News & issues

East Timor's first couple: from rebels to royals

Agence France Presse - May 3, 2006

Dili – When East Timorese guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmao languished in an Indonesian jail, Australian activist and English teacher Kirsty Sword was a crucial link to his fighters and the outside world.

Sword helped smuggle illicit letters and tapes – along with paints and brushes that allowed the charismatic poet-warrior to pursue an art passion – and through their own correspondence, the pair began an unconventional love affair.

Today, Gusmao is president of the world's youngest nation, which was freed from the shackles of Indonesian occupation four years ago, and he jokingly complains that his wife gets home from work later than he does.

At his sparsely decorated office in an unlikely beige bungalow in beach-swept Dili, trim-bearded Gusmao shrugs off the significance of his place at the helm of East Timor.

"I feel myself I'm still an ordinary person. The fact of being president is only a duty, a job," he says of his largely ceremonial position, speaking in Portuguese-accented English, the language taught to him by his wife.

His wife, Sword Gusmao, has taken a break from her hectic schedule as founding director of the Alola Foundation, a women's advocacy organisation, to join him, and similarly plays down her role in the former Portuguese colony.

East Timor has no budget or office for its First Lady – despite Sword Gusmao lobbying hard to get both in 2002 – but she concedes considerable expectations do come with being married to Gusmao from the East Timorese.

"Essentially you're the mother of the nation – I mean that's what people have said to me, which is a scary thing when you're finding it difficult to be a mother to three children, let alone to a whole nation," the 40-year-old says, referring to the Gusmaos' three young sons.

Despite their modesty, the unassuming couple, who trade playful banter while also ending each other's sentences, have travelled an arduous road both to be in their marriage and their "ordinary" jobs today in East Timor.

'She was my everything'

Indonesia's iron grip on East Timor, today Asia's poorest nation, began with a United States and Australia-condoned invasion in 1975, which triggered a resistance movement that Gusmao, who turns 60 this year, quickly came to lead.

The independence movement had become active "even before the war" when Dili fell under Lisbon's rule, Gusmao points out, but the toughest times came when he spent his years in the jungle with his men, "when we were a handful of guerrillas and we tried to tell ourselves that we would win".

Gusmao achieved legendary status among his men and ordinary East Timorese in the ensuing decades when with few resources they battled Indonesia's military from East Timor's rugged hills and proved a constant thorn in their side with small-scale attacks, forcing them to be deployed right across the territory.

He was eventually captured by the Indonesian military in 1992 and sentenced to 20 years in prison, where he painted, wrote poetry and continued to help the resistance through a clandestine network with tentacles in Jakarta.

Melbourne-born Sword Gusmao, who studied Indonesian and Italian at university in her home town – where "like most young Australians" she says she first became politicised – first travelled to East Timor in 1991 as a researcher and interpreter.

Soon afterwards she based herself in Jakarta, where she worked as a teacher and began clandestine work for the East Timorese resistance.

In April 1994, she received her first letter from incarcerated Gusmao – addressed to 'Ruby Blade', her pseudonym – that led to an unconventional courtship of smuggled letters and tapes, and eventually brief face-to-face prison encounters. But in her book, Sword Gusmao describes receiving the first letter where Gusmao told her he loved her.

"I smiled to myself, feeling my cheeks flush red with the blood of pure happiness. Xanana Gusmao in love with ME? Disbelief, relief and a dull ache of longing competed for space in my brain."

They were not freely united until Gusmao was released from house arrest on September 7, 1999, three days after it was announced that more than three-quarters of the East Timorese had voted for independence in a UN-backed referendum sanctioned by Jakarta.

The result unleashed a murderous wave of violence across East Timor by the Indonesian military and the militias they backed. Some 1,400 people were murdered and 70 percent of East Timor's buildings destroyed before order began to be restored by a UN-led force.

The couple arrived in East Timor in October 1999 to begin their new life among the rubble after whirlwind diplomatic trips to Australia, the United States and Portugal teasing out the details of what independence would mean.

"Together we have faced many new challenges," Gusmao recalls of their homecoming to East Timor.

"Just imagine the destruction, not only the physical destruction but mental trauma, psychological feelings. And she was what actually I needed at that time – my lover, my assistant, my everything," he recalls.

"Everything back in 2000 because we didn't have anything!" pony- tailed Sword Gusmao interrupts. "It was multi-tasking at every level because there was no infrastructure, no human resources, no money, nothing."

"Nothing," Gusmao echoes. "She with a pair of clothes, and me with another pair of clothes..."

"... moving every month from house to house living out of suitcases," she completes the picture.

'Still he's very unable to say no to people'

After a period of United Nations stewardship, East Timor finally became the world's newest nation on May 20, 2002. A month earlier, Gusmao had been overwhelmingly elected as president, eschewing the pumpkin farming he had long said he wanted to take up in peace time.

Sword Gusmao says that their lives today now have a greater semblance of normality than back during the transitional phase.

"But to some extent also, not much has changed," she says, referring to the many competing demands on her husband's time.

"I suppose I've come, within myself, to terms with that more and I accept it more and it doesn't cause me as much anxiety as it did back in 2000."

Asked about what might cause strain in their high-profile relationship these days, Sword Gusmao is pleased to say things are much easier now she is not effectively acting as his unpaid personal assistant.

"There's not so much that annoys me about him any more because I don't have to work with him directly!" she exlaims.

Gusmao's complaint these days is that his wife often works longer hours than he does. "Sometimes I arrive at home at seven and she... And I'm not at home yet!" she finishes, as they both laugh.

But she adds: "I suppose still he's very unable to say no to people, which is both a good and a bad quality."

In her 2003 autobiography about their relationship and move to East Timor, Sword Gusmao tells of her minor frustration over him falling asleep in front of the television watching late night soccer matches.

"Oh, he still does," she says. "And this is something actually that's quite annoying, watching the soccer."

For Gusmao – and East Timor as a nation – however, soccer is "very, very important", he says, gesturing to an array of gleaming silver cups nestled on a bureau won by the national under-12 team. "You know, soccer is something that brings together people. The last world cup in Korea and Japan, it could be called a peace gathering," he says.

East Timor's team is struggling on the international circuit but, Gusmao says, "maybe in the next five years we can have a team to be proud of, a team that raises our flag in other places of the world."

'We accepted all sacrifices'

As Gusmao has transitioned from being a rebel to a statesman, a recurring theme in his work has been – like South African leader Nelson Mandela who visited him while he was in prison – reconciliation and forgiveness.

The stance has earned him some criticism from activists who argue East Timor must see those responsible for the bloodshed during Indonesia's occupation brought to justice.

A recent independent report found that at least 102,800 Timorese died as a result of the occupation, mostly of hunger and illness that resulted from policies of the Indonesian military.

Forgiveness "is important, because nobody paid us to fight for our ideas," he says. "Because we needed to be independent, we accepted all sacrifices."

He argues that looking backwards will not appropriately honour those who suffered and that justice has already been achieved with independence itself.

"The real big, great justice that we achieved was the international community recognising finally our right to self- determination," he says, adding that a Joint Commission on Truth and Friendship set up with Indonesia should provide catharsis.

"The justice that we wanted to establish is by revealing the truth," he says. Those who committed crimes "must acknowledge that it happened, and of course I believe they must apologise".

Still, progress over the past four years has been "extraordinary" in the half-island nation, he argues. "People now accept each other. What people demand is to get jobs, to get better conditions of life."

Meanwhile for Sword Gusmao, the shift from being an activist who spoke out on such issues as Indonesia's independence-minded Papua province to a First Lady could not have been easy.

"It's a lot of weighing up of the value of speaking out on things as opposed to the damage that it might cause," she explains of her position.

As for the future careers of their three sons, Gusmao is certain he would prefer not to see them become politicians. "Oh no!" he exclaims when confronted with the suggestion. "Soccer players. Or tennis players. Or businessmen – to get money!"

Sword Gusmao says it will be up to them to follow their hearts' desire but adds: "I think it may be difficult, having the life that they have and the father that they have, that at least one of them doesn't go into politics."

Gusmao's presidency wraps up in May next year, five years after East Timor was born, and he insists he will not run again. "How can I be a pumpkin farmer if I run again?" he asks.

Political/social crisis

Four Days in Dili

SBS Dateline - May 31, 2006

It is almost a week now after the arrival there of Australian peace-keepers but peace, you'd have to say, still seems a way off.

What, earlier this year, started out as basically an industrial dispute between disgruntled soldiers and the East Timorese Government, in April escalated when the armed forces split along both ethnic and political lines.

On one side, rebel soldiers from the west of the country called for the resignation of Prime Minister Dr Mari Alkatiri, while on the other, soldiers from the east remained loyal to the government. Then, last Wednesday the police force fractured and pretty soon rival mobs were slogging it out in the streets of Dili.

On the scene when the first shots were fired last week was Dateline's David O'Shea. In fact, for a while there, it seemed some of the shots were actually aimed at David.

What follows tonight is what David describes as "four dark, desperate and drama-filled days in Dili." A warning though – his report does contain graphic images of wounded, dying and dead Timorese that some of you could find confronting.

Reporter: David O'Shea

Man, sings (Translation): I am an innocent man but you burned down my home. I am suffering so much... Really suffering.

East Timor is self destructing. These are the ruins of Tasi Tolo, a suburb in the capital, Dili. What happened here four weeks ago sparked the political crisis that grips East Timor today.

On April 24, nearly 600 former soldiers marched on Dili. All were from the Loromonu people, the ethnic group based in the west of this tiny country. They'd gone on strike at the beginning of March, complaining of discrimination in the army. Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri responded by sacking the rebellious soldiers – nearly a third of the armed forces.

Soldiers, (Translation): We are ready to die to defend justice, until we get our rights back.

On April 28, groups of Loromonu youths sympathetic to the former soldiers went on a rampage through Dili. Government forces opened fire, killing five. Many of the rebel soldiers and their supporters then retreated to the suburb of Tasi Tolo. The army sealed off the suburb and shooting was heard throughout the night. The rebel soldiers say that 60 people were killed, but this has yet to be investigated. Claims of a massacre prompted the defection of 25 military police, along with their commander, Alfredo Reinaldo.

Last Tuesday my East Timorese assistant, Jose Belo, and I travelled into the hills just outside of Dili in search of Reinaldo. I'd been tipped off that the rebel commander had come to the outskirts of the capital and might agree to be interviewed.

Until today he'd been holed up 40km to the south, but in a seriously provocative act he moved his heavily armed men to this ridge overlooking Dili.

Reporter: Some people are going to be surprised or even worried that you're standing just above Dili here. People are saying that you're going to go down and attack parliament. There is lots of speculation.

Alfredo Reinaldo, rebel commander: What is my intention to attack parliament?

Reporter: I don't know.

Alfredo Reinaldo: And also why I go down to attacking Dili? If I want to attacking Dili, I attacking Dili before I left. But who I'm going to attack? I'm mostly here to defend myself from any threat, from anybody who want to harm me, and to protect the others that want to defend justice as I am here. Why I'm here? Because I want to see the justice.

In just a few hours time Alfredo Reinaldo would be labelled public enemy number one by East Timor's Prime Minister. But he told me he hoped the split in the armed forces could be resolved peacefully.

Reporter: Does this problem have a solution or is it already too late?

Alfredo Reinaldo: It's not too late, never too late for any solution. It's not too late for East Timor to have independence after 24 years. It's only that everything has to be ended at the table, by dialogue.

Part way through our interview, it starts to rain, although it doesn't seem to bother Reinaldo.

Alfredo Reinaldo: They say rain is a civilian, it doesn't wet the military.

Reporter: It's the camera I'm worried about.

We find some shelter and when we continue Reinaldo delivers an important message for Australia.

Alfredo Reinaldo: The thing is we need the support from the foreign countries, our closest neighbour, like Australia, and region, mostly, and international, from the UN. UN is still have a representative here. Because everybody here is very suspicious with what's going on and what will be end of it, because they have very ugly background, people know how to use the weapons carry weapons, they know how to shoot, how to kill and that's dangerous.

Reporter: Anything else?

Alfredo Reinaldo: Good luck.

Prophetic words – only a few minutes later Reinaldo and his men are on high alert. Government soldiers – the FFDTL – have been spotted by Reinaldo's sentries just down the road.

Alfredo Reinaldo: Function your camera. No worries.

Reporter: Tell me what's happening?

Alfredo Reinaldo: The FFDTL coming after us.

Reporter: Just now?

Alfredo Reinaldo: Yeah.

Reporter: Can you see them?

Alfredo Reinaldo: Oh, yes. There.

Reporter: How many people?

Alfredo Reinaldo, (Translation): There is three men hiding that side. One is still standing. I can see them and I think I'll take a shot.

Go away, this is the Major speaking, go away! If you don't want bloodshed, go! This is your last warning young men! Think carefully. Let's not waste our lives, we'll fight to the bitter end. This is your last warning, go home! Every one of you, go now! I'll count to ten and then that is it!

The Australian Defence Force identified Alfredo Reinaldo as a future military leader when he attended training in Canberra. Today he has a group of around 25 heavily armed men with him.

Alfredo Reinaldo, (Translation): They went that way, One got away. Four of them went that way, they went that way.

Reporter: What was happening there?

Alfredo Reinaldo: They didn't want to withdraw.

Reporter: You gave them the opportunity and they refused?

Alfredo Reinaldo: I gave them so many times. I gave them to go back, stay as they are so we can talk, we can sit and talk. We not come here to fight against them, we come here to defend the people. And yesterday they come here to shoot. We are not here to fight but they come after us. For what purpose?

Reporter: How many are there?

Alfredo Reinaldo: We don't know. They are many.

The government later said that the soldiers that Reinaldo fired on were unarmed, but within minutes they are firing back.

Alfredo Reinaldo: Be careful the grenades. They using the grenade launcher.

Reporter: Should we go?

Alfredo Reinaldo: You're not safe to go. Stay put there. You're not safe to go here. There is ammunition crossing around.

Reporter: You shot one?

Alfredo Reinaldo: I think so. He is not moving.

Reporter: Ooh, jeez.

Jose Belo, assistant: We have to get out of here.

Reporter: Where do we go, though, huh?

Jose Belo: We will be trapped here I think.

Alfredo Reinaldo, (Translation): Your head down, head down.

Are you OK?

Reporter: Yeah, I am fine. How are you?

Alfredo Reinaldo: I asked them to stop. I hope they can return where they come from. Stop shooting.

With more grenades falling around us it is time to make a dash for safety. Up further? Go up, up, yeah? Oh, no.

Reporter: Well, this seems like a pretty bad escalation. We are not really sure which way to run at the moment because I don't know my way around here. We shouldn't go with them, no? We are right in the middle of this here. This is bad.

Soldier: No worries, mate. It's OK.

Reporter: Pretty serious, though. Yeah.

I call Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta and a Member of Parliament, Leandro Issac, to ask for help. Both men had told me they'd been negotiating with Reinaldo.

Reporter: I just spoke to someone in Dili, to Leandro Issac, and he told us to call the Australian Embassy. I don't actually have the number on me. So it's a bit awkward because I don't know if they are chasing us and he said the army don't want the world to know that they are firing on Alfredo because Alfredo was organising a peaceful dialogue with Ramos Horta. And with Leandro Issac and Xanana are supposed to be scheduled in a couple of days. But it doesn't look good at the moment for that to go ahead.

You can see how close we are to Dili – it's just up on the hill behind. All of the civilians I am with here, helping us to get away, showing us the path out of here, plus Alfredo's men, are hoping this is the catalyst that brings Australian peacekeepers into East Timor.

At the moment I'm alright. I'm with three of Alfredo's guys. We're being walked away from it.

There's still sporadic gunfire going on down below. I just had a call from the Australian Embassy in Dili and they have advised us to leave Alfredo's soldiers. They're the ones that have brought us up here but they have said that we should leave them and hook up with some local villagers, go into a local village around here, just sit and wait it out. But the problem is that the local villages around here are all empty because they've all left, scared for their lives.

During our 4-hour walk to safety we're joined by dozens of refugees from nearby villages. They must have thought the days of packing up the rice pot and the bedroll were long gone. A mere six years after finally gaining independence, history seems to be repeating itself. Frightened and uncertain and once again fleeing for their lives.

Some of Reinaldo's troops come up the hill carrying an injured colleague. He later dies back at their base. It's now raining heavily and the path is turning to mud.

Man: If it's possible, we want... we ask to the UN peacekeeping force to come to East Timor to maintain the security because we have no security here.

Reporter: This is a real escalation of the problem, isn't it, a real... getting worse.

Man: Yes. Because of the stupid of the leaders. The leader of the defence force is a very stupid man. And now the situation is very bad in Dili, and we hope that peacekeeping force to come to East Timor as soon as possible to maintain the security. Thank you very much.

After four hours we finally arrive at a small hospital where the Australian Embassy has promised to send a car. While we are waiting the gunfire seems to be getting closer and I feel for the villagers that I am leaving behind. They have no friends in high places to call for help.

Travelling back to Dili, apart from the flooding it all seems quite normal, but not for long. The fighting just a few kilometres away is already spreading, ending any hopes for reconciliation.

The next morning, on Wednesday, the Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, is called to the President's office. It was later reported that President Xanana Gusmao wanted to invite foreign peacekeepers, and argued with Alkatiri, who was resisting. Later in the day both leaders issue separate orders to the army, adding to the confusion over who is in charge.

It soon becomes clear that significant numbers of police are defecting to the rebels. But United Nations police advisors refuse to discuss the unfolding crisis. General Anis Bajwa is deputy Head of the United Nations Mission here, and he's trying to figure out what's happening.

Reporter: What do you know now at the moment? What's happening?

General Anis Bajwa: I'm just here to find out. We met in the morning. Do tell me, who are you representing?

Reporter: SBS Television.

General Anis Bajwa: Was it you yesterday up in the mountains?

Reporter: Yes.

General Anis Bajwa: Oh, it was yourself? We need to talk about that. Yeah, yeah, we will. Alright. I'll get somebody to... This is a particularly difficult time for the UN.

It works closely with both the army and police, who are now engaged in open warfare.

Reporter: Is Brigadier-General Taur Matan Ruak still in control of the armed forces?

General Anis Bajwa: I am trying to call him. I don't know, he must be. I'm trying to call him. His number is busy.

Yeah.

The armed forces chief, General Taur Matan Ruak, explains he is busy leading the operations against Reinaldo.

General Anis Bajwa: OK, I will not talk to you now, I will talk to you later in the afternoon some time, OK? Yeah, Bye-bye. OK.

More gunshots. But while the army commander is fighting renegade soldiers, a few kilometres away, his own home is under attack by a different group of rebel police.

Reporter: Hello? I'm actually in the middle of a... there's a gun battle going on pretty close by. I don't know if you can hear the shots.

They're attacking... I think they're attacking the armed forces' chief's house. We've just arrived, but the shots have been ringing out now for about 20 minutes on the hills behind. I'm just seeing a car speeding down the hill now, there's an ambulance, and apparently one of the ambulances was shot at.

It's not long before government soldiers arrive and move in to defend their commander's home.

Photographer, (Translation): They are getting closer, it could be the FFDTL and Alfredo's guys or someone else, but it's a pity it's happening in a populated area.

It's 3:00 Wednesday afternoon and with the battle around the army chief's house still raging, the President has invited all the foreign ambassadors to his office. When the Indonesians arrive, I can't help but wonder what they make of the crisis in their former province.

Reporter (Translation): From the Indonesian Embassy, so how are things going? It looks as if it's worse than it was in 1999. But we can hear shooting from the General's house. Doesn't that sound serious?

Indonesian delegate, (Translation): We can hear it, we can hear the gunshots. But we don't know what's going on.

The Australians are next to arrive. Everyone here suspects the purpose of the meeting is to call for foreign peacekeepers. But when the diplomats depart half an hour later, they're not giving anything away.

Reporter: Is the meeting over, the meeting finished?

Delegate: Yeah. Just finished.

Reporter: Decision been made?

Delegate: Yeah, but maybe you should talk to them. OK, thank you.

Australia's Ambassador is no more forthcoming. A few hours later, the decision to invite peacekeepers is finally made public – Australia, New Zealand, Portugal and Malaysia all agree to send troops.

It's Thursday, two days after the fire fight in the hills, and relations between army and police have now hit an unimaginable low. An amateur cameraman filmed these police officers minutes after they were gunned down by government soldiers. They'd been under siege in police headquarters all morning, and were finally escorted out after the UN took their weapons away and guaranteed their safe passage.

Lucia Fatima Jimenez, police officer,(Translation): Young men gathered and shouted "Kill them! They are traitors." Police Officer Lucia Fatima Jimenez believed the UN could protect her from the soldiers.

Lucia Fatima Jimenez, (Translation): As we passed they swore at us and started shooting at us. Those behind us fell to the ground. We were in the middle, we immediately dived under the UN cars, but they still kept shooting at us.

24 hours after the invitation for international help, the appearance of two Australian warships is well received.

Martin Breen, lawyer: Certainly a sight for sore eyes, that ship, waiting a few days for that after today's gun battles.

Reporter: What have you been doing today?

Martin Breen: Hiding mostly inside the hotel in my office. We had quite a lot of machine gun fire around the office so this is good, it has calmed everything down so it's really great.

But the soldiers were too late to save the family who lived in this house. A woman and four of her children, aged from 3 to 14, burned to death here as the first soldiers were arriving. The house was targeted in an act of revenge. The woman who lived here was related by marriage to East Timor's Police Minister, Rogerio Lobato. Lobato comes from the west of the country, where most of the rebels are from. The mob that torched this house are from the east, and were enraged when police defected to the rebels. A deadly cycle of revenge has begun.

Timorese Woman: You know, for me, it's something that's unbelievable, why we can kill each other in one day, it's so sudden. You know, for me, it's very sad that why we're Timorese we have to fight each other. It's a big responsibility for the leaders, I think. The leaders of this country should reflect themselves, do a big reflection to, you know, why these things happen, that is not easy to govern this country. We should find a good leader to govern this country, otherwise these things will continue.

It is a tragedy that Australian peacekeepers are required once more on the streets of Dili. Foreign troops may, eventually, be able to re-establish peace. But to reunite East Timor, its leaders need to win back their people's trust and that will prove much harder.

George Negus: David O'Shea in the thick of the escalation in East Timor. As that woman in David's piece of real reality television said, "We should reflect on why these things happen." Good point! David's back safe and sound and since then, of course, chaos has reigned supreme in Dili. The Australian troops have arrived to try and stem the tide of violence and tonight President Xanana Gusmao and Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri are still arguing over who controls the armed forces. David, by the way, would like to pay a special tribute to his local Timorese assistant, Jose Bello. In fact, David went so far as to tell me he couldn't have managed without his mate Jose.

• Reporter/camera: David O'Shea
• Producer/additional CAMERA: Jose Belo
• Editors: David Potts, Nick O'Brien, Wayne Love
• Subtitling: Silvia Lemos, Ricky Onggokusumo
• Executive Producer: Mike Cary

Foreign troops occupy Dili

Green Left Weekly - May 31, 2006

Jon Lamb – In response to ongoing clashes between the East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and rebel soldiers and police, the East Timorese president, prime minister, foreign minister and speaker to the parliament sent a joint communique on the evening of May 24 to the Australian government requesting that it send troops as part of an international force to restore security.

Acting Prime Minster Peter Costello told reporters on May 24 that Australia had agreed and an advance contingent of 1300 Australian troops began landing in Dili late the following day. Defence minister Brendan Nelson commented on May 26 that Australian troops would utilise "graduated scales of force" to restore order – including lethal force – as part of the rules of engagement agreed to by East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and President Xanana Gusmao.

While posing as a helpful neighbour coming to East Timor's rescue, the Australian government has been a major source of the small nation's problems. After backing the brutal, 24-year Indonesian occupation of East Timor, Canberra's neo-colonial foreign policies – including the ongoing theft of Timor's oil – have undermined and threatened the ability of East Timor to develop since it won independence in 1999.

The clashes between the FDTL and a group of rebel soldiers began shortly after the end of the ruling party Fretilin's congress on May 19. There was an incident of rock throwing at delegates' cars late that night and reports of gunfire, but calm appeared to be restored shortly thereafter. However, a significant clash broke out on May 23, when a detachment of FDTL troops approached a well-armed group of rebel soldiers led by Major Alfredo Reinado, holed up in the hill areas near the eastern suburb of Becora. Two were killed and at least five wounded in the ensuing firefight.

Reinado, formerly with the FDTL military police, had set up a base in the hills outside Dili (near the town of Aileu) with protesters and civilians who had fled after police attacked a rowdy protest of sacked soldiers on April 28, killing five people and injuring many more. Reinado and his grouping have raised concerns over who was responsible for ordering the shooting of the protesting soldiers, known as "the petitioners". The almost 600 former FDTL soldiers were sacked in March by the head of the armed forces, Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak, when they refused to return to their barracks in protest over poor conditions and allegations of favouritism.

Prior to the May 23 clash, Reinado had stated (along with other officers leading the rebels) that he was preparing to come to Dili on May 25 to commence negotiations over their grievances and demands. Reinado and Lieutenant Gastao Salsinha, who leads the original group of striking soldiers, also requested in the week prior to the arrival of the international force, the establishment of an international commission of inquiry into the April 28 incident and the soldiers' grievances.

Over the course of May 23 and May 24, sporadic clashes continued near Becora and in the western part of Dili in Taci Tolu and the south-central suburb of Lahane, where an attack by rebel soldiers appears to have been directed at the residence of the head of the FDTL. Late on the afternoon of May 23, it was reported that a section of the well-armed police rapid response unit had defected and headed to the hill areas on the outskirts of Dili where rebel soldiers are located. A large cache of police arms was also reported missing – some 700 weapons – presumed taken by disaffected police who had gone to the hills surrounding Dili and other districts. According to Tomas Freitas from the campaign group Aluta Hamutuk, police from Baucau were also brought in by authorities to disarm police in Dili.

Rebel soldiers were also involved in skirmishes around the FDTL army base to the west of Dili on May 24. According to an article by Times journalist Rory Callinan in the May 25 Australian, up to 10 trucks of rebel soldiers were involved in the attack, prompting a naval vessel to be brought in to use heavy calibre weapons, though it was forced back under fire from rebels. Gunfire could still be heard across Dili late on the evening of May 24 and only subsided after heavy rain set in.

The situation deteriorated significantly, with intense fighting breaking out in other parts of Dili, including the centre of the city. According to the head of the UN Office in Timor-Leste (UNOTIL), Dr Sukehiro Hasegawa, the large number of arms distributed to civilians, especially youths, further complicated and intensified the situation. It also appears that tensions began to deepen between sections of the police and FDTL, with hostilities breaking out between the two institutions.

This fighting continued through to the next day, with even more intense firefights and arson attacks across many suburbs of Dili and the surrounding hills. The situation deteriorated to the point where there were at least two or more rebel army factions, joined by disaffected police, in combat with the FDTL. Well-armed civilian gangs were also engaged in fighting, roaming the suburbs and intimidating fearful locals. A situation of complete lawlessness had taken hold on the streets of Dili, with no clear chain of command in operation in either the police or the FDTL.

The most serious incident took place outside the East Timorese National Police Headquarters, which came under fire on the morning of May 25 from FDTL troops. In desperation, representatives of the 70 police trapped inside contacted the UN police based at the nearby UNOTIL compound to request assistance in negotiating with the FDTL so they could leave unarmed for the UNOTIL compound. Shortly after leaving the compound, they were fired upon by FDTL troops in what Hasegawa described to ABC Radio on May 26 as a "staged ambush". Twelve police officers died as a result, with at least 30 others wounded, including two UN police.

"It is in this circumstance, with all these armed groups operating without it being clear who they were or who they were under the direction of, that the presence of the international forces was important in restoring calm", Avelino da Silva, secretary general of the Socialist Party of Timor told Green Left Weekly.

According to Freitas, there were grave fears among progressive activists and non-government groups that the situation was out of control. "I stayed in Dili, along with other activists, to monitor the fighting and its consequences... there was so much fear amongst the people because of the different armed groups on the streets, no-one knows who is the 'enemy' or who is behind it all", he told GLW.

Freitas emphasised that while the presence of international troops had reduced tensions, he had "a message to John Howard" not to try to extract some leverage or "compensation" from the East Timorese people because the Australian government sent troops.

As the fighting abated in the centre of Dili, sporadic clashes continued in the hills. World Vision reported that armed gangs were threatening two compounds where thousands of displaced persons had gathered.

Since attaining formal independence in 1999, East Timor has been plagued with problems of chronic poverty and underdevelopment, including barely functional medical and health services in the rural areas where the majority of East Timorese live and an extreme lack of employment opportunities for East Timorese youth. These factors and other deplorable daily living conditions for the vast majority of East Timorese, the bulk of whom struggled for many years under the Indonesian military occupation, have punctured the high expectations and hopes held for their recently won freedom.

The Fretilin-led government has been unable to implement policies to deal with these issues and expectations, and at the same time has been implicated in nepotism and corruption, fuelling anger and discontent in different sectors of East Timorese society. But for all its shortcomings, the East Timorese government has had to deal with international "friends" like Australia, whose imperialist policies have prevented East Timor from developing and meeting the needs of its people.

The Australian government – from the moment war-torn East Timor began the transition to independence – pressured, bullied and hustled East Timor into giving up oil and gas resources and sovereignty over seabed territory in the Timor Sea. It has stolen wealth generated from these reserves that rightfully belongs to East Timor.

Along with the United States and Britain, Australia has formed a triumvirate of nations that have acted to block the creation of an international inquiry to bring to account the Indonesian military (TNI) officers and pro-integration militia leaders responsible for the post-referendum carnage in 1999. Now these three countries are deepening and improving military ties with the TNI, even though the TNI is continuing to conduct gross human-rights abuses in places like West Papua, just like those it carried out in East Timor.

Australia's ongoing theft of oil from the Timor Sea – combined with its long history of undermining the East Timorese nation – suggests that Australia's motivation for the current military intervention is more about shoring up a continued flow of oil than helping the East Timorese people.

East Timor defense minister fired

Associated Press - May 30, 2006

Dili – East Timor dumped its defense minister Tuesday and the government showed signs of further unraveling, as desperate residents scuffled over scarce food in the capital and looters ransacked the prosecutor's office of vast numbers of files.

The more than weeklong crisis engulfing one of the world's and youngest and poorest countries showed little sign of easing, as hundreds of foreign troops sent to help failed to secure the city against machete- and torch-wielding mobs.

One senior aid agency worker slammed the troops as "invisible" on the streets, and the East Timorese government sought to answer such criticism by announcing peacekeepers would get the power to detain suspects, not just disarm them.

During a second day emergency meetings on Tuesday, the Cabinet decided that Defense Minister Rogerio Lobato should resign or be fired, said Joao Saldanha, a Cabinet member. Further changes were expected soon.

A military rebellion spurred the country's descent into chaos.

Earlier, Jose Ramos Horta, the country's Nobel peace prize- winning foreign minister, acknowledged the government had "failed miserably" to prevent the unrest.

He directed the blame toward Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, though officials present at Tuesday's meeting told The Associated Press he would be staying for the time being.

"In some areas, particularly in political dialogue in embracing everybody, in resolving problems as they arise, well, the government has failed miserably," Ramos Horta told Australian's Nine Network. "And that's why so many people are upset with the prime minister and wish him to resign," he said.

Outside the meetings, Machete-wielding mobs torched houses and ransacked government offices, including the attorney's general where they succeeded in breaking into the Serious Crimes Unit.

Files involving all of the most prominent Indonesian defendants in the 1999 massacres that followed the East Timor's bloody vote for independence, including former Gen. Wiranto, were stolen, said Attorney General Longuinhos Monteiro. Asked if they had been specifically targeted in the looting, he replied: "We don't know."

Aid workers expressed frustration at the insecurity despite the presence of more than 1,300 foreign troops from Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia after scuffles also broke out at a warehouse being used as a food distribution center.

Australian forces are "invisible," Tim Costello, chief of World Vision, told Australian Broadcasting Corp., incensed that troops in body armor and with automatic weapons seemed unable to stop the machete-wielding gangs that have terrorized the capital.

The East Timorese government acknowledged that the Australian troops were "helpless" and said they would soon be given the power to detain suspects for 72 hours. "Otherwise they can do nothing," Monteiro said.

Justice Minister Domingos Sarmento said a contingent of 120 paramilitary police from Portugal would help bolster the foreign force. The contingent's arrival was sped up because of the latest trouble, and it is expected in the country by week's end. "Hopefully in two or three days the situation will improve," Sarmento told The Associated Press.

The violence that has engulfed the city, killing at least 27 people and wounding 100 others in the past week, was triggered by the dismissal in March of 600 soldiers from the 1,400-member army.

What started with sporadic clashes between former soldiers and government troops has spiraled into open gang warfare. The level of violence has fluctuated from day-to-day, heightening the sense of instability.

On Tuesday, sporadic fighting was reported in some parts of the city and ambulances were seen ferrying injured people to a hospital. It was not clear how many had been hurt.

At a warehouse being used as a food distribution center, Australian troops struggled to keep order as thousands of residents tussled with each other to get bags of rice.

"We need more food. The situation is terrible," said Daniel Afonso, who fled his destroyed home with his parents and four children and is staying at a church refugee center. "It is dangerous to go out looking for food and the shops are closed."

Much of the antagonism on the streets revolves around accusations, often unfounded, that one person or another harbors sympathies for Indonesia, which pulled out of East Timor after its people voted overwhelming for independence in 1999 after a 24 years of often harsh rule.

The Indonesian military and its proxy militias responded by laying waste to the region, killing 1,500 Timorese and forcing 300,000 from their homes before an Australian-led force restored order.

New range of powers for Gusmao

The Australian - May 29, 2006

Mark Dodd, Dili – East Timor President Xanana Gusmao has assumed sweeping new executive authority, invoking emergency powers under the country's constitution to help resolve the political crisis.

The move effectively marginalises East Timor's unpopular and unelected Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, who was accused of incompetence last week by Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

East Timor Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta told The Australian that Mr Gusmao would convene and chair two crucial agencies, The Supreme Council for Defence and Security and a Council of State.

"I have insisted to the cabinet that we must maintain absolute respect for the institutions of the state and that means the head of state," he said. "In matters of national security and defence he must be consulted at all times to seek his approval before decisions are made."

In its first meeting since the crisis in Dili erupted, cabinet on Saturday agreed to a proposal by Mr Ramos Horta to convene the two agencies.

The request was then delivered personally to the ailing President. Suffering chronic back and kidney pain, Mr Gusmao is living in a heavily guarded residence near the seminary town of Dare, surrounded by several hundred so-called rebel soldiers and police.

Last week, Dr Alkatiri argued furiously with Mr Gusmao against a request for Australian troops to restore order in the capital.

Dili has been racked by weeks of violent, ethnic unrest which most East Timorese blame on his Government.

Yesterday, Dr Alkatiri reiterated his claim that his administration was facing an attempted coup and, in a statement, cautioned Mr Gusmao to respect the constitution of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (East Timor).

He denied his Government had collapsed and said Saturday's full cabinet meeting had agreed to a range of measures designed to smooth co-operation between his Government and the 2200-strong Australian-led military taskforce now in the capital to restore law and order.

"We hope that this intervention puts an end to the violence that we have been going through over the last few days. This will take its time," he said.

Diplomats contacted by The Australian say Dr Alkatiri and his key Fretilin party supporters, Interior Minister Rogerio Lobato and party president Luolo, appear increasingly isolated.

Dr Alkatiri hit back at criticism of his Government by Mr Howard, who linked the turmoil in the impoverished country to poor governance. "We are now being accused of not being able to govern," he said. "I can assure that the Government will assume its responsibilities. I hope that the other sovereign institutions will do the same."

Earlier this month at a national congress of the ruling Fretilin party, Dr Alkatiri fended off a political challenge by invoking a show of hands to reconfirm his leadership. The challenger, Jose Luis Guterres, a political moderate and the former East Timor ambassador to the UN, dropped out of the contest.

Many East Timorese, including the influential Catholic Church, have expressed growing concern at the increasingly authoritarian direction of the Alkatiri Government and its inability to resolve long-festering troubles within the ranks of the armed forces.

Today, senior UN troubleshooter Ian Martin will arrive in Dili to assess the political situation and devise recommendations to help get the world's newest country back on track. Mr Martin, a local hero in East Timor for his leadership in overseeing the bloody 1999 independence ballot, will also recommend a dramatically revamped UN presence in East Timor.

Timor burns out of control

Sydney Morning Herald - May 29, 2006

Tom Allard and Mark Forbes in Dili – A humanitarian and political crisis was escalating in East Timor last night, as mobs looted government food warehouses, burnt properties and shot and bashed ethnic enemies.

The position of the fledgling nation's Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, looked increasingly precarious ahead of a crisis meeting today with his staunch critic, President Xanana Gusmao, and other political leaders.

Across Dili, anger grew at the failure of Australian troops to halt the carnage. About 30 Australian armoured personnel carriers rumbled through the city's streets, but did little to halt the violence or the mass exodus of terrified citizens. Houses and shops were set on fire as ethnic gangs ran amok, while as many as 50,000 people have now been made refugees.

Yesterday afternoon, 2000 people began raiding government warehouses to steal rice. The looting stopped only when the Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, appeared and appealed for calm – promising that food would be distributed fairly.

Speaking to reporters amid the throng, guarded by Australian special forces, Mr Ramos Horta said: "I wish I could distribute food to them but if we open the gate, they would kill each other." He said "people were on the verge of stampeding and killing each other, particularly women and children". Conditions in Dili were "horrendous", he said.

Many blame the Prime Minister for the crisis after he sacked 595 soldiers over minor grievances, sparking unrest last month. Mr Ramos Horta, viewed as a possible replacement, was asked if Mr Alkatiri should be sacked. He replied: "I am a democrat and I usually leave it to the people to decide."

The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, announced 50 police would boost the intervention force, with troop numbers growing to 2200 and continuing to swell. As trucks and busloads of United Nations staff were evacuated, the UN representative in East Timor, Sukehiro Hasegawa, said even more troops and police might be needed to restore order.

The Australian military commander, Brigadier Mick Slater, said his soldiers had started to disarm the Timorese military and police, and would strip the gangs of their weapons. "We will be disarming everybody in Dili. The only people in Dili carrying weapons will be the international forces." Brigadier Slater said his troops had confiscated at least 10 guns already and were searching for hundreds of military weapons distributed into the community.

About 1300 troops were directly engaged in security duties, the others in support roles. There were "occasional skirmishes", he said, involving gunfire between unidentified groups yesterday. "By the time we get there they are long gone." As Dili's residents continued to flee the city, its streets were almost deserted, save for Australian troops and armoured personnel carriers, who seemed almost powerless to stop the frequent arson attacks.

The Herald came across one large shop set ablaze just 200 metres from where a company of infantry was guarding another burnt-down shop and a fallen power line. It was not until 10 minutes later, as flames exploded, that the troops moved to secure the area around that blaze.

An angry man confronted reporters on the main road. "Australian soldiers have to do something ... They look and do nothing. Where is the protection?"

Residents fled to embassies, the airport, religious missions and the compounds of non-government organisations amid rumours that rebel soldiers were preparing to come down from the hills and into the city. All shops are closed and aid agencies such as World Vision have been unable to deliver food and water to refugee camps.

Parliament could be recalled for an emergency session today.

Portugal's Foreign Minister, Diogo Freitas de Amaral, attacked Mr Howard's claim that its former colony had been badly governed. "We consider this an interference in the internal affairs of East Timor," he said.

Howard slammed for Timor remarks

Agence France Presse - May 28, 2006

Washington – A US-based pressure group has warned Australia that its invited military intervention in East Timor to quell unrest did not entitle it to interfere in the country's government.

The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network said it was concerned about the situation in East Timor, where the government, with the stated support of rebel leaders, requested the deployment of foreign forces to stem escalating violence.

"Timor-Leste must find ways, with respectful support from the international community, to deal with problems in a manner that will not require troops," ETAN said.

"Statements by Australian government leaders that providing security assistance entitles them to influence over Timor-Leste's government are undemocratic, paternalistic, and unhelpful. Who governs Timor-Leste is a decision to be made by its people within its constitution," the non-governmental organisation (NGO) said in a statement.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Friday said that East Timor, where Canberra has ordered 1,300 soldiers to be sent to help quell a military rebellion, has a "significant governance problem."

"If things get out of control, and they clearly have, and outside help is needed, then those who provide the outside help are entitled to ask those who they are helping, 'Will you make sure that you run the country in future in a way that this doesn't allow this to happen,"' he said.

ETAN blamed Australia for much of the problems in the tiny fledgling country, which gained independence from Indonesia in 1999.

"Australia bears special responsibility for Timor's underdevelopment by refusing to return revenues, totalling billions of dollars, from the disputed petroleum fields in the Timor Sea, including Laminaria-Corallina, and by bullying Timor- Leste into forsaking revenues that should rightfully belong to it under current international law and practice," the NGO said.

"Australia should not view its current assistance to Timor-Leste as a favour, to be repaid, but instead as a partial repayment for the debt Australia owes the Timorese people for its help during WW (World War) II and for Australia's deep complicity in Indonesia's invasion and occupation."

The NGO's remarks echoed those of Portugal's foreign minister, Diogo Freitas de Amaral, who rapped the Australian prime minister for criticizing the authorities in East Timor, which Lisbon ruled for four centuries.

"We consider this an interference in the internal affairs of East Timor and ... we disagree with this kind of statement by foreign countries," said the Portuguese minister as new violence rocked the poverty-stricken country's capital Dili.

Portugal has ordered 120 troops to help put down the violence in East Timor, which Lisbon turned over to Indonesia in 1975.

East Timor violence part of coup plot

Associated Press - May 27, 2006

Anthony Deutsch, Dili – East Timor's capital descended into chaos Saturday as rival gangs set houses on fire and attacked each other with machetes and spears, defying international peacekeepers patrolling in armed vehicles and combat helicopters. The prime minister said a coup attempt was underway.

"What is in motion is an attempt to stage a coup d'etat," Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri told a news conference, as fires raged across the city and terrified residents fled or hid in their homes.

Minutes earlier, Australians troops disarmed up to 40 machete- wielding gang members who had threatened to storm the hotel where the news conference was about to he held.

The Australian troops, who answered an emergency call from the fledgling country's government two days ago, patrolled the city in armored personnel carriers and tanks, and blackhawk helicopters thundered overhead.

Mobs rampaged regardless, and sporadic gunfire was heard in various parts of the city. It wasn't immediately clear if foreign troops engaged in shooting battles.

On Saturday morning, young men armed with slingshots and rocks targeted what they believed were the homes of soldiers who assisted Indonesian army militias responsible for deadly violence that accompanied Indonesia's withdrawal from East Timor in 1999.

The gang members, many of them in their teens, smashed windows and set houses ablaze. Black smoke clouded the sky above the city. Thousands of frightened and panicked residents loaded provisions onto trucks and cars and fled to embassies, churches and nearby villages.

The number of casualties from Saturday's violence wasn't known, but several ambulances raced through the streets with sirens blaring and gangs clashed in several areas of town.

The violence, triggered by the March firing of 600 disgruntled soldiers – nearly half the 1,400-member army – is the most serious crisis East Timor has faced since it broke from Indonesian rule in 1999.

The impoverished nation received millions of dollars in international aid over the last seven years, much of it focused on building up the military.

After staging deadly riots last month, the sacked troops fled the seaside capital, Dili, setting up positions in the surrounding hills and threatening guerrilla war if they were not reinstated.

They started ambushing soldiers in the capital Tuesday, sparking days of pitched gunbattles with the military that have so far killed 23 people.

The dispute, fueled by simmering tensions in a nation divided along east-west lines, has also drawn in ordinary citizens, some frustrated by poverty and unemployment. Bands of angry youths were picking up arms, some, it appeared to settle old scores.

A mob torched the house of a government minister, killing five children and an adult whose charred bodies were found Friday. Ten unarmed police also were gunned down by soldiers as they left their headquarters in downtown Dili under UN escort on Thursday.

East Timor's government asked for international help, saying it could not control the situation, and hundreds of Australian troops have already arrived. New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal have also agreed to help, with some advance forces already on the ground.

Civilian militias roamed neighborhoods in southern Dili early Saturday, throwing rocks through the windows of the small, tin- roofed houses and setting them on fire.

Two Australian tanks moved into the neighborhood, Blackhawk helicopters hovering overhead, and scores of heavily armed troops patrolled the streets.

Houses were set alight in other parts of town as well. Several motorcycles abandoned on roads were also smoldering after being set ablaze.

In the neighborhood of Suke Mas, Australian soldiers rounded up two to three dozen civilians armed with machetes, spears and other handheld weapons, questioning them and searching vehicles.

"There is no solution," priest Jose Antonio said at a church where hundreds of people have sought shelter. Hatred between the warring factions runs long and deep, he said, "and this is an opportunity for revenge."

The dismissed soldiers are largely from the country's west, while the military's leadership originates from the east.

Many of the renegade soldiers are viewed as having been sympathetic to Indonesia when its former province was fighting for independence, said Damien Kingsbury, an Australian academic and expert on Indonesia and East Timor.

They claim they were denied promotions and coveted assignments, because of discrimination in the armed forces.

Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta said Friday he believed the issues that triggered the violence were "still capable of resolution."

Ethnic tensions see increasing violence between east and west

Sydney Morning Herald - May 26, 2006

Mark Forbes, Dili – The thud of grenades and chatter of machine-gun fire was drowned out by the drone of a huge, grey Australian Hercules yesterday carrying the men locals pray will deliver them from the carnage enveloping Dili.

Gunshots and smoke filled the air with vengeful gangs on the rampage and pitched battles between soldiers and police in the heart of the capital. There was no immediate sign the Australian troops would deliver the calm predicted by Timorese leaders.

The violence has ethnic overtones, with most rebels coming from the west, home to the 595 soldiers whose grievances, protests and sacking sparked violent protests last month. Loyal police and soldiers raced across the city in trucks and four-wheel-drives yesterday, firing wildly in the air, attempting to disperse gangs of Timorese from the country's east who were intent on punishing the rebels' supporters.

Standing beside the airport runway, a tearful Carla Fonseca watched the commandos emerge in full battle gear, believing peace was now at hand. "There has to be unity, during the struggle for East Timor there was only one people and one nation, we want no east and west in this new nation," she said.

Mrs Fonseca and the other cheering locals greeted the troops as saviours, reviving memories of the Australian-led intervention that ended the violence sparked by their vote for independence from Indonesia in 1999. While locals rejoiced at the airport, the centre of Dili resembled a ghost town, after a three-hour gunfight between police and soldiers that raged around the Government offices and central square.

Demonstrating the chaotic, unpredictable state of the city, military police loyal to the Government had launched an assault on police headquarters. The soldiers claimed police had fired at them as they confronted a gang of easterners torching houses and shops of residents from the west yesterday morning.

Some of the gang were little more than boys. They carried machetes, bows and arrows and homemade slingshots. One pulled a bolt lodged in his slingshot back to his shoulder, threatening to shoot the Herald reporter. Only the screeching arrival of a truckload of firing soldiers caused the gang to flee, but they regrouped, eventually surrounding the home of the deputy police commissioner who defected to the rebels on Wednesday. They burnt it to the ground. It remains to be seen if the spiralling cycle of violence can be broken.

As the Australian commandos arrived, expatriates were evacuating, their stoicism disintegrating along with their adopted nation's security.

Most, like Angela Crean, left reluctantly. Outside the departure lounge she said she was leaving for the safety of the baby daughter in her arms. "It's devastating, tragic for the Timorese, but once peace is restored we will return," she said.

Troops stand by as battles rage

Sydney Morning Herald - May 25, 2006

Dylan Welch – Fighting was raging around East Timor's capital today ahead of the promised deployment of up to 1300 Australian troops to restore order.

Automatic gunfire echoed around Dili just hours before vice chief of the defence force Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie was due to fly in to negotiate terms of engagement for the peacekeeping force with the Timorese government.

Police radio reports said two pro-government soldiers were killed overnight near the main army base, bringing the death toll to as many as 10 people since riots broke out last month. Five soldiers and police have been killed in the past three days of gunbattles.

At least seven people have been seriously wounded – some with bullet and shrapnel wounds. At least man was hit by an arrow. One of the dead is believed to a renegade soldier killed yesterday and there are unconfirmed reports of wounded among followers of rebel army officer Major Alfredo Reinado.

His forces are based in the village of Aileu in mountains behind the capital, but have been launching attacks around the capital.

Army and police defections reported

Sources in Dili reported defections by some army and police officers to the rebel side.

Terrified residents said clashes were continuing in the Dili's western fringes at Tasi Tolu as well as in hills around the southern suburb of Lahane and in Becora in the east.

As the spilt with the security forces widens, pockets of civil unrest flared as well. Gangs of youths, some carry machetes, were throwing rocks at cars and buildings near the centre of the city.

Jose Lino, who lives in Kampung Baru in western Dili, reported that many houses had been attacked and destroyed by mobs.

Adding to tensions is an underlying communal conflict among people who have roots in the east and the west of East Timor. There have been reports of clashes between the two groups, marking a significant slide in Dili's overall security situation.

800 Australians in Timor

About 800 Australians are believed to be in East Timor and many are preparing to for evacuation once Australian troops arrive, possibly by late today.

Ramos Horta, a Nobel peace laureate, said he had made contact with some of the rebel leaders, and talks could come as early as this weekend.

"But the arrival of the troops from Australia, New Zealand, Portugal and possibly Malaysia is still necessary to create a secure environment for our people," he said.

In New York, the UN Security Council appealed for an end to the fighting. The 15-member council also welcomed promises of military help made by Australia and others.

Officials from the Departments of Defence and Foreign Affairs are to meet East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri today to define the mandate for international military intervention.

Australia's National Security Committee met this morning to review the situation following the return to Australia of Prime Minister John Howard.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said forces could be in Timor within 48 hours of authorisation, with a small emergency contingent possibly on hand earlier.

Defence Minister Brendan Nelson last night said troops could be in Dili by this afternoon if final details were signed off.

ALP urges caution

But Labor urged the government to take it slow and make a considered decision. "This is a difficult and dangerous environment for any Australian deployment and that's why all these decisions need to be taken in a very cautious and considered way," opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd said.

Mr Downer warned that Australian forces were heading to a dangerous situation, sparked by the sacking of about 600 of the country's 1400-strong army.

"It is frankly likely to be more dangerous than the Solomons (deployment), perhaps not quite in the same league as Iraq and Afghanistan," he told ABC radio.

Among the rebel troops are soldiers Australia helped train. But Mr Downer believes the renegade soldiers may welcome Australian intervention.

"The message that we have had during the course of yesterday is that these rebel... members or former members of the defence force welcome the intervention by Australia or the international community," he said.

'Gunfire quite close'

An Australian aid worker, who does not wish to be named, working in Dili has described the scene in Dili during the night.

"There was gunfire quite close, in the hills. A significant amount of automatic gunfire and thuds which could have been grenades."

He said despite the vicious fighting yesterday, which continued into the night and this morning, he has yet to hear either official or unofficial numbers of killed or wounded. He denied reports in some Australian media that the situation could become a full-scale civil war.

"The main trouble at the moment is dissident groups and some splinter groups from the army who don't have widespread support and probably don't a large amount of military hardware to do that kind of thing.

"To me the biggest worry is that it drags on for a long time and sends this country backwards, but in terms of full-scale civil war I'd say that's incredibly unlikely.

"I guess the bigger threat, especially in Dili, is the breakdown of law and order. I've heard some reports of looting in the centre of town, I don't know how accurate that is, but I think that's a bigger risk – lots of opportunists taking advantage of the situation and causing trouble."

1300 troops standby

Australia has pre-deployed a battalion of between 1000 and 1300 troops, three ships – HMAS Kanimbla, HMAS Tobruk, and HMAS Manoora – helicopters, armoured personal carriers and heavy airlift capabilities.

In Lisbon, the Portugal government has said it will send 120 military police to help in the security effort. New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said a detachment of troops was ready to deploy, but she was waiting for more details.

A spokesman for DFAT said the department has advised all approximately 800 Australians in East Timor they should consider leaving. He also asked the 150 or so Australians in Timor not currently registered with the embassy to do so at http://www.smarttraveller.gov.au.

Shelters filling up

The aid worker said while there wasn't the same panic in the streets as during the riots of April 28, Dili locals were beginning to fill up the shelters.

"The shelters were filling up again, some of our staff members were at one of the big Catholic compounds and there were quite a few seeking refuge in the UN compound, so I don't have numbers yet but I think it's probably around the same level [as April 28] but not the same degree of panic..."

An Australian arriving in Darwin last night from Dili told Sky TV he had been visiting priests at a compound in Dili, where "several thousand" Dili locals had taken refuge from the violence. The United Nations has also opened a refugee camp near Dili for people fleeing the violence.

Other Australians arriving in Darwin last night spoke of being fearful for East Timor's future.

"They (the East Timorese) are absolutely petrified, scared and apprehensive in the extreme that there's going to be some sort of civil war," Margaret Gray, of the Northern Territory, told ABC radio after fleeing the country.

"Nearly everybody's saying they should get the Australian soldiers over there as fast as they can because that'll stop warfare going on.

"It was like looking at a film, it was something absolutely tragic happening but you weren't involved and any minute you were going to get out and escape and not be a part of it," she said.

[With AAP and Reuters.]

'Heavy casualties' in Dili battle

The Australian - May 25, 2006

Jill Jolliffe and Rob Taylor, Dili – Heavy casualties have been reported in the centre of Dili where a fierce gun battle raged between rival military factions today.

One report monitored on the United Nations radio communications network said: "20 police injured. Many dead." The North American voice on the radio added that "a lot of ambulances" were needed. Heavy gunfire and grenade blasts could be heard in the distance from Dili's airport.

A contingent of 150 Australian commandos along with a Hercules and Blackhawk helicopters were rushing to East Timor. They were to secure the airport, which has been cut off from Dili by gun battles on a main road.

At least three bursts of machine gun fire was heard close to the airport at 2 pm (1500 AEST).

US Marines from the American embassy were at the airport as East Timorese officials waited the arrival of the vice chief of the Australian Defence Force, Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie. The general is to negotiate the rules of engagement for the deployment up to 1300 Australian peacekeepers.

The security situation across many parts of Dili had deteriorated dramatically in recent hours with fighting reported in Dili's western eastern and southern districts as well as near its centre.

Reporters at the scene said fighting had taken place near the offices of President Xanana Gusmao. Shots were also heard near the US embassy on Dili's waterfront and the nearby residence of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

AAP reporter Olivia Rondowunu reported seeing a truckload of men in camouflage driving through the city at high speed firing automatic weapons in the air. UN staff sheltering at their headquarters in central Dili reported intense shooting around the national police barracks about 1.30pm.

Security staff monitoring Dili police radios had said earlier the barracks had been surrounded by pro-government FDTL army troops and appeared as if they were poised to attack.

Rivalry between East Timor's army and police has been an undercurrent of the present conflict in the country. FDTL soldiers have frequently accused the police of having collaborated with the Indonesian army which occupied East Timor between 1975 and 1999. Army commanders are mostly ex-guerilla who fought the Indonesians.

"There was intense firing at the police HQ, which frightened many refugees sheltering in a nearby UN building, and now there is a pause," one UN official said.

A large plume of smoke was also seen above the city. Police radio operators calling for fire trucks said it was from a house near the UN High Commission for Refugees in the suburb of Balide.

Dili today was a city on the edge waiting for the arrival Australian troops. Residents were confined indoors and could only gauge the progress of the conflict from the direction of shooting.

It was thought to be mainly from regular army troops moving systematically through the city in a bid to gain control before the Australians arrived.

The number of casualties from the fighting was far from clear. Pro-government army sources said at least five people – from both siides – had been confirmed killed in the past three days. Two were killed overnight, including an army captain.

At least seven people have been seriously wounded – some with bullett and shrapnel wounds. At least one man was hit by an arrow.

Associated Press quoted a spokesman for forces following rebel army officer Major Alfredo Reinado as saying two rebels had been killed and 14 wounded.

A United Nations official said he had heard a report of an Australian being shot and wounded in the leg two days ago. He was treated at a hospital in the western town of Liquica. Details of his case were not available.

Meanwhile an expatriate employee at International Organisation of Migrations at Tasi Tolu said her house guard was shot dead on Tuesday and his body was lying there unrecovered today.

The number of casualties from the fighting was far from clear. Pro-government army sources said at least five people – from both siides - had been confirmed killed in the past three days. Two were killed overnight, including an army captain.

At least seven people have been seriously wounded – some with bullett and shrapnel wounds. At least one man was hit by an arrow.

Peaceful one day, mayhem the next

The Australian - May 25, 2006

Rory Callinan, Dili – The large rock flying past the windscreen raised the alarm. For the previous two days I had travelled with impunity through the Dili suburbs of Becora and Fatuahi, where residents of the East Timorese capital had been engaged in running battles, armed with knifes, bows and arrows, spears and swords.

The fighting was based on regional rivalry, pitting local residents who originate from the eastern provinces of East Timor against those from the west.

West of the capital, in the Gleno district, almost 600 disgruntled soldiers had gathered; deserters from the regular force who claim they are discriminated against because of their western heritage.

The rebel soldiers had fled to the hills above Dili on April 28, after staging a demonstration that was violently suppressed by police and regular soldiers – the majority of whom hailed from the east.

The brutal response to the demonstration prompted a number of heavily armed military police, led by Australian-trained Major Alfredo Reinaldo, to leave the capital; Reinaldo said he did not want to get caught up in the "illegal use" of the army.

The two groups refused to lay down their weapons and holed up outside the capital while calling for the regular army to disarm, and for an investigation to be launched into their grievances.

When I drove up into the hills on Tuesday morning, the youths who the day before had yelled greetings waved their fists from the ridges before bracketing the car with a rain of rocks.

Further down the road, a crowd of men from the eastern faction headed up towards them. Some were brandishing pitchforks, but the weapons of choice were large machetes and slingshots that fired lethal six-inch darts.

Within seconds the road became a melee of running men, yelling, throwing rocks into the bushes and firing their darts.

Regular police from the Dili district arrived and began to walk up the road to try to prevent the fighting, but suddenly the sound of automatic gunfire started and they swiftly fell back. For two hours, the battle continued sporadically, with the regular army moving in from the east across the top of the hills, while the soldiers in Becora pushed upwards. Their enemy, wearing green uniforms and armed with Steyr rifles, was rarely visible.

At 7.30am yesterday, the second breakaway military faction launched a fresh assault – appearing to attack the military headquarters in Tasi-Tolu, about 6km west of the city centre. Army sources said that 10 truckloads of rebel soldiers had launched the attack.

Reinforced by heavily armed rapid intervention police from the west, the rebels had gained the high ground and were peppering the main road west of the headquarters with machinegun fire.

The battle led to the East Timorese military calling in its sole naval patrol boat. The vessel used its .50-calibre machinegun to fire on the hills west of the headquarters but was forced to retreat out to sea after coming under fire from the slopes.

At midday, further shots could be heard on Dili's southern outskirts, and firing was reported near a market on the main road leading south from the capital.

Calm in Dili, for now

Green Left Weekly - May 24, 2006

Jon Lamb – Heightened tensions within East Timor and rumours of further violent clashes have subsided with the passing of the Fretilin congress, held in Dili on May 17-19. The congress was a test of support for Fretilin leader and East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

On the eve of the congress, prominent Fretilin leaders Jose Luis Guterres, Abel Ximenes, Jorge Teme and others expressed public concern over Alkatiri's leadership and his handling of political affairs. Guterres is East Timor's ambassador to the United Nations (and formerly head of the Fretilin External Delegation during the Indonesian occupation). Teme was formerly East Timor's ambassador to Australia. Ximenes has recently resigned from his cabinet post as development minister.

Guterres announced just prior to the congress that he would stand against Alkatiri and contest the position of secretary general of the party. Teme told ABC Radio on May 16 that Alkatiri's presidency is "totally unorganised, [with] no consultation" and that "There is a one-man show, the prime minister is the one [who] determines everything and we don't want this".

One congress observer told Green Left Weekly that Alkatiri received strong applause and cheers from delegates each time he intervened in the discussion. There was also significant support expressed for Fretilin president and parliamentary speaker Francisco Guterres (also popularly known as Lu-Olo), a former resistance fighter against the Indonesian occupation.

In spite of this support from a majority of the more than 500 delegates at the congress, late on the second day of the congress Alkatiri chose to push through a change of procedure for elections from a secret ballot to a show of hands. As many of the delegates to the congress were public servants, such a vote would have been a further test of their support for the policies of the Fretilin government, as well as Alkatiri's position as secretary general.

Jose Luis Guterres withdrew his candidature for secretary general in protest, stating that the change undermined the democratic process and that: "The basis for elections has to be like any other democratic party in the world – that is, secret ballot."

Expectations of escalating violence in East Timor following the April 28 police shootings of rowdy protesters in Dili have shown to be unfounded. According to Tomas Freitas, a member of the activist group Aluta Hamutuk, who attended the Fretilin congress as an observer, there was a strong sentiment among delegates to address the problems and issues associated with the April 28 and earlier protests by former Falintil guerrilla fighters and unemployed youth.

Freitas said that the delegates made it very clear that "the Fretilin central committee must meet and discuss after the congress how to resolve the concerns of the former Falintil fighters". He also noted the low profile at the congress of Rogerio Lobato, the interior minister, who has come under criticism over the excess of force used to control the April 28 protest.

After April 28, "Rumours and confusion scared many people", Avelino da Silva, secretary general of the Socialist Party of Timor told GLW. Da Silva also noted that the Fretilin congress will mark "the start of the election campaign for 2007". He said that in the lead-up to the elections there will be more protest actions and mobilisations and that this will be a test of how democratic the Fretilin-led government is.

Hyped-up concerns over stability in East Timor was the excuse given by the Australian government to mobilise five naval vessels in the Timor and Arafura Seas in the week prior to the Fretilin congress. Even East Timor's foreign minister, Jose Ramos Horta, who has a close working relationship with Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer, expressed surprise over the extent of the Australian military presence.

When questioned on ABC Radio on May 12 about whether East Timor could descend into violence at the time of the Fretilin congress, Horta responded that: "There is no such chance. I've been in touch with everybody concerned. We are all cooperating to ensure peace in this country."

The flexing of Australia's military muscle in the waters near East Timor has more to do with shoring-up and safeguarding Australian economic interests than concern for the safety and well-being of the East Timorese people. The ongoing theft of East Timor's oil and gas in the Timor Sea by the Australian government exposes this myth.

As with the Australian-led intervention into the Solomon Islands, a military intervention into East Timor by Australia would centre on fostering and strengthening corrupt and undemocratic rule by a political elite compliant with the interests of Australian government and business.

Soldier killed in gun battle near East Timor's capital

Associated Press - May 23, 2006

Guido Guilliart, Dili – A surge in violence in East Timor's capital left one soldier dead and seven others wounded Tuesday, the government said, as Australia and New Zealand offered to provide troops to help restore calm.

The bloodshed occurred during two gun battles in the hilly outskirts of the capital Tuesday morning between disgruntled ex- army forces and soldiers, East Timor Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri told reporters.

He blamed the violence on a "small group of renegade soldiers" who fled Dili in April after rioting that left five dead and dozens injured.

East Timor has been plagued by unrest since the dismissal earlier this year of nearly 600 soldiers a third of the entire army after they went on strike, complaining of discrimination and poor working conditions.

The ex-soldiers, who threatened to wage guerrilla warfare unless they were reinstated, bunkered down in the hills surrounding the capital, Dili.

Army troops came under fire twice Tuesday morning in the southeast Fatuhai neighborhood, a government statement said.

"They were attacked by members of the renegade force led by Maj. Alfredo Reinado," it said. Unarmed soldiers were first ambushed while picking up pay checks at a bank and in a second incident were attacked at a checkpoint. In response, East Timor's army defense forces and police tried to apprehend the gunmen.

"At this point it is believed that one solider was killed, and five soldiers and one policeman were wounded (one badly injured). One of the renegade soldiers was also badly hurt," it said.

Army Chief of Staff Col. Lere Anan Timor vowed to capture the renegade soldiers "dead or alive."

Australia, which led a UN-military force into East Timor after its bloody push for independence from Indonesia in 1999, said it was readying naval vessels, aircraft and troops to enable a rapid response.

"We've made it clear that we are ready to offer assistance to East Timor if it's needed," Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told lawmakers in Australia's capital, Canberra, adding the military could also help with evacuations if needed.

New Zealand said a platoon of about 30 troops was on standby for deployment to East Timor.

At the heart of the conflict are the former soldiers' claims that they were being discriminated against because they came from the west of the small country, while the military leadership originates from the east.

Police Maj. Domingos da Camara said some of the dismissed soldiers appear to have the support of some breakaway police units, which have joined them in the hills with weapons and ammunition. That claim was later denied by the government.

A government commission was established this month to investigate the ex-soldiers' allegations of discrimination, but has yet to release results.

There have been several violent clashes in recent months, including riots in late April that killed five people and destroyed more than 100 houses and businesses in Dili. East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia in August 1999 after 24 years of brutal occupation that human rights groups say left as many as 200,000 dead.

UN cable damns East Timor minister

The Australian - May 18, 2006

Mark Dodd and Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Police in East Timor have failed to restore law and order following last month's deadly violence because the Interior Minister is too preoccupied with his personal business interests, a damning UN cable has revealed.

A copy of the cable, sent on May 9 from Dili-based Deputy Special Representative Anis Bajwa to UN headquarters in New York, raises serious concerns about the competence of Rogerio Lobato. Excerpts of the memo were shown to The Australian yesterday.

The message claims Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta is not trusted by the 591 rebel soldiers whose four-month protest against poor service conditions and ethnic prejudice triggered the April 28-29 riots.

The UN Security Council last week unanimously approved a one- month extension of the UN mission in East Timor, taking it to June 20.

After meeting East Timor's former UN ambassador, Jose Luis Guterres, Mr Bajwa wrote to his superiors in New York: "He (Guterres) added that because of such political reasons, the police could not be trusted to maintain law and order. "Guterres observed Interior Minister Lobato was more involved in his business dealings than the work of his ministry."

Attempts to contact Mr Lobato for comment yesterday were unsuccessful.

In 2002, President Xanana Gusmao demanded that the Government sack Mr Lobato for incompetence – a demand that was ignored by the minister's close ally, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

Mr Guterres – a respected political moderate – has announced he will challenge Dr Alkatiri for the position of secretary-general of the ruling Fretilin party.

Dr Alkatiri has pleaded for the continuing support of Fretilin, but members involved in an attempt to topple him say they remain confident of deposing the embattled leader. Dr Alkatiri will face a vote tomorrow at the second Fretilin national congress for the position of party secretary-general. Opposing him in the ballot will be Mr Guterres, heading a "renewal team" aiming to resurrect the party that negotiated the country's independence from Indonesia.

An aide confirmed yesterday that if Dr Alkatiri lost the party vote, he would immediately resign as prime minister, rather than waiting for general elections due next year.

The decision may be academic, because if Dr Alkatiri loses tomorrow's vote, a newly elected Fretilin central committee could sack him as head of government anyway.

Observers in and outside East Timor are watching the outcome closely, as the threat of politically inspired violence hovers just out of sight.

Rebels, riot and ruin

The Bulletin - May 16, 2006

Paul Toohey – The dirt roads and hills in the western districts of the country are now their home. In Australian terminology, the 591 East Timorese soldiers – a third of the military – who abandoned their barracks in protest in March would be mutineers or traitors. In the delicate language of East Timor, they are "petitioners". Whatever they are called, the future of the country is theirs to decide.

In a field of weeds, with a band of ex-soldiers covering his back, Gastao Salsinha, leader of the rebel soldiers, agreed to meet The Bulletin to explain why he was prepared to see his country again taken into civil strife, if not war.

Until he was sacked for desertion, Salsinha, 32, was a lieutenant in the East Timorese army (F-FDTL). He sees he has only two choices: to back down or to fight. Right now, his are fighting words.

Last Friday week, Salsinha and his petitioners were in the fourth day of a peaceful protest outside the main government building on the waterfront of the capital, Dili. Their complaints are many but stem from their view that soldiers from the eastern part of the country have been favoured for promotions over soldiers from the west.

The argument, loosely, is that most of the former Falantil guerillas who staged the insurgency through the 24 years of Indonesian occupation, came from the east. Upon independence, they demanded, and got, the senior positions in the new military. Westerners think easterners are favoured both in the military and government.

It goes deeper: the soldiers, who were earning about $US75 ($97) a month, are not trusted. Their barracks are in the east of the country, far from their families and Dili, where the strife- traumatised people get upset at the sight of machine-guns; but especially because the government doesn't want them anywhere near the border with West Timor lest they get trigger-happy with the Indonesian army.

The western-born soldiers were incensed by reported claims of a senior officer that it was easterners alone who "won" the war with Indonesia. Attempting to defuse the insult, President Xanana Gusmao posed a rhetorical question, along the lines of: "If people from the east won the war, then are the people of the west militia?" The comments were supposed to unite the country but were taken out of context in the local media and represented as: "People from the west are militia." There could be no greater insult.

During the protest, the petitioners were joined by a large number of bored Dili youth who attached themselves to the ex-soldiers for something to do. The anatomy of the rioting that followed is yet to be pieced together. But it is said some of the young men broke ranks and started smashing and torching cars. Two protesters were shot dead.

The group was pushed west towards Dili's main market at Comoro, whose stalls are mostly run by easterners. They began stoning the western protesters. The petitioners and protesters, armed with sticks, hatchets and machetes, were repelled to the western outskirts of Dili where sustained shooting saw another three protesters gunned down. The government has confirmed five dead but agencies, including the United Nations, suspect the figure is higher.

Senior Minister Jose Ramos-Horta confirmed 45 houses were burnt down and 116 partially destroyed in spot fires across Dili. Salsinha insisted seven of his people were killed and he is unable to account for 68 men. He says they are either dead or being held somewhere.

"Since that day we have 100 police [The Bulletin believes it is 83 or 84 police deserters] who have joined us," says Salsinha. The police force is comprised mostly of westerners.

When the soldiers abandoned their barracks in March, they took only their boots and knives. When the police left their posts to join the protesters in the hills last week, they took weapons and vehicles. The western faction now has firepower. Government sources suspect more police are ready to support Salsinha.

As the violence of Friday spilled to Saturday, Dili mostly remained calm. It was over the following days that rumours began on SMS. It was said the loyal government troops would systematically hunt down the petitioners; or the petitioners were assembling in the hills above Dili to attack the capital.

Both were untrue but it was enough for the traumatised people. Since 1999, when the Indonesians and their East Timorese militia mates raped, sacked, burnt and murdered, the population remains psychologically frail. On Wednesday and Thursday last week, at least 20,000 people fled any way they could.

In scenes reminiscent of 1999, thousands ran to UN compounds, churchyards and embassies. The government implored people not to panic and to return home but, as of this weekend, normally gridlocked Dili central was near-deserted.

Salsinha says Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri had two months to respond to the grievances but failed to do so. The petitioners – and most of the country, for that matter – seem to detest Alkatiri, considering him aloof and arrogant. There are constant mutterings about his family's business dealings. Salsinha refuses to talk to Alkatiri but has been taking calls from Gusmao.

Gusmao is loved by most Timorese, including Salsinha, but the two are running out of things to talk about. "I would like the president to use his power as supreme commander and take all the guns off the military to stop this becoming a war," says Salsinha. "I want all the soldiers who shot my people to be suspended." The trouble is, Gusmao has no such power. Although he is little more than a figurehead, people believe he can – and should – exercise whatever power he likes.

Salsinha says there will be no talk of peace until Gusmao orders a surrender of all military weapons. And, by the way, says Salsinha, he must sack Alkatiri.

Gusmao has been stalling Salsinha, offering to reinstate the deserters' pay (refused as a "matter of dignity") and trying to keep the lines open. But that is tough for a practical reason: Salsinha is in the bush and finds it hard to charge his mobile phone.

"If we don't get a decision from the president, now, we'll go and become guerillas," Salsinha says. In an effort to appease the petitioners, Gusmao and Alkatiri last week announced several commissions would look into the soldiers' grievances and examine how many petitioners and protesters really died.

Salsinha warns that Dili's disaffected youth are prepared to join him and his men in the hills to stage a rocks-and-machete civil war. With blanket unemployment, and a widespread perception that independence has benefited only a handful of East Timorese, they have nothing to lose. The next election is not until 2007 – not soon enough for them.

Salsinha believes that if he shows his face in Dili, he will be arrested, if not shot. He accuses the remaining government-loyal military of distributing weapons to civilians for an assault on the petitioners. "If the east wants to fight the west, we are willing and prepared to fight," says Salsinha. It is hard to know whether he really means it; but now he's seen unarmed comrades gunned down, his resolve is hardened. If he feels any guilt for plunging his country into strife, he doesn't show it.

As with the 2002 riots, the government says these are merely growth pains of democracy. Ramos-Horta has been scathing of the international media for, as he sees it, damaging the name of East Timor. He really means he'd prefer there was less interest in what appears to be a rapidly failing state. The fact that so many fled Dili, to live with relatives in villages, taking ferries to nearby islands or the enclave of Oecussi, or – if they could afford it – jumping on planes to West Timor, says much about their confidence in the government and military: none.

Refugees in Ermera district said they would stay for months, sleeping on mats and floors, scrounging for food rather than return to Dili. Gusmao, acknowledging unity had been lost, has pleaded that people remember the dream and "hold on to it tightly". Ramos-Horta has tried to assure the international community the situation is calm: problem is, it is only calm because so few people remain in Dili.

While the government and Australian expats are angry at Australian press suggesting East Timor has set a course for violence, the reality is that civil war is on the cards if disaffected westerners don't return to the fold. A further problem is that when the population abandoned Dili for tribal homelands, be they east or west, they unwittingly demonstrated their loyalties, creating a tangible national division. As for those still in Dili, some are being accused of stealing the pigs, goats and chickens of those who fled. In wretchedly poor East Timor, that is no joke.

Late on Monday there were reports that up to 1000 youths were trashing cars and buildings in Gleno, in the region where Salsinha is based.

Alkatiri, elected by a committee and not the people, seems to be facing his last days in charge. He has restated his position that he would step aside only if there were someone good enough to replace him. He says no such person exists. Good sources within Alkatiri's Fretilin party tell us the PM is finished. The Fretilin Congress will meet on May 17. The sources say the first item on the agenda will be a vote to remove Alkatiri. Some 80% of the 600-plus members will, it is claimed, vote to get rid of him. Taking Alkatiri's political neck is the only thing that can save Timor.

It has been reported that the government – i.e. Alkatiri – has $US560m in oil and gas money. Incredibly, none is being spent on development projects that might give the people jobs. No one has any clear answers why Alkatiri – who also acts as Fretilin's powerful secretary-general – has insistently refused to invest in his nation, instead leaving the money to earn interest. The people have had enough. Gusmao is said to be fed up and will support Alkatiri's overthrow.

The UN was to end its current mission on May 20, but has been asked to stay. Word around Dili is they will only extend for another month. With so much trouble, it seems strange they would make such a short extension – unless, of course, they realise Alkatiri is dead as leader and consider his departure will be enough to reunite the country.

The trick – and senior Fretilin members are working on it – is to persuade Salsinha and his men to sit tight until Congress. They believe if they can convince the deserters that Alkatiri is a goner, and that they will take their place as equals in East Timor, Dili need not burn yet again.

Timor says it does not need international peacekeepers

Agence France Presse - May 12, 2006

Dili – East Timor's foreign minister Jose Ramos-Horta said his country does not need foreign peacekeepers, shortly after Australia said it had sent two warships close to Timorese waters.

The East Timorese capital Dili was rocked by a riot on April 28 sparked by the sacking of 600 soldiers. At least five people were killed and thousands fled the city in fear of further violence.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said Friday that two warships were being deployed to northern Australian waters in case East Timor requested international troops to quell any upheaval.

"East Timor does not need a peacekeeping force, because there is no war in East Timor," Ramos-Horta told a press conference outside Dili's police training centre.

However Ramos-Horta said that additional international police advisors would be helpful in the tiny nation, which only gained independence in 2002 and is due to hold general elections next year. "We need an international police to create stability," he said.

Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has already urged the United Nations to deploy an international police force in his country ahead of next year's elections. The UN mission in Timor- Leste (UNOTIL) is due to end on May 19, but has requested an extension of one-month.

Witnesses meanwhile said many of Dili's residents had returned to the city over the past few days. But Ramos-Horta said that some people were waiting until after the three-day congress of the ruling party Fretilin, which begins next Wednesday, to come back.

Meanwhile Ramos-Horta's office said on Friday that the foreign minister had visited Aileu, 25 kilometres (16 miles) south of Dili, to meet with 20 military policemen and four members of the military's Rapid Intervention Unit who suddenly quit the capital for Aileu following the riots.

Their departure – with their weapons – fuelled rumours of unrest between soldiers and military police.

The men said they had not deserted and "expressed their strong opposition to violence and pledged they will not be involved in any actions that would harm anyone, including the government," Ramos Horta's office said in a statement. Ramos-Horta said he would continue talks with the men, led by Major Alfredo Alves Reinaldo, who also said they were not linked to the deserting soldiers.

The statement also said the minister was in contact with Gastao Salsinha, the leader of the 600 sacked soldiers, who left their barracks complaining of ethnic discrimination in the ranks.

Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said this week that the riot as well as an attack on a government office outside Dili on Monday, in which one policeman was killed, were a continuing attempt to stage a coup.

The government has said it has made contact with nearly 400 of the sacked soldiers and offered to pay their wages until June.

Australia led a UN-backed intervention force to East Timor in 1999 to quell the violence by pro-Indonesian militias after the independence vote.

East Timor: Further violence feared

Green Left Weekly - May 10, 2006

Jon Lamb – Fearing renewed violence, tens of thousands of East Timorese have fled Dili to outlying villages and districts. The situation remains extremely tense in the capital following the police crackdown on an angry demonstration of former Falintil independence fighters and disaffected youth on April 28.

Police open-fired with live ammunition and tear gas after protesters refused to disperse and started throwing stones at buildings and setting vehicles alight. Gunfire continued as protesters, sympathisers and bystanders dispersed to the western parts of Dili and nearby hills. The East Timor Defence Force (FDTL) and police sealed off the area around Taci Tolu.

Official estimates put the number of people killed on April 28 at five, with more than 30 injured, but according to Tomas Freitas, a member of the activist group Aluta Hamutuk, "Some people claim 10 or maybe 20 were killed in the gunfights and many more injured".

There have been reports that the FDTL and police used excessive force. In one incident, 26 year-old student Liandro de Jesus was shot up to 19 times as he ran from his home for the safely of the hills at 2am on April 29.

Thousands of Dili residents have fled to outlying areas or the grounds of foreign embassies and churches. Freitas believes that the figure could be as high as 200,000 people – over 80% of the city's population.

The April 28 rally followed two rowdy demonstrations in Dili the previous week, which were also instigated by the former Falintil combatants – part of a group of nearly 600 soldiers sacked from the FDTL in March. The sackings followed the soldiers' refusal to return to their barracks in protest over conditions and alleged favouritism towards other former Falintil fighters from the eastern part of East Timor.

While the combatants have petitioned the government over their grievances, their demands also included the dissolution of the government and parliament. Both government and opposition figures, along with analysts, claim that the protests represent much more than the grievances of the former combatants.

A government communique released on the afternoon of April 28 blamed the violence upon "young opportunists linked to Ososio Leki", the head of a group called Colimau 2000, which is comprised of former combatants and disgruntled villagers. It is believed that Colimau 2000 is seeking to become a legal political party.

There is much speculation over the motivation and manipulation of the former combatants and their demands. There has been growing frustration within East Timor over the failure of the Fretilin- led government to alleviate many social problems and meet popular expectations on what the government should have achieved since the nation attained independence.

"There are many claims of conspiracies and moves against the government", Freitas told Green Left Weekly. "I believe that there is an element of truth in these rumours... the protests reflect deep tensions within the political elite. As an activist, I'm concerned about how this will be resolved." Freitas also said that the confusion and panic has been slightly reduced after the heavily armed FDTL were ordered to return to their barracks and police were directed to resume control.

Freitas is concerned that further violence may lead to an appeal for, or attempt to bring in, foreign forces to restore calm. "We don't want outside interference... let the East Timorese people work it out. How we resolve this problem is part of the development of our nation", he said.

East Timor mob kills as talks collapse

The Australian - May 9, 2006

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – An East Timorese policeman was stabbed to death yesterday after security negotiations broke down in the western district of Ermera, where more than 600 rebel soldiers and police are defying a government call to return to their posts.

The death came as a senior minister resigned, citing his "failure to do anything" in the face of riots in Dili on April 28. "I resign today because of the situation several days ago that made people panic and paralysed the private sector," said Development Minister Abel Ximines.

In Ermera district, less than 50km west of Dili, a crowd of about 1300 people surrounded the car of a district secretary sent from the capital to discuss security concerns with the local regent. The Ermera area has been protected for the past several days by disgruntled armed police and soldiers demanding the sacking of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri's Government and the disbanding of the country's military.

The crowd took the two officials and their five security guards hostage, and seized their weapons. They also burned three vehicles belonging to the party. A plan to seize the regent and co-opt his support has been an open secret in Ermera.

A tense stand-off developed, with the crowd demanding the deaths of all seven men and a group of senior ex-guerilla fighters urging calm. The senior leaders were among those who drafted the demands put to President Xanana Gusmao to fire his Prime Minister.

Their ultimatum, signed by the leader of the deserting soldiers Gastao Salsinha, threatened an armed response if their demands were not met, although they have also insisted they will delay military action until Government forces attack.

Yesterday's confrontation appeared initially to have been settled with the crowd agreeing to let the official party go free, before the group's driver panicked and drove off at high speed, throwing two police from the vehicle. Each man was set upon by a single assailant; one was last night being treated in a community health centre but the other, who was stabbed in the chest and head, died while being transported to Dili.

The Government continued to insist yesterday that the situation was returning to normal more than a week after riots convulsed the city.

Officially four people were killed in incidents following a demonstration by supporters of 591 sacked soldiers. However there are reports of many more people dying in targeted attacks after the military was given shoot-on-sight orders.

Thousands of people fled the capital last week on reports that the disaffected soldiers were ready to launch armed attacks in Dili in reprisal for what they have described as misuse of the military. Most of these people remain in the countryside despite the Government's assurances the capital is safe.

Former guerillas demand East Timor they fought for

The Australian - May 8, 2006

Stephen Fitzpatrick – The would-be guerilla fighters playing hide-and-seek in misty highlands far beyond East Timor's capital, Dili, are a mixed lot but they have one thing in common: they're prepared to die violent deaths to get what they want.

They have issued a demand that the Government of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri be sacked and the country's tiny armed forces be made to hand in its weapons. Non-compliance will mean armed action, they promise.

Their threats come after they were summarily sacked, which they claim was due to ethnic-based discrimination in the military.

The formation of a commission to examine their complaints has done nothing to cool down the situation. The 595 soldiers and hundreds more of their supporters are now constantly on the move in ranges far to the west of Dili, in an odyssey that holds for many the romance of the former armed struggle that so starkly moulded East Timor's identity.

President Xanana Gusmao – hero of the 24-year guerilla war against Indonesian occupation, and the only authority figure this growing band of armed men trusts – is playing chicken, apparently hoping the sabre-rattling does not turn to war.

He parlayed an extra day's grace out of the soldiers' belligerent 48-hour ultimatum, issued late on Friday; then, appearing in the capital on Saturday morning pleading for the thousands of Timorese who fled the city last week to return, Gusmao point- blank refused to acknowledge the rebels' terse letter.

But the aggrieved soldiers, all from the country's west and under the leadership of former lieutenant Gastao Salsinha – a small, watchful man who bears the responsibility of revolution with some reluctance – are far from the only factor in this deadly board game.

Behind them is a powerful group of former commanders in the one- time underground army, Falintil, who put down their guns after Jakarta's forces were finally sent packing in 1999. The problem is, those weapons would be very easy to pick up again – or bequeath to a new generation – and the grizzled generals are restless.

They are the ones who drafted Friday's declaration for Salsinha to sign, and they passionately believe the East Timor they are living in is not the one they fought for.

They claim it has been hijacked by political and business interests, and with only days to go until the general congress of Fretilin, the one-time political wing of Falintil and now the party of government – tensions are as high as they have ever been.

The congress will deliver almost certain power in elections next year to a small clique of leaders, and many observers see the current crisis, with its threat to spill into civil war, as a direct side effect of that jockeying for power.

Then there is the small band of military police who absconded last week in full battle gear, taking with them at least two military transport vehicles loaded up with weapons, and who are now tensely guarding the winding mountain roads around Salsinha's various hiding places.

"We are defending the East Timorese people – all of them," says one of their leaders, Alfredo Reinado. "We have not left the FDTL (East Timorese defence force) but we oppose the way it has been used."

The enemy they are waiting for will come from Dili wearing the same uniforms as they do. The question of whether East Timor should have an army at all is one of the main flashpoints for the current crisis.

Critics – the ex-Fretilin generals, largely – say the issuing of a shoot-on-sight order several hours after rioting convulsed the capital more than a week ago was clear evidence that it should not. The only force needed for national security is the police, they say.

"On that day (April 28), the people of East Timor realised the armed forces were their biggest enemy," explains Germinino Amaral, a genial giant who has developed coffee interests in the Ermera district, west of Dili, since East Timor gained its independence.

There are still conflicting reports about how – and when – that order was given, but stories are accumulating of perhaps dozens of deaths, and bodies being scooped up as they fell.

The official government line is still that only four people died, during a demonstration in support of the 595 soldiers outside the main government building and in a subsequent riot at a nearby outdoor market. "According to the reports, the Prime Minister gave an order to (armed forces commander) Lere Anan Timor to 'keep the peace'.

That's when people started being shot at. That's why they're so upset," says Amaral. "This was an army formed from the people. How can it start shooting at those same people?" He was one of about 20 former Falintil chiefs and other leaders from among the Loromonu ethnic group dominant in the country's west who gathered at the end of last week to draft the demand delivered to Gusmao in the early hours of Saturday.

Another of that group is Eduardo Dusae, who – with the practised fluency of a guerilla fighter versed in the rhetoric of struggle – denies that he wants war, even as he insists it is his right.

"For 24 years, we opposed Indonesia not with weapons, bullets, tanks or planes, but with our own rights," Dusae declares.

"With our political rights and with the right for independence. We will not attack Dili; but we will defend the unity and integrity of our nation. There are two armed groups in East Timor right now, and whoever has the power to deal with that – whoever can take charge of the weapons in order to solve this problem – that's who must seize the situation.

Amaral is more sanguine. "Rather than more civilians dying pointless deaths, we might as well take up arms in support of the people," he says, then, playing on an old proverb: "If someone has bad intentions towards me, before he dies I must stand in opposition to him."

Yet another former Falintil commander and co-formulator of the rebels' war declaration, Gabriel Ximines, says the East Timorese people will support this new struggle in "whatever way they can – logistics, and so on – to resolve the situation".

"Salsinha is defending what's written in the constitution, so we support him. We just won't give support in any destructive ways."

Ximines insists that since there has already been armed engagement over the issue, "the President now has the constitutional power to ask for international involvement".

All of the rebel soldiers' backers are keen to see an international force take control in East Timor, as the UN did in the wild period immediately after the 1999 independence referendum. Over lunch in a guarded hideout they express extreme interest in the detail of John Howard's statement on Friday that Australia stands ready to offer assistance.

But the situation may already be well beyond that. An entire new generation of East Timorese, who spent their youth in the struggle and who now face chronic unemployment and economic shortages, could be at the tipping point for becoming the standing army in a new struggle.

Fleeing Dili residents begin to return

Melbourne Age - May 8, 2006

Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin – An East Timorese police commander has moved to calm panicked residents of Dili, telling them he only took his armed men into the mountains to protect people who had fled there.

Major Alfredo Alves Reinaldo told local journalists at the weekend that he had no intention of attacking Dili and that he left the city to carry out his duties. "I have no intention of making war with East Timorese," he said.

A rumour that Major Reinaldo and about 10 of his armed men went into the hills to join sacked soldiers before attacking Dili provoked a mass evacuation from Dili late last week.

Some of the thousands of residents who fled their homes started returning yesterday after President Xanana Gusmao, Prime Minister Mari Alkariti and the country's two influential Catholic bishops made public statements urging them not to believe rumours that have been circulating since violence erupted at a demonstration by hundreds of sacked soldiers on April 28.

Mr Gusmao said he had been in telephone contact with Gastao Salsinha, the commander of the sacked soldiers, and that he also has no intention of attacking Dili.

Mr Gusmao has urged the soldiers to come back to Dili from the Ermera mountain district where they have continued to demand the dismissal of Mr Alkatiri over his Government's handling of their grievances.

A commission of inquiry set up to investigate their complaints that they were discriminated against in the army because they were from western parts of the country will convene today.

East Timor's Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta issued a statement in New York at the weekend saying that reports of major military unrest in his country were untrue.

"There has been no violence now for seven straight days but rumours continue to circulate, which in turn spread fear," Mr Ramos Horta said. "I urge media outlets to check facts before responding to rumours."

Mr Ramos Horta said he was confident that the United Nations Security Council would approve his request to keep UN police in East Timor so they could help local police maintain stability in the lead-up to national elections next year.

Charlie Scheiner, a long-time resident of Dili, said the exodus from Dili was more about post-traumatic stress and rumours than anything real.

"Most people's fears are based on their past experiences – not just 1999 but 24 years of Indonesian military atrocities – rather than on actual evidence or current realities," said Mr Scheiner, an American working for the East Timor Institute for Reconstruction Monitoring and Analysis.

Mr Scheiner said that East Timor's fledgling government should have handled the crisis better and that Timorese should have been better trained by international advisers.

"But we should realise that panic does not mean there's a rational basis for fear, especially among traumatised people with few psychological or material reserves," he said.

"Propagation of sensationist rumours, especially by international media or people outside Timor-Leste (East Timor) only adds to the panic."

East Timor protests fueled by more than anger

Agence France Presse - May 5, 2006

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Last week's protests in East Timor were sparked by a group of sacked soldiers, but a combination of disaffected youth, poverty and anger as the government turned them into deadly riots, analysts say.

At least four people were killed, dozens of homes were torched and thousands of people fled after a huge protest, apparently in support of the soldiers, degenerated into violence last Friday.

The government's failure to quickly deal with the soldiers, who left their barracks in February complaining of discrimination and were dismissed a few weeks later, had allowed dissatisfaction to fester, analysts say.

"In the beginning the leadership was immature. They kept attacking each other," said Dili-based human rights lawyer Aderito de Jesus Soares, arguing that the decision to sack the men before consulting with the military's supreme commander, President Xanana Gusmao, had been unwise.

"They kept saying, 'It's not a big problem.' When half the defence force deserts, that's stupid," he told AFP.

Nearly 600 soldiers left their barracks – about one third of the fledgling nation's armed forces – claiming that they were being passed over for promotion in favour of colleagues from the country's east.

Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri's pledge to launch an investigation into the claims and his offer to start paying the men again from March – if they turn themselves in – would assist in resolving the conflict, de Jesus Soares said.

But for the longer term, the government also needed to look at ways of keeping East Timor's underemployed troops occupied, he said.

"If you have a whole lot of young guys in the barracks who are not doing anything, it will create trouble," he warned. Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta in an interview with AFP before the unrest said that the sackings had already prompted a rethink of how the defence forces in Asia's poorest nation should be structured.

The idea being floated was for East Timor to have a force of two battalions numbering around 500 men each, with one battalion trained mainly to serve on UN peacekeeping missions and the other prepared for civic duty, he said.

Ramos-Horta later blamed the violence on the Colimau Dua Ribuh gang, which claims links to the resistance movement that fought against Indonesia's 24-year occupation but is accused of being no more than a criminal network.

Witnesses confirmed that members of the gang had joined the protests. Still, only 13 out of more than 100 people detained in the wake of the violence were former soldiers, suggesting a confluence of triggers for the unrest.

Analysts point to East Timor's deeper Problems – widespread poverty, high unemployment and dissatisfaction with the new nation's first government – as helping to stoke the mob violence.

"Most of us after independence think we can have a house, everything is easy. But after independence... nothing has changed," said Virgilio Guterres, the head of state broadcaster TV Timor Lorosae.

East Timor marks four years since its troublesome birth later this month. The nation voted for independence in a UN-backed referendum in 1999, resulting in bloody rampages by Indonesian- backed militias who killed some 1,400 people and destroyed most of the nation's infrastructure.

Residents flee capital fearing renewed violence

Associated Press - May 5, 2006

Guido Guilliart, Dili – Rumors circulated by mobile phone text messages of an imminent attack by disgruntled ex-soldiers who clashed violently with police last week prompted thousands of residents to flee East Timor's capital on Friday, officials and witnesses said.

Residents started leaving their homes a week after clashes between hundreds of former soldiers and police left five people dead and dozens injured violence that has prompted fears the government in Dili has lost control.

Political leaders said Friday the situation was calm and appealed to frightened inhabitants to return to the city.

Nearly 600 soldiers were fired in March for going on strike and have threatened to wage a guerrilla war if the government fails to reinstate them with better terms of employment.

Phone text messages said the ex-soldiers, supported by some police and military elements, were planning to attack the capital and the army headquarters on Friday. The origin of the messages was impossible to acertain.

UN political officer Scott Cunliffe in Dili dismissed the rumors as false, but wouldn't speculate on who might be behind them. "As I see it, it's all calm at the moment in Dili," he said by phone. The concerns are based on "unfounded rumors of attacks or clashes that they suspect might take place... It's playing on people's fears."

The message was nonetheless taken seriously by the many who took to East Timor's roads. "I have decided to leave Dili with my whole family since East Timor's police and military are not united in solving the crisis," said Archngo Moniz, a taxi driver, as he prepared to leave for the town of Maliana, about 30 kilometer (20 miles) west of Dili. "I don't want to suffer anymore, it was enough to have suffering under Indonesia," he said.

Another resident, Jose Gusmao, criticized the government for not resolving the crisis with ex-soldiers more quickly. "The government is too slow in handling the current situation," he said, "I'm leaving Dili because it is not safe anymore for me and my family... I don't want to fight with my fellow countrymen."

Foreign Minister Ramos-Horta called on the media to be careful with rumors. "Democracy is still young in our country and people react fearfully to incidents by leaving the city," he said in a statement. "The situation in Dili now is quite calm and under control. Therefore, I together with our President Xanana Gusmao ask the people to please come back to their residence," Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri said.

Among those fleeing were government employees whom Foreign Minister Ramos-Horta ordered to return to work by Monday "or face disciplinary measures." The ministry also raised the official death toll from earlier violence to five and said 45 homes had been burned down and 116 partially destroyed.

In Australia, Prime Minister John Howard, speaking before the rumors took off in Dili, said his country would consider sending troops to East Timor if a request was made.

"I certainly hope that the possibility doesn't come along, I hope they can resolve things internally," he said. "There has been a very difficult situation there in the past few days and I hope it stabilizes."

Washington on Thursday authorized the departure of all nonemergency workers and their families and urged American citizens to postpone travel to the Southeast Asian country.

The State Department said the US Embassy had received reports that violence could continue and urged Americans to leave. It said with only one road to the airport and three daily departing flights, getting away might become difficult.

In last week's rampage, hundreds of dismissed soldiers burned cars and shops in Dili.

In August 1999, East Timor's people voted for independence after 24 years of Indonesian rule during which rights groups estimate 100,000-250,000 people were killed.

[Associated Press writer Michael Corder in Sydney contributed to this report.]

20,000 flee Dili fearing civil war

The Australian - May 5, 2006

Stephen Fitzpatrick and Mark Dodd – More than 20,000 East Timorese, fearing renewed ethnic violence, have fled the riot- torn capital of Dili as the Government made desperate calls for calm yesterday.

Trucks, taxis and people pushing handcarts streamed out of the city after reports military infighting was about to explode. At least 11 people are thought to have been killed since last Friday, and the toll is expected to grow.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said yesterday he would support extending the mandate of the UN mission in Dili after a request from his East Timorese counterpart, Jose Ramos Horta.

Australia has three military liaison officers and four civilian police attached to the peacekeeping operation in East Timor, known as the United Nations Office in Timor-Leste.

Dili's port and airport were crowded with refugees yesterday, many shops were closed and there was panic buying at those that remained open. Petrol prices jumped from about US80c ($1.04) a litre to more than $US1 by midday.

Suburbs and the city centre were practically empty by mid- afternoon as people responded to text messages warning that the civil war that followed the 1999 independence vote was about to restart.

President Xanana Gusmao and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri held a joint press conference at which they urged almost 600 military deserters who have fled to the hills around Dili to return to the negotiating table. They also tried to reassure the East Timorese there was no likelihood of war breaking out.

Dozens of police from the country's western region have deserted their posts and escaped to join families in the mountains, the traditional refuge for Timorese in times of trouble.

A Dili-based World Bank official said the police had joined several hundred rebel soldiers, creating a grave risk for the Government.

Ethnic-based tensions between members of East Timor's police and defence force have intensified in recent months. Loromonu, or the nation's westerners, claim they are being passed over for promotion in favour of Lorosae, or people from the east. Similar tensions boiled over in December 2003, when mobs rioted and shops were burnt.

"Police from the western parts of East Timor have deserted their quarters and joined the petitioners in the mountains," one employee of an international body said. "As they left they took their guns and ammunition with them. "People are starting to panic. It reminds me of 1999."

Minister for Labour and Humanitarian Affairs Arsenio Bano said his office was drawing up plans to care for up to 20,000 displaced people.

Struggle for a future

The Australian - May 4, 2006

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Liandro de Jesus's body lay in the morgue at Dili's Guido Valadares hospital for four days before his family was allowed to see it. They claim they were warned that if they pushed the matter, they too, like the star university student so recently lost to them, would be shot.

De Jesus fell last Friday night, after an afternoon of rioting in the East Timorese capital turned mysteriously ferocious and targeted. He had awoken and fled his house at 2am, according to his sister, Magdalena, as the rattle of gunfire across Dili came closer.

"We had been told women should stay in their houses but men would not be safe there," a distraught Magdalena de Jesus says from the chaos of the city's Dom Bosco seminary, where at the height of the panic last weekend thousands of families sheltered.

Many more deserted the city altogether. The UN Office in Timor- Leste estimates that by Sunday 11,000 Dili residents had abandoned their homes, with the number of displaced people dropping to about 6000 by yesterday, although for a large group – perhaps hundreds of families - it is not a simple matter of returning.

Many have no homes to go back to after they were razed by angry mobs inflamed by ethnic tensions, largely drawn on geographic lines: the Lorosae, or easterners, and Loromonu, or westerners.

In this climate, but hours after Friday's mob violence had died down, de Jesus was running through the night for what he hoped would be the safety of the hills ringing the country's dusty port capital. It was a flight the political science student at the city's Universitas Paz (peace, in Portuguese) had lived with the expectation of always having to make. Flight has become, for many East Timorese, a matter of constant preparedness.

For decades Dili has been a site of irregular but extreme violence, first with the Indonesian invasion and occupation of 1975, then with the paroxysm of killings that accompanied the former Portuguese colony's vote for independence in a 1999 referendum.

The latest eruptions, with their contested number of dead – the official toll is four – were, on the face of it, the result of a dispute over discrimination in the military.

A group of 591 Loromonu soldiers were stripped of their badges in February after going on strike claiming mistreatment, including being denied promotion in favour of fellow soldiers from the Lorosae group.

After several days of reasonably well-contained protests, some of these disgruntled troops and a larger group of their supporters gathered outside the main government building on Friday to demand their case be heard. The petitioners, as they are known, weren't insisting on being given back their jobs. They said they only wanted their status clarified.

Their leaders, including former lieutenant Gastao Salsinha, pleaded with a hot-headed mob of supporters to keep calm, but to no avail. Despite the government offer of a commission to investigate the matter, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri's office was attacked, cars were torched and, in the melee, at least two people were shot dead.

However, that is the story at the surface of things. Below East Timor's uneasy calm, matters rapidly become opaque. A favourite topic of conversation is how to imagine the transition from being a community focused on armed resistance and brutal colonial rule to one based on a free and stable democracy, a nation taking its place at the table of the family of nations.

And even through the wild rumours and conspiracy theories doing the rounds of a country that has barely worked out what kind of democracy it wants to have – let alone what kind of uniformed force it wants protecting that system of government – it is clear that the latest events originate far beyond the claims of a few disgruntled soldiers.

From the hills to which de Jesus tried to flee one can look down across the historic pink mansion being rebuilt as an official residence for whoever succeeds founding President Xanana Gusmao, should he make good on his refusal to stand in elections next year; and on the gaudy faux-traditional thatch-roofed spread of Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta, with its monogrammed front gate, fronting the jarringly named Robert F. Kennedy Boulevarde.

One can also gaze across Dili's shanty-town poverty: the dirt- poor spread of a city never rebuilt from its once imagined Hispanic grandeur; and across Santa Cruz cemetery, where more than 300 East Timorese died in 1991 when Indonesian troops opened fire on students protesting the murder of one of their own by Jakarta's brutal security forces.

De Jesus never made it far enough to see any of these things. His body, surrounded by at least 19 empty shells, was discovered not far from home by police captain Angelo Quelo, a friend and neighbour who says there could have been as many as three people shooting at the unarmed student.

"It's clear that he was hit by more than the 19 bullets we found evidence of," Quelo says. "And from the shells we found scattered around the place, he was shot by more than one person, possibly two or three."

Quelo and de Jesus's brother-in-law, Domingos Guterres – also a policeman – were finally allowed to see the body yesterday. All but the head was covered and the family was refused permission to move the death sheets or even touch the body; hospital authorities insisted that was because an autopsy on the 26-year- old was still in progress.

"The doctors thought we wanted to take the corpse, but that's not it at all. If it has to be in the hospital for two or three months, that's fine, so long as an investigation gets to the bottom of why he was shot," Guterres says.

"Why must an unarmed student be the victim of these problems?" asks a cousin, Mariano Suares.

However, if the leader of the disaffected soldiers' group is to be believed, many more besides de Jesus will fall in this latest round of violence. A new civil war, according to Gastao Salsinha, is an entirely possible outcome.

"Those who shot people dead must be tried in an international court," says Salsinha from a hillside hideout, where he and his men are sheltering from former colleagues who are charged with hunting them down "like wild animals". Alkatiri made a televised address calling for the troops to abandon their strongholds in return for guaranteed protection, but Salsinha is dismissive.

"We absolutely don't trust him," the wiry soldier declares. "We need someone [in government] who can take responsibility, someone who is more intelligent than the current administration. We're worried that civil war might be the result, but this could be what has to happen."

Salsinha denies his group is intent on taking government, saying it only wants justice and a competent leadership for East Timor, a demand, he agrees, that could mean a repeat of the UN administration that stepped in to run the country after the 1999 disaster.

"Our thinking at the moment is that we need international help here if the current Government can't handle itself," he says.

Those in government disagree: Ramos Horta and others have insisted last week's events were simply led by political opponents and other outside forces, and a spokesman for Alkatiri describes as "nonsense" the suggestion the Prime Minister and his cabinet be dismissed or replaced.

Beyond that, the official rhetoric is equivocal; other than calls for calm and for the petitioners to give themselves up, no one in the expansive white government building on Rua Martires da Patria (the martyrs of the nation) is prepared to raise a hand against the petitioners, a reluctance many interpret as an unwillingness to uncover the various political aspirations thought to be driving the violence.

"Those people who don't like [Alkatiri] must show their feelings at an election and choose another party. For sure Fretilin [the ruling party and the former political wing of the anti-Indonesian resistance] will win again," spokesman Jose Manuel Guterres says.

Opposition elements agitating for an "illegal and unconstitutional way, which is coup d'etat", have already been identified, he claims. "We just need some proof [of their actions]."

And therein lies the rub. Underlying tensions would be easy enough to inflame, but ethnic violence does not just suddenly appear. East Timor's apparent division into two main groups snarling at each other's throats belies a more complex history of ethnic heritage and family and business connections, and a far simpler one as well: those who opposed the Indonesian occupation and those who didn't.

For independent parliamentarian Leandro Izak – one of those who spent decades in the wilderness fighting Jakarta's brutally efficient machine, but who is also critical of the monolithic nature of Fretilin's grip on government – the latest upheaval is "something [East Timorese] must all learn from and part of the challenge we face, to show the world we can be independent".

In the jungle, he points out, "there was no written law, and nor was there justice. There were just the necessities of fighting for freedom." As a result, he believes the hurdles East Timor faces are as great as they were in 1975, when eight months of effective self-rule following a coup in Lisbon were ended by the Indonesian invasion.

"It may be that the problems can't even be solved in one generation but will take four or five generations," he says from his home high in the hills above Dili. "But the key thing is education, and a shift in the mentality of East Timorese."

One thing is certain: when the UN Security Council meets in New York tomorrow to consider whether and how to renew its advisory role in East Timor – UNOTIL's mandate runs out in less than three weeks – the latest bloody events will feature prominently in considerations.

[Stephen Fitzpatrick is The Australian's Jakarta correspondent.]

Rebel soldiers take to the hills after riots in Dili

Sydney Mornign Herald - May 1, 2006

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Hundreds of sacked soldiers whose anti- Government protests erupted in violence have fled into East Timor's mountains, where many of them spent years waging a guerilla war against Indonesian troops.

A former lieutenant, Gastao Salsinha, said yesterday the soldiers would continue their "struggle" in the mountains until the Government in Dili acts on their claim that they were discriminated against in the army.

But the Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, urged Mr Salsinha and his men to "present themselves to police to clear their names" after the worst violence since the country gained independence four years ago left five people dead, about 45 injured and at least 100 homes destroyed. Police said they had identified 76 "hooligans" and 10 sacked soldiers involved in the violence.

Dr Ramos Horta blamed the violence on criminal youth gangs who he said "hijacked" the soldiers' four-day demonstration outside the Governor's office on Dili's waterfront. "I believe they [the soldiers] have genuine grievances," Dr Ramos Horta said.

Thousands of Dili's residents yesterday left the grounds of churches and embassies where they had taken shelter as violence and panic spread on Friday and early Saturday.

Many said they feared a repeat of 1999, when anti-independence militias backed by Indonesia's military rampaged through East Timor's towns and villages, killing an estimated 1200 people and destroying 80 per cent of buildings and infrastructure.

Dili's streets, largely deserted on Saturday, returned to normal yesterday, with shops and restaurants open.

Speaking by telephone from an undisclosed location, 32 year-old Mr Salsinha told the Timor Post that his men do not believe the Government wants to properly investigate their claims even though it announced the setting up of a special commission of inquiry last week.

Speaking to the Herald yesterday, Mr Salsinha said that more people were killed than the Government has admitted. "Many people were shot by government soldiers," he said. Mr Salsinha said he wanted the commission of inquiry given the power to investigate who was behind the violence.

Witnesses said some of the soldiers tried to stop rampaging by youth gangs that Dr Ramos Horta said were linked to Osorio Leki, whom he described as a "notorious gang leader".

Government officials said the commission would start investigating the soldiers' complaints tomorrow and would finish its work within a month.

Battle lines

• More than a third of army sacked after soldiers went absent without leave to protest about conditions and rules of promotion.
• Protests began on February 8, with nearly 600 soldiers saying they wanted an end to "nepotism and injustice".
• Soldiers claim they were discriminated against because they are from western regions. Easterners suspect them of being aligned with the anti-independence militia.

Violence forces Timorese to makeshift refugee camps

The Australian - May 1, 2006

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Thousands of East Timorese were pouring into makeshift refugee camps in Dili last night, fearful of being murdered in an outbreak of ethnic violence.

Homes in the capital have been torched and a marketplace razed over the weekend, bandit gangs organised on ethnic lines are patrolling the roads to towns beyond Dili, and many ordinary Timorese are being forced to identify neighbours to be attacked or killed.

Many who have lost their homes are sheltering in refugee camps such as the Dom Bosco seminary, which last housed masses of frightened East Timorese during the 1999 post-referendum massacres.

Others in the wave of frightened people heading for shelter last night included those who refused to take part in attacks, making themselves targets.

Five people are believed dead in the violence, the worst since East Timor won independence from Indonesia in 1999. More than 40 people were being treated in Dili's main hospital yesterday for injuries stemming from machete and bullet wounds. Other victims had been hit by stones and arrows, said doctor Antonio Caleres.

At Dom Bosco, principal brother Adriano de Jesus said yesterday that 1500 families had gathered on Friday afternoon.

"I myself just saw another 30 families arrive," he said. "Last night the football field was full of people, none of whom believed they were safe at home.

"We have here several families from Liquica (an outlying town) who came for market on Friday, leaving infant children at home. They cannot return now because there is a danger gangs on the road will kill them. I've tried to organise security to get them home, but the police say it is not safe to travel."

One man said he had brought his family of 15 to the shelter after a demonstration on Friday turned ugly and spread to other parts of the dusty port city, with up to five people dead. "There was shooting, and I was afraid my family would be hit," he said.

Aid groups are providing food, medicines, portable toilets and food and water for the refugees.

The latest violence began with a series of protests over the perceived ill-treatment of a group of almost 600 soldiers from the tiny nation's western-based ethnic group, sacked after going on strike over claims they had missed out on promotion in favour of soldiers from the east.

Discontent built in Friday's heat to a murderous campaign of savagery, with angry supporters of the deserting soldiers attacking the office of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri after a 3pm deadline for the Government to respond to their grievances passed without action. The building's windows were smashed and a number of vehicles torched.

Demonstrators allege troops opened fire, first with tear gas and then with live rounds, when the crowd showed signs of heading towards the town's shopping district. Two people are thought to have been killed in that episode.

In the nearby Taibesi market area, the ethnic tensions took on an equally deadly turn when a fist-fight between two men from the country's two main ethnic divisions – Lorosae, or easterners, and Loromonu, westerners – degenerated into a brawl that ended with at least one man shot in the head and the easterners' section of the market destroyed.

President Xanana Gusmao met late yesterday with Dr Alkatiri, Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta, police chief Paulo Martins and army commander Brigadier-General Taur Matan Ruak to discuss the crisis.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer urged Australians who were in East Timor, or thinking of going to the country, to exercise the highest degree of caution.

"As for the cause of the riots, we are still investigating that," he said. "There have been about 590 members of the East Timorese army who have been dismissed from the army, and those people have been demonstrating from time to time against the East Timor Government.

"But there's some evidence... that these riots weren't triggered by those people, as is popularly believed. But we're continuing to monitor the situation.

"There is no plan for Australia to become any more involved, and the East Timorese haven't asked us to become involved in any way at all by sending any reinforcements to them – they feel confident they can handle the situation on their own."

One villager said the violence in Taibesi was the result of frustration that East Timor's struggling administration had failed to provide an adequate standard of living or protect its citizens and that the dispute over the soldiers' treatment was the spark for the chaos.

"Send back the UN to run the country and provide security," Antonio Castro demanded. "The market was torched because our Government has failed to live up to its responsibilities, so the youth took matters into their own hands."

Dr Alkatiri made an address on national radio and TV last night appealing for calm, but Brother de Jesus said he was worried violence would flare up again. "Yesterday I brought one of the military deserters here and he had been shot," Brother de Jesus said. "He told me: 'I am a victim in this.' He himself had been shot by the military."

Most witnesses say few of the deserting soldiers have been involved in recent events – they have largely taken to the hills, says one, "where they are now being hunted like wild animals".

Justice & reconciliation

Truth commission to continue work despite Timor violence

Jakarta Post - May 27, 2006

Rita A. Widiadana, Sanur – The joint Indonesia-Timor Leste Truth and Friendship Commission will continue its work despite the outbreak of violence in Timor Leste, an official said Friday.

"We certainly must anticipate any delays in completing the job because some members of the commission are still there (in Timor Leste) and some documents are still being processed," Benjamin Mangkoedilaga, the commission's cochairman, said in Sanur, Bali, at the end of a five-day gathering with local and international experts.

Indonesia and Timor Leste established the Truth and Friendship Commission in August 2005. The 10 members of the commission are meant to investigate human rights abuses in the violence that preceded and followed the 1999 independence referendum in the former Indonesian province.

Dionisio Babo Soares, Timor Leste's cochairman, said his country was committed to helping the commission complete its work. "I am sure that the current situation in my country will not affect our work," Soares said.

He said delays in delivering documents and evidence from Timor Leste were the result of a complicated bureaucracy and having to deal with officials from the United Nations.

The meeting in Bali was held to discuss the commission's work from August 2005 to April 2006. The commission's mandate was scheduled to end in August 2006, but because there is so much work left to do it has been extended until August 2007.

"The commission has entered a review stage, matching documents from all the relevant institutions from both countries, as well as overviewing 14 major cases," Soares said.

He said the commission has finished the preliminary draft of a "yellow book", containing all the supporting data, information and evidence it has gathered.

Members of the body are tasked with collecting information, presenting thousands of witnesses and summoning alleged perpetrators from both countries to uncover gross human rights violations in the former East Timor. They also will examine all the charges, defense arguments and court verdicts presented by an Indonesian ad hoc human rights court, as well as some 11,000 documents presented by the Timor Leste Supreme Court.

During the meeting, the commission members were briefed by a number of experts, including Dr. Robert Evans of the American- based Plowshares Institute, Muladi, the governor of the military think-tank National Resilience Institute, Gen. Fahrul Razi of the Indonesian Army and Timor Leste Attorney General D. Longuinhos Monteiro.

According to commission member Benjamin, during the meeting Gen. Razi only presented information on the role of the Indonesian Army before and after the 1999 independence referendum. "A local daily reported that the general was summoned to testify before the commission. That is not true," Benjamin said.

The Indonesian Army has been accused of involvement in the l999 violence. According to the United Nations, before and after the referendum at least 1,500 people were killed by militia groups, backed by the Indonesian Military. The Indonesian ad hoc human rights court tried 18 people from the military over the violence, including the former head of the Dili Military Command, Lt. Col. Sudjarwo. The court also sentenced Eurico Guterres, the former leader of the pro-Indonesia militia Aitarak, to 10 years in prison.

"We will summon members of the Army, including Gen. Wiranto, as soon as we have finished with all the documents," Benjamin said. Wiranto was chief of the Army when the violence occurred.

"He (Gen. Wiranto) is open to testifying. He said it (testifying before the commission) would reveal the facts and release him and other members of the Army from their heavy psychological burdens," Benjamin said.

Federal 'hampering' in Balibo probe

Herald Sun - May 23, 2006

Vera Devai – The Australian Government was hampering the investigation into the death of a TV news cameraman in East Timor because of its political ties with Indonesia, NSW police said today.

Brian Peters, who was working for the Nine Network, was killed along with four other Australian newsmen in Balibo, East Timor, in October 1975. They were killed when Indonesian military forces were pushing inland on the first day of the invasion of East Timor.

Previous official reports have said the Balibo Five – Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, Tony Stewart, Malcolm Rennie and Mr Peters – were killed in crossfire between warring Timorese factions.

But a report earlier this year by East Timor's Commission for Truth and Reconciliation said that, based on witness interviews, it believed the five men were probably executed by Indonesian soldiers.

That report sparked fresh calls for Australia to hold a judicial inquiry into the deaths. An inquest into Mr Peters' death is due to be heard in the NSW Coroner's Court in Glebe, Sydney, in July.

But Detective Sergeant Steve Thomas of the NSW Coronial Assistance Unit said the investigation had come to a halt.

Police were unable to get the co-operation of the federal Attorney-General's Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) that would allow them to travel to Indonesia to arrange an examination of Mr Peters' remains and to meet persons of interest.

Det Sgt Thomas, who took the stand in the coroner's court during a mention of the matter yesterday, said he had asked DFAT to lodge a mutual assistance request with Indonesia in April. "But since that date, our request has been hampered by DFAT," Det Sgt Thomas told AAP today.

Investigators were given three reasons for the Federal Government's inaction, he said: "The history of (Indonesia's) non-compliance in mutual assistance requests, the implication of the Indonesian military and Australia's political links with Indonesia."

He said he raised the difficulties during yesterday's hearing to put his frustrations on the record. "We needed to show the court the lengths we are going to get (assistance)," he said.

Rodney Lewis, the lawyer representing Mr Peters' relatives, said the family was also frustrated with the delays.

"You can imagine how upsetting it is for the relatives of the deceased to discover that our own DFAT is unwilling to ask the Indonesian government for its help under a well-understood mutual assistance protocol which has apparently been followed in other cases," Mr Lewis said today.

"We understand that relations between Indonesia and Australia are sensitive but there may be allegations of murder at the inquest so that relationship will need to be subordinated to the interests of justice and a proper forensic inquiry into the facts."

Gutteres should be freed, says Amien Rais

Antara News - May 15, 2006

Former People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) chairman Amien Rais said for the sake of justice former East Timor pro-integration fighter Eurico Gutteres should be freed from all legal penalties for the human right abuses he was accused of because other parties who were more responsible for the atrocities had been acquitted.

"Eurico Guteres was only a field officer who fought in defense of the 'red-and-white' (Indonesia's national flag) in East Timor," Amien said here on Sunday "If the commander is absolved, then, for the sake of justice, his subordinate should be too," Amien, who is also a former National Mandate Part (PAN) Leader said

He said PAN would give legal assistance to Gutteres through its branch office in East Nusa Tenggara province to defend his rights as a national fighter and have him freed from prison

According to him, Eurico was punished more because there was a struggle within the political elite at the time. He was convinced there would always be a way to get justice done in Gutterres' case.

A former deputy Commander of the Integration Fighters Troops (PPI) in East Timor, Eurico Gutterres started to serve a 10-year- prison term on May 4, 2006 at the Cipinang State Penitentiary

Before entering the prison, Gutterres said he respected the decision of the Supreme Court to reject his appeal because he was a good Indonesian citizen although the decision was against his sense of justice.

Legislators visit Guterres in jail

Antara News - May 9, 2006

Jakarta – A number of members of the House of Representatives' Commission I dealing with security, political and foreign affairs paid a visit to former commander of the pro-integration fighter force PPI Eurico Guterres in the Cipinang state penitentiary here on Tuesday.

"It is a visit to show our sympathy to Gueterres for his past struggle in support of East Timor's integration into Indonesia," House Commission I member Yuddy Chrisnandi told newsmen when asked about their mission to visit Gueterres in the prison.

Besides Yuddy, other members of the commission from various factions were Permadi, Ali Mochtar Ngabalin, Untung Wahono, Boy Saul, Shidki Wahab and Markus Silano.

In a meeting in the room of the prison's warden, Guterres said he would present new evidence to support his request for a judicial review of his prison sentence.

"I want to seek justice and I'm ready to serve this jail term although it runs counter to my sense of justice," he said. Yuddy of the Golkar party faction said he had extended his sympathy dor Gueterres' struggle. "It's ironic. He is a civilian who was sent to jail while the accuseds from the military were acquitted," he added.

Permadi of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) also expressed his sympathy for Gueterres' contributions to East Timor's integration into Indonesia.

Gueterres, a civilian, was sentenced to 10 years in jail by an ad hoc human rights court which found the former militia leader guilty of atrocities in East Timor, now Timor Leste, before and after the 1999 independence referendum in the former Indonesian territory.

Dozens of military, including former commander of the Indonesian Defence Forces (ABRI) Gen Wiranto, who was also accused in the same case, were freed by the court.

Timor Leste gained independence from Indonesia in 1999. The pro- Jakarta militias which the United Nations has said were recruited and directed by the Indonesian Military, went on an arson and killing spree before and after the East Timorese voted for independence in a UN-sponsored ballot in August 1999.

Members of the pro-Jakarta militias were denied citizenship by the Timor Leste government and many former militia members are now living along the border between Timor Leste and Indonesia.

Earlier, Henry Simarmata of the Indonesian Legal Advocacy Association PBHI) said Gueterres could not have committed human right violations in East Timor on his own accord. "It's impossible for Gueterres to have carried out the offences all by himself, yet he was tried and sentenced alone," he added.

He said the court had failed to administer justice on those who were also responsibie for the atrocities in East Timor that killed, caused the missing and physically disabled thousands of people. The Sumpreme Court endorsed the ad hoc court's verdict n Guterres.

Pro-Jakarta militia leader begins sentence

Financial Times - May 4, 2006

Shawn Donnan, Jakarta – A former pro-Jakarta militia leader on Thursday began serving a 10-year jail sentence in connection with the 1999 violence in East Timor as the United Nations Security Council prepared to discuss on Friday extending the mandate of a UN mission to the world's newest nation.

Eurico Guterres, former head of the Aitarak, or "Thorn", militia, is the first Indonesian to be sent to prison over the deaths of some 1,500 people. Of the 18 people tried by a special Jakarta court, he is the only one to have had his conviction upheld on appeal.

Mr Guterres' tardy imprisonment – he was convicted in 2002 and has been free on appeal since then – is seen by many as a symptom of Indonesia's continuing reluctance to punish anyone for crimes committed in East Timor.

His jailing appears to be timed to coincide with Friday's UN Security Council meeting. Although it is expected to focus on renewing the mandate for the UN support mission in East Timor, the subject dubbed by the Council as "credible accountability" for the 1999 violence in East Timor is also likely to be raised.

Many Indonesians still bemoan the "loss" of the former Portuguese colony and Jakarta has refused to hand over senior military officers indicted by prosecutors investigating the violence as part of a now-dissolved UN team.

"The one issue that has consistently provoked a nationalist uproar in Indonesia is accountability for past human rights violations," analysts for the International Crisis Group, a think-tank, write in a new report on East Timor's relations with Indonesia.

Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono abruptly cancelled a meeting with his Timorese counterpart, Xanana Gusmao, after the former rebel leader earlier this year flew to New York to submit a 2,500-page report detailing Indonesian atrocities to the UN.

Jakarta has also bristled at international criticism of the ad- hoc court it set up to try Mr Guterres and 17 others on human rights charges, although the process is widely considered to have been a sham.

Most diplomats agree that despite persistent calls from rights groups there is little likelihood of the UN establishing a special tribunal for East Timor. But there are signs of another plan in the works.

In a report to the Security Council last month, Kofi Annan, secretary-general, said he would "soon" submit a proposal to the council "with a practically feasible approach" to securing justice for what happened in East Timor.

Friday's discussion at the UN will also come at a time when East Timor, which now ranks as one of the world's smallest and poorest countries, is facing a political crisis.

Riots that erupted a week ago during a demonstration by former members of the Timorese armed forces left four people dead and caused more than 10,000 people to flee their homes in the capital.

[Additional reporting by Taufan Hidayat.]

Guterres finally jailed, generals still free

Paras Indonesia - May 4, 2006

After an appeal process that dragged on for over three years, former East Timorese pro-Indonesia militia leader Eurico Guterres has finally begun serving his 10-year jail sentence for crimes against humanity, but the Indonesian generals who ordered and financed his crimes remain free.

The long-haired Guterres was accorded a hero's welcome when arrived at East Jakarta's Cipinang jail at 7.10pm Thursday (4/5/06). Emerging from a black Toyota Kijang vehicle, he waved the red-and-white Indonesian flag to a cheering crowd of his supporters, who had been waiting patiently for several hours.

Most of those in the crowd were members of the paramilitary Red- and-White Defenders Front (FPMP). Others were from the National Mandate Party (PAN), in which Guterres serves as chairman of the East Nusa Tenggara provincial chapter.

Accompanied by his lawyer Suhardi Sumomuljono, Guterres swaggered rapidly to the jail's main entrance, declining to speak to reporters or his supporters. But before he was inside, a brief scuffle broke out between police and press photographers.

Officers from East Jakarta Police precinct roughly pushed away the photographers when they attempted to approach Guterres. This resulted in a war of words and then a minor physical clash between the two sides. Reporters remained outside the jail in the hope that Guterres would later re-emerge to give a press conference.

Sure enough, he was allowed to speak to the press after undergoing standard administration procedures for a new admission. He said he regretted the government's decision to reward his struggle for Indonesian unity by treating him as a criminal.

He said the government was unfair and wrong because it was punishing his patriotism, whereas separatist rebels in Aceh province were receiving special treatment following last year's peace deal.

Guterres said his lawyers would file for a judicial review of his case in an effort to have his sentence overturned by the Supreme Court. He is now in Cipinang's Block B in a Type 5 cell that can accommodate up to five inmates.

Long path to jail

Guterres (34), who is close to influential senior Indonesian generals, is the former leader of the feared Aitarak (Thorn) militia group, which helped to unleash carnage in East Timor in the period surrounding the territory's 1999 vote to secede from Indonesia.

Under strong pressure from the international community to bring Guterres to justice, Indonesian authorities arrested him a couple of times in 2000 on various charges. In April 2001, he was convicted of inciting violence in West Timor and sentenced to six months' imprisonment, but ended up serving only 23 days under house detention thanks to his powerful military friends. Human rights activists continued to demand he be tried for war crimes, but the military lauded him as a heroic patriot.

In November 2002, Indonesia's special human rights court convicted Guterres of crimes against humanity – for failing to stop his militiamen from killing independence supporters – and sentenced him to 10 years in jail. He was to remain free pending appeal. Jakarta High Court in July 2004 reduced his sentence to five years. The Supreme Court on March 13, 2006, rejected his final appeal and reinstated the original 10-year sentence.

Human rights groups in August 2003 accused Guterres of going to remote Papua province to establish a unit of the Merah Putih Defenders Front to oppose the separatist Free Papua Organization. Media reports last year alleged that Guterres had visited tsunami-hit Aceh province to assemble a unit of his Army-backed militia to combat the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM). The thug strongly denied the reports, claiming he was confined to Jakarta, which was absolute nonsense because he was free to travel throughout the country.

Although best known as a war criminal, Guterres has also led a varied political career. He was initially a member of Golkar Party, the former political vehicle of ex-dictator Suharto. In June 1999, Golkar selected Guterres to stand for election in the national parliament. He left Golkar in March 2000 for then vice president Megawati Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), which he felt had done the most of any party to help keep East Timor within Indonesia. Megawati in August 2000 appointed him chief of PDI-P's paramilitary youth group, Banteng Pemuda. He left PDI-P this year to join PAN, boasting that his presence would attract more voters to the party in the 2009 general election.

PAN expressed regret over the Supreme Court's decision to jail Guterres and vowed to give him full support. PAN legislator Patrialis Akbar on March 15 said the party has always sympathized with Guterres "because of his noble struggle for the unity of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia". That "noble struggle" involved participating in massacres that left more than 1,000 people dead. In other words, PAN seems to support the murder of innocent people. It remains to be seen whether the party's strategy of enlisting a murderous thug to improve its popularity will succeed.

Akbar said the Supreme Court should have considered that Guterres' actions were motivated by his patriotic desire to keep East Timor part of Indonesia.

Tearful farewell

Following his election in February as chairman of PAN's East Nusa Tenggara chapter, Guterres spent most of his time in the provincial capital of Kupang.

On Tuesday, a team of prosecutors arrived in Kupang to prepare to take Guterres to Jakarta to begin serving his sentence. On Wednesday, hundreds of his supporters, including former militiamen, gathered outside his house to farewell him. Dressed in a long-sleeved batik shirt, Guterres told the crowd that he apologized to the Indonesian nation if his struggle to keep East Timor part of the country was a mistake. He urged his followers to be law-abiding and remain loyal to Indonesia.

Many of his supporters wept when Father Romo Maxi Un Bria of the Kupang Archdiocese led prayers for the war criminal. On Thursday morning, more than 1,000 former residents of East Timor gathered at Kupang's airport to see off Guterres before he made the three-hour flight to Jakarta. Guterres stood in an open car escorted by a convoy of militiamen as he made the 5 kilometer journey from his house to the airport. He kissed an Indonesian flag and waved to his fans lining the road while noisy music played.

"Eurico is a hero. We release him to wage war and hope he will return safely after 10 years," former militiaman Joanico Cesario was quoted as saying by the Media Indonesia daily's online edition. Noticeably absent were Guterres' wife Agida and their three children, who have reportedly become citizens of East Timor.

Guterres cried as impassioned speeches were made about his heroism and the glorious struggle to force East Timor to be part of Indonesia. Carrying an Indonesian flag and a bouquet of flowers, he told the crowd that he would fight for reconciliation with East Timor after being released from prison.

A report by The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Guterres as saying the government had treated him "unfairly and discriminatorily for only sending me to jail and letting military and police officers, who have greater responsibility than I do, go free from punishment".

"But as a warrior, I'm ready to be sent to jail for fighting for the red and white. So please let me go because I'm sure that one day, the truth will be revealed," he added.

Guterres could be out of prison within six years if he receives annual remissions as generous as those given to Suharto's youngest son Hutomo 'Tommy' Mandala Putra, who is serving a 10- year sentence for murder and other offenses but is regularly allowed out of jail.

Generals escape justice

In an effort to dampen calls for an independent international tribunal over the East Timor carnage, Indonesia's human rights court in 2002 began hearing cases against 18 defendants accused of crimes against humanity.

Sixteen of the defendants – all of them members of the Indonesian security forces – were eventually acquitted, while Guterres and East Timor's former governor Abilio Soares were convicted of crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights. Soares had his conviction overturned on appeal in 2004 after spending 111 days in jail.

Rights activists said the trials were a sham and complained that several senior generals suspected of masterminding the carnage were never tried because of the judiciary's fear of the powerful military. East Timor President Xanana Gusmao seemed unconcerned by the lack of convictions, arguing that harmonious relations with Indonesia should take priority over efforts to uphold justice.

Politics/political parties

Fretilin joy as Alkatiri prevails but threats linger

Melbourne Age - May 20, 2006

Mark Forbes, Dili – East Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri's leadership has been overwhelmingly endorsed in raucous, joyous scenes at the ruling Fretilin party conference, after a challenge collapsed amid allegations of intimidation and bribery.

Claiming a historic victory for democracy, Mr Alkatiri led more than 500 delegates in a rousing rendition of East Timor is our land, momentarily putting aside protests and a mutiny.

Fears of further bloodshed remain. Nearly 600 soldiers are demanding that military commanders disarm before they emerge from the mountains for an inquiry into their grievances.

The violence that has shaken East Timor during the past three weeks continued in the lead-up to the vote, with police firing into the air to disperse rock-throwing youths early yesterday morning. They had attacked Fretilin delegates leaving the conference.

Security was heightened yesterday, with police blocking all approaches to the venue.

Mr Alkatiri had pledged to resign as prime minister if not backed by Fretilin. He claimed opponents had bribed delegates to vote against him and said that was why opponents were against deciding the leadership on a show of hands.

His challenger, Jose Luis Guterres, withdrew before the vote yesterday, claiming the lack of a secret ballot prevented a fair contest. He said delegates who worked for the Government feared reprisals. Mr Guterres, who boycotted yesterday's session, said he would return to his position as East Timor's UN ambassador.

Demonstrations sparked by the desertion of nearly half the army left at least five dead and 70 injured last month. In the violence, an estimated 50,000 people fled, refusing to return to Dili.

The leader of the rebel soldiers, Gastao Salsinha, said he would only co-operate with an inquiry called by Mr Alkatiri after military leaders were disarmed. Otherwise, an international military force would be necessary to prevent a further deterioration in security, Lieutenant Salsinha said.

The Fretilin conference moved from two days of angry debates to scenes that verged on the bizarre yesterday. During a break, the normally taciturn Mr Alkatiri climbed into the stands of the basketball stadium to sing, karaoke-style, a Portuguese song titled I love Timor.

Police Minister Rogerio Lobato told the conference more than 80 per cent of delegates had signed letters pledging to support Mr Alkatiri before the conference began. He praised Mr Alkatiri's leadership and said "the support we get, we didn't buy with money".

During the final conference debate, delegates expressed concern at the Government's failure to deal with the deteriorating security situation. Several called for Foreign Minister Ramos Horta to reinvigorate negotiations with the rebels.

Friend in high place helps Alkatiri

The Australian - May 20, 2006

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Dili – Mari Alkatiri was so confident he had stitched up the leadership of East Timor's ruling Fretilin party that by morning tea at the party's national congress yesterday he was belting out a melancholy nationalist anthem over the PA system, accompanied by an organist with a push-button rhythm machine.

It was the tipping-point moment, when a three-day national congress, designed to settle matters such as an agreed party history and a hoped-for national future, veered into vaudeville.

Two blocks away, at Dili's salubrious Hotel Timor, the Prime Minister's would-be challenger – suave diplomat Jose Luis Guterres, Dili's ambassador to the US and delegate to the UN – was officially announcing the withdrawal of his candidacy for the position of Fretilin secretary-general, the party's top job.

The Guterres team had lost a bid on Thursday to ensure voting would be by secret ballot, and was not prepared to continue with an "undemocratic" poll.

An open vote by show of hands, Guterres complained, would automatically reinstall Alkatiri as secretary-general – and therefore East Timorese Prime Minister – because delegates to the congress would be intimidated into backing the mercurial national leader.

Alkatiri and his team run East Timor with an iron fist, but they deny charges of intimidation. They also deny allegations of corruption, nepotism and mismanagement, although there is plenty of anecdotal and some documentary evidence of all these administrative and systemic failings in the fledgling Southeast Asian nation, still barely out of its birth pangs.

East Timor has access to expansive natural resources wealth and a pool of foreign donors willing to help with reconstruction after the decades-long disaster of Indonesian occupation, but many claim the Government is incapable of distributing the benefits of all this opportunity to the population.

The Government faces regular challenges from armed gangs, and more recently deserting soldiers and military police.

There could still be a violent reaction to Alkatiri's reappointment, just as there was a reception of rock-throwing and automatic weapons fire on Thursday night for the out-of-town delegates – that is, most of them – as they returned to their quarters in the city's west after a marathon late-night sitting at the congress hall.

Guterres's challenge was supposed to be about arresting East Timor's slide into potential Melanesian-style chaos, although one of his biggest problems was his unwillingness or inability to say exactly what alternative he was offering.

All he had in his election patter was a dislike of Alkatiri's "confrontational, domineering style", and a promise that he would be a leader who listened.

Admitting defeat yesterday and the possibility of payback from his "good friend" Alkatiri, the ambassador shrugged and said: "If the Government now decides that instead of attending meetings in New York I should enjoy some peace and quiet here in East Timor, then that's up tothem."

Insisting the Government "does not belong to Mr Alkatiri, but to Fretilin", Guterres defended his decision to stand. "I exercised my civic duty as a citizen of this country and as a former central committee member," he said.

That the Fretilin central committee wields supreme power in East Timorese civic life, like the politburo in some old-fashioned communist dictatorship, is hardly in dispute.

Fretilin is the only political force of any strength, and Alkatiri's style of rule involves playing the same sort of personality politics and appeal to popular self-sacrifice that historically wins guerilla wars.

The retired fighters of Falintil, Fretilin's military wing, who travelled hundreds of kilometres to be at this week's congress – women as well as men – still believe passionately in the cause for which they fought. Any lingering doubt would have been quickly quashed by the huge official congress banner featuring their late founding president, Nicolae Lobatu, in full guerilla gear, and by the singing of the Fretilin anthem Foho Ramelau each morning, with its rousing refrain: "There is a new dawn, See it over the village, See it over the nation; Awake, and take the reins, Rise, and free our nation."

There is no doubt Alkatiri had taken a firm grip on the reins well before he scaled the bleachers high in the dilapidated sports stadium yesterday to take the microphone for Timor Love, an Indonesian-era local ballad.

Victory was already assured at least 24 hours earlier, when the secretary-general put his stamp on proceedings with the surprise appearance, to thunderous applause, of Foreign Minister and Fretilin co-founder Jose Ramos Horta, an enigmatic figure with almost god-like status in Fretilin, but who left the party 15 years ago, citing the need to create a non-partisan national leadership.

Accompanied by a personal cameraman and an uptight Portuguese spin doctor, the grey-bearded and portly architect of independence lapped up Thursday's rapturous welcome, beaming and waving from side to side.

Ramos Horta's dramatic arrival at the Gedung Matahari Terbit – the Sunrise Building – was a purely symbolic moment at a gathering where party credentials and personal handbags were scrutinised in equally close fashion for three days.

But what a piece of symbolism, for a party where chimera has so often been more important than reality – from Fretilin's initial dream of achieving independence against all military odds to the curiously religious awe in which former guerilla leader-turned- president Xanana Gusmao is now held. There is a sort of cargo- cult mentality in the extent to which people believe Gusmao can fix the economic and social problems bedevilling East Timor.

A new war threatens to erupt from the hills unless the ageing President intervenes to sack his Government and call in UN troops, while competing business interests and development inaction from the central government contribute, in the eyes of many, to the continuing threat of rebellious military action.

So Ramos Horta's carefully timed entry to the congress, moments after the matter of electoral policy was settled (by a show of hands, as it happens), was a superb combination of myth and realpolitik.

In the view of most delegates, he played a vital role for decades as the diplomat who trod the world stage acquiring international legitimacy for their country, even as they were in the jungles and the mountains creating a homeland with their own blood, drawn by Indonesian brutality and bullets. His current campaign to lead the UN only increases his prestige.

Ramos Horta told the Fretilin faithful the most important thing they could fight for now was party unity in the name of the new nation.

"Whoever is elected at this congress, I will continue to serve East Timor," he declared to wild applause from a crowd that had little interest in supporting an untested challenge to the order of things.

Intimidation or not, they knew which horse they were being told to back. At that moment, Guterres knew he had lost. His applause for the Foreign Minister was in part an acknowledgement of Alkatiri's political masterstroke in producing such a powerful ally to cement the deal.

When the nominations were put forward yesterday morning, Alkatiri's candidacy was supported by 515 of the 586 delegates eligible to vote (under the rules, you need at least 10 per cent of delegates supporting your candidacy to stand for election).

The show of hands was a mere formality – on a district by district count Alkatiri and his presidential running mate, Francisco "Lu Olo" Guterres, took the floor with two votes against and nine abstentions.

Book/film reviews

Trouble in Timor

The Australian - May 20, 2006

Graeme Blundell – David Wenham and a cast of East Timorese amateurs are stunning in a new ABC drama about the bloody history of the world's newest nation

It has been easy not to remember the tragedy of East Timor, so overwhelmed did we become by September 11, wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and terrorist bombings in Madrid, Bali and London.

It was understandable that we did not recall the executions, massacres, torture, the cycle of rape and sexual violence that so marked East Timor during the past 30 years.

The unwilling colony was an abandoned and almost forgotten half- island. In 1975, Indonesia under president Suharto invaded East Timor, uneasily controlled by its own population after the collapse of the colonial Portuguese empire.

The invasion was effectively condoned by the US and Australia as supposedly a pragmatic course of Kissingerian realism; a favourable deal on Timor's oil reserves, it was thought, would be easier to negotiate with Indonesia rather than an independent East Timor.

The decades of slaughter, some of the worst relative to population in recent history, hardly raised a political eyebrow in this country.

In 1999, East Timor won the right to vote for independence: a window prised open. The UN sent in volunteers to supervise the ballot and protect the voters, and promised the Timorese they would remain, regardless of the outcome. As we know, they did not.

The ABC's compelling two-part drama series Answered by Fire, co- produced with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, is the story of what happened. It's enough to make anyone who watches feel ashamed of our collective amnesia.

This series brings it all back with startling authority just as the ravaged country is facing new challenges. Director Jessica Hobbs calls this sober drama "a story of parallels: a contrast of personal journeys set against a political background". It covers the politics of covert intervention and overt abandonment on the part of the US and Australia, as well as East Timor's complex ethnic heritage.

David Wenham is Mark Waldman, a decent enough Australian policeman, a UN mission volunteer, commanding civilian police at the UN base at Nunura in East Timor's Bobonaro district, west of the capital Dili.

Alex Tilman is a brave young Timorese translator, Ismenio Soares, assigned to Wenham's unit, and Isabelle Blais plays Julie Fortin, an earnest Canadian policewoman on her first overseas mission.

Ismenio, his family torn apart by war, is cynical about the UN, He can only see a nightmarish fate at the hands of the Indonesian military. "No one gets Timor," he says despairingly. "It makes me crazy; no one wants to live like this."

Waldman and Fortin, both unarmed, are emotionally unprepared for the barbarism of the militia terror campaign. Neither understands a situation in which the world expects them to keep the peace while ensuring the UN stays neutral.

Asked if he's a "mission junkie" early in the first episode, Waldman diffidently replies: "Timor's a bit different for Australians. The East Timorese saved our arses against the Japanese in World War II. In 1975, we just stood by and let the Indonesians walk in and take the place. We owe these people big time." Fortin feels, initially at least, that she just wants the salary to pay her mortgage.

After 78.5 per cent of Timorese vote for independence, it all ends in violence by pro-Indonesian militias, UN abandonment and terrible guilt for the peacekeepers. The knowledge that Australian intelligence was aware of everything Indonesia had planned and did nothing, provides further cause for disillusionment.

Hobbs, a superb director, tells this story with a sense of creeping dread, avoiding histrionics and refusing to compromise with the integrity of her narrative.

"I felt it was important to work out what parts of this immense story we could do well and with the right authenticity," she says. Her aim was to make a program that would prompt people to say "I want to know more about that". And she wants them to think about it so it never happens again. "'Lest we forget' was my driving motivation," she says. "A wake-up call, really, to what has been occurring just off our shores."

Running throughout is a question that becomes increasingly difficult to answer as the series reaches its conclusion: how many generations will it take a community shaped by armed resistance and guerilla war, and reduced to shantytown poverty, to become a free and stable democracy, regardless of expected future oil and gas revenues of $13 billion from the Timor Gap?

The script by Canadian executive producer Barbara Samuels, who developed the idea in 1999 after one of her friends volunteered for the UN and was sent to East Timor, and experienced Australian screenwriter Katherine Thomson is focused, moving as a study of character, scathing as a political indictment.

But it is the acting by the cast of East Timorese, with no formal experience, that is spellbinding.

Hobbs pursued this project for two years, travelling across Australia, workshopping those interested in taking part. Some were Timorese activists and many were refugees.

"Their willingness to reveal the pain of their recent history was a revelation," she says. "I listened to hundreds of stories of bravery, terror and hope. I don't remember a single person who had not lost someone."

She found casting the Timorese militia leaders difficult; many of them are played by student activists and independence fighters who have fled Timor.

"They had been terrified and tortured by the same people I was asking them to represent. I gained strength from their insistence that these scenes must be accurate, as painful as they were to recreate."

Watch, for example, for an incandescent performance from Jose de Costa as Sico, the local militia leader; haughty, murderous, sweating testosterone. In real life De Costa, having survived the Dili massacre (six of his siblings and his father were killed), was captured by Indonesian police and tortured. He spent four years in hiding and arrived in Australia by boat in 1995 as a political refugee. "To be militia is evil," he says. "I had to try and reverse my feelings of pain, anger and revenge, to use them for the role."

The scenes between Wenham and de Costa are mesmerising. So is Felisberto Araujo as Ismenio's father. Hobbs says she can't forget the smile that broke across his face as he relived the experience of voting for the first time in his 70-year existence. Wenham is the kind of actor who collaborates with the character he plays in order to create an inseparable fusion of fact and fiction.

It's increasingly difficult to detect where his characters begin and where Wenham evanesces. And he is terrific in this series, gravely intelligent and, out of respect for his fellow actors one suspects, decently self-effacing for someone so charismatic.

Asked how closely he had followed events in East Timor, the answer is emphatic: "Very. Full stop. Or exclamation mark," he says in a phone interview. "I saw a documentary, John Pilger's Death of a Nation: The Timor Conspiracy, and it affected me and angered me, so I joined the Australia-East Timor Association to get information on what was happening there."

Hobbs says that initially the Timorese were hesitant around the blue-eyed film star. But Wenham told her he felt as though each scene brought him down to earth. "Don't be apprehensive," he told his Timorese colleagues. "I have to get to where you already are."

Timor story makes politics personal

Australian Financial Review - May 20, 2006

Katrina Strickland – There is a scene in the ABC's new mini- series, Answered By Fire, in which a journalist tells a couple of United Nations police that the Australian government received intelligence ahead of East Timor's 1999 independence referendum about the likelihood of post-ballot violence.

It is one of those issues that you expect to be developed further as the mini-series progresses. Did the government really know? Who, when and to what extent? What effect did it have on the main protagonists? Strangely, the matter is not touched upon beyond this scene.

It is indicative of the difficulties facing filmmakers who use recent history as the basis for a fictional tale, that the makers of this TV show, the first drama to be filmed about East Timor's bloody road to independence, chose to include this reference without expanding on it.

Plenty has been written about the issue in the press, but to veer too much into politics, or to state as fact that which might still be contested, is to risk becoming a political football. If you're playing with distant history, the arguments over how accurately you have portrayed a situation will be mostly waged by historians. With six-year-old history, anyone who lived through it will have an opinion.

It's a problem that is particularly pertinent to Jessica Hobbs, who in directing Answered by Fire was dealing with a cast of 40- plus Timorese people who had not acted before and all of whom had either lived through the referendum, or had (or lost) family who did.

The two-part mini-series, which screens on the ABC next Sunday night and again the following weekend, tells the story of the 1999 referendum through the personal journeys of an Australian (David Wenham) and Canadian (Isabelle Blais), who work for the UN as civilian police, and their Timorese translator (Alex Tilman).

Hobbs says writers Barbara Samuels and Katherine Thomson did extensive research to ensure their fictional account was based squarely on fact, but that, primarily, they had written a personal tale.

"We didn't want to hijack the Timorese story with Australian politics, because that's another story," says Hobbs. "It can start to feel like a polemic if you focus too much on what the Australian government did and didn't do, and that's not the point. For me it was always about setting a personal journey in a political landscape, so let's get the personal journey right.

The cornerstones of that are the political history and you don't bugger around with them, but it is a story about how what happened affected individuals."

Hobbs says directing a cast with such personal connections to the story was one of the most difficult and rewarding jobs of her career.

By way of example she mentions Jose de Costa, a teacher in real life who plays a murdering militia leader in Answered by Fire. Costa's own father was a member of the East Timorese resistance, and Costa was himself locked up and tortured by the Indonesian police. A scene in which Costa has to shoot someone at point blank range took all day to film. "He couldn't hold the gun up to him, his hand was shaking so much, he was physically ill," says Hobbs.

She had her own doubts about the ethics of dredging up bad memories for the sake of a fictional TV series. "I was really wondering whether it was the right thing to do, whether it was appropriate or worth it, whether it would bring out things that could be damaging [to the cast members] in the long term," she says.

In the case of Answered by Fire there was an added incentive to focus on the personal and stay away from Australian politics; the two-part mini-series is co-funded by the ABC and its Canadian equivalent, with Australia accounting for 70 per cent of the $8 million budget and Canada providing the balance.

When the show screens in Australia there might be some interest in the Australian political angle; when it screens in Canada, most likely some time after October, there will be zero interest. Hobbs and the team who made the film were relieved to receive a positive response during screenings in Darwin and Melbourne earlier this month from audiences made up of people who worked or lived in East Timor at the time of the referendum.

A number of policemen attended the screening, along with the cast, members of the expatriate Timorese community and relatives of the Australian journalists who were murdered in Balibo in 1975.

Opinion & analysis

Australia determined to oust Alkatiri

Zmag - May 31, 2006

Maryann Keady – Three years ago, I wrote a piece talking about attempts to oust Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri in East Timor, then a new struggling independent nation. I wrote that I believed the US and Australia were determined to oust the Timorese leader, due to his hardline stance on oil and gas, his determination not to take out international loans, and their desire to see Australia friendly President Xanana Gusmao take power.

Three years later, I am unhappy to say that the events I have predicted are currently taking shape. The patriotic Australia media, that has unquestionably fallen into line over every part of John Howard's Pacific agenda – including the Solomon's excursion – is now trumpeting the ousting of Alkatiri, a man who has gamely defied Australia's claims over it's oil and gas, many of the paper's foreign editors clearly more in tune with the exhortations of Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade than the sentiments among Timorese.

I arrived in Dili just as the first riots broke out on April 28 this year – and as an eyewitness at the front of the unrest, the very young soldiers seemed to have outside help – believed to be local politicians and 'outsiders'. Most onlookers cited the ability of the dissident soldiers to go from an unarmed vocal group, to hundreds brandishing sticks and weapons, as raising locals' suspicions that this was not an 'organic' protest. I interviewed many people – from Fretlin insiders, to opposition politicians and local journalists – and not one ruled out the fact that the riots had been hijacked for 'other' purposes. The Prime Minister himself stated so.

In a speech on the 7th of May, he called it a coup – and said that 'foreigners and outsiders' were trying once again to divide the nation. I reported this for ABC Radio – and was asked if I had the translation wrong. I patiently explained no – we had carefully gone through the speech word for word, and anyone with any knowledge of Timorese politics would understand that is precisely what the Prime Minister meant. No other media had bothered to go to the event – the Australian media preferring to hang out with the rebel soldiers or Australian diplomats that all wanted Alkatiri 'gone'.

Since his election, Alkatiri had sidelined the most important figure in Timorese politics – President Xanana Gusmao – and the tension between the two has been readily apparent. Alkatiri, has a different view to Gusmao about how the country's development should take place – slowly, without 'rich men feasting behind doors' was the way he described it to me, a steady structure of development the way to develop a truly independent nation. His ability to defend Timor's oil and gas interests against an aggressive Australia and powerful business interests, and his development of a Petroleum Fund to protect Timor's oil money from future corruption never accorded with the caricature created by his Australian and American detractors of a 'corrupt dictator.'

The campaign to oust Alkatiri began at least four years ago – I recorded the date after an American official started leaking me stories of Alkatiri's corruption while I was freelancing for ABC Radio.

I investigated the claims – and came up with nought – but was more concerned with the tenor of criticism by American and Australian officials that clearly suggested that they were wanting to get rid of this 'troublesome' Prime Minister. Like Somare, he was not doing things their way.

After interviewing the major political leaders – it was clear that many would stop at nothing to get rid of Timor's first Prime Minister. President Xanana Gusmao, three years ago, did not rule out dissolving parliament and forming a 'national unity government'.

Gusmao and his supporters (including Jose Ramos-Horta) have privately called Alkatiri an 'Angolan communist' with his idea of slow paced development not something Gusmao and his Australian supporters agree with. Other than that, it is hard to work out why President Gusmao would allow forces to unconstitutionally remove this Prime Minister. In Timor, many see Gusmao at fault here, for disagreeing with the Prime Minister over the sacking of the soldiers (it should have been resolved in private) while others see him as the architect of the whole fiasco, his frustration with his limited political role allowing him to be convinced by his Australian advisors to embark on a needlessly bloody coup.

In the last few days we have heard from young Timorese writers currently at the Sydney Writer's Festival. They have a different take from the Australian media on what is happening in Timor. Take this quote by one young writer:

'... it is suspicious and questionable. It is difficult to analyse why Australia wants to go there. I think it is driven by concerns over Australia's economic security, including the oil under the sea, rather than concern for the people of East Timor. 'I am scared it is less about East Timor's security than Australia's security and interests.'

Gil Gutteres, the head of Timor's journalists association TILJA similarly last month said old style fears of communism, and economic interests of Australia were driving the anti-Alkatiri campaign, and were behind the violence. In fact, there is hardly a person in Timor that doesn't understand that this is about big politics – helped by internal figures wanting to control the oil and gas pie.

And yet the Australian press is full of 'our boys' doing us proud. This does not equate with sentiment on the ground, or answer the question as to where the rebel forces could have received support for this foolhardy campaign that has led to many Timorese being frightened, distressed and homeless.

Just this evening, witnesses spoke of Australian army personnel standing by while militia fired on a church in Belide. During the early violence, not one UN soldier intervened to stop the small band of rioters, and the recent actions of the Australian troops add fuel to speculation that they are letting Timor burn.

Alkatiri, for his part is refusing to step aside, saying that only Fretlin, his party, can ask him to resign. If he does go, the Timorese have the Australian media to thank for their unquestioning support of this coup. Perhaps they can explain to the starving citizens (that were already ignored by Australia for 25 years) why Australia now controls their oil and gas. More importantly, the politicians in Timor that have been party to the violence will have to explain to the people their involvement in this latest chapter of its traumatic history.

[Maryann Keady is an Australian radio producer and journalist who has reported from Dili since 2002. She is currently a professional associate at Columbia University's Weatherhead Institute looking at US Foreign Policy and China.]

Solidarity with the Timorese people

Green Left Weekly - May 31, 2006

Max Lane – On May 24, East Timorese President Xanana Gusmao, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and the speaker of East Timor's parliament Lu'olo sent a letter to the governments of Australia, Portugal, Malaysia and New Zealand as well as to the United Nations asking for assistance in the form of a military presence in order to respond to civil disorder in the East Timor capital Dili, and surrounding areas. The disorder had developed out of a dispute within the East Timorese armed forces.

The Australian government, which had already made an offer to send a force, was particularly enthusiastic in agreeing to the request, eager to ensure stable governance of East Timor to facilitate its ongoing theft of East Timor's oil and gas. The move will also be used to justify Australian imperialism's interventionist foreign policy in the region, a strategy that involves the Australian military, police and financial advisors interfering in the running of a number of Australia's small, poor neighbours in the interests of Australian business and at the expense of the people of those nations.

With Australian military officers stationed in East Timor, it is likely that Canberra had intelligence indicating that the divisions inside the armed forces were more serious than was being publicly admitted to.

The general East Timorese population and the full spectrum of political forces support the presence of the international troops in East Timor. This includes the progressive NGO sector as well as the Timorese Socialist Party (PST). "The presence of the international forces is important", PST general secretary Avelino da Silva told Green Left Weekly. "Otherwise the people will be living in fear of being terrorised by armed gangs, not knowing who is a friend or who is an enemy."

East Timor is governed by the political party Fretilin, led by its current president, Alkatiri, and personalities such as Gusmao and Jose Ramos Horta, all of whom also played preeminent roles in the struggle that successfully won independence in 1999. They have inherited a society traumatised as well as severely physically damaged as a result of more than two decades of Indonesian military occupation.

Timor has experienced almost no economic development for several centuries and is listed as the poorest country in Asia. Since formal independence, Timor has been robbed of access to much of its oil and gas resources, having been pressured into accepting a deal ceding a major portion of the wealth from that oil and gas to Australia, which has no right to it. Australia's imperialist policies towards East Timor have not helped the nation's development and have contributed to the current situation of crisis.

The political and economic strategy that the East Timorese leadership has pursued since independence has been modelled on a traditional capitalist parliamentary system. It has relied on developing foreign-trained professional bureaucracies, standing army and police, with minimum direct involvement of the people. The leadership has not relied upon the people – the major resource available – for political and economic development.

This strategy has proven inadequate to deal with recent conflict within the armed forces and the ensuing civil disorder. With high levels of frustration among the population at the slow progress made in social and economic development and no organised and mobilised population as a source of authority, the political elite must rely more and more on the authority they won as leaders of the liberation movement before 1999. Within the armed forces, this was already proving inadequate with the disaffected soldiers demanding the resignation of well-know former guerrilla leaders such as Taur Matur Ruak. As a result, the government has been forced to rely upon the Australian defence forces instead.

Since the early period of independence, and even during the national liberation struggle, there has been a strong tendency in the Timorese leadership to rely on the support of the governments of imperialist countries. This was unavoidable in September 1999 when the Indonesian army and militias were ravaging the country. However, even after stability was achieved, there was no perspective to promote self-organisation among the masses as the primary basis for further development. Such a perspective was articulated only by the PST and the progressive sections of the non-government organisations, which represented a minority current.

Among the political elite, the political figure who has been the most resistant to falling into reliance on the outside has been Alkatiri. He has, for example, resisted pressure to accept foreign loans and has diversified international aid, accepting medical aid from Cuba. However, in the current crisis, having no active and mobilised base among the people – although there is no doubt that Fretilin has been accepted so far as the legitimate ruling party by the majority of the people – and having been unable to resolve the crisis within the armed forces, even Alkatiri has been forced, no doubt reluctantly, to rely on outside support.

In an interview with SBS television on May 25, when asked whether he was prepared to take the lead in resolving the situation, Alkatiri asserted that he had already done so by initiating the request for foreign troops by bringing the proposal to Gusmao. In Alkatiri's view, the disorder was provoked not simply by a struggle over soldiers' grievances or for control of the army: he views the rebellious acts of at least some of the disaffected soldiers as a coup attempt.

East Timor is a poor country, grossly underdeveloped with a weak, under-resourced and completely new state apparatus and a small and weak capitalist class. In these conditions, without raising the political consciousness, organisation and mobilisation of the whole population as direct participants – the perspective advocated by the Timorese socialists and progressive campaign activists – a reliance on outside forces is likely to continue in one form or other.

In this situation, there is a special responsibility on the progressive and democratic sectors in Australia and all friends of the East Timorese people to work closely with the organisations of the East Timorese people to ensure that Australian government, commercial and other interests do not exploit this situation in a way that harms the interests of or violates the rights of the Timorese people or nation.

In Australia, organisations such as AidWatch have already been monitoring Australian economic aid to East Timor. A broader forum, drawing on the full solidarity and friendship movement in Australia to jointly campaign with East Timorese groups against unwanted Australian policies may be useful.

The Australian government, representing the Australian capitalist class, has long pursued its own imperialist interests over those of the East Timorese government and people, such as on the issue of oil and gas, and indeed in its support for the Indonesian occupation of East Timor between 1975 and 1999. These new developments can weaken the bargaining position of the East Timorese in any future dispute. Already Prime Minister John Howard is opportunistically using the crisis to politically attack the East Timorese leadership, hoping to weaken it, while not admitting the Australian government's culpability in the crisis.

Within East Timor, such a crisis as this will also no doubt open up opportunities for intensified conflict between different elements of the East Timorese political elite, although this is not yet clear. In any case, such developments are for the East Timorese to handle. In cooperation with East Timorese democratic forces, we must expose any attempts by the Australian government to exploit or manipulate the situation.

In the longer term, only the development of a political movement fully mobilising the Timorese people as direct participants in its political and economic life will stop the current kind of scenario reoccurring.

As an important step towards resolving the immediate problems in East Timor, the Australian, US and British governments must provide the material and financial assistance that East Timor requires to provide all its people with adequate health, education and other social services and infrastructure. This should be acknowledged as a form of war reparations, for the years of complicity in blocking the East Timorese peoples' right to self-determination during the 24 years of Indonesian military rule.

The Australian government must also immediately cease the theft of oil and gas that rightfully belongs to East Timor and repay the total amount stolen under the current deal as well as under arrangements between Australia and Indonesia during East Timor's occupation.

These three governments should at the same time also seek to assist and provide resources for the creation of an international war crimes tribunal that can investigate and bring to account those responsible for human-rights abuses in East Timor during the Indonesian military occupation, including former US, British and Australian ministers and leaders involved in formulating policies that supported this illegal occupation.

[Max Lane is a lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Sydney, a member of the Democratic Socialist Perspective national executive and was a leading activist in the East Timor solidarity movement in the 1990s.]

The Timor Crisis: A quest of legitimacy?

East Timor List - May 29, 2006

James Dunn – East Timor's descent into violence and anarchy, and towards civil war, chaos came as a shock, including to this columnist who has been involved in the affairs of this community for more than 4 decades, especially their ordeal during Indonesia's harsh occupation.

It was deeply disappointing that a people who had endured so much in the recent past quarter of a century could countenance the violence that took place last week. It has led to insinuations, notably by Australian journalist Paul Kelly, that Australia should not have supported East Timorese moves along the path to independence in 1999. Timor Leste was now clearly a failed state whose people did not deserve independent nationhood. The territory, by inference, should therefore have remained under Indonesian control.

That shallow view should be dismissed. Timor's problems are common to nations whose independence was achieved through armed resistance. Indonesia endured this kind of instability for more than a decade, and similar problems have persisted in Papua New Guinea. In East Timor's case, it was the harsh Indonesian occupation, and not the UN intervention or the failings of national independence that must bear most blame for today's crisis. The east-west hostility is without historical foundation. In fact it flows from Indonesian occupation policy, in particular the special attention devoted by the occupying power to those adjacent to West Timor.

The democratic system developed system under UNTAET's tutelage, in which this columnist played a part, was, it must now be admitted, immature. When independence came East Timor looked democratic, but the system had shallow roots. The East Timorese evidently welcomed the aims of democracy without fully understanding its political complexities, its frailties in adverse economic conditions like those endured by independent Timor Leste. We gave insufficient attention to factors that were bound to threaten the functioning of democracy – the impact on a weak economy of the diminished foreign presence, with the reduction of the UN mission; the failure to establish a disciplined defence force unswerving in its loyalty to civilian rule. Then there is the time bomb character of continued massive unemployment, and the related urgent need for the new state to develop its fragile economy (those protracted Timor Gap negotiations were particularly unhelpful).

East Timor did have seasoned political leaders but some of them have let their people down. They impressed the international community, according the new nation an importance beyond its size, but recent events suggest that their international successes were not matched by achievements at home. Now is the time for a close scrutiny of the performance of East Timor's political institutions.

While Australia's response to the present crisis was commendably prompt, we need to reflect on past failings on our part, which may have contributed to the problem. Australia was among those nations who wanted the UNTAET mandate to end quickly, not least because of its cost, and it really ended too quickly. Australia was a major contributor to the training of the defence force, a sensitive process that began less than a year before independence, and apparently was less than successful, too little attention being given to persuading the military of the essential importance of accepting the severe constraints democracy places on the behaviour of armed forces.

The immediate causes of the dissent behind the dispute over promotion policies and other matters are clear enough – even understandable – but what is alarming is how the situation degenerated from a noisy protest to armed clashes between troops and police, the two essential arms of national security.

With the police virtually immobilized, the situation in Dili became a scene of anarchic violence, with criminal gangs being joined by the hundreds of disaffected unemployed. It is a story of how a weak government response to a dangerous liaison involving rebellious troops, opportunistic crime gangs and disillusioned unemployed, allowed the triggering of a wave of violence that resulted in the collapse of public order, threatening the disintegration of the nation, even though the violence was more or less confined to the capital. Those of us who worked with the UN should have done more to prepare the system to deal with such a contingency.

Because of our past support for Indonesia's illegal takeover, and its subsequent occupation, it is appropriate that Australia should now play a leading role in helping the new nation get back on its feet, and heal the wounds of last week's violence. But our role should bear the legitimacy of a UN mandate. The presence of our troops, together with contingents of New Zealanders, Portuguese, and Malaysians has already done much to calm the situation in the capital, where the problem is most acute. But that calm will not endure if this peace-making presence is not accompanied by strong and united Timorese leadership.

As it turns out, the nation could be facing a divisive political crisis, some strains having developed in the relationship between President Xanana Gusmao and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

That crisis needs to be resolved quickly with, preferably, the forming a government of national unity that will restore the bonds of unity that have been fractured in recent weeks.

As I understand it, Kofi Annan, and the Security Council have agreed to the sending of a stronger mission to Timor Leste. That mission, in which I assume Australia will play a key role, should be empowered to strengthen those national institutions that failed the East Timorese in recent weeks. The political leaders of Timor Leste have to confront their failures, in the face of their responsibility to guide their people through these first difficult years of nationhood, if crises of this nature are not again to threaten the new nation with disintegration.

Despite the worrying events of the past few weeks, the legitimacy of East Timor's nationhood is not in question, as some have suggested. Creating a nation out of the ashes of 1999 was a massive challenge both to the international community and inexperienced East Timorese political leaders. In the circumstances this setback calls for something special on our part – our understanding, and our renewed commitment to support the fulfillment of the national destiny of a people with whom we have formed a special relationship.

Howard 'ignored' East Timor problems

Australian Associated Press - May 28, 2006

Prime Minister John Howard had ignored the difficult task facing East Timor in the wake of the ruinous Indonesian occupation, Australian Democrats Leader Lyn Allison said today. Australia should have done more to help, she said.

Her comments follow the collapse of law and order in East Timor in recent days, necessitating a new deployment of international troops including 1300 Australians soldiers.

"The prime minister maintains that East Timor has not been well governed, ignoring its grave difficulties in building the country from the ruinous legacy of Indonesian occupation," Senator Allison said in a statement.

"Extreme poverty, lack of economic activity and jobs and poor health, education and family planning services are the problems that Australia should have done more to help solve.

"Instead, the Howard Government has focused aid on security and last year robbed East Timor of its rightful share to majority revenue from the Timor Gap oil and gas field.

"The Australian Government continues to kowtow to Indonesia, ignoring warnings that the Indonesian military was still chipping away at East Timor's sovereignty and still had troops amassed at the border of West Timor."

Senator Allison said the shocking findings of the East Timorese Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Commission in January were ignored by the Australian Government, as were human rights abuses in Papua.

East Timor voted for independence in 1999, ending 25 years of Indonesian occupation but resulting in widespread killings and destruction, chiefly by Indonesian-backed militias, as the occupiers left.

Timor violence product of multiple problems, say analysts

Agence France Presse - May 29, 2006

Lawrence Bartlett, Sydney – The explosion of violence in East Timor was the result of an accumulation of ethnic, economic and historical grievances in the young country and the failure of the government to address them, analysts say.

With the army and police fractured, gangs rampaging through Dili and tension between president and prime minister, the conflict has dismayed supporters of the young country which gained its independence in 2002.

"This is multi-layered: it's east versus west, there's a political dimension to it, there's the animosity between the defence force and the police," said Peter Abigail, director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

"There's 40 percent unemployment and a whole bunch of young kids who can't get jobs and are now the cause of the problem," Abigail told AFP.

Protesters in Dili on Thursday demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri over the violence. But analysts cautioned against seeing his apparent rift with President Xanana Gusmao as central to the problem.

"It's important to note the split between Gusmao and Alkatiri is not at the base of this particular problem," said Damien Kingsbury of Deakin University. "(But) it is certainly responsible for the problem not being resolved more quickly or more easily than it has been."

The tension between the president and the premier could be traced back to 1999 when Gusmao resigned from the independence movement Fretilin, which Alkatiri now leads, Kingsbury said.

Gusmao is a folk hero among East Timorese after spearheading the impoverished nation's bloody struggle for independence from Indonesia while Alkatiri was in exile. Gusmao quit Fretilin because he wanted to be a unifying figure, he said. "Alkatiri's personal style is also a bit authoritarian, while Gusmao is seen to be very much a man of the people."

The rift between the two men, both from the Dili area, had nothing to do with the ethnic divide between those from the east and the west of the tiny country, he said.

That divide was behind the eruption of violence last month after westerners in the army complained of discrimination against them by easterners and were sacked.

"The divide between the military and the police is largely an east-west divide also, because the majority of the army comes from the east (and) the majority of the police from the west, although there are also internal factions along those lines," Kingsbury said.

During the Indonesian occupation from 1975, police were recruited mainly from the west and the militias which went on the rampage after the vote for independence in 1999 were also stronger in the west, he said.

"Westerners were very much in favour of independence but because there were a few bad people there, militiamen and police and so on, they've been tarred with the same brush by easterners, essentially as collaborators."

The government had failed to deal with these rifts and overreacted to any challenge to its authority, he said. "That's what happened about a month ago and the soldiers headed off for the hills and that's when you saw the situation really starting to get out of control."

The arrival of troops from Australia last week put an end to the fighting within the army and police, and between the two forces, but gang violence then erupted in the streets of Dili.

This was not directly related to the east-west divide, said Ross Babbage, adjunct professor at the Australian National University.

"The gangs are really a product of deeper seated problems rather than a major ethnic cultural divide," he told AFP.

"If these people had good ongoing jobs, a broader commitment to society and thought the government was doing a lot of the right things, I don't think this would have degenerated into this violence. There is an element of ethnic stuff in the gangs, but much more they are gangs of opportunity – or lack of opportunity."

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer supported this view in an interview with commercial radio Thursday.

"It's a case of gangs – often criminal gangs – just running rampant. There might be an element of payback in what they're doing, settling old scores, I don't think it's necessarily ethnically based," he said. "I don't think in other words, as some people say, the country is descending into civil war."

Warnings of Timor violence ignored

Sydney Morning Herald - May 28, 2006

Tom Hyland – The UN, Australia and the East Timorese Government had multiple warnings of the looming internal security crisis that has plunged Dili into violent chaos.

The UN was warned two months ago that East Timor's defence force, set up with Australian aid and training to protect the tiny nation from foreign attack, was a potential threat to the country's internal stability.

The Sunday Age can reveal East Timor's Government ignored repeated urgings over the past two years from Australian and other foreign advisers to address flaws in its army.

Government and military leaders in Dili shelved reports calling for reforms that may have prevented the violence and the dispatch of Australian troops.

Details of the reports were sent to Canberra, which played a central role in training East Timor's security forces, spending $70 million on "capacity building" in the police and army. The money made up the largest share of Australian aid.

Prime Minister John Howard said on Friday he had watched the deteriorating situation "for some months" and the violence "has come as no great surprise". But he said Australia could not have intervened until it was invited by the Dili Government.

Australian efforts to resolve the issue before it reached crisis point appear to have been left to the Australian ambassador in Dili, Margaret Twomey. A Foreign Affairs Department spokeswoman said Ms Twomey had discussed the issue with the East Timorese Government "on a number of occasions and urged that the issues be addressed appropriately".

Analysts with knowledge of East Timor's Government and military said the violence stemmed from a mix of divisions forged in the independence struggle over 24 years, and the UN's failure to develop a proper defence force during its 1999-2002 administration. Instead, East Timor was left with an army with no clear role, united only in its resentment of the national police.

Ultimate responsibility for the violence rested with key Government and military figures who were warned of trouble but failed to act, according to the analysts, who asked not to be identified.

The warning that the East Timorese army was a potential threat to stability was contained in a report to the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations in March. It was written by Edward Rees, a New York-based consultant to the UN on security issues, who has worked for the UN in Kosovo and East Timor.

The report said the UN made "critical mistakes" in its handling of the Falintil guerillas, who resisted Indonesian rule from 1975 until 1999 and had sought a major role in the new army, known by the acronym Falintil-FDTL.

The report said the UN failed to create a proper Ministry of Defence, in part because donor countries were reluctant to fund a potentially politicised defence force that lacked civilian control and a clear defence policy. "Some argue that the defence force may even pose a threat to internal security," the report said.

The analysts interviewed by The Sunday Age said East Timor's Defence Minister, Roque Rodrigues, failed to act on reports from Australian and other advisers about problems in Falintil-FDTL and blocked action on reports urging efforts to tackle morale and wider issues of defence management.

According to one analyst, Mr Rodrigues told a foreign adviser: "Why do you keep pestering me about these things? He basically told the Australians to f – - off," another analyst said.

Divisions in Timorese society are far from new

Canberra Times - May 27, 2006

George Quinn – On its independence day almost exactly four years ago, the people of East Timor seemed literally to be singing on the same page. The independence movement had grabbed a massive win in the referendum of 1999. Indonesia's sour response and the brutality of its militias had been a gift to the new country's sense of solidarity.

Under the UNTAET administration, the transition to full independence had gone quickly and smoothly. A kind of euphoria gripped East Timor, spreading its warmth to the nation's many international well- wishers.

But contrary to popular perception, East Timor was not, and is not, a naturally coherent nation with a primordially distinct identity. The euphoria of independence allowed politicians to turn a blind eye to the many divisions, or at best to paper them over with flimsy rhetoric.

Unfortunately East Timor's well-intentioned international supporters seemed happy to swallow the myth of East Timor's unity – hook, line and sinker. From deep within this myth there are already voices, unwilling to face reality, asking whether the current mayhem has been inflicted on East Timor by outside provocateurs (read: Indonesia).

So what are the main fractures in the foundations of East Timorese society?

Ethnic divisions

A gap has opened up between those in the west (adjacent to the border with Indonesian West Timor) and those in the east.

In the East Timor Defence Force, officers with origins in the east of the country have given themselves superior nationalist and military credentials, discriminating against soldiers from the Indonesia-tainted west. This division has infected the unemployed and angry youth of Dili, where east-oriented and west- oriented gangs are now fighting it out.

Language

East Timor's political elite is dominated by speakers of Portuguese, but they are a small minority. Portuguese was never widely mastered in East Timor, even during Portuguese colonial times, yet now the country's leaders are making an attempt to force the language on to a largely indifferent, even hostile, majority.

This bizarre project is going to take many years to complete (if it can be done at all) and in the meantime those who don't speak Portuguese are feeling increasingly disconnected from their country's political and administrative elite.

Class

East Timor's four years of independence have allowed the emergence of a tiny but very powerful class of newly-rich. Outside their villas, the dirt-poor scratch a living in what is easily Asia's poorest nation.

Many of the very rich are of mixed Timorese and European ancestry, people who collected their business capital during years of residence abroad (including in Australia) while the majority of East Timorese suffered under Indonesian rule.

Naturally, this racial and historical difference does nothing to endear the wealthy to the impoverished masses.

Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is probably the most important institution for the maintenance of stability and social solidarity in the country. Yet the Church too is riven by division.

In the first place, there is a division between "secular" Catholics and the more fervent, orthodox church establishment.

The two sides have clashed on issues as diverse as family planning (East Timor has a birth rate far above the economy's rate of growth) and the teaching of religion in schools.

Beyond this, to the horror of the Church's hierarchy, the rural masses practise forms of Catholicism that are entwined with indigenous animist beliefs. These are giving rise to some wacky messianic movements, such as Colimau 2000, whose members (all Catholics) believe that some of East Timor's dead resistance leaders will return to life and lead them to a new age of prosperity and justice.

Colimau 2000 thrives in some parts of the nation's west, and has been linked by some with the disaffected "rebels" of East Timor's western region.

On East Timor's Independence Day in 2002, I wrote in The Canberra Times "when the party is over and the euphoria has vanished, the new nation will find some menacing guests in its front room: economic crisis, political turbulence and confused identity".

These guests haven't gone away and they are now wreaking havoc. As Australian troops fan out into the wild streets of Dili, we can best support them by refusing to allow the shallow, romantic myth of East Timor's special identity and its primordial unity to blur our vision of what we are dealing with.

[George Quinn heads the South-East Asia Centre, Faculty of Asian Studies, in ANU's College of Asia and the Pacific. Email: george.quinn@anu.edu.au.]

A nation ruled by the gun

Melbourne Age - May 27, 2006

Mark Forbes – Wide-eyed youths brandish machetes, armed militias rampage through the streets, terrified civilians flee, soldiers lay siege to police headquarters and your sleep is broken by rifle bursts, heavy machine guns and the thump of grenades. Welcome to East Timor, the world's youngest nation on the brink of becoming its next failed state.

Chaos and violent madness greeted the arrival of Australian commandos in Dili, walking into a country racked with political, military and ethnic divisions. There are no battle lines here, no rules and no certainty military intervention will calm the violence spiralling out of control for the past month.

Australian Defence officials looked shell-shocked after a crisis briefing on arrival at Dili International Airport on Thursday afternoon.

Loyalist soldiers had assaulted police headquarters, killing at least nine and wounding 27 just hours before, with gunfire raking across the heart of the city.

The United Nations, whose compound borders the headquarters, had brokered a deal with defence chief Taur Matan Ruak to disarm the police, but soldiers instead opened fire on the defenceless men being escorted into the UN compound.

Although General Ruak allegedly supports the Australian-led intervention – which was meant to halt the fighting – his troops then launched a major attack against rebel soldiers on Dili's outskirts. Heavy gunfire continued into yesterday morning and more gunfights broke out in town across the day, despite Australian troops patrolling nearby.

Australian officials, led by deputy military chief Ken Gillespie, had to skirt the fringes of the fighting on Thursday night to visit the home of President Xanana Gusmao, then paid separate calls on Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and Ruak to finalise the terms of the intervention.

In theory all backed the deployment of more than 1000 Australian troops, but gaping cracks are emerging behind the scenes. Gusmao has taken control of the military, a move Alkatiri claims is unconstitutional. Alkatiri says a conspiracy continues to stage a "constitutional coup" against him.

Like his nation, Gusmao, the hero of Timor's independence struggle, is almost crippled – by a bad back. He had to be half carried by two bodyguards into a meeting on Wednesday with the Australian ambassador and the UN to plea for international intervention. Dili's hospital chief was called in to deliver painkilling injections.

Inside, Gusmao exploded before the startled diplomats over the defection of half the police force that morning. "This is your fault," he is believed to have shouted. Some claim the outburst was directed at Alkatiri, others that the police commissioner was the target.

Authorities had lost control, he told the gathering, and only the return of Australian forces could save his country.

The acrimony between Alkatiri, one of those who sought refuge in Mozambique during the independence struggle, and Gusmao, who stayed to fight, is long-standing. It was Gusmao who said Alkatiri erred in sacking 595 striking soldiers, nearly half the army, last month.

Believing they had their President's support, the soldiers staged a demonstration in the capital on April 28. Loyalist troops opened fire, killing at least four people. The shootings prompted the defection of military police commander Alfredo Reinaldo, who took with him about 20 men and many heavy weapons.

Both Reinaldo and Gastao Salsinha – the leader of the original strikers – are charismatic but erratic figures whose goals and grievances are unclear. Salsinha's troops come from the west of Timor, largely younger soldiers resentful of favoured treatment towards the older, veteran independence fighters from the east.

Many gripes are minor; they have been posted across the island without the time or money to visit homes and families. Some claim discrimination, including Salsinha. He was passed over for promotion and a trip to the US after being caught smuggling sandalwood.

The rebel numbers are swelled by those bored by serving in a conventional army with no clear tasks, left to stew in the barracks far away from home.

Reinaldo says he deserted to support and protect "all westerners. Because, on the day, on the 28th, it was easterners who shot westerners. I am witness to that. I do not want to be a part of the (army) that shot westerners".

Alkatiri was behind the "criminal" shooting of civilians at the April 28 demonstration, he says. "Who gave the order? The Prime Minister gave the order."

Reinaldo, whose men were involved in most of the heavy fighting around Dili over the past five days, including a full-scale assault on Ruak's home as Gusmao made his plea for international assistance, claims he is no rebel. "I still respect my institution of the FFDTL (army), so my fellow police officers still respect the institution FFDTL.

"But we are not taking order from any Government member, but we are still bound to the President and (Foreign Minister Jose) Ramos Horta."

Gusmao and Ramos Horta, his key ally, blame Alkatiri for failing to address the emerging crisis within the military. Ramos Horta told The Age the dispute could have been headed off months before if relatively minor grievances and palpable structural problems were addressed. A series of presidential recommendations to reform the force were ignored, they say.

Despite being re-endorsed by the ruling Fretilin Party last week, distrust of Alkatiri, a Muslim leader in a Catholic nation, abounds. His aggressive persona has put many offside, including Canberra during hardball negotiations over dividing the riches of the Timor Sea's gas and oil.

Some believe that Gusmao may soon move to dissolve the Government and sack Alkatiri, using the President's constitutional powers. Rumours persist that he may also remove Ruak.

Suspicions remain over the first confrontation between Ruak's and Reinaldo's men after Government soldiers approached the rebel camp on Tuesday, a battle that scuttled a peace deal being constructed by Horta.

Gusmao was to preside over final negotiations with rebel leaders the next day, aiming to address the soldiers' grievances and proposing a fundamental restructure of the military - devoting troops to either an international peacekeeping task or national civil works.

Instead, a bedridden Gusmao witnessed the total disintegration of law and order as battles between the factions escalated and civilian police joined Reinaldo's men.

With the defection of many civilian police came anarchy on the streets. Gangs, largely made up of easterners carrying machetes, slingshots and spears were out for revenge, attacking properties of westerners they claim supported the rebels.

Heavily armed soldiers sped from outbreak to outbreak, firing wildly to disperse the mobs. The gangs would retreat momentarily, then reform. They burnt down the house of the deputy police commissioner, who had defected to the rebel side.

Also torched was a home belonging to the family of Interior Minister Rogerio Lobato. Six charred bodies were found inside yesterday, including five children. It was "the saddest day in the history of East Timor", said an emotional US ambassador Joseph Rees.

With the body count from the past 48 hours approaching 20 – with rumours of many more – the challenge for Australian forces will be to halt the escalating spirals of revenge. The east/west divide grows with each casualty, splitting the military, police and threatening to spread across the community – gangs were yesterday blockading at least two refugee camps with up to 10,000 people inside.

Ramos Horta – who has been tirelessly travelling across the country, meeting troops and rebels to forge a peace deal – remains hopeful after the Australians' arrival, but admits the seriousness of the challenge.

He told The Age yesterday that some army members had distributed military weapons to new easterner militias, in a chilling echo of Indonesia's support for violent, anti-independence militias in 1999.

"There have been elements that gave weapons to civilians, in the most irresponsible manner," he says. "This is very dangerous, disarming them is difficult."

An order would be issued that "every single weapon in the hands of individuals must be handed in (to the Australian forces)", he says.

The army had been ordered to return to its barracks and stay there, he says. "That will eliminate one of the sources of the problems." Ramos Horta concedes Government troops launched attacks on Thursday night, but says "the Australian forces have arrived and these orders are given clearly by commander Ruak and others. I believe they will start pulling back and stop fighting".

The rebel leaders would also be asked to return their troops to their home villages, he says. "Reinaldo, once we have resumed dialogue, he is ready to surrender his weapons and so are the others."

The emergence of militia groups, along with criminal elements allegedly encouraged by senior Timorese figures who believe they have been disenfranchised by the Alkatiri Government, complicates the picture.

Part of last week's move to unseat Alkatiri came from demoted politicians and crony supporters. There is a battle for the meagre spoils of Timor's economy, beset by the withdrawal of the thousands of people and dollars pumped in under UN administration following the independence vote.

The Government remains the only significant provider and unemployment is rampant. Only the intense gunfire of the past two days removed the hundreds of youths who line Dili's streets pleading to sell newspapers or phone cards to earn a few extra cents. That a minor industrial dispute inside the military threatens to cripple Timor underlines the fragility of the newborn nation and the paucity of its governance structures. Even if the fractured police and military can be united – and that is a big if – any minor crisis could again destabilise the nation.

Insiders say Australia is looking at a long-term commitment, with fears that jockeying for position for upcoming elections, due in under a year, could spark further unrest.

The Australian force must also deal with a cargo cult mentality, locals (who are already calling them Interfet, the name of the post-independence intervention force), believe they will take charge of the nation itself.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is already attempting to dampen expectations. "We would be very cautious about offering advice, particularly in how they resolve the problem with the former soldiers," he says. "They are going to have to work that out themselves. We can create a stable environment there for them so they can start to work these things through, and I have no illusions that it will be actually quite hard to work all this through."

Prime Minister John Howard issued a sterner warning to the leadership, stating there "was no point in beating about the bush".

"The country has not been well-governed and I do hope the sobering experience for those in elected positions of having to call in help from outside will induce the appropriate behaviour inside the country," he said. "They do have responsibilities."

However, the sight of Australian soldiers securing Dili centre yesterday demonstrated on whose shoulders responsibility for staving off a state failure will fall. From the hills overlooking Dili, Reinaldo has vowed not to attack the international troops. "We are happy to shake hands," he told the ABC on Thursday. "Tell the Australian troops, don't forget to bring some VB for us."

The jocular tone was less evident in Dili yesterday, as Reinaldo's men fired down on loyalist forces below.

Rise of a rebellion

• March 2 - 600 East Timorese soldiers strike over work conditions.
• April 28 - Rioting by soldiers from the west leaves two dead, 29 hurt.
• April 30 - Hundreds of sacked soldiers flee into mountains.
• May 3 - Australia seeks extension of United Nations mandate.
• May 11 - Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta says soldiers will talk.
• May 12 - Australia sends 2 warships.
• May 15 - Australian troops arrive to protect Australian interests.
• May 19 - Fretilin party endorses Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.
• May 20 - Fourth anniversary of independence.
• May 22 - Peace deal brokered.
• May 23 - Australian troops on standby as fighting erupts again.
• May 24 - The fledgling nation's leaders call for assistance.
• May 25 - More than 1000 Australian troops begin arriving in Dili as part of a military-led intervention.
• May 26 - Evacuations to Australia of expats, East Timorese, Canadians, Indonesians, a New Zealander and a Portuguese begin as heavy fighting around Dili is reported.

How we brought this crisis on ourselves

Sydney Morning Herald - May 27, 2006

Hamish McDonald – Australian warships silhouetted in the calm blue waters, a squat Hercules on the airfield surrounded by young soldiers armed and wired to the teeth, and John Howard warning the nation that it's all very risky.

Aren't we seeing a bit too much of this in our region? What happened to preventive diplomacy and peacekeeping?

Dili is going to be fraught with danger over the next couple of days for the 1300 Australian troops and scores of other army and police being sent by New Zealand, Portugal and Malaysia.

The number of loose gunmen is small, and the rebel Timorese soldiers seem well-disposed to Australia. Their quarrel is with their own government.

The blessing, as noted by veteran Timor-watcher and former Australian consul there in Portuguese times, James Dunn, is that the country is not awash with firearms. The Indonesians were cautious with the guns they handed out, and left few behind.

Yet, the horrifying picture of nine policemen, apparently shot down by an out-of-control soldier on the government side while being led to safety by a United Nations official after laying down their arms, emphasises the risk of wildcat shooting. But once Dili is secured, what then? And how were events allowed to get to this point?

First, responsibility lies with the East Timorese leadership. The Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, and his Fretilin party colleagues sat back while a third of the 1800-strong army walked off, with their weapons, over small grievances and then were sacked.

The President, Jose Xanana Gusmao, the charismatic former resistance leader who has formal command of the military, has also been weak, strangely disengaged from the army split as it festered for three months.

The Interior Minister, Rogerio Lobato, a former Fretilin exile in Mozambique where he served jail time for diamond smuggling, runs a factionalised police force, some of whom sided with the rebels.

A whiff of internal Fretilin powerplay, perhaps an attempt to unseat Alkatiri, hangs around the actions of rebel Major Alfredo Reinado, who is not entirely aligned with the main body of dismissed soldiers, recruits from the Western part of the country.

But where was the Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, when this crisis unfolded over three months? Where were the Australian military advisers who, with Portuguese counterparts, trained the East Timor armed forces through independence in May 2002?

Why was the Howard Government so strongly opposed to the UN peacekeeping mission continuing when its mandate ran out a year ago, apparently persuading the US as well that this was the right thing?

East Timor's government was keen for a continuing UN security role. A modest UN presence, focused on guiding the local army and police forces, might have nipped this crisis in the bud.

With an ABC drama, starring David Wenham as a federal police peacekeeper, on the box tomorrow night, Australians were gearing up for a wash of sentimentality about our role in saving East Timor in 1999.

That's justly a point of pride. But Howard and Downer have played it tough with the East Timorese since then, screwing them to a hard bargain on maritime oil revenue, then exiting too early from the security mission.

There are echoes here of the Howard Government's refusal to send a small body of police to the Solomon Islands in 2000 when requested by its then prime minister. Three years later it had to launch its $2 billion regional assistance mission to revive a collapsed system of government.

In the current East Timor situation, a request came only on Wednesday night and even while the first Australian troops were landing, Alkatiri was haggling over the rules of engagement and force composition.

Alkatiri probably knows, or suspects, the Dili fighting is aimed at his leadership. The Australian-led intervention, even with the face-saving Portuguese and Malaysian additions sought by Alkatiri, could be a fatal blow.

Howard and Downer will insist on our neutrality in East Timor's politics, but what we are doing will have a big impact on the outcome of the leadership struggle, which might see both Alkatiri and Gusmao pushed into retirement.

Into the bargain, we are tying up 1300 soldiers from our overstretched army, which is ready for a sizeable and dangerous commitment to the hottest combat zone of Afghanistan in less than two months, as well as staying on in Iraq.

The government would probably call it a kind of tough love: letting the adolescent nations get themselves into a quagmire of their own making, so they then ask for help, rather than offering unwelcome advice. Maybe we could just be more interested.

Litany of mistakes behind the return to East Timor

Melbourne Age - May 26, 2006

Damien Kingsbury – Australia's renewed intervention in East Timor will help defuse what was growing into an explosive situation, and which threatened the fledgling state.

There is little doubt that without intervention, the crisis would worsen. Not only were there almost 600 armed rebel soldiers, but East Timor's Opposition Leader, Fernando de Araujo, and his family, along with thousands of others, also escaped to the hills following last month's rioting.

This dispute has a political as well as a military dimension, and could have degenerated into civil war.

The main task now for Australian troops will be to contain the situation, provide security and disarm the rebel soldiers. To avoid open conflict, disarming the soldiers will require Australian troops to talk down the rebel troops, rather than force them down.

Despite Australia's previous culpable neglect and mistreatment of East Timor over the division of Timor Gap revenues, the Australian Army is liked and respected. If the rebel soldiers will listen to anyone, it will be to an Australian army officer.

To bring the rebels down, and others such as de Araujo, Australian soldiers will have to guarantee security to not only the Government, but also to the rebels. To this end, there will have to be agreement on some process of mediation, and an investigation into what led to this crisis.

Key contributors were the inflexibility of East Timor's Fretilin Government, especially by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and Home Affairs Minister Rogerio Lobato, and Australia's precipitous military withdrawal from East Timor.

The rebel soldiers are from the western command of the East Timor Defence Force and claimed that they had been discriminated against by their seniors and other colleagues. Having raised this issue, without a response from the Government, they went on strike. This was a mistake.

The Government ordered the soldiers back to barracks, they refused and were sacked. This was also a mistake. While a government may not tolerate striking soldiers, given East Timor's fragility it should have listened to the soldiers' grievances. When they went on strike, they should have again been offered the ear of the Government, along with the order to return.

The rebel soldiers claim the discrimination against them was based on allegations of some being close to former Indonesian militias and having links across the border to Indonesia. Some of these soldiers do have family and other links near and across the border, which artificially delineates common family and ethnic groups. Cross-border smuggling has also become rife.

That the Government failed to talk to the soldiers reflects poorly on Alkatiri and Lobato. The two have developed a reputation for dismissing expressions of concern, and treating harshly any reaction.

A more moderate move would have been for Alkatiri to call on popular President Xanana Gusmao to act as a mediator. However, Alkatiri and Gusmao have poor personal and political relations, and Alkatiri would be loath to see the ceremonial President take credit for fixing a problem he could not resolve. Gusmao was thus ignored, and this was also a mistake.

When the 600 rebel soldiers came to Dili last month, their protest turned into a deadly riot, in part because it was hijacked by others, including some from the organisation Colimau 2000. This organisation exists in a netherworld between politics and crime, includes former Indonesian army-backed militia members and is believed to have links to cross-border smuggling operations, which are controlled by the TNI.

East Timorese security forces are also alleged to have used excessive force against rioters, as well as more peaceful protesters, reflecting Alkatiri's hardline approach to dissent. The death toll from the riots was officially five, but there have been reports that many more were killed.

Beyond the Government's inadequate response to this growing crisis, the Australian Government also bears responsibility. Until the middle of last year, Australian soldiers were stationed in the area that the rebel soldiers come from.

The East Timor Government asked Australia for the soldiers to stay, at least as a nominal force. Australia refused, in part bowing to pressure from Indonesia to remove its military presence from the Indonesian border.

Yet had Australia kept some soldiers there, this problem may not have arisen. Australian troops ensured that cross-border smuggling was minimised, and advised East Timorese soldiers. They would have advised against strike action as being an inappropriate response by a military. And they could have provided a conduit for the rebel soldiers' complaints.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer now says that Australian soldiers will be in East Timor only until the job is done. This implies Australian soldiers will be withdrawn once this immediate problem is tackled.

What this approach fails to note, however, is that East Timor will continue to face internal difficulties, and will require a continuing if nominal Australian military presence for the long term until these difficulties are addressed.

Australia has a moral obligation to support East Timor as a good international citizen and as a major regional power. It also has a debt to pay for ignoring the plight of East Timor, and the deaths of some 180,000 people, until 1999.

Australia is right to send soldiers following an official request, to help stabilise the situation in East Timor. It should not be pressured into again taking them out too soon.

[Associate Professor Damien Kingsbury is director of the masters degree in international and community development at Deakin University, and has written on East Timor's security issues.]

A fledgling nation needs a long-term commitment

Melbourne Age Editorial - May 26, 2006

Events in East Timor and the response internationally have given rise to a variation on gunboat diplomacy. It is gunboat democracy. In colonial times, a country would position a gunboat off the coast of a minion and that would be enough to sort out the native unrest. In post-colonial times, the gunboat is used, in real terms and metaphorically, to aid the rise of democracy and the transition from a strife-torn country to a stable society.

In the past few weeks in East Timor, rioting and gun battles have resulted in the deaths of about 10 people and injuries to many others. The fuse was lit when 600 troops walked out of the army over a range of issues, including alleged discrimination because of their geographical background. The soldiers were later sacked. In recent days, the rebellion has turned more violent.

Civilian and military police have joined the rebels. Witnesses have reported gangs of youths, some armed with machetes, terrorising parts of the capital, Dili.

An estimated 100,000 residents in recent weeks have fled the capital to escape the unrest. This week East Timor acknowledged that it needed outside help to stabilise the country. It asked for help from Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal. Australia responded immediately. Yesterday, 150 troops arrived in East Timor, with more than 1000 more ready to go. The troops are charged with re-establishing law and order. It is the largest Australian deployment of peacekeepers to the region since 1999. At the same time, Australia is cutting back its troops in the Solomon Islands from 400 to 140. The troops were sent in last month to restore peace following riots.

This dousing of spot fires around the region shows the fragility of the flower of democracy in poor, struggling countries. It draws into focus the debate on how to best help Australia's neighbours, beyond maintaining law and order on the streets.

In August 2001 The Age rejoiced on this page at the coming of age for the tiny nation of East Timor. We said that in 1999 Australia had stood up to defend the people's right to self-determination. More than 15,000 Australian soldiers served in East Timor from 1999. Six years later they were all but gone, except for advisers and trainers to that country's defence force.

Some of those trained by Australians are now the renegades in the current unrest.

While the Federal Government's quick response to the crisis is to be applauded, there are broader issues at stake. Democracy does not bloom overnight and it does not bequeath immediate benefits. It takes time.

For a country as poor East Timor – one of the world's poorest with a per capita income of just $1.40 a day – the international community should be doing more in terms of infrastructure, education and health. Gangs are not the only ones roaming the streets. Poverty also stalks the nation, and it kills more insidiously. An East Timorese can expect to live to only 55. Half the people do not have sufficient safe drinking water. The expected riches from the Timor Sea gas fields will not have an effect for several years. This is a country on Australia's doorstep. Even though aid to East Timor is $324 million, much more should be done in institutional development.

Former defence force chief Peter Cosgrove says Australia has an obligation to help, yet Prime Minister John Howard sees Australia's deployment in terms of our national interest. "Weak and fragile" neighbouring states could turn into a problem for Australia, he believes. This is disconcerting. To see strife in terms of how it affects you has little to do with nurturing democracy and a people's best interest. It has more to do with self-interest, and that harks back to the gunboat.

Unpopular leadership, fractured military fuels violence

Agence France Presse - May 24, 2006

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – Widespread disenchantment with East Timor's government, a poorly led military and widespread poverty and unemployment are fuelling the worst unrest since the small country's 1999 vote for independence, analysts say.

As foreign countries warn their citizens to flee escalating unrest in Dili, one analyst said problems had been simmering since the army was formed during United Nations stewardship of the former Indonesian province from 1999-2002.

"The problem goes back to the UN intervention – they didn't know what to do with the military. But they didn't decide the consequences of how do you properly equip them," said Bob Lowry, a former security adviser to the East Timorese government, speaking to AFP from Canberra.

"Then they developed the police force, saying they didn't want the military in law and order," added Lowry, saying the government had failed to come up with a way to keep the underoccupied troops busy.

Around 600 soldiers or nearly a third of the military deserted their barracks in February, complaining of poor conditions and bias in the ranks.

A subsequent rally last month in support of the former soldiers turned into a riot after security forces opened fire on the crowd. The clashes left five people dead and at least 21,000 people fled the capital.

After more deadly clashes this week, East Timor said Wednesday it had asked for help from foreign troops and police to stamp out an escalating rebellion by former soldiers who were trying to enter the capital.

Australian troops should be on the ground in Dili within two to three days, said East Timor Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta.

Some analysts said the unpopularity of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, who is widely regarded as arrogant and authoritarian, is compounding the problem.

"You've got a prime minister who has executive power but he's not a popular figure so it is hard for him to stand up and play a leadership role in a crisis situation," Lowry said.

The most popular leader, the former guerrilla chief and current president Xanana Gusmao, has very little power to step in and negotiate with the rebel troops. "The one man with the public skills and moral authority doen't have executive power," said Lowry.

One analyst, Bonar Tigor Naipospos, said youths disgruntled at soaring unemployment and poverty, and possibly backed by opposition parties, appeared to have joined in this week's unrest.

"After independence people had high hopes but they have been disappointed," said Naipospos, from a Dili based non-government group.

"A lot of people are not happy with Mari Alkatiri and because they see he will probably be put forward again as a prime ministerial candidate, they feel the situation will not improve," he said.

"People's confidence had dropped, there are lots of allegations of corruption and nepotism, and it is clear the economic situation is not good."

East Timor's economy grew by 2.3 percent last year but it needs to grow by 7-8 percent just to keep up with the country's population explosion, said Kim Hunter from the Asia Foundation.

A report by the United Nations Development Fund said poverty was rising despite vast potential oil wealth, with a stagnating economy and rapid population growth.

"People are not unhappy with independence as a fact but they are looking for a bettering in their livelihoods," said Hunter.

The unrest and government's failure to persuade people that they could guarantee their safety were part of the growing pains of a new nation, said some analysts.

"It is a new country, these are new government institutions, it's the first time that they have to deal with these things," said Hunter.

Australia led a UN-backed intervention force to East Timor in 1999 to quell violence by Indonesian troops and pro-Jakarta local militias after the independence vote.

The United Nations ran the nation of about one million until independence in May 2002.

Editorial: Crisis in East Timor

The Australian - May 25, 2006

Ambitious politicians misjudge the mood in the military and soon the shooting starts, with the factions fighting over the pathetically small spoils of power. And an impoverished people scrambles to get out of harms way, while watching their aspirations for a better life disappear.

For decades, this script has permanently played in Africa. But now it looks like it is occurring in East Timor, where the security situation is going from bad to worse. What was effectively a strike by soldiers angry at poor pay and what they claimed was ethnic discrimination has taken on the tone of a rebellion. That veterans of the struggle for independence against Indonesia are on opposite sides in a power struggle almost five years to the day since formal independence from Indonesia is a disaster. That they are shooting at each other is an absolute tragedy.

In the short term, there is a great deal we can, and must, do to help restore peace. Australia was present at the creation of East Timor as an independent country and we are morally obliged not to abandon the struggling state. We also need to demonstrate to Indonesia that we are committed to a stable, sustainable East Timor. Last night, the nascent nation's leaders, President Xanana Gusmao and Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, asked for assistance to restore peace, and Australia is responding. Good, the possibility of East Timor effectively collapsing in civil strife does not bear thinking about. Australian military personnel must stay there for as long as it takes to restore order, optimally as part of an international peacekeeping force under UN auspices.

But, while it does not seem so in all the drama of recent days, ensuring that the shooting stops may be the easiest aspect of East Timor's troubles to resolve, because the present crisis is only a symptom of a deep-seated problem, one of the country's leaders' own making. The World Bank has warned about the risk of official corruption. And it seems Mr Alkatiri has a political tin ear. He leads a government that got into a fight with the Catholic Church last year over religious education in state schools – staggeringly stupid politics in a devoutly Catholic country. And East Timor's official language is Portuguese, spoken by nobody outside Dili's tiny educated elite.

Fretilin, the political wing of the independence movement, now runs the country like a one-party state. Last week, Mr Alkatiri saw off a move against him by a Machiavellian manoeuvre at a party conference, not in parliament. It was an act easily interpreted as the work of a leadership more interested in squabbling over the spoils of power than working out how to help the ordinary people, who suffered so much for so long in the era of Indonesian occupation. And Mr Gusmao, the revered elder statesmen of the independence struggle, seems unwilling, or unable, to bring his squabbling lieutenants into line.

None of this is good enough. East Timor is Southeast Asia's poorest country, generating public revenues of a mere $50 million. Life expectancy is just 55, half the country is illiterate and per capita income is $US1 a day.

The present problem comes in large part from former soldiers who did not think they were getting a fair slice of a very small cake. That East Timor's leaders have trouble managing the public finances now does not bode well for when the river of gold from energy exports, worth $13 billion, starts to flow. The immediate challenge for Australia is to restore order in East Timor.

But it is essential the Australian Defence Force is seen as the ally of all East Timorese, rather than the protector of politicians. In the longer term, we must offer, firmly, to do everything we can to help the East Timorese develop their own accountable institutions, so ordinary people do not suspect their leaders of mercenary motives – as hundreds of alienated former soldiers do now.

Or we can leave Dili to its own devices, until the next time they request Australian soldiers. We cannot afford another Solomons- style situation.

Growing pains threaten to slow Timor's path to maturity

Sydney Morning Herald - May 22, 2006

Mark Forbes, Dili – Crowds danced to a cover version of Van Halen's Jump in the forecourt of East Timor's battered government headquarters on Saturday night – celebrating the anniversary of independence – the scene of last month's rampage by youths and rebel soldiers that left at least five civilians shot dead.

The building bore scars of the violence that shook the newborn nation and threatened to unseat the Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri. Every ground-floor window was smashed or boarded over.

As thousands sang along to nationalistic anthems and soft rock, patrons at Temptations bar across the road cheered and heckled Timor's first fashion show, featuring local transsexuals modelling designer dresses.

In the evening a semblance of normality returned to Dili, although traditional markets were boarded up and tens of thousands remained hiding in camps, churches and with relatives outside the capital.

A peace deal brokered by the Foreign Minister, Jose Ramos Horta, appears set to end the current crisis, but the unrest has exposed the fragility of the newborn nation with the expectations raised by independence unfulfilled.

Unemployment is rampant. Hundreds of youths line Dili's main streets, flocking towards approaching cars to sell newspapers or phone cards to earn a few extra cents. The Government remains the only big employer, and key institutions, including the army, are shambolic.

A weary Dr Ramos Horta, who has spent the past weeks touring the mountain hideouts of the rebel soldiers and visiting the remnants of the loyal military, expresses dismay at the Alkatiri Government's failure to tackle troops' grievances. "If I had been given this assignment in January we would not have got into this situation," he told the Herald.

Many complaints from the nearly 600 mutinous troops were relatively minor and easily fixed, but Dr Ramos Horta said he was "heartbroken" to see the precarious conditions in which the army were left to live.

Policies of posting younger troops from Timor's west across the island, and vice versa with older, hardened Fretilin fighters from the east, entrenched divisions, with the newer troops angry it costs them nearly a week's wages to return home.

Privately, some senior Government figures concede the establishment of a conventional army was a mistake, leaving 1600 troops with little to do.

They plan to restructure, delegating half to an international peacekeeping force and the remainder to civil engineering tasks. It has taken the intervention of the former independence fighter turned president, Xanana Gusmao, to resolve the impasse, with the rebels losing confidence in Mr Alkatiri.

Amid rousing scenes of revolutionary fervour, Mr Alkatiri outflanked a challenge from East Timor's ambassador to the United Nations, Jose Luis Guterres, at the ruling Fretilin party's conference last week, but dissatisfaction at Mr Alkatiri's arrogance runs high.

Distrust of several of Mr Guterres's backers – largely discredited and disenfranchised senior party figures – undermined his challenge. The show of unity for Mr Alkatiri from the dominant Fretilin party masked concerns at a Government seen as ineffectual and out of touch. The influential Catholic church also continues to manoeuvre against him.

An investigation by the Herald has revealed a secret plan for Dr Ramos Horta to assume the prime ministership if Mr Alkatiri lost the conference vote. Mr Guterres approached Dr Ramos Horta two weeks ago saying he would appoint him in his place for the sake of stability if the challenge succeeded. Dr Ramos Horta agreed to consider the offer after the vote.

With Mr Gusmao planning to resign as president next year, Dr Ramos Horta may also be asked to assume that post, a move that would thwart the Nobel Peace Prize winner's ambitions to replace Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General.

The paucity of other leadership figures and exposure of the weakness of Timor's key institutions has left many observers believing Australia may again be forced to intervene. Last week the Prime Minister, John Howard, acknowledged Australia's continuing regional policeman role.

For now, the UN has only agreed to extend its mission for another month. Elections are due within 12 months, with expectations that minor disturbances could provoke another implosion.

Bloodless coup: Has the crisis passed or is it deepening?

Today (Singapore) - May 20, 2006

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri avoided a leadership challenge this week but it is doubtful his rule will ensure any peace in the world's youngest nation.

Thousands of residents who fled the capital Dili in the wake of the deadly April 28 riots are still taking refuge in churches, Catholic seminaries or their home villages, reportedly too terrified to return until after the government has made peace with the "petitioners" – the nearly 600 sacked soldiers who sparked the riots.

Others say they are waiting out the ongoing congress of the ruling party Fretilin, which saw Mr Jose Luis Guterres, East Timor's ambassador to the United Nations, drop his bid for Mr Alkatiri's position, complaining that a vote by a show of hands – rather than secret ballot – was undemocratic.

I heard a rumour

The threat of further instability prompted Australia to send warships near East Timor waters last week, and Prime Minister John Howard, in his recent visit to the United States, had expressed fears that civil war could break out in Timor.

No one is sure whether the rumours that more than 100 "petitioners" might launch an attack from their base in Aliau, outside Dili, are based on fact or simply show the nervousness of the population.

"People are still in a traumatising situation because there are rumours that some political leaders deploy arms to parts of the population... the rumours create confusion," said Father Martinho da Silva Gusmao from the Catholic Church's peace and justice commission.

The tiny capital of war-shattered East Timor has been awash in rumours of an impending clash ever since the April 28 riots, which saw at least five people killed. Some rumours warned of a fight between the police and the military; others of a struggle within the army. Some even speculated that a coup d'etat was in the works.

Having suffered the brutal 1974 Indonesian invasion and 24 years of occupation – plus the retaliatory violence unleashed after the population voted for independence under a UN plebiscite in 1999 - Dili residents did not want to wait around to see if the rumours were true.

Instead, they voted with their feet. Residents estimate that up to 70,000 of the seaside town's 167,000-strong population had fled. By May 6, Dili was a ghost town.

"We heard from relatives who have someone in police intel (intelligence) that they were told to send their wives and kids out. That's why they panicked," said one Dili resident who did not want to be named.

To talk is to act

As rumours swirled around the capital, many said they believed the whisperings could be part of a political struggle. "In this government there are some people who want to create instability, who want to gain power. They might want to make Mari (Alkatiri) look weak," said Mr da Silva Gusmao.

Another power struggle is taking place between leading freedom fighters, he said. Mr Taur Matan Ruak, the head of the armed forces, has reportedly fallen out with President Xanana Gusmao, the one-time leader of the guerilla forces, over the President's refusal to pursue the issue of human rights abuses by the Indonesian military during their brutal rule.

"Xanana has left behind the friends, the companions that he had during the war for 24 years, by being conciliatory to Indonesia," said Mr da Silva Gusmao.

Mr Xanana and Mr Alkatiri say that East Timor cannot hold the Indonesians accountable for these abuses. This is deeply unpopular among the East Timorese who, unlike Mr Alkatiri, endured more than two decades of military rule. The Prime Minister returned from exile in Angola in 1999.

Others think the rumours could have been fed to the police by interior minister Rogerio Lobato, who is generally viewed as a trouble-maker. He served a five-year jail term in Angola for smuggling diamonds. Mr Alkatiri blamed the unrest on groups trying to oust him, labelling it a "constitutional coup".

Man of the moment

Regardless of whether the unrest was cynically manipulated, the current government has been made to look ineffectual.

The Dili exodus, the mass of rumours and the government's failure to counter them has had the same effect as a bloodless coup. Mr Alkatiri may have remained in control of his party but he faces an uphill battle, observers say.

Mr Alkatiri is not popular in East Timor and has even antagonised many of his former supporters, says Mr da Silva Gusmao. "It seems Mari has no idea how to unite this country, he only creates conflict between one class and another. For years his government has caused disintegration within various groups," he said.

A senior Fretilin member, Mr Vicente Ximenes, said many party members are unhappy with Mr Alkatiri's autocratic manner, and blame him for mishandling the conflict. Others say Mr Alkatiri, a former exile, is out of touch with the majority of citizens.

East and west

The dismissed soldiers initially deserted, complaining that soldiers from East Timor's eastern districts had been favoured above those from the west. Such complaints mirror wider ethnic tensions, say observers.

Mr Alkatiri claims his government is already working with most of the "petitioners", the local term for the sacked soldiers. But analysts say the unrest has exposed deeper problems such as poverty, high unemployment and rifts between easterners and those from western East Timor.

"I think the problem will not end (with Alkatiri being elected), there are problems between East and West, like Indonesia in May 1998 when the Chinese were attacked," said Mr Virgilio Guterres, the head of East Timor's state broadcaster.

Others, referring to figures such as Mr Taur Matan Ruak and even President Xanana Gusmao, say that, with so many different forces either blaming Mr Alkatiri for the conflict, or manipulating it for their own advantage, peace will be difficult.

"The other institutional actors who are extremely powerful are still playing a role. There are so many actors, it (the end of the Fretilin congress) won't put an end to the unrest," said one foreign observer.

East Timor riots expose a political divide

Asia Times - May 18, 2006

Loro Horta – It was a hauntingly familiar scene. Large-scale riots broke out in East Timor late last month, attended by looting, arson and the murder of five civilians. But rather than a rebellion against foreign occupation, the recent melee in the capital, Dili, was purely a domestic affair.

A group of nearly 500 soldiers, disgruntled about their dismissal from the national service for cost-cutting purposes, instigated the violence. The United Nations estimated that 75% of the capital's population fled the violence and sought refuge in surrounding mountains. Foreign governments were ready with plans to rescue their nationals, including neighboring Australia, which put its navy on alert for a possible commando-led evacuation mission.

Ethnic, religious and historical rivalries still boil beneath the surface in East Timor, which had experienced a relative calm since achieving independence and weathering the Indonesia-backed militia attacks in 1999 that resulted in the deaths of 1,400 Timorese and the destruction of 70% of the country's economic infrastructure. An estimated 100,000-250,000 individuals were killed under Indonesia's two and a half decades of violent pacification.

The heady days of East Timor's independence, officially recognized in 2002, have since yielded to internal rivalry and mistrust. That only 500 disgruntled soldiers could spark a national crisis demonstrates just how weak East Timor's Fretilin-led government still is, despite its overwhelming 57% control of parliament and nearly six years of UN-sponsored capacity-building support.

More significant, perhaps, the riots also demonstrate how willing competing interest groups are to resort to violence to push forward their agendas. While the protests never involved more than 2,000 people, they clearly demonstrated just how vulnerable the current government is to even small challenges to its authority. The country's riot police consist of a mere 50 men, none of whom possess even basic equipment; many of the country's 3,500 police officers do not have their own firearms – pistols are transferred from man to man during duty shifts.

Regional rivalries are an even bigger problem. The 500 soldiers who ignited the recent protests were predominantly from the western part of the country, and they had regularly complained about discriminatory practices in the allegedly eastern-dominated national army. When the riots broke out in Dili, many police officers from western areas refused to tackle the protesters, allowing what should have been an easy situation for a united force to control to disintegrate into a tragic circus.

Opposition desperation

There are clear indications that opposition parties hijacked the protests to discredit and destabilize the government. One day before the riots, the government and the leader of the disgruntled soldiers had announced that an amicable solution to their complaints was imminent. In a sudden about-turn, the next day the soldiers demanded parliament's dissolution – eerily similar to the demands recently made by the fragmented political opposition. (Soldiers actually read previous opposition statements word-for-word calling for the government's resignation.)

East Timor's weak political opposition is understandably desperate. In last year's regional elections, which were certified as free and fair by the UN, opposition parties won just one region out of the total 31 they contested. And there is no compelling reason to believe that their prospects for the country's first ever parliamentary elections, to be held by mid- 2007, will be any different.

The dominance by Fretilin (Frente Revolucionaria do Timor Leste Independente, or Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor), with a 55-seat majority in the 88-seat parliament, has recently stirred political resentments. Fretilin Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, an Arab Muslim, has taken on various powerful interest groups in Timorese society, chief among them the historically influential Catholic Church.

Alkatiri's decision last year to make religious education in schools optional rather than compulsory put the church and his government on a collision course. When asked to comment on the street protests staged last year by the church against the policy, Alkatiri famously replied, "Well, I'm not worried since I know I'm going to hell. Who cares?"

The Roman Catholic Church, which counts 90% of the population among its adherents, has said it will campaign directly against Alkatiri if he is nominated as Fretilin's prime-ministerial candidate during next year's elections.

Alkatiri, who spent 24 years in exile in Africa after the Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor in 1975, is widely viewed as a patriot. As prime minister, he has been praised for brokering a perceived fair deal with Australia over rights to contested oilfields in the Timor Sea. His refusal to accept loans from the World Bank, despite a gross domestic product per capita of a mere US$400, stems from his personal experience in Africa, where many poor countries have become disastrously dependent on foreign aid.

Rival leaders

At the same time, Alkatiri's controversial leadership style has brought him into direct conflict with President and former rebel leader Xanana Gusmao, widely viewed as the father of East Timor's independence. The Alkatiri-Gusmao rivalry dates back to the country's first formative months after independence, when the two squabbled over drafting of a constitution.

At the time, Gusmao and other influential leaders, such as Nobel Peace Prize winner and current Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta, fought for the adoption of a presidential system. Alkatiri objected and leveraged Fretilin's superior numbers into the establishment of a parliamentary form of government. While largely a figurehead, Gusmao retains the power to veto legislation, dissolve parliament and call for national elections.

Gusmao has since openly supported the two main opposition parties, the Democrat Party and the Social Democrat Party, which hold seven and six seats in parliament respectively, against Fretilin. The political rivalry, somewhat dangerously, has seeped down into many government institutions, with the army and police both sharply divided between pro-Alkatari and pro-Gusmao factions. Factionalism, coupled with the more ethnically driven east-west regional rivalries, has made effective police response and coordination with the army almost impossible, as demonstrated by the inability to contain the recent riots.

Some analysts say that the Alkatiri-Gusmao rivalry, at least partially, explains the president's rather passive conduct during the recent riots. If Gusmao had chosen to intervene decisively, government insiders say, it's unlikely that the crisis would have spun out of control. Instead, the president stayed cloistered in his official residence, doing and saying nothing – to teach Alkatiri a lesson, some insiders contend. That some foreign diplomats took sides during the crisis also added fuel to the fire.

Another source of instability has been the numerous martial-arts groups. During Indonesia's occupation, many young Timorese joined martial-arts groups as a way to defend themselves. Since independence, some of these groups have turned to crime, running extortion, protection, gambling and smuggling rackets. The largest of these groups, the Gorkas, is estimated to have some 10,000 members. Others are affiliated with certain powerful individuals who have well-known political ambitions.

For instance, the Sagrada Familia group has close links with a former guerrilla commander, Furai Bot, who has opposed the government since 2001. Others, such as Calimao 2000, are increasingly acting as professional thugs-for-hire. Endemic unemployment, which exceeds 50% nationwide and is as high as 70% in Dili, means recruiting is easy for such groups.

East Timor has by no means reached the political tipping point toward renewed civil conflict. But the post-independence honeymoon is clearly over, and old rivalries are palpably intensifying. A weak state, an opportunistic opposition, intense leadership rivalries, and the rising power of organized gangs all came together to create the explosive mix that led to the Dili riots.

Nearly 25 years of foreign occupation left behind many scars, including a deep-seated culture of violence and mistrust. As the state moves to assert its authority over East Timor's fiercely independent people, it's essential that the government, opposition and security forces all speak with one cohesive voice. The early days of nationhood, as East Timor is now clear demonstrating, are never easy.

[Loro Horta is a master's degree candidate at Nanyang Technological University's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore. He previously served as an adviser to the East Timorese Defense Department. The views expressed here are strictly his own.]

East Timor peace in balance

The Advertiser (Adelaide) - May 6, 2006

Bronwyn Hurrell, Canberra – Australia has an affinity with East Timor that dates back to World War II when Australian soldiers were supported and sheltered by the locals, who paid a high toll at the hands of the Japanese.

A new closeness was forged when Australia stood in the frontline of support for East Timor's transition to independence from Indonesia in 1999. Now, the recurrence of unrest in Dili on the long, slow road to nationhood has sparked calls for more Australian assistance to our troubled neighbour.

Riots last week in the capital left at least five people dead in the worst violence since independence. A demonstration by hundreds of sacked soldiers escalated into violence that left about 50 injured and 100 houses destroyed. Nearly 600 military personnel were sacked for deserting amid complaints of discrimination between those from the east and west of East Timor.

Disenfranchised youth, spurred by criminal gangs, also were believed to have been part of the turmoil. The incident sparked real concerns the fragile peace might not hold before elections early next year.

Prime Minister John Howard yesterday was grappling with the issue of sending in more Australian troops. With its mission due to expire in weeks, the United Nations was considering an extension. Experts, meanwhile, were calling for more to be done about the root of the turmoil, poverty.

Institute for International Business, Economics and Law senior lecturer Jim Redden, of Adelaide, was in East Timor when the trouble broke out. He was training government officials in the relationship between trade, the economy and poverty reduction. He described a cocktail of ills that led to one or two ugly scenes after what had been a series of well-behaved demonstrations.

"It wasn't always the military – disgruntled youth, an argument, a bit of alcohol, frustration," he said. "We certainly felt a fear of the unknown."

His first-hand experience left him in no doubt the UN should extend its involvement in the young country. Mr Redden said compared with such places as the Solomon Islands, East Timor hardly was "a basket case". "It has been the most peaceful post- conflict country over the past 50 years. Generally, things are working quite well," he said.

Mr Redden, however, also said when food, transport and communication services went down during the riots, there was no emergency plan. "I think the continued presence of the UN there needs to be promoted and supported by Australia and America to allow them to get such emergency plans in place," he said.

Australian Federal Police chief Mick Keelty agreed it was not unusual for problems to occur in countries with police forces that sprung from military organisations. "We see this from time to time in many places, sometimes because of the historical evolution of policing in some of these countries," he said. "We're going through another period, unfortunately, of violence, but we have a situation we hope can be resolved very quickly."

The Federal Government indicated it only would send ground troops to East Timor if sought by the East Timorese administration. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan intended to beef up security forces to head off any voter intimidation in the lead-up to the polls.

East Timor Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta has asked the UN Security Council to maintain a presence in Dili after its current political mission comes to an end next month. "We don't need any major police force, what we need is for continuing police advisers to our police," he said.

Experts said the help East Timor really needed was economic, rather than military. The last of Australia's peacekeepers left East Timor in June last year. The remaining contingent of more than 30 Australians included a handful of Australian Federal Police, who were training local border patrols, and about 30 Australian Defence Force members working on defence co-operation activities with East Timor's fledgling defence force. Each of the operations had cost in excess of $30 million for the five years to the end of 2005-06.

International politics senior lecturer Dr Felix Patrikeeff, of Adelaide University, said impoverishment was at the heart of East Timor's problems. "If the problem of the economy, the impoverishment of the place, had been dealt with, you probably wouldn't have had those (riots) emerging," he said. "It needs to be remembered that it's the newest state, it's a state that's had years of political turmoil."

Dr Patrikeeff said the training Australia was providing was not enough to solve East Timor's problems. "It needs direct economic aid," he said. "There just isn't enough money to go round. You need to deal with the root causes of the problems."

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer has flagged discussions with the UN could lead to an extension of its mandate in East Timor. "It's a decision that ultimately rests with the UN Security Council, although we are going to be, being East Timor's next-door neighbour, a country that has a considerable bearing on it," he said.