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East Timor news digest 12 - December 1-31, 2004
The Australian - December 3, 2004
Nigel Wilson -- John McCarthy, Australia's ambassador to
Indonesia at the time of the Australian-led peacekeeping mission
in 1999, yesterday confirmed Indonesia was critical of
Australia's argument on maritime boundaries.
Earlier this week, East Timor Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta
said Indonesia believed it "had been taken to the cleaners" by
Australia as a result of the 1972 maritime border agreement
between the two countries.
This was one of the reasons why East Timor believed delineating a
maritime boundary was not essential for the Greater Sunrise gas
development to go ahead.
Mr Ramos Horta, in Australia for a Southwest Pacific Forum
meeting hosted by counterpart Alexander Downer, has called on
John Howard to intervene so that the project proceeds.
Woodside Petroleum says the project will stall unless East Timor
approves legal and fiscal terms by the end of the year.
"Mr Downer has been insistent that only Australia's view that its
boundary should be the limit of the Continental Shelf should
prevail," Mr Ramos Horta said.
"This is the same position that Australia forced Indonesia to
accept in 1972 which, I am told, the Indonesians say meant they
were taken to the cleaners."
Mr McCarthy said: "This is not news nor does Indonesia argue it
was unfair but it is a matter that rankles in our relationship."
The World Today - December 16, 2004
Reporter: Anne Barker
Eleanor Hall: East Timor has upped the ante in its dispute with
Australia over oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea.
The country's Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, is threatening
to launch the biggest international campaign since the anti-
apartheid protests of the 70s and 80s, to pressure Australia for
a better share of the royalties. And he claims to have the
support of heavyweights like Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, even
Hollywood. Northern Australia Correspondent, Anne Barker reports.
Anne Barker: For three decades Jose Ramos Horta has played the
world stage, as an ambassador for the East Timorese cause.
Many of the years before independence he spent on the diplomatic
circuit in New York and Europe, rallying world leaders in the
long fight against Indonesian occupation.
But now, as East Timor's Foreign Minister, he's threatening to
wield that same diplomatic clout against Australia, by lobbying
the international community, including big names in Hollywood, to
shame Australia over its stance on Timor Sea oil.
Jose Ramos Horta: If the negotiations completely break down we
certainly talk with friends around the world, not only Hollywood
but politicians, intellectuals, academics, normal people in the
streets, in Australia and around the world.
Anne Barker: The long running talks over oil and gas royalties
broke down in October when Australian negotiators walked out
leaving one of the most lucrative ventures in the Timor Sea in
danger of collapse.
Australia has ruled out any more talks until East Timor accepts a
permanent maritime boundary on Australia's terms, and Canberra
has refused to settle the matter in the international court.
But Jose Ramos Horta says if Australia doesn't come round, he'll
mobilise one of the biggest campaigns the world has seen since
the anti-apartheid era. And he's confident East Timor will have
the world's elite onside.
Jose Ramos Horta: It will be Australia that has to explain to the
international community why it refuses other western democracy
that lectures other countries about international law, about
human rights ... Australia will have to explain why it refuses to
accept jurisdiction on the international court of justice.
Anne Barker: How much international support do you believe East
Timor has on this issue?
Jose Ramos Horta: We have tremendous international support, the
European Union, Commonwealth countries, Non Align Movement, I do
not know of a single country that is not sympathetic to East
Timorese situation.
Eleanor Hall: East Timor's Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos Horta,
speaking to Anne Barker.
Transition & reconstruction
Land/rural issues
Corruption/collusion/nepotism
Justice & reconciliation
Human rights/law
News & issues
Local media monitoring
Book/film reviews
Timor Gap
Indonesia felt cheated on borders
East Timor ups ante in oil and gas fight
Australia's offshore oil grab in the Timor Gap
Le Monde diplomatique - December 2004
Jean-Pierre Catry -- Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, told the Security Council this year that: "Limited revenue and widespread poverty within the country continue to pose severe constraints on Timor-Leste's social and economic development.
Benefits from the development of the country's mineral resources are materialising more slowly than had been hoped". Donor countries advise East Timor to seek loans on the basis of these future resources -- loans it would not need if Australia, the richest country in the region, stopped appropriating Timor's wealth.
In 1972, when East Timor was still a Portuguese colony, Australia and Indonesia agreed a boundary dividing the waters separating their countries. At that time the continental shelf was generally recognised as the basis for determining maritime frontiers. As a result Australia received 85% and left only 15% to Indonesia. Portugal rejected this arrangement and the boundary area between Australia and East Timor -- the "Timor Gap" -- remains unresolved.
When Portugal pulled out in 1975, Indonesia invaded and annexed East Timor. The Australian ambassador in Jakarta, Richard Woolcott, sent his government a confidential telegram that has since been made public: "Closing the present gap in the agreed sea border could be much more readily negotiated with Indonesia than with Portugal or an independent Portuguese Timor."
The UN General Assembly and the Security Council condemned the Indonesian invasion, so Australia waited until 1979, when protests had died down, before starting negotiations with the occupiers. Meanwhile the idea that territorial waters should extend for 200 nautical miles offshore had won general international acceptance. Since the countries are less than 800km apart, the boundary should have followed the equidistant median line.
In 1981 Australia accepted this criterion for agreeing fishing grounds with Indonesia, but rejected it for sea-bed resources.
In 1982 the UN Law of the Sea Convention formalised the median line as the basis for such agreements. Although Indonesia stood to gain, it was not prepared to wait until 1994, when the convention came into force after ratification by 60 countries: in 1989 it signed a treaty ceding most of the resources in the Timor Gap to Australia in return for de jure recognition of its sovereignty over East Timor, a recognition that violated UN resolutions.
Portugal took Australia to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague where proceedings lasted from 1991-95. But Indonesia refused to recognise the ICJ's jurisdiction. In the absence of one of the parties, the court declared itself incompetent to rule but warned Australia that the treaty would not be binding on an independent East Timor.
Under the treaty of 1989 Australia and Indonesia created a Zone of Cooperation A (Zoca) in the Timor Gap. If the internationally-accepted median line principle had been followed, the resulting revenues would have gone entirely to East Timor. Instead, throughout most of Zoca, the governments shared royalties equally. Timor's interests were further damaged when the lateral boundaries of Zoca were drawn so as to exclude the Laminaria-Corallina field to the west and 80% of the Greater Sunrise field to the east.
The fall of President Suharto of Indonesia in 1998 opened the way to possible Timorese independence. The judicial successor state model now became crucial. If East Timor succeeded Indonesia, it would inherit the consequences of a treaty to which it had not been a party. But if the treaty was recognised as invalid, as the ICJ had anticipated, everything was up for renegotiation, including frontiers.
President Xanana Gusmco and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri announced East Timor's desire to renegotiate the maritime boundary. In January 2000 the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (Untaet) secured an agreement between the Australian government and Timorese representatives. East Timor would not be the successor state, a UN legal adviser announced, on the grounds that "we do not want to retrospectively legitimise, or give any legitimacy to the conclusion of the treaty, which was done by Indonesia over what is part of the territory of East Timor.
So this is not a case of succession, it is a new legal instrument that we will create". The terms of the 1989 treaty would be renegotiated once Timor had achieved independence.
East Timor gained that independence in May 2002, after 24 years of resistance to Indonesian occupation and a referendum organised by the UN.
Before withdrawing, Indonesian troops and the militias destroyed more than 75% of its infrastructure, making it the poorest in Asia. Meanwhile a consortium of oil companies led by ConocoPhilipps demanded a swift agreement on the Bayu-Undan field, which lies entirely within Zoca, so that they could pursue investments to exploit it. States providing aid to East Timor added to the pressure, anticipating that its income from the field, after Australia had taken its 50% share, would allow them to reduce aid after 2005.
Behind apparently generous public declarations, Australia sought to persuade the Timorese that they would lose everything if they asked for too much. As the Northern Territories minister for resource development, Daryl Manzie, told the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference in September 2000: "We don't know if negotiations will bring up 60-40 or 50-50, but Australia is not reluctant to discuss that." He added that the field's gas reserves were of no importance to Australia, since it owned 10 times more elsewhere and could exploit other fields if the Timorese refused to accept its conditions. Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, remarked ominously that any revision of the share-out of royalties "plays into the overall size of the Australian aid programme in East Timor".
When the Untaet official responsible for the negotiations, Peter Galbraith, supported the Timorese by threatening to take Australia back to the ICJ, the Australian government conceded 90% of the royalties from Bayu-Undan.
Besides the remaining 10%, Australia also profits from the infrastructure for processing and exporting gas, which is in Darwin, and the jobs associated with it. East Timor accepted the deal. Its budget at the time -- $75m, 40% of it from international aid -- represented barely $94 per head of population when there was almost no infrastructure, communications, education or health. Timor's 90% of the royalties from Bayu-Undan came to $100m a year over 20 years, a significant sum.
But this 90% share applies only in the Bayu-Undan field in Zoca, now designated the Joint Petroleum development area (JPDA). The situation remains unchanged in the Laminaria/Corallina fields to the west, which Australia exploits unilaterally at 150,000 barrels per day, and in Greater Sunlight to the east. These fields would treble East Timor's reserves if the frontiers were redrawn in accordance with the Timorese claim, which most experts support as legally correct. Australia continues to contest the claim on the basis of the continental shelf.
The actions of Australian politicians belie their insistence that the law is on their side. In 2000 the first assistant secretary at the international law office of the Attorney-General's department, William Campbell, declared that he was in favour of a negotiated settlement and opposed to a judicial solution under which "states lose control".
In March 2002, two months before East Timor's independence, Australia withdrew from the ICJ's jurisdiction and rejected arbitration by the International Tribunal for the law of the sea in Hamburg. With recourse to the courts ruled out, there remains only the law of the strongest.
Having delayed its response to the Timorese request for border negotiations until 18 months after independence, the Australian government then postponed the first meeting until April 2004. When the Timorese demanded monthly meetings, Australia claimed that lack of time and personnel made a six-month interval necessary, meanwhile collecting $1m a day from Laminaria/Corallina.
The oil companies demanded an agreement by the end of 2004 if they were to invest in Greater Sunrise. This field lies astride the eastern boundary of the JPDA, 95 nautical miles from the island of Timor and 250 from Australia, on the Timorese side of the median line. Its exploitation must be mutual. Until the boundaries are renegotiated, Australia remains the sole beneficiary of the 80% of the field lying outside the JPDA, while East Timor is entitled to only 90% of the remaining 20%; 18% altogether.
On the eve of a meeting of aid donor countries in April 2004, Gusmco made an exasperated appeal to public opinion: "If our larger, more powerful neighbour steals the money we need to repay loans, that will put us deeper in debt. We will be one more country on the list of debt-ridden countries all over the world." Downer took offence and accused the Timorese of blackening Australia's image. He pointed to Australian generosity in conceding 90% of the royalties from Bayu-Undan and in giving $170m in aid.
Oxfam Australia has calculated that, during this period, Australia had made more than $1 billion from the Laminaria/Corallina field.
A group of Australians from the Timor Sea Justice Campaign proposed that the revenues from the contested areas should be deposited in escrow accounts and allocated once new boundaries had been agreed. Their government turned a deaf ear to this and to appeals from churches. It also ignored a December 2000 report from the Australian Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade which suggested: "By acting honourably and taking account of current international law, the Australian government might not only earn the goodwill of East Timor but also of other interested parties as well as providing East Timor with an economic basis on which it might be able to reduce its dependency on foreign aid."
The oil companies announced they would abandon investment in Greater Sunrise unless Australia and Timor reached an agreement by the end of 2004. But the Timorese parliament refused to ratify any agreement unless Australia committed itself to resolving the boundary issue within five years.
October's federal elections sharpened the debate in Australia. The opposition Labour party accused the governing Liberal/National coalition of inflexibility in its dealings with East Timor and its leader, Mark Latham, promised to re-open negotiations if he was elected. Downer reacted by suggesting talks with East Timor's foreign minister, the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize winner Josi Ramos-Horta. Despite a poll indicating that a high proportion of Australians do not support its refusal of ICJ arbitration, the Liberal/National coalition again won the elections.
In May 2004 Ramos-Horta acknowledged that his country owed its freedom to Australia, which had led the UN International Force in East Timor in 1999.
There is no guarantee that it will not need Australian support again in the future, a point emphasised by Downer when he reminded Timor that it was in danger of alienating its closest international friend. In August, at a joint press conference, the two ministers insisted that they were optimistic: a provisional settlement, still in need of fine-tuning, would assign more revenues to Timor without changing the boundaries.
Downer added: "For the Timorese the issues of sovereignty of course aren't unimportant but the question of how much revenue East Timor is able to extract from the Timor Sea is a very important issue for a country which is new, has got a very low per capita GDP and has to build a broader economic base."
With international tribunals excluded, Ramos-Horta seems prepared to be pragmatic. Nevertheless, he has openly acknowledged that the idea of putting aside the question of sovereignty for five, 10 or 20 years to allow discussions to focus on resource sharing is only his personal opinion and that it would be up to the Timorese parliament to ratify any agreement.
| Transition & reconstruction |
Kyodo News - December 10, 2004
East Timor wants the United Nations to extend its mission here for at least another year after its current mandate expires next May in order to strengthen the nascent state's still-fragile security institutions, Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta said Friday.
Speaking at a meeting hosted by the UN Mission of Support in East Timor, Ramos-Horta said another new UNMISET mandate should be extended for a year beyond May 2005.
"Whether it is accepted or not by the [UN] Security Council, I think there should be a new mission in order to completely consolidate the progress that has been made," he said. He said government institutions, including the police and defense forces, "are still very fragile."
The Security Council, having reduced the size of UNIMSET last May, decided on November 16 to extend its mandate for what it said would be "a final period of six months" until May 20, 2005.
UNMISET was initially established by the council in May 2002, when East Timor became independent, to assist core administrative structures critical to the viability and political stability in East Timor, and to contribute to the maintenance of the external and internal security.
It initially had 1,250 civilian police and 5,000 troops, including 120 military observers, but the number of UN police has been scaled down to 150 and troops to 450, with 42 military advisers. The mission also includes 263 international civilians.
Ramos-Horta said East Timor does not seek to have the UN mission, currently headed by Japan's Sukehiro Hasegawa with a Malaysian commander in charge of the troops, to continue to deploy troops after May.
"We will not need a continued presence of combat troops...but we will need civilian advisers," he said, adding that East Timor would like at least some 58 civilian advisers, 40 UN Police training advisors as well as 20-30 military observers to remain.
The Guardian (UK) - December 28, 2004
After 25 years of repression and persecution, the tiny country of East Timor is racked with poverty and in desperate need of rebuilding. John Vidal on the efforts being made to help the Timorese stand on their own two feet
Justin was born last month in Dili, East Timor's capital city. There was nothing extraordinary about the birth itself: baby Justin -- named after American pop star Justin Timberlake -- came kicking into the December tropical heat with the help of a Filipino doctor and a local midwife. Nor were the parents unusual: Feanando and Abral Soarez were both young, healthy and happy.
The hospital, too, was pretty well equipped for a poor country, even though it did not stretch to anaesthesia for women giving birth.
But Justin's birth was, all the same, a little bit remarkable. East Timor, the world's youngest country, is still emerging from a generation of harsh Indonesian rule which saw up to 200,000 people killed in 25 years, systematic torture, large-scale relocations of people and rampant human rights abuses.
Between 1975 and 1999, many of its present population of roughly 900,000 were displaced, hid in the forests or fled the country. Hundreds of villages and schools were burned down, and tens of thousands of young women were forcibly sterilised under the guise of "family planning". Full independence was gained only in 2002.
Life will be tough for Justin, just as it will be for baby East Timor. The fledgling country is one of the 10 poorest in the world and has the highest birth rate. Almost everyone scratches a living from subsistence farming and barely profitable coffee growing, and the inter- national donors, so keen to help at the high-profile birth, are now less easy to attract.
UN statistics suggest that a Timorese baby like Justin will on average have seven brothers and sisters, one of whom one will die within a year of birth and another by the age of five. If his father earns the national average wage, he will have about 50p a day to spend. The baby has an 80% chance of going to school, but only a 50-50 chance of learning to read and write. He will share a teacher with 62 other children in a school that will probably have no desks or teaching materials.
Moreover, one in eight of the children he will grow up with will have moderate or severe physical stunting because of a poor diet, and half will have chronic malnutrition. It is most likely that Justin will live without electricity or possessions, and will eat just one meal a day for life.
Things may sound bad, but in fact East Timor is in the process of being rebuilt on a wave of enthusiasm. Five hours' drive south of Dili is Turiscai, a typical farming area of 40 highland villages, where more than 6,000people live in conditions that would appear to have changed little in 100 years.
The majority of people sleep without mattresses, and everyone eats wild food in the "hungry months" between harvests. Paulo do Carmo fled his home in the village of Fatuhei during the years of conflict. "We returned from exile to an empty place in 2000," he says. "The problem was that we did not even have water or food. There were no houses left. Everything had gone." But he and his fellow villagers began to rebuild, working -- like many others across the country - without tools. "It took us a month just to carry the cement and materials over the mountain to build our water supplies, or our houses. We carried it on our backs."
"We are trying to help jump-start development," says Peter Njorje of Concern, which is the Guardian's choice of international charity this year.
"Twenty-five years have been lost here. When we came, we asked people to prioritise what they most needed. The list was long. They were starting from nothing and needed everything from roads to schools, training, clean water, seeds, tools, finance, new skills, shops, animals, and more.
"Their commitment is total. They give all they have, which is their labour.
To start with, they expected us to provide everything. Now they can see what we are doing and we are working together to develop ways they can stand on their own. They have formed themselves into interest groups. We provide the training and the materials, they provide the rest. It's beginning to work really well."
This ambitious project, being duplicated by Concern in 20 other remote villages in the east of the country, is bearing fruit. Almost everyone now has clean water and there is less illness. Schools and roads are being rebuilt, new shops set up, terraces are being repaired, better farming methods introduced and money- making enterprises such as carpentry, fish farming and egg production have started.
"But people's mentality has had to change. They are now beginning to lose the dependency culture that the Indonesians promoted for a generation. They have political independence, but they still have mental dependence on others," says Njorge.
Since the Indonesian withdrawal, more than $3bn in aid has gone to East Timor, says Thomas Freitas of the local watchdog group La'o Hamutuk, but hardly any of that has benefited the poor. "Billions have been spent but very little has gone to help people. The vast majority has gone on international peacekeeping forces and the UN police. Highly paid foreign consultants, wages for international staff, foreign contractors and supplies procured outside the country account for most of the rest. The local people and economy has hardly benefited."
In addition, aid is getting increasingly difficult to attract, and a fierce debate is taking place in Dili over the kind of development East Timor should pursue. Demetrio do Amaral de Carvalho, formerly a clandestine resistance leader, now the head of Haboras, the country's leading environmental and civil rights organisation, says he fears that the government is not learning from the failures of other small countries in a globalised world.
"We are coming into a new area of resistance. This is a nation of small farmers, yet the government wants intensive farming which takes sustainability away from people. They have tons of advisers from every country in the world. Yet we cannot compete on the world market.
"We may be exchanging one form of colonial dependency for another. We used to have only one enemy, the Indonesians. Now we have to take on big institutions and countries. Indonesia was able to compete with the big companies, but I fear that we cannot. We are open to be dominated by outsiders." Already, he says, East Timor is dependent on other countries for food, power, money, communications and even mineral water.
The only hope the country has of becoming genuinely independent, it is widely agreed, is to develop the vast oil and gas deposits known to exist in the Timor Gap, the sea area between East Timor and Australia. In May 2002 the governments of both countries signed a treaty that gives East Timor 90% of the reserves in one of the Gap's largest petroleum development areas.
This may sound a lot, but these reserves are only worth about $50m a year to East Timor; still in dispute is Greater Sunrise, one of the Timor Sea's largest known gas reserves, estimated to be worth at least $36bn.
Eighty per cent of this gas reserve comes under Australian jurisdiction, according to a historic agreement between Australia and Indonesia, but East Timor has a powerful legal claim on the field which, conservatively, is worth at least $12bn to the country over the next 20 years.
Australia is already earning $1m a day from the field and has offered to buy Timor out for a one-off payment of $4bn. It has led to a furious row and to Australia being accused of bullying its minute neighbour.
"Australia is acting unfairly and unlawfully. They think they can do anything they like. Their arguments are legally baseless," says the prime minister, Mari Alkatiri. "We are very dependent on oil. They are very powerful and we are struggling for independence They come here to tell us that we should have a country with a rule of law, but there is no law for them."
Timor may one day secure its independence through oil money, but it could be another 20 years before the dispute is settled, the facilities are built and the money starts to reach the people who most need it. In the meantime, baby Justin needs as much help as he can get to stand on his own.
| Land/rural issues |
The Guardian - December 11, 2004
John Vidal, Dili -- The only way to reach the village of Fatuhei in East Timor is a four-hour hike over tropical mountains. You are then in one of south-east Asia's most isolated places -- seven miles from the nearest school and health clinic, 10 from a rudimentary road, and 20 from any public transport.
Fatuhei is one of hundreds of highland villages forcibly evicted by the Indonesian army when it occupied East Timor in 1975. Twenty-four years later in 1999, when the colonisers were thrown out after a long resistance, Jose da Costa led a group of peasant farmers from Fatuhei over the mountains to reclaim it.
It was a traumatic return. What he and his friends found was little more than a deserted hillside.
Fatuhei had not been burned like many other villages but almost all the abandoned houses had collapsed, the terraces and paddy fields were overgrown or had fallen down, much of the land had been deforested and the soils were eroding rapidly. East Timor had become the youngest country in the world, and Fatuhei had to start again.
"I kept telling my children that one day we would go back to our land and be free. We had been oppressed for so long," said Mr da Costa.
The men began by building small shelters and digging the land almost with their bare hands, only later calling for their families to join them.
Without money, tools, seeds or often the skills to farm, they had to walk miles to collect dirty water, and rebuilt their houses as they could.
Today, the 120 subsistence farmers and their families who have returned to Fatuhei are some of the poorest and most vulnerable in the world, with some of the lowest literacy levels, the highest child mortality and worst malnutrition in Asia.
But they are also some of the most satisfied and proud. "Despite our isolation and our problems we love it here. We have our freedom but now we have another struggle -- to develop," said Mr da Costa.
Paul Moreira, chief of the larger community village of Matoreki, said: "When people first came back we didn't know how to farm. People had run away to the forests from the Indonesians, so they did not learn how to farm. We have our land back now but we are only now learning how to use it."
"Fatuhei and much of East Timor has lost 25 years," said Peter Njoroge, a Kenyan working with the development charity Concern, which is trying to jump-start the economy in 40 mountain communities in the area, including Fatuhei. "We just go straight to what they say they want."
Each community last year prioritised its needs. All put clean water, seeds, tools and the need for technical training at the top but people also wanted to know how to conserve the soil, farm better, and above all gain a measure of independence by earning money.
Concern is training people how to grow cash crops, build terraces, make fish farms, construct clean water and irrigation systems, set up micro-credit schemes and small shops, work with livestock, and repair tracks.
Almost all the communities now have safe water and the charity is paying for schools and health clinics to be rebuilt. Seeds and tools have been handed out, and hundreds of people are learning to read and write.
"We went for the intensive approach," said Mr Njoroge. "The villagers had no money, but they provide all the labour and local materials. We find the rest. But every bag of cement or nail needed in a place like Fatuhei has to be carried more than 10 miles. No one can doubt their determination to improve their lives."
One major problem, he said, was the need to overcome the dependency culture which had built up over 25 years of Indonesian rule.
"They did not want the East Timorese to be food-secure but to be dependent on them for everything. It was a way to control them. They moved people round so they could not farm, gave them free or subsidised food and kerosene.
"There had been a huge decline in skills and people had forgotten how to do things. Changing that mentality is hard. They began by expecting us to hand out everything, but now they they have to do it themselves."
Mr Moreira added: "The years people spent in the forests were hard, but it will be harder still to develop the country. The struggle for real independence starts now."
| Corruption/collusion/nepotism |
Lusa - December 14, 2004
Dili -- Dili understands the worries of investors over corruption in East Timor and the government is determined to crackdown on the emerging phenomenon in tandem with aid donors, Foreign Minister Josi Ramos Horta said Tuesday.
Describing corruption as still a relatively small-scale problem, Ramos Horta stressed, in comments to Lusa, that Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri was a "decisive person" who could be "quite radical in fighting corruption".
The government, he added, was ready to work with international donors, like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to "identify the cracked doors that permit corruption".
The World Bank recently banned four local companies from participating in its tenders for three years after discovering their involvement in price fixing in a national program to equip schools.
Ramos Horta said that corruption in East Timor was not a problem at the government level, whose budget was "super scrutinized", but was a matter of concern among the civil service, especially among border and customs officials.
The major preoccupation, he added, was "persistent allegations" of corruption in the business and economic spheres that "affect our image and credibility" internationally.
"Those who practice corruption are sophisticated people", Ramos Horta said. "They are linked to the private sector, having a long experience of corruption during the 24 years of Indonesian occupation".
| Justice & reconciliation |
ABC Radio - December 2, 2004
Reporter: Anne Barker
Mark Colvin: A court in East Timor has jailed a former pro- Indonesia militia leader to 15 years jail for murder and crimes against humanity.
Marculino Soares led an attack on the house of the independence leader Manuel Carrascalao in April 1999, when at least 12 people were butchered. Soares is one of about 70 people now convicted over the violence and murders before and after East Timor voted for independence. And as Anne Barker reports, his case has renewed calls for an international tribunal on the cases of hundreds more.
Anne Barker: April the 17th, 1999, will forever be known as the day of one of the most gruesome massacres in East Timor's history. Members of the notorious militia group, Besi Merah Putih, or red and white iron, stormed the home of the prominent independence leader Manuel Carrascalao, and killed at least 12 people taking refuge at the back, including Carrascalao's 17-year-old son Manelito.
Their bodies were tortured and mutilated and dumped in a well- shaft. Carrascalao's daughter, Christiana, was around the corner at the time, and believes in reality many more people were killed.
Christiana Carrascalao: There were about at least 150 were refugees and my brother and all his friends were all there at the home, and only 45 survived. Only 13 bodies, 12 bodies were returned, reportedly been killed at the house, where are the others? We didn't know until today.
Anne Barker: Marculino Soares has been in custody for nearly two years, since he was charged with murder and other crimes against humanity. A judge at East Timor's special panel for serious crimes in handing down sentence this week said it was Soares who ordered militia members to attend an independence rally in Dili, from where the attack was launched. And he found proof that Soares had personally taken part.
But the Deputy General prosecutor at East Timor's serious crimes unit, Nicholas Koumjian, says the real ringleaders, including the notorious militia leader Eurico Guterres, have managed to escape justice.
Nicholas Koumjian: Those who, in the security apparatus, who knew the attack was about to take place and took no action, I think their responsibility and certainly the individual perpetrators who played a significant role in killing and with machetes and other instruments the victims should also bear significantly responsibility.
Anne Barker: Marculino Soares is one of 73 people who've now been convicted over the violence that paved East Timor's path to independence. But of the 369 people charged, only one in four have made it to trial. The vast majority are in Indonesia and out of reach of prosecutors. Nicholas Koumjian admits it's a source of constant despair.
Nicholas Koumjian: It is frustrating that there are people who are outside of East Timor, but what frustrates me the most is that those at the highest level of command and who are most responsible for organising the violence remain outside of the reach of the serious crimes process.
Anne Barker: The United Nations Security Council recently admitted the judicial processes it set up haven't brought justice for the East Timorese. And it's still considering calls for an international tribunal to bring those who led the violence to account. Christiana Carrascalao is one of those who support the international model.
Christiana Carrascalao: An international tribunal should be set because the magnitude of the crime that was committed in East Timor was too big, way too big for anyone to just live a life and move on quietly.
Mark Colvin: Christiana Carrascalao, talking to Anne Barker.
Lusa - December 2, 2004
Dili -- East Timor's human rights court has sentenced a senior member of a pro-Jakarta militia to 15 years in prison for organizing an attack on the house of an independence leader's house which left a dozen people dead. Marcolino Soares was convicted by the Serious Crimes Panel of participating in and masterminding the attack on the home of Manuel Carrascalco, a pro-independence leader on April, 12, 1999.
Twelve people, including Carrascalco's son, died in the attack which was part of the rampage unleashed by Indonesia's military and its militia proxies before and after the 1999 referendum that hastened Dili's breakaway from Jakarta's rule.
Meanwhile, the Serious Crimes Unit (SCU), set up by Timor and the UN, has indicted seven militia bosses for a church massacre and other killings during the country's bloody breakaway from Indonesia. The seven, who are all believed to be in Indonesia, were charged with murder, torture and forced deportations committed from March to September 1999.
Five of the militiamen were also indicted for organizing the Suai church massacre, in which Indonesian troops and their militia associates attacked a church where refugees were sheltering. At least 31 people died in the attack, which was among the worst that followed the independence ballot five years ago.
Up to 1,500 people were killed in the violence orchestrated by Jakata's security officials in 1999. Only half these deaths have been examined by the SCU, which ceased its investigations this week and will close entirely next year.
Melbourne Age - December 16, 2004
Matthew Moore, Jakarta -- The leaders of Indonesia and East Timor have quietly agreed to discuss setting up a "truth and friendship commission" that would reconsider the massacre of East Timorese about the time of their 1999 vote for independence.
At their first meeting held in Bali late on Tuesday, Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and East Timor's President Xanana Gusmao agreed to the idea of the commission to defuse tensions between the two countries.
More importantly, the creation of such a body would allow Indonesia and East Timor to argue that there was no need for the United Nations to take any further action over the massacres of East Timorese for which virtually no one in Indonesia has been punished.
A spokesman for East Timor's Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, said the idea of the new body was to "strengthen friendship between the two countries" and increase co-operation. But he said the commission would also discuss "the truth about the events of 1999", although he said there was no plan to make it a reconciliation commission.
About 1500 East Timorese were murdered and many of the country's buildings destroyed after their vote for independence.
Under heavy international pressure, the Indonesian Government set up an ad hoc human rights tribunal and promised to prosecute those responsible for the bloodshed, but every Indonesian-born defendant was found not guilty or had convictions overturned on appeal.
The United States and human rights groups condemned the trials as a farce and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been under pressure to establish a commission of experts to examine the massacres and Indonesia's failure to punish those responsible.
However, East Timorese leaders have said they want good relations with their much bigger neighbour want and to put the past behind them, something such a joint commission with Indonesia might help them do.
Earlier this year the East Timorese Government opposed an attempt by UN-funded prosecutors to issue an arrest warrant for General Wiranto, the commander of Indonesia armed forces at the time of the bloodshed.
Mr Alkatiri's spokesman said the commission's membership and terms of reference would be discussed between foreign ministers.
Lusa - December 17, 2004
Dili -- East Timor's Serious Crimes Unit (SCU) indicted 14 people Friday for war crimes committed in 1999, in what the joint Dili- United Nations body said would be its last indictments before winding up its investigations.
Those accused in the SCU's last batch of indictments of murder, rape and forced expulsion committed between January and September, 1999 include senior Indonesian military officers.
All of the accused are believed to be living in Indonesia and therefore out of Timorese jurisdiction.
Set up by the Timorese authorities and UN, the SCU has been tasked with investigating crimes against humanity committed in Timor from January 1, 1999 to October 25 of the same year.
During this period, up to 1,500 Timorese died in the carnage and destruction unleashed by pro-Jakarta militias who worked in connivance with the Indonesian military, which was withdrawing from the territory after its historic independence ballot.
Most Timorese found guilty of war crimes after being indicted by the SCU have received relatively light sentences and none of the Indonesian officials indicted have been tried. Three-quarters of those indicted are sheltering in Indonesia.
The Dili government says it prefers reconciliation with its larger neighbor to pushing for justice for war crimes perpetrators.
Jakarta Post - December 21, 2004
Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta -- Indonesia and its former province East Timor are set to reject an idea to establish a commission of experts to review the judicial processes of human rights abuse cases involving Indonesian military and police officers during a meeting with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan this week, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in Jakarta.
Minister for Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda left for New York on late Sunday for talks with Annan.
Hassan and his East Timorese counterpart Jose Ramos Horta will jointly meet with Annan some time this week. The two ministers will share their views on the formation of commission of experts, which was proposed by the UN, to focus on alleged human rights abuses in East Timor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Marty Natalegawa said.
"In this connection, together with Foreign Minister [East Timor's] Horta, Pak Hassan is expected to brief Annan regarding the two countries' views on how best to address the issue of alleged violations of human rights in East Timor and how to promote friendship between the two countries," Marty told The Jakarta Post.
The UN secretary general proposed the establishment of an international commission of experts following calls from several non-governmental organizations, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, after Indonesian courts acquitted a number of security and civilian officials.
The commission was aimed at reviewing whether or not judicial processes on human right violations in East Timor had been properly conducted.
East Timor separated from Jakarta following the 1999 autonomy plebiscite that was marred by violence carried out by pro- Indonesia militia in which more than 1,400 people were killed.
Indonesia and East Timor, however, have repeatedly rejected the idea for a commission of experts, expressing the desire to maintain cordial relationships in the spirit of reconciliation.
"In principle, we can not accept the idea [of the commission of experts] as it would create new precedents in the judicial processes of sovereign countries," Marty said. "The Indonesian government itself can not intervene and conduct any evaluation of our own judiciary, so why we should allow UN to evaluate our judiciary," he said.
East Timor's leadership has also reiterated that it needs good relations with Indonesia. The visit by Ministers Hassan and Horta to New York follows discussions between the two ministers in Jakarta last Sunday and bilateral talks between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and East Timor President Xanana Gusmao at the Tampak Siring Palace in Denpasar, Bali, on last Tuesday.
European Union member countries, the United States and New Zealand had expressed disappointment over the Indonesian courts' acquittals of military and civilian officers. They also demanded that an international court deal with rights abuses by Indonesian officers during Jakarta's rule in East Timor. But Dili has said that it would prefer to have an international truth and reconciliation commission rather than a court. Dili set up its own commission in 2002.
Agence France Presse - December 22, 2004
Indonesia and East Timor announced plans for a historic joint commission to draw a line under past hostilities and resolve the 1999 bloodshed that marred the East Timorese march to independence.
They said the initiative could make redundant plans by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for a committee to see if justice was served over attacks by the Indonesian army and its militia allies that left 1,000 people dead.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda and his East Timorese counterpart Jose Ramos-Horta told reporters they had unveiled the plan, crafted by their respective presidents, in a meeting here with Annan on Tuesday.
"This is an unprecedented initiative in international relations. There has never been any such initiative involving two countries," Ramos-Horta said in a joint press appearance with Wirayuda.
"We would hope [and] intend that this initiative would resolve once and for all the pending issues, one being the violent events of 1999," he said.
Militiamen, aided by Indonesian soldiers, waged a campaign of intimidation and revenge before and after a UN-organised vote in August 1999 which saw East Timor choose overwhelmingly to split from Indonesia.
The decision to create the Commission on Truth and Friendship was made when new Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and East Timor President Xanana Gusmao met in Bali on December 14, the ministers said.
Wirayuda said it was "meant as an alternative to the idea of establishing a commission of experts by the secretary general." The ministers said Annan had not indicated if he would go ahead with his own plans for a commission.
"He might consider [his plans] redundant but if he decides to go ahead we will have to study the terms of reference," Ramos-Horta said. The ministers appealed for international help in establishing the commission as their countries move to improve relations and put their recent bloody separation behind them.
East Timor, which won full autonomy in 2002, has downplayed trials in Indonesia, where convictions over the killings have been quashed, and instead stressed the importance of building good relations with Jakarta.
The trials were criticised from the outset, chiefly for their failure to try General Wiranto, who was in charge of Indonesia's military at the time of the bloodshed.
Indonesia invaded the half-island nation in December 1975, shortly after Dili declared independence from centuries of Portuguese colonial rule.
Reuters - December 22, 2004
Washington -- US officials do not want a planned Indonesian-East Timorese commission on 1999 violence in East Timor to supplant UN efforts to determine if justice has since been done, a senior US official said on Wednesday.
Indonesian gangs supported by elements in the Indonesian army killed about 1,000 East Timorese during a 1999 rampage triggered by a referendum in which East Timor voted to break free from Jakarta after 24 years of brutal military rule. Few people have since been held accountable.
An Indonesian special human rights court convicted six of 18 Indonesian military and police officers charged in connection with the violence, but five convictions were later overturned and an appeal of the sixth is pending.
Indonesia and East Timor announced plans on Tuesday to create a joint Commission on Truth and Friendship in the hopes of heading off a possible UN review to decide whether justice was done after the violence.
"We don't think that [the joint commission] can be the sole vehicle," a senior State Department official, who asked not to be named, told reporters. "They haven't really led to anything. They perhaps were undertaken in the right spirit but they haven't led to much in the way of results," the official said of Indonesian efforts to bring those responsible to justice.
Mainly Catholic East Timor became independent in May 2002 after 2-1/2 years of UN administration, closing the book on centuries of Portuguese colonial rule and its later occupation by Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. US Secretary of State Colin Powell met the Indonesian and East Timorese foreign ministers on Wednesday to discuss ways of coordinating the work of the proposed joint commission with the UN effort under consideration by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
After the talks with Indonesia's Hassan Wirajuda and East Timor's Jose Ramos-Horta, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said there was a danger the joint panel may undercut a UN probe but Washington hoped the work could be coordinated.
"Both initiatives are valuable," he told reporters. "Our view is that working it together with the UN and with them we can coordinate these things."
The Guardian - December 23, 2004
John Aglionby, Jakarta -- Indonesia and East Timor have agreed to set up a truth and friendship commission to address the issues of 1,500 murders and thousands of other human rights violations committed during the 1999 independence referendum in East Timor.
Jakarta hopes the commission will encourage the UN to abandon its plan for a panel of experts to assess what the two countries have done to prosecute those involved in the atrocities. Only 20 people in Indonesia have been prosecuted and not one member of the military, the police or the then civilian administration has had a conviction upheld for his or her individual role in the carnage.
This is in spite of the murders, destruction and the forced relocation of 275,000 people throughout the months of 1999 during which Indonesia still controlled the former Portuguese colony it invaded in 1975.
East Timor has indicted almost 400 people. More than 90 have been tried, while most of the rest, including many serving and retired generals, are living comfortably in Indonesia, which has no intention of handing them over for prosecution.
Hassan Wirajuda, Indonesia's foreign minister, and his East Timorese counterpart, Jose Ramos-Horta, announced the commission after meeting Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, in New York. Mr Ramos-Horta described the initiative as "historic" and said it would "shed truth on the events of the past". The commission's framework and mechanisms are expected to take several weeks to finalise.
Mr Wirajuda did not conceal Jakarta's motive for pushing for the commission. "[It] is meant as an alternative to the idea of establishing the commission of experts," he said.
Mr Annan has yet to confirm whether he will still appoint the experts but UN sources believe he will not be deterred. "It is an interesting concept but the UN has direct responsibilities and obligations to the East Timorese people, the victims of the violence," a UN official told the Guardian.
Human rights activists and several countries, including the US, are lobbying for the commission of experts. John Danforth, the US ambassador to the UN, last month urged Mr Annan to appoint the panel and earlier this week the International Federation for East Timor -- which has 34 member groups from 23 countries -- wrote to Mr Annan with a similar plea.
Activists in East Timor said there was little support for the government's approach. "This is a friendship commission, it's not going to satisfy the need for justice," said one activist, Joaquim Fonseca.
Radio Australia - December 23, 2004
There have been mixed reactions this week to a proposal by Indonesia and East Timor to set up a joint commission to investigate the violence in East Timor four years ago. The plan was announced on Tuesday after talks between Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his East Timorese counterpart Xanana Gusmao in Bali. US officials have been discussing the proposed Commission on Truth and Friendship with the two countries' foreign ministers.
Presenter/Interviewer: Marion MacGregor
Speakers: Amado Hei, lawyer with East Timor's Human Rights Law and Justice Association; Nagalingam Parameswaram, Malaysia's High Commissioner to Singapore and former chief-of-staff at the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor.
MacGregor: In 1999 local gangs supported by Indonesian soldiers went on a rampage, killing about a thousand East Timorese. The violence was triggered by East Timor's vote to break free from Jakarta after 24 years of military rule. Four years later, few have been held to account for what took place.
A special human rights court established in Indonesia in 2000 to try those charged in connection with the violence has convicted six of the 18 people put on trial. Five of those convictions have since been overturned and an appeal on the sixth is still pending.
East Timor has set up a serious crimes unit to prosecute those responsible. It too has been seen as ineffectual, as three- quarters of those indicted are sheltered in Indonesia.
This week's decision by Indonesia and East Timor to set up a joint Commission to draw a line under the hostilities, is seen by many as historic.
Nagalingam Parameswaram is a former chief-of-staff at the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, UNTAET.
He says he's not surprised East Timor's leaders have agreed to the plan.
Parameswaram: I see this as another mechanism that the Timorese are trying to work on, primarily number one to bring those who are involved to justice and number two I think to not jeopardise their existing relations with Indonesia. We should give every attempt that they're trying again.
MacGregor: After it was decided earlier this month to create the joint commission at talks between the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his East Timorese counterpart Xanana Gusmao, the Foreign Ministers of the two countries discussed the idea with the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan.
Mr Annan is currently considering a separate proposal to set up an international tribunal to try the perpetrators of the violence in East Timor.
Indonesia has consistently opposed the plan, and Indonesia's Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda says the commission announced this week is meant as an alternative to the UN inquiry.
That's fuelled concerns, echoed by some US officials, that the joint panel could undermine the UN's efforts. But Nagalingam Parameswaram disagrees.
Parameswaram: I think within the leadership in East Timor, there has not been unanimity in view as to whether or not they should have this UN commission, like Rwanda or former Yugoslavia. So I think this is one of the other ways. We may have different views as to how good or how bad the process within Indonesia has been, but I think knowing the East Timorese to some extent they want to find peace with themselves number one, and they want to find peace with their neighbour. To me this is another mechanism, it's another effort. This is the desire of the country itself, so who are we to sit outside and say this is what they should do. I think now Timor is independent.
MacGregor: Nagalingam Parameswaram former UNTAET chief of staff, now Malaysian High Commissioner to Singapore.
Amado Hei is a lawyer with East Timor's Human Rights Law and Justice Association, which is a member of the East Timor national alliance for an international tribunal.
He's concerned the joint commission on truth and Friendship won't succeed in delivering justice to the victims of the violence.
Hei: Behind this idea, we think that these two governments try to throw away the idea from the, was the verdict in the security consulate about the commission's expert to accelerate the process. We don't think this commission will give benefit or justice to the victims because really ?, because I think this is one of the strategies from this government to, I think they try to give impunity to the perpetrators. That's what we think.
MacGregor: Why would the East Timorese government want to give impunity to the perpetrators? Hei: It's really hard in political matter if we relate it to the reality in East Timor. You know our country is a small country, poor country and we have many problems inside our country still not resolved like our border between Indonesia and economic dependance to the Indonesians.
That's why they would put our ??? position in difficulties. That's why we ... to the international community, not just give this process alone to the East Timor people or East Timorese government. It's really difficult to us to go against the perpetrators even independence country. I think the thing you need to play with a fair political strategy, not put away the victims' demands for justice
MacGregor: Do you expect that the Indonesian side will in fact under the new leadership in Indonesia show more of a commitment to pursuing justice?
Hei: I think maybe still the same because you know many people as you know Indonesia involved in the past human rights violations. They're still in the good position in Indonesia and I don't believe even a new President can change, ... for the democratic everything, but I think still in the military, military decision.
Financial Times (UK) - December 23, 2004
Shawn Donnan, Jakarta -- Indonesia and East Timor announced this week they would establish a bilateral "truth and friendship commission" to heal wounds between the two countries left by the 1999 violence in which Jakarta's military and associated militias laid waste to East Timor.
While on the surface the move appears to be a step forward for tiny East Timor, population 800,000, and neighbouring Indonesia, population 220m, human rights groups have been quick to criticise it.
That is because, as even senior Indonesian officials admit, the plan aims to forestall the appointment by Kofi Annan, United Nations secretary-general, of a "commission of experts" to examine the widely criticised delivery of justice so far.
"We hope that the secretary-general will accept this as part of the closure of the events of September 1999," a high-level Indonesian official told the Financial Times. "We don't want this commission [of experts] to come here and go through all the evidence and interview witnesses. This would create an uproar."
Jakarta established a special court on East Timor which began hearing trials in 2002, but the work of that court has been labelled a sham by the international community.
Of the 18 military officers and civilians tried by the court, all but one have been exonerated. The conviction of the final suspect, a prominent militia leader, is being appealed. Jakarta has also refused to co-operate with a parallel process in East Timor under which UN-backed prosecutors have indicted almost 400 people, including senior Indonesian military officers.
As a result, human rights activists say the delivery of justice for the victims of the 1999 violence has been left largely on hold.
Indonesia has "succeeded so far in avoiding any accountability", said Joaquim Fonseca, an East Timorese rights activist. "If the UN gives in to the idea of this 'truth and friendship commission', we can give up on seeing justice done." A diplomat in Dili said if Jakarta was successful in forestalling the experts panel, it could cause damaging delays at a crucial time -- the UN-backed prosecutorial team in East Timor is due to disband in May 2005.
East Timor's leadership is keen to smooth over differences with Jakarta, now a key trading partner. This has angered activists and frustrated diplomats and UN prosecutors who have seen political pressure in Dili lead to delays in issuing key arrest warrants.
However, the US, the UK, Portugal and the Netherlands are supporting the idea of a commission of experts and offered to help fund the UN review.
Agence France Presse - December 23, 2004
The United States welcomed creation of a joint Indonesia-East Timor commission on the 1999 bloodshed in the former Portuguese colony, but made clear the necessity of a separate UN inquiry as well.
US officials said coordination of the efforts was the key topic at a meeting here Wednesday of Secretary of State Colin Powell, Indonesian Foreign Minister Hasan Wirayuda and his East Timorese counterpart Jose Ramos-Horta.
Wirayuda and Ramos-Horta unveiled Tuesday their plan for a joint commission to see if justice was meted out for the attacks by the Indonesian army and its militia allies that left 1,000 people dead in East Timor's drive for independence.
The two men, who met with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York, said their initiative could make redundant his plan to dispatch a UN panel of experts. But Washington reacted coolly to any pre-emptive Indonesian-East Timor investigation.
"I think we've seen both these things as valuable and they just need to be coordinated," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. "I think our view is that working together with the UN and with them we could coordinate these things."
A senior US official said while national truth commissions have been successful elsewhere, "we've looked at this situation and we don't think that can be the sole vehicle." "We don't think we should junk one [commission] in favor of the other," said the official, who asked not to be named.
He said the United States was not impressed by efforts by Indonesian authorities to prosecute those charged in the 1999 killings. "They perhaps were undertaken in the right spirit but they haven't led to much in the way of results," the official said.
Indonesia invaded East Timor in December 1975, shortly after Dili declared independence from centuries of Portuguese colonial rule. The East Timorese won full autonomy in 2002, three years after voting overwhelmingly to split from Indonesia.
They have played down the trials in Indonesia, where convictions over the killings have been quashed, and instead stressed the importance of building good relations with Jakarta.
Wirayuda and Ramos-Horta both signaled their desire to avoid a UN inquiry. Wirayuda said their joint panel was "meant as an alternative to the idea of establishing a commission of experts by the secretary general." They said Annan did not indicate whether he would proceed with his own inquiry. "He might consider (it) redundant but if he decides to go ahead we will have to study the terms of reference," Ramos-Horta said.
Associated Press - December 24, 2004
Indonesia has rejected UN plans for a commission that would study Jakarta's resolve to punish those responsible for human rights abuses in East Timor in 1999.
The United Nations has yet to formally announce the commission. But a joint statement from the governments of Indonesia and East Timor said "it has been learned that the UN Secretary-General will announce in due course the establishment of a UN Commission of Experts."
The body would have the power to recommend that an international tribunal be formed to try Indonesian military officers accused in the violence. Human rights groups have said Jakarta's efforts so far to prosecute those responsible have been a sham.
Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa declined to say whether Jakarta planned to cooperate with the commission. Without access to judges and court documents in Jakarta, the body would unlikely be able to produce a meaningful report.
East Timor voted for independence from 24 years of Indonesian rule in a UN-sponsored ballot in 1999. After the results were announced, the Indonesian military and its proxy militias unleashed a wave of violence that killed more than 1,000 people and displaced 300,000 others.
Jakarta promised to punish those responsible. Courts in Jakarta charged 18 people -- most from its police and military -- with human rights crimes, but 12 were acquitted and four had their sentences overturned on appeal. Two other appeals are pending.
Earlier this week, East Timor and Indonesia's foreign ministers announced the formation of their own joint Commission on Truth and Friendship to investigate the 1999 violence. Both governments have said that body should be regarded as an "alternative" to the planned UN Commission of Experts.
Natalegawa said with there was no need for more than one more mechanism to deal with the violence, and that the COE was "redundant." "It has long been our position to reject the COE and any requirements that might arise from it," he said.
"There is no need for a parallel body to the truth and friendship commission." East Timor has not backed calls by rights groups to establish an international tribunal.
It has said that maintaining good tie with its giant neighbour and former occupying power is more important than pushing for justice.
| Human rights/law |
Agence France Presse - December 17, 2004
East Timor's cabinet has passed a landmark petroleum law that will open the door to foreign firms seeking oil and gas exploration licences and create millions of dollars in revenue for the impoverished nation.
East Timor's cabinet approved the legislation which will allow international energy firms to begin exploring the tiny South-East Asian nation's on and offshore oil and gas reserves, a statement said.
Secretary of State Gregorio de Sousa said the legal framework, to be endorsed by Parliament in the next few weeks, would create a transparent, competitive and stable model for the development of the nation's resources.
The agreement also laid the groundwork to create a petroleum fund for development in East Timor, which is still struggling to find its feet after gaining statehood in 2002 in a violence-marred separation from Indonesia.
East Timor, one of Asia's poorest nations, is looking to the energy sector as its major source of income with potentially billions of dollars of revenues available.
The country also shares oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea with Australia and is trying to resolve a dispute over the division of the area.
| News & issues |
Antara - December 1, 2004
Jakarta -- The Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) here Wednesday condemned the expulsion of 253 Moslems from East Timor, saying the action was a violation of the Moslems' human rights.
"They are natives of East Timor who have lived there for generations and they are not Indonesian nationals. [The expulsion] is an act of discrimination and a violation of their human rights." MUI Secretary General Din Syamsuddin said.
Because they were natives of East Timor, the responsibility to protect them lay with the East Timorese government, not with the Indonesian government, he said. Moslems should not be considered as foreigners in East Timor as historically they had been living there for centuries, Din said.
He said the East Timorese government had made life difficult for Moslems, prevented them from performing their prayers as many mosques had been turned into other kinds of buildings. "By these actions the East Timorese has hurt the feelings of Moslems," he added. "The Moslems deportees did not have criminal records or were not involved in anything that could legally be a reason to expel them," Din said.
He said the MUI would send a formal protest to the East Timorese government through the latter's representative office in Jakarta and urge the Indonesian government to take diplomatic steps to protect the group of deportees. The MUI would also call on the United Nations to stop the violations of human rights in East Timor.
Meanwhile, Coordinator for the National Committee for East Timor Political Victims Batista Sufa Kefi regretted both countries' failure to determine the nationality of moslems in Alor village which had now caused them to be deported. "The problem now is which country will accept and recognize them as their citizens," Batista said.
Earlier, on Tuesday, the East Timorese government deported 63 moslems in Alor village, out of 253 people planned to be deported from the country, on grounds that they did not have legal documents to stay in the country. The group has been accommodated in Atambua, East Nusa Tenggara.
Jakarta Post - December 1, 2004
Yemris Fointuna, Kupang -- After five hours of immigration checks in Motaain, on the border of East Timor and Indonesia, 62 people were deported from the neighboring country, finally arriving on Monday evening in Atambua, the capital of Belu regency in East Nusa Tenggara.
The 62 are among 274 people who have been deported from East Timor for failing to acquire the proper immigration documents.
Most of the people are originally from Sumatra or Java, some having lived in East Timor long before it separated from Indonesia in 1999.
Most of them are small-scale traders or canteen owners, but there are also children among the group. Belu Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Ekotrio Budhiniar said that East Timorese officials had dropped the 62 people in Motaain, directly handing them over to Indonesian immigration officials. Most of the men in the group wore Muslim caps, the women head scarfs. They were transported by Indonesian officials to Atambua, he said.
Ekotrio said that earlier he had received a fax from the Indonesian Embassy in East Timor, saying that East Timor would deport a number of Indonesians this week on separate occasions.
The 274 immigrants had lived in Alor in Dili, the capital of East Timor. They earlier said that they had no money to pay for immigration documents or the tax imposed on foreigners, and they did not want to become East Timorese citizens.
Ekotrio said the 62 people would be accommodated in Belu administration camps and hostels before journeying to their hometowns.
Separately, Atambua Immigration Office chief Slamet Santoso said that the office lacked the funds to cover the expenses of the 62 people, and that the Belu Social Office was responsible for them.
Indonesia invaded East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, in 1975, and annexed it the following year. The harsh treatment of people in the area by the Indonesian Military put the province in the international spotlight. Many countries have also questioned the legitimacy of East Timor's incorporation into Indonesia, which cornered Indonesia in many international forums.
Given the many diplomatic problems sparked by East Timorese- Indonesian relations, former minister of foreign affairs Ali Alatas once said that East Timor was "a pebble in Indonesia's shoe." Following the fall of Soeharto in 1998, the government under Habibie offered in 1999 the people of East Timor the chance to vote on whether to stay part of Indonesia under a wider autonomy scheme or separate from the country. The East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence in the UN-sponsored referendum.
Jakarta Post - December 3, 2004
Yemris Fointuna, Kupang -- Over 270 people, who were deported from East Timor, were moved into a dormitory belonging to East Nusa Tenggara's Manpower and Transmigration Office in Kupang on Thursday.
Dozens of police personnel tightly guarded the dormitory, and even prohibited journalists from taking pictures or interviewing people, following a report that some Acehnese in the group were believed to be members of the separatist group Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
A senior military commander in Kupang has asserted that some of the Acehnese were GAM members who were staying in East Timor in a bid to learn guerrilla tactics from former East Timorese militia.
"There is evidence [a photograph] that those people hoisted a GAM flag during their stay in Dili, the capital of East Timor," said Col. Moeswarno Moesanip, the chief of Wirasakti military resort overseeing East Nusa Tenggara province. The picture, taken in Dili, was dated May 20, 2002.
All the people, including women, would be questioned by police personnel before being allowed to return to their home provinces across the nation, said Moeswarno.
Moeswarno divided the 274 people into two groups, the first, those who lived in East Timor to earn a living, the second, those who stayed in the neighboring country for political reasons.
The first group consists of people who opened canteens and became small-scale traders in East Timor, while the second group stayed in East Timor to learn from former East Timorese militias about guerrilla warfare Moeswarno asserted.
East Timor militias had fought the Indonesian Military (TNI) since Indonesia took over the tiny neighboring country in 1976. East Timor finally separated from Indonesia after a UN-sponsored popular ballot in 1999.
But, some people from the group rejected the allegation. A person, who requested anonymity said that the group of 274 people knew each other when they lived in Alor neighborhood in Dili, the capital of East Timor. "There are no people from Aceh in our group. There is one person of Acehnese descent, his mother is Acehnese, but he was raised in Java," he said.
The 274 people were deported from East Timor on Tuesday for failing to produce a valid passport or visa, and reached East Nusa Tenggara territory on the same day. They arrived in Kupang, the capital of East Nusa Tenggara province on Wednesday.
Many men in the group wore Muslim caps, while the women wore scarfs. There were a good number of children in the group as well.
Sunday Times (Australia) - December 9, 2004
An army whistleblower today found some backing for his claims after a government review found Australian troops in East Timor had been cut off from top secret information.
Late today, Defence Minister Robert Hill released details of a review by Inspector General of Intelligence and Security Ian Carnell into claims by army officer Lance Collins.
Former Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security Bill Blick conducted an initial assessment of Lt Col Collins' claims that the Defence Intelligence Organisation failed to predict Indonesia's response to East Timor's move to independence, and told the government what it wanted to hear.
Lt Col Collins also accused defence intelligence officials of intentionally damaging his career by spreading malicious rumours after he upset DIO director Frank Lewincamp with his criticisms of the organisation.
There were also suggestions Mr Lewincamp's dislike of Lt Col Collins had caused the flow of intelligence to East Timor to be suspended for 24 hours.
Mr Blick's May 2003 report found Lt Col Collins' concerns were sincere, but did not stand up to objective scrutiny.
Mr Carnell was asked to conduct another inquiry into the claims after he found that Mr Blick's investigation was comprehensive but not exhaustive. Senator Hill said Mr Carnell reported to him on the matter on November 30.
"[Mr Carnell] found that access to the intelligence database had been deliberately turned off and that it wasn't the result of an instruction from the director of the Defence Intelligence Organisation (DIO) Frank Lewincamp," he said.
"He further found that there were at the time security concerns, including the need to protect certain categories of intelligence and establish reasonable limitation in the database on what particular groups of users could access, and that the short term loss of access does not seem to have been a critical deficiency in operational terms."
Senator Hill said Mr Carnell had suggested the minister seek advice from the secretary of Defence in relation to certain matters. "That advice was sought and has since been provided," he said.
Senator Hill said he could not release the November report from Mr Carnell because "for reasons of natural justice it is not appropriate to release [it] ... at this time. The secretary [of Defence] is pursuing legal and administrative issues arising from the report," he said.
A spokeswoman for Senator Hill said it was not possible to say anything further about what advice the minister had sought from the secretary of Defence or what issues had arisen from the report. She said the statement about natural justice referred to a number of persons.
Melbourne Age - December 11, 2004
Brendan Nicholson -- Troops in East Timor were allegedly told to stop filing reports on Indonesia's role in the violence there.
Australia'S intelligence watchdog is believed to have uncovered evidence that security agency officials in Canberra cut off vital information to troops in East Timor because of disagreements about the role Indonesia was playing in the violence there.
A Defence source told The Age that when Australian military intelligence officers based in Dili during the 1999 peacekeeping operation asked the Defence Intelligence Organisation to restore the flow of intelligence, they received a message telling them to stop filing reports on Indonesia's involvement. There was an implication in that message that if the officers in Dili did not comply the intelligence link would be cut again, the source said.
After a new investigation into the matter by the Inspector- General of Intelligence, Ian Carnell, Defence Minister Robert Hill is facing growing demands to reveal why the flow of vital intelligence was shut down for 24 hours.
Labor is seeking a briefing on the episode, saying it could have cost the lives of Australian soldiers. The Greens are demanding a judicial inquiry.
Senator Hill revealed on Thursday that Mr Carnell had told him on November 30 that the intelligence link had been cut on purpose, contradicting earlier assurances that the break in communications was a technical problem. It confirmed the claim made by a high- ranking army whistleblower early this year was true.
In March Lieutenant-Colonel Lance Collins, who was Australia's most senior military intelligence officer in East Timor, wrote to Prime Minister John Howard saying the intelligence flow relied on by Australian troops was shut down.
Opposition defence spokesman Robert McClelland said the Government tried to bury the information by releasing it after Parliament rose for the year to avoid scrutiny. He has written to the minister seeking a briefing.
Senator Hill said he would "in due course" release an unclassified version of the report.
Australia Defence Association executive director Neil James said an investigation was needed to find out who had ordered that access be turned off and why.
"Why was this database, providing key intelligence support to an operationally deployed element of the Defence Force, turned off arbitrarily, without any apparent consultation with the intelligence staff of the deployed force, the commander of the deployed force or senior ADF commanders in Canberra," Mr James said. At the time, the force commander, Peter Cosgrove, and his staff were told that was due to a technical malfunction.
Mr James said after army communications specialists confirmed this was probably not the case, most staff in Dili believed the circuit had been shut by an arbitrary decision at the Defence Intelligence Organisation.
| Local media monitoring |
World - Bank December 1, 2004
Suara Timor Lorosa'e (STL)
The Bishop of Dili diocese, Mgr. Alberto Ricardo da Silva questions whether Timorese communities are able to guarantee peace, justice and cooperation among them when the UNMISET (United Nations Mission Support for East Timor) mission finishes on May 20th 2005.
In the same article he also questions the human resource of the Timorese as the nation has just achieved its independence on May 20, 2002. He noted that the country still needs international assistance in development areas, such as financial facility, education, health and road and bridge rehabilitation.
With the above concerns, the bishop wants the UNIMSET mission to be withdrawn phase-by-phase in order to provide further assistance in those areas mentioned.
The president of the National Parliament, Mr. Fransisco Guterres alias Lu-Olo said that the parliament through a temporary commission conducted a debate on Monday, November 29th to define concrete data in order to establish the law about ex-combatants and veterans Falintil.
Mr. Guterres said that the debate was based on an evaluation report sent to the president by the commission. He also said that the law is to regulate the ex-combatants and veterans as well as to recognize the value of their works made in the past.
The World is celebrating the AIDS Day today, December 1 and everyone pays attention to those who suffer from the disease in every country including Timor-Leste.
The Dili Health District Department (DSSD) conducted a seminar on HIV/AIDS to communities on Friday, November 26th, which was supported by UNICEF, said the head of Health District Department, Mr. Oscar Abel. The title was 'HIV/AIDS Workshop to Share Information to the Dili District Communities'. He added that the aim of the seminar is to publicize information about HIV/AIDS and the dangers caused by the virus.
Mr. Leonel de Jeszs Carvalho, the district administrator of Bobonaro noted that the budget for development is still low, and therefore he asks his communities to be aware of it and not expect the government to finance or support works, which can be locally done by them. He also said that in order to achieve proper development in all sectors in the districts, there has to be cooperation between the communities, local leaders, and all departments that exist at the district level.
The district and sub-district electricity manager, Mr. Domingos Bonaparte Soares, said that at least 27 generators, which have been donated and distributed to the 13 districts, are having problems or are broken. He said that in order to overcome these problems he request each district to clarify and give details of their issues.
He also said that the Energy Department is independent, and he advised each of the district department head to report to the district department when any serious damage had been found. This report is to consider any further action that can be taken to resolve the relevant issues. Timor Post
Two members of the National Parliament from the Fretilin Party, Mr. Joaquim do Santos and Ms. Cipriana Ferreira requested that Parliament rehabilitate roads in Dili, especially the main roads in the Becusse and Manuleu areas. They urged this program to be carried out by the Ministry of Public Works. The rehabilitation is to prevent traffic congestion during the rainy season.
The President of Timor Leste, Mr. Xanana Gusmao begins an official visit to America this weekend to meet Secretary of State Designate Condolezza Rice and the heads of international financial institutions, an official said. He also plans to meet with the directors of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, said an official in the President?s Office. He will also receive W. Averell Harriman Democracy Award from the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
The award is to recognize his pivotal role in the organization of Dili's 1999 independence ballot and his continuing efforts to consolidate democracy in the country, said the official. Mr. Xanana will return to Timor Leste on December 12, via Japan to attend meetings with Japanese prime Minister, Mr. Enzo Koizumi and Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura, the official added.
[David de Araujo Receptionist World Bank, Dili Office.]
World Bank - December 2, 2004
Timor Post
Smuggling of goods such as vehicles and medicinal supplies from West Timor to Timor-Leste is becoming a growing problem, say National Parliamentarians. Drugs or other banned medicines could also be smuggled into the country, said Mr. Rui Menezes, a National Parliament member from Democratic Party and Mr. Manuel Tilman from KOTA party.
Mr. Menezes noted that the above practice is a consequence of the fact that there is no open market established in the border town of Motain according to a previous agreement signed by Timor-Leste and Indonesia. In order to overcome the above practice, an open market should be constructed in Motain and PNTL (National Police of Timor ? Leste) ought to enhance their patrolling activity along the border, recommended Mr. Menezes.
Mr. Manuel Tilman, the head of KOTA party, sent a press release to the Timor Post expressing his concerns over the conclusion of the UNMISET mission in Timor-Leste. In the press release, Mr. Tilman requests the National Parliament prolongs the mission after its ends on May 20 2005.
Mr. Tilman noted that the reason for his request was the continued need for further assistance by government institutions, such as the National Parliament, the Ministry of Planning and Finance, BPA (Banking and Payments Authority), F-FDTL (Timor- Leste Defense Force), PNTL (Timor- Leste National Police) and others.
The community of Becora (a suco in Western Dili) are worried about the lack of power, as it has been off for five days especially in Akadiru-Hun area. The paper said that it really affects community's daily activities. Mr. Inacio de Jesus Leite, director of the Electricity Department, said that they have a technical problem, which will be resolved soon.
The heavy rain on November 30 caused floods in Manleuana (a part of Dili), damaging five resident's houses and also resulted in the disappearance of belongings and animals, said residents Faustino Pereira and Gaspar Pereira. Since the rains occurred assistance has been extended by many, such as schools, churches and neighbors.
Ms. Teodorozia Magalaens Soares, a market vendor, said that customers tend to purchase more local eggs than those imported from abroad. Ms. Soares noted that she provides two types of eggs in her kiosk, but most of her customers prefer local eggs because they are cheaper than imported ones.
The Special Representative of the General Secretary, Dr. Sukehiro Hasegawa attended an event organized as part of a series of activities organized by the Ministry of Health, UNMISET, UN agencies and international non-governmental organizations to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS at the national level.
Mr. Hasegawa noted that although Timor-Leste does not have a high prevalence rate, they should find and adopt suitable prevention programs on HIV/AIDS. He added that the celebration this year was focused on raising awareness about the many issues facing women and girls living with HIV/AIDS.
Suara Timor Lorosa'e (STL)
Japan is now known as the top donor country for Timor-Leste based on data collected from the embassy in an interview conducted with the Japanese ambassador on the celebration of the 50th year of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA).
Mr. Hideaki Asahi noted that Japan has contributed $300,000,000 to the development in the country allocated for PKF (Peace Keeping Force) since Interfet. He added that Japan is happy to continue providing assistance to Timor-Leste in the future and it does not have any ambition or any other expectations regarding the support it provides.
[David de Araujo Receptionist World Bank, Dili Office.]
World Bank - December 3, 2004
Suara Timor Lorosa'e (STL)
The World Bank has announced the debarment for up to three years of four individuals and four companies for fraudulent practices in relation to the Bank-administered Emergency School Readiness Project (ERSP) in Timor-Leste.
Inspector General Mariano Lopes da Cruz stated that if found guilty the four companies -- Arafura Projects and Consultancy, UD Sinar Gunung Nona, PT Amazonas and CV Uaimori -- were right to be punished.
Mariano explained that the WB-administered ERSP tender was conducted during the UNTAET administration in September 2000. Five companies participated in the tender meeting but only four (Arafura Projects and Consultancy, UD Sinar Gunung Nona, PT Amazonas and CV Uaimori) submitted their bids.
He also stated that in the tender process, they conducted a meeting with Rob Foster, director of APAC, and discussed the prices for school equipments such as chairs and desks. The four companies reached an agreement about prices for the items. Foster got the tender and did not share it with the other three companies. Later, one of the companies reported corruption in the tender process.
A World Bank team conducted an investigation and confirmed that the four companies were implicated in the case, which led to the cancellation of the tender process. The Bank restarted the tender process in cooperation with the Coordinator for Education, Culture, Youth and Sports Fr. Filomeno, and awarded it to Timorese carpentries in every district to produce the items. Joco Alves, who currently is the Secretary of State for Water and Sanitation, led the project.
Mariano finally stated that companies should not be corrupt, as this attitude will destroy their image. He also declared that the Office of the Inspector General had also conducted an investigation.
The Ministry of Health (MoH) released the total number of HIV/AIDS cases to the public based on data collected, which indicates that 5 out of the 24 HIV/AIDS cases in Timor-Leste have resulted in death, said Mr. Feliciano Pinto, an official in the Ministry. Mr. Pinto noted that to help prevent the spreading of the virus, the Ministry is cooperating with both international and local NGOs to distribute information on HIV/AIDS and its dangers.
The government has established a regulation which was promulgated on November 2nd, to regulate water billing in the country, said Mr. Egidio de Jesus, the State Secretary of Electricity and Water. Mr. Egidio said that the regulation was not added to raise government revenues, but to educate the communities on how to use water in the most economical ways. He added that the regulation states prices for domestic, public and group usage of water. For domestic use the price is $0.20/1000 liters, for group use it is $0.10/1000 liters and for restaurants it is $0.50/1000 liters.
Timor Post
The Falintil Commander of Timor-Leste Defense Force, General Brigadier Taur Matan Ruak said that he is optimistic about the security system in Timor-Leste after UNMISET withdraws on May 20, 2005. He was responding to concerns from the church leader, Bishop Alberto Ricardo who said that Timor-Leste is not ready to stand alone without UNMISET assistance.
Mr. Taur said that it is the time for the country to learn both to be independent and not depend on outside support. He also said that the nation will remain secure as long as people cooperate and understand each other.
The Minister of State Administration, Ms. Ana Pessoa and the State Secretary of Parliamentary Issue, Mr. Antoninho Bianco presented a demonstration law to the National Parliament, December 2nd to be approved as a permanent law. The law limits the distance of demonstrators to approach any important buildings to 500 meters away. Certain parties complained that the above article limited the population from expressing their opinions and may lead to future instability in Timor-Leste.
Information release
On the 3rd of December 2004, at 9.00 am, the Prime Minister and The President of the Court of Appeal in coordination with the Prosecutor General, are promoting a clarification session on Rules of Detention and Pretrial Detention in the Judicial Training Center. All judicial operators (national and internationals) have been invited to attend.
The objective of this session, is to discuss and to improve coordination amongst all actors that play a role and intervene in the process of initiating, deciding and executing measures of detention and pre trial detention, in order to ensure that these decisions are made in agreement to the law and the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution.
The need to strengthen the capacity of the justice sector to handle pretrial detention was identified already during the joint evaluation mission (MoJ/UNDP) of the justice sector that was held in 2002. This coordinated national initiative will promote the effective handling of pre-trial detention cases.
Rules of detention and pre-trial detention have already been identified as vital subjects to be included in the training curriculum for magistrates and public defenders in 2005 being supported by UNDP and other partners under the project "Strengthening the Justice System in Timor-Leste"
[David de Araujo Receptionist World Bank, Dili Office.]
UNMISET - December 20, 2004
Timor's cabinet approves new petroleum law
Timor-Leste's cabinet has passed a landmark petroleum law opening the door to foreign companies seeking oil and gas exploration licences and will create millions of dollars in revenue for the impoverished nation. A statement released by Timor's Cabinet said the legislation will allow international energy firms to begin exploring the tiny Southeast Asian nation's on and offshore oil and gas reserves. Timor-Leste's Secretary of State, Gregorio de Sousa, said the legal framework, which will be endorsed by Parliament in the next few weeks, would create a transparent, competitive and stable model for the development of the nation's resources. Timor-Leste, one of Asia's poorest nations, is looking to the energy sector as its major source of income with potentially billions of dollars of revenue available. (AFP, Lusa)
Serious Crimes Unit issues 4 indictments
The Serious Crimes Unit filed its final four indictments, charging 14 individuals with Crimes Against Humanity. The four indictments resulted from the recent completion of investigations in the districts of Ermera, Ainaro and Manufahi and include TNI and former militia commanders, all of whom are believed to be currently residing outside Timor-Leste. (SCU)
Horta and Wirayudha to present 'Commission' to UN chief
The Foreign Ministers of Timor-Leste and Indonesia, Jose Ramos Horta and Hassan Wirayudha, are scheduled to present the "Truth and Friendship Commission" to United Nation Secretary General, Kofi Annan, tomorrow, reported STL. According to the report, Minister Ramos-Horta left for Jakarta on 19 December in order to travel to New York with his Indonesian counterpart Minister Wirayudha. It was reported last week that Timor-Leste and Indonesia reached an agreement to establish the 'Truth and Friendship Commission', which is aimed at reconsidering the killings of Timorese in 1999. The announcement was made following a meeting between President Gusmco and President Susilo Bambang Yudohyono, in Bali last Tuesday. (STL)
Martins: F-FDTL and PNTL incident is under investigation
PNTL Commissioner, Paulo Martins, told media that the dispute between PNTL and F-FDTL officers on December 16 is currently under investigation. Mr Martins that police have investigated two persons in relation to the recent fighting. The result of the investigation, Martins added, would be announced to the public soon.
Meanwhile, Vice President of National Parliament's Commission B in charge of Security Affairs, Clementino dos Reis do Amaral, stated that the investigation should take into account the level of involvement of the persons engaged in the fighting. If they were involved only once in such incidents, he said, they should be heavily punished but if it was twice or a third time, they should be completely dismissed from the military and police services. "There are still many people wanting to become members of F-FDTL and PNTL," argued Do Amaral.
In other news, Prime Minister Alkatiri said FDTL and PNTL need to be adequately equipped following the withdrawal of the UN next year to ensure stability and security in Timor-Leste. Dr Alkatiri said apart from the capacity building training that is given to PNTL and F-FDTL, there are still many shortfalls in the areas of investigation, immigration, maritime as well as intelligence. He also added that PNTL and F-FDTL need to be trained in a variety of areas. (STL, Timor Post)
Lere Anan Timor: Police should avoid to hit people
Chief of Staff of Falintil-FDTL, Colonel Lere Anan Timor, told the media last week that police should not hit people when they are apprehending them. He urged them to learn more about the existing regulations and human rights so that they could act in accordance with norms and become more professional. In addition, Anan Timor said the police should get more training as provided through the assistance of Timor-Leste's development partners.
Commenting on the recent fighting between PNTL and F-FDTL members, Anan Timor said that the leadership of the two institutions should take strong measures against those who were involved in the incidents. (Timor Post)
Council approves proposed bill defence and security
The Council of Ministers last Thursday approved the proposed bill on Superior Council of Defence and Security, presented by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri. The bill defines the attribution and competence as well as the structure and the function of the Consultative Body for the President of the Republic. It would be soon submitted to the National Parliament for consideration. (Timor Post)
70 Houses were Burnt in Tuapukan
Seventy houses were burnt down at the Tuapukan refugee camp in West Timor due to an explosion caused by a gas canister that was not turned off when the owner left the house. It is estimated that USD 7000 worth of property was lost to Timorese refugees living in the camp. (STL)
[Compiled by the Public Information Office from national and international sources.]
UNMISET - December 21, 2004
Dili and Jakarta attempt to resolve border issue
Teams from Timor-Leste and Indonesia will meet this week in an attempt to resolve a "border dispute". Officials from Dili and Jakarta will gather on the Indonesia resort island of Bali, where Timor-Leste's President Xanana Gusmao last week met his counterpart Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for the first time since the Indonesian leader took office. A statement issued by Dili says the two sides have now agreed on the demarcation of 93 percent of their border and are close to settling the final stretch. Timor- Leste broke away from Jakarta rule in 1999, following a vote on independence marred by violence carried out by the Indonesian military and pro-Jakarta militias, in which more than 1,400 people were killed. (AFP, ABC)
Annan urged to support justice for Timor-Leste
The International Federation for East Timor (IFET) urged the Secretary-General to establish a Commission of Experts to investigate whether the perpetrators of serious crimes committed in Timor-Leste have been brought justice. IFET wrote to Secretary-General Kofi Annan, "to encourage [him] immediately to appoint a Commission of Experts to continue the international community's unfulfilled task of ensuring justice for crimes against humanity committed in Timor-Leste during the Indonesian occupation".
The letter states that the UN Secretary-General is scheduled to meet the Foreign Ministers of Timor-Leste and Indonesia this afternoon to discuss a plan by the two countries to form a joint Commission on Truth and Friendship. "Names have been named; truth has been reported. What remains is to bring the perpetrators to justice," IFET argues in its letter. (East Timor Action Network) Council urges Government to 'come to table' on Timor Sea
The Australian Catholic Social Justice Council (ACSJC) has called on the Australian Government to do all in its power to ensure Timor-Leste has early access to revenues from the oil and gas resources of the Timor Sea. The Timor Sea dispute comprises a number of boundary issues but the most immediate relates to the Greater Sunrise oil and gas fields. At stake is the development of billions of dollars worth of revenue. A reasonable share of this revenue is desperately needed to secure the economic viability and sustainable development of Timor-Leste. ACSJC Chair Bishop Saunders said, "A rich nation like Australia can endure delays in these negotiations. Timor-Leste cannot". Bishop Saunders pointed out that Timor is among the poorest nations of the world, and the Timor Sea is the "only resource available to Timor-Leste to provide adequately for its growing population." (Catholic News)
Downer says Australia's intervention in Timor difficult
After nearly nine years in the job, Australia's Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, has pointed to Australia's intervention in Timor-Leste as the most difficult decision made during his time in the job. Mr Downer today became the country's longest-serving Foreign Minister, surpassing Richard Casey's term in the government of Sir Robert Menzies in the 1950s and 1960s. He says that while the decision to become involved in Iraq was also challenging, it was not as tough as putting Australia forward as the main player involved in Timor Leste's struggle for independence, "that obviously lead to a very significant deterioration in our relationship with Indonesia and we knew that would happen and it involved quite a lot of risks as well so I think that's probably been the most difficult and the decision about Iraq was a very difficult decision but the involvement by Australia in that operation was much smaller than in Timor- Leste." (ABC)
Prime Minister: Christmas strengthens national unity
Addressing his Christmas message to the nation on Monday, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said that Christmas was a time to strengthen national unity.
"To do so, there is a need to consolidate first the democracy. In so doing, we will also strengthen the stability so that each of us will work and contribute for the development," Alkatiri added. Moreover, the Prime Minister said that the Catholic Church and the State should continue working together in order to maintain social solidarity and become an invaluable essence for national independence. "We have hope that the Catholic Church can become a great element for our national unity," he said, and further added that the stability of the nation during this Christmas was much better, stating that it was the first time where all of the security power was with the State of Timor-Leste. (Timor Post, STL)
Martins: PNTL and F-FDTL have solid cooperation
PNTL Commissioner, Paulo de Fatima Martins, said that despite the Becora incident on December 16 and other frequent incidents that have involved officers from F-FDTL and PNTL, both security agencies still maintain solid relations. Furthermore, both agencies are currently sharing information in investigating the recent incidents. He confirmed further that the agencies are studying the results of the investigation in order to determine how many personnel of each respective institution have been involved in the incidents.
In two separate articles, Members of the National Parliament, Jose Manuel Fernandes and Antonio Ximenes, have expressed their concern over the dispute between F-FDTL and PNTL. MP Fernandes stated that PNTL officers should fully understand their duties as members of a law enforcement institution. He urged PNTL members to act in accordance with the mission or the vision the institution has entrusted upon them. MP Antonio Ximenes suggested that due to the frequent incidents between PNTL and F-FDTL, a military police unit should be established to control both security agencies as well as to promote discipline and to guard against future incidents between the agencies. (STL)
Ximenes: Don't use violence to guarantee stability
Commenting on the recent fighting between PNTL and F-FDTL members, Head of Civilian Security David Diaz Ximenes said on Monday that violence should not be used to guarantee the stability of the nation. "Violence will only produce false stability. Timor-Leste needs true stability in order to develop itself for the future," Ximenes said. In addition, Ximenes said the two security forces should recognise what their positions are, adding that F-FDTL should not consider itself as in the past as the supreme command of the struggle in the jungle. According to Ximenes, strategic positions in PNTL and F-FDTL should not be given to those who were the product of reconciliation but primarily to those of the resistance whose nationalism and patriotism for this country is no longer questionable, and this can synchronize the two institutions. (Timor Post)
Ximenes: Timor-Leste should establish military police
Christian Democratic Party (PDC) Representative Antonio Ximenes told the media on Monday that there is a need for Timor-Leste as a country that has recently attained independence to establish military police in order to control its two security agencies, PNTL and F-FDTL. "If there is no military police, problems that arise such as the ones between PNTL and F-FDTL, who is going to apprehend them?" Ximenes argued. Ximenes further stated that the establishment of military police should be more important in Timor-Leste rather than the special police units as created by the Government. Meanwhile, commenting on the Provedor on Human Rights, Ximenes said it is very important for Timor-Leste to quickly have one. Therefore, his party has nominated two candidates for the post, which would be publicly announced today. (STL)
Timor's leaders say CPLP not backing spread of Portuguese language Timor-Leste's heads of government and state have accused the Community of Portuguese speaking Countries (CPLP) of not making sufficient efforts to promote the Portuguese language in the new nation. Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and President Xanana Gusmco were speaking Sunday at a ceremony marking the first anniversary of Timor's only Portuguese newspaper, Semanario. Alkatiri said the CPLP would only gain by backing Portuguese in Timor. Portuguese and Tetum are Timor's two official languages. Bahasa Indonesia and English are also spoken in the young nation. "The CPLP must realise that a success for the choice of Portuguese in Timor will mean the bloc's own success", said Alkatiri. (Lusa)
Minister of Interior to ensure human rights protected
21 December 2004: The Minister of Interior, Rogerio Lobato, yesterday inaugurated a four-day training workshop focussing on the investigative capabilities of Timor-Leste's National Police Service (PNTL), calling on PNTL Officers to ensure that the human rights of suspects and the general community are fully protected.
The workshop is expected to train PNTL trainers who in turn will disseminate the best practices in their regions.
During his address, Minister Lobato told the 72 Police Officers taking part in the Skill Development Plan workshop that as well as making sure that the human rights of all are protected, Police Officers are also responsible for ensuring that all investigations are carried out in an effective and efficient manner and in accordance with the rule of law.
The Minister stressed that the compliance of PNTL Officers with all legal formalities in the course of their investigations, such as proper gathering of evidence and its presentation to the courts, obtaining arrest warrants from the judicial authorities and presenting suspects before an investigating judges within 72 hours of arrest, to ensure an effective outcome when the suspect is presented before the Courts.
Minister Lobato called on the participants to acquire and take advantage of the knowledge and skills of United Nations Police (UNPOL) Technical Advisers, and to effectively imbibe the best practices. He also emphasized that PNTL must be a learning organization and all PNTL Officers must continuously endeavour to acquire new skills and capabilities and to develop existing capacities.
The Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Timor-Leste, Mr. Atul Khare, welcomed the comments of Minister Lobato, stating that it is imperative that the investigative capability within the National Police Service fully guarantees that the human rights of suspects are respected and upheld at all times.
Earlier, speaking at the same function, DSRSG Khare also called upon all UNPOL Technical Advisers to continue to demonstrate highest cultural sensitivity towards the Timorese people and their institutions so that the best practices being imparted to the PNTL Officers could be effectively internalised and institutionalised.
The PNTL Officers specialising in investigations, who are taking part in the workshop, are being assisted by United Nations Police Technical Advisers to undertake specific training in areas such as crime scene examination, case preparation, legal procedure and domestic violence. The 72 Police Officers are from all 13 Districts of Timor-Leste. (UNMISET)
[Compiled by the Public Information Office from national and international sources.]
UNMISET - December 22, 2004
UNMISET provides assistance to G-RDTL
UNMISET's Transport Unit recently returned a second Fire Truck to the President Nicolau Lobato International Airport, upon completion of major repairs. Both Fire Trucks currently stationed at the airport have been repaired by UNMISET and are now fully operational. The Fire Trucks are the only back-up fire-fighting vehicles available for the airport in case of emergency.
The Fire Truck was in extremely dire mechanical condition, with most essential components in disrepair. With a dedicated team working almost around-the-clock, and at a total cost of approximately US $3,600 to UNMISET, repairs on the Fire Truck were completed this week. SRSG Hasegawa and DSRSG Khare have expressed their deep appreciation to Mr. Vienneau, Officer-in Charge and the staff of the Transport Unit for their outstanding efforts and commitment to ensuring the hasty repair of the Fire Trucks.
'La Sama' - Corruption should be eradicated
President of the Democratic Party (PD) Fernando Araujo "La Sama" told the media on Tuesday that the existing institutions in power have not provided guarantees to the people on how to combat corruption. "If corruption continues to increase, it will affect the lives of ordinary people," said La Sama. Since corruption was so widely spread in Timor-Leste, La Sama said, it is the concern of all people. He added that corruption should be eradicated in Timor-Leste. (Timor Post)
PSD will not participate in Suco chief elections
President of the Social Democratic Party (PSD) Mario Viegas Carrascalao, stated on Tuesday that his party would not participate in Suco elections because there were manipulations attempting to create a mono-party system. However, he said, the sympathizers of PSD were given the freedom to choose those they find suitable for the post.
Assessing the situation of Timor-Leste as a whole during 2004, Carrascalao said the country has been peaceful and stable. But, on the other hand, Carrascalao said, things have remained stagnant so far and cited examples of the Office of President, which has not been running efficiently due to the lack of support from the Council of State, which is yet to be created. On the part of judiciary, Carrascalao noticed that the institution does not really have the capacity to tackle all the cases. Carrascalao also added that the Prosecutor General has not been firm enough to take decisions under his competence to move things forward. (Timor Post, STL)
Lu-Olo: Political statement should be based on reality
Commenting on the political statement presented by the Timorese Socialist Party (PST) on Tuesday, President of National Parliament Francisco Guterres "Lu-Olo" said that it was the right of a parliamentarian or a party bench to do so, but it should be based on the reality of social and economic life of Timor-Leste. In its statement, PST highlighted the question of corruption, collusion and nepotism. Lu-Olo further said that there was a need for the parliamentarians to really evaluate themselves before declaring any political statement; otherwise it would be merely a waste of time. (Timor Post)
PNTL members hold 'behind the door' political campaign
Three PNTL members from Covalima district are suspected to have held "behind the door" political campaigns for the opposition parties, PD and PSD. It was described further that despite their official function, the National Parliament Commission B was informed that the three PNTL members, Bendito, Juliao and Marcal, were terrorizing and intimidating local residents not to vote for Fretilin in the up-coming election due to communism. The three officers suggested to the population of Fatumea to choose either PD or PSD in the up coming elections. This incident has aroused mixed reactions among Members of the National Parliament. Some MPs condemn the act by the three PNTL officers since they have violated RDTL Constitution paragraph 147, and feel that the three officers should be suspended from their job. The report also quoted statements made by MP Rui Menezes, who suggested that a thorough investigation should be launched before making any decision concerning the three officers. (STL)
[Compiled by the Public Information Office from national and international sources.]
UNMISET - December 23, 2004
Indonesia, Timor agree on joint commission
Jakarta Indonesia and East Timor have agreed to set up a joint commission to investigate the murder and destruction surrounding the Timorese vote for independence from Indonesia in 1999. Human Rights campaigners have expressed doubts about how seriously the two countries want to look into the matter.
No one knows exactly how many people died during Jakarta's bloody campaign to intimidate the East Timorese into voting to remain part of Indonesia. The United Nations Serious Crimes Unit estimates that the number is about 1,500, but six years after the fact, Indonesia has failed to hold responsible anyone in the armed forces or their proxies in the militias.
Human rights campaigners say they are worried that in pursuit of this policy, the Timorese government will be party to another attempt by the Indonesians to whitewash the killings. The announcement of the joint commission has failed to placate rights activists. They say the government of neither country has shown any will to press for the effective prosecution of those responsible for the 1999 violence.
Joaquim Fonseca, who worked for a human rights monitoring organisation in Timor in 1999, and is now a university lecturer in the East Timorese capital Dili, has no faith in the new commission. "I don't think that is the way to go, because in any case the brief of that commission wouldn't be justice, so people should not expect it to serve justice...I don't see it as an appropriate measure to address the issue of injustice in East Timor", he said.
A number of countries, including the United States and Britain, are pushing for an international committee to review the failure of previous tribunals to assign guilt to anyone. Senior Indonesian officials have told the media the new commission is designed to head off such moves. (VOA)
Timor-Leste Alliance reaction on proposal
Timor-Leste National Alliance (ANTL) for an International Tribunal stated that the proposal by both Timor-Leste and Indonesian governments to form a "Truth and Friendship Commission" has wiped out the expectation of the victims of human rights violation in Timor-Leste to obtain justice through a legal process. ANTL states, "It seems that both the Timor-Leste and Indonesia governments want to nurture impunity and protect the perpetrators of human rights violations. It also indicates that both governments will not care about the process that is currently being undertaken by the Serious Crimes Unit, Special Panel as well as the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation. ANTL supports the UN Secretary-General's statement regarding 'no' impunity on the justice process between Indonesia and Timor- Leste. (STL)
Indonesian border security agency ready to cooperate
Indonesian Border Security Agency, Satgas Pamtas, is ready to cooperate with Timor-Leste and its security agencies in order to maintain security in the border area. The Commandant of Satgas Pamtas, Colonel Aris Setiabudi, made the above statement following his meeting with Timor-Leste's Prosecutor-General Longuinhos Monteiro and the Deputy of the National Parliament Jacob Fernandes in Atambua on Saturday, December 18th.
Colonel Setiabudi added that the Indonesian army's existence is not just to ensure the sovereignty of the two countries but also to protect the community as well as to guard against illegal activities taking place in the border areas. Colonel Setiabudi further suggested establishing a joint communication facility to foster better coordination between BPU and TNI. (STL)
Fretilin never prohibits parties to participate in elections
Speaking in his capacity as President of Fretilin, Francisco Guterres "Lu-Olo" told the media on Wednesday that Fretilin never prohibits other parties to participate in the upcoming suco chiefs and the council of sucos elections. Lu-Olo further argued that this was due to the fact that it was Fretilin, as the major party, that approved the law on political parties at the Parliament. "It is not true when some people think that it is the Fretilin which does not want other parties to participate in the elections", Lu-Olo affirmed.
Meanwhile, when assessing independence, Lu-Olo, who at this time spoke as the President of National Parliament, said that some people view independence negatively. "Some people say that during two years of independence, we have not done anything. This, I think, we seem to be too pessimistic about it. In my view, Timor-Leste will be much better compared to other nations, even though we have just gained our independence for two years". He further said that all components of the nation have the responsibility to view the process of independence as a whole, adding that in so doing, the Timorese will be able to assess it properly. (Timor Post)
UDT has no intention to put down others
After meeting with President Xanana Gusmao on Wednesday, UDT's President Joao Carrascalao told the media that his party has no intention to put down others. Even though there are a lot of things that are not running efficiently, it always wants to offer constructive contribution for the development of the country. "To develop Timor-Leste to become a prosperous nation, it is not only the work of a single political party but there should be a contribution of all political parties. Thus, the party in power should accept whatever opinions presented by the minor parties," Carrasclao stated. (Timor Post)
Christmas and New Year are times of reflection
Head of Fretilin party bench, Francisco Branco said that Christmas and New Year are times of reflection for those who have faith, and for citizens who live in the society of Timor-Leste as a nation. "When reflecting upon the past, we all feel that lots has been done but much more needs to be done. With this in mind, we need to make a great effort, we need to have solidarity and national unity in order to create stability, and a conducive atmosphere for carrying out the development of the nation," Branco said. (Timor Post)
[Compiled by the Public Information Office from national and international sources.]
UNMISET - December 27, 2004
Alliance for international tribunal letter to UNSG
In response to the governments of Timor-Leste and Indonesia to establish a Truth and Friendship Commission, members of the Timor-Leste National Alliance for International Tribunal addressed a letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The letter is in support of Annan's efforts to ensure justice for the victims of the crimes against humanity in Timor-Leste, by bringing the perpetrators to justice. (East Timor Action Network) Please access the following link for full contents of the letter: English PDF version: http://www.jsmp.minihub.org/Statements/21dec04_Alliance_timor(e).pdf
Timor-Leste should be confident of the UN
PM Alkatiri stated that the government of Timor-Leste and its people should be confident of the UN regarding the 1999 human rights violations, particularly in processing the perpetrators. The Prime Minister added that apart from the 1999 human rights violations, it is also because of UN assistance that Timor-Leste is a free and independent country. He also informed the media that the trial process against 1999 perpetrators of human rights violations is one of the main subjects that the UN and the International community are addressing. (STL)
Government does not govern according to the people's will
In assessing the work of the current Government over the last two and a half years, KOTA party Representative Clementino Amaral told the media last Thursday that the Government indeed runs its administration but it does not do so in accordance with the people's desire for quick performance.
Amaral stressed that in the political sector for example, the Government appeared to stunt the growth of other political parties. In his views, in the economic sector, there seemed to be zero progress because people continue to be poorer and poorer after independence.
Meanwhile, MP Rui Menezes of the Democratic Party said that reality shows that the Government has done something. However, Menezes said, the people at the grassroots level have not felt the presence of the Govermment's activities. He noted that the Government only explained what it would do through its open governance programme but it has not guaranteed or carried out what it offered the people. (STL)
Political parties have not carried out political education
MP Rui Menezes of the Democratic Party told the media last Thursday that political parties have not carried out political education well, effectively and efficiently at the grassroots level. This, he said, was due to the fact that each political party faces problems. They lack means to carry out their work, he added.
In another article Menezes was quoted as saying that political parties should prepare themselves not only when there are elections but they should consolidate internally by providing political education to their members.
In so doing, he said, they would understand the ideology of the party as well as its political programmes, adding that the people would understand that political difference is not a way for division but for competition in the democratic process. (STL)
[Compiled by the Public Information Office from national and international sources.]
UNMISET - December 28, 2004
Investment law should be promulgated in 2005
Vice Minister of Development and Environment Abel Ximenes was quoted as saying that the investment law should be promulgated in 2005 so that foreign investors can invest in the development of Timor-Leste, particularly in the areas of tourism and the environment. Ximenes said there is an urgent need for Timor-Leste to build its resources. "We need to train our human resources, and be prepared to welcome tourists, otherwise they will not come," Ximenes added. (Timor Post)
Timor-Leste has begun towards democracy
Speaking during Christmas Eve mass, Bishop Basilio Nascimento of Baucau Diocese stated that even though Timor-Leste is a new nation, there are positive steps being made along the road to democracy.
"We, Timorese, should assess ourselves on how to maintain our faith as Christians. We should continue to have a big heart and an open mind. We need to look into the difficulties faced by this country with deep faith," reminded Bishop Nascimento.
Moreover, the Bishop said that Christmas was not only a time to adore God but it was a time to maintain and foster the faith filled with the spirit of God. "We, Timorese Christians, should not only think we are the majority but we should maintain our tradition [of tolerance] with our faith". With this, he added, everything would flourish. (STL)
Justice sector progresses in 2004
President of Court of Appeal Claudio Ximenes told the media recently that the justice sector, especially district courts, has progressed in 2004. This, he said, had to do with the fact that in September international judges came to offer their services in all district courts.
"Until September around 600 cases in all district courts were almost settled", Ximenes said. "The process of cases has been well handled by international judges since they have good skills, and are well prepared for the job".
In addition, Ximenes also said that in 2004 there has been good progress in the training programme for lawyers. "Around 60 Timorese took part in the training, which started in September. Currently, an assessment of the training has been carried out, and the results are expected to be announced in January next year", said Ximenes. (STL)
[Compiled by the Public Information Office from national and international sources.]
UNMISET - December 29, 2004
Gusmao: Leaders should be aware of people's lives
In delivering his New Year's message to the nation on Tuesday, President Xanana Gusmao said that leaders should be aware of the lives of people, and vice versa. "We hope that in 2005, together we can continue with national development", the President said.
President Gusmao underlined three main points in assessing the situation of Timor-Leste as a whole during 2004; firstly, the fighting between PNTL and F-FDTL members, secondly, the first national census that has been carried out, and lastly, the process of elections of suco chiefs and council of sucos which is currently on-going.
On the issue of PNTL and F-FDTL, President Gusmao hoped that the two institutions would enhance their relations so that people could rely on them for stability and security of the nation.
Commenting on the national census, President Gusmao said it was an historic event, adding that it presented to the Timorese themselves and the world the living conditions in East Timor. The census would give the leaders, the President added, the data on how to change the lives of people and reduce their suffering.
President Gusmao lamented on the process of the local elections held in Oecusse and Bobonaro districts because it was only one party (FRETILIN) that participated. He hoped that other parties would take part in the elections in the other eleven districts in months to come. (Timor Post)
Parliament expresses condolences over tsunami victims
Members of Parliament from each party bench, on Tuesday, expressed condolences and solidarity over the recent tsunami victims. Representative of KOTA party Clementino Amaral stated that he felt sad when he heard the news. "As citizens of Timor-Leste as a newly independent country, which is part of the Asian region, we have no material thing to offer but our prayers, hoping that God will continue helping the souls of those who passed away during the incidents", said Amaral.
Antonio C. Machado of Fretilin party said that the expression of solidarity towards the victims was all it counted even though Timor-Leste had no money to offer. Moreover, President of National Parliament Francisco Guterres "Lu-Olo" declared that the Parliament would issue a resolution on the tragedy today, adding that it was an expression of solidarity of Timorese people as part of the members of international community. (Timor Post)
NGOs rejects Commission of Truth and Friendship
Indonesian Human Rights NGOs, such as KONTRAS, PBHI, Elsam and YLBHI have expressed their rejection against the establishment of the Commission of Truth and Friendship by the governments of Timor-Leste and Indonesia. When asked why, the coordinator of Human Rights Watch Group, Rafendi Djamin, argued that forming the commission is a compromise by both governments to deny justice for the victims of human rights violations or justice against those who are responsible for the violation of human rights. (Timor Post)
Indonesian boat enters Timor water Illegally
Los Palos PNTL Commander, Agapito da Cruz told media recently that an Indonesian boat has been reported to have entered Timor- Leste's waters illegally. When confirmed regarding the reason of the illegal entry, Commander Cruz restated that the boat and its crew had no intentions to enter Timor-Leste's water but bad weather was the cause of them entering Timor-Leste's maritime territory. A further investigation is expected to follow on the incident. (Timor Post)
Timor-Leste: The road to recovery
28 December 2004 After 25 years of repression and persecution, the tiny country of Timor-Leste is racked with poverty and in desperate need of rebuilding. John Vidal, writing for The Guardian (UK), outlines the efforts being made by Concern an International Non-Governmental Organisation, to help the Timorese stand on their own two feet. Vidal's article stresses that Timor-Leste is one of the 10 poorest in the world and has the highest birth rate. However, the country is in the process of being rebuilt on a wave of enthusiasm. (The Guardian, UK)
[Compiled by the Public Information Office from national and international sources.]
UNMISET - December 30, 2004
Alkatiri: Timor to assist Tsunami victims
Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri told media that Timor-Leste could assist neighbouring countries such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand and other countries that were affected by the recent Tsunami. PM Alkatiri made the above statement to both local and foreign media after delivering his end of year message to the country. He added that although Timor-Leste is the poorest country in the region, it does not hinder the country in expressing and extending its solidarity and condolences.
Meanwhile, President Gusmao was also reported to have expressed his condolences on the disaster and said that "it is time for Timor-Leste to return the solidarity of the international community during its independence struggle that reached the epic moment in what was called "black September 1999". (STL)
Amaral: Lobato and Martins to punish police in KKN
MP Clementino Amaral stated that he urged Interior Minister Lobato and PNTL Commissioner Martins to apply strict measures against members of PNTL who are suspected of being involved in corruption, collusion and nepotism in Liquica district. MP Amaral made the above statement following a confession by a suspect supplying illegal goods after bribing a member of PNTL. MP Amaral also stated that should the information be correct, the PNTL members involved should be punished in order to prevent other officers from following the same path. (STL)
Alkatiri: Values of democracy flourish in 2004
In delivering his New Year's message to the nation on Wednesday, Prime Minister Dr. Mari Alkatiri stated that all people understood peace, stability, and valued democracy. Therefore, during 2004, peace, stability and democracy have been firmly strengthened. Moreover, Alkatiri said that the Government has made a great effort from 2002 until 2004 in showing all populations that Timor-Leste has the ability to strengthen peace, stability and democracy.
In addition, Prime Minister said the year 2005 would be a year for the public administration itself to assess the civil servants, and for all society to assess their own work in developing Timor-Leste. He promised that from 2005 up to 2007, if all people change their mentality on how to get involved further in the process of development, Timor-Leste would be far better than other [developing] countries. (Timor Post)
Gusmao: Respect constitution when talking about Falintil
After participating in a Christmas celebration held by the Former Combatants Association (AAC), President Xanana Gusmao said that whenever talking about FALINTIL, everyone should respect Timor- Leste's Constitution. "This means that through FALINTIL, clandestine organisations were formed aimed at fighting for independence which we have achieved. With this principle, we managed in August 1999, to reap the fruit of our struggle of the previous 24 years," the President added.
According to the Constitution, the President said, there would be recognition for those who participated in the struggle for independence. "The State will honour the freedom fighters. By honouring them, we will bow to them because it was through them that we managed to attain our independence", the President further stated. (Timor Post)
Lobato: Building infrastructure important for health
Vice Minister of Health Luis Lobato said that from 2002 until 2004, his ministry had given importance to the building of infrastructure, recruitment of civil servants and legislation, and the development of human resources.
Until December 2004, Lobato said, the Ministry of Health has managed to establish 29 new health centres in 29 sub-districts, rehabilitate 36 health centres in 36 sub-districts and 9 buildings in 9 districts, the central pharmacy and ministry of health buildings, and build 98 clinics as well as 10 houses for medical doctors.
In regards to the perspectives of the Ministry of Health for the year 2005-2007, Lobato said that it would continue to make efforts in guaranteeing close access of health services for the community. (Timor Post)
[Compiled by the Public Information Office from national and international sources.]
UNMISET - December 31, 2004
Fretilin lost in Bobonaro and Oecusse district elections
The Director of Technical Secretariat for Election Administration Tomas do Rosario Cabral said that the Fretilin party lost in the local elections in both Bobonaro and Oecusse districts with a high percentage of votes, adding that the major votes were gained by the independent candidates.
Around 82% of voters, Cabral said, participated in the elections in Bobonaro district. When assessing the situation, Cabral stated that it was due to the distance and the rainy season that many voters did not cast their votes at the polling stations. Cabral added that many people have not understood the election process and therefore did not come out to vote. Moreover, Cabral said, 92% of voters exercised their right to vote in the elections in Oecusse district. (Timor Post)
Transcript of press conference by Kofi Annan at UN headquarters
Excerpt of the Press Conference referring to recent contribution from Timor-Leste:
Question: Mr. Egeland, in answer to my question about the United Nations human resources being stretched thin, perhaps, by this, the Secretary-General referred to the idea of bringing some people in. Can you flesh out what he means by that: what number of people; putting people on contract for a period of time -- what does he have in mind there, or do you have in mind?
Mr. Egeland (UN Emergency Relief Coordinator): We are overstretched. We were overstretched already with Darfur and eastern Congo. Again, also back to my frustration of the funding for good causes -- my good causes -- is in eastern Congo we have surveys saying that 1,000 people die per day from preventable disease and from humanitarian neglect. That is a tsunami every four months -- for years. We do not have enough resources. We do not, either, have enough personnel. However, I think it would be defeatist to say that, no, it is limited what we can do. In this world, everything is possible. And there are additional assets that we can and should bring on.
I lie awake at night thinking of new ways we can bring in new partners and new resources. We have a very good opportunity to bring in military and civil defence assets here, and I welcome, really, the offer of the United States and Australia and India and Singapore and many other countries of military and civil defence assets to this response to natural disaster -- because we do not have the capacities that they can bring.
So, that is one additional layer of support. If we also look at the list, it is very encouraging to see: I mean, East Timor gives $50,000. It is one of the poorest countries on the Earth. Eastern European countries are among those who now give us personnel that we sent within the first 24 hours -- the wave of experts that we call the United Nations Disaster Assessment Teams. They were not in the family before. So, yes, we can. Everything is possible if we think creatively and if we are generous as an international community. (UN News Centre)
Dili gives USD 50,000 to help quake, tsunami survivors
The government of Timor-Leste donated USD 50,000 on Thursday to help victims of the Asian tsunami. The donation by the world's newest nation, and one of Asia's poorest, was announced at a press conference by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and Foreign Minister Josi Ramos Horta.
Alkatiri said Dili could not "stand and do nothing" in the face of a "terrible tragedy that has destroyed so many lives and communities". He said the Timorese themselves had benefited from generosity during and after their bloody breakaway from Indonesian rule five years ago. An official source told Lusa that the Timorese donation was personally given by Alkatiri to the United Nations representative in Dili, Atul Khare.
It is the second time in recent months that impoverished Timor has dug deep to assist survivors of natural disasters in neighbouring countries. Dili gave USD 20,000 to the Jakarta authorities in November after an earthquake centred on the Indonesian island of Alor, which killed over 20 people. (Lusa News)
Timor donates $64,000
The impoverished, fledgling state of Timor-Leste will donate USD 50,000 ($64,600) to help the victims of the Asian tsunamis.
"As neighbours and friends we cannot stand by and do nothing", Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said in a statement. "This terrible tragedy has shattered so many lives and communities, that this is our way of saying we are here as your friends when you are in need. Our nation is poor but our spirit is strong and our people support the government of Timor-Leste in doing this, even though they have so little".
Mr Alkatiri said the people of Timor-Leste knew what it was like to be the beneficiary of generosity at times of great sufferings. "So the least we can do is to give 50,000 dollars from our small budget", he said.
Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta said the donation would be made through the UN Office of Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Timor-Leste, which separated from Indonesia following a 1999 independence vote and became a sovereign nation in 2002, has a population of about one million people and is one of the poorest nations in Asia. (AFP)
Timor-Leste donates euro 36,700
Dili -- The tiny nation of Timor-Leste said Thursday it was giving US$50,000 (euro36,700) to help relief efforts in Indonesia, a gesture that showed relations were improving with its former occupier. Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said the contribution to relief efforts following Sunday's devastating earthquake and tsunami in Indonesia's Aceh province was aimed at helping a "friend". More than 50,000 have died so far and millions of dollars have been pledged to help the recovery effort.
"As neighbours and friends, we cannot stand by and do nothing", Alkatiri told reporters. "This terrible tragedy has shattered so many lives and communities, that this is our way of saying we are here as your friend when you are in need".
East Timorese voted in 1999 to end 24 years of Indonesia rule and become independent. Indonesian troops responded by unleashing a wave of violence on the half island, killing upward of 1,500 Timorese and destroying much of the infrastructure. Ties between the neighboring countries have improved since Timor-Leste became independent in 2002. Economic relations have strengthened and both sides have resisted United Nations efforts to launch an investigation into the 1999 violence.
"I want to say to our fellow governments and our brothers and sisters, that our hearts are with you in these sad and devastating times", Alkatiri said. (AP)
Timor-Leste is donating US $50,000 to help tsunami victims
Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri says despite being one of the poorest nations on Earth, East Timor cannot stand by and do nothing for its neighbours and friends. Mr Alkatiri says the people of East Timor knew what it was like to be the beneficiary of generosity in times of suffering, and the public supports the Government's donation, even though they have so little. (ABC Radio Australia)
Alkatiri: Timor assists victims of recent tsunami
The Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, Dr. Mari Alkatiri announced that the government of Timor-Leste would collaborate closely with President Gusmco's office, the civil society, and many others who are concerned about humanitarian disasters to voluntarily assist the people of Indonesian Northern Province, Aceh.
In this regard, PM Alkatiri on behalf of the people and Government of Timor-Leste handed over a cheque for US $50,000 to the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Atul Khare, as a donation to UN OCHA to help survivors of the devastating tsunami, which struck several Asian countries on 26 December.
When asked in a Press Conference whether the assistance is a symbol of reconciliation between Indonesia and Timor-Leste, PM Alkatiri responded that it is a contribution that reflects the real condition of a poor country like Timor-Leste. He was also quoted as saying "Our nation is poor but our spirit is strong and our people support the government of Timor-Leste in doing this, even though they have so little". It was further reported that despite all the difficulties in life nowadays, Timor-Leste government has consulted with the President of the Republic and the National Parliament and decided to give its support through the UN OCHA office.
STL reports that the solidarity support does not reflect the border, ethnicity of the countries. But, it aims to assist those who are affected by the natural disaster. The US $50,000 donation marks Timor-Leste's second assistance to Indonesia after its first assistance where a US $10,000 cheque was given to the population of Alor who experienced a devastating earthquake on November 12, 2004.
The report also quoted the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jose Ramos Horta saying that Timor-Leste is trying to monitor the assistance by the International community and would try to provide a different form of assistance. (STL, the Herald Sun)
[Compiled by the Public Information Office from national and international sources.]
| Book/film reviews |
Green Left Weekly - December 15, 2004
[East Timor: Testimony. Elaine Briere. Between the Lines Books. 128 pages, 64 photographs, $56.95.]
Stephen Langford -- For people involved in East Timor's struggle, this book is a must-read. I have Elaine Briere to thank for my start in East Timor solidarity, and I am an admirer of her photography, and of her documentary on East Timor, Bitter Paradise.
Many of you will know Briere's 1974 photos of East Timor, even if her name is unfamiliar. In her work, the sense of trust between the photographer and the subject is strong. Her work is full of humanity and beauty.
Briere was devastated to hear of the bloody invasion of the place where she had made so many friends, and was involved in the solidarity movement in Canada. She went back to Timor in 2000.
A few years ago, Briere made Bitter Paradise, a film that is part autobiography, using her backpacking visit in 1974 as a starting point for a heartfelt analysis of the occupation. In the film, she goes into Jakarta offices of Canadian mining companies to interview men in suits making a mint out of the rape of Suharto's Indonesia. They tell her that East Timor should be glad to be part of such an up-and-coming country. When submitted to the Sydney Film Festival, Bitter Medicine was ignored. There have been a whole bunch of great, brave documentaries made on East Timor that have been, to use the title of one of the best of them, buried alive.
The book is only partly Briere's superb black-and-white photos of East Timor's beauty, struggle, hardship and solidarity movement. They are interspersed with marvellous essays from Noam Chomsky, Tapol's Carmel Budiardjo, Adriano de Nascimento and Charlie Scheiner and others. For people like me who like books with pictures, this is fantastic. A welcoming book, you can dive in anywhere.
In Timor, the struggle continues, as Mericio Juvinal dos Reis and Endah Pakaryaningsih write in the first essay, now for a people- centred government. The real problem is not only far away in East Timor, or in Indonesia. It is here and now in our "First World liberal democracies" that can easily be complicit in mass murder, that will support and even organise the ruthless exploitation of Indonesia, and make sure "moderate", West-approved regimes like Suharto's, with their "nation-building" murderous armies, like the TNI, stay in power until they stop following orders.
[Stephen Langford is secretary of the Australia East Timor Association (NSW).]