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East Timor News Digest 6 – June 1-30, 2007
Australian Associated Press - June 29, 2007
Criminal charges should be laid over alleged corruption within a
government ministry, East Timor's new independent watchdog said,
on the eve of parliamentary elections.
The Office of the Provedor for Human Rights and Justice (PDHJ)
said it had recommended that the Prosecutor General lay criminal
charges over alleged corruption within the Ministry of State
Administration.
The PDHJ – which serves as East Timor's human rights commission,
ombudsman and anti-corruption commission – said an investigation
into the allegation followed a complaint from within the
ministry.
A further 13 cases of alleged human rights abuses and
maladministration had been referred to East Timorese police for
further investigation, the body said in its annual report handed
to parliament this week.
The recommendation comes as authorities step up security ahead of
the election, in which up to 522,000 East Timorese will vote for
one of 14 parties vying for control of the fledgling nation's
parliament.
Bad weather has posed a major challenge for organisers. Roads and
bridges have been washed away by heavy rain in recent days,
hampering efforts to deliver ballot papers and election materials
across the remote and mountainous country.
However, a UN spokeswoman said preparations were running
smoothly, with UN and Australian army helicopters delivering the
material around the rugged half-island.
Analysts expect the poll to be a race between two main parties –
the ruling Fretilin party and the CNRT, a party headed by former
president and guerilla fighter Xanana Gusmao. However, neither
party is expected to win an outright majority of seats.
In its report, the PDHJ said it received 109 complaints in 2006,
but a third were deemed to be outside its jurisdiction, or were
withdrawn.
Aside from the 14 referred to authorities, 57 complaints are
still being investigated by the body, the annual report said. The
office, which opened just over a year ago, has also initiated
eight investigations of its own, including into alleged human
rights violations, corruption and maladministration.
"Overall the Provedor has received excellent cooperation
including from the most senior public officials," the report's
executive summary says. "There is just one exception to this,
which constitutes a serious breach of the PDHJ law."
The report includes 13 recommendations to government, including
the establishment of a mechanism to require the president, prime
minister, government ministers and senior public servants to
declare their financial assets, and for public officials to
declare conflicts of interest.
It also recommends a government working group be established to
discuss the development of an anti-corruption law in the tiny
nation, which gained independence in 2002.
South China Morning Post - June 28, 2007
[In the first of a series on the issues surrounding East Timor's
upcoming elections, Fabio Scarpello reports from Dili, examining
the differing proposals on how to spend the nation's rich oil
revenue.]
As Saturday's first post-independence parliamentary vote
approaches, East Timor's main parties are at loggerheads over
what to do with the money put aside in the Petroleum Fund, a US
Federal Reserve account in which the country has saved more than
US$1.4 billion since September 2005.
Under the "sustainable wealth rule", the Petroleum Fund law
allows the government to use only a share of the interest matured
by the fund or set to mature in the future. Conversely, it
demands that revenue from oil and gas be saved for the benefit of
future generations.
The Fretilin party, which created the fund, wants to strengthen
this law, which has been praised by donors and international
organisations. "We want to enshrine certain points into the
constitution so future generations can see how important it is,"
Resources Minister Jose Teixeira said.
Mr Teixeira, a Fretilin heavyweight, said the points included
"that any oil and gas revenue is paid into the account; that
money can only be withdrawn via the yearly budgetary law; and
that the wealth rule is maintained".
On the other hand, the National Congress for East Timor
Reconstruction (CNRT), a new party led by former president Xanana
Gusmao, wants to use most of the savings for an anti-poverty
drive. CNRT is expected to be Fretilin's main challenger at the
polls.
"We want to make some adjustments to the fund, which is copied
from the Norwegians' [petroleum fund]," said Dionisio Babo
Soares, CNRT secretary-general.
"East Timor is a post-conflict society and not Norway. How can
you talk about investing in future generations if the current
generation is malnourished, does not have access to schools or
hospitals and many families have no proper house, water or
electricity?"
Mr Soares said the money would be used to provide people with
basic needs, and the country with the necessary infrastructure
for economic growth. "We still have oil spots that will produce
revenue for another 20 years or so. We can invest now and save
later," he said, adding that CNRT was prepared to use the full
US$1.4 billion if needed.
A similar statement from President Jose Ramos Horta during
April's presidential election campaign was firmly rejected by Mr
Teixeira.
"With all due respect to the president, he does not understand
how the fund works," Mr Teixeira said. "The local economy is not
ready to absorb more money. It is like wanting to pour one litre
of water in a small glass – it will overflow and it will be
wasted forever."
The need for political foresight was highlighted by monitoring
group La'o Hamutuk, which estimated that East Timor would become
one of the world's most oil-dependent nations by 2010, drawing 89
per cent of its economy and 94 per cent of its government revenue
from oil and gas production."
"Timor cannot be another Brunei or Norway – we simply don't have
that much petroleum. But it will take extraordinary efforts to
avoid being an Angola or Gabon," said the group's report,
underlining the danger of "the resource curse" that has befallen
many oil-rich and badly run African countries.
East Timor's oil and gas revenue comes from the Bayu Undan field,
which is jointly developed with Australia. East Timor gets 90 per
cent of the extraction revenue and Australia the refinery
revenue.
From 2013, the Greater Sunrise field is expected to go into
production and generate revenue of US$10 billion over its
lifetime.
Truth & friendship commission
Balibo 5 inquest
Justice & reconciliation
Timor Gap
Parliamentary elections
Aid and development
Book/film reviews
Opinion & analysis
East Timor media monitoring
News & issues
Watchdog wants Timor corruption charges
East Timor divided over how to spend badly needed oil revenue
Months for East Timor's refugee crisis to end: UN
Agence France Presse - June 26, 2007
Jakarta – East Timor's top UN official warned Tuesday that it would take months to resolve the refugee crisis in the troubled nation, where an estimated 10 percent of the population remain in camps.
Atul Khare, the UN secretary-general's special representative to East Timor, said that the issues keeping refugees at makeshift camps, mostly in convents and monasteries in the mostly Roman Catholic nation, were complex.
"I do see IDPs (internally displaced people) continuing to remain a challenge for the new government, the new parliament and the new president to deal with, well into the next year," he told a press briefing in the Indonesian capital Jakarta.
East Timor's one million people vote in parliamentary elections on Saturday.
"It is not a short-term fix, it is a medium or longish-to-medium term challenge that we are facing," he said.
The refugee issue related not only to security, but also unemployment, complex land and property laws and the loss of an estimated 2,500 homes destroyed in last year's unrest, he said.
East Timor's government and the UN planned to launch another consolidated appeal to help the refugees some time next month, he added.
No formal registration has yet taken place, Khare said, but the UN believed around 100,000 people were staying in the camps, though some make short trips home or stay only in the camps at night. Of these, about 20,000 were in Dili and the remainder were in the districts, he said, adding that a registration process was expected to soon get underway.
The refugees fled their homes in the aftermath of street violence last year that left about 37 people dead. The unrest was triggered by the government's sacking of some 600 soldiers who had deserted the army complaining of discrimination, and degenerated into factional streetfights among the security forces and gangs.
Reuters - June 19, 2007
Dili – East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta ordered security forces on Tuesday to stop hunting for an army renegade accused of involvement in last year's wave of violence.
Alfredo Reinado escaped last August along with 50 other inmates from a prison where he was being held on charges of involvement in last year's violence that killed 37 people and drove 150,000 from their homes earlier that year.
"I have heard all parties, including the United Nations, and today I decide the police and military operation to capture Alfredo Reinado and his members should be stopped today," Ramos- Horta told reporters.
He said the prosecutor-general should discuss with Reinado terms for his surrender and weapons handover under the mediation of the Catholic church. "I believe in justice for all," he said.
Reinado told Reuters earlier this month he would personally seek out those behind last year's violence if the government refused to negotiate with him immediately.
Reinado, East Timor's former military police chief, has been accused of raiding a police post and making off with 25 automatic weapons while on the run.
He has said he would only turn himself in once the ruling Fretilin party was no longer in power and foreign troops sent into East Timor after last year's violence were out of the country.
Ramos-Horta, a Nobel peace prize winner who spent years abroad as a spokesman for East Timor's struggle for independence from Indonesian occupation, was installed as president last month.
His victory has raised hopes of greater stability in a nation still struggling to heal divisions five years after it won formal independence from Indonesia. East Timor will vote again in parliamentary elections on June 30.
Jakarta Post - June 20, 2007
Yemris Fointuna, Kupang – Thousands of people gathered at Dharmaloka heroes cemetery in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara, on Tuesday to pay their last respects to Abilio Jose Osorio Soares, the last governor of East Timor before it declared independence through a UN-organized referendum in 1999.
The funeral took place under dark skies and a light rain which fell on mourners. As the East Timorese integration champion was buried, a hymn played and many of Abilio's friends and relatives wept. An honor guard fired their weapons in salute to the former governor, eliciting further cries from the bereaved family.
Abilio's mother, Beatris Osorio Soares, 86, attended the funeral. She was accompanied by Abilio's wife, Maria Angela Correia de Lemos Osorio Soares, and their four children.
Former commander of the Army's Strategic Reserves Command, Lt. Gen. Prabowo Subianto was also was present. The deputy governor of East Nusa Tenggara, Frans Leburaya, spoke during the ceremony, at one point unsuccessfully fighting back the tears.
Leburaya said during his speech that Abilio was a patriot who made immeasurable contributions to the nation. "Abilio is a national hero. He devoted his life to the nation. He is gone now, but his work will continue to be commemorated."
Prabowo said Abilio deserved the honor of burial in the heroes cemetery. "He struggled for the welfare of the East Timorese since the 1950s, when he was still an adolescent. The attention given by the government for his burial in the heroes cemetery shows this nation appreciates its heroes," he said.
Jakarta Post - June 6, 2007
Jakarta – Aware that the Indonesian language is spoken by most people in Timor Leste, the country's government has decided to make the Indonesian language, or Bahasa Indonesia, its working language.
Visiting Timor Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta said that Bahasa Indonesia was even used in state offices for day-to-day communication.
"The Indonesian media may not have paid attention to my use of Bahasa Indonesia when I addressed the Parliament on May 20 and all members of the parliament also speak the language," Ramos- Horta said in a joint press conference after bilateral talks with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on Tuesday.
Ramos-Horta, who admitted that he is not yet fluent in Bahasa Indonesia, said that he would learn to master the language. "So that I can deliver my speeches in Bahasa Indonesia on my next visit," Ramos-Horta said, chuckling.
Responding to Timor Leste's decision to use Bahasa Indonesia as its working language, Yudhoyono said that he warmly welcomed the decision as it would enhance mutual understanding between the people of the two countries.
Yudhoyono said the Indonesian government would give assistance in the establishment of Indonesian language departments in a number of universities in Timor Leste.
He said that mastering the Indonesian language would bring advantages to the people of Timor Leste. "The people of Timor Leste will also be able to communicate with people in Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam," Yudhoyono said, responding to a question from a Timor Leste journalist using Bahasa Indonesia.
Timor Leste's government has declared Tetum and Portuguese the country's official languages, yet Indonesian language is widely spoken as it was widely taught during Indonesia's occupation of the country.
Bahasa Indonesia has become a lingua franca of the country through heavy use in classrooms and business. (JP/M. Taufiqurrahman)
| Truth & friendship commission |
Australian Associated Press - June 28, 2007
The only Indonesian jailed over the violence surrounding East Timor's 1999 vote for independence has launched a legal challenge against the court that convicted him.
Former militia leader Eurico Guterres has asked Indonesia's Constitutional Court to review the legality of the Indonesia Human Rights Tribunal which found him guilty of the violence.
Guterres, who was born in East Timor, is currently serving 10 years in a Jakarta prison for failing to control his militia group which attacked a pro-independence shelter, massacring 11 men and a child.
His lawyer Mahendradatta said the formation of the ad hoc court had been politically driven. "Eurico Guterres felt discriminated by a political decision (at that time)," he said. "With the establishment of the Human Rights Tribunal, (he) felt his constitutional right was deprived."
The Human Rights Appeal Tribunal halved the 10 years sentence in 2004, but it was later reinstated by Supreme Court.
In his petition to the court, Guterres has called on the Constitutional Court to dismiss the Human Rights Court. His lawyer said if the bid succeeds, he should be freed from all charges.
Guterres in March testified before the controversial East Timor- Indonesia Commission of Truth and Friendship, which is seeking a "conclusive truth" about the 1999 bloodshed in order to aid reconciliation between the two countries. He denied killing anyone, but added that if his men had killed anyone, he had been held responsible with his 10 year sentence.
Other than Guterres, the Tribunal tried 17 defendants, including Indonesian generals, military and police officers working in East Timor in 1999, but acquitted them either at the lower or the appeal stage.
Indonesia's military has been accused of forming militia groups, including Guterres' Aitarak (Thorn) group in the lead up to the 1999 ballot. The militia groups, backed by the Indonesian forces, have been blamed for 1,500 deaths across the tiny half-island in the months surrounding the historic vote.
Kyodo News - June 26, 2007
Jakarta – Atul Khare, special envoy of the UN secretary general for East Timor, urged Jakarta and Dili on Tuesday to enhance the efficiency and credibility of a truth commission tasked with probing the bloodshed that marred East Timor's independence vote in 1999.
"I strongly believe that justice is essential for reconciliation," Khare told a press conference. "In this sense, I must say that as the United Nations, of course, we have welcomed efforts by Indonesia and Timor-Leste (East Timor) in pursuance of truth and friendship."
"At the same time, the United Nations encourages every effort to strengthen the efficiency and credibility of the Commission of Truth and Friendship in order to ensure further conformity with the human rights principles."
The commission, which has been working since Aug. 2 in 2005, is aimed at "establishing a conclusive truth" about human rights violations that occurred prior to and following the 1999 referendum in which East Timorese voted to separate from Indonesia.
It is being billed by the Indonesian and East Timorese governments as a means to promote reconciliation and rebuild ties between the two countries.
Concerns, however, have been raised by human rights groups as the commission has no power to punish those responsible, particularly current or former members of the Indonesian military and pro- Jakarta militias, or to recommend prosecution.
Early this month, East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta and Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono agreed to extend the mandate of the truth commission for another six months.
The truth commission was initially scheduled to last for one year but was extended another year. It sought a new "special" extension due to a shortage of time to complete a comprehensive report.
"I would say that my belief is that efforts to establish credible accountability do not exclude progress toward friendship and reconciliation," Khare said.
"In fact, it is my view that such efforts provide a much more solid foundation upon which durable friendship between the two countries and the people can be built."
On the occasion, according to Khare, the UN Integrated Mission in East Timor is continuing to pursue a mandate given by the Security Council to complete investigations into the 1999 violence, which remained unfinished when the UN-sanctioned Serious Crime Unit was closed down in 2005.
Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1974 and annexed it the following year, taking over the territory from the 400-year colonial rule of Portugal. East Timor officially gained independence on May 20, 2002, after its people overwhelmingly voted for independence in 1999 and it came under UN administration for two-and-a-half years.
Associated Press - June 5, 2007
East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta has praised a much- criticised commission probing the violence that accompanied his nation's break from Indonesian rule in 1999, saying it could be a model for other nations.
The body has no powers to recommend prosecution for those it finds responsible for the bloodshed after the territory voted to end 24 years of Indonesian occupation in a UN-sponsored independence ballot.
Ramos Horta said the East Timorese and Indonesians sitting on the Commission of Truth and Friendship were working with courage and honesty.
"I believe that it will satisfy the people of both sides, and it will set a precedent for other countries to deal with similar situations," he said on a trip to Indonesia, his first overseas visit since becoming president last month.
Up to 1,000 people were killed in a rampage by Indonesian troops and their militia proxies during and after East Timor's vote for independence.
UN-backed prosecutors in East Timor have indicted several Indonesian generals for atrocities, but Jakarta has refused to hand them over. Under intense international pressure, Indonesia put 17 officers on trial in 2000 and 2001, but all were found not guilty.
Ramos Horta and other East Timorese leaders have refused to push Indonesia for justice, saying that building better ties with its giant neighbour would better serve the interests of its 900,000 mostly poor people.
"The important thing is we don't allow ourselves to be hostage of the past but look forward with courage," Ramos Horta said as he stood next to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, himself a former military general.
Local and international rights groups have criticised the ongoing commission, calling it a whitewash intended to exonerate criminals and perpetuate a culture of impunity. They are demanding an international tribunal be set up to try those responsible.
The commission, which is hearing testimony from witnesses and examining documents related to the violence, is due to present its findings later this year.
Deutsche Presse Agentur - June 5, 2007
Jakarta – Indonesia and its former colony East Timor agreed Tuesday to extend by six months the work of a joint truth commission tasked at gathering the facts surrounding Indonesia's military rampage ahead of East Timor's 1999 vote for independence. The commission's mandate now extends until February.
At a joint press conference in Jakarta after holding talks with East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the two countries also agreed that the truth and friendship commission would not prosecute anyone found guilty of human-rights abuses surrounding the balloting eight years ago.
Human-rights groups have criticized the commission because it lacks the ability to bring senior members of the Indonesian Armed Forces to justice for ordering military-backed militias to massacre Timorese civilians and raze villages.
"Both of our governments – East Timor and Indonesia – agreed and are committed to solving our past problems based on the principle of truth, friendship and reconciliation, not through the judicial system," Yudhoyono said.
The Indonesia-East Timor Commission of Truth and Friendship, similar to South Africa's post-apartheit Truth and Reconciliation Commission, had been scheduled to conclude its job in August after it was extended for one year in 2006.
"The important things is that we do not allow ourselves to be held hostage by the past," Ramos Horta said. "It will set a precedent for other countries to deal with similar situations."
Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975 and occupied the former Portuguese colony for 24 years. As many as 200,000 civilians died during that period. In 1999 in a UN-sponsored referendum, East Timor voted to become independent and became a nation in 2002 after being administered by the United Nations for more than two years.
In addition to bilateral economic issues, Yudhoyono and Ramos Horta also discussed education and border problems.
Nobel laureate Ramos Horta arrived in Jakarta Monday for a three-day visit to Indonesia, his first overseas trip after he was sworn in as president May 20. Ramos Horta won a landslide presidential election last month, replacing former rebel fighter Xanana Gusmao.
| Balibo 5 inquest |
Reuters - June 8, 2007
Australia's defence chief says a former Indonesian general who was invited to give evidence at the Balibo inquest during a visit to Sydney last month was not involved in the 1975 killing of five Australia-based journalists in East Timor.
Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston says Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso, who served in East Timor at the start of the Indonesian occupation of the territory in 1975, told him he and his troops were not in the district where the reporters were killed.
"He was nowhere near Balibo at the time of that unfortunate incident. Indeed he was with another team in another town in East Timor," Air Chief Marshal Houston told reporters after meeting Governor Sutiyoso in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta. "I accept his explanation and I have never doubted his innocence," he said.
Mr Sutiyoso said last month two New South Wales police officers had barged into his hotel room in Sydney during an official visit and asked him to sign an invitation to testify in an inquest into one of the men who died, Brian Peters.
Indonesia lodged a formal diplomatic protest but the row was defused after the Australian ambassador in Jakarta and the New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma apologised.
Air Chief Marshal Houston says he expressed regret to Mr Sutiyoso for "the unacceptable circumstances". "The Governor is a long- standing friend of Australia. Those circumstances will never happen again," said the ADF chief, who was Mr Sutiyoso's classmate at an Australian military staff college in 1990.
In final submissions to the inquest last month, Mark Tedeschi, the counsel assisting the coroner, said the journalists were killed in Balibo to stop them reporting news of Indonesian military actions.
Official Indonesian reports have blamed the deaths on October 16, 1975, on crossfire as Indonesian forces entered East Timor in an incursion ahead of a full-scale invasion of the territory in December of the same year.
Air Chief Marshal Houston is in Indonesia to meet armed forces chief Joko Suyanto and Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono. He says he met Mr Sutiyoso as an "old friend" who beat him at a tennis competition in Australia.
Sydney Morning Herald - June 2, 2007
Hamish McDonald – Families of the five newsmen killed at Balibo, East Timor, in 1975 have told a Sydney inquest they were tricked by Australian officials into agreeing to the burial of the purported remains in Jakarta.
Three of the families said each had been told separately by Department of Foreign Affairs officials that the other families did not want the remains brought back to Australia.
Shirley Shackleton – the widow of Greg Shackleton, a reporter for Channel Seven, who died in an Indonesian covert attack on October 16, 1975 – said an official told her "it would cost you $48,000" to transport the remains home.
John Stratton, SC, counsel for Maureen Tolfree, sister of Brian Peters, a cameraman for Channel Nine, asked the Deputy State Coroner Dorelle Pinch to urge the Federal Government to seek reburial in Australia.
"In view of the history of this matter it is utterly offensive to the families of the deceased journalists that they are buried in Indonesia," Mr Stratton said.
After weeks of requests, Indonesian authorities handed to the Australian embassy in Jakarta in November that year four shoe boxes of ash and charred bone fragments said to have come from the house in Balibo where four of the newsmen died. The embassy conducted a burial in a Jakarta cemetery on December 5, 1975, without the bereaved families.
In his closing submission on the inquest's last day of hearings, Mr Stratton said the official history of what happened to the Balibo five had been based on "a false account of history". "It has been in the interests of certain people, both in Indonesia and Australia, to maintain the false history."
Ms Pinch now retires to review submissions that include recommendations she refer the names of two former Indonesian army officers to prosecutors for possible war crime charges.
The Advertiser (Australia) - June 2, 2007
Janet Fife-Yeomans, Sydney – The families of five young Australian journalists "executed" by Indonesian forces at Balibo in East Timor called yesterday for the killers to be prosecuted for war crimes.
There was overwhelming evidence the 1975 killings were ordered by Yunus Yosfiah, who went on to become a minister in the Indonesian Government, counsel John Stratton SC told the NSW Coroners Court.
Mr Stratton, in closing submissions on behalf of the family of one of the newsmen, Brian Peters, said the families of all the men wanted 30 years of false history corrected.
The inquest has heard Australian and Indonesian governments maintained the men were killed in crossfire as Indonesia troops invaded East Timor although they knew from intelligence reports it was a lie.
"(Some) appear to have been concerned that the truth would damage relations between Australia and Indonesia," said Mr Stratton.
"The journalists were not killed in crossfire or in the heat of battle. They were executed by Indonesian special forces troops, with the participation of and at the direction of Yunus Yosfiah, with the intention of preventing the journalists from telling their story to the world."
Mr Yosfiah led the Balibo attack. The inquest has heard graphic evidence of how Channel 9 cameraman Mr Peters and reporter Malcolm Rennie, and Channel 7 reporter Greg Shackleton, cameraman Gary Cunningham and sound recordist Tony Stewart died.
Mr Stratton said Mr Peters appeared to have been the first – stabbed and shot as he surrendered with his hands up.
The other four ran into a house where three were shot dead. The fifth hid in a toilet where Indonesian special forces officer Christoforus da Silva beat on the door with the butt of his rifle and threatened to throw in a grenade. When the journalist came out with his hands up, he was stabbed in the back by da Silva.
Counsel assisting the coroner, Mark Tedeschi QC, this week recommended that two people be referred to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions for prosecution on war crimes charges under the Geneva Convention.
Mr Stratton also said the Government should seek the return of the journalists' remains, which were buried in Jakarta without the families' informed consent. "In view of the history of this matter it is utterly offensive to the families of the deceased journalists that they are buried in Indonesia," he said.
Greg Shackleton's widow, Shirley, supported bringing the remains back to Australia. The burned bodies went into the grave "all stuck in one box together", she said outside court.
Mrs Shackleton yesterday addressed the coroner, saying a "policy of decency" had been missing from the Australian Government's handling of the case for 32 years. "No matter how terrible the facts may be, trying to recover from grief is impossible if they're absent," she said.
Deputy State Coroner Dorelle Pinch will hand down her findings on a date to be fixed.
| Justice & reconciliation |
Northern Territory News (Australia) - June 18, 2007
The Territory coroner has ruled out investigating the suspected murder of a Darwin journalist by the Indonesian military.
Roger East is suspected of being killed by invading Indonesian forces at Dili's wharf on December 8, 1975, after travelling to East Timor to investigate what happened to five colleagues who were killed two months earlier. He was 29.
NT deputy coroner Celia Kemp said Mr East's death was not in her jurisdiction. "This is because his death did not occur in the Territory, Mr East's body was never in the Territory and at the time of his death Mr East was not a person who 'ordinarily resided in the Territory'," she said.
East Timor activist Rob Wesley-Smith, who has been pushing for a coronial into East's death for more than a decade, has written to Attorney-General Syd Stirling seeking a review of the Coroner's Act.
"Darwin was the last place Roger lived in Australia, he'd only been in East Timor a few weeks, and while nobody knew for sure that he intended to live here when he returned, no one knew any different either," he said.
"There must be a lot of people that could fall under that classification if that's the case. And if the NT doesn't have jurisdiction then who does?"
ABC News Online - June 11, 2007
Anne Barker – As the Balibo Five inquest winds up, there are calls for another coronial inquiry into a sixth Australian-based journalist who was murdered in East Timor in late 1975.
Darwin-based newsman Roger East has become the forgotten man in the Balibo saga that has dragged on for more than three decades.
The 29-year-old's death has always been overshadowed by the controversy surrounding the Balibo Five, yet there are claims he was deliberately murdered by the Indonesian military.
Mr East lived in Darwin in the months before Indonesia invaded East Timor in late 1975. When five Australian journalists were killed at Balibo in October that year, he quit his job to set himself up as a freelance reporter in Dili. Over the next few weeks, he filed regular despatches to the outside world, including several reports to the ABC.
One of Mr East's closest friends in Darwin, then journalist Ken White, drove him to the airport the day he left for Dili. He remembers his friend's last words to him were, "I'll do my damnedest to find out what happened to the Balibo Five".
"He was very anxious to go to Balibo and find out the truth about the murders of the five Australian journalists," Mr White said. "He said to me, 'Look, I'm going to buy a new pair of boots and I'll walk there if it's necessary'."
Murder
But Mr East never made it to Balibo. Far from unravelling the mystery of the Balibo Five, he too suffered the same fate. On December 8, he was shot dead on Dili's waterfront, apparently by Indonesian forces who had invaded East Timor the day before.
Mr White says he learnt of Mr East's murder from a Fretilin soldier or guerrilla. "Apparently, the soldier did see his body opposite the Turismo Hotel," he said. "His wrists had been bound by wire and he was riddled with bullets."
He says Indonesian soldiers were responsible for the death, according to eyewitness accounts. "One report that I did get was that Roger kept crying out, 'I'm an Australian journalist, I'm an Australian journalist,' but it didn't make any difference," he said. "They just shot him."
In the 32 years since, there has never been an official inquiry into Roger East's death, which has been largely overshadowed by the continuing controversy surrounding the Balibo Five.
Calls for justice
But in the wake of the Balibo inquest in Sydney, Mr White and others are demanding justice for Mr East. Long-time Darwin activist Rob Wesley-Smith has written to the Northern Territory Coroner calling for a full inquest.
"We need to ask people to come forward who saw him being shot or who saw his body on the beach, or whoever it was who dragged it up and buried it," Mr Wesley-Smith said. "These people are probably still out there or their relatives, and we need this kind of information now."
Mr Wesley-Smith denies an inquest would only come up with the same stonewalling and denials from Indonesia that has been witnessed at the Balibo inquest in Sydney.
"The Balibo inquest has been absolutely fascinating and a lot of information has come out, which was more than probably we expected," he said. "I think the same sort of thing could happen with the Roger East inquiry."
NT Coroner Greg Cavanaugh has not ruled out an inquest, saying he will carry out his statutory duty to investigate Mr East's death if he has the jurisdiction to do so.
Australian Associated Press - June 7, 2007
Criminals in East Timor will be offered the chance of clemency for crimes committed in the past year under a new bill passed by the fledgling nation's parliament this week.
East Timor's government said the new law – which still has to be signed off by recently elected President Jose Ramos Horta – will help the tiny nation move forward from last year's crisis in which 37 people were killed.
But analysts fear the new law could spark new tensions in the nation, which is preparing to return to the polls to elect a new government.
Government minister Jose Teixeira denies it is a "blanket amnesty", saying murderers and rapists will not be eligible to apply.
He said the law, which offers criminals the chance to apply for clemency for "appropriate" crimes committed between April 2006 and April 2007, would assist prosecutors who were grappling with thousands of cases following last year's crisis within the new justice system.
"These crimes that were committed as a result of the crisis, there are a lot of people affected – if everybody was to be tried and convicted and given periods in jail, our jails will be bursting at the seams," Teixeira said.
"They are already bursting at the seams. One prosecutor handles 3000 cases. If we give this clemency as an incentive, it will open up the way for people to accept responsibility for their crimes.
"They won't go through a lengthy judicial process, the victims will get justice, and people will be found guilty of the offence. Getting to the truth is often the most important thing for a victim of crime. "It doesn't give impunity or immunity."
Teixeira said people must first be convicted of a crime before they could apply to a court for clemency. "What this does is it puts the period behind us and we can move forward," he said.
"Fretilin has always defended the need for the justice process to be fully implemented. This clemency law is unique in that it is only offers an application for clemency for appropriate cases... after the judicial process has been gone through."
Teixeira would not comment on whether former Fretilin cabinet minister Rogerio Lobato would be eligible to apply. Lobato was imprisoned last month after he lost an appeal against a seven and a half year sentence handed to him in March for his role in the violence that besieged the country last year.
The United Nations and other human rights groups hailed the court decision as proof the culture of impunity in East Timor would no longer be tolerated.
But International Crisis Group analyst Sophia Cason fears the new clemency law could diminish people's faith in the justice system, if Lobato was granted a pardon.
"The prosecution of Rogerio Lobato sent a signal that even those at the highest levels are not immune to justice," Cason said.
"If they are going to give some of those people amnesty, it will remove the population's faith in the justice system. If Rogerio Lobato is given amnesty, I think there will be outrage and it will end up in violence in the streets. When the violence stopped in March, it was because he was sentenced."
The new bill quietly passed through parliament this week, with 44 votes in favour and none against in the session which narrowly made quorum in the 88-seat house. There were two abstentions.
Teixeira said the bill had received support from opposition parties in parliament. "I don't believe it will be controversial," he said.
Horta has 30 days in which to sign off on the bill, or refer it to the Court of Appeal for a decision on its constitutionality.
East Timor is preparing for its June 30 parliamentary elections to select a new government, with former president Xanana Gusmao's CNRT party widely tipped to pose a challenge to Fretilin, which has dominated East Timor politics since independence.
ABC Northern Territory - June 5, 2007
A Darwin-based East Timor activist says there is more than enough evidence for the Northern Territory coroner to hold an inquest into the death of an Australian man 32 years ago.
Roger East, 29, is believed to have been shot dead by Indonesian soldiers while working in East Timor. Rob Wesley-Smith says he knows of several people who witnessed what happened, and he knows where the body is buried.
"[My] Timor activist colleague Brian Manning said that he met a Chinese woman who stopped over the body on the beach," he said.
"Other people [including] Peter Cranaher have done research to identify where we think the body is buried. I've been to that spot... unfortunately it's under a large wall."
Mr Wesley-Smith says he is hoping justice will prevail soon, and international politics will not get in the way. "I think the person handling it has been away and gets back this week and probably needs a few days to get up to speed."
Sydney Morning Herald - June 2, 2007
Lindsay Murdoch – East Timor's ruling Fretilin party says it will support the prosecution of people responsible for atrocities committed in the country, including former Indonesian military officers.
The party also said that a joint Indonesian-East Timorese commission should not lead to amnesties for those who committed serious crimes, contradicting comments by an Indonesian-appointed commission member.
In a surprise move, Fretilin has recruited Aniceto Guterres, East Timor's most respected human rights campaigner and a member of the Commission of Truth and Friendship, to be one its candidates at the country's parliamentary elections on June 30.
Mr Guterres said yesterday that East Timor's desire to have good relations with Indonesia "should not result in our nation doing things which result in justice not being pursued or the process of reconciliation between our nations neglected".
"Fretilin believes the search for justice should begin with thorough investigations into crimes which lead to prosecutions, trials and sentencing," Mr Guterres said.
The comments will put pressure on the former president Xanana Gusmao, who has formed his own party in an attempt to oust Fretilin from power. Mr Gusmao has argued against international calls to prosecute Indonesians responsible crimes against humanity committed in East Timor in 1999, saying the country must have good relations with its giant neighbour.
Fretilin has also been slow to confront the findings and recommendations of a United Nations-sponsored inquiry whose report, released in late 2005, detailed atrocities including systematic violence in East Timor between 1975 and 1999.
But Mr Guterres said that, if re-elected, Fretilin would give priority to the recommendations of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation, which he chaired.
He also said that the separate Commission of Truth and Friendship, of which he is also a member, should use amnesties only in some cases such as "where it can lead to the uncovering of the truth which is essential to achieving justice and reconciliation".
This contradicts Achmad Ali, an Indonesian member of the commission, who said earlier this year that those accused should receive amnesties if they admit their involvement and apologise to their victims.
| Timor Gap |
Canberra Times - June 22, 2007
A parliamentary committee has criticised the Howard Government for rushing the controversial treaty on exploiting natural gas in the Timor Sea.
The Government invoked the rarely used national interest exemption to bring the treaty into force in February without giving the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties an opportunity to scrutinise it.
After conducting an inquiry, the committee has reprimanded the Government for its inadequate explanation as to why the power was invoked.
Liberal backbencher and committee chair Andrew Southcott said the power was meant only for use in extreme circumstances. However, the committee has concluded that supporting the treaty was in the national interests of both Australia and East Timor.
The treaty will allow the exploitation of Greater Sunrise, a natural gas field between the two countries. The estimated $US20 billion ($A23 billion) revenue over the life of the field will be shared equally between the two countries.
The treaty was signed in Sydney 18 months ago and prevents both countries from pursuing maritime boundary claims for 50 years. Many of the submissions to the committee's inquiry raised strong objections to various sections of the treaty.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer told the committee the reserve power had been used because East Timor had wanted to bring the treaty into force before its presidential and parliamentary elections.
However, the committee made its displeasure known in a report tabled in Parliament. "Given the early public availability of the treaty, it has not been adequately explained why it was not referred several months earlier for review," the report says.
"In this instance the national interest exemption should not have been invoked before the committee was given a reasonable opportunity to consider and report on the treaty within the Government's time frame." The majority of submissions received by the committee claimed Australia was not being generous by agreeing to give East Timor half of the gas and oil revenues.
They argued that since Greater Sunrise was twice as close to East Timor as it was to Australia, all the resources should have belonged to East Timor. The struggling country should have received a higher percentage of royalties from gas revenues.
Several submissions to the inquiry criticised the freeze on maritime boundaries. They accused Australia of contravening international law on this issue.
However, Mr Downer said the suspension of maritime boundary claims for a significant period would help build strong bilateral relations.
It would also further confidence in Australia's offshore petroleum industries. Australia is currently the fifth- largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, with 7 per cent of global volume.
Radio Australia - June 1, 2007
Reporter: Mark Colvin
Mark Colvin: "Shakedown" is a slang term for an act of extortion, and a shakedown is what the writer Paul Cleary calls the way Australia acted towards East Timor over the oil and gas in the sea between our two countries.
Mr Cleary is a former journalist who was appointed by the World Bank as an adviser to East Timor's Prime Minister in the oil and gas negotiations.
His new book on the story is called Shakedown, and I asked him first, if East Timor's case for the resources was so cut and dried, why had the Indonesians, who were in charge before Timorese independence, agreed so easily to Australia's demands.
Paul Cleary: Indonesia signed that agreement when international law in this area was in its infancy and subsequent to that the Foreign Minister said Australia had taken Indonesia to the cleaners.
Mark Colvin: So you're saying that Australia kind of behaved as some kind of regional bully?
Paul Cleary: I think there was a lot of bully that went on. Mr Downer pounding the table saying "we're a rich country, we can sit this out for 30, 40, 50 years". And also really threatening East Timor to sever its economic lifeline to stop development in the Timor Sea unless East Timor signed over its rights to 80 per cent of the biggest field in the area.
Meanwhile Australia was already exploiting the resources, which was actually contrary to international law. I think people in East Timor would've wanted it to take longer but however I think the Government particularly in the interim period from 2000 when the UN was in control in the transitional government, there was a need to get the revenue, so that's why the Timor Sea Treaty was negotiated in 2000 and signed in 2002.
Mark Colvin: And then we got to this point in 2004 when the East Timorese patience just ran out and one of the signals was actually on this program when Jose Ramos-Horta came on spoke to me about what the DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) negotiator Doug Chester had just done.
(excerpt from PM interview)
Jose Ramos Horta: The Australian side basically imposed on us an ultimatum. Mr Doug Chester, the Senior Official from Foreign Affairs, DFAT, that led the Australian delegation simply said "take it or leave it".
Mark Colvin: So what did you say to this "take it or leave it"? offer?
Jose Ramos Horta: Of course we can't accept ultimatums, we cannot accept blackmail, we are poor but we have a sense of honour, a sense of dignity of our rights.
Mark Colvin: Jose Ramos Horta is a man, usually very moderate words. What was the significance of what he said?
Paul Cleary: He is, I mean, in this book I call Mr Ramos Horta the consummate diplomat, he always is very measured and this is a rare example of him really loosing his cool, loosing his patience. Because this is a classic example of the bullying tactics that were being used, Mr Doug Chester telling the Timorese, "You hand over your rights to this field by 5 pm on October 28th and we'll give you $3-billion and that's it," and Timor by digging in standing up for its rights, managed to get 3 times that amount of current oil prices.
Mark Colvin: So it was worth hanging on?
Paul Cleary: Oh definitely. I think the Timorese are, realized once they got the revenue under the Timor Sea Treaty, and once Australia ratified that treaty the revenue began to flow. They had a bit more comfort they could afford to stand their ground and to really get the deal they thought was fair.
And in the end I think what the Timorese got was probably the 50 per cent share of Greater Sunrise, probably the minimum acceptable to the Timorese and the maximum that Australia was willing to give up.
Mark Colvin: So it ended without irreparable damage to the relationship between the two sides. What about the situation in East Timor, the spending of the money?
Paul Cleary: Timor does have a very good system to save the money. This was modeled on Norway, which really does have a very excellent system, very transparent, very robust, really cannot be tampered with.
Mark Colvin: They used their oil to really create a massive future fund...
Paul Cleary: Exactly, it was a massive future fund. Something that Australia could actually think about well with all the revenue we're getting from the commodity boom.
Essentially Timor is only spending about half the money and the idea is at the end of it, when the oil runs out, they'll have this massive fund and they can live of the interest forever.
Mark Colvin: This is to overcome what some people call the curse of oil?
Paul Cleary: The resource curse, that's right, or the paradox of plenty. All these problems that these countries get a huge influx of revenue, it inflates their exchange rate, political leaders go and spend money on weapons and big grandiose palaces and things. So the idea is to have the fiscal discipline.
The problem with Timor had been though is that they haven't done a very good job spending the money. And this has been the real weakness in the current government.
Mark Colvin: Because what we see, what we tend to see on our television screens from Timor recently has been riots and poverty.
Paul Cleary: Well exactly, you got massive youth unemployment. I mean the East Timor economy went backwards for four years straight in per capita terms.
I mean no developing country coming out of a post conflict situation can really stay together under that situation. And that was really I think the background to this crisis that a lot of people will have overlooked.
That it was the Government's failure with the UN withdrawing rapidly and I think that was a problem Australia urged that of the United Nations to pull out the peacekeepers.
The economy imploded, and the Government was very fiscally conservative, I think they had some quite patronising ideas about the Timorese, that you can't trust them with money, and they'll have this dependency mentality but there just wasn't enough money circulating around the economy.
Mark Colvin: Paul Cleary whose book Shakedown was released today.
Sydney Morning Herald - June 1, 2007
Tom Allard – East Timor's former prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, and his officials were convinced the Australian Government was spying on them during the often heated negotiations for a treaty over oil and gas in the Timor Sea.
A book on the $41 billion energy deal – Shakedown: Australia's Grab for Timor Oil – also says Australian foreign affairs officials intimated to their Timorese counterparts that they were eavesdropping on them.
Its author, Paul Cleary, a former Herald journalist, was part of the Timorese team led by Peter Galbraith, a former US diplomat.
During talks in Canberra in September 2004 Mr Galbraith told colleagues to stop holding meetings in their hotel, fearing their rooms were bugged. The officials threw their mobile phones in a bag, which was dumped while they held their talks in the National Gallery's sculpture garden 100 metres away.
The phones were considered potential receptors for eavesdropping devices but the meeting was adjourned when a security guard became suspicious about the bag. Other counterespionage efforts included the use of secret passwords for emails.
Mr Alkatiri, East Timor's prime minister through the negotiations, was also convinced his office was bugged. He would turn up the volume on his television during sensitive talks with his advisers.
Cleary also writes that a foreign affairs official, Doug Chester, joked that the Timorese negotiators had made a wrong bet on the Labor leader, Mark Latham, winning the 2004 election.
He suggested the Australians had been monitoring a Timorese official who had visited a website to bet on the poll. But Foreign Affairs sources said the remark could more likely be explained by East Timor's well-known wish that a more sympathetic Mr Latham would win.
| Parliamentary elections |
South China Morning Post - June 30, 2007
[In the final of our series on East Timor politics, Fabio Scarpello speaks to Bishop Alberto Ricardo da Silva.]
As East Timorese vote for a new parliament and pundits predict a close race between the country's historic leaders, the outspoken Bishop of Dili slams the old guard and calls for a generational change at the top of the political echelon.
"The current main political players have to go. They have failed," said Bishop Alberto Ricardo da Silva. "We need new leaders with technical skills and experience."
To back his statement, the bishop highlighted a scenario that shows an alleged failure by Fretilin, the party that has been in power since 2001. He also expressed little confidence in former resistance leader Xanana Gusmao, who is chairman of the National Congress for the Reconstruction of East Timor (CNRT) and tipped as the next prime minister in a coalition government.
"With Fretilin, the situation has gone from bad to worse. Poverty is very high and people are suffering. The other [party] does not have enough capacity. Some fought in the mountains for years and now want to govern. They cannot," he said. "Parties have come to me. But I have seen nothing in what they offer that can change the situation."
Those parties include the Democratic Party and the Timorese Social Democratic Association/Social Democratic Party duo.
His view was rejected by Fretilin, which has argued it rebuilt the country's foundations and set it on course for economic growth. This despite a lack of money and the fact that 70 per cent of the infrastructure was destroyed by the pro-Indonesia militias in 1999.
And, CNRT stated that it will choose the most qualified people to form a government and launch a pro-poor policy, while listening to advice from the international community.
Both parties have blamed each other for the recent national crisis that saw East Timor perilously close to a civil war, as gangs of disenfranchised youth took to the streets, filling the void left by the disintegration of law and order last year. As the violence lingers, the bishop blamed the politicians for, wittingly or not, feeding the climate of hostility.
"During the campaign they used inflammatory language," he said. "The church has tried to work with the gangs, but it is difficult as these groups are being manipulated."
In a recent survey of gangs and youth groups in Dili, James Scambary highlighted how hundreds of these groups are glued together. Although the author stressed that the problem dates back to Portuguese and Indonesian times, he said that "the alignment of some martial arts groups with different political factions escalated the current conflict".
One martial arts group called Korka is officially aligned with Fretilin. Another, PSHT, also known as the Black Ants, is widely identified with the Democratic and Social Democratic parties. The two claim to have 10,000 and 7,000 members. Further groups are close to other parties.
Picking through the ballot and hoping for a better future, Bishop da Silva placed his bet on the Party of National Unity led by Fernanda Borges. "It has good programmes for the future," the bishop said. "I don't think they can win now, but it is good that people start appreciating that there is an alternative."
Australian Broadcasting Corporation - June 29, 2007
Geoff Thompson
Mark Colvin: It's been a long year for East Timor. The crisis which erupted violently 12 months ago culminates tomorrow in a poll electing a new parliament and eventually a new Prime Minister.
The controversial circumstances of Mari Alkatiri's ousting from the Prime Ministership broke Fretilin's hold on East Timor's politics. It also inspired the man who used to lead Fretilin's military activities against Indonesia, former President Xanana Gusmao to form a new party.
That party hopes to come out on top tomorrow. But outright majorities are much less likely than unstable coalitions as our correspondent Geoff Thompson reports from Dili.
(sound of political campaign rally)
Geoff Thompson: Five years ago, Fretilin was synonymous with East Timor's identity as a new, unified nation.
But now, it's just as much a symbol of the country's divisions. But you wouldn't know it here, at the campaign rally finale for the Party at Dili Sport Stadium. Draped and painted, in red, yellow and black from head to toe, the Party's youth get high on a temporary diversion form the grinding reality of having little work, or other ways of spending their time.
A year ago, many of them would have been roaming the streets on rampages of destruction. So this loud but peaceful politicking is progress nevertheless.
While he says he does not wish to regain the PMs job, on stage it's clear that Mari Alkatiri has learnt some valuable political lessons to. He smiles and sings a long with the crowd while holding a baby, looking every a bit the populist politician he admits he never managed to be when he was Prime Minister.
Mari Alkatiri: This is the reality, we failed in communicate all what we have done to the people. That's the reason why we were commended by the international community (inaudible) years. The tremendous achievement we have made in this country.
Geoff Thompson: Few foreign analysts criticise the job Fretilin did as economic managers. But the distribution of arms to civilians by the jailed, former Interior Minister, Rogerio Lobato, sealed Mari Alkatiri's fall from grace.
(sound of political protest rally)
It's into the gap left behind, that Xanana Gusmao's new Party, CNRT, hopes to rise. Posters around Dili show the former Resistance leader alongside towering skyscrapers, reminiscent of Gold Coast development and even one, boasting East Timor's own satellite and fighter jets. But in the real world, he's running for Office, based on the pitch that he stands for everything that Fretilin does not.
Supporter (translated): Two or three people leading the big political party have broken our nation's unity and stability, he tells his supporters. They've made the people suffer and the nation sick, he says.
(sound of clapping and cheering from the crowd)
Geoff Thompson: Mari Alkatiri remains bitterly critical of East Timor's former President, saying that Xanana Gusmao thinks, "he is commander of all East Timorese and as a leader, has little more than charisma in his quiver."
Mari Alkatiri: Xanana Gusmao has no skill as a, to be a Prime Minister. He like very much to have everybody under him and under his command. This is the only way he like to do the things.
Geoff Thompson: Just who would be elected to guide East Timor out of its current crisis is likely to be decided by smaller parties. The biggest among them is the Democratic Party, known as PD, and expects to side with Gusmao's CNRT. Last time round, in ran second to Fretilin and has a huge following among East Timor's disgruntled youth.
Preliminary results on the percentages of votes going to the 14 parties running should be known by early next week. But the exact composition of any ruling Coalition, may not be known for weeks.
International Herald Tribune - June 29, 2007
Seth Mydans, Dili – During the past week, convoys of vans and trucks have wound through the streets of this tiny seaside capital loaded with chanting, cheering men and women. When people threw rocks at them, they ducked.
It was the high point of a parliamentary campaign in this poor and crime-ridden country where rock throwing is not uncommon. Officials described the campaign as unexpectedly peaceful.
On Saturday, East Timor elects a new government that analysts say they expect to upend the political order but do little to address the paralyzing poverty and disarray in the country.
The new government is likely to be less cohesive and even less effective than the last one, said Sophia Cason of International Crisis Group.
"The challenge will be to get people to understand that things aren't going to change overnight," she said. "They might still be poor and unemployed for a long time to come."
Nearly eight years after its violent separation from Indonesia, East Timor, which was at first seen as a success story in nation-building by the United Nations, may instead be a demonstration of the limits of nation-building.
The world body administered East Timor until its formal nationhood in 2002, but this little country of one million people still clings to the helping hands of the last few hundred foreign mentors and 3,000 peacekeepers.
"The international community perhaps withdrew its support for Timor Leste a bit early," said Atul Khare, an Indian diplomat who heads the much-reduced UN mission in East Timor, using the formal name of the new country.
In any case it seems there was no overcoming the country's fundamental ailments – its shortage of resources and of skilled and educated people, its lack of experience as an independent nation, its underlying social rifts and the traumas of 24 years of war in which as much as one-fourth of the population died.
East Timor was a Portuguese colony for 400 years until it was invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and now is governing itself for the first time.
When Indonesia withdrew in 1999, after East Timor voted for independence, it took with it most of the civil servants and technicians who had made the territory function. Together with local militias, the Indonesian military carried out a scorched- earth policy that destroyed 80 percent of the buildings in East Timor.
Today, more than 40 percent of the work force is unemployed, one in five people have run out of food to eat and a similar proportion is living in tents or shelters, afraid to go home more than a year after a military mutiny led to a wave of arson and killings.
"All the chaos and burning and looting, and no more home," said Ana Guteres, 45, as she sat by her refugee tent, describing a sort of neighborhood ethnic-cleansing in this multiclan city. "If we go back and repair our house, people will start burning again."
The East Timorese health, education and judicial services barely function. Illiteracy, infant mortality and disease run high. Gangs of unemployed young men loiter aimlessly in the hot sun and make the streets dangerous at night.
The shells of buildings burned in 1999 stand in graffiti-covered ruins even in the heart of this threadbare little city, an emblem of the lethargy that envelops the country.
"East Timor is like waking up from a collapse, like a paralysis," said Isidoro dos Santos Correia, 24, who works with an American aid group. "The main thing is that people are just expecting promises. The mentality in Dili is wanting to be helped." He added: "Many people are gambling. They say, 'The law doesn't exist any more.' "
The returning exiles who dominate the government have imposed Portuguese as the primary language in a nation where the police, lawyers and a large portion of Parliament mostly speak Indonesian, the language of their more recent colonizers. "You end up in a place where no one really implements the law because no one really knows what it is," Cason said.
Partly because of this, the East Timor judiciary is "a total scandal," said David Cohen, director of the Berkeley War Crimes Studies Center at the University of California, Berkeley. "What's wrong? Where do you start?" he said of the justice system. "Incompetence. Corruption. Nepotism. Lack of oversight. Lack of accountability. The Portuguese language. All the draft laws only exist in Portuguese, and 95 percent of the people in the country can't read them."
Another underlying issue is land ownership in a country where disputes led to violence even before most records were destroyed in 1999. These disputes are one of the roots of problems like joblessness and population displacement, said Katherine Hunter, the representative of the Asia Foundation, a nongovernmental organization, in East Timor.
The election Saturday is fratricidal, pitting against each other former allies in the struggle for independence from Indonesia.
Xanana Gusmco, the hero of independence who has served for the past five years in the largely ceremonial presidency, is expected by most analysts to become the next prime minister by defeating Mari Alkatiri, who heads Fretilin, the governing party that grew out of the independence struggle.
The campaign has been acrimonious, with both candidates breaking a pledge to refrain from personal attacks.
"He still thinks he is the commander of the resistance," Alkatiri said of Gusmco at his final campaign rally Wednesday. "His principle is to try to control everything by himself. But I'd better stop talking about Xanana."
Fourteen parties are competing for the 65 parliamentary seats, and the winner is likely to need to form an unwieldy coalition government.
In May, Jose Ramos-Horta, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his campaign against the Indonesian occupation, was elected president and is expected to be a Gusmco ally if the latter wins.
Ramos-Horta served as prime minister after Alkatiri was forced to step down following the upheavals of May 2006. Ramos-Horta's victory, with nearly 70 percent of the vote, was a defeat for Alkatiri's Fretilin party and was seen as a forerunner of a Gusmco victory Saturday.
Elections are what East Timor does best. Its revolution was a nationwide vote, in which its people defied threats and violence from the Indonesian-backed militias. The elections have not yet brought prosperity, but against the odds, they seem still to give rise to hope.
"Many political parties are talking about what they will do," said Marcos Barros, 39, a teacher, sitting by his refugee tent on the grounds of the school where he works. "We want the new government to bring peace and love and harmony."
Radio Australia - June 28, 2007
In East Timor, half a million people will cast their votes on Saturday to elect their second government since gaining independence just five years ago. If no single party emerges as a clear winner, it could take weeks to negotiate the coalitions needed to form government. It's hoped the relative calm of the campaign period will be extended and there will be an end in sight to the social and political instability of the past year.
Presenter/Interviewer: Karon Snowdon
Speakers: Damien Kingsbury, Deakin University and leader of an Australian election monitor group; Political scientist Fransisco Guterres from the Timor Institute of Development Studies
Snowdon: It will take more than hope to bring East Timor up to its potential. It goes without saying, clear economic policies and good management of the nation's oil wealth will have to be the new government's first task. Forming that government and filling out its policy detail might take some time. With 14 parties contesting the parliamentary election, there will be no clear winner from Saturday's vote. The ruling Fretilin party of former Prime Minister Mari Alkitiri is slugging it out for seats with the National Congress for the Reconstruction of Timor, the CNRT headed by former President Xanana Gusmao, who wants to be Prime Minister. The bitter divide between the two former independence leaders typifies the wider political divisions which have threatened to shatter East Timor over the past year. Damien Kingsbury from Australia's Deakin University is a member of the biggest international observer group in the country for the elections. He says the big issue now is whether a workable coalition of parties will emerge.
Kingsbury: Fretilin will probably come out of the election with about 30% of the seats, but I doubt they will be able to pull across enough members of other parties to make up the 50% that they would require to form government. That then means that it would devolve to the next largest party which will probably be Xanana Gusmao's CNRT. Now CNRT has already been in discussion with other parties about a coalition and at this stage we can reasonably expect that a CNRT led coalition will form the next government.
Snowdon: Political scientist Fransisco Guterres from the Timor Institute of Development Studies says despite, the current administration will remain in a caretaker role for the time it will take to form a coalition government, avoiding a power vacuum in the meantime.
Gutterres: And then there will be intense negotiations between the parties to form the government. And there are a lot of agendas on the table, they will have to discuss, they have to agree before they can form the government so it may take some time, lets say three or four weeks before we have a new government.
Snowdon: Could this be a time of instability in East Timor as the manoeuvres are made over this month long period?
Gutterres: This depends very much on the political leaders. If they continue to incite the people on the ground, their supporters to carry out violence, then there will be violence. So it depends very much on the leaders' attitude, on the leaders' acceptance of the result of the election.
Snowdon: And while not writing off Fretilin's chances at gaining a majority entirely, Fransisco Gutterres says the Party could play an important role in opposition in the small democracy.
Gutterres: They will be a good Opposition too because they have at least five years experience and they can probably bring this experience in terms of controlling the new government and that will be good.
Snowdon: Damien Kingsbury predicts even bigger changes for Fretilin, East Timor's traditional revolutionary party which has seen its vote fall by at least half since it won a landslide in the first election five years ago.
Kingsbury: At this stage what I think we can expect to see is the so-called change group or the reform faction of Fretilin which split away to support CNRT for the election will go back into the party and will seek to reform the party, to rebuild itself from what really has so far been a fairly devastating couple of defeats. There's no way they can see that as anything other than as a political disaster. So there's very likely going to be a spill of the leadership and I think that we will see a move away from not so much policies which are actually quite sound.
Snowdon: that seems to be a prediction of the demise of people like Mari Alkitiri and perhaps Lu Olo Gutterres?
Kingsbury: Certainly Lu Olo Gutterres and Mari Alkitiri themselves are actually not getting along terribly well at the moment. So there are already splits between the senior ranks of the party so they're going to have a lot of issues to sort out. But I would imagine both those people would end up going, certainly Mari Alkitiri will be struggling to hold onto the leadership.
Reuters - June 27, 2007
Tito Belo, Dili – A number of people were hurt in clashes between rival political supporters in East Timor on Wednesday as campaigning ended ahead of parliamentary elections in three days time, police and a politician said.
In Saturday's election, a new party led by former President Xanana Gusmao is seeking to break the grip on power held by the ruling Fretilin party since independence five years ago.
Fretilin spokesman Jose Teixeira accused supporters of Gusmao's CNRT party of injuring 17 Fretilin activists by throwing rocks during a rally in Manatuto, east of the capital Dili.
Teixeira, who is also energy minister and a legislative candidate, said another group of Fretilin supporters were also attacked in Dili, leaving four injured and resulting in the closure of the road linking the airport and downtown Dili.
"We demand that the UN police immediately investigate these incidents and bring the perpetrators of violence to justice," he said.
The United Nations has 1,700 police to help keep the peace and there is also an Australian-led force of troops.
Police spokesman, Inspector Mateus Fernandes, said authorities were investigating the incidents but did not say how many were hurt or whether the victims were Fretilin members.
"Yes, there were incidents in district Manatuto a few hours ago and also in Dili involving rock throwing," he said An official at the Dili National Hospital said nine people were injured on the last day of campaigning.
Campaigning got off to a bloody start with the shooting dead of two Gusmao backers in early June, highlighting bitter divisions in the impoverished nation of just 1 million people, but has been relatively peaceful since.
Clear majority unlikely
There are 14 parties contesting the poll, but it is widely seen as a showdown between Fretilin and CNRT, a party launched by bearded resistance hero Gusmao who after serving as president now wants the more hands-on post of prime minister.
The poor showing of Fretilin's candidate in the presidential poll has been seen as a vote of disapproval, but analysts do not expect any party to win a clear majority in the 65-seat chamber.
Some Fretilin leaders have been blamed for factional struggles, culminating in a wave of violence last May that killed 37 people and drove 150,000 from their homes after the army split along regional lines.
The next government faces huge challenges, particularly how to ease chronic poverty and cut unemployment, both of which have helped encourage a culture of gang violence to flourish.
Much will depend on how it handles the billions of dollars in energy revenue expected to flow its way in coming decades.
About 10 percent of the population also remains displaced, with about 30,000 in camps dotted around the capital, reluctant to go home in the face of sporadic violence, vandalism and arson.
Despite such issues, platforms may have little influence. "Personalities rather than party platforms are likely to determine the outcome of the parliamentary contest, and no one is offering concrete solutions to the country's many problems", the International Crisis Group said in a recent report.
NZPA - June 26, 2007
The media was vilified at rallies and one journalist was beaten during elections in East Timor this year, according to a report by observers from New Zealand that calls for criminal prosecutions of those attacking journalists.
The group comprising Dr Judy McGregor, Clive Lind, Walter Zweifel, Dr David Robie, Tapu Misa, Shona Geary and Peter Northcote visited East Timor twice during the preparations for the presidential run-off and parliamentary elections.
Its report comes as East Timorese prepare to go the polls for a third time this year on June 30 in legislative elections.
Despite a code of conduct emphasising the right to security for journalists there were reported incidents of intimidation by political party supporters, particularly during the presidential election, the New Zealand group said.
It verified an incident in the district of Ermera when a Timor Post journalist was beaten and had his arm broken, allegedly by a Fretilin supporter upset at what he regarded as a lack of impartiality by the reporter.
"The Mission expresses the strongest possible concern about any physical intimidation of journalists during election campaigns," the report said. It said security concerns limited media movement and the transmission hours of a community radio station.
Some journalists were afraid to hold politicians accountable due to the lack of professionalism and financial fragility of media organisations. The media was under-capitalised and the existence of four main languages created communication challenges as did an illiteracy rate of around 50 percent.
There was limited transport, equipment and staffing in the media and the electoral cycle was a long one. The mission said the media's sense of its responsibilities evolved as the campaign progressed.
The coverage was largely "events-centric". There were examples of best practice journalism but there was no consistent approach to economic and social issues related to political developments.
The media generally, and particularly the state-owned public broadcasters, adopted a neutral approach to access to media by candidates, parties and electoral agencies,
The report concluded that the Timorese media contributed positively to the first and second rounds of the Presidential elections despite operating with serious constraints. It calls for an accountability mechanism for the media and for the criminal prosecution of anyone who physically intimidates journalists.
Reuters - June 22, 2007
Tito Belo, Dili – East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta on Friday urged the winner of next week's parliamentary elections to form a unity government in a bid to heal divisions in the tiny state.
East Timorese will go to the polls for a third time this year on June 30 in legislative elections whose results will be crucial for the country's stability after last year's deadly violence.
Former president and independence hero Xanana Gusmao's CNRT party is among 14 political parties contesting the elections. The CNRT wants to oust the left-leaning Fretilin party and install Gusmao as prime minister.
"My appeal to all political parties is that please form a national unity government that will accommodate all parties' resources, individuals that have the capacity, experience and credibility... to work together to take this country to a bright future," Ramos-Horta told reporters.
He said experience in East Timor showed a government dominated by one party had not done very well. Some Fretilin leaders have been blamed for the factional struggles that have divided the impoverished country of one million people.
Ramos-Horta, a Nobel peace prize winner who spent years abroad as a spokesman for East Timor's struggle for independence from Indonesian occupation, was installed as president last month.
His victory has raised hopes of greater stability in a nation still struggling to heal divisions five years after it won formal independence from Indonesia.
Separately, acting Prime Minister Estanislau da Silva said the make-up of a new government should be up to the winning party.
"I think in this era of democracy we cannot expect any party to follow one person's opinion. The elected party will form a government based on the platform of the party," he told reporters. But he said "the elected government should use all human resources in order to develop the nation".
East Timor voted to break away from 24 years of often harsh Indonesian rule in a UN-sponsored vote in 1999. It became fully independent in 2002 after a period of UN administration.
Agence France Presse - June 13, 2007
Samantha Brown, Jakarta – The new party of East Timor's ex- president Xanana Gusmao appears likely to head a government after parliamentary polls this month despite a lack of policies to lure voters, a report said Wednesday.
The International Crisis Group said that ahead of the June 30 polls, personalities rather than party platforms were swaying East Timor's voters and that no party was offering concrete solutions to the tiny country's problems.
Gusmao, a former independence fighter who remains popular across the impoverished half-island nation, has formed a new party in a bid to take the prime ministership after stepping down as president last month.
But his party, the Congresso Nacional De Reconstrucao de Timor- Leste (CNRT), "has a poorly developed structure, no policies and little more going for it than its leader's charisma," the ICG report said.
"That, however, may be sufficient," it added, noting that based on last month's presidential polls, the CNRT is likely to win 20 to 25 percent of the vote and then ally with smaller parties to form a parliamentary majority.
Gusmao's ally, President and Nobel peace laureate Jose Ramos- Horta, won 22 percent of the vote in the first round and 69 percent of the presidential run-off.
A CNRT-led coalition, the Brussels-based think tank said, would be more consultative and transparent than the Fretilin-led government of Mari Alkatiri, though it may be less cohesive and less competent in economic management.
Of all the parties contesting the polls, only Fretilin, the ICG said, "seems to have any understanding of the complex technical issues involved in management of revenues and regulation of the petroleum sector."
East Timor has more than one billion dollars from oil and gas revenues locked away in a Petroleum Fund, and a debate over how, and how quickly, the money should be spent has emerged.
Fretilin has dominated parliament since East Timor officially gained independence from Indonesia after decades of occupation in 2002. Alkatiri was forced however to resign last year amid unrest in the wake of his sacking of around a third of the army.
Street battles between rival security factions led to at least 37 deaths and forced Dili to ask for international peacekeepers to be dispatched to restore a fragile calm.
The ICG said that a CNRT-led coalition would be in a better position to address the political and social divides exposed by last year's bloodshed and more open to advice on how to rebuild and strengthen national institutions. "But implementation of programmes... will depend not just on political will, but also on professional skills," it warned.
The ICG noted that Gusmao was not widely seen as a promising prime minister "because of his impatience with detail, among other things," so his advisers are recommending he have two deputies.
The report also warned that while presidential elections were largely peaceful, "accusations and inflammatory rhetoric may feature heavily in the parliamentary campaign in a way that could heighten tensions and lead to more violence."
Nevertheless, the fact that the presidential vote took place with few serious incidents showed that the country may emerge from last year's crisis more easily than first thought, it concluded.
Green Left Weekly - June 13, 2007
Max Lane – The Socialist Party of Timor (PST) is fielding 65 candidates in the June 30 parliamentary elections, and also has 25 candidates on the supplementary list (which comes into operation if candidates withdraw or die, or vacate their position after the election). Fourteen parties are contesting the elections. Topping the PST's list of candidates is party secretary-general Avelino Coelho da Silva. PST president Nelson Correia is second on the list; two well-known women activists, Angela Fraga and Maria de Carvalho, are the third and fourth candidates.
I spoke to Coelho over the phone while he was campaigning in the area of Ossu. "First, we call on the solidarity movement to send their protests to the East Timorese prime minister and the president about the [June 3] shooting deaths of two political activists in Viqueque, both shot by police", he said. "This must be met by protest now; we cannot let this practice become a precedent – the state apparatus shooting the people."
"We actually need a new kind of government", Coelho explained, "a popular worker-farmer government, which will mean that the people solve their problems through their own power. We have had a government of the bourgeoisie, the petty bourgeoisie, now for five years and it has failed to meet the people's needs. There can be no lesser goal than 100% independence and 100% achievement of justice and prosperity.
"Apart from the two parties campaigning for a return to the system of hereditary rule, of royalty, the other 11 parties are all parties of the bourgeoisie, including [CNRT, the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction – a new party launched by former president Xanana Gusmao] and Fretilin. Among other things it is reflected in the abstract character of the platforms they have announced. We are not interested in abstract policies, but concrete measures, and measures that help the people solve their problems."
The PST's platform has 26 points. "We are emphasising the need for all of these policies, they all must be implemented." Coelho said that "job creation is crucial ... This means we have to stop importing our basic consumer goods and establish factories to process what we can produce here in East Timor. The government will need also to provide transportation to get farm produce and other products to the markets and to processing centres." East Timor needs a "people's bank" to provide cheap and accessible credit, he said.
Coelho explained that a Marxist analysis was crucial to working out the policies that are needed. "Everybody is talking about the need to end unemployment. This is crucial but it will be meaningless in the end if it just delivers workers into a system of exploitation. We also need policies that can encourage processes whereby the workers themselves start to own and, most importantly, control their enterprises. This can guarantee they benefit properly from their work and also ensure no arbitrary sackings.
"We are campaigning for legislation that will facilitate workers buying shares and exercising control in the enterprises where they work, either through any cooperatives they set up, or through unions or even in their individual capacity. The legislation must be guided by the cooperative ideal; it must ensure participation of the workers in controlling the enterprises. This should be facilitated on both Timorese as well as foreign companies."
The PST's platform also contains a number points on improving welfare, such as the provision of free water and electricity, and making available cheap credit for the purchase of housing. The platform also includes the demand for a 100% increase in the salaries of lower-ranked civil servants, police and soldiers.
"We are also campaigning for a series of direct benefit payments", he said. "This includes a US$100 per month benefit for household heads who have no employment while the government finds work for them. Also we want a $100 per month benefit for three months for new mothers and similar amount for an old age pension and a $200 a month pension for former guerrilla fighters. Very important too is $50 a month [benefit] for students studying overseas, especially in Indonesia. They should also be free of visa fees, coming in and out of Timor."
Coelho emphasised the need for building up the people's organisation at the village level. "The government must build community centres in all villages. At the national level, the people must have their own languages. Tetum must be the official national language [it is currently Portuguese] and Indonesian the official working language. We should throw Portuguese back into the sea and let it float back to Portugal."
"There must be a regeneration of national political leadership", he said. "We can start with repealing the law giving the current parliamentarians a pension for life. The labour laws should also be repealed. All the corruptors must be brought to court and real investigation into who was responsible for the military/political crisis last year. Exploiting racial, primordial and fascist tendencies must be criminalised. The army and police have to be restructured."
"We need new laws on political parties too", he said. "we have to bring to an end this situation where business can put money into a political party as an investment, making it their instrument. Parties must belong to and be instruments of the people, not capital."
There was more to talk about, especially on agriculture, but the phone line was weakening. We switched quickly to get an idea of the PST's campaigning. "At the moment we have four teams operating in different regions ... we are concentrating on community meetings at the village level, consolidating our support. If we can, in the next phase we will try to organise rallies or other events at the district level. We are aiming to increase our vote by a third up to 3%, which will guarantee us representation in parliament, and a better base for the next stage of our struggle. Although the PST is not campaigning at all for CNRT – we are focusing on our own campaign – we also have five members on the CNRT list. If the PST wins 3% of the vote, and CNRT also gets a big vote, it means we will have around eight MPs in the next parliament. We are Marxists, and Marxists never accept defeat, never tire of the struggle; we are preparing for the next stage."
Green Left Weekly - June 13, 2007
Jon Lamb – The start of the official campaign period for East Timor's June 30 parliamentary elections has been marred by violence, including killings. The most serious incidents took place in Viqueque district, where two men were shot dead on June 3. An investigation by the Major Crime Investigation Unit and the National Investigation Unit is underway, focusing on a number of East Timorese police officers (PNTL).
The two slain men were both supporters of the National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT), a new party formation headed by former president Xanana Gusmao. A June 3 CNRT media release stated that Afonso da Silva, a CNRT civil security officer, was shot in Viqueque town while riding his motorbike after participating in an election rally. The media release claimed that da Silva was shot five times by a PNTL officer who supported Fretilin. The officer, Luis de Silva, had been sighted in civilian dress near the rally. Other reports suggest more than one off-duty police officer was involved in the incident.
Later in the day, as CNRT supporters took the body of the deceased man to his family in the nearby town of Ossu, another man was shot and a youth wounded at a roadblock, again allegedly by PNTL officers. The ruling Fretilin party issued statements condemning the killings and protesting the claim that its supporters were involved. A June 3 Fretilin media release also claimed that da Silva (also known as Kudalai) was armed with a gun and that there "needs to be an inquiry to explain why a campaign team member of a political party was armed with a gun and to determine the person that provided him with that weapon".
On June 6 the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste deputy head, Eric Tan, confirmed that UN and East Timorese police were looking for officers involved in the shooting incidents and that PNTL officers in "Ossu, Uatulari and Viqueque Town have been placed on desk duties until the investigations are concluded and UNPol is patrolling the area in the meantime". Following negotiations, de Silva turned himelf in to police on June 7 and he has been charged with homicide.
Prior to the shootings, CNRT campaign vehicles had been stoned while travelling through Viqueque district. There was also a clash between CNRT and Fretilin supporters in the city of Baucau on May 31. On June 5, a campaign cavalcade for the Timorese Social Democratic Association/Social Democratic Party (ASDT/PSD) coalition was attacked at the village of Leuro in Lautem district. PSD spokesperson Joao Goncalves told the Lusa news service that "the attack was led by a group of radicals from Fretilin, which had raised barriers in the road and had mounted an ambush".
Viqueque, Baucau and Lautem are the three districts where Fretilin polled best in the April-May presidential election. They are of vital importance for Fretilin if the party is to retain a parliamentary majority and prevent an electoral rout on June 30. The CNRT and PSD/ASDT, along with the Democratic Party, pose the biggest threat to Fretilin's electoral base in these districts. The situation is further complicated by campaigning in support of CNRT by the Fretilin Mudanca group (sometimes referred to as the Fretilin reform group), a faction opposed to Fretilin's current leadership. The Fretilin leadership claims the group is violating the electoral laws by campaigning in support of CNRT.
Opposition parties and election observers have raised concerns over police involvement in intimidation and bias towards Fretilin in Viqueque. The European Union Election Observer Mission noted in its report on the second presidential round that "it is regrettable that the district police commander Gaspar da Costa remained active in the district during his voluntary leave, given the strong suspicions of intimidation against the opposition made against him in the first round".
The Australian - June 5, 2007
Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – Two supporters of East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta have been shot dead by off-duty police as trouble mounts ahead of parliamentary elections.
Mr Ramos Horta, who is in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta on his first official visit abroad since being elected president a month ago, described the killings on Sunday as an "embarrassment" for the nation.
East Timor returns to the polls on June 30, with the ruling Fretilin party facing defeat in the 88-seat house after it lost to Mr Ramos Horta in last month's presidential election.
"Several members of the PNTL (National Police of East Timor) have engaged in crime – we see that indiscipline is still very strong in the PNTL," Mr Ramos Horta said. He described the shootings as "major crimes which should receive severe punishment – there is no impunity in this country".
Conflict between East Timor's police and military was part of the reason for deadly violence last year that left dozens dead and ended the prime ministership of Fretilin's Mari Alkatiri, who was replaced as head of government by Mr Ramos Horta.
Xanana Gusmao, the former president who now hopes to become prime minister as the head of his Congress for East Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT) party, accused the killers of wanting to disrupt the coming election.
Describing one of the dead men as "a friend and trusted member of our team", Mr Gusmao said the killings had come on "a sad day for our young democracy – I call on all people of our young nation to give up violence".
The independence hero's motorcade was attacked during a visit to the eastern town of Viqueque, where the two killings took place. According to Mr Ramos Horta, a group of five armed men opened fire on Alfonso "Kuda Lay" Guterres shortly after a CNRT rally in Viqueque on Sunday afternoon.
Another CNRT activist named Domingus was killed in a separate attack in the same district later on Sunday, as Mr Guterres's body was being returned to his village. A 16-year-old boy was injured in that shooting.
Security in the region has been stepped up since the shootings, although the acting head of the mission in East Timor, Eric Tan, said that neither attack suggested an attempt on Mr Gusmao's life.
The UN police in East Timor have begun an investigation into the killings. The Australian-led International Stabilisation Force yesterday deployed an extra platoon to the region, about 100km to the southeast of the capital, Dili.
A spokesman for the coalition of parties ranged against Fretilin in the elections condemned the attacks, saying: "We extend our solidarity to the victims' families and ask for a thorough investigation into this act of barbarism."
Fretilin issued its own press release condemning the deaths, but claimed the first victim had been armed, and demanded an inquiry into where his weapon had come from. "The investigation needs to involve the Office of the President, the Government of Timor Leste and the UN police force," Dr Alkatiri said.
Meanwhile, fugitive former military police commander Alfredo Reinado has once again taunted his Australian pursuers, denying claims he had sought asylum in Indonesia and saying he could be in Dili within four hours if the operation against him was halted.
"I want to convince you I am ready to turn myself in to Dili, whenever the time," Reinado said in an open letter. He said any dialogue with the authorities should follow a procedure "that will not hurt or take my life or those of my men".
Australian Associated Press - June 4, 2007
East Timor's new president Jose Ramos Horta says the nation's police force continues to suffer from a lack of discipline, after officers allegedly shot dead two activists during rallies for a new party headed by former East Timor president Xanana Gusmao.
Saying the deaths had embarrassed the nation, Ramos Horta declared those responsible should receive "severe punishment".
The United Nations on Monday stepped up security in Viqueque, south east of Dili, amid rising tensions after the deaths of the two men, supporters of Gusmao's party, National Congress for Reconstruction of Timor-Leste (CNRT).
UN Police fired warning shots and tear gas in Viqueque market on Sunday afternoon after fighting broke out between CNRT supporters and opponents following a CNRT rally in the Fretilin-stronghold.
One man, Alfonso "Kuda Lay" Guterres, died after he was allegedly shot by an off-duty Timorese police officer.
Another CNRT supporter, 24, was shot dead and a 16-year-old youth injured shortly later, as a group of CNRT supporters, accompanied by the former president, attempted to return the dead man's body to Ossu.
"Initial reports indicate that PNTL (East Timor police) fired shots to control a crowd at a roadblock near Ossu," the acting head of the UN's mission in East Timor, Eric Tan said.
The Australian-led international stabilisation force has deployed a platoon to the region.
Ramos Horta, who was due to fly to Jakarta on Monday afternoon for his first official visit as president, said the police entrusted to safeguard the elections had failed in their duty.
"Several members of the PNTL have engaged in crime... We see that indiscipline is still very strong within the PNTL," he said. He warned: "There is no impunity in this country".
Reform of East Timor's security sector is considered key to the country's future, after clashes between elements of the police and defence forces sparked last year's crisis, resulting in 37 deaths.
Former president Gusmao, meanwhile, declared it a "sad day" for democracy in East Timor.
The CNRT party is likely to pose a major challenge to East Timor's ruling Fretilin party in the June 30 poll, and Gusmao will become Prime Minister if it wins.
On Monday he joined other leaders in calling for peace, warning that those responsible didn't want a peaceful election process.
"This is a very sad day for me and for East Timor's democracy," he said in a statement. I again call on all people of our young nation to give up violence. With violence we only hurt ourselves, our country, and those that we love."
Meanwhile, the UN's Tan said police were still searching for the off-duty police officer believed responsible for Guterres' death and the motive was unknown.
"We are treating both shootings seriously," he said. "Neither incident suggests an attempt on Mr Gusmaos life." Tan said East Timor's leaders had met and urged political supporters to remain calm ahead of the June 30 poll.
Fretilin condemned the violence and called for a full investigation, saying the dead man had been armed. "There also needs to be an inquiry to explain why a campaign member of a political party was armed with a gun and to determine the person that provided him with that weapon," Fretilin secretary general Mari Alkatiri said.
"Fretilin condemns all forms of violence and proactive campaigning. Those who are guilty of perpetrating violence must be arrested and brought to trial so that justice can be served."
Associated Press - June 3, 2007
Dili – A mob hurled rocks at the motorcade of East Timorese independence hero Xanana Gusmao and one of his supporters was shot dead Sunday amid growing violence ahead of parliamentary elections on June 30, police said.
Xanana was unhurt in the attack in the town of Viqueque, around 100 kilometers southeast of the capital, Dili, said police inspector Jose Carvalho. Several vehicles were damaged, though it was unclear if Xanana's was among them, he said.
Earlier in the same district, a single gunman at close range killed one of Xanana's supporters during a rally in support of the party he formed to contest the upcoming polls, he said. UN spokeswoman Alison Cooper confirmed a man was shot in Viqueque. She said the attacker was believed to be an off-duty police officer.
East Timor, which broke from Indonesian rule in 1999 in a UN sponsored ballot, had been heralded as a success in nation- building until a rift in the police and armed forces escalated into gunbattles, looting, arson and gang warfare just over a year ago. The violence killed 37 and drove 155,000 from their homes.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos-Horta was elected president on May 9, raising hopes of stability, although more than 3,000 international police officers and soldiers are needed to maintain peace and order. Ramos-Horta took over from Xanana, who will become prime minister if his party wins on June 30.
On Thursday, a hand grenade blast killed a man and wounded three others, while supporters of rival candidates clashed with machetes and rocks elsewhere in the country, wounding a dozen people.
Political commentators fear that efforts by Gusmao and Ramos- Horta to sideline Fretilin, the traditional party of resistance to Indonesian rule which currently holds a majority of seats in the legislature, could lead to more bloodshed.
East Timor or Timor Leste, a former Portuguese colony, is the youngest and poorest country in Asia, with an unemployment rate of around 50 percent and about two-thirds of children under five malnourished.
Agence France Presse - June 3, 2007
Gunmen shot dead a political activist during a campaign rally for a new party headed by former East Timor President Xanana Gusmao, a witness and an official says.
A group of five armed men opened fire on Alfonso "Kuda Lay" Guterres at the rally by the National Congress of Reconstruction of Timor (CNRT) party in the eastern town of Viqueque, radio correspondent Mario Pinto told AFP from Viqueque, a stronghold of the dominant Fretilin Party.
"He was shot dead by five armed men in civilians (clothing), only a few metres from the Viqueque police station," Mr Pinto said.
Mr Pinto said Mr Guterres died on the spot from multiple gunshot wounds. He said people were "in a panic" following the incident, but did not elaborate.
Home Minister Alcino Barris confirmed that Mr Guterres had been shot dead. "The police are currently conducting an investigation how (the victim was killed) and the motive behind the incident," Mr Barris told AFP in Dili. There was no immediate comment from the CNRT or the police.
Campaigning kicked off last week for crucial June 30 elections to choose a new prime minister and parliament. The polls are expected to be a tough contest between the CNRT and Fretilin, which has dominated Parliament since East Timor officially gained its independence from Indonesia in 2002.
| Aid and development |
Associated Press - June 22, 2007
Twenty per cent of East Timor's people need food aid after severe droughts and locust plagues battered crops in the troubled young nation, two UN food agencies say.
"A poor harvest this year has worsened the already fragile livelihoods of people all over Timor, but especially among the poorest people living in rural and more remote districts," said Anthony Banbury, regional director of the World Food Program.
Production of maize, the country's most important crop, dropped by 30 per cent in 2007. Rice, cereals and cassava also have been hit hard, leaving between 210,000 and 220,000 people in need of help.
An estimated 15,000 tons of emergency food assistance will be needed to avert a major crisis, according to a joint assessment by the World Food Program and the Food and Agriculture Organisation in March and April.
East Timor, a tiny nation that broke from Indonesia in 1999 after 24 years of occupation, was plunged into crisis a year ago when factional fighting broke out between police and army forces.
The clashes spilled onto the streets, where looting, arson and gang warfare left at least 37 dead and sent 155,000 people fleeing their homes. Many still live in temporary shelters or with relatives.
Deutsche Presse Agentur - June 22, 2007
Bangkok – Having lost 30 per cent of its crops this year to drought, plagues and locusts, East Timor will need 15,000 tons of emergency food assistance during the upcoming "lean season," the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization said Friday.
According to field research conducted by the agency and the UN's World Food Programme, a major food crisis is looming for up to 220,000 East Timorese, or one-fifth of the conflict-torn, impoverished country's population, unless the international aid community provides emergency assistance in the next six months.
"A poor harvest this year has worsened the already fragile livelihoods of people all over Timor but especially among the poorest people living in rural and more remote districts," said Anthony Banbury, the World Food Programme's regional director for Asia.
Production of maize, Timor's most important crop, declined 30 per cent to 70,000 tons this year while cereals, cassava and tubers were down 25 to 30 per cent, the agencies said. Rice production also fell 20 per cent.
The agencies predicted that East Timor would suffer a food deficit of 86,000 tons during the coming months, of which 71,000 tons would be satisfied by commercial imports.
"There remains a cereal deficit of 15,000 tons that will need to be bridged through international food assistance," the Food and Agricultural Organization said in a statement released by its regional headquarters in Bangkok.
| Book/film reviews |
TAPOL - June 15, 2007
[Negligent Neighbour: New Zealand's Complicity in the Invasion and Occupation of Timor-Leste by Maire Leadbeater, 234 pages, Craig Potton Publishing.]
Paul Barber – The only complaint one might have with this excellent book concerns its title, which describes New Zealand as a negligent neighbour of East Timor (now known as Timor-Leste) during the invasion and brutal occupation by Indonesia.
Judging by Maire Leadbeater's highly readable account of her country's role, it is clear that New Zealand's level of culpability was far higher than negligence. Its complicity in supporting Indonesia's East Timor policy for geo-political purposes was in fact on a par with the collusion of the key western powers, Australia and the United States.
Maire Leadbeater is a seasoned campaigner (she now runs the Auckland-based Indonesia Human Rights Committee and is a prominent advocate for West Papua). Her personal recollections and experiences in the East Timor solidarity movement add considerable strength and authenticity to her chronicle, which also draws on declassified official documents, historical research and interviews with key players.
Underpinning the narrative is the moving story of East Timor's heroic resistance against oppression together with an informative overview of the history of the East Timor tragedy and the Machiavellian machinations of the international community.
The book can make depressing reading for those who believe that principle should take precedence over pragmatism on foreign policy issues such as East Timor. Leadbeater notes how she was shocked to find that "almost every new batch of documents revealed new examples of the high-level subterfuge officials relied on as they plotted to help Indonesia deflect international criticism".
However, there is some encouragement for activists in the discovery from official papers that "solidarity campaigning had made more of an impact on Government officials and politicians than any of us had been aware of at the time. It is clear that Government officials were constantly gauging the strength of the solidarity movement and its impact on the public".
The book raises the important question as to what would have happened if New Zealand had taken a different position and opposed the Indonesian invasion and occupation. Would that have had an effect on the other global players and forced Indonesia to change its plans, she asks. What counts, she suggests is "not just the size of the country, but qualities such as a reputation for straight dealing and an ethical foreign policy. Deserved or not, New Zealand had a good name" in that respect and was a strong supporter of self-determination for Pacific Islands states. But it "shamelessly put this 'good name' to the service of Indonesia" despite the fact that it never gained anything from being conciliatory to Jakarta.
Leadbeater makes the point that New Zealand had withstood high- level pressure, including economic threats from the United States and Britain, over its anti-nuclear stand (an honourable exception to the pragmatic approach to foreign policy) so its lack of courage over East Timor was all the more regrettable.
New Zealand's complicity in Indonesia's annexation of East Timor is symbolised by its support for the Australian-led cover-up over the killings of the "Balibo Five" newsmen in October 1975. This is now being exposed by the New South Wales inquest into the death of one of the men, Briton Brian Peters. The incident is regarded as a key moment in the invasion of East Timor since the lack of protest over the deaths by Australia, New Zealand and the UK is thought to have emboldened Indonesia to proceed with its plans.
Cameraman Gary Cunningham was a New Zealand citizen, but Leadbeater notes that the New Zealand government, anxious to avoid harming its relations with Indonesia, shamefully concluded there was no need for it to become involved in the dispute over how the men died. The fact that Cunningham was resident in Australia and employed by an Australian news organisation was used as a convenient justification for it to turn a blind eye.
Leadbeater presents the book as her way of addressing a "personal responsibility to expose what went wrong in the past in the interests of putting things right in the present". She has gone a considerable way to achieving the first part of the objective, but the second part is dependent on those in power, who may not yet have learnt the lessons of the past.
In common with other western countries, New Zealand has offered no apology for 24 years of complicity with Indonesian military brutality in East Timor, it has maintained close ties with the military forces responsible for widespread violations of human rights, and done little to ensure the perpetrators of crimes against humanity are brought to justice. These failures of national, institutional and individual accountability have clearly contributed to the recent breakdown of law and order in independent Timor-Leste by sending the message that violence pays and that perpetrators can expect to enjoy impunity.
There is, suggests Leadbeater, an opportunity for New Zealand to atone in part for its past errors by making a difference on West Papua, but it must be "prepared to put principle before the bilateral relationship with Indonesia" and "abandon its acquiescent Indonesia-first foreign policy" if the East Timor policy debacle is not to be repeated.
Eureka Street - June 7, 2007
Christine Kearney – Ugly. Rapacious. Bruising and governed by the narrowest definitions of national interest. These are a few of the descriptions that spring to mind after reading this devastating portrait of Australia's negotiations over oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea.
A thorough account of foreign policy thinking in the 1970s demonstrates how, early on in the piece, the Timor Sea influenced Australia's overall position on Timor. Indeed, just days after a 1974 coup in Portugal, officials in Canberra were arguing that Australia would get a better deal on a maritime boundary if Indonesia controlled Timor, rather than an independent Timor or its colonial power, Portugal.
Similarly, in 1978, then foreign minister Andrew Peacock announced that Australia was formally accepting East Timor as part of Indonesia. This paved the way for a formal recognition of Indonesia's occupation. In the words of the author of this book, "the only reason for this speedy decision, was the seabed and boundary, which of course meant oil".
The well-researched first third of the book shows Australia's Timor tragedy, and the part oil and gas resources played in it, to be a substantial foreign policy edifice built up over decades. But the real cut and thrust of the story comes post-1999.
In January 2000 the retreating Indonesians had leveled Timor's capital Dili so comprehensively that a team of visiting Australia diplomats had to book a negotiating room on a cruise ship in Dili harbour. Accommodation aside, they lost no time trying to convince the Timorese that they should accept the Timor Gap Treaty. This Treaty, which Australia had spent 10 years pursuing with Indonesia, would have given Timor just 20 per cent share of the known resources on its side of the Timor Sea.
At this point in the book and at many others, it beggars belief that none of the Australian diplomats and foreign affairs officials sent to negotiate with Timor were troubled by Australia's stance.
One notable exception is former DFAT staffer Bruce Haigh, whose analysis of the Australia-Indonesia-Timor nexus is particularly insightful. The 'big lie', that nothing untoward was happening in Timor during Indonesia's occupation poisoned us, he says. "It had an effect on the ethics of this country. You see it being played out in the daily deniability games of Howard, and the federal public service".
While this is overall a compelling read, the technical detail about what was on the table at different stages of the negotiations can be difficult to digest.
This was, after all, a complicated and protracted dispute and its very nature played into Australia's hands. The detail was difficult for the Australian public to digest and Australia's team, too, was vastly more qualified at this sort of negotiations.
Certainly in the early stages, Timor had to rely heavily on foreign consultants. Some of these hired guns were incredibly committed, others bewilderingly ignorant of Timor.
High-profile negotiator Peter Galbraith, the son of economist John Kenneth Galbraith, was both a blessing and a curse for Timor. While his stature and force of personality initially made a good battering ram for Timor, he was notably absent from later negotiations. One gets the sense that he rallied to the fight at first, but then as the negotiations wore on, he tired of them.
If Galbraith was a sprinter, then the former Timorese Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri comes across as pure, disciplined, distance runner.
On the Timor Sea, Alkatiri was a dogged and formidable foe for the Australians and for his trouble, he earned some extraordinarily hostile treatment. Cleary says the Australian government so disliked him that when the treaty was finally ready in 2006, Australia suggested that the foreign ministers of each country sign the deal, in the presence of their prime ministers, in order to avoid having Alkatiri sign it with Howard
This final agreement – the Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea – was a success for Timor, in that it was able to claw back a better share of resources. Timor's resource share rose from 22 per cent to 60 per cent and revenue increased from 8.4 billion to 24 billion over the lifetime of the resources.
But from the disputed BCL fields, Timor gained nothing. These are the same fields from which Australia, since 1999, had been reaping $1 million per day.
And this Treaty did not close the Timor Gap. Timor still does not have a permanent maritime boundary with Australia. The agreement "as far as maritime rights were concerned, succeeded in going back to the time when Indonesia occupied Timor," says Cleary.
There are two things in this admirable account I would take issue with. Cleary argues that post-independence, the Timorese ruling elite visited a type of Animal Farm upon their people.
This is a harsh assessment. I would argue that the failures of the first independence government were predominantly born of inexperience and a lack of good accountability mechanisms, rather than greed and pure self-interest.
the other is that, in conclusion, Cleary says it is "not too long a bow to draw to say that the deal that has been struck is instrumental in fomenting the current situation in Timor-Leste".
I think it is too long a bow to draw. The most appalling thing about these negotiations is not that they fomented the 2006 civil unrest in Timor, but that they amounted to daylight robbery, pure and simple, of a poor neighbour.
| Opinion & analysis |
Canberra Times - June 8, 2007
Bruce Haigh – The NSW coronial inquest into the killing of five journalists in East Timor in 1975 has achieved far more than earlier government inquiries into the deaths.
The Deputy NSW Coroner, Dorelle Pinch, has been able to uncover facts that other investigations could not, and the inquest has confirmed the cover-up engaged in by successive Australian governments.
This cover-up was maintained through a loose consensus of foreign policy-makers, known as the pro-Jakarta lobby, including public servants in the Department of Foreign Affairs, politicians, journalists, academics and businessmen.
It came into being and was maintained to try and protect the Indonesian government from adverse commentary and scrutiny which it was felt might damage a fragile relationship. This policy amounted to appeasement and brought few rewards.
Maintenance of the policy included sweeping under the carpet Indonesian military atrocities in Aceh, Flores, East Timor and West Papua and complicity in military corruption.
There were three previous inquiries. The first was conducted in 1976 by an official from Foreign Affairs, Alan Taylor, which reiterated Indonesian denials and regurgitated publicly available information that the deaths by shooting were accidental.
Under pressure, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer instituted an inquiry in 1996 by the former head of the National Crime Authority, Tom Sherman; it concluded that the five had been killed by crossfire.
This finding did not satisfy those outside the pro-Jakarta lobby and under further pressure Downer, in 1999, again whistled up Sherman, who surprisingly came to the same conclusion, although adding the useful rider that if the journalists had been murdered it was the result of a blunder.
The coronial inquest lays bare the Australian attempt to get Indonesia off the hook over the cruel and calculated murder of five journalists done in an attempt to hide the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. It also exposes the shallowness and expediency of the policy of appeasement peddled by the pro- Jakarta lobby.
However, it fights on under the patronage of Downer who apparently urged NSW law authorities not to serve the visiting Governor of Jakarta, Sutiyoso, with a subpoena to appear before the coroners court. A police request to do so was met with flight and anger expressed on his return home which prompted the NSW Premier, Morris Iemma, to apologise, no doubt on advice from Downer.
Given what has transpired at the coroners court, I would have thought that Indonesia should be apologising to the families of the victims and the Australian people. Imagine the fuss if the boot was on the other foot.
Indonesian forces invaded East Timor on October 7, 1975. The five Australian journalists were murdered on October 16 in Balibo.
They have long been referred to as journalists but in fact they were war correspondents. The reason they went to Balibo was because they, along with other members of the media, intelligence, defence and foreign affairs officials, were convinced that Indonesia would invade East Timor. I spoke briefly to Greg Shackleton before he went to East Timor and that was the gist of the conversation.
Why they have never been accorded the status of war correspondents presumably rests with the fact that Australia has for so long tried to demonise them, blame them for their own deaths and accord them the role of non-persons, not deserving the protection or respect of the Australian government.
Well they do. They were five brave young Australians dedicated to exposing the truth and by doing so perhaps prevent a great injustice to the people of East Timor.
If the Government can put money into finding the Australian World War I submarine AE1, if it can put money into bringing back the bodies of two formerly missing Vietnam veterans, it can put money into bringing back from Indonesia the bodies of Gary Cunningham, Greg Shackleton, Malcolm Rennie, Anthony Stewart and Brian Peters.
They should be posthumously awarded the Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal and an appropriate memorial erected in Canberra which might go some way towards making amends for 32 years of Australian government vilification and denial.
National self-esteem demands nothing less. If a nation cannot honour its heroes it will slowly decay from within. In 2000 I wrote in my book The Great Australian Blight, that the reason the bodies of the newsmen were not brought to Australia for burial was because of fears a funeral would stir up anti-Indonesian sentiment.
This should not now be the excuse for not bringing them home and honouring them.
The only way to develop a strong long term relationship with Indonesia is on the basis of honest exchanges, anything else has a well demonstrated propensity to unravel with negative results.
Australians are angry at their war correspondents having been shot by members of the Indonesian Army and they should be told so.
The coronial inquest has demonstrated that the Taylor and Sherman inquiries were fundamentally flawed. Where does this leave the Flood inquiries into the intelligence services, refugee detention camps and the Cole inquiry into the AWB? There is a lesson in this for the Howard Government: eventually the truth will out.
[Bruce Haigh is a retired diplomat and political commentator. He published two books in 2000 which addressed the relationship between Australia and Indonesia and regional defence issues.]
South China Morning Post - June 26, 2007
Flaky-skinned Jenny is two weeks old. She was born in an East Timor refugee camp, adjacent to Dili's airport, that 6,000 people have been crammed into since the unrest of April and May last year. The violence prompted the return of international troops and the UN, only a few years after they had left the fledgling Southeast Asian nation.
There was nobody looking after my wife, Cinta, when the baby was born. We are forgotten people," said Tomaso Soares.
A UN-donated tent is home to the family, who own just a few basic kitchen implements and a small suitcase of clothes. Mr Soares eight children are fed thanks to aid delivered every two weeks by international organisations. "It's mainly rice," he said. "Sometimes we also get vegetables."
The Soares family have tried to return to their two-bedroom house on the outskirts of the city, but were attacked by loromonu, said Mr Soares, referring to the people from the west of the country. The 45-year-old is a lorosae, from the eastern districts of East Timor.
Multi-faceted rivalry between people from the two areas was among the issues mishandled or manipulated by politicians, sparking a split within the armed forces that led to last year's violence.
An estimated 37 people died during the unrest and more than 100 have been killed since, despite the deployment of international troops. Former prime minister Mari Alkatiri was forced to resign after the country polarised, the police disintegrated and gangs of disenfranchised, alcohol-fuelled youths took to the streets.
A parliamentary election due on Saturday is intended to re- establish the credibility of the local political elite, whose reputation was badly bruised in last year's chaos.
We hope the new government will help us," said Cinta Da Cruz, 29, rocking her newborn daughter.
Her husband adds a long list of wishes to her flickering hope. "I want peace, I want stability and I want a job. This is what I ask of the leaders, but I'm not sure they can give it to me," he said.
The recent crisis added to the plight of the East Timorese, who had hoped for a much brighter future once a UN-sponsored referendum granted them freedom in 1999. Independence was achieved after 21.2 years of UN administration on May 20, 2002.
In a report last year entitled "Path Out of Poverty", the UN Development Programme (UNDP) said that only half of East Timor's adults could read and write, and 30 per cent of primary school- aged children were not at school. The UNDP also said the average life expectancy was 55.5 years and that 60 babies out of every 1,000 died before their first birthday. The report said that some 40 per cent of people lived below the subsistence line of 55 US cents per day.
To make matters worse, a new Food and Agriculture Organisation report says one in five people in East Timor needs food assistance, blaming crop losses on persistent drought and locust plagues.
The Soares family's status as internally displaced people (IDPs) is a fate shared by more than 55,000 people in many camps. At its peak, there were 120,000 displaced," said Telmo Godinho of local NGO Timor Aid said. "Some have been able to return home."
Yet the IDPs' plight – as well as the abject poverty and need for education – has been debated superficially and often demagogically during the electoral campaign, with parties more focused on trading accusations rather than presenting clear remedies for the country's problems.
The International Crisis Group has highlighted key issues such as the dependence on foreign troops, the need to administer justice for past crimes, the danger posed by forgotten war veterans, rebel soldiers still on the run, the need to overhaul the inept legal system and the splintered security sector, and the question of how to best defuse the local gangs, martial arts groups and politico-criminal organisations that seem to operate with impunity.
High on the agenda is also how to spend revenue from the country's oil and gas resources, with some parties urging the spending of all of the US$1.4 billion saved in the Petroleum Fund, an Interest bearing US Federal Reserve account established in September 2005.
Local legislation allows that only a fraction of the revenue produced by the fund be spent, and mandates that most of the money be invested in low-risk bonds, which should ensure the country some revenue even when its reserves run out. East Timor currently gets 94 per cent of its government revenues from oil and gas sales.
The lack of meaningful debate does not surprise Charlie Schneider, an analyst at La'o Hamutuk, a local group set up to monitor the main international institutions present in the country.
In truth, it's rather normal in a post-conflict society," he said. People here have no experience of a democratic process, and this goes from the president down to the average voter. Until 1999, the only relationship East Timorese had with government was one of resistance."
The political void left by the lack of openly debated policies has been filled by personality-driven campaigns, where most of those lining up for Saturday's vote are the same people that have played key roles in the past 30 years of the country's history.
Mr Alkatiri, 58, still leads the Revolutionary Front of Independent East Timor (Fretilin). He has said he "is not seeking to lead the government again" – but this claim is taken with a pinch of salt by his adversaries, who contend that he will pull strings from behind the scenes.
Leading the opposition pack is the newly established National Congress for East Timor Reconstruction (CNRT). The party tries to emulate the coalition that campaigned for independence in the 1999 referendum and now, as it was then, it's led by local hero Jose Alexandre Xanana" Gusmao, 61, who spent two decades in the jungle organising the anti-Indonesia resistance before becoming East Timor first post-independence president in 2002.
Mr Gusmao's decision to run for prime minister is due to his deep disagreements with Mr Alkatiri. The differences between the two date back to the resistance period, during which Mr Alkatiri lived in Mozambique.
Their mutual distrust has been deepened by ideological and practical differences on how to run the country since Indonesia left. Last year's unrest showed the tensions between the two heavyweights, with many government institutions, including the army and police, dangerously splitting between pro-Alkatiri and pro-Gusmao factions.
CNRT is also backed by Jose Ramos Horta, 58, who won a Nobel Peace Prize for roaming the world campaigning for East Timor freedom from Indonesian rule. Since 2002, Mr Ramos Horta has held the post of foreign minister, interim defence minister and prime minister, and he thrashed Fretilin's Francisco "Lu Olo" Guterres in May's runoff for the presidency.
The two parties – Fretilin and CNRT – are likely to garner most of the votes, but neither looks likely to win an outright majority in the new 65-member parliament.
In the coalition game set to dominate the post-election period, Mr Gusmao is the favourite and most analysts are predicting a CNRT-led government in coalition with the Democrat Party (PD) and the Timorese Social Democrat Association/Social Democrat Party, known as the ASDT/PSD.
Should such a scenario materialise, new blood would be introduced into the top political echelon in the form of Fernando de Araujo "Lasama", 45, who chairs the PD, a party founded in 2001 by young Timorese who had studied abroad. A student leader during the Indonesian occupation, Mr de Araujo was arrested in 1991 and spent seven years in a Jakarta prison, roughly at the same time as Mr Gusmao did.
The ASDT/PSD is co-chaired by two veteran politicians both over the age of 65: Francisco Xavier do Amaral, who in November 1975 became East Timor's first president, and Mario Carrascalao, who governed East Timor when it was an Indonesian province.
There are 10 other parties jockeying for the vote. None is expected to do particularly well, although a potential surprise could be the Party of National Unity, led by Fernanda Borges, 38, who seems to be backed by the powerful local Catholic Church and who has been successful in gathering crowds during rallies.
Unfortunately for the younger politicians, a candidate's past in the resistance is still likely to play a big part when it comes to the ballot box.
I know Xanana, Alkatiri, Amaral and Carrascalao and a few others," said Marcus Fernandes, 23, a fish trader in Comoro's Pantai Kelapa market. "I know what they have done for this country. But I'm not sure who the younger politicians are and what they did in the past. And I would not vote for someone that I don't know." Nonetheless, he said he had little confidence in the historic" leadership.
What will happen? I do not know," he said. "We just hope that they do not argue, because if they do, we are the ones suffering. We are the victims of the political players. They fight and we suffer."
James Dunn - June 17, 2007
The news that East Timor may be considering setting up a composite defence force of some 3000 personnel has aroused a curious, and generally negative reaction here in Australia. Some of the comments border on the absurd – for example, the ridiculing of the size of the force and the need for 'such a small nation' to have a force of this size.
Well, East Timor is not really so small. It is several times the size of Singapore and Brunei, with fishing resources and potential marine exploration sites to protect. For this purpose little Brunei (just over 2,000 sq miles, or one-third the size of ETimor) has a force of some 7,000. And Fiji, which is smaller both in size and population, has a force of of 3,500.
The question is not just about the size of the force, but its nature and its purpose. Not least it must be grounded in the constitutional discipline that assures East Timor that it will never again breach that neutrality so essential in a democracy. My view is that a force along the lines of a national guard might be considered – a force designed to support the Timorese people in the event of national disasters, as well as military threats, a force that could support the ongoing task of reconstruction.
Those who feel the East Timorese should be relying on the Australian presence should think again. Our forces may constitute a comforting presence, but this new nation has to have some defence capacity of its own, for it cannot be assumed that East Timor and Australia's national interests will always coincide. Certainly that did not happen in the past, as we all so well knpw. As for the present, the Australian Government's lack of interest in bringing to justice'those TNI officers responsible for past atrocities is in itself a warning that our perceptions of national interest may not always place East Timor's interests ahead of expediency.
There has been criticism of the perceived need for helicopters, but their presence is of fundamental importance to emergency services, as well as surveillance, in Timor's mountainous terrain. As for plans for a navy, the vessels concerned should, I feel, be fast patrol vessels, rather than corvettes, which are expensive both to purchase and run. Australia could assist the development of this force, rather than suggest that it is unnecessary. The development of such a force will take time – and money, but military assistance could make it affordable.
The Australian - June 15, 2007
Australia obviously has a keen interest in the outcome of the East Timorese election, to be held on June 30. East Timor is Australia's nation-building project. Australia sent troops to East Timor in 1999 to help the tiny country on its way to independence from Indonesia and it helped restore calm when violence broke out in 2006.
Australia's hope is for a strong, stable democracy to take hold. To that end, it also hopes that the International Crisis Group is right when it predicts that ex-president Xanana Gusmao will win the coming election.
Mr Gusmao is pragmatic and popular, both with East Timorese and Australians. He understands the need to invest in infrastructure, such as schools, public health services and roads. He is not believed to support the creation of an expensive military. He supports the rule of law. He respects the importance of a fair, transparent electoral process. He is a modern champion of democracy.
The Australian reported last week that East Timor's new Prime Minister, Estanislau da Silva, wants to give military chiefs power to spend millions from East Timor's oil and gas fields to upgrade the country's defence force. Vast amounts would be spent on weapons, a 3000-strong defence force, and missile-equipped warships to protect the sensitive maritime zone.
It is a bad idea. The money needs to be spent on reducing poverty among the East Timorese, by which we mean all of them, not to entrench the power of a few military chiefs, intent on corrupting the nation's future.
The East Timorese did not invite Australia to comment on its military ambitions but the plan is flawed. East Timor does not have the resources to create an armed force of the size necessary to protect it from the only obvious potential threat, Indonesia. It should focus instead on managing its relationship with Indonesia – and, of course, with Australia.
Mr Gusmao's ally, President and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jose Ramos Horta, won 22 per cent of the vote in the first round of the recent presidential elections and 69 per cent of the presidential runoff. The International Crisis Group says Mr Gusmao's newly formed party could win between 20 and 25 per cent of the vote on June 30 and would then form a government with other groups.
Army rebel Alfredo Reinado who escaped from prison last August along with 50 other inmates, is already threatening strife, refusing to lay down arms he is believed to have stolen during a raid on a police station.
The election is an opportunity for the East Timorese to again demonstrate how important are their new freedoms, and for mischief-makers to reform themselves, to the point of taking a blow from voters on the chin. Whatever can be done to ensure the process is fair, transparent and, above all, peaceful should be done.
James Dunn - June 12, 2007
There is little doubt that our police should have gone about their attempt to persuade retired Lieutenant General Sutiyoso, now Governor of Jakarta, to appear before the Balibo coronial enquiry differently, but in the main the apologies have been much overdone.
Sutiyoso, then a captain, was part of the invading force that entered Balibo on that fateful day in October 1975. Maybe he had nothing to do with the murder of the journalists, but he was a Kopassus colleague of then Captain Yunus Yosfiah, who ordered this war crime, and it is very hard to believe that he knew nothing about this incident.
This raises the question: was it his anger that caused him to flee back to Jakarta, or did he find the prospect of being questioned about Balibo daunting?
What a service he would have offered both countries if he had been prepared to enlighten the Coroner about what he did and what he knew. I was disappointed to learn that our Defence Chief, Air Chief Marshall Angus Houston – for whom I have considerable respect – had strongly backed Sutoyoso, stating that he was not at Balibo in 1975.
Certainly as a member of 'Tim Susi' he was part of that operation – codenamed 'Operasi Flambuyant' – and given the geography of the operation area, he could hardly have avoided being in Balibo at one stage or another. Indeed at that time it was on the only road to the rest of East Timor. Whether he witnessed the killings is, of course, another matter. While he deserves the presumption of innocence his role has never been properly investigated.
The Balibo coronial enquiry has led to some extraordinary revelations – at least, extraordinary to those unfamiliar with the unfolding of events in 1975. The incident involving retired Sutiyoso is a warning that the coronial report could have an impact on the Canberra-Jakarta relationship. Essentially the problem is not with the coronial enquiry, but with those responsible for this atrocity and those who, in the past, took the unacceptable step of covering up this crime against humanity. It could well, of course, be several months before the coroner hands down her findings, and, in the light of the evidence presented to the court, the impact of the outcome could well range well beyond the issue of the cause and manner of the deaths of those journalists who met a cruel end on that fateful day in October 1975, when I, too, was in troubled East Timor.
The testimony of former Australian diplomats and intelligence officers has exposed the shamefully indifferent response of the Whitlam Government to what it knew to be an extremely serious war crime and the equally shameful failure of Fraser Coalition Government to take up the issue.
The case implicitly goes well beyond the Balibo incident. These testimonies exposed other ugly realities that are really outside the focus of the coronial enquiry. One is the fact that although the Whitlam government knew that Indonesia was about to commit a grave violation of the UN Charter, it did nothing to deter this crime. And Australia had a heavy responsibility to take some action. East Timor was not just a neighbour: its people had selflessly helped Australians during our darkest hours in 1942, at a cost that was itself a huge humanitarian disaster. In this respect, nor can the Fraser Government escape blame.
The Balibo atrocity was a grim warning of what lay ahead for these people, but our Governments couldn't even bring themselves to protest this virtual execution of five of its journalists, let alone help the Timorese. Australia went on to support the annexation, not even protesting the terrible atrocities that accompanied it – the mass executions, the torture and the widespread raping of women – a terrible ordeal that claimed over 180,000 lives, memories of which lie trauma-like behind the instability, insecurity, and lacking in self-confidence still prevalent in East Timor today. Details of that ordeal are set out in the UN-sponsored CAVR report, which has attracted little attention from our politicians.
To spare those Indonesian military commanders involved in past atrocities from exposure and recrimination surely constitutes an offence to the memory of the Balibo victims. Then there are the tens of thousands of East Timorese who were to fall victim of a brutal military culture whose full exposure is in the national interest of both countries. It is also counterproductive to the important relationship between our two nations.
Thus it is time to look beyond Balibo, to make use of the findings of the coronial inquest to take in the lessons of this tragic affair – to end the lying and the deceit. The truth may be ugly and shocking but its exposure will give both Indonesians and Australians an opportunity to start afresh, dispensing with a relationship technique that has for so long been embedded in opportunism, political expediency and pretentious rhetoric.
To use this experience to change direction would surely be the best way to honour the memory of five journalists who lost their lives in an attempt to expose a culture of deception and lying that has continued to demean the relationship. What is so lamentable is that 32 years after the Balibo incident neither Indonesian nor Australian government officials can bring themselves to end a policy so often mired in deception and cover-up!
New Zealand Herald - June 10, 2007
Greg Ansley – Balibo sits astride a road weaving through the mountains of the far west of Timor-Leste (East Timor). To the north is an ancient Portuguese fort, its ramparts placed high on a peak as protection against attack.
On October 16, 1975, the invaders came, swarming past the fort from the west and into the village that has since become infamous as the launching pad for the Indonesian annexation of the tiny former colony – and for the execution of two television teams sent to cover the impending invasion. A sixth newsman was later shot in Dili.
The deaths of the Balibo journalists – two Australians, two Britons and a New Zealander – continue to be a diplomatic thorn in relations between Australia and Indonesia: more so since a Sydney inquest found conclusive evidence of deliberate murder and lies by Jakarta, and complicit silence by Canberra.
Documents retrieved in New Zealand under the Official Secrets Act and published in a book by activist Maire Leadbeater show similar complicity in Wellington, following a policy on both sides of the Tasman to support Indonesian annexation of a newly independent former Portuguese possession and to knowingly accept lies.
The evidence given to the inquest has been sensational and potentially damaging to the shaky relations between Jakarta and Canberra, raising the prospect of war crimes charges against two former military officers. One serious diplomatic incident has already occurred through attempts to force visiting Jakarta Governor and former special forces General Sutiyoso to appear before the inquest.
Indonesia has indicated it will take no notice of any finding or charges laid as a result of the coronial investigation, following the issuing of a warrant in March for senior politician Yunis Yosfiah, another former special forces commander allegedly involved in the murders.
Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda further said the Australian Government had guaranteed that Jakarta had no cause for concern over the inquest.
Australian counterpart Alexander Downer responded on ABC radio: "Well, I wouldn't put it in those terms. We've had a very brief discussion about this quite some time ago, not that it wasn't anything to worry about, but this was an investigation into events that occurred over 30 years ago and obviously we will just take it as it comes."
But Australia's role in the independence of East Timor remains a sensitive and painful issue in Jakarta, where many influential Indonesians continue to regard the severing of the province as an Australian assault on its territorial integrity. The provision of temporary visas for West Papuans seeking political asylum is further fuel, and any Australian move to try Indonesians for war crimes would inflame passions.
This was emphasised after the botched attempt to have the visiting Sutiyoso appear before the inquiry, in which police used a master key to gain access to the Sydney hotel room of a man who has ambitions to succeed President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in two years' time. Demonstrators attacked the Australian Embassy in Jakarta.
The significance of the execution of the newsmen, now known as the Balibo Five, extends beyond their brutal murders.
The deaths were an inevitable consequence of Australian and New Zealand policies supporting the annexation, and the associated diplomatic necessity of accepting Indonesian lies.
Mark Tedeschi, special counsel assisting Coroner Dorelle Pinch, described the chain of events as a successful Indonesian plan to compromise Canberra's reaction to the invasion – "a masterful power play worthy of an international chess grandmaster, using Australian leaders and departmental officers as their pawns".
Leadbeater's research, published in Negligent Neighbour: New Zealand's Complicity in the Invasion and Occupation of Timor- Leste, shows Wellington was trapped as firmly as Canberra by Indonesian manipulation.
The official version of the deaths of the Balibo Five – upheld by five Australian inquiries under both Labor and Conservative Governments and repeated this year by Jakarta – is that they were killed in crossfire between Timorese and Indonesian forces in the town square.
For years Australia and New Zealand also claimed to have not known in advance of the details of the expected Indonesian invasion, to have not known that the news teams were in Balibo and to have not heard of their deaths for some time afterwards.
Those killed were Channel 7 reporter Greg Shackleton, 27; New Zealand cameraman Gary Cunningham, 26; sound recordist Tony Stewart, 21; Channel 9 reporter Malcolm Rennie, 28; and cameraman Brian Peters, 29.
On December 7, 1975, the day after the final invasion, Indonesian soldiers shot Australian reporter Roger East in Dili, the Timorese capital. East had written a story describing the execution of the Balibo Five from eyewitness accounts, and was executed on the waterfront. His death has never risen above the diplomatic horizon, nor been pursued by Canberra.
The real facts surrounding the Balibo Five and Australian and New Zealand complicity in the annexation of Timor have been slow surfacing. But they have been dramatically confirmed in the Sydney inquest, convened after New South Wales officials finally accepted that British-born Peters was a legal resident of Sydney at the time of his death.
The witnesses included former members of the Indonesian military; former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam; his Defence Minister of the day, Bill Morrison; members of a royal commission into Australian intelligence services who saw intercepts of Indonesian communications confirming the killings; and other former senior intelligence and foreign affairs officers.
Their evidence made it clear Australia had advance warning of the invasion, that Canberra knew the newsmen intended to travel to Balibo - Whitlam described them as "culpable" for failing to heed his warnings against travelling there – and that despite denials, knew of their deaths within hours.
Senior intelligence and foreign affairs officials confirmed that electronic intercepts by the Defence Signals Directorate had recorded Indonesian messages reporting that the journalists had been "completed", that this news had been passed immediately to senior Defence and Government officers – including Whitlam's office – and that the most senior officers had no doubt the newsmen had been executed on high-level orders from Jakarta to prevent coverage of the invasion.
Tedeschi told the inquiry Jakarta had deliberately squeezed Canberra into a corner: "The Indonesians gave the Australian Government advanced warning – through absolutely specific, detailed advanced warnings – of what they were intending to do in Balibo and [the nearby town of] Maliana. "The plan depended on the Indonesian Government and the Indonesian military being able to maintain the facade in public, particularly for the benefit of the Australian public, that these troops were not involved in the deaths of the journalists.
"The whole gambit, however, depended upon no reliable news getting into the public arena about an Indonesian involvement in the attacks on Balibo, and in particular no film footage."
The eyewitness accounts of the newsmen's deaths are harrowing. Timorese forces had withdrawn from Balibo, and the Five had surrendered to approaching Indonesian troops.
One was attacked and fell down in the town square; three were shot on the orders of then-Captain Junus Yosfiah – who joined in the slaughter – after being herded back to a building known as the "Chinese house"; the fourth hid in a bathroom and, after emerging on the threat of a grenade attack, was stabbed to death.
The bodies were dressed in Portuguese uniforms and photographed with weapons to maintain a fiction of resistance, before being burned repeatedly over several days. Their remains were buried in a single grave in Jakarta at a funeral attended only by Australian diplomats.
New Zealand's response to the annexation and the execution of the Balibo Five mirrored the Australian facade of ignorance and denial.
Leadbeater's research shows Indonesia regarded New Zealand as a trusted friend in its plans to annex East Timor. In 2002, then- Foreign Minister Phil Goff admitted: "Australia, the United States and New Zealand to varying degrees explicitly indicated to Indonesia acceptance of its intention to invade."
New Zealand was privy to detailed military intelligence of these intentions – much of it given to Canberra by Jakarta – and shared Canberra's concern at the emergence of a potentially unviable and unstable independent East Timor.
Despite compelling evidence of overwhelming Timorese opposition to incorporation into Indonesia, Wellington supported the move conditional on popular acceptance.
Throughout, Wellington knew that annexation was to be by military invasion rather than invitation, despite demonstrated control by the independence movement Fretilin after Portugal's withdrawal.
Specific details of the military build-up on the border – including the identification and positioning of brigades, artillery and armour amassed for amphibious assault, and the infiltration of special forces in civilian clothes – was passed to Wellington by its defence attache in Jakarta ahead of the attack on Balibo.
Brian Lynch, the head of Foreign Affairs' Asian section at the time of the invasion, told Leadbeater Wellington's Jakarta mission had welcomed the intended annexation but advised New Zealand to be more circumspect than Australia: "New Zealand had a reputation to uphold as a country that had strongly supported self-determination for Pacific Island states."
On October 17, Canberra advised Wellington Jakarta had given notice of a full-scale invasion of East Timor, initially by 800 troops through Balibo, Maliana and Atasabe. Covert infiltration of border areas had already begun.
When news of the deaths of the Balibo Five emerged, Wellington ducked for cover. Despite the execution of a New Zealander, briefing notes for then-Prime Minister Bill Rowling included Cunningham as an afterthought, advising Rowling, if asked, to say only that he had made inquiries of Canberra and Jakarta.
Leadbeater reports that when Australia was coming under pressure from its journalists, New Zealand foreign affairs officials advised their Minister to lay low.
Their advice was "there would seem to be no clear-cut case against Indonesia for any specific violation of international law" and therefore no need for New Zealand to take action. To do so, they argued, would harm relations with Indonesia.
They also said Cunningham was an Australian resident employed by an Australian organisation, and a member of the Australian Journalists Association.
Although he was a New Zealand citizen, his close family were resident in Australia: therefore the conclusion was reached that there would be "no necessity for New Zealand to become involved in the dispute".
Now the past is catching up.
[Negligent Neighbour: New Zealand's Complicity in the Invasion and Occupation of Timor-Leste, by Maire Leadbeater (Craig Potton Publishing, RRP $34.99).]
Open Democracy - June 8, 2007
Loro Horta – After the relatively violence-free presidential elections in East Timor in April-May 2007, many hope that the country may finally be heading on a road to normality after more than two years of internal violence and chaos. But if the successful two-round presidential polls are an important first step, severe challenges lie ahead. Indeed the real test for the small and vulnerable southeast Asian nation may lie on 30 June 2007 when the nation elects its prime minister and parliament – the source of real power under the constitution.
The peaceful election and the acceptance of the results by East Timor's major party, the Frente Revolucionaria de Timor-Leste Independente (Fretilin) suggest that some optimism confidence for the country's democratic future might be justified. But disturbing events and trends emerged during the campaign which have the potential to severely undermine the country's stability and even its very existence as a viable nation-state.
The death of heroes
Jose Ramos Horta's election, contrary to many people's expectations, was not a foregone conclusion. The Nobel peace laureate and former East Timorese foreign minister and prime minister was actually defeated in the first round by the relatively obscure Fretilin candidate Francisco "Lu'Olo" Guterreso, although there were disputes about the veracity of that result. In the end it took the support of four of the five defeated candidates for Ramos Horta to emerge victorious. The support of the Democratic Party (PD) was crucial to the final result, and Ramos Horta had to make various concessions to ensure this, including an alleged deal to halt operations for the capture of renegade army major, Alfredo Reinado.
The fact that Ramos Horta – a man with heroic status and one of the nation's most influential figures – was on his own unable to defeat Lu'Olo is indicative of the deep divisions in Timorese society and the loss of trust by the people in its once near- mythical leaders. In contrast, Xanana Gusmao in 2002 was able to obliterate his opponents in the first in the first round of the 2002 presidential election, securing 85% of the vote – and this despite Fretilin's opposition. The difference is a measure of the people's disenchantment.
But Ramos Horta is not the only figure to emerge scarred from the recent crisis. Xanana Gusmao himself – the once revered guerrilla commander and father of the nation, looked upon as the pillar of national unity and impartiality – has also suffered a significant demystification. Gusmao's and to a lesser extent Horta's support for the rebel soldiers (most from the western part of East Timor) has led many to question the impartiality of the president. The military crisis – part of an explosion of internecine violence and destruction in March-June 2006 – both divided the nation between a pro-Gusmao/Horta faction and the rest, and created an artificial but bloody schism between the country's east and west.
Gusmao's perceived bias towards the western rebel soldiers greatly undermined his position and prestige, and that of his long-term ally Ramos Horta. This political and ethno-regional divide contributed to the further fragmentation of the vote in the first round. The regional issue also severely undermines the national character of the country's major party Fretilin, with many in the west perceiving it to be dominated by easterners and no longer viewing it as a truly national party. Fretilin also became increasingly associated with the unpopular Mari Alkatiri, who is accused in some quarters of having secured the party leadership in a dubious election.
The only unifying factor behind the various parties that supported Ramos Horta in the second round seems to be a strong distaste of Alkatiri and strong opposition to Fretilin. But these factors by themselves are not enough on which to build a political foundation, and Ramos Horta will need more to assume the role of a president for all Timorese.
The parliamentary elections
Xanana Gusmao's Conselho Nacional de Reconstrucco do Timor (National Congress of Reconstruction of Timor/CNRT), an alliance of the major opposition parties, is most likely to emerge victorious in the legislative election on 30 June. The same elements that created challenges for Ramos Horta and in the end ultimately secured his victory are likely to affect the CNRT. Gusmao can count on the support of all of the main East Timorese opposition parties that have gathered under the CNRT umbrella, the sympathy of the Catholic church, and the support of Ramos Horta. Gusmao's main opponent will be a Fretilin that is still powerful, if increasingly ridden with factionalism.
The anti-Alkatiri forces that have rallied behind Horta may be enough to guarantee Gusmao a similarly handsome victory. However, this would by no means be the end of Fretilin. Gusmao's loss of much of his prestige among the people, along with the regional issue, may yet prove a problem for him. Fretilin has traditionally had a strong following in the eastern side of the island where most of the fighting for independence took place. After the convulsions of 2006, many in the east felt that President Gusmao was sympathetic to the mainly western rebel soldiers. This perception may have a negative effect on Gusmao's election, by leading certain sections of easterners to vote for Fretilin out of retaliation for Gusmao's perceived bias.
Another factor that may work against Gusmao and aid Fretilin will be the political character of some CNRT members. Gusmao's opponents accuse him of aligning himself with people who once advocated autonomy for a part of the nation in a way that would amount to its disintegration, and point to his association with unsavoury characters such as Alfredo Reinado as a diminution of his legitimacy. But the main problem for Gusmao is that he has lost his status as an impartial figure above power politics; by forming his party and openly taking sides he has been brought down from his pedestal.
It should be remembered that Fretilin remains a formidable political force: a party with thirty-two years of history, acclaimed for its role in the independence struggle against Indonesia, and the only coherently organised party in the country. Fretilin's apparatus runs through settlements of every size, with political cadres present even in the smallest village (the only body which comes close to possessing its capacity is the Catholic church). In addition, the long years of struggle and hardship endured by many of its cadres and supporters have reinforced their tenacious loyalty to the party. By contrast, the CNRT is composed of new parties some of whose leaders are tainted by past links to Indonesia.
A democratic hope
The fact that the presidential election was conducted in a largely peaceful manner – notwithstanding the violent deaths of four people before and after the campaign – offers some grounds for optimism. But serious concerns exist, in three areas: economic, security and political.
First, both men will be leading a divided and impoverish nation of whose working-age population an estimated 80% are unemployed. Second, the country has far from recovered from the explosion of internecine violence and destruction in 2006; Ramos Horta admitted during a visit to Jakarta on 5 June 2007 that the security situation in Dili remains "volatile", though he attributed the problem more to youth gangs than political factors.
Third, Ramos Horta and Xanana Gusmao face the consequences of their having made various deals and concessions in order to secure the support of other parties and groups. This array of diverse forces seems to have only one thing in common: distaste for Fretilin and Mari Alkatiri. How the president and prime minister will manage such a situation, and whether the price they will need to pay in exchange for support, remains to be seen. The challenge too of dealing with individuals like Alfredo Reinado, who have a proclivity for violence but no real political agenda, will be a steep one.
Time is running out for the country called Timor-Leste in Portuguese and Timor Lorosa'e in the most widely-spoken indigenous language, Tetum. Gusmao and Horta may remain the nation's most respected politicians; but some of their prestige has been severely tested by the difficulties of the post- independence years and especially by the crisis of the last fifteen. Some argue that they are the only figures with the international standing and domestic authority to establish stability and heal the nation's wounds; other question whether after a lifetime of commitment to the cause, it is time for the 60-year-old Xanana Gusmao and the 58-year-old Ramos Horta to think about passing the torch to a new generation.
In any event, both leaders must dedicate all their energies to a national, political project that combines short-term alleviation with medium-term planning and long-term vision. If they fail, the future of East Timor will be bleak. They have, however, one ace in their hand. Despite all the suffering, the tragedies and the disillusion, the fact that the Timorese people turned out to vote in overwhelming numbers shows that they keep faith in democracy. In this too lies hope for East Timor.
[Loro Horta earned degrees at Sydney University and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He worked in Mozambique for several years, and served as an advisor to East Timor's defence department. He is the son of East Timor's new president, Jose Ramos Horta. The views expressed in his openDemocracy articles are his own.]
Green Left Weekly - June 6, 2007
Shirley Shackleton – The sudden departure on May 29 of visiting Jakarta governor, General Sutiyoso, after being asked to give evidence at the inquest into the death of Brian Peters in East Timor in 1975, further incriminates him in the plot to kill five Australian journalists in Balibo, East Timor, in 1975.
According to deputy NSW state coroner Dorelle Pinch, Sutiyoso had allegedly been part of Team Susi, one of the Indonesian military units in Balibo when the journalists were killed. It has taken 32 years for there to be an inquest into the murder of the Balibo Five. Mark Tedeschi QC, counsel assisting the coroner, told the court that eyewitness accounts provided incontrovertible evidence that the men were not caught in crossfire when Indonesian troops attacked Balibo, but were deliberately killed by Indonesian soldiers after they tried to surrender.
Witnesses gave evidence that the Gough Whitlam government knew of the Balibo executions within hours of them being carried out. Below, Shirley Shackleton, the widow of Greg Shackleton, one of the five who was murdered, recounts some of the bloody struggle for self-determination.
Five hundred years ago after much fighting and against the wishes of the Indigenous people, the island of Timor was split between the Portuguese and the Dutch. Portuguese Timor was famed for prodigious quantities of sandalwood and, later, for coffee, copra and beeswax. When the sandalwood began to run out the Portuguese lost interest and a policy of benign neglect led to the so-called "protectorate" being used as a dumping ground for political dissidents.
At the outset of World War II, the Australian government sent troops to the "gateway to Australia" to halt the Japanese advance, thereby violating Portuguese Timor's neutral international status.
The local population protected Australian troops, and were equal in status and expertise to the commandoes. However the 2/2nd and 2/4th Independent Companies were badly equipped and cut off from Australian support. They were prematurely evacuated, leaving the Timorese to the mercy of the Japanese who forced them into hard labour. Thousands of women, including Chinese, were conscripted as prostitutes.
From a total population of 450,000, more than 80,000 were either massacred, died through reprisals for having aided the Australians, or from overwork, starvation and avoidable illnesses.
The Australian government leaflets dropped on Portuguese Timor at the time said: "We will never forget you". Prime Minister Robert Menzies then gave Western Timor, half the island, along with all Dutch territories including West Papua, to Indonesia.
Following the Carnation Revolution of April 25, 1974, in which two Portuguese dictators, Antsnio de Oliveira Salazar and Marcello Caetano, were ousted, its colonies grabbed the opportunity for self determination. On his arrival, Governor Lemos Pires described Portuguese Timor as a "veritable ocean of peace". The main parties were Fretilin, which supported self- determination; UDT (Timorese Democratic Union), which wanted Portugal to remain, and APODETI, a front for Indonesian influence.
Early in 1975, Indonesian troops, dressed as civilians, began a pre-invasion terror campaign with repeated hit-and-run attacks along the border between Indonesian-occupied Western Timor and Portuguese Timor.
Indonesian troops, posing as aid workers and merchants, infiltrated Portuguese Timor and carried out subversive operations. They were members of Operasi Komodo, a subversive arm of BAKIN (State Intelligence Coordinating Agency). In 1974, they coerced UDT and APODETI to stage a coup which was put down by Falintil (the military wing of Fretilin) in 11 days. Some 1500 people died. The coup was promptly called a civil war by Indonesian propagandists, Jakarta lobbyists and those who love headlines rather than facts. UDT and APODETI leaders were evacuated by Indonesian military helicopters while others fled into Western Timor. Pro-Jakarta apologists, such as former Labour PM Gough Whitlam, described these events as Fretilin hounding UDT and APODETI out of East Timor.
On October 16, 1975, five Australian reporters were killed in the village of Balibo. For 32 years the circumstances of this atrocity have been shrouded in mystery. At the time of writing, an inquest into the circumstances of the death of the five men is winding up. The dead men were New Zealander Gary Cunningham; a Scot, Malcolm Rennie; two Australians, Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart; and Englishman Brian Peters.
On November 28, 1975, Fretilin declared its Universal Declaration of Independence. Two days later, the Balibo Declaration was signed by stooges in Bali (with two letters added to make the bogus declaration appear to have been signed in Balibo). The declaration, an integral part of the Indonesian government's operation to create a justification to invade, was signed by four minor parties in East Timor, and not by Fretilin, the democratically elected de facto government.
Seven weeks after the Balibo murders, Indonesia invaded East Timor. Just as the Indonesian military had armed the traitorous UDT and APODETI forces, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and President Jimmy Carter armed Indonesia. In fact, they watched the airborne invasion force taking off for East Timor as their aircraft taxied out of Jakarta airport.
On December 7, 1975, Dili was attacked by paratroops and marines. The date was significant as it is also the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. Having got away with the Balibo killings, the Indonesian military felt free to murder a sixth Australian journalist, Roger East, who had bravely stayed to report the invasion. He was shot on December 8, 1975 while under Indonesian military arrest. His murderer has never been brought to justice.
For 24 years, the Timorese were left to resist the occupation by military arsonists, kleptomaniacs, rapists, torturers and killers.
The first leader of the Resistance army, Nicolau dos Reis Lobato, was killed in 1979. Until then, Kay Rala Xanana was one of many resistance fighters, in hiding from the repeated bombing raids, rising to prominence only because all other leaders had been killed.
A massacre in a churchyard among mourners, in Dili on November 12, 1991, re-alerted the world to the plight of the East Timorese people.
Following the downfall of former dictator General Suharto in 1998, the East Timorese were offered the right to vote in a UN- supervised referendum. Despite the threat by the Indonesian army and militia, a majority of Timorese turned out to vote. The resulting vengeance, including the burning of 96% of the country's buildings, and an unknown number of deaths, shocked the world, and PM John Howard was forced, by mass pressure, to send Australian troops to East Timor to supervise the exit of the murderous Indonesian army.
Sydney Morning Herald Editorial - June 1, 2007
The commander of an Indonesian special forces unit accused of murdering five Australia-based journalists in East Timor in 1975 has more lately styled himself as a champion of free speech. Mohammed Yunus Yosfiah was a captain when Indonesian forces overran Balibo in October 1975 and, according to evidence before an inquest into the deaths of the five men, was first to fire on at least three of the journalists as they tried to surrender.
Under the former Indonesian strongman Soeharto, Yosfiah rose to the rank of lieutenant-general, but as Soeharto's authoritarian regime crumbled in 1998 Yosfiah quickly re-invented himself as a political reformist. As the first post-Soeharto information minister it was Yosfiah who abolished decades of censorship, media licensing restrictions and harassment of the press in one fell swoop. This recent history is worth recalling in assessing the latest howls of protest from the Indonesian Government and a couple of hundred angry protesters in Jakarta. Democracy in Indonesia is now almost a decade old.
For Jakarta to profess such profound offence over the request for an Indonesian official to testify at the inquest during a recent visit to Sydney – and to continue to insist the Balibo case is closed – is an unfortunate flashback to the darker days of the Soeharto era. The proper legal process unfolding in Sydney is nothing more than the long overdue airing of a tragic truth. Whatever predictable diplomatic row now ensues, the core issue is this: respect for judicial processes and freedom of information in a democracy is not selective – no matter how unpalatable the truth or how prominent the officials involved.
Certainly, the evidence before the coronial inquest in Sydney tells a grim story. It wholeheartedly damns the Indonesian military and the Soeharto government, but it also does Australia's politicians and policy makers of the era no credit.
At the centre is Yosfiah, identifiable from evidence before the coroner as one of two individuals who the counsel assisting the coroner believes could be successfully prosecuted for war crimes under the Geneva Conventions – although as a mere captain at the time he was almost certain to have been acting on orders. Yosfiah has always denied any involvement, and the Indonesian government has consistently claimed the men died in crossfire – a position earlier Australian inquiries have endorsed despite intelligence reports to the contrary.
Yosfiah and a second man, Christoforus da Silva, are highly unlikely to ever face an Australian court, because this would require Jakarta's co-operation in extradition. This reality does not undermine the value of the inquest. As truth commissions in nations such as South Africa and El Salvador have shown, the mere process of airing the truth is immensely important for surviving family members and in establishing credible historical records.
In East Timor, where the 24-year Indonesian military occupation cost some 200,000 lives, only a handful of local Timorese have been jailed for their part in decades of terrible human rights abuses. And Dili has pragmatically chosen not to pursue senior Indonesian officials. Australia, however, has no such need to kowtow to a sensitive Jakarta over such a clear violation.
When Indonesia launched its full-scale invasion in December 1975, seven weeks after the Balibo raid, a plaintive cry was picked up by radio in Darwin: "They are trying to take over all Timor... Indonesians... SOS, please help us." But Australia was well aware of the illegal invasion plan and willing to turn a blind eye, over decades, to avoid offending the powerful Soeharto regime. It was also argued in 1975 that Australia had reasonably feared instability in the former Portuguese colony off its northern coastline and so preferred East Timor's incorporation into the Indonesian state. Realpolitik leads governments to make many difficult choices, but Australia's stance on East Timor arguably weighed the interests of the state too heavily against fundamental values of human rights and international law. The former prime minister Gough Whitlam referred to the five journalists as "foolhardy" and criticised them for not heeding warnings to leave East Timor. Journalists should not expect special privileges in a war zone but, like civilians, they must not be deliberately targeted. The revelation at the inquest that "nearly everybody in a position to know" in Canberra believed the five men had been deliberately killed – while the government peddled the crossfire line – discredits a succession of Australian officials. In retrospect, Australia's complicity in the occupation probably exacerbated bilateral tensions, rather than smoothed them, because of the endless protests it provoked in Australia.
After more than three decades, and much cynical obfuscation on both sides of the Timor Sea, a credible, if deeply disturbing, picture is finally emerging of how the Channel Seven reporter Greg Shackleton, 27, cameraman Gary Cunningham, 27, and sound recordist Tony Stewart, 21, and Nine cameraman Brian Peters, 29, and reporter Malcolm Rennie, 28, died. Whether the visiting Governor of Jakarta, Sutiyoso, who was a special forces officer at Balibo, should have been approached in his hotel this week is a side issue.
Indonesia is a democracy. Indonesia's press is free to criticise Australia, and it does so with vigour. Indonesian courts are free to prosecute Australians within their jurisdiction, and they do. Mr Sutiyoso is an aspiring presidential candidate who well understands the demands of democratic openness. He is perfectly entitled to feel "deeply humiliated".
However, if any apology is due it is only because the police may have let themselves into his hotel room using a master key. They should have knocked.
Sydney Morning Herald - June 1, 2007
Ben Saul – As the coronial inquest into the killing of five journalists at Balibo draws to a close, the critical question is: what happens next? Despite four Australian inquiries and a United Nations investigation in 2001, no one has been brought to justice for the killings in East Timor in 1975. Over the past 30 years, Indonesia has refused to co-operate in establishing the truth, no more spectacularly than this week, when the Governor of Jakarta fled Sydney after refusing a request to appear at the inquest.
For a long time, the political sensitivities of Australia's relations with Indonesia prevented Australia from doing its best for the victims, despite sustained pressure from their families. Those sensitivities have hardly abated, as Australia contemplates its response to an anti-Australian reaction by some Indonesians, while juggling anti-Indonesian sentiment at home, all of which may yet take time to play out.
Unlike previous inquiries, the coronial inquest had the advantage of judicial powers to compel witnesses, including Australian officials and even a former prime minister, Gough Whitlam. Its judicial nature has encouraged confidence in its independence, after previous inquiries were dogged by perceptions of political interference. This alone may give comfort to the victims' families, quite apart from where the inquest leads.
Deliberately killing unarmed civilians is the most fundamental violation of the law of war. As the counsel assisting the coroner, Mark Tedeschi, QC, argued this week, on the evidence unearthed at the inquest, the killing of five journalists at Balibo by Indonesian forces looks terribly like a war crime. The coroner, Dorelle Pinch, must now decide whether she agrees.
While the coroner can make findings about a person's cause of death, she has no power to lay charges. If the coroner identifies a suspect, she may refer the case to the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, who must then independently evaluate the evidence and decide whether to prosecute. Prosecutors are likely to give considerable weight to the findings of an inquest, particularly one conducted as thoroughly as this one.
In considering whether to lay charges, prosecutors could make use of little-used 1957 federal war crimes laws, which brought the 1949 Geneva Conventions into Australian law. While the 1957 legislation was replaced by new laws in 2002 on the International Criminal Court (which only operates prospectively), it remains the law in effect in 1975.
The law allows Australia to prosecute war crimes wherever they occur and regardless of the nationality of the perpetrator or the victim.
The Indonesian invasion of East Timor triggered an international armed conflict to which the Geneva Conventions applied, including the prohibition on killing civilians. There is no time limit on prosecuting war crimes, even those which occurred more than 30 years ago. The legal difficulty for Australia is obtaining custody of the suspects. If they visited Australia on holiday or business, there would be no problem. Of course, suspected war criminals are extremely unlikely to board a jet to Australia any time soon.
Otherwise, Australia could ask Indonesia to extradite the suspects under a 1995 extradition treaty. The treaty allows extradition even for crimes committed before the treaty was adopted, and regardless of what the relevant crime was called in each country. Australian law did not prohibit ordinary murder overseas in 1975, but it did prohibit the war crime of wilfully killing civilians, and murder was a crime in Indonesia at the time.
The extradition treaty allows Indonesia to refuse to extradite its nationals – which it almost certainly would do – but if it refuses then it must submit the case to its prosecutors. A further problem is that Indonesian criminal law imposes a 15-year limitation on prosecutions for murder.
Whether the Indonesian courts have the stomach for prosecuting former ministers or military personnel remains to be seen. Despite the growth of Indonesian democracy and judicial independence, the rule of law remains fragile and judges are vulnerable to political pressure.
The price of Indonesia's transition to democracy was an understanding that the military would be left alone. For this reason, it is preferable for suspects to be tried in Australia.
At the very least, an Australian extradition request would apply the force of law to Indonesia to finally do something: to extradite or to prosecute. The law offers the hope that the victims of war crimes will no longer be left to the vagaries of politics.
It may also cut through the uncomfortably cosy relationship between Indonesia and Australia, which abandoned both the Balibo journalists and the East Timorese people for so long.
Australia and Indonesia recently signed the Lombok security treaty, under which they agreed to co-operate on law enforcement. War crimes at Balibo may provide an early opportunity to test the willingness of both countries to cement their relationship, warts and all.
[Dr Ben Saul is the incoming director of the Sydney Centre for International and Global Law at the University of Sydney, and a barrister. He gave advice to the inquest.]
| East Timor media monitoring |
Dili Diocese is going against electoral law
In response to the letter from the Diocese of Dili regarding its support for the National Unity Party (PUN), the President of Democratic Party (PD), Fernando de Araujo Lasama, reportedly said that if it is true then the church is making a mistake. CNE Spokesperson Angelina Sarmento said that the CNE considers this a violation of the electoral law. She said that if a complaint is received by the CNE, it will be referred to the Interior Ministry for further investigation. (DN)
President and President of Parliament appeal to the nation
President Jose Ramos-Horta called on the Timorese people to cast their vote on the 30th of June to elect the new leaders of the National Parliament. The President of the National Parliament also appealed to the people to vote in a free and peaceful manner. (DN)
Borges: "PUN does not belong to the Church"
In response to the letter from the Diocese of Dili regarding the church's support for the National Unity Party (PUN), Fernanda Borges – PUN President – on Thursday (28/6) said that the PUN does not belong to the church and confirmed that the church is not involved in PUN activities. However, she welcomed the Church's support to improve the lives and future of the Timorese people. (DN)
Estanislau: Respect the results
Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva called on all citizens to respect the results of the 30 June Parliamentary Elections and said that the people should give the elected members the opportunity to run the government. (DN)
Finn: "Challenges ahead of Parliamentary Elections"
At the UNMIT press conference held on Thursday (28/6) in Dili, DSRSG Finn Reske-Nielsen said that due to the recent wet weather conditions some additional challenges have come up ahead of the parliamentary elections on 30 June. He also reminded that "the Elections are the responsibility of Timorese people. The UN is neutral and will provide security and logistical support." (DN)
CNE refers 17 cases to the Ministry of Interior
CNE Spokesperson Fr. Martinho Gusmco said that the CNE has received 27 complaints from the campaigning period. Out of these, 17 have been confirmed to be related to violent incidents and have been referred to the Ministry of Interior for further investigation. (DN and TP)
State wants Reinado to submit himself to justice
Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva informed that the state will not hold a dialogue with the former Commander of the Military Police, Major Alfredo Reinado Alves and his men, as this is the responsibility of the justice system. (TP)
Alfredo: "wining party must repair mistakes"
The former of Military Police Commander, Major Alfredo Reinado Alves, reportedly said that the wining party of the upcoming elections should repair the mistakes made by the ruling party Fretilin. (STL)
UNMIT provides helicopters
At a press conference held by CNE on Thursday (28/6) in Dili, CNE Spokesperson Fr. Martinho Gusmco said that UNMIT provided seven helicopters to assist in the distribution of electoral material. (STL)
The government supports F-FDTL's decision
The Commander of F-FDTL, Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak, reportedly said that the statement made by Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva strengthens the credibility of the F- FDTL. Da Silva had said that the 591 petitioners, who had abandoned the F-FDTL headquarters during last year's crisis, would no longer have the opportunity to return. (STL)
Church Discriminates: Dili Diocese "supports" political party
The Dili Diocese has called upon all Christians to support the National Unity Party (PUN) in the upcoming elections, although it has not forced the people to vote for them. A representative from an unidentified party said that the Church's decision to support and encourage voting for a particular political party shows discrimination on their part. (STL)
Transparency lost in Parliamentary elections
The Coordinator of the International Solidarity Observer Mission for East Timor (SOMET), Jill Sternberg, re-affirmed that the electoral process has lost its transparency when the decision was made to count the ballots at the district levels. Sternberg said that this decision prevents people living in rural areas to obtain information on the counting process and the results. (STL)
Reinado's status will be determined after dialogue
F-FDTL Commander Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak said that the status of the former Commander of the Military Police, Major Alfredo Reinado Alves, will be determined after the dialogue, which is currently being organized by the state. "Only after this dialogue, a decision will be made on whether Alfredo will remain a member of the military or not," said Ruak. (TP)
Alkatiri continues to challenge Xanana
The Secretary General of Fretilin, Mr. Mari Alkatiri, continued to challenge Xanana on the issue of corruption. During a Fretilin campaign in Dili on Wednesday (27/6), Mr. Alkatiri said that he has not received a response from Xanana regarding a debate. Xanana has accused Alkatiri of corruption during Alkatiri's term in the government. (TP)
STAE and UNMIT conduct voter education
STAE and UNMIT officials on Wednesday (27/6) conducted voter education at the National Hospital. The objective was to provide information to the patients on the voting criteria and to explain the voting procedures. (TP)
F-FDTL remained neutral during last year's crisis
At the official launch of the new F-FDTL uniforms on Tuesday (26/6) in Dili, Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva acknowledged the contributions made by the F-FDTL and lauded their neutrality during last year's crisis. Mr. da Silva said that the F-FDTL consistently maintains its professionalism and discipline while defending this country. (DN)
Government announced the KN report
The Timorese Government on Tuesday (26/6) announced the release of the report by the Notable Commission (KN) regarding the cases against the F-FDTL and the petitioners, who abandoned the F-FDTL HQ during last year's crisis. Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva said that there are 21 recommendations for the F-FDTL and 8 for the petitioners which need to be resolved. (DN)
F-FDTL and ISF case will be investigated
In response to reports that the International Stabilization Forces (ISF) and the F-FDTL exchanged fire near the Timor Telecom compound in Dili last Sunday (24/6), the F-FDTL Commander, Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak, reportedly said that an investigation is ongoing to clarify what occurred that evening. (DN) WFP and FAO report is frightening In response to the WFP and FAO reports regarding the food crisis in Timor-Leste, Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva said that such reports are frightening and do not represent the realities on the ground. "We have sufficient food stocks so such reports can be very alarming," said Mr. Aleixo. (DN AND TP)
Rerden: ISF has halted the operation
At the official launch of the new F-FDTL uniforms on Tuesday (26/6) in Dili, the Commander of the International Stabilization Forces (ISF), Brigadier Mal Rerden, said that the ISF has halted the operation to capture the former Commander of the Military Police, Alfredo Reinado Alves and his supporters. Mr. Rerden confirmed that the ISF has received the official documentation from President Jose Ramos-Horta to halt the operation. (DN)
Alkatiri is ready to have a debate with Xanana
The Secretary-General of ruling party Fretilin, Mari Alkatiri, confirmed that he is ready to have a debate with CNRT President Xanana Gusmco, who accused him of authoring last year's crisis. (DN)
F-FDTL are proud to have their own uniforms
With the official launch of the new F-FDTL uniforms on Tuesday (26/6) in Dili, the F-FDTL will no longer use the old uniforms from Portugal, China and Mozambique. After handing over his old uniform, the Commander of the F-FDTL, Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak, said that the F-FDTL is proud to wear their national uniform for the first time. President Jose Ramos-Horta said that the army should fight against extremism or terrorism, which could threaten the sovereignty of the country. (TP)
F-FDTL is ready to have open dialogue with Alfredo
At the official launch of the new F-FDTL uniforms on Tuesday (26/6) in Dili, F-FDTL Commander Brig. Gen. Taur Matan Ruak confirmed that the F-FDTL is ready to have an open dialogue with the former Commander of the Military Police, Alfredo Reinado, and his supporters. (TP)
STAE distributes sensitive materials to the districts
STAE Director Tomas Cabral on Tuesday (25/6) said that STAE has officially distributed the sensitive materials for the Parliamentary elections including 652,000 ballot papers to 720 polling stations across the country. The distribution is supported by UNDP, UNMIT and the Indonesian Embassy in Timor- Leste, which ensured that the materials were sent to STAE. (STL and TP)
Major Benitez: "ISF is not an enemy of F-FDTL"
While attending the launch of the F-FDTL uniforms on Tuesday (26/6) in Dili, the ISF Spokesperson, Maj. Ivan Benitez said that the ISF is not an enemy of the F-FDTL but rather a partner working to assure the security of Timor-Leste. Furthermore, he said that the ISF is here to help the Timorese Government and the UN to strengthen the security sector in order to maintain stability and peace in the country. (TP)
Estanislau: F-FDTL's door is closed to petitioners
Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva on Tuesday (26/6) informed that the 591 petitioners, who had abandoned the F-FDTL headquarters during last year's crisis, will no longer have the opportunity to return. He said that based on the report of the Komisaun Notaveis, it is the government's responsibility to ensure that the petitioners are able to sustain their lives. (STL)
Ramos Horta: No Xanana, no unity
While attending the CNRT campaign on Tuesday (26/6) in Dili, President Jose Ramos-Horta said that Xanana Gusmco unites the people and without him the country would not be united. (STL)
Alkatiri concerned over last year's crisis
When the crisis arose last year, conflicts and disturbances between the youth occurred across the country. The ruling party Fretilin headed by Mari Alkatiri had been accused to be the authors of the crisis. At the one year anniversary (26/6) since he stepped down as the country's Prime Minister, Mr. Alkatiri took the opportunity to say that he was concerned over the political and military crisis that is currently ongoing – even after his term - which brings sufferinng to the people of Timor- Leste. (STL)
Parliament disappointed over exchange of fire between ISF and F-FDTL
The Vice President of Committee B at the National Parliament, Clementino dos Reis Amaral, has expressed his disappointment over the accidental exchange of fire that took place between the ISF and F-FDTL on Sunday (24/6). "As a member of national parliament, I am disappointed by what took place between the ISF and the F- FDTL; this will only traumatize the population," said Mr. Reis. (STL)
F-FDTL and ISF exchange fire
The International Stabilization Forces (ISF) and F-FDTL exchanged fire near the Timor Telecom compound in Dili last Sunday (24/6) evening. There were no related injures reported. SRSG Atul Khare confirmed that the incident involved both the ISF and the FFDTL. "The shots heard on Sunday night were warning shots that came from ISF and F-FDTL weapons," said Mr. Khare at an UNMIT press conference on Monday (25/6). (STL)
Timor-Leste will face food crisis
The World Food Programme (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported that East Timor is on the brink of a major food crisis. They said that urgent action must be taken to avert a potentially disastrous situation. WFP Director in Timor- Leste, Tarek Alguidi, said on Monday (25/6) that these people will face a food crisis at a particularly difficult time. The next six months (October 2007 and March 2008), also known as "lean season" is the period just before the next harvest. "Apart from the 15,000 tons of humanitarian aid, the country will have to import some 70,000 tons commercially and some 16,000 tons will have to be taken from strategic food reserves," said Simon Pluess, WFP Spokesperson. "What we also have to know is that the poorest people live mostly in rural and more remote districts." This report on East Timor's food crisis is based on a joint assessment carried out last March and April by WFP and FAO. (TP)
SRSG: "UNMIT respects decision to stop the operation on Reinado"
At an UNMIT press briefing on Monday (25/6) SRSG Atul Khare stated that UNMIT respects the state's decision to stop the operation to capture the former Military Police Commander, Alfredo Reinado Alves and his followers. According to Mr. Khare the state also emphasized the importance of justice in this democratic country. The SRSG said that justice is a precondition for reconciliation. (TP)
Ballot papers were distributed today
STAE Director Tomas Cabral on Monday (25/6) said that the distribution of sensitive materials for the Parliamentary elections would begin today (26/6). Mr. Cabral mentioned that the 652,000 ballot papers will be distributed to 720 polling stations across the country. (TP)
Electoral Violence
The First Report on Electoral Violence issued by the EVER Program, covering the period 28 May-12 June 2007, reported a total of 34 elections-related incidents of violence. These were verified by the Election Violence Education and Resolution (EVER) monitors. Over half of the 34 reported incidents took place during the first week following the start of the campaigning period and the signing of the Code of Conduct. The highest numbers of election-related incidents were reported in Baucau. Between 4 and 5 incidents were reported in Oecusse, Ermera, Viqueque and Bobonaro. The incidents took place in 9 of the 13 districts. Another report will be released today (26/6) at a press conference in Hotel Timor, Dili. (TP)
Counting votes in districts is not a transparent process
After meeting with President Jose Ramos-Horta on Tuesday (25/6), SOMET Coordinator, Jill Sterberg, said that the process of counting votes at the district level will loose its transparency. (DN) Police will not tolerate the sale or consumption of alcohol near polling stations At an UNMIT press briefing held on Monday (25/6), SRSG Atul Khare informed that the police will not tolerate the sale or consumption of alcohol in or near the polling stations on Election Day. "I also want to say that the prisoners and patients in the hospitals should have the opportunity to participate in the elections; they have the right to cast their votes on 30 June," said Mr. Khare. (DN)
Xanana: "Fretilin does not deserve to run the government"
While campaigning in Oecusse last Friday (22/6), the President of the National Congress for the Reconstruction of Timor Leste (CNRT), Xanana Gusmco, told supporters that the ruling party Fretilin should not run the new government as it has not done anything for the country in the past five years. (STL)
PDHJ receives complaints of poor administration
The President of the Human Rights and Justice Provedor (PDHJ), Sebastico Dias Ximenes, said that many cases of poor administration have been presented by the population. (STL)
Bribery is bad for democracy
East Timor Socialist Party (PST) representative Pedro da Costa said that some political parties have been giving money to the population during their campaigns. He explained that such activities are bad for democracy in the country. (STL)
Ballot papers arrive in Dili
652,000 ballot papers arrived in Dili on Saturday (23/6) from their printing location in Surabaya, Indonesia. The material arrived on a chartered flight arranged by the Timorese government with the support of UNDP and was received by STAE Director Tomas Cabral, CNE President Faustino Cardoso Gomes and other representatives from the diplomatic corps in Timor-Leste. (STL)
Fugitive Alfredo needs HAK's involvement in the dialogue
Reinado's lawyer, Mr. Benevides Barros, told a Timor Post journalist on Sunday (24/6) that Alfredo already sent a letter to the Bishops of Dili and Baucau Diocese regarding the instructions to stop the search operation. In addition, he said that Alfredo also asked the HAK to be involved in the dialogue. He said that the United Nations could also act as a facilitator by providing technical, administrative and financial assistance. (STL)
Estanislau: "There will be no dialogue with criminals"
The representative of the Central Committee of the Ruling Party Fretilin (CCF), Estanislau Aleixo da Silva, said that if Fretilin wins the upcoming parliamentary elections, they will not allow any dialogue with criminals. He said that Fretilin wants to re- establish the integrity of the rule of law and perpetrators of such crimes must be imprisoned. (TP)
Ramos Horta: Never close the door to dialogue
The president of republic, Jose Ramos Horta told journalists on Wednesday (20/6) in sub-district Cristo Rei, Dili, that that the operation to capture Reinado was halted so dialogue could be held. "The door of dialogue has been opened, so I should not be forced to close it. As the president of republic, I am never frightened to solve problems, however people should also pay respect to the state," said Horta. (TP)
CNRT: Media should be more responsible about shadow government
At a press conference held by the National Congress Reconstruction of Timor Leste (CRTL) on Thursday (21/6) in Bairo Central, Dili, the Secretary General of CNRT, Deonisio Babo Soares, criticised journalists responsible for publishing CNRT's Shadow Government proposal. Mr. Babo revealed that the publication of this proposal has had a major impact upon CNRT and has been divisive across the country. He added that CNRT has presented a complaint to the media, which it has not published. (TP)
PNTL guarantees the election
When attending the swearing in of judges, prosecutors and public lawyers on Thursday (21/6) in the Court of Appeal Caicoli, Dili, the Commander-Designate of PNTL, Afonso de Jesus, affirmed that PNTL will make major effort to guarantee that the parliamentary elections on 30 June are successful and conducted in a peaceful atmosphere. In response to the statement made by President Horta about people's uneasiness with the PNTL, Mr Afonso said that problems always rise in connection with elections, even in other countries. He added that the weapons of PNTL officers in Viqueque district will be handed back after the ballistic testing. (TP)
Parties asked to give a financial report of their campaign
The Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, Mr. Estanislau da Silva said that political parties should report on their campaign finances, because the government subsidy is only aimed at facilitating political rallies. Speaking journalists on Thursday (21/6) in Dili Port, the Prime Minister also said that the government will see whether all the US$30,000 has been used for campaigning or not. "If we are talking about transparency, the best way to achieve this is for political parties to hand in financial reports to the Government" Mr. Julio Thomas Pinto, the national observer of the military and politics, also said that the subsidy given to political parties is not being used properly. (DN)
Benevides: "I will find out Alfredo's opinion"
The Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, Mr. Estanislau da Silva said that the dialogue between government and Reinado is a beneficial step for Timor-Leste, and that Alfredo could face justice. Separately, Mr. Benevides Barros, the lawyer of Alfredo said that he will not be commenting on the decision to halt the operation on Alfredo and his groups before talking to Alfredo. Speaking to a journalist, the political and military observer, Mr. Julio Thomas Pinto, said that before having dialogue, there should be clear platform and agreement between the state and Alfredo to avoid confusion. (DN)
ISF is ready to halt the operation on Alfredo
The spokesperson of International Stabilization Forces (ISF) in Timor-Leste, Squadron Leader Ivan Benitez-Aguirre said that ISF is ready to halt the operation to find Alfredo Reinado and his group. Speaking to a journalist on Thursday (21/6) in his office, Mr. Benitez said that the mission of the ISF in Timor-Leste is to follow the directions given by the state of Timor-Leste. "Our mandate is to give assistance to Timor-Leste and to help create the conditions under which the leaders of the nation can fulfill their roles." (DN)
Alcino Barris: "Police need everyone's collaboration"
Speaking to a journalist on Thursday (21/6), the Minister of Interior, Alcino Barris said that guaranteeing security for the upcoming election is not only the responsibility of the police, but needs the collaboration of every citizen in the country. "The police provide a service, but every one should be of the mindset that for the country to be better, everyone has to avoid violence and control him/herself..." said Mr. Barris.
AGO to clarify stipulations made in letter to Alfredo Reinado
The Military, Security, and Political Observer, Julio Tomas Pinto, said that President Horta's order to stop the ISF-led operation to capture former Military Police Commander, Alfredo Reinado Alves and his men, should be seen as a platform to determine whether a solution should be taken through dialogue or the justice system. Furthermore, Mr. Pinto said that the Attorney-General should explain the stipulations made in the letter to Reinado. (TP)
AGO and Alfredo's lawyer will meet with Bishop Alberto
Attorney-General Longuinhos Monteiro and Alfredo's lawyer Benevides Correia Barros will meet Mgr. Alberto Ricardo da Silva to discuss a peaceful solution to the Alfredo Reinado case. "This will be the first step taken towards solving this case," said Mr. Longuinhos on Wednesday (20/6) at his office in Dili. (TP)
Prime Minister concerned over Xanana's remarks
In response to CNRT President Xanana Gusmao's remarks that government funding for the communities would foster corruption, Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva called upon the political parties to avoid making such inflammatory remarks. "Xanana's comments contradict the government's plans which was approved by the Parliament," said Mr. da Silva on Wednesday (20/6) in Dili. (TP and DN)
Fretilin supports Horta's position
The ruling party Fretilin has supported President Jose Ramos- Horta's position that an amnesty should not be granted for serious crimes against humanity as it would not be consistent with the international law.
"In-depth investigations into the criminal actions must be conducted in order to build respect for human rights and the laws," said Aniceto Guterres in a press letter. (TP) Valentim: "Investigation into corruption cases will take time"
In response to the concerns raised at the PDHJ workshop on Tuesday (19/6), Valentim Ximenes said that investigations into corruption cases will take time and would require sufficient resources and education in order for them to be properly conducted. (TP)
The winning party should unite the people
During the campaign of the East Timor Nationalist Party (PNT) on Wednesday (19/6), President Jose Ramos-Horta has asked the winning parties of the upcoming parliamentary elections to unite with the different political parties.
Longuinhos calls on Alfredo not to bring the weapons to dialogue
Attorney-General Longuinhos Monteiro called on the former Military Police Commander, Alfredo Reinado, not to bring the weapons to the dialogue. "The meeting with Alfredo must be free of any threats or intimidation," said Mr. Monteiro on Wednesday (20/6) at his office in Dili. (STL)
Church will not take part in the dialogue with Alfredo
The Bishop of Dili, Mgr. Alberto Ricardo da Silva, told journalists on Wednesday (20/6) that the church would not mediate the dialogue between the government and Reinado. (STL)
Kudalai's family asked UNPol to investigate the case
The family of the victim of the fatal shooting that took place in Viqueque on Sunday (3/6), called on UNPol to do an in-depth investigation and identify the perpetrator. (STL)
Halting the operation on Alfredo is the positive step
In response to the state's decision to call off the military operation against fugitive Alfredo Reinado and his men, the Director of HAK Association, Jose Luis Oliveira, said that the decision is a positive step for the future of the nation. CNE held a meeting with political parties CNE held a meeting with all political parties yesterday (20/6) to discuss the campaign schedule. "The objective of the meeting was to avoid any overlap in the parties' schedules," said the CNE Spokesperson, Fr. Martinho Gusmao. (DN)
East Timor's President halts search for fugitives
East Timor's new President on Tuesday called off the Australian- led search for fugitive ex-Military Police Commander, Major Alfredo Reinado Alves and his followers, who are wanted for a series of fatal shootings that took place last year.
"I have heard all parties, including the United Nations, and today I decided that the police and military operation to capture Alfredo Reinado and his men should stop," Ramos-Horta told reporters on Tuesday (19/6) in Dili. (STL, TP, DN and TVTL)
Fr. Martinho: the F-FDTL and petitioners case should be resolved fairly
In response to accusations made by the petitioners' Spokesperson, Gastao Salsinha, regarding the Notaveis Commission report, the Director of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Baucau Diocese, Fr. Martinho da Silva Gusmao, said that the state should resolve the case of F-FDTL and petitioners fairly. According to Fr. Gusmao, this would not be the final solution but a step forward towards dialogue and justice. (TP)
Australian Forces have not been reduced
In response to international media reports that Australian forces in Timor-Leste would be reduced after the parliamentary elections on 30 June, the Commander of the International Stabilization Forces (ISF), Brigadier Mal Rerden, at the UNMIT press briefing on Tuesday (19/6) informed that no decision on this matter has been made. (TP)
Barris: "police should be neutral during campaigning"
During a visit to the PNTL in Aileu district on Monday (18/6), Interior Minister Alcino Barris said that the police should be impartial during the campaigning period and should maintain law and order so that the people could exercise their rights freely. (DN)
Clemency law only benefits some groups
Socialist Party (PST) representative, Pedro da Costa, on Monday (18/6) said that he disagreed with the clemency law approved by the Parliament as it only benefits some groups. (DN)
Government must build police stations in villages
The coordinator for the refugees from Ermera district, Julio do Rosario Lemos, called on the new government to build permanent police stations in the villages (Sucos) in order to guarantee the security of the people, especially those living in rural areas. The IDPS currently live in the Jardim Barbosa da Costa Farol IDP camp in Dili. (DN)
Sebastiao: "corruption should be eliminated from the ministries"l
At a workshop held by the Human Rights and Justice Provedor (PDHJ) on Monday (18/6) in Dili, Sebastiao Dias Ximenes stated that the objective of the workshop was to find ways to combat corruption in all ministries across the country. He mentioned that the PDHJ has received 20 corruption cases and investigations are currently ongoing. (DN)
Greater Logistical Challenges Ahead of Parliamentary Elections
The UN Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) says the parliamentary elections scheduled for June 30 will be logistically more challenging as a total of 14 political parties and coalitions present candidates for election. Reiterating UNMIT's support for the national authorities charged with running the elections, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Finn Reske-Nielsen, said "UNMIT continues to work with the national authorities to ensure that the upcoming election is free, fair and transparent."
For this election, the number of ballot boxes and seals will increase to three or four boxes per polling station instead of two. Other challenges include the increased numbers of electoral material, polling stations and polling staff.
"Preparations for the parliamentary elections are not an easy task and I commend all those involved in the operation – both from UNMIT and the national auuthorities – for their efforts in ensuring that the upccoming elections will proceed smoothly," said the DSRSG.
As previously done during the run-off presidential elections last May, the number of ballot papers produced will be 20% extra of the total number of registered voters. A total of 652,000 ballot papers will be distributed throughout the country in pads of 50s. At the district level, a reserve will be kept to deal with contingencies.
The distribution of non-sensitive material (including ballot boxes and voting screens) across Timor-Leste's 13 districts started last week with UNMIT providing logistical support. The sensitive material (including ballots and stamps) will be transported from Dili to the district capitals from 26 June and from the district capitals to the 708 polling stations and 520 polling centers by helicopters, vehicles and horses with porters on 29 June.
At the end of polling, the electoral material will be retrieved from the polling centers and moved to the District Counting Centers, where counting will take place, as per the provisions of revised electoral law. The reception and reconciliation of the electoral material will begin on the evening of 30 June and counting will start immediately after. The counting centers will operate from 7am to 10pm until the District Counting Centers complete the process.
This time around counting is expected to take longer than 48 hours. Once this is finalized, all sensitive materials will be returned to the CNE's National Tabulation Center.
UNMIT is mandated through Security Council Resolution 1704 to "support Timor-Leste in all aspects of the 2007 presidential and parliamentary electoral process, including through technical and logistical support, electoral policy advice and verification or other means." (TP)
Bishop of Baucau: "Alfredo's status must be defined by the law"
In response to Alfredo's case, the Bishop of Baucau, Mgr. Basilio do Nascimento, said that even if Alfredo were a national hero, his case must still be investigated. (TP and DN)
Chief of Australian Forces visits Timor-Leste
The Chief of the Australian Forces, Lieutenant General Peter Leahy, visited Timor-Leste on Sunday (17/6) to meet with the Australian forces serving in Dili and provide moral support. This is Lt. Gen. Leahy's second visit to Timor-Leste since the Australian forces arrived in the country last year. "Australia is proud of the professionalism which you have shown in all your actions," said Mr. Leahy. (TP)
Xanana and Horta extend their condolences to former Governor
Former President Xanana Gusmao and President Jose Ramos-Horta extended their condolences to Abilio Soares, the last Indonesian Governor of East Timor before its independence in 1999, who died last Sunday at the age of 60 after suffering from cancer. (TP and DN)
PDHJ received 23 cases of violence
At a press conference held by DN on Monday (18/6), Silveiro Pinto Baptista from the Human Rights and Justice Provedor (PDHJ) informed that PDHJ received 23 cases of human rights abuses committed by the ISF, UNPol, PNTL and F-FDTL. (DN)
East Timor's Prime Minister will resume his role tomorrow
Prime Minister Estanislau da Silva will resume his role as Prime Minister tomorrow after temporarily suspending it to participate in the political campaigns in the districts. (DN)
UNMIT supports CNE
CNE President Faustino Cardoso Gomes said that the CNE has obtained technical and logistical support from UNMIT to facilitate arrangements for the parliamentary elections on 30 June. Mr. Cardoso also mentioned that the CNE has received a total of US$175,158.00 from the Government. (STL and TP)
Horta asks CNE to be impartial and independent
President Jose Ramos-Horta called on the CNE to maintain its independence and impartiality during the legislative elections. "CNE's impartiality is very important for the people and the development of democracy in the country," said Mr. Horta at a workshop held by the CNE on Friday (15/6) in Dili. (STL)
LABEH: PDHJ should investigate the corruption case
The Director of Lalenok ba Ema Hotu (LABEH), Christopher Henry Samson, said that Human Rights and Justice Provedor (PDHJ) should investigate the alleged corruption case in Xanana Gusmao's cabinet during his term as President. (TP)
Horta meets Alfredo's men and petitioners
President Jose Ramos-Horta met with Alfredo's men and the petitioners on Saturday (16/6) in Fatuberliu, Manufahi. The objective of the meeting was to find ways to resolve the problems of the petitioners and PNTL members who fled Dili during last year's crisis. (TP)
Fugitives are ready for dialogue
The former Commander of the military police, Maj. Alfredo and the petitioners' spokesperson, Gastao Salsinha, reportedly declared that they would both be ready to come down to Dili and negotiate on behalf of their supporters. (TP)
Fretilin rejects Australian criticisms
At a press conference held on Sunday (17/6), Fretilin said the Australian government's criticism of a plan to develop Timor's defence force amounted to political interference during the run- up to the parliamentary elections scheduled at the end of the month. Fretilin rejected these criticisms as they violate Timorese sovereignty. (DN and STL)
SRSG: "PNTL should be the professional"
SRSG Atul Khare stated on Thursday (14/6) at the UNMIT Headquarters in Dili that UNMIT wants to establish a professional and responsible police force. "We want the PNTL to be a force that is effective, efficient, responsive, accountable and non- partisan. There are about 898 police officers who are now back on duty in Dili," said the SRSG. (DN)
Jose: "Dialogue with Alfredo should not be delayed"
The Executive Director of the HAK Association, Jose Luis Oliveira, said that the Government should initiate the dialogue with Alfredo Reinado Alves and his men in order to solve the problem promptly. (STL)
Government will not buy missiles
Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva reportedly denied reports in the international media that the Government of Timor- Leste is buying missiles and jets for the Timorese Armed Forces. "It is impossible for Timor-Leste to buy missiles and jets. Timor-Leste is a tiny nation and does not need these," Mr. da Silva said after meeting with President Jose Ramos-Horta on Thursday (14/6). (STL)
Estanislau: avoid insults during campaigning
Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva called on all political parties not to insult each other during the campaigning period and to avoid creating political tensions in the country. (STL)
Fugitive Alfredo is ready to surrender the weapons
Former military police commander, Alfredo Reinado Alves, is prepared to surrender the weapons and submit himself to the justice system once the state decides to have a dialogue. "Alfredo has been ready to cooperate since the letter from the state was sent announcing to halt the operation and requesting a dialogue," said Alfredo's lawyer, Mr. Benevides Correia Barros, after meeting with President Jose Ramos-Horta on Thursday (14/6) in Dili. (STL)
Atul Khare: Media should avoid politicizing cases
At a press conference held by UNMIT on Thursday (14/6) SRSG Atul Khare encouraged the media not to politicize cases when reporting on incidents that occur throughout the country. In response to the incident that took place in Manufahi, the SRSG said that UNPol will track down the suspect through the normal process of investigation. (TP)
2020 Plan is ambitious
Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva reassured that the government's new military plan would not be a threat to other countries. Military and Political Observer Julio Tomas Pinto said that this plan is somewhat ambitious. (TP)
US$28 Thousand lost during Xanana's term
Secretary-General of Fretilin, Mari Alkatiri, revealed on Thursday (14/6) that US$28 thousand was lost during Xanana's term as President of the Republic. Mr. Alkatiri said that he is ready to talk about the corruption issue with Xanana on TV, radio or through the newspapers in order to clearly explain the problem to the Timorese people. (TP)
Atul Khare: "Avoid consuming alcohol near the polling centres"
At a press conference held by UNMIT on Thursday (14/6) the SRSG, Atul Khare, stated that alcohol consumption on election day will not be allowed within or near the polling centers. (DN) Ballistics machine to arrive from Australia
At a press conference held by UNMIT on Thursday (14/6), SRSG Atul Khare informed that the Australian Federal Police will send a ballistics machine in order to identify the bullet recovered from the Viqueque incident that occurred last week. Mr. Khare added that Luis da Silva has been imprisoned while awaiting trial. (DN)
UNPol's action needed to stop violence in Ermera
Fretilin representative Francisco Soares has condemned the recent violence targeting Fretilin supporters in Ermera district during the past few days. He called on UNPol to take immediate action to stop the violence and intimidation in the district. (DN)
UNMIT Representative visits Baucau
In response to the concerns raised by district authorities and political parties regarding the legislative election on 30 June, a representative from UNMIT, Wolfgang Weisbrod-Weber, visited Baucau and met with the District Administrator and political party representatives.
At a press conference held on Tuesday (12/6) in Baucau, Mr. Wolfgang said that discussions focused on issues such as logistics, elections and security. He added that security surrounding the movement of ballot boxes to the District Counting Centers and the lack of transportation for political parties were amongst the main concerns brought up during the meetings. (TP)
UNPOL will set up seven police stations in Dili
The UNPol Police Commissioner Rodolfo Tor informed journalists that UNPol will set up seven police stations in Dili to strengthen the security force currently in place. Mr. Rodolfo added that the seven police stations will be located in Biro Pite, Kampung Liberdade (Comoro), Fatuhada, Ailook Laran, Tuana Laran and Fatumeta. (TP)
Court has the authority to capture perpetrators involved in last year's crisis
In response to the recent demands made by the former commander of the military police, Alfredo Reinado, to capture the perpetrators of last year's crisis, Feliciano Fatima Alves from the Commission responsible for security said that the court has the authority to capture them after a warrant has been issued. "Only the court has the authority to issue this warrant," said Mr. Alves on Wednesday (13/6) at the national parliament. (STL)
PDHJ gets evidence of violence
After monitoring the 13 districts across the country, the Human Rights and Justice Prosecutor (PDHJ) said that it has evidence that political parties in the districts are violating the code of conduct. (STL and TP)
Sinco-Sinco object to the accusations
The Sinco-Sinco group headed by Antonio dos Santos and Lebo denied and objected to the accusations made regarding their involvement in terrorizing and intimidating the population in Ermera district over the last three weeks. "These are false accusations and there have not been any confirmations made by the victims," dos Santos said on Wednesday (13/6) at the national parliament. (STL)
Inconsistency in the laws regarding gambling
In response to the issue of illegal gambling in Dili, the lawyer of the Game Zone Company, Natercia B. de Deus, said that the case involving Game Zone is very complicated and different from the other cases. She added that the cases demonstrate the inconsistencies in the laws of Timor-Leste. (STL)
UNMIT and UNDP responsible for ballot papers
Three members from the CNE and four members from STAE went to Surabaya, Indonesia yesterday (13/6) to supervise the printing of the ballot papers for the parliamentary elections. The team was accompanied by STAE Director Thomas Cabral. UNDP and UNMIT suggested that the ballot papers be printed in Surabaya because it would be cheaper than printing them in Timor-Leste. Mr. Cabral said that they (UNDP and UNMIT) must therefore take responsibility of any problems that arise. (TP)
Australian security analyst worried about F-FDTL improvement
An Australian defense and security analyst expressed concerns over the government's plans to develop the F-FDTL. "East Timor is in danger of building a military that it cannot afford and far bigger than it needs," Prof. Hugh White from the Australian National University told the ABC. He added that the proposal to expand the Timor-Leste defense force raised concerns in Australia. "It would not be enough to defend itself from neighboring countries, but much bigger than necessary to defend itself from illegal fishermen or other security threats that it may face," said White. (TP)
Alfredo calls on Ramos Horta not to blame the police
Former military police, Maj. Alfredo Reinado Alves, called on President Jose Ramos-Horta not to condemn the PNTL for the incidents that took place in Viqueque last week. Reinado said that as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Horta should encourage the PNTL to investigate the case. "I was unhappy when I heard that the President condemned his forces," said Mr. Reinado. (TP)
Gambling is not allowed by the government
The Government of East Timor has never issued licenses for private businesses to operate casinos in the country. The issue of illegal gambling was raised after some companies misused their business licenses for gambling purposes.
"Some businesses misused their licenses to operate illegal gambling activities. These businesses should respect the country's laws," said the Chief of the Business Registration Department at the Ministry of Development, Domingas da Costa Guterres, on Tuesday (12/6) in Dili. (STL and TP)
51 Australian Police are awarded with UN peacekeeping medals
The United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor Leste (UNMIT) headed by Atul Khare awarded 51 members of the Australian UNPol contingent with UN peacekeeping medals. The SRSG and UNPol Commissioner Tor presided over the ceremony held at the Hotel Timor in Dili on 12 June. (STL)
Claudio Ximenes reappointed to Head Court of Appeals
President Jose Ramos-Horta officially swore in Claudio de Jesus Ximenes as President of the Court of Appeals for the period 2007-2012. Ximenes said that during the next term he will look into the human rights programme which started in 2004. (STL, TP and TVTL)
Horta: "Alfredo confuses me"
President Jose Ramos-Horta said that the recent demands made by the former Military Police Commander, Alfredo Reinado, and the petitioner's Spokesperson, Gastao Salsinha, for the state to hold a dialogue with him soon have confused him and the two Bishops.
Horta said that a dialogue would require collaboration between Alfredo's group and the state. "The state wants to organize a meeting but now Alfredo and his men want to do something else," said Mr. Horta on Tuesday (12/6) in Dili. (TP)
Illegal Gambling, SRSG, Atul Khare congratulated the Police
Last Saturday afternoon, Timorese police officers led a successful operation to quash illegal gambling rings in Dili, with the support of United Nations police and the International Stabilisation Force (ISF).
The operation began at 1745hrs, with police and ISF cordoning off several roads in Dili and raiding three illegal gambling venues in central Dili.
Each gambling hall was found to have more than 50 gambling machines. In total, police seized 259 machines and US$20,000 in cash. Ninety people were arrested for identification, and a further four were detained and are facing charges. Police also seized a pen gun, 9mm ammunition and a glock magazine from one owner's residence.
Atul Khare, the head of the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT), congratulated the police for their work over the past couple of weeks:
"The success of this operation demonstrates the excellent cooperation between UNPol and the PNTL, supported by the ISF. To arrest 94 people so soon after apprehending the person responsible for the killing in Viqueque last week demonstrates the growing strength of the security sector of Timor-Leste. These sorts of operations will continue."
PNTL took the lead for planning Operation 'Elliot Ness', which began over two months ago. It involved 20 PNTL officers and 24 UNPol Officers.
Four platoons of ISF were also present to provide a security cordon and logistics support.
Julio: "Screening necessary for police at district levels"
Further to the fatal shooting that took place in Viqueque last week, Military and Political Observer Julio Tomas Pinto said on Friday (8/6) in Dili that the PNTL screening should not only be for those involved in the incident but should also be done for those involved in political parties, particularly at the district level. (TP)
Horta: Fretilin provides major contribution to the country
While attending Fretilin's campaign on Monday (11/6) in Dili, President Jose Ramos-Horta told Fretilin supporters that Fretilin has made great contributions to the country. "Fretilin's history is very long. It has made many sacrifices for the country and this fact cannot be denied by anyone," said Mr. Horta. He also added that as the President of Republic, he will remain impartial. (TP and DN)
Mausiri: "Horta visits political party"
Democratic Party (PD) representative Juliao Mausiri reportedly said that President Jose Ramos-Horta's visit to the ASDT-PSD coalition was informal. Mr. Mausiri revealed that Horta's comment was impartial to all political parties. (DN)
Fretilin's "Movement group" encourages voting for new party
Fretilin's "movement group" led by Pedro da Costa and George Teme, reportedly appealed to all their supporters to vote for CNRT, a new party led by former President Kayrala Xanana Gusmao. "Voting for the CNRT would be the same as voting for Fretilin." (STL)
Horta's statement could raise instability
Christian Democratic Party (PDC) member, Antonio Ximenes, said that the statement made by President Jose Ramos-Horta on the involvement of some PNTL members in the incidents that took place in Viqueque could raise instability in the country. "During our campaign in Viqueque, we gathered information from PNTL members that the people had lost their confidence in the PNTL," said Mr. Ximenes on Saturday (9/6). He added that President Horta should withdraw the comments he made at the PNTL academy in Dili last Thursday (7/6), as such statements could create instability in the country. Last Thursday, President Horta said that he had lost confidence in the PNTL. (STL)
Fretilin should be responsible for Viqueque incidents
The Democratic Party (PD) representative, Juliao Mausiri, called on Fretilin to take responsibility for the fatal shooting that took place in Viqueque last week (3/6). Mr. Mausiri said that Fretilin supporters in the area disrupted the activities of the other political parties. (STL)
Urahou case: PD has not received letter from CNE
In response to the rumors that Democratic Party (PD) members were involved in burning houses in Urahou Lisapat, Ermera district last 30 May, PD Spokesperson Rui Menezes said on Friday (8/6) at the National Parliament that PD has not received any letter from the CNE in reference to the case. Mr. Rui also said that the party objected to such violence, as well as other information stating that PD has split up. (STL)
Tribunal to imprison the man responsible for Viqueque's shooting
The Dili District Court during the first interrogation on Friday (8/6) decided that the suspect of the fatal shooting in Viqueque and PNTL member, Luis da Silva Guterres, should be imprisoned while the investigations on the case proceed. (STL)
President asks UNPol to improve PNTL
Following the fatal incident that took place in Viqueque last week (3/6), President Jose Ramos- Horta called on the UNPol Commissioner to make an extra effort to improve the PNTL. "I have given the UNPol Commissioner two-three days to reflect on ways to improve the PNTL," said Mr. Horta after meeting with the members of the political parties, the SRSG, DSRSG Rieske Nielsen and the UNPol Commissioner on Thursday (6/6) at the UNMIT Headquarters, Dili. (STL)
The suspect gives reason behind fatal shooting in Viqueque
At the first judicial interrogation at the Dili District Court on Friday (8/6), the suspect of the fatal shooting that took place in Viqueque, Luis da Silva Guterres, declared that he shot the victim after Kudalai (the victim) hit him. (TP)
Fugitives Alfredo and Salsinha call for dialogue
The former commander of military police, Major Alfredo Reinado and the petitioners' Spokesperson, Gastao Salsinha, called on the Government to organize a meeting soon. "We are very patient, however, if this meeting continues to be postponed, we will end the opportunity for dialogue," said Reinado and Salsinha on Tuesday (10/6) at the border of Suai, Covalima. (TP)
Political parties asked to avoid speculating on Viqueque case
While attending the swearing-in ceremony of the Vice Minister of Health on Friday (8/6) at the Palacio da Cinzas in Dili, Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva called on all political parties and the Timorese people not to speculate on the Viqueque incident, which led to the death of CNRT member, Afonso Kudalai. (DN)
Man wanted for fatal shooting in Viqueque submits himself
The suspect of the fatal shooting that took place in Viqueque last Sunday (3/6), Luis da Silva, has submitted himself to the PNTL in Viqueque on Thursday (6/6).
The Commander-Designate of PNTL, Afonso de Jesus, speaking to a journalist via mobile phone in Viqueque said that the suspect had been seriously wounded in the mouth during the incident. (STL)
President loses confidence in PNTL
President Jose Ramos-Horta reportedly declared that he has lost his confidence in the PNTL for not fulfilling its role in ensuring law and order in the country.
Mr. Horta revealed that he lost his confidence in the PNTL members who were involved in the crisis. Mr. Horta also pledged that the PNTL will undertake a serious screening process in June. (STL)
Fretilin's supporters suspected to be involved in disturbances
At a press conference held by the CNE on Thursday (7/6) in Dili, the CNE Spokesperson, Maria Angelina Sarmento, stated that the National Congress for the Reconstruction of East Timor (CNRT) suspected that the supporters of ruling party Fretilin caused disturbances and killed CNRT supporters, as witnessed on Sunday in Viqueque. She added that the CNE has presented such evidence to the CNRT. PDHJ also requested the CNE to investigate the issue of utilizing state property during the electoral campaign. (STL)
Alcino-Afonso deflecting involvement in Viqueque case
In response to the accusation published by the media on Wednesday (6/6) that Interior Minister Alcino Barris and PNTL Commander Alfonso de Jesus were involved in the Viqueque incident last Sunday (3/6), Mr. Alcino and Mr. Alfonso declared that they objected to such accusations. (STL)
PNTL should change its attitude to restore the people's confidence
President Jose Ramos-Horta stated that the PNTL should change its attitude in order to restore the confidence of the people of Timor Leste, which he claims was ruined during last year's crisis. "There is no tolerance for the police. Next month it will be reformed," stated Mr. Horta in a speech last Thursday (6/8) at the PNTL academy in Dili. (TP)
Security maintenance will be tightened for the elections: Horta
At a meeting held by UNMIT on Thursday (7/8) at the UNMIT Headquarters in Dili, President Jose Ramos-Horta stated that the electoral process in many countries is not always 100% successful. However, as the President of the Republic he will work hard to collaborate with UNPol and the International Stabilization Forces (ISF) to uphold security during the parliamentary elections on 30 June. (TP)
Using other party's attributes in electoral campaign
Fretilin has protested to the CNE in response to the Fretilin- reformist's use of Fretilin features during the CNRT electoral campaigns.
The CNE Spokesperson, Maria Angelina Sarmento, confirmed on Thursday (7/6) at the CNE office in Dili, that article 46 of the electoral law considers the usage of names of other candidates and attributes of the another party during an electoral campaign as a crime. She added that the CNE will send a letter to the Public Ministry and CNRT party, which is headed by former President Kayrala Xanana Gusmco, requesting an investigation. (DN)
Alfredo's status is unclear
The Spokesperson of the National Elections Commission, Fr. Martinho Gusmao, has called upon the Government to explain the status of the former military police commander, Alfredo Reinado Alves, ahead of any dialogue with him.
"If Alfredo's status has not yet been properly defined, I think Alfredo has the right to hide away as the system does not favor his case," said Fr. Gusmao at the CNE office in Kintal boot, Dili. (STL)
President demands PNTL screening
President Jose Ramos-Horta has called upon UNPol to screen the PNTL members in the 13 districts, following the incident in Viqueque, which he claims has ruined the PNTL's credibility.
"Further screening should be performed across the districts, especially as some PNTL members have tried to manipulate the presidential election and the upcoming parliamentary elections. I agree with Prime Minister Estanislau Aleixo da Silva's decision to disarm the PNTL in the districts," said Mr. Horta at a press conference held on Wednesday (6/6) at the International Airport in Dili, as he returned from his first visit to Indonesia. (STL and TP)
Alkatiri calls for an investigation to the fatal shooting
Fretilin's Secretary-General Mari Alkatiri called for an investigation into the fatal shooting of a CNRT member in Viqueque last Sunday (3/6). "It must be fully investigated in order to determine the facts and the circumstances (what, when, where, why and who)," said Alkatiri in a letter to the press on Wednesday (6/6). (STL)
Arsenio Bano: Movement group violated electoral law
The spokesperson of the ruling party – Fretilin - Arsenio Paixao Bano, said that the "Frretilin movement group" violated article 46 of the electoral law by using names of other candidates and attributes of the party in their electoral campaign. He said such actions can confuse the voters, specifically the Fretilin supporters. (TP)
IDP problems are not treated seriously by the government
The member of the national parliament from the East Timor Socialist Party (PST), Pedro da Costa, said, on Tuesday (5/6) at the national parliament, that East Timor's government led by the ruling party – Fretilin – has no serrious interest in addressing the problems of IDPs. He added that there still is no solution to last year's crisis and people still live in the camps. (TP)
Party condemns the Viqueque incident
At a press conference held on Wednesday (6/6) in Dili, the Secretary-General of the National Congress for Reconstruction of Timor-Leste (CNRT), Dionisio Babo, condemned the shootings in Viqueque which led to the death of a CNRT member, Afonso Kudalai. He also appealed to all CNRT supporters to avoid any undemocratic provocations from others that could lead to violence. (TP)
The fugitive, Alfredo receives president's letter
The response letter from President Jose Ramos-Horta has been received by Alfredo Reinado Alves on Tuesday (5/6). An unnamed lawyer of Reinado said that they have not yet received a reply from their client, Reinado, to the President's letter. (TP)
The suspect of Viqueque case officially becomes fugitive
The United Nations Mission in Timor-Leste says the suspect in the case of a fatal shooting in Viqueque on Sunday is officially wanted. "UNMIT is treating the incident that happened in Viqueque very seriously. The person responsible is officially wanted in relation to the fatal shooting," UNMIT spokesperson, Allison Cooper said on Tuesday (5/6) during an interview at UNMIT headquarters at Barracks-Caicoli, Dili. Ms. Cooper said that the suspect is the subject of police search. (STL)
Political, security and military observer says to disarmed PNTL of Viqueque
The observer of politics, security and military, Julio Thomas Pinto said the best way to proceed after the fatal shooting of a person in Viqueque on Sunday is to process with police screening in the regions. Mr Pinto said this would be more effective than spreading inaccurate information about the incident. (TP)
After the public consultation, president will promulgate law of clemency
The leading parliamentary party, the Fretilin has approved a law of truth and clemency despite the controversy raised by the opposition. The opposition has called on the President to consult with civil society, church and the victims before signing off on the law. (TP)
Timorese will get border access
It is expected that the President of the Republic, Jose Ramos Horta will negotiate reopening the border between Indonesia and Timor-Leste during his state visit this week. (STL)
Prime Minister calls upon the Ministry of Interior to investigate Viqueque case
The Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, Estanislau da Silva said he is deeply saddened about the incidents in Viqueque that has resulted in a death. He has called for a full investigation into the incident. "On behalf of the government, I'd like to give our condolences to the family of the victims," said Mr. Estanislau. Furthermore, Mr. Estanislau said that the government will do its best to protect people from further violence. (TP)
Political party appeals supporters to remain calm
The president of the Democratic Party (PD), Fernando de Araujo Lasama has appealed to party supporters in Viqueque to be calm and avoid any provocation from others that will lead to insecurity. "I would like to take this opportunity to appeal to all supporters of PD not to become involved in violence," said Mr. Lasama. (STL and TVTL)
Commander of PNTL: "PNTL did not shoot Afonso-Kudalai"
The commander of the PNTL, Afonso de Jesus has said that the fatal shooting in Viqueque on Sunday was not done the PNTL but rather an individual who works for the PNTL. (TP)
Minister brings corruption case to tribunal
At a press conference held by LABEH on Tuesday (5/6), the executive director of Lalenok ba Ema Hotu (LABEH), Christopher Henry Samson stated that of the 55 corruptions cases against all ministries, the Ministry of Health has presented the case to court. "The Ministry of Health is setting a good example for other ministries to follow," said Mr. Samson. (TP)
UN strengthens electoral security after two fatal shootings in Viqueque
The acting chief of the UN Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) Eric Tan, said today that security in Viqueque is being revised following the death of two people in the district on Sunday (3/6).
The first incident occurred one hour after the completion of a National Congress for Reconstruction of Timor-Leste (CNRT) campaign rally in Viqueque town when a man from the nearby town of Ossu was fatally shot in a marketplace at 15.45, following an altercation between CNRT supporters and opponents. UNPol responded quickly and brought the situation under control with the use of tear gas and warning shots to disperse the crowd.
The man was believed to have been shot by an off-duty PNTL officer and a search is underway to apprehend the suspect.
The second incident occurred when a group of CNRT supporters, accompanied by Mr Gusmao, returned the body of the deceased man to Ossu. Initial reports indicate that PNTL fired shots to control a crowd at a roadblock near Ossu. A 24-year old man was fatally shot and a second 16-year old youth was injured. The CNRT political party is headed by the former President of Timor-Leste, Xanana Gusmao.
"We are treating both shootings seriously," said Eric Tan, the acting head of UNMIT. "Initial investigations show that the first shooting happened an hour after the rally had concluded. Security was provided for the rally itself. The motivation of the killing is at this stage unknown," he said. "Neither incident suggests an attempt on Mr Gusmao's life," Mr Tan said.
UNMIT's senior leadership attended a meeting convened by President Jose Ramos-Horta, with Prime Minister Estanislau da Silva, Minister of the Interior Alcino Barris, the International Stabilization Forces and the F-FDTL in Dili this morning. The ISF has also deployed a platoon to the region. The United Nations will reinforce its security plan ahead of the June 30 election.
Timor-Leste's most senior leadership also insisted in today's meeting that retaliation for yesterday's event will not be tolerated and have again urged political supporters to remain calm and abide by democratic principles to ensure a free and fair election process, said Mr Tan. (STL)
The law of amnesty approved
At a plenary section of national parliament on Monday (04/6) presided over by vice president of national parliament, Jacob Fernandes and the permanent secretary, Francisco Carlos, approved law No. 30/I/5a regarding truth and measurement of clemency for diverse infractions. A DN journalist observed that the members of national parliament from PD, PNT and PST who participated left the plenary before national parliament approved the law.
In response to the approved law, the member of national parliament from the Democratic Party (PD), Jose Nominando said that PD's principle has been clear that PD disagrees with a law of clemency or amnesty. (STL)
PNTL action considered barbarian after the Viqueque incidents
The president of PST, Nelson Tomas stated on Monday (4/6) at a press conference held in PST office Balide Dili related to the two fatal shooting in Viqueque, that four political parties namely, National Congress of Reconstruction Timor (CNRT), Democratic Party (PD), East Timor Socialist party (PST) and Coalition of PSD/ASDT considered that the action of the PNTL in Viqueque district as barbarian. (STL)
East Timor President accuses police over shootings
East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta said it was police personnel who shot dead two activists during the campaign rallies for a new party headed by former East Timor President Xanana Gusmao.
A group of five armed men opened fire on Alfonso "Kuda Lay" Guterres at the rally by the National Congress of Reconstruction of Timor (CNRT) party in the eastern town of Viqueque on Sunday, he said.
Later in the evening, gunmen also killed another CNRT activist identified as Domingos in Ossu, also in Viqueque district. Another man was wounded in the attack, Mr Ramos-Horta said.
"They were CNRT elements who were shot dead by members of the PNTL (the national police)," Mr Ramos-Horta told journalists at the presidential palace.
He said the shooting incidents were "saddening" but were also "major crimes which should receive severe punishment." "There is no impunity in this country," Mr Ramos-Horta said.
He said the incident had embarrassed the nation and the country since the police, who should be trusted by the people and able to safeguard the elections, had failed in their duty.
"Several members of the PNTL have engaged in crime... We see that indiscipline is still very strong within the PNTL," the President said.
He said UN police had begun an investigation into the incident.
Campaigning kicked off last week for the crucial June 30 elections to choose a new prime minister and parliament.
The polls are expected to be a tough contest between the CNRT and Fretilin, which has dominated parliament since East Timor officially gained independence from Indonesia in 2002.
Several people were reportedly injured on Thursday when violence erupted between CNRT and Fretilin supporters at a campaign rally in the eastern city of Baucau, in the district of the same name.
Baucau, Viqueque and Lautem districts were strongholds of Fretilin, the former resistance movement. (STL)
CNE calls on public ministry investigating Viqueque case
The CNE spokesperson, Fr. Martinho Gusmao reportedly said that CNE considered the incident between Fretilin's supporters and CNRT's supporters in Viqueque district, Ossu on Sunday (3/6) as a crime.
CNE observes that a fatal crime occurred during the campaign and the public ministry should investigate this case because it has ruined the electoral campaign for the parliamentary election, said Fr. Gusmao. (STL)
Fatal shooting supporter of CNRT, police scape goat
The president of republic, Jose Ramos-Horta acknowledged that the PNTL will lose credibility as a result ofthe member of PNTL who shot the militant of CRNT to death in Viqueque district on Sunday (3/6).
I have had a discussion with the minister of interior, Alcino Barris, acting special representative of UN, Eric Tan, Commander of F-FDTL, Taur Matan Ruak, commander of the ISF, Brigadier Mal Rerden and the Prime Minister, Estanislau Aleixo da Silva on how to reinforce the security in electoral campaign since the police have lost the people's confidence," said Mr. Horta before departing to Indonesia on Monday (4/6) in Palacio da Cinzas Caicoli Dili. (TP)
Fatal shooting supporter of CNRT, Fretilin demands investigation
Ruling party Fretilin reportedly demanded that CNRT conduct an independent investigation into the fatal shooting of the CNRT supporter in Viqueque district on Sunday (3/6). (DN)
F-FDTL instructed, deploying in three eastern districts
In response to the conflict which happened on Sunday (3/6) after the rally of CNRT in Viqueque resulting in two fatal shootings, the president Jose Ramos Horta said on Monday (4/6) that he has ordered the commander of F-FDTL, Brigadier Taur Matan Ruak, to coordinate with International Stabilization Forces (ISF) to deploy F-FDTL in three districts namely Baucau, Lospalos and Viqueque in assuring security for such high risk places. (DN)
Benevides: "Alfredo demands Indonesian asylum bid, it's his right"
Reports from unnamed sources state that fugitive Alfredo Reinado Alves is in Jakarta and is seeking asylum in Indonesia. In response, the lawyer for Alfredo Reinado, Benevides Correia Barros said that he is not aware that that is the case. "I haven't heard this information form my client, however if he wants to seek asylum it's his right," said Mr. Benevides via Mobile. (STL)
Alfredo is prepared to come to Dili within four hours
The fugitive Alfredo Reinado Alves has stated he is ready to come to Dili within four hours if the operation to capture him is stopped. "I am ready to go to Dili within four hours, if the government and state halti the operation against me," said Alfredo via his letter to the press on on Sunday in response to the rumors published by some media about his requested asylum in Indonesia. (TP)
One person killed during the CNRT campaign in Viqueque
The campaign of the National Congress for Reconstruction of Timor-Leste (CNRT) in Viqueque on Sunday has resulted in one person being killed. According to DN reporter, Caetano da Costa said that the victim is Afonso Guterres "Kudalai" (40 years old) is a supporter of the CNRT. (DN and TP)
Ramos Horta is to make a first official visit to Jakarta
The president of republic, Jose Ramos Horta visits Republic Indonesia today (04/6) in response to the invitation from his counterpart Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the president of republic of Indonesia. The meeting will discuss border control, friendship, truth and education, said a statement from Timor-Leste presidential office.
Horta is due to make his first official international trip after being elected President in a landslide victory last month and his office has said the inaugural three-day trip indicates Indonesia is one of his top priorities.
The new president, who was sworn in as president on May 20, said his visit to Indonesia showed the importance of good bilateral relations between the two countries.
"There are important issues to be discussed during the bilateral meetings, such as the land border and the update of work by the Commission of Truth and Friendship," Horta was quoted by the Jakarta Post as saying. (DN, TP and STL)
Government never impedes electoral campaign
The prime minister, Estanislau Aleixo da Silva has said the government does not intervene in the electoral campaign and any conflict in the campaign, because that is the role of the CNE. (DN and TP)
Estanislau: children are the future of the nation
The prime minister, Estanislau Aleixo da Silva has told journalists on the international day of children on Friday that children are the future of the nation. The Prime Minister called upon the parents, communities and families to provide the protection for the children.
Furthermore Mr. Aleixo said that every citizen of the nation has responsibility to pay attention to ensure the health and education of children. (DN, TP, STL and TVTL)
UNPol detained 4 suspects of Ermera incident
At a press conference held by UNMIT on Thursday (31/5) in UNMIT HQ Obrigado Barrack Caicoli Dili, the acting UNPol commissioner, Hermanprit Singh stated that UNPol and PNTL have detained 4 suspects and identified 18 people from the incident took place in Suco Hurahu, Ermera district where 16 houses were burnt. (DN)
Local organization forcing UN to reform the judicial system
The Director of Judicial System and Monitoring Programme (JSMP), Timotio de Deus told journalists on Tuesday that monitoring in three district courts (Baucau, Oecusse and Covalima) found that people are not satisfied with justice due to political interference and a lack of transparency.
JSMP has asked the UNDP to make contracts with international tribunals to increase the number of judges to facilitate the judicial system in Timor-Leste. He also said that UN does not have any commitment to follow the recommendations from the Commission of Inquiry. PNTL deployed URP in Ermera
The minister of interior, Alcino Barris said that the national commander of PNTL will deploy Unidade Reserva Polisia (URP) in Ermera to reinforce the security to stop house burning. (STL and TP)
Alteration OF law opens door for religious people to be jailed
The member of the national parliament from the Christian Democratic Party (UDC/PDC), Vicente Guterres said that changes to the law promulgated by president Jose Ramos Horta opens the door for religious (priests, nuns and bishops) people to be jailed. "I think the law could be unconstitutional and undemocratic.," revealed Mr. Guterres on Thursday (31/5) in national parliament. (STL)
Jose Teixeira: we, the one who decides the pipeline
The minister of resources natural resources and energy, Jose Teixeira has said that Timorese people have to decide if the pipeline should go to Australia or Timor-Leste. He said it is the right of the Timorese people to participate in building the oil industry. (TP)
UNMIT asking for contribution of media observers in counting process
At a press conference held by UNMIT on Thursday (31/5) in UNMIT HQ Obrigado Barracks Caicoli Dili, the acting chief of electoral, Andres del Castillo called on the media and observers to guarantee a transparent and impartial counting process in the parliamentary election on 30 June. Mr. Castillo added that UNMIT is prepared to support all local laws to ensure that the election is conducted freely and fairly. (TP)
Lu-Olo: not easy to do things in 5 years
The president of the ruling party Fretilin, Francisco Guterres Lu-Olo said that it is not easy to do things in five years. "In 1999 many things were destroyed at least 75% so government started from zero," Lu-Olo told his supporters when campaigning on Thursday (31/5) in GOR Baucau district. (TP)
Border between Timor-Leste and Indonesia reopened
The Indonesian ambassador in Timor Leste, Ahmed Bey Sofwan stated on Wednesday (30/5) in Indonesian Embassy Farol Dili that the district commander of the military said the border between Timor-Leste and Indonesia can reopened. (TP)