a previous meeting with Wiranto? (Xanana took a deep breath before answering)

Yes, I had a chance to meet him. Just once. We had to discuss a number of issues. I will never give up my principles. That meeting was not pressured by Wiranto to help his presidential campaign. To avoid any misunderstanding, I brought along my attorney general to that meeting. So, I met him not just as a friend, but as a head of state. Because an attorney general was present, Wiranto spoke directly to him. We spoke openly.

Was the meeting at the request of Wiranto?

I was passing through Bali. Pak Wiranto was there. That meeting took place a few months ago.

The Serious Crimes Unit of Timor Leste issued a warrant to have Wiranto arrested. What is your opinion?

That is a legal matter. So I cannot comment on it. According to procedures, as a head of state I do not get such reports. But I don't want them.

That's why Attorney General Agung Longuinhos Monteiro cancelled the arrest warrant.

Why did the Serious Crimes Unit issue that arrest warrant?

In East Timor, the institution of the Serious Crimes Unit operates independently. There is no foreign intervention. As head of state, I cannot intervene in the Serious Crimes Unit. I am also unable to intervene with the courts. If there are errors, I can only say that is wrong, but I cannot intervene.

Is it true you and Attorney General Monteiro do not know about that arrest warrant?

As head of state, I don't need to know about such issues. Attorney General Monteiro is the one who should know. But since we are in the process of building a nation, many of the processes don't operate smoothly yet.

Why are you supporting the attorney general's steps?

There are many considerations. I confirm, the cancellation of the warrant to arrest Wiranto by Attorney General Monteiro was not pressured by Indonesia. This is our principle. The step taken by Attorney General Monteiro is in the interest of the state.

It seems like neglecting due process of law over suspicions of human rights violations by Wiranto...

This is a complex problem. We have been discussing this problem for about a year. From one side, the leaders in Timor Leste have difficulty getting together. So we were unable to make a solid decision. But I personally think that Indonesia and Timor Leste are building a democratic society. I am of the opinion that the principle of reconciliation is a good way out. There is an interesting example. I note that the whole world applauded when the process of reconciliation took place in South Africa.

What about the legal process? Don't you consider that to be important?

From the legal angle, we must watch the attitude of the Indonesian government. The Indonesian government is currently holding an ad hoc human rights trial.

Politically, the decision to hold human rights court is an act of bravery. In other countries, like Cambodia and the Philippines, it has not been done. I think the world should look at the courage of the Indonesian government, which dragged the generals to court. Although the result is obvious, it is nevertheless an act of bravery. Because of that, we must understand Indonesia better in a political way. If something is forced, it will not work.

You are not afraid of being called a traitor?

We must be realistic. We still eat Supermie from Indonesia. Other commodities, like aqua, clothing, and even sandals come from Indonesia.

In this era of globalization, we need the support of all parties, particularly with our closest neighbors. If East Timor wants to be firm on the legal process by cutting relations with Indonesia, the problem becomes even more complex, particularly if Wiranto is elected president of Indonesia. This does not mean we will give up our principles.

What if the United Nations organizes an international tribunal to try those accused of human rights violations in Timor Leste?

The international court is not our priority. My priority today is how our independence can give the people something for their celebration. We are still in a very complex situation. How can we hold a human rights violation?

Domestically there are still many issues needing a decision. And we don't have a judge who is experienced. It's easy to shout "arrest Wiranto!" But the problem is very complex.

Is this political stand of yours temporary?

Timor Leste still has youths who are unemployed. We would like to invite investors from Europe to create employment opportunities. But ... Europee is far away. Anyway, we cannot ask cold European countries, who owns a house with an ice garden to help Timor Leste farmers. The situation is very different between the two countries. We are just starting out. And Indonesia is already on a higher level than Timor Leste, so we need its experience. It's a mater of a future life. So my political stand is not temporary. It will become a permanent state policy.

When Timor Leste progresses, can the human rights violations of 1999 be opened up again?

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan wrote me a letter on the human rights tribunal. He said that international tribunals like the ones in Uganda and Bosnia-Herzegovina are difficult to operate because of costs. The main target of the global millennium is the reduction of poverty. To the United Nations, hundreds of millions of dollars would be better used to reduce poverty than to punish a man who has died. It makes no sense if during this new millennium we still search for war. If we keep digging the past, we will not have time to build anything.

Are you satisfied with the results of human rights trials in Indonesia over cases in Timor Leste?

Let's not discuss results. This is a social and political process which is moving very slowly. This is indeed a brave act on the part of the Indonesian government. Timor Leste must learn from this process in Indonesia and support this democratic process. Because, we will need support from Indonesia towards our own democratic efforts, which is also moving very slowly.

But many are disappointed over the results of these ad hoc trials. No generals were punished. How come?

This is not a case of being satisfied or not. In my view, the past is the past, while the future is our destination.

Besides Wiranto, you also met with President Megawati. What did you discuss?

Before heading towards the presidential election, President Megawati wants to revise what exists between the two countries. One of the topics we discussed was the issue of Wiranto. This subject matter has long been a topic of bilateral relations between the two countries. We stress again that relations between the two countries are important.

Is it true Megawati asked Timor Leste to urge the United Nations not to form an international human rights tribunal?

Both countries can cooperate with the international community to adopt a broader and comprehensive understanding. Indonesia and Timor Leste will cooperate to form a truth and reconciliation commission.

Will the commission operate bilaterally or multilaterally?

I cannot say anything just now. Timor Leste and Indonesia have agreed to cooperate. We will also communicate with the international public so that both countries can mutually benefit.

Indonesia will have a presidential election. Which figure do you think can win?

We salute the democratic process in Indonesia. As a neighbor, we must observe each other. We raise our hats because the general elections in Indonesia proceeded smoothly and peacefully. We salute you because this will be the first direct presidential election. The elections in Indonesia will be a model of democracy in the world. I think the Indonesian people must be proud, and as a neighbor, we join in the pride of such an achievement. Because in the globalized world, what happens outside our borders affect our own situation too. I hope the presidential election will also proceed smoothly.

Two former military officers, Wiranto and Yudhoyono, are presidential candidates. What is your view about this?

I don't believe that two people like Wiranto and Bambang Yudhoyono can alter the path of reforms. I believe, these two ex-military officers will not reverse Indonesia back to the New Order. The Indonesian people will accept and continue with the process of democracy.

Which Indonesian presidential candidate would be the best to maintain bilateral relations between Indonesia and Timor Leste?

I have friends in the military, among civilians and the private sector. The past is the past. Whoever will be voted in by the Indonesian people, I am confident there will be enough attention given to the bilateral relations of our two countries.

Many people in Timor Leste don't seem to like Wiranto. Is it true Wiranto is not the candidate Timor Leste is hoping for?

I don't believe that at all. The issue of Timor Leste in the past is not a personal matter of Wiranto. It was a state affair. If Wiranto is elected as Indonesian President, I will send him congratulations as rapidly as possible. This is not only my personal opinion. It is the position of the country in the current world context.

You have been president for three years. How is Timor Leste developing so far?

Very positive. Globally, the process is going well. After September 1999, after the referendum, Timor Leste was truly destroyed. All buildings were burnt down. We started from zero. There was no government at all. Our people understand that this would be a long process.

What are the problems faced by Timor Leste?

Many, still many problems. Many of the Timore Leste population are still poor. Foreign investment has not quite worked yet. As a result, employment figures are far from expectations. That is why I hope Indonesian investors will come to Timor Leste and invest their capital there. Some are already there, but we need a lot more.

But doesn't Timor Leste have control over the Timor Gap which contains oil?

That's our hope. Furthermore, a country like ours cannot depend totally on the oil explorations. Oil will not always become our prime commodity. Besides, natural resources will have their limits. Look at Brunei Darussalam: so far the people are holding on to oil. But gradually oil sources will be depleted. Brunei must change its economic orientation.

How are bilateral relations between Indonesia and Timor Leste?

Progress can already be seen since 1999. During my first visit to Indonesia, in November 1999, I told the people and Government of Indonesia that we only want to see the future. Timor Leste wants to build cooperation that is peaceful and with mutual respect. This will become the basis of our relations. For the past four years, this has gone well. You can see for yourself how many Indonesian companies are in Timor Leste. I hope by next year, we can have a cultural exchange.

What problems remain?

There are still problems between Timor Leste and Indonesia. Regarding borders, areas, for instance, there are problems. But we hope in the not so distant future all issues of borders will soon be solved. Because Indonesia is our closest neighbor, and we see a bright future for good relations.

Domestically, you often have differences with Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and Foreign Minister Ramos Horta. So how are you governing Timor Leste?

Indeed, we are still in the learning mode. But look, we can differ in opinion on a lot of issues, including that of Wiranto. But I see those differences of view as normal in a democratic life. Most important, we can manage those differences so that it does not become destructive conflicts.

Which is the most difficult: being a guerilla commander in the jungles fighting Indonesia, or being a president of Timor Leste?

Both are difficult. The difference is one leads troops in the jungle and the enemy is just one -- the Indonesian Armed Forces. But now I have many foes: unemployment, crime, legal issues and others.

You used to be firm and hard. Why do you now appear as compromising?

Time does change people. When I was fighting in the jungles, my options were to live or die. But now I have so many problems to manage. As President of Timor Leste I prioritize development and ensure that all Timor Leste citizens can eat. I will do everything I can to reach those goals. Even in the matter of Wiranto, for example, I was protested by you people, but I continued on. I have confidence in the principles I chose.

When you are no longer president, what will you do?

I will bring up Alexandro, my son. Then I will be a farmer to feed my family.

Jose Alexander "Kay Rala" Xanana Gusmao

Place & Date of Birth: Manatuto (East Timor), June 20, 1946

Education: Seminary at Dare, just outside Dili (1964-1968) Journalism School in Australia (1972-1974)

Career: Reporter, the daily Avezde Nmor-The Voice of Timor (1969-1972) With Ramos Horta, formed the daily Nacroma (1974- 1975) Joined Fretilin (1975) and went into the jungles to be its commander Captured and became a political prisoner in Indonesia (1992-1999) President of Timor Leste (2001-to date)

Old foes say cheese, but old scars remain

The Australian Editorial - June 1, 2004

It may not have quite the power of the image of Nelson Mandela applauding his former jailer, F.W. de Klerk, when the two were awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1993, but yesterday's beaming photo in The Australian of East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao and Indonesian presidential candidate General Wiranto was a stunner.

As the leader of Fretilin during the Indonesian occupation, Mr Gusmao spent more than six years in Indonesian jails and under house arrest. As the former commander of Indonesia's armed forces, General Wiranto bears direct chain-of-command responsibility for the bloody rampage in Dili that cost 1500 civilian lives after the 1999 independence referendum.

While the photo is a powerful image of reconciliation, it is also a symbol of the pragmatism of East Timor's leadership. In a country where 41 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line, there are more urgent issues than settling old scores.

That does not mean there is any question of forgiving and forgetting the slaughter, rape and robbery that Indonesian forces carried out in 1999.

The UN-funded Serious Crimes Unit has indicted 369 people for those crimes, including General Wiranto himself. But ever since the warrant for Wiranto was issued, senior East Timorese officials, including Mr Gusmao and Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta, have been playing down the possibility it will be carried out.

Wiranto is the chosen candidate of Golkar, the old Suharto political machine, in the Indonesian presidential elections due to begin in less than five weeks. The last thing East Timor, with its population of less than a million, needs is to make a lasting enemy of the 220-million-strong nation that sprawls to its east, west and north. It is realism that dictates Mr Gusmao's smile, even through gritted teeth.

News & issues

Australian journalist deported from East Timor: Lawyer

Agence France Presse - June 29, 2004

An Australian journalist has been deported from East Timor even though a court dismissed charges of illegal weapons possession and immigration violations, his attorney said Tuesday.

Julian King, 43, was forced to leave late Monday after a court in the capital, Dili, ruled that police had no evidence to support the charges against him, said his lawyer, Pedro de Oliveira.

"The government is trying to cover up the fact that they lost the court case," Oliveira said. "This means that the government is stronger than the court."

Oliveira claimed that King, who was arrested in May, is innocent and is being framed by authorities for criticizing the government. His arrest came as the Paris-based group Reporters Without Borders lauded the fledgling nation for having one of Asia's freest media, noting that attacks on journalists are "extremely rare." East Timorese officials refused to comment Tuesday on King's case.

The Australian Foreign Affairs Department confirmed that a 43- year-old Australian had been deported from East Timor but refused to give his name citing privacy laws. Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri had earlier accused King of taking part in riots that rocked the East Timorese capital in December 2002. Ten buildings were ransacked and torched by the mobs, including Alkatiri's home.

The violence was the worst since Indonesian troops and their militia killed 1,500 people and destroyed much of the half-island in 1999, days after voters approved a UN-sponsored independence referendum.

King, a Sydney native who works regularly for Australian television, had lived in the country for four years.

Four killed in East Timor gang fight

Associated Press - June 19, 2004

Two martial arts gangs clashed in East Timor, leaving four dead including a 70-year-old man who tried to break up the brawl, police said Saturday.

The clash started late Tuesday when one gang accused the other of attacking innocent civilians in Urahu village, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) outside the capital Dili, National Police Commissioner Paul Fatima Martins said.

The fight quickly escalated to include hundreds of villagers fighting mostly with sticks and homemade spears as friends and supporters of the gangs joined the fray, Martins said.

Three gang members died in the battle and a 70-year-old villager was killed trying to break up the fight. Martins said police have arrested two dozen people involved in the brawl and expect to bring them to court Monday. News of the brawl only reached the capital Friday because of poor communications in the rural areas.

There are dozens of martial arts groups in East Timor, practicing pencak silat which combines elements of kung fu, karate and taekwondo. Groups typically face off in sanctioned competitions but they also were recruited to take part in the violence that preceded the country's independence in May 2001.

Journalist claims East Timor 'conspiring against him'

ABC News - June 15, 2004

An Australian man facing charges in East Timor claims he has been framed by local authorities.

Julian King, a freelance journalist and activist from Darwin, is charged with possessing ammunition and illegal documents and is still awaiting trial in Dili.

East Timorese police allege they found a box of bullets and illegal documents during a raid on Mr King's home last month. Mr King says the Court of Appeal today found the documents were not illegal.

He says he has been framed because of his investigations into the East Timorese Government. "I don't have any bullets, I don't have any weapons, I'm here as a researcher and a part-time journalist, cameraman," he said. "I believe this is an attempt to get rid of me because I'm researching Timor Gap and allegations of corruption."

Mr King says the Court of Appeal ordered prosecutors to return his passport and refused their request to jail him pending the trial.

Aussies target of Timor abuse

Sunday Times (Perth, Australia) - June 13, 2004

Mark Dodd -- An Australian businessman has been hounded out of East Timor by anti-Australian sentiment whipped up by claims that Canberra is ripping a $1 billion oil and gas bonanza off the region's poorest country.

Earlier this month an East Timorese mob shouting anti-Australian abuse chased a Darwin businessman through Dili airport, delaying the departure of a scheduled international flight.

Jim Hendrie, managing director of the Darwin-based civil engineering firm Seanap, said East Timor police failed to stop hooligans from chasing him into the airport's departure lounge over a disputed scrapmetal contract.

Mr Hendrie said the cause of his troubles was a commercial dispute with East Timorese partners, but tensions had worsened because of negative views of Australians over stalled Timor Sea resource negotiations. He warned that the absence of a foreign investment code or a commercial court in East Timor had allowed corruption and standover tactics to flourish.

The departure of a scheduled Air North flight to Darwin was delayed until Mr Hendrie disembarked, despite being told to stay on the plane by a UN adviser. He said protesters gained unauthorised access to the runway.

"They were shouting 'all Australians should be locked up until they stop stealing our oil'," Mr Hendrie told The Sunday Times. "We [businessmen] don't feel safe there any more. There is an anti-Australian sentiment running here, we're not popular at all."

"The ability of a group of East Timorese thugs to be able to order an international flight to be delayed should be of grave concern to any visitors. These Timorese were able to order the police to stop that flight. They had the power to stop that flight. And during the whole time we were meeting with the police prosecutor they were telling him what to do."

Anti-Australian sentiment is running strong after President Xanana Gusmao accused Australia of robbing billions of dollars in oil and gas revenue from South-East Asia's poorest country.

"The maritime boundary negotiations for the Timor Gap have not helped Australians doing business in East Timor," Mr Hendrie said. "For five years we have had no problems. It's been a dream run. Now we don't feel safe."

Seanap has been involved in East Timor since the devastation wrought by Indonesian army-backed militias during the bloody 1999 independence vote. The company specialises in supplying civil and electrical engineering skills that are needed in East Timor.

East Timor's independence result of poor leadership

Asia Intelligence Wire - June 11, 2004

Kupang -- The Commander of Korem [Military Sub-Area Command] 161/Wirasakti Kupang, Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT), Col M Moesanip was of the opinion that East Timor's separation from Indonesia via the referendum on 30 August 1999 was the result of poor leadership, in particular in developing the cultural and public life of the East Timorese people who had been integrated with Indonesia for 23 years.

"We have to admit this honestly. If the East Timorese people already had a feeling of nationalism as Indonesians, it's not possible that they would have had a referendum, and... [ellipsis as published] the proof is that we lost," he said when accepting the deployment of TNI [Indonesian National Military Forces] troops from Infantry Battalion 721/Makacau at Tenau Port in Kupang, on Thursday [10 June].

The troops from Kodam VII/Wirabuana will be deployed on the NTT- East Timor border, replacing TNI troops from Infantry Battalion 410/Alugoro Kodam IV/Diponegoro who have been deployed for a year and one month in the NTT border region in the Belu District.

In the welcoming ceremony for 420 personnel from Infantry Battalion 721/Makacau which was directly led by Moesanip, the deputy chief of police for the NTT Area, Senior Commissioner Arthur Damanik, was present, as well as a number of TNI leaders in the Korem 161/Wirasakti area. [Passage omitted]

[BBC Monitoring. Source: Media Indonesia, Jakarta, June 4.]

International solidarity

APCET takes on regional agenda

Green Left Weekly - June 30, 2004

Robyn Waite, Dili -- The Asia Pacific Coalition for East Timor (APCET) is a coalition of Asian human rights groups and East Timor solidarity networks that was founded at a conference in Manila in 1994 with the aim of galvanising solidarity with East Timor's struggle for national self-determination. With East Timor having won its political independence, the fifth and final APCET conference, held in Dili on May 15-19, decided to transform APCET into a new coalition with a focus on issues of self-determination and demilitarisation in the broader Asia-Pacific region.

The conference was attended by 150 delegates. Australian organisations represented at the conference were Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (APSN) and the Australian Coalition for East Timor (ACET). Representatives from Burma, Aceh, West Papua, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Maintain, Malaysia and Indonesia highlighted the peoples' struggles in those countries and emphasised the useful role a more far-reaching solidarity coalition could play in the region.

Activists and human rights workers from East Timor also supported the resolution to expand APCET's brief, and decided to form their own solidarity organisation, which will be part of the new grouping.

The new organisation will be established by August with assistance from the APCET secretariat. The new APCET is still committed to supporting the people of East Timor, and the conference resolved to work actively on two issues -- the Timor Sea maritime boundary dispute with Australia, and the establishment of a UN tribunal to bring the perpetrators of crimes against humanity in East Timor to justice.

Lawyers from several countries presented a public indictment paper against Indonesian generals Suharto, Benny Murdani, Prabowo Subianto and Wiranto -- all of whom were key figures at various times in the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. The charges relate to four of the most serious massacres that occurred during the period from 1975 to 1999.

The new APCET will present the indictment papers to the UN and will establish a "people's tribunal" to put pressure on the UN to act. An ad hoc regional working group has been established to prepare the first council of the new coalition within one year.

International relations

Soldier charged 'to avoid Jakarta row'

Melbourne Age - June 10, 2004

Brendan Nicholson -- Australian authorities may have charged an SAS soldier for allegedly kicking the body of an Indonesian soldier in East Timor because they did not want to worsen relations with Jakarta, a parliamentary inquiry has been told.

Australia Defence Association chief executive Neil James told the Senate inquiry into the effectiveness of the military justice system that the case illustrated flaws in the system. The association is a group that monitors military issues.

The charge followed an episode in East Timor in October 1999 when an SAS unit escorting a convoy of villagers was ambushed by members of a pro-Jakarta militia group. Two SAS members were badly wounded and two militiamen killed.

After a three-year investigation, an Australian soldier was charged with abusing a militiaman's body by kicking it. Mr James said the dead men were Indonesian special forces soldiers pretending to be militia. He said it would have been better for Australian military authorities to hold a court of inquiry instead of charging the soldier involved.

It appeared that diplomatic and political considerations played a role in the case, he said. "There may have been a feeling that having a court of inquiry into the incident might have exacerbated strategic problems in the relationship between Australia and Indonesia, and moving against the member may have solved that problem."

Liberal senator David Johnston said that as the soldier had received a written apology from the chief of the Defence Force, it was hard to see him as anything but an innocent bystander.

Mr James said: "They proceeded against the SAS member because there appeared to be, to the lawyers apparently, no other way they could air the evidence. He went through a very harrowing experience, we believe unnecessarily." He said that during his 30-year military career, he was aware of several occasions when "gutless and cowardly senior officers" proceeded against personnel administratively to avoid details of their role being revealed.

Mr James said coroners should examine all Defence Force deaths because the force had bungled too many internal investigations.

Commonwealth Ombudsman John McMillan told the committee that complaints he received indicated that the Defence Force had problems with the quality of their military investigations and their timeliness. A consistent theme was the need for better training of investigative staff, he said.

People

Sword Gusmao recounts love affair with Indonesia

Jakarta Post - June 13, 2004

David Kennedy, Jakarta -- When Kirsty Sword Gusmao stepped off the plane from Dili this week to launch her autobiography in Jakarta, she must have given a little smile.

The Australian-born mother of two spent much of the 1990s in the Indonesian capital as an undercover activist for the East Timorese independence movement.

She even changed her name to "Ruby Blade" in order to reenter the country when she was blacklisted by military intelligence. On this occasion, however, she did not need to worry about being arrested by security forces. This time they were waiting to escort her as East Timor's first lady in a cavalcade to her hotel in Central Jakarta.

"It's quite emotional for me to come back and launch the book here," she said during an interview with The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

"Most of the action of the story takes place in Jakarta and over many years of the involvement in the struggle, this has been a very important place for me politically and also at a personal level."

Sword Gusmao worked undercover here with human rights NGOs and the East Timorese resistance from 1992 to 1996, during the New Order regime of then president Suharto.

"Many of my closest allies and colleagues were Indonesian people and they will have a special understanding and appreciation of events. I hope that people will see in my book the story of a love affair with Indonesia which was very real to me."

Indeed while the book, A Woman of Independence, recounts the closing chapters of the East Timorese independence struggle and the birth of a new nation, it's also a vivid account of Sword Gusmao's dual life in the capital as she worked with Indonesian activists, East Timorese asylum seekers and as an English teacher.

Having studied Indonesian language and culture at Melbourne University, Sword Gusmao did not take long to adapt to local culture, even adopting the art of nongkrong -- the Indonesian habit of crouching down to chat in the street.

"It was my love of the Indonesian language and people which led me in the direction that I took. And you know, somewhat ironically, that love led me to my activism for East Timor," she explained.

"But I never felt that my aligning myself with East Timorese independence diminished my love for Indonesia and its people."

She saw the Indonesian people as victims of the same tyranny as the East Timorese: "My first few visits to Indonesia in the mid 1980s taught me that the enemy of East Timor -- oppression and military abuse of power -- was also the scourge of Indonesian society."

Sword Gusmao became involved in the East Timorese independence movement as a student activist in Melbourne during the 1980s and moved to Jakarta in 1992 to work clandestinely for the cause under the guise of teaching English.

It was there she came into contact with her husband, Falantil guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao who was serving a seven-year sentence in Cipinang penitentiary in East Jakarta.

"I was very privileged to experience a lot of the key events that shaped a nation at close range, and I've tried to share that experience with readers," said the soft-spoken Sword Gusmao.

Her romance with the resistance leader blossomed through a regular flow of letters, cassettes, gifts and computer disks during the years before he was released to house arrest in 1999, and she became part of his close knit support staff.

Her story -- part romance, part intrigue -- deftly weaves in and out of personal and political events, culminating in her marriage to Xanana in 2000 and the independence celebrations for the world's newest nation two years later.

Despite having all the elements of a fairy tale, the romantic aspects of the story tend to fade into the background, eclipsed by the frenetic pace of events and the horror of the atrocities which unfold.

It vividly portrays one person's view of the human suffering caused by 24 years of military occupation and the final rampages of militias following the territory's vote for independence in 1999 that left more than a thousand people dead.

Sword Gusmao said the last four years have seen a painful process of readjustment for East Timor, emotionally, socially and economically. "This is a nation that has been completely destroyed and is trying to rebuild itself in every sector from the ground up."

However, Sword Gusmao cites the huge welcome which crowds in Dili spontaneously gave then president Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid in 2000 and President Megawati Soekarnoputri in 2002 as positive examples of the East Timorese people's "tremendous political maturity" and will to move on.

The East Timorese Truth and Reconciliation Commission has, she said, provided a good opportunity to begin the healing process and draw a line under some of the less extreme cases of violence.

"I don't think anyone is advising the East Timorese to forget; but forgive yes, in the interests of the nation's stability and future security," said Sword Gusmao.

Often called the "Mother of the Nation" -- a daunting title, she said, for a 38 year old -- Sword Gusmao has nonetheless channeled her considerable energies into improving the plight of East Timorese women and children.

She established the Alola foundation to defend women's rights in the face of what she termed "very patriarchal and discriminatory attitudes towards women".

The situation for families in Asia's poorest country is "like a pressure cooker" she explained, due to high unemployment, lack of adequate nutrition and the difficulties faced by ex-guerrilla fighters in readjusting to civilian life.

Her own family life receives little respite from the demands of her husband's job and her position as a "sort of a role model" working to defend the rights of East Timorese women.

In the closing pages of A Woman of Independence, she reflects on how the freedom of the nation ultimately led to a certain loss of freedom for its president and first lady.

"Getting time together as a family is extremely challenging," she said adding that "in the end you put more focus on the quality rather than the quantity of time you have together.

So what about finding time for a sequel to the book or a screenplay? "When I finished this one I resolved not to do another for at least ten years," she said laughingly.

The making of a film, which she acknowledged would reach far more Indonesians and East Timorese, where illiteracy stands at 40 percent in the fledgling nation, is a distinct possibility as there have been a number of offers. At the moment the first lady is seeking advice on the matter.

"It wouldn't be for fame and glory but to get some more support from the country, both morally and financially," she said with characteristic modesty.

Gusmao's wife seen as Mother of the Nation

Agence France Presse - June 10, 2004

It's hard enough being the mother of two young boys let alone the Mother of the Nation.

Yet that's the role Kirsty Sword Gusmao, who describes herself as "a very ordinary middle class girl from Melbourne," finds herself playing as wife of East Timor's independence hero and president Xanana Gusmao.

She was speaking to AFP in an interview after the Indonesian launch of her book about East Timor's struggle for freedom and her relationship with Gusmao.

"A Woman of Independence" describes her years of commitment to the East Timorese resistance, a commitment she says has won her acceptance in East Timorese society despite her foreign roots.

"I think the Timorese appreciate that and see me as a bit of a role model," Sword Gusmao said at a Jakarta hotel.

It's a daunting situation, she said, especially for someone who is just 38. "You know, I get talked about as the Mother of the Nation. So It's pretty scary," she laughs, "particularly when you have trouble actually fulfilling your responsibilities as mother of two little children, let alone of the nation." Amid their hectic work schedules she and Gusmao care of their sons Alexandre, three, and Kay Olok, almost two.

She is the founder of Alola Foundation which focuses on improving the lives of East Timorese women and children.

It was partly for her boys that Sword Gusmao wrote the book "as a record for them of times that they, thankfully, will never experience: harder times, hard times of repression and hardship and sacrifice."

Gusmao led the rebel resistance to Indonesian occupying forces until his capture in 1992 -- the same year Sword Gusmao moved to Jakarta, hoping to deepen her understanding of Indonesian culture while secretly working with the East Timorese underground.

Her work brought her into limited contact with Gusmao, who was detained in Jakarta's notorious Cipinang prison. They married in 2000.

She said she was attracted to the charismatic, bearded guerrilla due to his "humility, his tolerance, his courage and amazing determination which he shared with so many of his resistance colleagues." Gusmao was released to house arrest in 1999 before the UN-organized referendum in August of that year when East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence.

Violence surrounding the ballot left at least 1,400 East Timorese dead, about 200,000 or one-quarter of the population forcibly displaced, and about 70 percent of East Timor's buildings destroyed.

They were "incredible times that will never be repeated," said Sword Gusmao, wearing a dress made of traditional East Timorese purple "tais" cloth.

Despite the painful past, Gusmao has made good relations with Indonesia a priority. His wife said she has found "a tremendous amount of interest ... and a lot of goodwill" among Indonesians during her Jakarta visit.

Sword Gusmao, who studied Bahasa Indonesia in university, said her history of involvement with Indonesia "is helping me now to play a role in terms of building bridges of understanding with this country." Her book, published by Pan Macmillan Australia, was launched last November in Australia and is available in limited quantities in the East Timorese capital, Dili.

"Because we basically don't have a book shop yet in Dili." East Timor was Asia's poorest nation when it gained independence in May 2002 after a period of UN stewardship.

Amid the pressures of rebuilding his shattered country, Gumsao uses his wife as a sounding board, she said. "And I don't hesitate to offer my views and perspectives on things but I think it has to be remembered that he is sort of the guerrilla commander and someone who I think understands better than anyone else, really, his own culture, his own struggle, his people." The Mother of the Nation said she doesn't want her sons to follow Gusmao into politics but hopes they will be able to contribute to East Timor's rebuilding.

"I'm sure that there'll still be many needs to be addressed once they reach adulthood. We have a long way to go," she said.

East Timor media monitoring

June 1, 2004

Semanario (Weekly Portuguese Newspaper)

An special edition of the newspaper to commemorate the restoration of independence contained lengthy interviews about the state of the Nation with the Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Dr Jose Ramos Horta. The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, spoke about the challenges his Government is facing (after two years of independence) and the economy that needs to be solved. The Prime Minister spoke about the opposition parties and hoe they are always critical but without presenting an alternative to the Government. What the Government needs is the real opposition that this country lacks. Questioned about transparency within the Government, the Prime Minister said that the Government doesn't need lessons about transparency. Because if the government was not transparent nobody would have known about the state of the nation. The Government was first to inform the development partners about the financing gap, and did everything to close the gap, he said.

The Prime Minister said that the Government does not need lessons, and he made it clear that the Government does not like being pressured because the executive knows what they want and where they are going. About corruption within the Government the Prime Minister said that people talk a lot about the investigation made by the Inspector General without his interference.

The Prime Minister said that four criminal cases of corruption were sent to the Prosecutor General for the courts to decide. The alleged corruption involves three different districts and a case related to the Port.

In a lengthy interview for the weekly newspaper the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Dr Ramos Horta, said that he has absolute trust in the Government, and is very proud of the achievements. The Minister said that the country has affirmed itself internationally, and strategically Timor-Leste is aiming to become an ASEAN member within five years. Questioned about transparency needed in the Government, the Minister for Foreign Affairs replied that Timor-Leste is one of the most transparent countries in the world. The Minister said UN, World Bank, IMF and NGO's all speak aloud and too much but we know that within their institutions there's no transparency. The UN made lots of investigations about corruption that many of the international staff were involved. The Minister said that the World Bank and IMF don't have answers for everything, but they don't give us lessons of transparency and democracy because they were responsible for many cases of bad management, bad planning and corruption in many countries. The Minister said that the Government has good relations with these two institutions, and they have help the Government a lot, but they should speak the truth when their record shows that it is not that clean.

Timor Post

On his arrival from Bali after a meeting with Wiranto, the President of Timor-Leste, Xanana Gusmao, confronted a group protesting against his meeting with the ex-general. The President emotionally said that he's ready to step down if the entire population shows that he has lied to them. (The newspaper does not say what kind of lie). Meanwhile the President of the National Parliament, Francisco Guterres (Lu Olo), said that the President, Xanana Gusmao, is a man with integrity and the civil society needs to think first before saying anything against the President of Timor-Leste. Questioned by the media about his views on the meeting between Wiranto and the President, the President of the National Parliament said that he would not add any comment because he was informed by the President about the meeting.

A Member of the National Parliament, Rui Menezes, said that it has been very difficult for the people in the Districts of Baucau and Lospalos without electricity. He said that the Distrcit of Lospalos alone has been without electricity for a year, and the Government has done nothing to help solve the problem, and fix the broken generator. Mr Menezes said that apart from the generator, poles have fallen down and the electricians employed have no capacity to repair them. The electricians are still being paid without doing anything.

Meanwhile a Member of the National Parliament, Pedro da Costa, said that for the last five months people in the District of Baucau have been sitting in the dark, without electricity, because the generator has broken down. He said people are sad with the situation and are waiting for answers from the Government.

A Member of the National Parliament, Maria Valadares, visited the suco of Mau Hudu in Railaco in the District of Ermera. She said that people want a new school for their children so they don?t have to walk far everyday, and a clinic to attend the necessities of those without any means to buy medicine.

The Head of the Education Department in the District of Baucau, Rodolfo H.

Aparicio, said that 3885 students from primary, secondary and technical schools in the District of Baucau will sit for final exams in June.

The Vice-Minister of Development and Environment, Abel Ximenes, said that the cooperative sector has to be ready and be prepared to face the challenges in the globalisation era. He said for this reason the NGO Fundasaun Klibur Matadalam is preparing human resources in private sector and cooperatives to face the challenges.

Forty tons of sandalwood detained by police in raids over the Districts of Aileu, Manatuto, Baucau, Lospalos, Liquica and Suai were handed over to the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery, Eng Estanislau da Silva.

The Head of the Investigation Unit, Jorge Monteiro, said that he will make available to the public a report about the illegal cutting and smuggling of sandalwood.

The Chief of Staff for the Falintil -- Defense Force of Timor- Leste, Colonel Lere Anan Timor, said that infrastructure conditions should be fulfilled before allocating police force or military to the border region between Timor-Leste and Indonesia. Colonel Lere said that since the infrastructure is not in place, the second battalion of F-FDTL would be temporarily stationed in Lospalos. Questioned by the media about the future cooperation with PKF, Colonel Lere said that the two forces need to have good coordination, in order to "avoid confusion". Meanwhile the National Police Commissioner, Paulo de Fatima Martins, said that so far the border area between Indonesia and Timor-Leste is calm and under control.

Suara Timor Lorosae

A Member of the National Parliament, Norberto Espirito Santo, has requested during a plenary session that Members of the Parliament should be less negative about the National Police Force actions in the country. He said that no-one seems to talk about the good things that the police are doing, they are just critical of the police actions.

The District Administrator from the Sub-District of Ainaro, Agapito Fatima Martins, said that the Government has not been able to answer people?s worries about agriculture, health and electricity. He said that people have requested tractors for agriculture, ambulances for the District and electricity but so far they have no answers. Mr Martins said that people in the District and Sub-District of Ainaro are still using the old method of agriculture, and they have requested a tractor but are still waiting for it.

A Member of the National Parliament for the Timorese Socialist Party (PST), Pedro da Costa, said that it has been five months since the District of Baucau has had access to electricity due to a generator problem. He said that people have started using the old method of burning candlenut just to have light at night.

The Sub-District Administrator of Laleia, Gregorio Sebastiao Gusmao, said that people from the village of Kairui, in the Sub- District of Laleia, staged a peaceful protest demanding better road conditions. Mr Gusmao said that the Timorese Socialist Party (PST) was behind the protesters demanding new roads and buildings for the Administrator in Kairui.

June 2, 2004

Timor Post

Today's edition of the paper says that nine members of the National Police Force of Timor-Leste (PNTL) appeared in Dili court accused of involvement in the rape of an 18-year-old girl. The Police Commissioner, Paulo de Fatima Martins, said that according to the victim's testimony, a man told her that he was taking her to a police station but instead drove her to the area of Tasi Tolu together with the nine Police officers, who later raped her. According to the newspaper the nine police officers had been suspended from their duties while an investigation was underway and before they appeared in court. The newspaper says that the incident occurred on May 10 and was only reported by the victim recently. Meanwhile the Police Commissioner said that the nine police officers were detained by the Rapid Intervention Unit after they were released by the court. Mr Martins said that the National Police felt that they should be detained for the sake of the young girl's wellbeing. Mr Martins said that the criminal behavior of the nine men has diminished the credibility within the Police Force.

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that the custom-house is delivering better service now than in 2001, and the annual revenues were just turning USD 9 million dollars. The Prime Minister said that the system is operating better and the revenue is over USD16 million dollars.

The Minister of Education, Culture, Youth and Sports, Dr Armindo Maia, said that his Ministry plans to have better qualified students when they finish their studies at the secondary school or University. The Minister said that he cannot accomplished this yet because there is no law for the curriculum.

The Vice-Minister of education, Rosalia Corte Real, said that the training activities taken by the NGO Klibur Mata Dalam to all the cooperatives is very important for the future contribution to the economy of the nation. The Vice-Minister said that it's important nowadays because Timor-Leste is depending on other nations economy.

Today's edition of the paper says that the Catholic Radio Station Radio Timor Kmanek (RTK) will soon close down due to lack of funds. The newspaper says that RTK's 27 staff were asked to stop working while the Diocese of Dili ponders the future of the radio station. RTK is directed by father Adriano Ola, and the Radio station was established in February 1998. Meanwhile a Member of the National Parliament for Democratic Party (PD), Rui Menezes, said that the Catholic radio station should not depend only on funding for its survival and look for alternatives, otherwise all the media will die in Timor-Leste.

Forty tones of sandalwood confiscated by the authorities from illegal traders in the districts of Aileu, Manatuto, Baucau, Lautem, Bobonaro, Liquiga, Oe-Cussi and Covalima were handed to the Ministry of Agriculture. The Minister of Agriculture said that the sandalwood would be sold later and the money would be used by his department for reforestation programs. The legislation forbade the sale of rare sandalwood established during the UNTAET period.

Suara Timor Lorosae

A Member of the National Parliament for Social Democratic Party (PSD), Maria Paixco, said that Members of the National Parliament need psychiatric treatment before making any political statements. Mrs Paixco said that all Members of the National Parliament, according to her judgment, are all crazy and need medical assistance. The Vice-President of the National Parliament, Francisco Xavier do Amaral, thanked Mrs Paixco for her advice, without adding any suggestions.

During a visit to the District of Manufahe, Same, the Secretary of State for Electricity and Water, Igidio de Jesus, said that public servants cannot and should not use the Government's cars for family outings on the weekend.

He made an appeal to the people in Manufahe to report the use of Government cars by civil servants. Apart from restraining the use of Government's cars, the Secretary of State for Electricity took the opportunity to appeal to electricity consumers to pay for the electricity they use, and thus contribute to the National Development Plan established by the Government.

The newspaper reports that Australian researcher and journalist King-McKinlay, accused of subversion and illegal possession of ammunition, was conditionally released. He is currently awaiting trial before the Dili District Court. The accused was initially detained for questioning due to a breach of his visa conditions but after a raid on his house the charges were increased to subversion, which carries a maximum sentence of 7 years imprisonment under the Indonesian Penal Code.

The Secretary General for Commerce and Industry, Rui Manuel da Costa Castro, said that the Republic of Indonesia is very important to Timor-Leste as a neighbor and should have been included on the list as one of the major donor countries. He said that most of the imports from Indonesia are tax free, and traders can afford to sell at lower prices. Mr Castro said that but to the contrary, the tax imposed by the Government of Timor-Leste on the imported goods are higher, and thus forces the traders to sell it at high prices.

June 3, 2004

Timor Post

The hearing process on nine officers of the National Police Force (PNTL) allegedly accused of raping an 18 year-old girl was closed (yesterday) after the judge decided to free the nine police officers. According to the newspaper report, the judge responding to complaints by a member of the victim?s family over the courts decision, argued that justice was powerless since the government kept intervening in the process. The newspaper says that about 100 members of the police and their families attended the hearing process, including twenty one women's organizations held a protest in front of the court demanding the dismissal of the nine officers and respect for all women in Timor-Leste.

Meanwhile, a member of the National Parliament from the Commission B, responsible for Internal Security and Foreign Affairs, Clementino dos Reis Amaral, said that people cannot blame the entire police Institution for this rape case. What it needs is discipline within the police institution, otherwise people will lose their trust in the police force.

A long-running territorial dispute between Australia and East Timor over the huge Sunrise undersea gas fields has unsettled customers and threatens to delay the multibillion dollar project, according to a key backer. Shell Australia Chairman, Tim Warren, conceded the project wasn"t "moving forward as fast as we' all like"while the two nations are at loggerheads over the maritime boundary that separates them. As market efforts continue, management of the project "would move more easily if the customers were absolutely sure there were no obstacles in the way," Warren told reporters. His comments come as East Timor's Prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, is expected to step up criticism of Australia at a regional energy conference in Darwin next week.

Today's edition of the newspaper says that the Health Minister of Timor-Leste, Dr Rui Maria de Araujo, was elected as the vice- president of the World Health Assembly during the conference in Geneva.

A staff member for the National Census in the District of Baucau, Carlos Braz, said that the slow process and the delay to reach four villages was due the resignation of the local representative. He said that they will start the census a little late until the vacant post is filled.

A Member of Fretilin at the National Parliament, representing the District of Baucau, Elias Freitas, said that the people in the District and Sub-District of Baucau just want to get along with their lives while waiting for better days. He said that the main preoccupation from the people in Baguia is whether the roads are going to be fixed or not so they can sell their products at the local markets. Mr Freitas said, for example, in the village of Samagia, in the Sub-District of Laga, there?s no nurse to take care of the sick or to administer medicine for those who seek assistance.

Suara Timur Lorosae

Today's edition of the newspaper reports that TAPOL, the Indonesian Human Rights organization (Campaigning to expose human rights violations in Indonesia, East Timor, West Papua and Aceh) says that the President of Timor-Leste, Xanana Gusmco, is playing a dangerous game not only for the people of Timor-Leste but also Indonesia. According to the newspaper the President could be accused by his own people and others for trying to interfere in Indonesian politics, when he met Wiranto for a reconciliation meeting in Bali.

The Orient Foundation held a seminar entitled "The Development of the Economy for Cooperatives and Private Sectors" this week where the Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, attended and said that the Government of Timor-Leste helped established 20 cooperatives in the country. The Prime Minister said that is now needed is for the cooperatives to gain experience while learning from others and share amongst themselves. The government cannot do miracles, but is trying hard to help the population by establishing the conditions.

The Commercial Manager for the Electricity of Timor-Leste, Jose Fernandes, said that 8523 pre-paid electrical meters have been installed in Dili. He said that his Department is expecting the arrival of more pre-paid meters this month before they can continue with their installations.

Lusa

East Timor has begun the process of holding its first ever local elections and some community leaders will be elected by the end of the year, an official source said Wednesday. Tomas do Rosario Cabral, director of the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE), said voter registration for the nationwide local poll had begun May 31 and would conclude July 31.

Timor's first local elections will elect 433 "chefes de suco", community leaders, and about 2,300 village chiefs. The STAE chief said voter registration was being funded entirely by Timor, although donor countries such as Portugal and Australia had contributed "specific" material. Separately, a helicopter chartered by the United Nations crashed Wednesday in central Timor, causing "light injuries" to two of the five people on board, a UN source told Lusa. The helicopter was travelling to collect a pregnant woman and take her to a Dili hospital and came down in the district of Same. The reason for the crash was not immediately known, said the source.

East Timorese Foreign Minister Josi Ramos Horta, on a private visit to Lisbon, met Wednesday with his Portuguese counterpart, Teresa Gouveia, underlining Portugal's pivotal role in aiding his newly independent country. Ramos Horta, in comments to journalists after the courtesy call at the Foreign Ministry, told journalists Dili hoped the Lisbon- headquartered Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries (CPLP) would have a "big presence" in the recently extended UNMISET United Nations' mission in East Timor. While acknowledging the eight-nation bloc's "limited resources", he underscored the importance of bilateral aid from key CPLP members, namely Portugal and Brazil. He confirmed President Xanana Gusmao's participation at the July CPLP summit in Sao Tome and Principe and announced that the Timorese leader would visit CPLP members Angola, Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau after the biennial heads of state gathering. Ramos Horta called special attention to Lisbon's help in Portuguese language education, varied professional training, and the development of telecommunications and electric power infrastructures. He also underlined the "commercial and political importance" of recent talks between Dili and Portugal's GALP oil company over the latter's possible participation in Timor Sea oil and natural gas operations. Ramos Horta repeated his earlier criticism of Gusmco's controversial weekend meeting with Indonesian General Wiranto, who is wanted for crimes against humanity by a UN-backed Dili court, saying the encounter in Bali had been "imprudent". Coming ahead of Indonesia's July presidential election, the Gusmco-Wiranto meeting, he said, could be viewed as favouring one of the five candidates. Gen. Wiranto is a leading presidential contender, along with the incumbent president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, with whom Ramos Horta said Dili had established "good relations". He said East Timor expected to have "excellent relations" with former occupier Indonesia regardless of who won the presidential vote. The Timorese foreign minister was in Lisbon to participate in a conference on Southeast Asia-Europe relations, which is also being attended by former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas.

June 4, 2004

Timor Post

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that the meeting the President of Timor-Leste, Xanana Gusmco, recently had with Wiranto was done privately, and not officially. The Prime Minister said that as a human being the President has the right to talk to anyone he wishes.

The Health Minister, Dr Rui Maria de Araujo, said that the meeting held recently with Members of the Commission F from the National Parliament was to discuss the Health Law approved by the Government. The Minister said that Commission F will hold a public seminar with the Church and civil society to discuss and give their contribution to the law. The Minister said that the Law contains 27 articles and basic principles for Health, and the need to establish the National Health Council.

According to the newspaper Immigration Officers have cancelled the visa permit of a Chinese citizen accused of producing counterfeit goods like washing detergent and mineral water. The newspaper reports that the director of the Immigration, Carlos Jeronimo, said the visa for the accused, identified with the initials XJC, would be valid until 14 August 2004. Mr Jeronimo said the accused (XJC) is awaiting for the court decision on his case, and it is likely that he will be deported.

The Minister For Education, Culture, Sport and Youth, Dr Armindo Maia, said that a meeting with the Commission E at the National Parliament was only for an evaluation of the education in FY03 and FY04. The Minister said it was to report about the plans for FY04, and the finance support available and how much his Ministry has already spent on Education.

Today's edition of the newspaper reports that the Council of Ministers has approved the proposed budget presented by the Minister of Planning and Finance, Madalena Boavida, for FY04 and FY05 for an amount of USD$ 75.1 million.

The newspaper says that the approved budget by the Council of Ministers will be submitted to the National Parliament for their appreciation and approval.

The President of Lorico (Lorikeets) Airlines, Aleixo Cobra, said that the Government has approved the operation of the Airline, but the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications have not yet issued the license. Mr Cobra said that the Ministry of Transport have told him that there is a minor technical problem that will be solved in two weeks.

The Former Foreign Minister for Indonesia, Ali Alatas, said that the general, a leading candidate in Indonesia's upcoming presidential election, would have "to resolve his problem", but should only "answer before internal justice" in Indonesia. The former Foreign Minister said he had no "personal opinion" on last weekend's meeting between East Timorese President Xanana Gusmco and Wiranto in Bali.

Suara Timur Lorosae

East Timor has begun the process of holding its first ever local elections and some community leaders will be elected by the end of the year, an official source said. Tomas do Rosario Cabral, Director of the Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (STAE), said voter registration for the nationwide local poll had begun on May 31 and would conclude July 31. Timor?s first local election will elect 433 'chefes de suco', community leaders, and about 2,300 village chiefs. The STAE chief said voter registration was being funded entirely by Timor, although donor countries such as Portugal and Australia had contributed "specific" material.

Lusa

East Timor will achieve balanced state spending and expenditure in 2007 and after this date will cease to depend on foreign donor aid, Dili's foreign minister, Josi Ramos Horta, said Thursday. Speaking at a Lisbon conference on ASEAN relations with the European Union, Ramos Horta underscored the importance of donor aid to his country in 2003. Dili is facing a budget deficit of USD 10 million in the 2004- 2005 tax year, but "is not seeking international financial aid" and instead resorting to "special" measures to generate tax revenue. The world's newest nation will continue to need donor aid until 2007 to underwrite its development, noted Ramos Horta. The Dili government is currently preparing new legislation to attract foreign investment, said Ramos Horta, and Chinese involvement in developing Timor's offshore oil resources is a key goal of this initiative. Similarly, Timor is seeking participation of Thailand's fishing sector to develop its potentially rich fisheries resources, he said.

German investment in the food sector and Kuwaiti cooperation in infrastructure and professional training are other potential foreign investment projects the new laws will encourage, Ramos Horta added. Timor's main economic and political bugbear is generally considered to be its ongoing dispute with Australia over the two nations' common maritime frontier and the consequent division of petroleum revenues. Australia is pressing Timor to accept sea borders that Canberra agreed with Indonesia before Dili's independence, a division of the two nations' shared offshore oil resources that is considered unjust by the Timorese government and in breach of international law. Ramos Horta said his government would continue to seek "creative ways of finding a solution" to the contested Timor Sea oil receipt carve-up.

Ex-Jakarta FM says Indonesia vote will not impair Dili, Lisbon ties Indonesia's diplomatic relations with East Timor and Portugal will continue to develop, irrespective of the result of Jakarta's presidential elections next month, former Indonesian foreign minister Ali Alatas said Thursday.

Alatas, speaking on the margins of a Lisbon conference on Europe- Southeast Asia relations, said Jakarta's ties with Timor and Portugal "will not change", whoever becomes Indonesia's leader. Former Indonesian armed forces commander General Wiranto is running for president. He is allegedly responsible for war crimes committed in Timor around the time of its 1999 breakaway from Jakarta.

Indonesia's relations with Timor, which it annexed and occupied after Portugal's pullout from its former colony in 1975, "are very good and improving", noted Alatas. "Our relation is strong and based on historic, geographic and cultural reality and cannot change", he said of his country's ties with its tiny neighbor. Earlier, Alatas said Jakarta authorities were investigating Gen.

Wiranto's alleged responsibilities in atrocities committed in Timor and the former defense minister will likely face trial at home. Alatas, who negotiated Timor's independence ballot with Portugal and the United Nations, said he had no "personal opinion" on last weekend's meeting between East Timorese President Xanana Gusmco and Wiranto in Bali. The controversial encounter, where Gusmco and Wiranto embraced for photographers, took place less than three weeks after a special UN-backed court in East Timor issued an arrest warrant against Wiranto on charges of crimes against humanity. Dili authorities make normalized relations with Indonesia a priority and indicate they do not plan to act on the arrest warrant internationally. East Timor's foreign minister, Josi Ramos Horta, who was also in Lisbon, repeated criticism Wednesday of Gusmco's initiative in meeting Wiranto. He described the Bali encounter as "imprudent" and badly timed, coming so soon ahead of Indonesia's July 5 presidential vote in which Wiranto is a candidate. Both Alatas and Ramos Horta were in the Portuguese capital on private visits and to participate in the Europe-Southeast Asia conference.

June 7, 2004

Suara Timor Loro Sa'e

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that the Government of Timor-Leste is looking for an alternative to fix the electricity problem, which he says is not going well technically. The Prime Minister said that he and the technicians are working together to find a solution for the problem. The Prime Minister said that he has requested the EDTL Commercial Department information on the latest figures of pre-paid electricity meters installed in Dili, and wants to know whether it's working or not.

The Vice-Minister of Health, Luis Lobato, said that according to his Ministry plans for rehabilitating the Hospital in the District of Oe-Cussi will start in December. He said that finance is also available and waiting only for the tender procedure. The Vice-Minister said that another step is to find the adequate professional staff to fill the posts. The Vice-Minister took the opportunity to appeal to the population to register themselves for the important process of holding its first ever local elections, for the election of some community leaders before the end of the year.

Today's edition of the paper says that the Minister of State, Ana Pessoa, travelled to the District of Bobonaro for a two day consultative meeting with District Administrators from 13 different Districts. The newspaper says that the Minister said that the meeting was to inform the Das about the plans she has for them, and also to hear from the DA's about people's concerns and problems at the District level.

Timor Post

The Manager of the Portuguese Banco Nacional Ultramarino in Timor-Leste (BNU), Dr Correia Pinto, said that cooperatives emerged in Timor-Leste in 1960's during the Portuguese time, when people borrowed for cattle raising. He said that people nowadays have to change their attitude or way of thinking about making money, because cooperatives are not the same as the private sector. Mr Pinto said that apart from all the credits and borrowing people have undertaken, this did not contribute at all for reducing poverty in Timor-Leste.

A Member of the National Parliament from the Commission F responsible for Social, Solidarity and Works, Antonio Ximenes, said that he had received many complaints from people that public civil servants spend most of their time playing cards on their computers rather than attend to people the way they should. He said that public civil servants are paid by the Government to work and not to fill their time playing cards.

Today's edition of the newspaper reports that the Maria Auxiliadora Clinic in Venilale, receives an average of 90-100 people a day, seeking medical treatment for malaria, cold and tuberculosis. The paper reports that patients have to register before seeking medical treatment for an amount of 25 cents.

(Does not say how much they are charged for the medicines, and also the number of people suffering from tuberculosis).

Lusa

President Xanana Gusmco of East Timor makes his first official visits to the five Portuguese-speaking African Countries (PALOP) during the coming two months, a diplomatic source has said. Gusmco is due in Maputo June 17 and spends a week in the Mozambican capital, attending the leaders' summit of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of countries from June 22-24.

Mozambique's ruling FRELIMO party gave vital support in Timor's 24-year independence struggle against Indonesia and harboured senior members of the Timorese resistance. Sao Tome and Principe, the smallest of the PALOP, is the Timorese leader's next port of call, where he takes part in the summit of the CPLP Lusophone bloc from July 26-27. Soon after his Sao Tome visit, Gusmco makes his first official trips to Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, Dili's foreign minister, Josi Ramos Horta, told Lusa this week.

ABC News

ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope travels to Dili today to formalise a friendship between Canberra and the East Timorese capital. Mr Stanhope says the trip is a gesture of good will to one of the world's newest capitals. The ACT Government already provides a temporary embassy for East Timor and Mr Stanhope will use the trip to provide more help. "I will be providing the Dili administration with a small communications facility [and] some radios so they can communicate with some of their outlying administrative areas," he said. "We're also providing some assistance from the community through sporting goods that have been donated."

June 8, 2004

Timor Post

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that the Government is drafting the legislation for its oil and natural gas sector and will present the bill to Parliament in the next few weeks. The Prime Minister said that the bill, dubbed the Petroleum and Natural Resources Law, would create the legal framework for the sale of exploration licenses through international tenders to foreign and national companies.

The National Police Force Superintendent, Paulo de Fatima Martins, said that the management of the Police Institution took a decision to condemn the nine police officers involved in the sexual abuse of an 18-year-old girl, as a way to lift the credibility of the police among the community. Mr Martins said he hopes that the actions taken against the nine officers would serve as a lesson for other institutions as well. He said that although the court decided to release some of them, the police institution is also taking measures against the officers, to provide more training to enable them to understand their role.

Today's edition of the paper reports that the Governments of Timor-Leste and Indonesia Technical Sub-Committee met in Bali to discuss the border demarcation between the two countries. The newspaper says that both countries have reached an agreement on 90% of the demarcation border.

Today's edition of the newspaper reports that the Opposition Parties at the National Parliament, PSD, PD, PPT, KOTA,PST and UDT submitted a petition requesting the presence of the Minister of State, Ana Pessoa, to explain the cause for suspension of the public civil servants in the District of Covalima, Suai. The paper reports that after the petition was submitted for vote the Social Democratic Party (PSD) walk out. According to the newspaper some members of Democratic Party (PD) also walk out. A Member of the National Parliament for PSD, Maria Paixco, said that her party did not vote because the majority party at the Parliament violated the article within the internal regiment. (Does not say how they violated the articles in the regiment).

The President of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (CAVR), Aniceto Guterres Lopes, said that the final report of the of CAVR will be presented to the National Parliament in October. He said that the report contains data collected from hearings around the country, and a recommendation to the Government (before CAVR shuts down definitely).

Suara Timor Loro Sa'e

The Secretary of State for Electricity and Water, Egidio de Jesus, said that meeting consumers is needed to be able to explain the importance of their contribution to pay the electricity bills. He said that now that the generator is repaired, the District of ManuFahe should follow the example of other three Districts, Aileu, Atauro and Maubisse, where everyone pays their bills.

The head of the village in the District of Ainaro, Agapito Fatima Martins, said that the RESPECT program is teaching the community to think as part of the process for the development of Timor- Leste. He said that they cannot expect only the Government to give them food, but they themselves have to take initiative and help the country.

A representative from the Embassy of Ireland in Timor-Leste, Fernando Mendonga, said that the workshop on HIV/AIDS conducted for 25 members of the Police Force was to create awareness and how to prevent being infected by the deadly virus.

He said that the workshop will also be conducted in the Districts of Viqueque, CovaLima, Ainaro and Oe-Cussi.

The Administrator of Timor Telecom in Timor-Leste (TT), Jose Rodrigues Jardim, said that Timor Telecom central was not able to make connection with the outside world all day yesterday, due to technical problems caused by shortage of power.

He said that TT apologizes for the disruption that caused havoc within the business community.

Yonhap News (Korea)

seoul, June 7 -- East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao will visit South Korea this week, leading a football team in which he will play goalkeeper, officials said Monday. Gusmao and his 20-member soccer squad will arrive here on Saturday and will hold a friendly against a local university team the following day in Suncheon, 415 km south of Seoul, officials said.

June 10, 2004

Timor Post

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that if groups operating illegally in Timor-Leste try to impede voter registration, they will end up in jail. The Prime Minister said that no one is above the law and it doesn't matter if they are foreigners or nationals.

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that only he can convene a Minister to go to the National Parliament to respond to Parliamentarians. The Minister said that if the Parliament wants a Minister then the President of the Parliament writes an official letter of request, because Government and Parliament are two independent institutions.

The Minister of Justice, Domingos Maria Sarmento, said that whether we like or not the National Parliament has decided the official languages for Timor-Leste, are Portuguese and Tetum. Thus from September onwards Portuguese and Tetum will be used in court proceedings. The Minister said that this requires all the judges in courts to implement the official language.

The National Police Force Superintendent, Paulo de Fatima Martins, said that his Department has started selecting 30 new recruits for Rapid Response Unit to make a total of 200. Mr Martins said that at the moment the Rapid Response unit has 42 members stationed in the District of Baucau, and 112 in Dili. Mr Martins said that he is waiting for the arrival of the professional trainer from Malaysia to start conducting the training. Meanwhile the Ministry of Interior said that in July the Ministry will start organizing and improve the capacity of the National Police Force of Timor-Leste, in areas like criminal investigation, intelligence, immigration, border and traffic control.

Suara Timor Lorosae

A Member of the National Parliament for Democratic Party (PD), Rui Menezes, said that the maritime border needs to be defined first before venturing into the exploration of oil and gas in the Timor Sea. He said that Timor-Leste has to stick to this policy and define the maritime before discussing the technical side of it.

A Member of the National Parliament for Social Democratic Party (PSD), Maria Paixao, said that the Truth and Reconciliation Committee (CAVR) has not done enough yet, and needs to extend their mandate for them to be able to continue with the reconciliation process. She said reconciliation is not only with the militias but also amongst ourselves.

Today's edition of the newspaper reports that lately more and more orphans are turning up and begging in the streets of Dili. The paper says that this is the new social trend in the capital due to the economy that is not on the right track. The newspaper says that the Government needs to pay attention to this new insurgency of orphans. An orphan, Carolino Monteiro, said that he has no family and wants to attend school, but, the question is who will pay for it. He says that for him the future is grim and dark because there?s no other solution.

The District Administrator of Dili, Ruben Braz de Carvalho, said that the Government has plans to rehabilitate the markets in Dili, (Comoro, Becora and Taibessi) but lacks financial support. He said if donors or national developers (business men) give their support financially then the markets will be rehabilitated in no time at all. Mr de Carvalho said that he?s waiting for the outcome of the proposal submitted to the Government, and as soon he gets it the markets will be rehabilitated and the vendors will stop screaming for better conditions in the markets.

The Sub-District Administrator in Railaco, Francisco Xavier Viegas, said that before any election can take place to elect a new Chefe do Suco, a civic campaign is needed to inform people of its importance. He said that it?s important for the voters to know before the ballot takes place.

Woodside Petroleum might have to defer its Sunrise gas project for at least five years -- costing it billions in delayed revenue -- if the impasse over Timor Sea production rights was not resolved by Christmas, the company warned yesterday.

Woodside said it had to start detailed design for the $ 7 billion Sunrise project by the end of the year if it was to capitalise on a window in the gas market it believed would open in 2010. Such a postponement would have a big effect on Woodside's long-term profit projections, based on the Greater Sunrise fields? expected output of 5 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas a year, and substantial quantities of condensate.

Tiny hands and big voices gave a Ballarat delegation to Ainaro an enchanting welcome in East Timor this week. Toddlers from the Ainaro Community Centre Kindergarten sang their hearts out, before helping to paint a mural for a Ballarat friendship school. The children had every reason to be excited. They were helping to make history. Eight schools each from Ballarat and Ainaro will be joined in a special friendship bond during the delegation?s visit. The delegation includes representatives from local schools and hospitals, as well as a reporter and photographer. The painting of their own mural created much interest amongst the Ainaro townsfolk as parents, students and older children chipped in on the open air balcony of the community centre.

June 11-14, 2004

Suara Timor Loro Sa'e (STL)

The Vice- President of the National Parliament, Jacob Fernandes, said that the Government should pay attention to the attack perpetrated against Timorese workers in Northern Ireland. Mr Fernandes said that although Timor-Leste does not have a diplomatic office in Northern Ireland, it should put Dili's representation in Brussels in charge of the issue. Mr Fernandes said that many Timorese who work in Northern Ireland hold Portuguese passports, and they have called Dili's attention for the need to have an office in Northern Ireland.

Today's edition of the paper says that the former Bishop of the Diocese of Dili, Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, has left Timor-Leste to be a missionary in Mozambique, citing sources of the Salesian Congregation in Rome.

Today's edition of the newspaper says that the Timorese company Loriku Airlines is expected to start operating at the beginning of July. According to the managing director of the company, Loriku Airlines first routes will connect Dili to Denpasar and Surabaya using two airplanes. A third airplane would be soon arriving in TL.

Timor Post

The Minister of Interior, Rogirio Tiago Lobato, said at a press conference held in Dili, that the Government of Timor-Leste would grant foreigners 90 days to get their status legalized in the country. Mr Lobato said that after that they run the risk of being expelled from the country. The Minister said that the new emigration law was prepared by his department and by the Foreign Ministry, with the assistance of Portuguese advisors working for UNMISET.

The Chief of Staff for F-FDTL, Colonel Lere Anan Timor, said that Timor-Leste military authorities are planning to establish a Military Police in order to control members of F-FDTL and PNTL. Colonel Lere said that the Military Police would consist of thirty members, and would be selected by the F-FDTL.

The Commandant of the National police Force in the District of Ermera, Mariano Martins, said that violence still dominates Ermera district because of economic and social factors. Mr Martins made the statement during a ceremony of RESPECT to hand over certificates to seven coordinators of the project in Ermera.

June 15, 2004

Suara Timor Loro Sa'e (STL)

During an opening session at the Business Development Centre (BDC) for Trainers Training, the World Bank Country Manager, Elisabeth Huybens, said that the World Bank will continue to give its support to the Government of Timor-Leste on the implementation of the National Development Program. Ms Huybens said that the NDP has two important aspects: to reduce poverty and support economic growth. Ms Huybens said that economic growth will bring investors, creating work for the people of Timor- Leste.

A US based rights group denounced Australia yesterday, saying Canberra should be "ashamed" for allegedly robbing East Timor of much needed oil and gas revenues from the disputed seabed between the two nations. "Australia should be ashamed to continue to profit from this," said John Miller from the New York based East Timor Action Network in a statement received yesterday.

During the ceremony for the opening of the power station in the Sub-District of Lolotoe, the Secretary of State for Electricity and Water, Egidio de Jesus, said that the Government of Italy has donated the Generator through the Asian Development Bank for the people in Lolotoe. He said that its up to the people now to help maintain and contribute for the running cost.

A Member of the National Parliament for Social Democratic Party (PSD), Lucia Lobato, said that it will take two weeks before members of the National Parliament can approve the budget presented by the Government. Ms

Lobato said that they need to know first if last years budget has been spent or not.

Timor Post

A Member of the National Parliament for the Social Democratic Party (PSD), Fernando Gusmco, said that the stock of medicine is getting low at the

National Hospital Guido Valadares. He said that the information was given by doctors at the National Hospital. Mr Gusmco said that he hopes the Minister of Health will take quick action because even syringes are running out of stock.

Today's edition of the newspaper says 35 families from the Suco Uato-Baco in the Sub-District of Venilale had given their time for free to rehabilitate 2,5 kilometers of the road that was in bad condition due to the rain. The newspaper says that a resident of the area, Filomeno Camara Guterres, said the families consultated amongst themselves and took the task in repairing the road, so the nurses could have access to their village. He said that now the villagers are happy because the nurses are paying frequent visits.

June 28, 2004

Timor Post

The Police Force has detained 26 people after two recent incidents of violence involving martial arts groups that left four people dead. The Police Superintendent, Paulo Martins, said that the riot police detained 24 suspects in the days following deadly clashes (June 15) between two rival martial arts gangs in the village of Urahu, 50 kilometers from Dili. Mr Martins said that four people, including a 70-year-old man, were killed in the Urahu melee.

Meanwhile the Police detained two men after a three-car police convoy was attacked on the road between Ainaro and Suai, south of the capital, by suspected members of a martial arts group.

East Timor Nobel Peace Prize winner Carlos Belo is leaving the country to serve as a missionary in Mozambique. The former leader of the Catholic Church in East Timor was a key figure in the country's independent movement. In 2002 the Bishop asked the Pope to relieve him of his duties because of ill health. However, he now says he wants to follow a life-long dream to work as a missionary. The Catholic Church says Bishop Belo will carry out pastoral work in the Mozambican diocese of Maputo.

The Ambassador of Australia in Timor-Leste, Paul Foley, said that the Government of Australia has given financial support of an amount of AUD$ 1 million to the Justice Department. Mr Foley said that the money will be used for capacity building in three Justice departments such as Public Defenders, Public Prosecutors Office, Courts and the Judicial Training Centre.

The Secretary of State for Council of Ministers, Gregorio de Sousa, said that the open Government will be held next year in 4 remaining Districts such as Aileu, Ermera, Manatuto and Dili. He said it is not that the Government doesn't want to do the open government consultation, the problem is lack of time, and the budget has given lots of headaches.

Suara Timor Lorosae

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that Timor-Leste will not free itself from poverty when people don't change their mentality. The Prime Minister said that people's mentality and way of thinking can influence and generate poverty. The Prime Minister said that one of the goals set by the Government is to reduce poverty, but it does not mean that the Government is going to start distributing money to everyone.

The Coordinator for Solidarity Counsel in Lospalos, Aurelio Freitas Ribeiro, said that people from the District of Lospalos are paying USD$100 for transporting dead bodies from the hospital to their respective village.

He said that many cannot afford the price have to find other means of transportation, and sometimes people don't want to carry the dead bodies due to the poor conditions of the roads. Mr Ribeiro also said that also people have requested attention from the Government a year ago about the problems with the electricity generator, but so far had no response. He said that he doesn't know why the Government has not responded to their pleas. Meanwhile a Member of the National Parliament from Social Democratic Party (PSD), Maria Paixao, said that the District of Lospalos is not the only District facing this problem. The District of Manufahe is almost a year now without electricity.

The Vice-minister of Education, Rosalia Corte-Real, said that it's important that parents participate in the education of their children otherwise there's no respect for parents, teachers and rules and regulations. Mrs Corte-Real said that for this to happen parents need to have a greater role to play with their children's education by giving them guidance and education.

The Coordinator for Electricity in the District of Ermera, Adolfo Maia, said that if consumers don't pay their electricity bill, (of which there are many), they will see their power cut off from July onwards. He said that everyone has to pay according to the regulation stipulated by the board. Mr Maia said that the District of Ermera has 1000 consumers, and only 89 consumers regularly paid their bills.

June 29, 2004

Suara Timor Lorosae

Members of the Opposition Party at the National Parliament walked out and did not want to take part in the budget discussion for FY05. The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said afterwards to journalists that he wished the Opposition "bon voyage" and hoped they had "pleasant dreams". The Prime Minister admitted that the Government faced many difficulties with the budget implementation, because the money is not enough. Meanwhile the Opposition (ASDT, PSD, UDT and PPT) accused the Prime Minister of being an arrogant person who praises himself to the Gods.

The Vice-Minister of Health, Luis Lobato, said that medicine donated by the Government of India to the Government of Timor- Leste was stolen from the National Hospital and sold at the Comoro market. He said that an investigation is being ordered to find the culprits, and they will face criminal charges. The Vice-Minister said that the vendors at the market know who the culprit is and they are working for the National Hospital, but the National Hospital has not been able to identify them yet.

The Chefe Suco from Talimoro in the Dili district, Martinho Soares Martins, said that Members of the National Parliament promised to visit the suco at the beginning of this month, but until now they have not complied with their promise. The Chefe Suco said that Members of the National Parliament made a false promise by "lying" to them. Mr Martins said that just because they are at the National level they think that they can play around with us, and he asked Members of the National Parliament not to lie again.

Timor Post

The President, Jose Alexandre Xanana Gusmco, made an appeal to all the heroes of the resistance to have patience and be humble because the Government cannot solve all the problems in a short period of governance. The President said that the heroes have to think better and see the situation that the country is facing.

East Timorese officials have begun moves to deport an Australian man charged with subversive activities. Immigration authorities in Dili began proceedings to deport Julian King who has spent much of the past four years in East Timor working as a freelance journalist.

Today's edition of the newspaper says that a joint press communiqui sent out by five political Parties at the National Parliament (ASDT, PSD, UDT, PPT and KOTA) says that the Parties are against the budget presented by the Government for the FY05. According to the newspaper the press communiqui says that the budget does not correspond to reality in accordance with the people's need.

RigZone.com

Avery Resources has entered into an option agreement with OMV Australia Pty Ltd (OMV) to participate as to a 10% interest in the drilling of a 1,550 meter (5,100 ft) Jurassic test at Katandra in the Vulcan Sub-basin of the Timor Sea, Australia. The well will be located in 110 meters of water and has a recoverable reserve potential of 102 million barrels (mmbbls) of oil and potential production rates in excess of 15,000 barrels of oil per day (bbl/d).

The Katandra drilling location is seismically defined with the nearest on-trend analog being the Jabiru Oilfield located 28 km southeast. The Jabiru Oilfield has produced in excess of 100 mmbbls of oil to date. OMV, a multinational integrated oil and gas company with previous success offshore Australia, will be the operator and has contracted a rig which is expected to be on location during late September. The cost of the well is estimated at AU$6.2 million including rig mobilization and demobilization. The company anticipates accessing additional capital before potentially exercising its option to drill the Katandra prospect. This is the second prospect in Australia for Avery with additional opportunities being evaluated and negotiated. As previously announced, Avery is involved in a natural gas exploration play in the Darling Basin of New South Wales. The company and its partner are currently evaluating existing data and anticipate shooting a seismic program by Q1 2005.

Avery's expanding opportunity base in Australia also includes finalizing negotiations of an on-trend oil and gas prospect located in the prolific Cooper Basin area of onshore Queensland. Australia provides world class oil and gas prospects in a stable and favourable legal and fiscal environment. Avery Resources Inc. is an international junior oil and gas exploration company based in Calgary, Alberta that trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol ARY. The company is committed to growing shareholder value through international acquisitions and exploration. Avery's primary interest is in expanding exploration projects in oil and gas basins in countries that provide significant exploration upside coupled with favourable fiscal and legal systems.

Jakarta Post

Students in Jakarta are offering up snacks named after human rights violations they blame on Indonesian presidential candidate Wiranto in a bid to counter his campaign-related meal deals. The former military chief, one of five candidates in the July 5 election, has sponsored roadside food stalls known as "Warung Wiranto" (Wiranto's food stalls) which offer cheap meals. But students have set up their own stall near Jakarta's Bung Karno university, offering items like "Unrest Juice", referring to the 1998 riots in Jakarta, as well as "Human Rights Violation Noodles", "Semanggi Toast" and "Trisakti Porridge", the last two named after the killing of student demonstrators in 1998 and 1999. Students and rights activists accuse Wiranto of failing to halt bloody riots during President Soeharto's downfall in May 1998. Wiranto, who is also accused of crimes against humanity in East Timor in 1999, denies the allegations. He is far behind another ex-general, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in opinion polls.

UN lowers security status in West Timor The United Nations Security Council lowered its security status in West Timor regency to Alert IV from Alert V after an evaluation by the UN Security Coordination team on May 13 this year, a senior military officer said here on Monday. The evaluation concluded that security in West Timor had returned to normal following the murder of three employees of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2000, according to Col. Moeswarno Moesanip, chief of the Wirasakti Military Command overseeing East Nusa Tenggara province. The lowering of the security status clears the way for UN employees to resume humanitarian activities in the regency, said Moeswarno.

June 30, 2004

Timor Post

The ex-Falintil Commander for Region III, Cornelio Gama (known as L7), said that he has asked the Government to reshuffle the Ministry of Interior and substitute Rogerio Tiago Lobato as Minister of Interior. He said that the Minister is behaving ill, just like during the Suharto regime. Mr Gama said that this kind of behaviour is not permitted and is not wanted because Rogerio Lobato is causing a lot of damages to the Nation and to the people.

The Prime Minister, Dr Mari Alkatiri, said that he had asked the Opposition parties to go 'home' and 'rest' because he loves them. The Prime Minister said that he wants to carry on with his work and not waste time. The Prime Minister said the opposition prefers to go outside and scream about the budget instead of staying. If they want to go out then bid them farewell and have a pleasant rest, said the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister said that the opposition makes a lot of demands for things that do not make any sense at all. Meanwhile a member of the Democratic Party (PD), Rui Menezes, said that the reason for his party to abandon the session was they didn't see any changes at all in the budget. He said that the only thing the budget for FY04-FY05 show is a budget pro-power and pro-rich.

The Minister for Transport, Telecommunication and Public Works, Ovidio de Jesus Amaral, said that 17,000 pre-paid electricity meters will arrive next week from Norway. The Minister said that the 10,000 pre-paid electricity meters, previously acquired, have all been installed. The Minister said that 10,000 out of the 17,000 pre-paid electricity meters will be installed in Dili, and 7,000 will be sent to the rest of the Districts.

The Minister of Agriculture, Fishery and Environment, Eastanislau da Silva, said that the irrigation system in Webui will be repaired even if the World Bank does not accept the Government proposal, and he will do everything to find other means to finance it. The Minister said that he will find donors that will help him to repair the irrigation system in Webui.

Suara Timor Lorosae

The Australian Ambassador in Timor-Leste, Paul Foley, said that the Government of Australia will give finance support of USD$32 million to the development of the National Police Force. Mr Foley said that the finance will go for basic police training and the administrative side of it. Mr Foley said that the training will be conducted in cooperation with the Government of Britain.

[Compiled by Jose Filipe External Affairs World Bank, Dili Office.]