News & issues

East Timor President says no to UN job

Reuters - June 28, 2008

Tito Belo, Dili – East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta said on Friday he would not pursue the job of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, confirming earlier media reports.

"An early departure from my current responsibility would result in early elections and this would be an unfair burden on a people who went to the polls three times in 2007," he told a news conference in Dili.

"I have reflected on the challenges, complexity and honour of serving the international community... I have consulted with my East Timor colleagues and friends. I have heard the voices of many humble East Timorese. I have also consulted many friends whose opinion I cherish," he said.

Ramos-Horta, 58, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his struggle for East Timor's independence from Indonesia. He survived an assassination attempt in February after being elected president of Asia's youngest nation last year with a five-year term.

He had a high profile as a diplomat when he won the Nobel prize and later held the posts of foreign minister and prime minister before winning the presidential election.

He was shot and critically wounded in an attack by rebel soldiers at his home in Dili in February. He has often said he wished for a quieter life to write his memoirs of East Timor's long struggle for independence from Indonesian rule.

East Timor is struggling to achieve political and social stability following violence in 2006 that killed 37 people and forced 150,000 people from their homes.

The former Portuguese colony, invaded by Indonesia in 1975, won independence in a violence-marred vote organised by the United Nations in 1999. It became fully independent in 2002 after a period of UN administration.

Jose Ramos Horta staying, but looking around

The Australian - June 28, 2008

Paul Toohey, Dili – East Timor doesn't need any more confusion, but it got in doses yesterday.

Jose Ramos Horta announced he would no longer chase a job as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and would stay on as President – at the same time refusing to guarantee serving out his term.

Mr Ramos Horta had said on Thursday that he was considering the UN position and needed the night to think about it. This was despite UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon denying yesterday that he had offered Mr Ramos Horta the Geneva-based post or decided on a preferred candidate.

Mr Ramos Horta said an "idiot journalist" in New York had backed Mr Ban into a corner, and made him look like he was claiming the job was his. He said his understanding was that his name was on the UN shortlist.

He said Mr Ban had sent out feelers to key countries looking for candidates. Mr Ramos Horta's name came up and he said: "I'm interested."

Mr Ramos Horta said many countries – including Australia, Portugal, Brazil and the US – had supported him for the job, but admitted that in the case of Australia, his own people had sent out feelers to Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who had responded that he would back him for the position.

Mr Ramos Horta said Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao had told him he would support him whatever he decided.

Mr Gusmao admitted his colleague had not been heavily pressured to retain the presidency, but said Mr Ramos Horta's departure would force an election within 90 days. He said the East Timorese were sick of elections, and another one could cause chaos.

But Mr Ramos Horta was still not prepared to commit to staying in his country. "This year it will be unlikely that I will leave," he said, but would commit no further.

"I could be run over by a bus, by our crazy drivers in the street, and tomorrow I'm going in one of those dangerous UN helicopters," he said. "Personally, I prefer really to retire. I'm signing a book agreement with Random House in the next few days."

Mr Ramos Horta began a low-key campaign for the UN job some weeks back.

Asked whether the East Timorese should consider him still committed to the presidency, he said: "Of course. I have been committed for over 30 years. When people say I am indispensable, I say 'Yes, and no'."

Mr Ramos Horta has admitted to being traumatised by the events of February 11, when he was shot twice in the back by rebels outside his Dili villa, and revealed to The Australian in April that he was considering resignation.

He has attracted much sympathy, but his handling of the situation this week copped scathing reviews in Dili. Social Democratic Party president Mario Carrascalao said the behaviour was peculiar.

"It is strange that yesterday he told us he was prepared to accept the job, but today he has decided to stay," he said.

"It is unthinkable this could happen. I do believe if he stays, he is going to be more and more erratic and delusional. He is not 100 per cent right. He has been disturbed by what happened (when he was shot on February 11).

"Psychologically I do believe he suffered some damage. It will not be good for him to stay, not good for the country. He should go. It would be better for him, better for the country.

But at the same time, for us it will be good not to have another election." Aderito Hugo da Costa, a member of the AMP ruling coalition, said: "The parliament is very confused. His commitment is not fully for this country.

"There is so much confusion behind what he has done. People need his focus, his attention on the country. He is always confusing people.

"Ban Ki-moon didn't offer him a job. It is only coming from Ramos Horta. What is behind these moves? We just don't know. It's a big question for all East Timorese. He won a Nobel peace prize for East Timor. We hope he is still normal."

AMP member Cicilio Camina said the President's commitment had to be questioned. "He's supposed to be playing the role of leader of state. In fact he's not. We are very disappointed. He should have gone."

Ramos Horta to wave nation goodbye

The Australian - June 27, 2008

Paul Toohey – Jose Ramos Horta had his country on tenterhooks last night as he asked for another 24 hours to decide whether he would stay on as East Timor's President or pursue a job in Geneva as the UN Human Rights Commissioner.

It seems almost certain that Mr Ramos Horta will go. His heart was never in the presidency but that was compounded on February 11 when he was shot twice in the back, outside his own home, by rebels he had been trying to help.

As he recovered in Darwin, he remained deeply traumatised and revealed to The Australian that he was likely to throw in the towel some time after his return to the capital, Dili, in April. He said at the time: "I will address the parliament when I return and I will not promise the country that I will serve the full term."

When he touched down in Dili days later, he had probably made up his mind but the outpouring of love and the demand for his leadership was so strong that, while not disavowing what he had said, he chose instead to let the people cool down.

It appears that he, as a former foreign minister, has quietly used his diplomatic influence to move towards a departure.

Mr Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao met yesterday afternoon. Mr Ramos Horta emerged to thank Australia, East Timor's former colonial power Portugal, Brazil and the US for supporting his candidacy for the UN position. UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon is yet to officially endorse Mr Ramos Horta as his nominee, a selection which must then be confirmed by a vote of the body's General Assembly.

Mr Ramos Horta's candidacy has not happened in a vacuum. The advocacy would have required his full consent and may as likely have been at the highly connected President's own urging.

Speaking to the media, with Mr Gusmao at his side, he said the only thing that might stop him going was his concern that the "country will return to chaos" if he left the presidency. He said he had to think of his people.

Mr Gusmao said he would support any decision Mr Ramos Horta reached. "I apologise to everybody because I cannot make the announcement today," Mr Ramos Horta said. "I promise to make the announcement tomorrow at three o'clock."

Mr Ramos Horta no longer feels completely safe in his home town and wants out, saying he can no longer move about as freely as he once did. But he is under pressure, particularly from the country's two powerful bishops, to whom he feels beholden, to stay on.

Anywhere else in the world, an uncommitted president would be seen as a no-good president who had to go. East Timor is different.

With the once-adored freedom fighter Mr Gusmao now seen by many East Timorese as distant and lacking his former authority, Mr Ramos Horta has taken the role – a role he never wanted – as the people's president. He is seen as the only leader with the imprimatur to bring the country's disparate forces together.

But the problem with him staying is not with the citizens who love him. East Timor's political forces, who are already hounding for an early election, will argue that an indifferent president cannot hope to stabilise the country.

Vice-Prime Minister Jose Luis Guterres, who met Mr Ramos Horta yesterday, said he had no idea that Mr Ramos Horta was close to the brink. "He only mentioned that he had planned to speak with UN Secretary General (Ban Ki-moon) around lunchtime," Mr Guterres said.

It is said Mr Ramos Horta's deputy, Fernando Lasama de Araujo, whom the President praised for filling in for him when he was in Darwin and suggested would make a better president than him, could again take on the acting presidency until the poll.

Mr Ramos Horta has said he never wanted to be President, and had only taken the job under pressure from Gusmao. "I was the only person he would accept," he told The Australian. "It was totally against my plan and my desire. My plan was to go abroad to study in France, really, a sabbatical – I have a contract to write a book."

Ramos Horta to take top UN rights job

Australian Associated Press - June 26, 2008

East Timor's president is considering taking the UN's top human rights job but must consider whether his early departure would disrupt his country's fragile peace.

Jose Ramos Horta told reporters he had a strong sense of duty to the young nation and was torn between that responsibility and taking the job of UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

"I can't say anything yet. I'm waiting 24 hours to say whether I'm a candidate or not because of my concern and responsibility to this country," he said. "I'm taking all the consequences into consideration. I've spoken to many people and I promise to announce my decision tomorrow."

Incumbent UN Human Rights Commissioner, judge Louise Arbour, is due to step down at the end of the month.

Ramos Horta was supposed to make a decision on Thursday about whether he would take the job if it was offered. But after keeping reporters waiting for two hours, he said he needed more time.

If he accepts, it would force an election in East Timor, where the president is directly elected by the people, within 90 days. Major opposition party Fretilin said it would support Ramos Horta if he wanted the UN role.

"Though naturally we would prefer him to continue in his role as the elected president of this country, it is very much a matter for Dr Ramos Horta and Fretilin supports whatever decision he makes," Fretilin spokesman Jose Teixeira said.

The decision to accept is clearly a weighty one for Ramos Horta, who was elected president for a five-year term in a landslide victory just a year ago.

Timor gained full independence only six years ago and stability in the tiny nation is still shaky. Dozens of people were killed and thousands left homeless in civil unrest that swept the country in 2006, when Ramos Horta was foreign affairs minister.

He later stepped up to become prime minister and in 2007 ran for president and won easily, using his term to push for the swift development of his country.

But his term in office was shattered in February this year when rebel soldiers shot him in a failed assassination attempt.

Two months after the shooting, Ramos Horta's office scotched suggestions he would quit. But in an earlier newspaper interview, Ramos Horta said he could not promise to serve out his full term.

Despite Ramos Horta claiming he has broad support for the UN job, including from Australia and the United States, there has been some doubt about the former Nobel Laureate's suitability.

Earlier this month, he gave clemency to a former militia leader convicted of crimes against humanity and former interior minister Rogerio Lobato, who was convicted of arming civilians during the 2006 unrest. But the president has dismissed such concerns.

"I think that is a very narrow minded approach that some people have suggested a head of state should relinquish his prerogative to grant pardons," he said.

Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, who attended Thursday's press conference, said that as a friend he would support Ramos Horta if he wanted the UN job.

East Timor students protest over MPs cars

Reuters - June 11, 2008

Tito Belo, Dili – About a thousand students rallied outside East Timor's parliament on Wednesday to protest against a decision to buy 65 Toyota Land Cruisers – one for each member of parliament – in one of the world's poorest nations.

The protest comes amid surging food and fuel prices in a country where the average income is just 50 US cents per day and where 42 percent of the population is unemployed.

"Dismiss the parliament that doesn't care about the people," shouted protesters carrying East Timor flags in the capital, Dili. Last week, the parliament decided to purchase the new vehicles.

"The price of rice and oil has become higher and people are not able to buy basic needs. Why do they want to buy a good car?" Gaudencio de Sousa, coordinator for the rally, told Reuters, adding that parliament should provide benefits for the people, not its members.

The protesters urged the government to intervene to contain rising prices for food and oil, and warned they would hold bigger rallies if parliament did not revoke the order for new cars.

Fretilin, the opposition party, said it voted against the purchase proposal, but a member of the ruling coalition said it was neccessary for lawmakers to check on government projects.

"Parliament law allows... members to own a car to observe the implementation of the state budget in government institutions and application of government programmes in the districts," Fernando Gusmao of the Social Democrat Party, told Reuters.

Asia's youngest nation, East Timor, is struggling to achieve political and social stability, following violence in 2006 that killed 37 people and forced 150,000 people from their homes.

The government and the United Nations launched a programme early this year to relocate some 30,000 refugees living in camps that dot the capital.

The former Portuguese colony, invaded by Indonesia in 1975, won independence in a violence-marred vote organised by the United Nations in 1999. It became fully independent in 2002 after a period of United Nations administration. It has substantial energy resources but is only beginning to develop them.

Alkatiri to sue over 'false allegations' of oil and gas bribes

The Australian - June 5, 2008

Paul Toohey – A vindicated but bitter Mari Alkatiri, East Timor's Opposition leader, has vowed to sue political figures and journalists for reporting allegations he had received $2 million in bribes from Timor Gap's leading producer, ConocoPhillips.

The US District Court in Texas dismissed a $US30 billion claim last month brought by US oil explorer Oceanic and its Petrotimor subsidiary, which alleged ConocoPhillips had bribed Dr Alkatiri, the Fretilin party chief, to prevent Oceanic from winning oil and gas concessions in the Timor Gap.

Oceanic is reportedly appealing the ruling. "Let them do this. We will see," Dr Alkatiri said from Lisbon yesterday. "Besides being false allegations, this is really stupid."

In 1972, according to the judgment, Australia and Indonesia agreed to jointly exploit undersea oil and gas.

In 1974, Portugal, then in control of East Timor, independently granted Petrotimor – of which Oceanic owns 80 per cent – the right to explore and produce in the same area, later to become known as Timor Gap.

Petrotimor lost its purported interests when Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975.

By 1989 Australia and Indonesia had formalised their arrangement and in 1991 ConocoPhillips successfully bid to develop seabed blocks. It would go on to become the biggest operator in the petroleum field. In 2001, Oceanic asked the UN – which held transitional power in Timor – to honour the concessions it had been awarded by Portugal in the 70s. This was refused.

Upon winning independence, Dr Alkatiri, East Timor's first prime minister, confirmed the ConocoPhillips contracts and ratified the Timor Gap Treaty.

According to Oceanic, this was because ConocoPhillips had bribed Dr Alkatiri with a suitcase stuffed with $2 million in cash. The money was alleged to be held in a Darwin bank account, in Alkatiri's brother's name.

In 2001, Oceanic took ConocoPhillips to court in Australia in an attempt to recover its Portuguese concessions. The Federal Court ruled it had no jurisdiction.

In 2004, Oceanic launched a similar action in the US District Court. That was also ruled non-justiciable, but Oceanic kept the case alive by using US racketeering laws to attack ConocoPhillips and the Timor Gap Joint Authority, on bribery grounds.

Houston judge Lynn Hughes said Oceanic's case amounted to "50 pages of trivia". The judge said claims that the president of ConocoPhillips "flew to East Timor to hand an official (Alkatiri) a suitcase full of cash" were implausible and unsubstantiated.

Oceanic claimed that if not for ConocoPhillips' bribery, it would have won concessions to the seabed. The judge said no such case had been made out.

"Oceanic may well have been the victim of international politics when it lost its Portuguese concession to the Indonesian invasion," the judge said. "It cannot recover for its losses to political risk 30 years ago – not from Indonesia, not from ConocoPhillips."

Dr Alkatiri said: "I never had any doubt this was false allegations now the decision is made by the court, I have decided to contact my lawyers to sue all those people who tried to damage my image on baseless allegation. I will sue everybody I can."

February 11 attack

Reinado's lover 'fears for her life'

ABC News - June 28, 2008

Karon Snowdon for Radio Australia – The woman accused by the President of East Timor of fostering rebel resistance in the country says she fears for her life.

Angelita Pires was the girlfriend of rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, who was killed by security forces during an attack on President Jose Ramos-Horta in February. Dr Ramos-Horta was critically wounded in the attack at his house in the capital Dili.

Ms Pires is under investigation for her alleged role in the protracted guerrilla operation by Reinado, who led a group of disaffected former soldiers who had been involved in mutiny and violence violence in 2006. Her family is asking Australia to provide safe haven.

The murky events surrounding the near-fatal shooting of the President and an attack on the Prime Minister the same day in February will remain cloudy until the results of the current investigation are known. That is expected to be finalised by late July, with any charges laid then.

It was not until April that the remaining rebels, led by Reinado's deputy Salsinha, surrendered and they claim not to know what Reinado's motive was for his early morning raid.

One of those under investigation for her possible role in the events leading up to that day is Ms Pires, who remains in Dili on bail with her passport confiscated.

She says comments by the President and the Prosecutor-General, Longuinos Monteiro, have turned public opinion against her and jeopardise her chances of a fair trial in the event she is charged.

She holds dual Australian-Timorese citizenship and her family live in Australia.

Text death threats

Her brother, Antonio Pires spoke to Radio Australia on her behalf, saying she is "fearful for her life". "She has had her life threatened by phone text," he said.

"Basically from memory it said 'we know you, we know you, we know where you are, you'd better look out, watch out' sort of thing. So I read that to mean it's a threat to her life. One of her last messages in the last couple of days to me was 'please help me, I fear they will kill me'." Mr Monteiro said it would be inappropriate for him to comment while his investigation is ongoing.

'Negative influence'

Dr Ramos-Horta has repeated his accusations made previously against Ms Pires this week. He told ABC Radio National's Philip Adams on Wednesday that while not a part of the February violence, she was a mastermind behind Reinado's refusal to surrender over many months.

"Because I dealt with the petitioner's case, Alfredo's case for a year and a half... everybody complained at the enormous negative influence this lady had on Reinado Alfredo," Dr Ramos-Horta said.

"Every time [Reinado] was ready to agree, and that goes back a year and a half, they were on the verge of signing an agreement, he suddenly changed his mind attacked a police post on the border region and took more weapons.

"I was told time and again this lady from Darwin, Timorese Australian, was involved and I know I dealt with the case I know for a fact."

Dr Ramos-Horta says he is confident his comments will not sway the independence of judges hearing any future case.

Ms Pires's brother says the damage has been done and he holds serious concerns for his sister's safety.

"We've pleaded for her safety that we, the family, would undertake to bring her back to Australia and hand her passport to Australian government authorities to hold and return her back to East Timor when the court is up and ready to hear the case," he said.

"But that has been completely declined by the Australian Government; they are not interested in assisting."

Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs said via a written statement it is providing Ms Pires with a high level of consular assistance.

Ramos-Horta 'refused to meet' Pires's mother

ABC News - June 24, 2008

The mother of the woman linked to an East Timorese rebel leader says the country's President refused to meet her in Darwin today.

Former Darwin resident Angelita Pires, who was born in East Timor but grew up in Darwin, was in a relationship with rebel leader Alfredo Reinado.

Reinado was killed in a gun battle sparked by his forces' raid on President Jose Ramos-Horta's home in February. The President was shot in the exchange. Ms Pires is being investigated over her connections to the rebel leader.

Her mother Maria says lawyers in East Timor are too scared to take on the case, and she is calling on the Australian Government to pay for a Brazilian lawyer to represent her.

She says she tried to raise the issue with Dr Ramos-Horta after he spoke at a forum in Darwin this afternoon.

"He saw me... [I] went to him and told him I want to see him and he just avoided me," she said. "I want to say to him what is the vendetta that he has has against my daughter Angelita?"

On Friday Dr Ramos-Horta said he believed Ms Pires was "a mastermind" who manipulated Reinado and obstructed the President's efforts to make peace with the rebel.

Maria Pires says those comments are defamatory and nothing has been proved against her daughter.

Rebel's Aussie lover 'caused his death'

The Herald Sun - June 20, 2008

Tara Ravens – Rebel leader Alfredo Reinado would still be alive today if his Australian lover had not stopped him from surrendering, says East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta.

Angelita Pires, 33, was the first person to be arrested over the February 11 attacks which left the president critically wounded. Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao escaped a separate ambush unharmed.

A dual Australian-East Timorese citizen, Ms Pires has maintained she played no part in the rebel attacks – in which Reinado was killed – and charges are yet to be laid against her. But her Darwin-based family say she has been prevented from leaving the country and is too afraid to step outside her home.

Speaking in Darwin today, Dr Ramos Horta said investigations into the attacks would wrap up at the end of next month, when he expected Ms Pires to be charged.

"She is the one who should tell the country whether her conscience is clean or not," he said. "What is surprising to me is why other individuals who have lesser crimes are in jail and she is in the house and even hosting functions."

Asked why he had met with and pardoned other rebel leaders and not Ms Pires, Dr Ramos Horta said: "Alfredo Reinado would not be dead today, we would have resolved this situation and of others, if Angelita Pires had not obstructed again and again for the last year and a half.

"She is very much responsible for what happened on February 11 with manipulating Alfredo Reinado in not surrendering to justice, in not handing over his weapons."

Dr Ramos Horta conceded that Ms Pires was not "directly involved in the violence". But he called her the "mastermind behind Mr Alfredo Reinado". "(She was) always manipulating, obstructing every effort I would make to resolve the situation with Reinado peacefully."

Dr Ramos Horta said he "didn't have a clue" about claims that up to $1 million had been deposited in a Darwin bank account in her name.

He also explained why he thought it had taken so long to press charges. "Prosecution takes a long time, to be prudent. So there is no travesty of justice," he said.

Asked how Ms Pires could get a fair trial given his public statements about her, Dr Ramos Horta said: "The court is absolutely independent. So they will be able to dissect the truth, the facts, from what are just the allegations.

"But having dealt with the case of Mr Alfredo Reinado for over a year-and-a-half, and it is not just only myself but very reputable Swiss organisations... and some other individuals close to Mr Reinado at the beginning. Everyone blames Ms Angelita Pires for her irresponsibility, her adventurism in obstructing the dialogue and also undermining every effort to have Mr Reinado brought to justice."

Ms Pires' brother and mother pleaded with the Australian Government earlier this year to withhold aid to East Timor until she was "charged or exonerated". They said the claims against her were "unsubstantiated and wild".

They also called for an apology from Dr Ramos Horta and prosecutor general Longuinhos Monteiro "for their inappropriate defamation". Mr Monteiro has flagged possible conspiracy charges against Ms Pires, alleging she was with the slain rebel leader in the hours leading up to the president's shooting.

Truth & friendship commission

Indonesia quiet on Timor report release

Agence France Presse - June 17, 2008

Indonesia is refusing to give a date for the publication of a Truth Commission report on rights abuses during East Timor's 1999 independence vote, despite growing criticism of the delay.

The Indonesia-East Timor Commission of Truth and Friendship, tasked by both governments to uncover the truth behind the violence surrounding the historic referendum, finalised the report in March but it remains under wraps.

"No date had been determined. We're still waiting for an appropriate time from both presidents," Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said.

He said the two leaders were very busy and it was proving difficult to co-ordinate their diaries so they could be together to jointly receive the report.

The commission's Indonesian co-chairman, Benyamin Mangkudilaga, said the body was "still waiting" for the green light from both sides to submit the report to the presidents.

He said this would be the first step toward the tabling of the report in the countries' parliaments.

A coalition of Indonesian human rights groups criticised the delay, which has led to fears the report is being watered down and names removed to protect Indonesian military figures from allegations of gross human rights violations.

"This is delaying justice – it should have already been made public," said Rafendi Djamin of the Human Rights Working Group, a local non-governmental organisation.

"We are afraid that the delay will give time to the perpetrators among high-ranking military officials to manipulate the report."

An estimated 1,400 people were killed when militias backed by the Indonesian military rampaged through East Timor as the then- province voted overwhelmingly to break away from Indonesia, which invaded in 1975.

The commission has no prosecution powers and has been boycotted by the United Nations, which says those guilty of rights violations should face justice.

It has heard testimony from scores of witnesses including East Timorese Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, a former separatist guerrilla fighter, and Indonesian military officers.

Concerns over the integrity of the Truth and Friendship report have been deepened in East Timor by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's decision to appoint his brother-in-law as special forces commander.

Brigadier General Pramono Edhie Wibowo, brother of First Lady Ani Yudhoyono, was named chief of the Kopassus special forces unit last week. Hardcore Kopassus troops are blamed for much of the violence in East Timor and Wibowo reportedly commanded one of the elite unit's squads there in 1999.

"The promotion of Pramono Wibowo is yet another example of the failure of Indonesia to deal with its military's long and sordid history of human rights violations in East Timor and elsewhere," John Miller, co-ordinator of the East Timor Action Network rights group, said in a statement Friday.

"Instead of promoting alleged rights violators, Indonesia should make sure that senior military officials responsible for the past rights crimes are brought to trial."

NGOs urge governments to take CTF report

Jakarta Post - June 17, 2008

Desy Nurhayati, Jakarta – A coalition of civil society groups is pressing the governments of Indonesia and Timor Leste to accept the final report from the Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) on human rights violations during the 1999 referendum in East Timor.

The coalition, comprising Imparsial, the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) and the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), is also urging the two governments to take legal action against the perpetrators of the rights violations.

"We hope the two governments, especially Indonesia, will not only make the report public, but also take strong legal action to overturn the impunity of the perpetrators, including that of high-ranking military officials," Rafendi Djamin of the HRWG told a press conference here Monday.

The CTF previously announced it would submit its report to the presidents of Indonesia and Timor Leste on May 26, but had to postpone the submission.

The commission said it had finalized the 350-page report, which is written in Indonesian, English and Tetum (the language of Timor Leste), and was waiting for confirmation from President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Haris Azhar of Kontras said it was feared irresponsible parties might exploit the delay to change, add or delete parts of the report, such as taking out the name of Gen. Wiranto, who was chief of the Indonesian Military (TNI) at the time.

Wiranto's name was deleted from the dossier submitted by the Attorney General's Office to the ad hoc human rights court for East Timor cases.

Eighteen people were cleared of all charges over the violence, including former militia leader Eurico Gutteres.

"The CTF should also report the results of its work, including its financial report. The temporary joint commission has spent US$4.5 million," Haris said.

Choirul Anam of the HRWG said the Indonesian government had two options for taking legal action: either to reopen the ad hoc court or to work with the global community to process the cases through the international legal system.

"The government must have the courage to take legal action against the perpetrators. It depends on Yudhoyono's political will, whether to maintain their impunity for the sake of political interests, or to enforce justice in the country," he said.

Indonesia and Timor Leste agreed to establish the commission in 2005 to investigate alleged human rights violations involving the TNI before and after the UN-administered referendum in the former Indonesian province in 1999.

TNI-backed militia groups were blamed for the deaths of hundreds of people and the destruction of infrastructure following East Timor's vote for independence.

The coalition members said they had monitored the CTF performance during its term from 2005 to 2007, as well as the public hearing sessions, and found "certain efforts to manipulate" reports of the crimes that occurred during the referendum.

Indonesian rights groups urge CTF to publish report

Kompas - June 16, 2008

Jakarta – Human rights organisations the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), the Human Rights Working Group (HRWG) and Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial) have called on the Indonesia-East Timor Commission of Truth and Friendship (CTF) to immediately hand over the results of its work and those that the institution found liable for prosecution to the presidents of Indonesia and East Timor.

This was conveyed by Kontras coordinator Usman Hamid and activists from HRWG and Imparsial in a press release issued at the Kontras office on Jl. Borobudur in Central Jakarta on Monday June 16.

According to Hamid, the delays in delivering the report to the presidents of both countries could be used by certain parties in an unjustifiable manner to append to or abridge the report. In addition to this, Hamid is also urging the president to follow up the report by submitting it to the parliaments of both countries and publishing it.

"After which both presidents can immediately take legal action by ordering the Attorney General to forward the findings of humanitarian crimes that took place to the human rights court", said Hamid.

Hamid also said that the CTF had used funds from the two countries amounting to US$4.5 million and must immediately produce an accountable financial report. In East Timor, it is hoped that the CTF report will be able to contribute to the full resolution of gross human rights violations as recommended by the 27 session of the United Nations Commission Against Torture on May 16. (C6-08)

[Translated by James Balowski.]

Balibo 5 killings

Film producer vows to tell truth about Balibo Five

Australian Associated Press - June 30, 2008

The producer of a new political thriller about five Australia- based newsmen killed in East Timor in 1975 says the film will tell the truth about their deaths.

Cameras started rolling in Darwin today on the film Balibo, written by David Williamson (Gallipoli, The Year of Living Dangerously) and directed by Robert Connolly (The Bank).

Balibo recreates the events surrounding the shooting of Brian Peters, Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, Malcolm Rennie and Tony Stewart in the East Timorese border town of Balibo during the Indonesian invasion.

An Australian coronial inquest last year found the five journalists were deliberately killed by Indonesian troops to prevent them exposing the invasion.

The movie already had stirred tensions ahead of its first day of filming. Last week an Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman said the film should include Indonesia's point of view.

Balibo producer John Maynard said today he had not received any requests for input from Indonesia's foreign ministry.

"We've had no requests to represent Indonesia's point of view," he told the ABC. "But I can assure you what we're going to show and screen is what actually happened. What we're going to do is tell the truth."

The film boasts a talented line-up of Australian actors, including Without a Trace star Anthony LaPaglia, Underbelly's Gyton Grantley, Wolf Creek star Nathan Phillips, and Damon Gameau from The Tracker.

LaPaglia will play Roger East, another Australian journalist who attempts to discover the fate of the journalists, who became known as the Balibo Five.

US actor Oscar Isaac, who has just finished shooting Agora opposite Rachel Weisz, will play East Timorese president Jose Ramos-Horta as a young idealistic revolutionary.

The cast and crew will spend three weeks filming in Darwin, before heading to the East Timorese capital Dili for four weeks.

LaPaglia, who will shoot a number of scenes around the Top End this week, said he was happy to be making another movie in Australia. "It's such an inspiring team and an important story for Australia and the region," LaPaglia said.

The Lantana star has previously said he expected the film to cause controversy when it was released. Balibo is scheduled for release mid 2009.

Balibo widow slams Rudd cemetery visit

Australian Associated Press - June 13, 2008

The widow of one of the Balibo Five killed in East Timor says she is offended Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is visiting an Indonesian cemetery for war heroes.

Mr Rudd is to lay a wreath later on Friday at the Kalibata Heroes Cemetery, the resting place of Indonesian military veterans and other prominent people.

Shirley Shackleton's late husband Greg was one of five journalists and cameramen killed by Indonesian troops in East Timor in 1975.

An Australian coronial inquest last year found the Australian- based newsmen were deliberately killed to prevent them reporting on Indonesia's invasion of East Timor.

Among those buried at the Kalibata cemetery is Leonardus Benyamin "Benny" Murdani, who led the 1975 invasion and according to human rights activists, was also responsible for some of the worst atrocities during the rule of former president Soeharto.

Mrs Shackleton said hard questions needed to be asked of Mr Rudd and his advisers about the decision to visit Kalibata.

"I'm very disturbed by this," Mrs Shackleton said. "I believe questions should be asked not only of Mr Rudd, but also of his advisers, what is he thinking of?"

Mrs Shackleton said she had taken the visit to Kalibata by Mr Rudd personally.

"I take it personally, because while he is busy honouring Indonesian soldiers he's obviously not going to honour the Balibo Five, who were murdered by Indonesian soldiers."

"Mr Rudd is up there waltzing around in the cemetery, in the wrong cemetery, laying a wreath," despite the fact a coronial inquiry found her husband and four others were killed in cold blood, Mrs Shackleton said.

She said it "would mean everything" to her if Mr Rudd visited the journalists' grave in Kebayoran Lama cemetery in Jakarta.

"I think it would be wonderful," she said, adding that she would also like to see the remains repatriated. "They must be repatriated. We cannot have them left up there, it isn't right."

Mrs Shackleton said before he left to cover the invasion of East Timor, her late husband asked her to do everything she could to bring him home if he was captured and imprisoned, as he suffered from bad asthma and could die without medication.

"The last thing he said to me before he left was, 'don't leave me there Shirl'," she said. "He said, 'do anything, get me out, sell the house'. 'Get me out if I'm in a prison'. Well, he's in a prison in Indonesia in a graveyard and Mr Rudd isn't even bothering to visit by the sounds of things."

Federal police are considering whether anyone can be prosecuted over the death of the Balibo Five. It follows a referral from the federal attorney-general's department after NSW deputy coroner Dorelle Pinch recommended those responsible be prosecuted. She also recommended urgent action to have the remains of the five repatriated for burial.

The coalition and Labor committed before last year's election to the repatriation of the bodies.

Widow calls for greater recognition of Balibo Five

ABC World today - June 13, 2008

One of the widows of the Balibo Five has expressed surprise at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's decision to visit the cemetery where veterans of the Indonesian national revolution are buried.

Shirley Shackleton's husband Greg Shackleton was one of five journalists who were deliberately killed by Indonesian forces at Balibo in East Timor in 1975.

Their remains are thought to be buried in Jakarta's main cemetery, and Ms Shackleton would like the Prime Minister to visit that cemetery.

Ms Shackleton would also like Mr Rudd to talk to the Indonesian Government about bringing home the journalists' remains in the near future.

Last November, a New South Wales Coroner found there was enough evidence to prosecute two people over the deaths and she referred the matter directly to the Attorney-General. Seven months on, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) is still considering the charges.

"I think it's fine that he's in Indonesia, I have nothing against the Indonesian people," Ms Shackleton said.

"What I found surprising was that Mr Rudd was putting a wreath on Indonesia's so-called heroes' graves, that you perhaps don't realise that Indonesia has never been invaded, that the people they were being honoured for, that they were fighting, were their own people.

"So I'm really surprised that Mr Rudd's advisers led him into that, and also my husband is up there with four very courageous journalists... they're in the main Jakarta cemetery."

She says Mr Rudd should have paid respect to the Balibo Five. "If he can pay respect to Indonesian soldiers for a fairly murky past... I'm just amazed that no-one suggested it, and I'm trying to get a message through to him to ask very respectfully, would he consider doing that," she said.

Ms Shackleton says she has written a letter to Mr Rudd and is expecting to find out why the bodies have not been returned to Australia.

"We need to have our people back in Australia and proper respect paid, a proper burial service in the country where they were born," she said. "They bring back all kinds of soldiers and people murdered overseas or people who have fallen in battle."

Legal action Britain is considering launching legal action against two of the surviving former Indonesian military chiefs.

"They're getting frustrated because absolutely nothing is happening over here," Ms Shackleton said.

"It would be far better for it to be done from here, and there's no reason for me to suspect that the Prime Minister isn't considering it.

"Of course, I would like to see charges laid, [but] I don't want the murderers... strung up – I want them to explain who told them to go and why they were told to kill them, because obviously it was a set-up."

She says the Balibo Five had to die to protect somebody's reputation.

"It will all come out one day – I just hope I'm alive to hear it," she said.

"I don't think [Mr Rudd] ought to waste his time trying to cut through what is going on, what has gone on for 33 years, but if his relationship with Indonesia amounts to anything, all he has to do is say is, 'We would like them brought back'.

"And if it is worth anything, then the Indonesian people will say, 'Well, we will be glad to get rid of them'."

A spokesman for Attorney-General Robert McClelland says it is up to the AFP to decide if there is sufficient evidence to launch a prosecution over the deaths of the Balibo Five.

[Adapted from a story first aired on ABC's The World Today, June 13.]

Social conflicts/refugees

Homecoming fraught with danger

IRIN - June 5, 2008

Dili – At night Tomas Agusto and his family lie in their tent hoping nobody will set it alight. When he was moved out of the displacement camp in April, he was given US$4,500 to rebuild his house, but he is still too scared to do so.

Agusto was moved out of the camp on the grounds of the national hospital in Dili, the capital, by the Ministry of Social Solidarity, after living there for nearly two years. In early May, his family, their tent and other possessions were trucked back to the site of his former home in Becora, a suburb of the city.

Agusto's house had been destroyed in the civil unrest that left more than 100,000 displaced throughout the country in 2006. "We're scared," he told IRIN. "If we build our house the neighbours will just burn it down again." Agusto said he and a neighbouring family were the only easterners to have returned.

Because much of the 2006 violence was triggered by hostile eastern and western factions, Agusto feels outnumbered. He told IRIN that neither he nor his neighbour would rebuild until more easterners returned.

A few weeks after he moved back, a neighbourhood leader told him to get out, saying he was not welcome there. "[The leader] said the land was his and the people who lived here before couldn't come back," Agusto said.

Land tensions

Land rights and residual tensions are a serious problem in Timor-Leste, according to Valentina Bacchin, return and reintegration officer with the International Organization for Migration (IOM). She told IRIN Agusto's problem was not uncommon.

Although the violence in 2006 was ostensibly sparked by an implosion of the police and defence forces, unknown numbers of homes were simply razed by neighbours eager to oust newer residents. Those newcomers were principally from the east.

Agusto said his family built their house in 1985 during the Indonesian occupation, when there were no land titles. He said he simply cleared some land and built a house. About 40 other families did the same thing. Every single one was destroyed.

Squatter status

Locals were quick to say their enmity was not the result of regional differences. They said eastern families were unpopular because they were squatters – even if they had lived in the same houses for a generation.

Gaspar da Silva, the neighbourhood leader in a section of Becora, recalled that up until the 1980s only one or two eastern families lived in his area. But soon after that the extended families came in from the hills and the neighbourhood was taken over by people who had no respect for local tradition, he said. Since 2006 their neighbourhood had been calmer, he added.

The government's solution to these tensions has been to hold dialogues between factions. However, Da Silva said while he took part in the talks, he did not believe in the process as it had gone nowhere.

Traditional ceremonies

Da Silva said he would accept former residents on two conditions: they could show a land title and they would participate in a "tuir adat", a traditional ceremony.

"In the ceremony we would kill a cow or a goat and get the blood and mix it with palm wine and then all drink a cup of it," he said. "Then our problems will go away – that's our tradition."

He might get his wish. After organising dialogues with limited success, Estella Gusmao, the ministry's media officer, said last month the government had begun holding traditional mediation ceremonies.

However, Gusmao added that serious disputes were better resolved by the courts. "If the people in the neighbourhood don't accept the families back, maybe they've had a problem with them in the past because they've committed crimes. These cases have to be taken to the police and then to trial because people have to follow law and order."

But Da Silva is suspicious of the law. "The law is for the important people and the smart people and that's it," he said. "We ignorant people don't understand any of it. But all of us, eastern and western Timorese alike, understand our traditional ceremonies."

Agusto has participated in two government-orchestrated dialogues, but so far no consensus has been reached. He said he would consider a traditional ceremony, but his neighbours had not suggested it.

Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao has said he would like to see the remaining displacement camps cleared by the end of the year, but progress is slow and IOM's Bacchin told IRIN she was doubtful any lasting success could be achieved in such a short time. (jw/bj/mw)

Justice & reconciliation

Clemency decrees upset East Timor victims

Australian Associated Press - June 30, 2008

East Timor's President Jose Ramos Horta has been accused of ignoring victims by granting clemency to militia members who killed nuns and priests during a bout of unrest in 1999.

A group of 11 East Timorese citizens – representing human rights groups, lawyers and a member of parliament – says a recent presidential decree, which handed 94 criminals partial or full pardons, is unconstitutional and wants it revoked.

Several high profile murderers have already been granted conditional release from prison since the May decree, the group says.

Among them are Team Alfa militia leader Joni Marques, who was jailed for 33 years in 2001 in the country's first trial for crimes against humanity.

His crimes included several murders, including of a group of nine people – several Roman Catholic priests and nuns and an Indonesian journalist – near the eastern town of Los Palos, in 1999.

"The worst thing I think... is that he (the president) freed men that committed crimes against humanity, crimes that are not pardonable under the international law and crimes that Timorese people still have so much pain in their hearts (about)..." said local MP Fernanda Borges, of the minority party PUN.

"It's a worry to us, because when I talk to victims, people... they don't feel that the law is on their side. You can't undermine the judicial processes. It will have dire consequences not only to democracy but to the stability in the country as well as the region."

In granting the pardons in May, Ramos Horta said East Timor needed to foster a culture of forgiveness in order to move forward.

The group has petitioned East Timor's Provedor for Human Rights and Justice, urging him to ask the Court of Appeal to examine the constitutionality of the presidential decree.

The petition asks the court to revoke the decree on the grounds it is unconstitutional because Ramos Horta did not consult with the government, and due process was not followed.

East Timor's government recommended only 83 prisoners should have their sentences reduced by between two and six months, the group said in a statement.

"The decision of the president is a gross injustice to the victims who still suffer because they have not yet received adequate justice and reparations from our state," the statement said. "How will the state guarantee that crimes by armed militia that occurred in 1999 and 2006 will not happen again?"

Comment was being sought from the office of the president.

The petition follows Ramos Horta's decision last week to rule himself out of contention to become the United Nations' new High Commissioner for Human Rights.

The head of state – who was elected for a five-year term just last year – said he would stay on in fragile East Timor for "the foreseeable future", fearing fresh tensions could emerge if he were to leave. Ramos Horta, a Nobel peace prize laureate, was elevated from his role as East Timor's prime minister to the presidency in a landslide election win just a year ago.

But his tenure was thrown into doubt after he was shot and seriously wounded by rebel soldiers outside his Dili home in February.

Ex-militia boss who led massacre of nuns says he's 'repentant'

Lusa - June 23, 2008

Dili – Former East Timor militia chief Joni Marques, pardoned and released on parole this month after serving part of a long prison sentence for leading a massacre of nuns and priests in 1999, said Monday he was "repentant" for his crimes.

Marques, ex-leader of the pro-Jakarta Team Alfa militia, told Lusa he was "repentant for the violence of 1999." He was jailed in 2001 for 33 years after being convicted of participation in an attack on a convoy of nuns and priests between Lautem and Baucau on Sept. 25, 1999.

Recalling the lead-up to the deadly attack, the former militiaman said "there was no plan to kill the nuns," adding that himself and his men had been "drugged" by Indonesian Army officers before the massacre and had no recollection of the attack on the church vehicles.

"Twenty minutes after taking the drugs I lost judgment. And that (the massacre) happened. Only three days later did I return to normal and understand what I'd done. I was repentant and dismayed."

Along with Marques, another three members of Team Alfa convicted of violence in 1999 were released June 13 after receiving presidential pardons in May. One of these former militiamen, Goncalo dos Santos, told Lusa at the weekend: "The past is the past".

Speaking in his home village in the mountains west of Lospalos, dos Santos said: "I don't dwell on 1999. I think about a new life. I'm an East Timorese citizen and I'm not going to leave the country."

The paroling of the four ex-Team Alfa militiamen has come under fire from various human rights organizations, including the Dili representative for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR).

But neither of the freed militiamen interviewed by Lusa questioned the scale of their sentence reduction in the wake of President Jose Ramos Horta's decision May 20 to grant pardons and commute sentences after discussions with the Dili government.

Speaking at a camp for displaced people where his family has been living since 2006, Joni Marques, 44, told Lusa: "I won't comment on whether the sentencing was just of unjust. I didn't appeal to the state when I was in jail. I'm not going to appeal while I'm free. The law is the law."

"If anybody wants to appeal against me being free, go to Parliament of the President of the Republic." (PRM/CJB)

Interview with Joni Marques - former militiaman and ex-criminal

Lusa - June 23, 2008

Dili – Joni Marques, former leader of East Timor's notorious Team Alfa militia, was released on parole earlier this month after controversially having a 33-year prison term commuted. He gave a long interview to Lusa Monday in a Dili refugee camp where he now lives with his family.

Joni told Lusa he regretted his involvement in the ambush on a Catholic Church convoy in September, 1999 in which a number of nuns and priests and Timorese civilians were killed.

He said himself and his men were given drugs by Indonesian Army officers before the attack and that he remembered nothing of the massacre until days after, when he recalled what he'd done and felt remorse.

Joni said he hadn't originally supported the annexation of East Timor by Indonesia in 1975 and also said what he did in support of the occupying forces was done purely "from fear".

The ex-militia boss said he hadn't fled to Indonesia during Timor's slide into bloody turmoil after the 1999 independence vote, in contrast to many people, and had remained in Com on the northern coast of the Lautem district.

Joni's relationship with the occupying Indonesian military began in 1981, after he abandoned the Timorese resistance movement, Fretilin, along with countless other guerillas, over the previous two years.

"The Indonesians wanted to kill me as I had family in the bush. They accused me of being Fretilin and I had no choice to become an assistant in the operations", involving logistical support to Indonesian forces in Timor.

This "heavy" work was also perilous for Joni, as he was "between two enemies and could be killed by both sides."

In 1986, Joni returned to Lospalos, where violence unleashed by Jakarta's occupying forces "awoke the will to defend the people."

"For this I needed I gun," Joni told Lusa, justifying this as a reason for joining Team Alfa, a militia sometimes known as Jati Merah Puti, meaning "Real White and Red" in Indonesia Bahasa, an allusion to the colors of Indonesia's national flag.

His role in the pro-Jakarta militia from 1991 to 1994 was to command around 80 men. But he was stripped of command after being accused of supplying Timorese independence fighters with ammunition, although he continued to serve in Team Alfa.

As ritual punishment for the alleged treason he was hit with a rifle butt in the mouth. The blow's result is a small scar that still gives Joni the curious appearance of having a permanent smile.

From the myriad clashes in his days as a militiaman, Jodi recalls an encounter with a Falantil resistance band led by Vicente da Conceicco, nicknamed "Railos", accused of distributing arms to civilians during Timor's eruption of violence in 2006.

Joni said when he met Railos in Dili's Becora jail in October, 2007, he hugged him and told him they were both mere captives while the 'great and good' were still at large.

During his six years in jail Joni became a cook because "I like to mix spices and seasoning."

On his prospects as a free man, albeit on parole, Jodi said he has no fixed plans. His main wish is, however, that those in power understand why he did what he did and don't hold it against him. (CJB/PRM)

Watchdog slams freeing of East Timor militia leader

Reuters - June 21, 2008

Dili – East Timor's recent decision to pardon and release a former militia leader responsible for several murders has undermined the country's human rights commitment, a local watchdog said on Friday.

Joni Marques, who led the Alfa militia group in East Timor, was sentenced in 2001 to 33 years and four months in prison for an attack in 1999 on a convoy of nuns and priests in which several people were killed.

Several militia groups were active in East Timor in the late 1990s when residents were given a chance to vote for independence from Indonesia, which had invaded the tiny former Portuguese colony in 1975. Pro-Indonesia militiamen went on a violent rampage before and after the UN-sponsored vote that ended 24 years of Jakarta's rule.

Marques walked free last week following a Dili court parole grant. He was one of several prisoners, including other militia members, to receive a presidential pardon on May 20.

"The freedom of such perpetrators may bring into question East Timor's international human rights commitments," said Timotio de Deus, head of local watchdog Judicial System Monitoring Programme.

"However laudable in spirit, attempts to move on from the country's legacy of violence must not outweigh the rule of law," he added.

"We are sad with the leaders' decision. We want them to stay in jail, they must pay for what they have done in the past," said Martinho Soares, a relative of one of the victims.

The United Nations estimates about 1,000 East Timorese were killed in the rampage before and after the territory voted.

The Commission of Truth and Friendship, which was set up by Indonesia and East Timor to promote reconciliation between the two neighbours, is tasked to find and acknowledge perpetrators during the violent period.

Many have seen the commission as toothless as it doesn't have power to prosecute anyone.

The commission recently said it has finalised its report on those responsible for the 1999 violence and will submit it to the presidents of both countries soon, but has not yet given a date.

Predominantly Catholic East Timor became fully independent in May 2002 after 2- years of UN administration.

[Reporting by Tito Belo; Writing by Olivia Rondonuwu; Editing by Sara Webb.]

Activists urge UN to hold international tribunal for Timor Leste

Jakarta Post - June 3, 2008

Matheos Viktor Messakh, Jakarta – Human rights activists have sent a letter to the United Nations calling for an international tribunal to try those responsible for human rights violations during the Indonesian occupation of Timor Leste.

The letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon signed June 1, 2008 argues that the former militia leader Eurico Guterres' recent release by the Indonesian Supreme Court affirms how farcical Indonesia's judicial system is.

"The Guterres acquittal confirms that the Indonesian government is unable to deliver justice. We therefore call upon you to work towards the creation of an ad hoc international criminal tribunal for those who bear the greatest responsibility for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed from 1975 onwards, not just in 1999," said the statement signed by 128 organizations and individuals.

If the tribunal is not feasible, they said, the UN secretary- general should fully reconstitute the Serious Crimes Unit, providing it with sufficient resources and backing.

"This should be done in accordance with recommendations of the CAVR (East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation) Report. Namely, the UN itself should provide the resources and judicial expertise, not Timor Leste's court system. Indonesia, which is currently a member of both the Security Council and the UN Human Rights Council, must extradite for trial those charged by the Serious Crimes Unit."

Eurico Guterres was tried by Indonesia's ad hoc court for crimes against humanity on charges of murder and persecution along with 17 other defendants. However, all have walked free.

Citing the analysis by the UN's Commission of Experts (COE) about the Indonesian ad hoc court, the statement argued that Indonesia had created this court to deflect demands for an international tribunal.

The COE has concluded that the ad hoc court "was not effective in delivering justice", and revealed "scant respect for or conformity to relevant international standards".

"The COE identified major flaws such as a lack of commitment on the part of the prosecution, deficient investigations, inadequate presentation of evidence, a courtroom atmosphere that did not inspire confidence in the public mind, inconsistent verdicts and an unwillingness to utilize sound jurisprudence.

"In this context, Guterres' acquittal only highlights the flawed nature of that process," said the statement.

The letter – signed by the Sri Lanka based Friends of the Third World, Japan East Timor Coalition, Peace Movement Aotearoa, Australian Coalition for Transitional Justice in East Timor, Canada's West Papua Action Network (WestPAN), Swedish East Timor Committee, East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) and West Papua Action Network – also reminded the Security Council of its earlier commitment to bring to justice those responsible for the violence in Timor Leste, which was expressed through Resolutions 1264 and 1272 in 1999.

"Meaningful justice to the long-suffering people of Timor Leste is long overdue. It time for the United Nations and the international community to fulfill their long-standing commitment to see that justice is done for crimes against humanity committed in Timor-Leste."

Quoting the UN's "Updated Set of principles for the protection and promotion of human rights through action to combat impunity", the group argued that an individual previously tried in connection with a serious crime under international law could still face a more credible court.

The letter was also signed by, among others, MIT. professor Noam Chomsky, human rights activist Carmel Budiardjo, Italian senator from the Radicals-Democratic Party Marco Perduca, US retired ambassador Frank Ruddy and Nagasaki University's professor Geoffrey C. Gunn.

Reconciliation at the cost of justice?

Inter Press Service - May 30, 2008

Setyo Budi, Dili – East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta's decision to pardon those involved in the 1999 killings, and the violent incidents of 2006, has thrown a shadow over the fledgling country's justice system and efforts at reconciliation with former occupiers Indonesia.

"The president's decision will influence people's minds about the judicial system... how serious crimes committed can be pardoned," said Casimiro Dos Santos, acting director of JSMP, a local non- government organisation (NGO) that monitors human rights and justice in East Timor.

Horta used his presidential prerogative to "grant pardons and commute sentences after consultation with the government". A decree was delivered on May 20 coinciding with the tiny nation's sixth anniversary of independence.

The pardon applies to Rogerio Lobato, former interior minister in the Fretilin government, imprisoned because of his involvement in arms distribution to civilians in 2006.

Seven former militia members who were involved in the 1999 killings that followed the vote for independence and the retreat of Indonesia's armed forces from East Timor were also pardoned.

One of these is Joni Marques, leader of the Tim Alfa militia, who viciously attacked a car full of nuns and priests in the Los Palos sub- district of Lautem in the eastern side of East Timor. Marques was jailed for 33 years in 2001 in the country's first trial for crimes against humanity.

In all, 94 listed prisoners were given full or partial pardon by Horta.

According to the criteria written in the presidential decree, those eligible to get their sentences halved need to have completed a quarter of the sentence. But Lobato served time for less than two months and then flew to Malaysia for health treatment.

By not recognising the bloody events that took place in 1999 and the involvement of Indonesia's military in them, both countries have made the reconciliation process meaningless, say critics.

After East Timor declared its independence in late 1975 it was invaded and occupied by Indonesia only to relinquish control in 1999, following a UN-sponsored referendum.

Among the politicians who have expressed reservations over the pardon policy is Fernanda Borges, president of the minority pro- justice party PUN. "There are no systems in place to judge whether the person has behaved, whether the person has contributed to giving further information to help the judicial process, and what the victims' response to this is," she said.

"All this needs to be weighed very carefully so that we don't create a perception... that there is impunity in this country, that you can do whatever you want, you can kill people, have human rights violations and be pardoned by the president," Borges was quoted as saying at a briefing.

But what many find troubling is that Indonesia's military has not embraced the reforms adopted by other government institutions. The United Nations' Committee Against Torture report on Indonesia, released mid-May, found widespread use of torture and routine ill-treatment of suspects in police custody. "The state should not establish nor engage in any reconciliation mechanism that promoted amnesties for perpetrators of acts of torture, war crimes or crimes against humanity," the UN body recommended.

This slow reform within the Indonesian military institution appears to be overlooked by the East Timor government.

Instead of following the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Reception of Timor-Leste (CAVR), an independent, statutory authority mandated by the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, the Dili government has set up the Truth of Friendship Commission (TFC) that has weak mandates and terms of references.

The TFC has been accused of protecting the perpetrators. "Because they do not focus on victims and have no rigorous questioning process, the public hearing was used by the perpetrators to say whatever they like... they were defending themselves," said Galuh Windata, spokeswoman for the New York-based International Centre for Transitional Justice that closely monitors TFC workings, to IPS.

TFC's report will be formally handed over to the presidents of the two countries on Jun. 2 in Bali, Indonesia.

Speaking about the report, Horta has lamented that the Indonesian military generals have not confessed to their past wrongdoings. "I am disappointed that many of the senior Indonesian military officers involved did not seize the opportunity to confess and apologise for their failure to control the situation," said Horta in one of his interviews.

Under Suharto's regime, violent methods were used by Indonesian military officers to intimidate and deter any dissent against his administration. There were numerous cases of kidnappings and disappearances.

"In Indonesia there are 3,000 missing people documented from the time of the communist purge in 1965 to post Suharto's time in 2000; there are hundreds of thousands more that are unaccounted for," Mugiyanto, coordinator of organisations for missing people in Indonesia, told IPS in earlier interviews.

In East Timor, there are some 1,400 people who disappeared in 1999 alone. This number is based on data gathered by the UN Serious Crime Unit.

According to the CAVR report, from 1981 to 1983 many people of Ainaro district were "disappeared after being detained, with the military explaining to families and communities that they had been taken to Jakarta, when they had in fact been taken to, and thrown from the cliffs at Builico were known to the Indonesian military as Jakarta II."

Such gross violations of human rights during the Indonesian occupation are being ignored by East Timor's leaders. "By facing up to and bringing serious crime against humanity into the open people will have the impression that their sufferings have been understood," said James Dunn, former member of the Serious Crime Unit.

From its inception up to now, many NGOs have rejected the TFC and the UN has not recognised it. To others, however, it is a tool to bridge the future for both countries. "We need to put the cases in their proportion, and then we will take the perpetrators, not only the (pro-Indonesia) integrationists, but also those who supported independence," said Eurico Guterres, former vice-commander of militia in East Timor in 1999, in an IPS interview.

Looking at the future and forgetting the past is clearly the reconciliation model that leaders of the two countries want to establish. Such a model has the approval of the United States. "Indonesia and Timor-Leste (East Timor) need to come to terms and use the (TFC) report as part of reconciliation process," said Christopher Hill, the US assistant state secretary for Asia and Pacific, in a recent visit to East Timor.

A similar view was offered by Bob Mcmullan, the Australian Labour Party parliamentary secretary for International Development Assistance, while in East Timor. He told IPS: "We sympathise with the victims (but) we are interested in a good relationship between Indonesia and Timor Leste (East Timor), as it is important for the development of countries in the region."

East Timor's Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, while addressing the Indonesian Council on World Affairs, during an early May visit, said by bringing ''our two peoples together in an uncommon approach in the search for truth and in the promotion of friendship – instead of starting legal cases – contributes to their further unity, based on the common acknowledgement that we all suffered because of a regime".

Timorese victims of human rights violations are not alone. Early May members of the US Congress urged greater US commitment to promote justice by responding to the CAVR report. In a letter they urged the US government to take a leadership role in bringing the perpetrators of horrific crimes to justice and work for an "international tribunal to try those most responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity during Indonesia's occupation".

There is a recognition that awareness campaigns need to be mounted about the human rights atrocities in East Timor, victims' rights and avenues that may be taken to ensure justice is delivered, said Edio Saldanha Borges, a member of East Timor's national alliance for International Tribunal, and a victim of the 1999 incidents.

"We don't want revenge, we want to deter the human rights violators so that they do not repeat their acts...after all such violations have also happened in West Papua, in Aceh, and in Java," said Borges. "We plan to organise and activate the victims not only the ones in 1999 but also from 1974...to follow through the CAVR recommendations this year," told IPS.

Agriculture & food security

Biofuels to increase poverty among Timorese

Asia News - June 25, 2008

Dili (Asia News/Agencies) - The government of East Timor has come under fire over its decision to turn over 100,000 hectares or a sixth of the country's arable land to a US$ 100 million ethanol project by an Indonesian company, GTLeste Biotech. The reason is that the replacement of traditional fuels with biofuels has dragged more millions people worldwide into poverty, this is according to a report by the Oxfam aid agency.

Under the terms of the agreement, GTLeste Biotech is granted a 50-year lease over "unproductive land" with an option for another 50 years.

The government is touting the move as a major potential source of foreign cash that could generate more than 2,000 jobs. The foreign company plans to grow sugar cane and other plants to produce ethanol.

But East Timor's main opposition party has complained that the plan was made with little public consultation, arguing that the land in question cannot be unproductive if there are plans to grow sugar cane. Furthermore, it stressed that increasing food production is more important and that creating 2,000 jobs is not much for 100,000 hectares.

"We have learned from other countries that sugar cane plantations will have negative impacts on agriculture and farmers" lives. Over 80 per cent of Timorese are farmers, they live on agriculture, so the land is important for them," said Maximus Tahu, from development watchdog La'o Hamutuk. "Our concern is that the project will contribute to the destruction of land fertility."

In its report Oxfam accuses biofuel-oriented farming of removing land valuable for growing food. This in turn has contributed to the current food price hike, pushing an additional 30 million people into poverty.

The report's author, Oxfam's biofuel policy adviser Rob Bailey, criticised rich countries for using subsidies and tax breaks to encourage the use of food crops for alternative sources of energy like ethanol.

"If the fuel value for a crop exceeds its food value, then it will be used for fuel instead," he said. The net result is that food supplies will be reduced and prices pushed up.

Land and property rights key to long-term stability

IRIN - June 12, 2008

Dili – In rural Timor-Leste, who owns the land and who uses the land are often two very different things.

Pedro da Costa Xavier is a 24-year-old subsistence farmer from Liquica District. He lives about an hour away from Dili, the capital, in a thatched hut near the sea. He grows tobacco next to his house – he says vegetables do not grow in the thin, salty soil.

His vegetable garden is about an hour's walk south in the mountains. That land is not his per se, but is shared between two other families and his own – some 200 people, in all – and he has no idea how big the plot is.

"We only mark the boundaries of the land our house is on," said Xavier. "We use trees and rocks to mark the property we farm in the hills, but it's never been measured."

The land is not divided evenly but used by approved clan members as needed. Xavier explained that if the government were to issue a title to a single member, it would go to the oldest man in the three clans. So far it is not even clear exactly who would be eligible – that would likely depend on the clan itself.

Under Portuguese rule, titles were issued to families who worked closely with the Portuguese. This method ensured local cooperation and destabilised local authority, in turn strengthening colonial authority.

Indonesia had its own system of land titlement, unlike both the Portuguese and traditional systems. But both countries failed to register the majority of land owners and up until 1999 only about 15,000 titles had been issued by either government. Since independence in May 2002, no titles have been issued and none recognised as no land law under the new government yet exists.

Pedro da Costa Xavier's tobacco crop dries in the midday sun. He grows vegetables and other crops in more fertile soil some distance from his house on land his family shares with other clan members

However, a USAID-funded project might smooth out some problems. The five-year US$10 million programme, "Ita Nia Rai" (Our Land), aims to map all claimed land in Timor-Leste and, if possible, establish who owns it.

The project will be run with the Ministry of Justice and the National Directorate for Land and Property. The hope is that by clarifying land boundaries and ownerships, there will be fewer disputes and legal land sales can take place, leading to a more stable economic and social climate, as well as increased development.

Breanna Ridsdel, manager for public information for the programme, said a law had been proposed whereby an unlimited number of people could be acknowledged as owners – basically legalising the traditional framework – but this is still only a proposal.

Ultimately, complex details such as inheritance rights would need to be worked out and final approval would need to come from the Ministry of Justice and later, Parliament.

Power questions

Because Timor is an agrarian society, any disruption of traditional holdings could have severe consequences for food production, and this has some aid organisations worried. Heinz- Josef Heile, head of the rural development programme for GTZ, a German aid group that works with farmers in Timor-Leste, told IRIN farming depended heavily on clan cooperation and a land title could give certain members unfair power.

"Responsible community leaders are better than issuing titles," Heile said. "If you don't consider the position of the community in general, a land title would be a disaster because people would be kicked off land they don't own, which wouldn't happen under the traditional system."

Timor has a population of about one million people and Ridsdel said each family had about seven members, which should translate to about 150,000 land claims (one per family).

Foreign exploitation

GTZ works along the south coast of Timor, a wet plain about a day's drive from Dili. It is also a very cash-poor region, but has tremendous agricultural potential. "The south coast has more than 50 percent of the agricultural potential in Timor-Leste, especially commercial agriculture," he said. Once titles exist, Heile added, they could be exploited by foreigners seeking cheap land.

Foreign investors have already expressed interest in mechanised farming. So far the only thing stopping them has been the lack of legal land ownership.

But while clear property titles and land laws could spur social stability and economic development, there are others who oppose them. Some of the wealthiest people in Timor have massive land claims dating from Portuguese times and those are likely to be challenged.

"The Portuguese gave relatively few titles, and we have heard anecdotes that sometimes these titles were not based on traditional occupation of the land, but were given to families who had risen to power," Ridsdel said. "It was not a free and open titlement process."

Under the Ita Nia Rai programme, land claims will be grouped as contested or uncontested claims. All contested claims will first be mediated at the community level. With Timorese courts overwhelmed by thousands of untried cases, Ridsdel said community mediation might be the fastest and best way to resolve some issues. But whether or not such mediation will be recognised legally depends on whether or not the Ministry of Justice can pass a land law. (jw/bj/mw)

Health & education

East Timor takes Australia to task over education aid

Radio Australia - June 26, 2008

East Timor's president Jose Ramos Horta has called on Australia to be much more generous in providing access for East Timorese to work and study in Australia, describing Canberra's current stand as "embarrassing". He says he is disappointed with Australia's efforts, which are lagging far behind that of Portugal, the United States and even Cuba.

Presenter: Jim Middleton. Speaker: Jose Ramos Horta, president of East Timor

Ramos Horta: Well, Australian aid to East Timor now under Prime Minister Rudd has gone up significantly towards something like 90 or 100 million dollars a year, making in Australia by far the largest donor to Timor Leste and we are very appreciative of that. Way back with John Howard and Alexander Downer, and now with Kevin Rudd, I've been insisting on Australia opening up more space in technical colleges for vocational training that are very needed in Timor.

Unfortunately, even though Australia is our closest neighbour, Australia still provides very, very few places, no more than ten or 20 a year, compare that with Cuba, a poor country, 20,000 miles away, has received almost 700 Timorese students to study in the medical field.

Now if Australia wants to really assist Timor Leste, now in order to prepare the country for the future, it should be more generous and more expeditious in allowing Timorese students in greater numbers to study in Australia and to allow guest workers from Timor, including youth, to come Australia.

Middleton: How extensively have you discussed these questions with the Australian Government, with Kevin Rudd, for example?

Ramos Horta: Oh, extensively I have made this point.

Middleton: And you got a sympathetic hearing?

Ramos Horta: Yes, a sympathetic, but so far, in terms of the students, the number of East Timorese students coming to Australia is embarrassingly low number and I am totally disappointed with it, even less than Portugal's taking, even less than the United States, and now because of Australia's reluctance to take more Timorese students I have started talk with Gloria Arroyo, president of the Philippines, for us to send students to the Philippines and the Philippines very much welcome this.

Middleton: So you are suggesting that the Australian Government may have good intentions, but when it actually comes to delivering on its proposals, it's lacking?

Ramos Horta: There is this almost phobia because of the extreme reluctance to welcome people like from East Timor to study in Australia. Of course, we have many thousands of refugees because of accident of history, the violence of the past. But now that we need to invest and we want help on that, we invest much more on education, particularly through vocational training, Australia is I think doing very, very little. The number of students graduating from Australian university institutes is very, very low, embarrassing for a country like Australia.

Middleton: But its people to people contacts are worth gold. So that's one thing to say. But the second thing it's skills guarantees a nation's future, doesn't it?

Ramos Horta: Exactly, so the number, a greater number of East Timorese students are coming to Australia and guest workers coming to Australia, it's strengthens their relationship between the two countries. We are no longer strangers in the same region. It builds tremendous bridges of affinity, of understanding. Besides, our people come here (Australia), they send money home, to help with reducing poverty and also they will acquire technical skill, experience that are very important when they go back home.

Middleton: It brings me to one further point which is you and Xanana Gusmao go back a long time, go back to the days of the 1970s before independence and now here you are in one way or another, running the country. Where are the next generation of leaders for East Timor, and I mean that with great respect?

Ramos Horta: When you mention leaders, leaders in a country are not only the president and the prime minister. Leaders are those in the government, in the government you have today more than two thirds are from the new generation who were born just before the Indonesian invasion. They studied in Timor, they never left the country, grew up in Indonesia or in East Timor. So these are the people who make two thirds at least of the new government and make over 90 per cent of the national parliament.

East Timor's baby boom puts Asia's youngest country under strain

Agence France Presse - June 11, 2008

Aubrey Belford, Tibar, East Timor – East Timor, which gained formal independence in 2002 after a long history of occupation under Portugal and Indonesia, is Asia's youngest country in more ways than one.

Its birthrate of 7.7 children per woman is one of the highest in the world, the United Nations says. And for the people of such a poor country, where jobs are scarce, that is both a blessing and a curse.

According to Kirsty Gusmao, wife of the country's prime minister and head of the Alola Foundation advocacy group, East Timor's birthrate has shot up as the country rebuilds following the end in 1999 of Indonesia's bloody 24-year rule.

"You can say there is a bit of a baby boom happening, which is not uncommon in a post-conflict environment such as Timor- Leste's, but even prior to 1999 there was quite a high fertility rate," said Gusmao, referring to the country by its official name.

Poor education, poverty and the influence of the Catholic Church mean contraception is rarely discussed, while most families regard children as useful workers and a source of care in old age, Gusmao said. "There is this attitude that kids have responsibilities to their parents, and not the other way around," she said.

Raising six children in a dusty farmhouse and mourning another six who never made it to their second birthdays, 43-year-old Berta Villanova says she has had enough babies.

The problem is that she does not know how to stop. Like most people in this impoverished, overwhelmingly Catholic country of one million, Villanova knows little about contraception. Indeed, she has never even heard the word.

"I want to stop (having children) but if God gives me more then I am ready to receive them," she said as two of her younger offspring ambled barefoot through the powdery dirt in front of her home.

At her village home, Berta Villanova agrees that children are a valuable asset for living on the land. "Having lots of children can help with tilling the land and help with the housework, so when we go home from doing work, everything is ready and we can just eat," she said.

But for Villanova there are more reasons than just work for having so many kids. After suffering one miscarriage and then burying five children who died after bouts of diarrhea, Villanova knows well that just falling pregnant is no guarantee of having a healthy child.

"(I had more children) so they could take the place of those that had already died," she said.

Villanova's neighbour, Florentino da Cruz, a 54-year-old fisherman and father of seven, said having more children was not always an easy decision because of a dowry system under which the groom's family pays for the bride.

"For us Timorese, if you have a lot of girls, the livelihood is good, if you have lots of boys, then that's a loss. It's a business problem, that's the reality in East Timor," he said.

With so many babies being born, East Timor's rickety public services are under strain, said Amy Doyle from reproductive health organisation Marie Stopes International.

Under-funded and under-staffed schools are struggling to cope with the influx of students, meaning only around 20 percent of East Timorese graduate from high school, Doyle said.

Aggravating the situation is East Timor's roughly 50 percent unemployment rate and the continued presence of nearly 100,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from fighting between rival groups in the military and police in 2006.

"We've got a huge percentage of people living in IDP camps, and so they don't have any work, they essentially don't have much else to do, and they're still making babies," Doyle said.

East Timor's health ministry has made curbing the high fertility rate a priority, and the Catholic Church has been receptive to efforts to promote contraception, Doyle said.

But while the Church here may take a softer line than elsewhere, a lack of awareness of contraception among the population at large is a more potent problem, Doyle said, as is the lingering taboo it carries. On top of that, some things are just not negotiable, Doyle said.

"There are many cases of abortion that occur in the country but they're all backstreet abortions because they are not endorsed by the Church or the government," Doyle said, adding that Timorese law severely punishes abortion, even when the mother's life is in danger.

While East Timor attempts to come to grips with the complex forces behind the demographic crisis, President Jose Ramos-Horta has another theory for why Timorese are such proficient baby makers.

Sitting in his office in Dili, Ramos-Horta joked that one of East Timor's top exports, coffee, could be to blame.

"It has all to do with our coffee – the Timor Arabica organic coffee has high Viagra content," he said, his deadpan expression emphasising the joke. "So, young man, I advise you not to drink our coffee, your poor wife or girlfriend will suffer," he said.

Catholic church/religion

Mosque hangs on as example of tolerance

The National - June 22, 2008

Jessie Wright, Dili – Buried deep in a neighbourhood of tin- roofed shacks, between a Christian church and an English-language school, sits one of the few mosques in East Timor.

The morning sun sparkles from the copper dome and the crescent mounted on top. Schoolgirls in headscarves walk in twos and threes through the gates. In the shadow of the mosque, boys kick a small ball back and forth.

These children are part of what is left of a religion so popular that in the 1980s and 1990s all 13 districts in the country had at least one mosque, sometimes more. Back then a Muslim in East Timor usually meant being Indonesian or supporting Indonesia, but after waves of violence rocked the country following independence in 1999, many Muslims fled for good.

The 27-year-old Masjid Annur mosque serves more internationals than locals these days and provides shelter for a few dozen refugees. But the building is falling apart. Inside window panes are broken, ceiling tiles are rotten, floor tiles are cracked and broken, and dirt covers everything. Yet for a faithful handful of East Timorese, the mosque is a school, a home, a place of worship and a place of refuge.

Jose Angelo Srifulloh, the mosque's co-ordinator, said he was born a Catholic in a border district far from Dili but became a Muslim when he was 26.

"I went to school in Java for eight years to study religion," he said. "That's when I became a Muslim." He said Islam made more sense to him than Catholicism. Most people in East Timor would disagree with this, but the differences do not spark conflict.

"Religion is each person's responsibility," Mr Srifulloh, 49, said. "We can't say what anyone else can believe. It's up to the individual person."

For 24 years this former Portuguese colony fought for independence against Indonesia, and in 1999 East Timor won. Since then South East Asia's poorest country has been trying to define itself politically and socially – something not quite Portuguese and not quite Indonesian. Portugal ruled the country for 500 years, so its no surprise that 98 per cent of East Timorese consider themselves Catholic.

Though the country shares its western border with Indonesia, East Timor remained isolated from Islam until the 1975 Indonesian invasion. But the invaders had little interest in forced conversion, and even after 24 years Timor is still less than one per cent Muslim.

During the civil unrest in 2006, which led to dozens of deaths in Dili and left more than 100,000 homeless, the mosque was not touched, even though dozens of nearby shacks were burned to the ground.

Mr Srifulloh said East Timor should be proud of its religious tolerance. "We're all East Timorese," he said. "We want to show an example to the world that there is no real difference between Catholics and Muslims."

There is something about East Timor not usually noted by the authorities – nearly everyone follows traditional beliefs that include being linked by clan to a spirit house kept on ancestral land.

Dewi Ratna Sari, 15, lives in the girls' dormitory next to the mosque. Her father is Indonesian and mother East Timorese, and both are Muslim. Ms Sari was raised Muslim and moved to Dili last year to attend high school at the mosque. But ties to her clan's spirit house are strong.

"The culture of Timor is based on the uma adat [spirit house]," she said. "You have to go and talk to the elders and listen to what they say. We all go, though we can't eat pig or dog or anything because we're Muslim and that's forbidden by Muslim law."

Mr Srifulloh is more circumspect. Although he admits he has a sacred house in his home district, he said he does not go to any traditional ceremonies.

"Each of us must analyse what is sacred," he said. "Why did our grandfathers consider this stuff to be sacred? We cannot simply accept a thing's holiness just because our grandfathers worshipped it. If it doesn't contradict Islamic law, OK, we can accept it."

However, he still believes in the adat system – but only as a Muslim. "I don't go to the ceremonies, but I do believe in it," Mr Srifulloh said. "But I've thought about it based on my religious education in Islam."

For centuries, Catholicism in East Timor has had to exist alongside the adat system, and Islam is doing the same.

"If you are alive you have to have an uma adat," Dewi Sari said. "If you don't have one, you'll never have a good life. Your grandfathers gave life to you and so you must respect your grandfathers."

"There are a lot of similarities between Islam and traditional East Timorese beliefs," Mr Srifulloh said. "In Islam we are meant to go to Mecca and pray there because it's a sacred place. We have many sacred places in East Timor, too. In Islam the star and crescent are important symbols of our religion, and we see these symbols used in traditional East Timorese ceremonies as well."

In any case, Mr Srifulloh said, he was happy East Timor's brand of Islam is its own. "I always say, 'Islam is not Indonesian and it is not Arabian'," he said.

International relations

The Horta files: ASIO at centre of release blunder

Canberra Times - June 21, 2008

Philip Dorling – The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation has declassified hundreds of secret intelligence reports relating to the President of East Timor and Nobel Peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta. In a diplomatic faux pas, ASIO and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade did not consult with or forewarn the East Timorese President about the release of the secret papers relating to his political activities and personal affairs.

The highly sensitive intelligence papers document ASIO's surveillance of Dr Ramos Horta and Australian supporters of East Timorese independence in the months prior to and following the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in December 1975. Much of the ASIO's reporting on Dr Ramos Horta was summarised and forwarded to the Joint Intelligence Organisation, predecessor to Australia's Defence Intelligence Organisation.

Significantly, the files reveal that in May 1975 ASIO briefed BAKIN, the Indonesian State Intelligence Coordination Agency, on Dr Ramos Horta's contact with members of the Australian Committee for an Independent East Timor and the Communist Party of Australia.

Australian intelligence on Dr Ramos Horta's international communist connections would have reinforced Indonesian military concerns that an independent East Timor would be communist- controlled.

Intelligence files were excluded from the official release seven years ago of Australian diplomatic papers relating to the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. ASIO has now declassified four intelligence files concerning Dr Ramos Horta that total more than 550 pages with five folios still withheld on national security grounds. The files which cover Dr Ramos Horta's visits to Australia and his activities overseas were made publicly available at the National Archives earlier this month.

In response to questions from the Canberra Times, the National Archives said it was "not normal practice" for it to consult with the subjects of Commonwealth files before records are released for public access. In a number of other cases, the subjects of ASIO files have been consulted before records have been released to the public. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade failed to respond to inquiries as to whether Dr Ramos Horta had been consulted or forewarned about the release of the ASIO files. The East Timorese Embassy in Canberra was not contacted by the department before the release of the files.

Senior Lecturer at the University of NSW at the Australian Defence Force Academy, and a leading expert on East Timor, Dr Clinton Fernandes said the release of secret intelligence files on the serving head of state of a neighbouring country was "unprecedented". "... The release of these documents should have been better handled by ASIO and Foreign Affairs," Dr Fernandes said.

"First Australia spies the living daylights out of Ramos Horta, then our government betrays his country to the Indonesian military, and three decades later our officials release the files without so much as a telephone call to tell him what's happening."

The Horta Files: Friends, spies and presidents

Canberra Times - June 21, 2008

Philip Dorling – Declassified ASIO files on East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta shed new light on the complex diplomatic and intelligence games before and after Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in December 1975. The files also provide a rare insight into ASIO's highly sensitive foreign intelligence collection role.

Although much of ASIO's work is devoted to internal security, a key role for the top-secret security agency has always been to collect intelligence in Australia that supports the international interests and objectives of Government. ASIO's targeting of Ramos-Horta began in October 1974. Six months earlier a revolution in Portugal had put a question mark over the future of that country's impoverished and neglected territory of East Timor. Then 24, Ramos-Horta quickly emerged as the leading international representative of the East Timorese nationalist movement and he undertook early quasi- diplomatic missions, first to Jakarta and then to Canberra in July 1974.

Anxious to avoid jeopardising Australia's relations with Indonesia, the Foreign Affairs Department advised Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and Foreign Minister Don Willesee not to meet Ramos-Horta and his discussions in Canberra were confined to official levels only. As Foreign Affairs put it in a briefing to Willesee, "In the formulation of policy on Portuguese Timor, we need to try to avoid courses likely to irritate Indonesia without good reason. Indeed one of our overriding concerns must be to pay careful attention to Indonesian susceptibilities over Portuguese Timor."

In Canberra, Ramos-Horta stayed with the former Australian Consul in Dili and then-director of the Foreign Affairs research group in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library, Jim Dunn. Over the following three decades Dunn would be one of the staunchest Australian supporters of the East Timorese cause and he remains a close associate of the East Timorese President to this day.

Whitlam met Indonesian President Suharto in September 1974. East Timor was at the top of the agenda. Whitlam told Suharto his personal view was that East Timor should become part of Indonesia, and that should preferably happen in accordance with the will of the East Timorese people. According to Whitlam, East Timor was too small to be independent; it was not economically viable and would be a focus of attention for powers outside the region, that was to say the Soviet Union and communist China. Suharto left little doubt that he regarded the possibility of an independent East Timor as an unacceptable source of instability "a thorn in the eye of Australia and a thorn in Indonesia's back" as he put it.

ASIO's file on Ramos-Horta begins a month after the Whitlam- Suharto meeting with a report that Dunn had telephoned ASIO to pass on some intelligence concerning East Timor. Dunn had already contacted Foreign Affairs and the Joint Intelligence Organisation to provide an account of a discussion with a young Australian woman, Wendy Holland, who had been Ramos-Horta's fiance and had recently returned from a visit to East Timor. Dunn told ASIO that Holland had said Ramos-Horta and the leadership of Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, Fretilin, feared that Whitlam and Suharto had reached an accord to turn Portuguese Timor over to Indonesia and Fretilin was preparing to take up arms to fight in the event of an Indonesian invasion. Ramos-Horta was seeking support from Australian communists and Holland was also carrying a letter from him to the Chinese Ambassador in Canberra seeking Chinese support for East Timor. She also carried a letter from Ramos-Horta to Dunn saying, amongst other things, "Mr Whitlam will regret one day the dirty business he has made with Suharto."

From this point on ASIO's file on Ramos-Horta grew rapidly. ASIO's primary interest was to expose and analyse emerging links between Ramos-Horta and ASIO's long-standing intelligence target, the Communist Party of Australia. The Communist Party was strongly supportive of the East Timorese cause. Political sensitivities on the part of Labor attorney-general Kep Enderby resulted in ASIO being forbidden from undertaking physical surveillance of Ramos-Horta during his visits to Australia, but a range of other techniques was employed to obtain intelligence on the East Timorese representative. The primary source of ASIO's intelligence was telephone interception of Communist Party member and secretary of the campaign for an independent East Timor, Denis Freney. Reports by ASIO agents, including at least one well-placed source in the Portuguese Consulate in Darwin, together with postal interception also contributed significant intelligence.

At various times Ramos-Horta is described as "very depressed" and "very disillusioned" with Australian politicians. Much of ASIO's reporting on Ramos-Horta was summarised and forwarded to the Joint Intelligence Organisation for incorporation into reports by JIO's Office of Current Intelligence that were sent daily and weekly to Whitlam, other ministers and senior bureaucrats.

ASIO did not see Ramos-Horta as a revolutionary. Analysts quickly concluded that Ramos-Horta was a nationalist of relatively moderate political views. In June 1975 one ASIO analyst commented, "That Horta should avail himself of the [Communist Party's] hospitality in no way reflects his concurrence with the political aims of that party."

Notwithstanding observations such as these, the extensive and detailed ASIO intelligence reporting of Ramos-Horta's association with Australian communists, especially Freney, and with the leftist journalist Jill Joliffe, reinforced the general hostility of Australian diplomats and policy-makers towards the East Timorese nationalist leadership.

Ramos-Horta's broader political contacts and involvement with a wider range of student, union and humanitarian groups were not well reported by ASIO. Instead Ramos-Horta's activism was often presented though the narrow lens of recorded telephone conversations between Australian communist activists with a result that JIO, Foreign Affairs and Government ministers received a distinctly slanted picture of the Fretilin leadership.

In an important disclosure, the declassified ASIO files reveal that in May 1975 ASIO briefed BAKIN, the Indonesian State Intelligence Coordination Agency, on Ramos-Horta's connections with Freney, the Committee for an Independent East Timor and the Communist Party. Although ASIO emphasised that Australian communists had little capacity to assist East Timorese nationalist groups such as Fretilin, the detailed confirmation of Ramos-Horta's international communist links would have reinforced the determination of the Indonesian military to prevent the emergence of an independent East Timor.

Australia's Ambassador in Jakarta, Richard Woolcott, would later describe the Australian diplomacy at this time as involving "a pragmatic rather than a principled stand", adding "that is what national interest and foreign policy is all about". ASIO's intelligence collection on Ramos-Horta could have suffered a severe blow when in July 1975 Canberra Times journalist Jack Waterford (now Editor-at-Large) reported that attorney-general Enderby had authorised "one [telephone] tap on a person associated with the Australian movement to secure an independent East Timor". Freney continued to use his phone for sensitive discussions about East Timor issues.

Thus on November 25, 1975, ASIO recorded a conversation between Ramos-Horta and Freney in which Ramos-Horta revealed that Fretilin intended to declare independence unilaterally within a few days. (The independence declaration took place on November 28.)

ASIO's surveillance of Ramos-Horta continued after the Indonesian invasion of East Timor began on December 7, 1975, three weeks after Whitlam was dismissed as prime minister and a week before the consequent Australian federal election. Fretilin's foreign affairs representative had left Dili and flown to Darwin a few days before the Indonesian attack. JIO made an urgent request to ASIO for intelligence, specifically "seeking any information which throws light upon possible developments in Timor including [Communist Party] support for the group Horta represents". This opportunity for intelligence collection was brief, however, because Ramos-Horta flew on to Lisbon for discussions with the Portuguese Government and then to the United Nations in New York.

When Ramos-Horta returned to Australia for a week-long visit at the end of January 1976 ASIO organised a discrete search of his baggage. By this time Foreign Affairs was already working to encourage prime minister Malcolm Fraser's government to exclude Ramos-Horta and other East Timorese leaders from further visits to Australia.

In February 1976, the then-acting head of the Department's South-East Asia Division, Lance Joseph, told foreign minister Andrew Peacock that, "it would probably be best not to admit Horta and other members of the Fretilin central committee to Australia under any circumstances". Peacock agreed, but hoping to avoid a public backlash, the Fraser government allowed Ramos-Horta to pay a further visit to Australia in May 1976. On his arrival however, he was subjected to the indignity of a comprehensive baggage and body search by Customs.

After discussions with Fraser, immigration minister MacKellar agreed that Ramos-Horta should not be allowed to build up a group of supporters in Australia or possibly encourage a flow of refugees from Timor. When Ramos-Horta next applied for a visa at the Australian Consulate in New York in late 1977, he was curtly told that a visa would not be issued and that the decision had been made in Canberra. Members of the Fraser government frequently referred to Ramos-Horta as a "leftist" and a "communist".

The visa ban would remain in place until 1984 when years of lobbying by pro-East Timor activists paid off and Prime Minister Bob Hawke's Labor government allowed Ramos-Horta a six-week visit "in a personal capacity". In 1987 he applied for and received permanent residency on the basis of sponsorship by his sister who lived in Australia. According to analysts within the Australian intelligence community, Ramos-Horta remains an important target of Australia's intelligence collection agencies. "He's still very much of interest to us," one analyst told The Canberra Times. The Ramos-Horta files have certainly not been closed.

Economy & investment

Oil bonanza fails to ease Timor's woes

Australian Financial Review - June 19, 2008

Angus Grigg, Jakarta – As soaring oil prices hit consumers and rattle global financial markets, one of the world's poorest nations, East Timor, is cashing in.

Thanks to the near-record cost of oil, East Timor has been transformed into a middle-income economy in just three years.

Petroleum revenue has doubled and its sovereign wealth fund is on track to hit $US5 billion ($5.3 billion) by December and nearly $US50 billion in a decade.

That would make it the new Brunei. But money is not the island nation's problem. Social unrest and political instability have prevented the country from making the long march out of poverty.

A lack of skills in the bureaucracy means the government was able to spend just 30 per cent of its budget last year, a failure that has delayed critical infrastructure projects and job creation programs.

In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, Energy Minister Alfredo Pires said the government would deploy its oil windfall this year, increase the national budget by 50 per cent to more than $US500 million and begin public works programs like upgrading Dili Airport, improving electricity infrastructure and building roads.

"The increased oil revenue raises expectations, especially since it has happened so quickly," Pires says from the capital, Dili. "But it does mean we have the money to solve some of our social issues." Pires says the government also plans to send 100 geology and engineering students overseas on scholarships this year.

"Next year we would hope to send more than 1000 students [across all disciplines] overseas to acquire skills and improve our human resources."

The surging price of oil means the government can now withdraw about $US400 million ($424 million) a year (up from $US270 million) from the Petroleum Fund, under a formula known as the estimated sustainable yield. Foreign aid will account for the remainder of the country's budget.

This formula, enshrined in the 2005 legislation that established the fund, means the government can spend only interest earned and a small amount of capital each year.

The fund, modelled on Norway's $US400 billion oil fund, aims to prevent East Timor falling victim to a so-called oil curse that has led many resource-rich African nations to squander their wealth.

Despite East Timor's oil wealth, its inability to spend the budget means the country remains the poorest in Asia, with most of its people living on less than $US1 a day.

The United Nations estimates 60 per cent of the population are illiterate and 40 per cent of children malnourished.

But with the high oil price, which was at $US133 a barrel yesterday, the country's oil revenue has doubled to $US200 million a month. As a result, its nominal gross domestic product per capita will double this year to $US4500 and to about $US38,000 in a decade, or even higher as new fields come online.

Australia's per capita GDP now stands at $US35,500 while Brunei ranks fifth in the world at nearly $US50,000 per person.

Former Victorian premier Steve Bracks, now an adviser to the East Timorese government, says executing this year's budget is the government's highest priority.

"There is a realisation that delivering the budget is a key defence against further instability," he said from Melbourne. "Great progress has been made, but spending the money will still be a challenge this year."

Bracks says Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao has been sparked into action by February's assassination attempt on himself and President Jose Ramos Horta. The Prime Minister was unhurt in the attacks, but Ramos Horta was shot three times and spent nearly two months in a Darwin hospital. He returned to East Timor last month, but has not committed to serving out his five-year term, which ends in May 2012.

February's attacks also highlighted the messy and factionalised politics of East Timor and the instability they foster. It's a vicious cycle: political uncertainly slows down economic development and in turn causes resentment and further social unrest.

And then there's the many fault lines along which the tiny country is fractured. There's the geographic divide between those in the east and west of the country, between the young and old and between those who stayed and fought during Indonesia's occupation and others who went overseas.

Then there's the divide between those who went to Mozambique, Portugal and Australia.

Such geographic and age issues within the army led to riots and looting in 2006 and prompted the resignation of then prime minister Mari Alkatiri.

Violence erupted again in August last year when Alkatiri's Fretilin Party failed to win fresh elections and this swelled the number of people in Dili's already overflowing refugee camps.

In April, the International Crisis Group estimated 30,000 Timorese remained displaced in camps around Dili and a further 70,000 were living with family and friends.

Pires says the government will provide money and materials this year from oil revenue for these people to leave the camps and rebuild their houses. He says the government has already provided compensation and relocated 500 families from one refugee camp near the main hospital, but the two larger camps outside the port and airport remain.

These camps, where youth unemployment and boredom predominate, are havens for gangs and criminal activity.

Pires says the government has also agreed on pension plans for 300 petitioning soldiers to retire from the military. These soldiers and their grievances over promotion and discrimination sparked the 2006 political crisis. Many of these soldiers were also loyal to Alfredo Reinado, who was killed leading the attack on Horta.

But a further political and security crisis did not erupt in February, as many had feared.

This enabled the government to regain control within hours of the attacks and it has since acknowledged that economic development is the only solution to the country's lingering social problems.

Alan Dupont, a former Keating government adviser, worries, however, that East Timor does not have a comprehensive plan for its development and could squander its opportunity.

"It's yet to outline its strategic priorities," he says. "The oil revenue, which is more than anyone dreamed of, provides an increased temptation not to be fiscally disciplined and to implement ad hoc responses." But he says higher oil revenue could ease tensions with Australia over the disputed maritime border and allow the country to fix some of its lingering social problems.

But Damian Kingsbury, head of international and political studies at Deakin University, questions East Timor's ability to spend this increased budget.

"The new government has promised to resolve budget bottlenecks and provide liquidity to the districts," he says. "But to be able to do this, it needs to skill up quickly."

Kingsbury says the government lacks the capacity to spend the money it had last year and he worries about corruption and inequality. "Dili could very well become a boom town, but you could still have people living in grass huts in the hills," he says.

To counter fears of corruption, the government has pledged to establish an auditor-general for the public service and an anti- corruption body.

It has also appointed former Victorian public servant Greg Vines as head of its Civil Service Commission. Bracks says this commission will oversee the bureaucracy and help recruit public servants at director-general and director level.

"Part of this will be trying to encourage expatriates to return home to more secure and better-paying positions in the public service," he says.

Bracks has told The Australian Financial Review previously that oil could be used to broaden the economy, and the government should consider borrowing money to build the necessary infrastructure. No one is going to invest in East Timor unless the country can develop reliable infrastructure, he says.

"Better roads, electricity, sanitation are all bankable as is securing land title and they will all help to encourage foreign investment." But at present this lack of infrastructure, skills and instability is making it difficult to attract foreign capital.

The government is lobbying hard for the liquefied natural gas processing plant for the giant Sunrise gas field to be built in East Timor, as a means of up-skilling its population.

Australia's Woodside Petroleum, which will operate the Timor Sea resource, has yet to make a decision on the plant's location before the field coming into operation around 2013.

"We would like to make Timor a gas hub," says Pires. "We don't have the domestic pressure on supply that many other countries do, so we could become a major exporter."

But building the plant in East Timor would require a huge leap of faith in the country's political stability in the wake of February's attacks.

Gusmao's coalition government remains shaky amid calls from the opposition Fretilin Party for fresh parliamentary elections and there may also be a presidential election before 2012 if Ramos Horta does not serve out his term.

"I don't think you can calculate the political risk at present as there are just too many unknowns," says Dupont, who is now the director of the Centre for International Security Studies at the University of Sydney.

Police/military

UN to hand policing to Timor force

The Australian - June 14, 2008

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – UN police in East Timor will hand over responsibility to the national force sooner than expected, despite a high-level report casting doubt on Timorese policing capacity.

The head of the UN mission in East Timor, Atul Khare, will announce an "expedited" handover of policing duties – with complete control ceded by early next year – during an Australian trip beginning today.

Some of the slack will be taken up by an increase of about 80 Australian Federal Police officers, announced in the federal budget as part of a bilateral policing arrangement.

Mr Khare denied the handover meant a reduction in police numbers, saying UN police would remain in East Timor in an advisory role for several months.

However, he said that by the time the current peacekeeping mission came up for renewal in the UN Security Council next February, he expected the force of just over 1600 police officers would have been reduced "by about one-third".

It was the UN's premature withdrawal from East Timor that allowed the violence of April and May 2006 to flare up, resulting in dozens of deaths.

A fact-finding mission several weeks ago, headed by UN peacekeeping police adviser Andrew March, found that although the reconstituted national police had coped well with significant stresses, it was still "not in a position to fully implement its mandated responsibilities". Its rapid response abilities, the report found, were "severely hampered by lack of training, personnel and equipment".

However, Mr Khare was upbeat about the handover plan, saying "the resumption of Timorese policing responsibilities, as also recommended in the report, should not be linked with the drawdown of UNPOL (the UN police force)".

He said he would be discussing with the East Timorese leadership "a plan for handing over responsibility district by district, starting next month".

East Timor's leaders, including President Jose Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, had expressed "a bit of apprehension but also considerable confidence in their own people" over the plan.

Mr Khare said it was likely that a further year's extension to the UN mandate in East Timor would be required in February, but suggested any world commitment beyond that would not be a mission of the current kind.

"There is a need for several years of a long-term commitment from the international community but that would not necessarily be a peacekeeping one," he said.

Mr Khare said the recent scandal over the UN-funded hiring of former defence minister Roque Rodrigues as a security adviser to Mr Ramos Horta was something "we should put behind us".

A commission of inquiry into the 2006 civil violence found Mr Rodrigues should face criminal charges. The mission's chief, who has been significantly embarrassed by the hiring, was urged in the strongest terms by New York over recent weeks to sever the employment arrangement. Mr Khare finally acted this week to sack Mr Rodrigues, although, in a face-saving measure, he allowed him to resign.

The only person charged over the 2006 chaos, former interior minister Rogerio Lobato, who fled to Malaysia last year, recently had his sentenced reduced by the President in absentia. Mr Khare called for Mr Lobato's return to East Timor and for him to be jailed.

He said Kevin Rudd's office had so far failed to confirm a meeting during the lightning trip to Australia, but that he remained hopeful. "I'm told a meeting has not yet been fixed – I'm in the hands of officials from Australia," he said.

Mr Khare will meet Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty and senior officials.

UN wraps up police training despite human rights concerns

Asia Sentinel - June 17, 2008

Jesse Wright – The United Nations, called in two years ago in the wake of a breakdown of East Timor's security forces that led to dozens of deaths, appears set to end its training of local police, many of whom are still unfit to be in uniform, leading to fears that carnage will begin again in a country ill-prepared for it.

"I would say there's still some real concern about police regarding their respect for human rights," said Louis Gentile, the UN High Commission for Human Rights representative in East Timor.

The UN's certification process is scheduled to end its two-year run in December. It was established in 2006 following the breakdown in security forces here that, in addition to the deaths, made more than 100,000 homeless as hundreds of army and police deserted their posts and began attacking their former comrades. This inflamed civilian tensions and made the remaining forces paranoid of each other as heavy weaponry was misused to terrorize civilians and security personnel alike.

By August 2006 order had been restored by UNPol, the unwieldy acronym for the UN's police forces, as well as international security forces, but local security forces – especially police – remained in tatters. Moral was low and the breakdown of the institution six months earlier prompted Timor to ask the UN mission here to help "reform, restructure and rebuild" local police.

According to UNPol's plan, all police who wished to remain on the force were meant to submit to a screening process followed by months of training and mentoring with their UNPol counterparts. By February of this year, police had spent 15 months with UNPol.

However, during those first 15 months with UNPol police, the human rights abuses never stopped. A UN human rights document from 2007 reports: "Since August 2006 the UN has recorded several cases of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment of persons during their arrest, in detention or during interrogation. In some cases, victims needed medical treatment."

In one case the report states the police beat a suspect so badly he was knocked unconscious and then left in his cell for an hour until UN human rights officers insisted the man be taken to a hospital for treatment. Despite the documented abuses, police officers were not tried in court and were not dismissed. Their UN training continued.

Then, on the morning of February 11, President Jose Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao were attacked by armed rebels, narrowly escaping.

The government called a state of siege in response and police and army forces were given a joint command to catch the rebels responsible for the attacks. To do this, hundreds of police officers were taken – on a rotating basis – from UNPol training for weeks at a time.

Outside of UNPol's watch, police within the joint command terrorized and abused civilians beyond anything seen yet. According to government records, from June 2005 to August 2007 there were 70 reported cases of human rights abuses by the police. From mid-February to mid-May of this year Gentile said his office got 37 reports of human rights violations by the joint command – the majority of which he says were committed by the police who had been trained by UNPol. "A lot of people we've spoken to have said not everything was reported because people have been afraid something would happen to them if they do report it," Gentile said. "People are still intimidated to come forward and we estimate the number of human rights abuses reported to us and other organizations will be higher."

Part of the problem is the government's refusal to sack incompetent police. The joint command, outside of UNPol's control, staffed senior posts with police unfit to serve under UNPol criteria. The government made no effort to oust the problem officers.

According to acting UNPol commissioner Juan Carlos Arevalo, at least three senior police officers are stationed at joint command headquarters with whom UNMIT refused to work because of the officers' gross negligence and unprofessional behavior.

According to the UN, one senior officer in the joint command may have been involved in an incident in which the police fired six shots into a crowded market in 2006. Two other senior police officers were recommended for expulsion by the head of the UN mission in a personal letter to the president in 2007. They have since been promoted and one of the men is in charge of investigating complaints of human rights abuses within the joint command.

"We have been complaining frequently, not only in this case but in other cases," Arevalo said. "But we have gotten no response from the government."

The majority of the reports received by Gentile's office involve beatings, threats, illegal searches and illegal detentions. He emphasized that the human rights abuses reported have not included severe torture, although a few cases were "borderline." The most notorious of those cases was the civilian teacher who was beaten about the head and chest with a pipe for about 30 minutes during an investigation. Toward the end, as the middle- aged man lay in a pool of his own blood, he begged simply to be shot. The joint command got no information from him – he said they didn't even ask him any questions before the beating began – but his injuries were so severe he had to be treated at the national hospital.

If the government is worried about the abuse, it has said nothing publicly. Both the president and the prime minister have said numerous times they considered the joint command to be a success and they are looking to institutionalize the force under a new name.

Even certification and UNPol training does not guarantee a respect for human rights. Gentile said the officers were given human rights training which lasted from one to three days – which he admits is insufficient.

"I've heard police say outright 'We didn't do anything bad – we just slapped the man, or we just kicked him a few times,'" said Gentile. "Some of them don't even understand that it's wrong."

But as the UN mandate here ends in February 2009, the mission is eager to get the police out the door. Last week the UNPol graduated the last of its police training program. Only a few months of training remain before UNPol's mandate ends entirely.

Arevalo said he expects the last officer will be certified by UNPol by December. Currently UNPol has given final certification to 601 officers since September 2006, so over the next six months it must finalize some 2,516 more – despite the concerns.

In Timor, one of the poorest countries in Asia, where 21 per cent of those born won't make it to 40 and most families live on a dollar a day, there are plenty of other, less controversial problems to worry about.

Ramos-Horta said last month he is eager for Timor to repair its image and join the regional Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) bloc. He promised that within four years the country's internal problems will be under control because, "they wouldn't want a basket case, an unstable new member."

If East Timor can maintain its internal stability, the tiny nation stands to gain tremendously.

Two months ago the country hosted its first donor conference since 2006 and aid agencies from around the world promised to give hundreds of millions in aid for future projects. From 1999 to 2006 the country was given some US$3 billion in aid and grants.

However, civil unrest has derailed progress before. During the 2006 crisis donors evacuated and non-government organizations were shuttered for months – and in some cases their work stopped for a year.

But Gentile remains hopeful, even though he admits real progress will take more time.

"I think we have to believe the PNTL will continue to improve and that good people will continue to rise to positions of power," he said.

"The police want to be professional and they want to be a force respected by people here and by people outside the country."

Book/film reviews

The doctors of tomorrow

Green Left Weekly - June 18, 2008

Lisa Macdonald, Sydney – Tim Anderson's new documentary on the East Timor-Cuba health cooperation program is an inspiration. The Doctors of Tomorrow, which was launched at a screening on June 12 hosted by NSW Greens MLC John Kaye, was filmed in both countries, and documents the human face of Cuba's profound international solidarity.

At the 2003 Non-Aligned Summit, then Cuban President Fidel Castro and Timorese leader Xanana Gusmao made an agreement: Cuba would provide the newly independent nation with volunteer doctors, as well as scholarships for Timorese to study medicine in Cuba. The aim was to not only meet the Timorese people's immediate health needs, but also create the means for East Timor to become self- sufficient in quality health care provision.

Today, Cuba has 300 volunteer doctors in East Timor and provides 1000 medical scholarships for Timorese to study in Cuba. In contrast, Australia, a much wealthier and closer neighbour, provides training for just six doctors and 15 nurses in Timor.

The film, with interviews with some of the 850 East Timorese medical students currently in Cuba, captures these young people's determination to use their medical training to help their people. Their passion is mirrored by the pride of their parents and their Cuban teachers, some of whom are also interviewed.

The students, at least half of them women, talk about their lives far from home, and about their new "big family" in Cuba. They explain their struggle to learn Spanish quickly so they can read the medical texts, and describe the personal support and commitment of their Cuban teachers. One of two scholarship students from the United States explains that she could never have afforded the roughly $500,000 it costs to obtain a medical degree in the US.

On June 13, the first two Cuban doctors in a similar program arrived in the Solomon Islands. For more information about Cuban health cooperation globally, visit.

The Cuban doctors in East Timor, who are clearly valued by the locals, are characteristically modest about their enormous gift to the country. Anderson's film, however, does give Cuba its due credit, through the voices of the Timorese themselves. The film is an important contribution to strengthening awareness of and solidarity with Cuba's remarkable achievements.

A Tetum version of the film is almost ready for distribution in East Timor. Copies of the English subtitled version are available by emailing. Anderson hopes the film will be widely shown in the community (SBS refused to screen it). He encouraged everyone to endorse the "Match it" letter urging the Australian government to "begin a large scale public education program for the East Timorese, matching the Cuban offer of 1000 scholarships" The letter can be signed at http://friendsofTimor.and.com.au.

Opinion & analysis

Freedom to kill in East Timor

Asia Times - June 25, 2008

Jesse Wright, Dili – While East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta is on a shortlist of candidates to become the United Nations' next high commissioner for human rights, critics at home are fuming over his recent decision to grant early release from prison to 94 inmates, some of whom were convicted for crimes against humanity for their roles in the violent ransacking the country on its declaration of independence from Indonesia in 1999.

On May 19, Ramos-Horta quietly signed the release order, which according to Timorese lawyers should have first been subject to a judicial review to determine if the convicted were truly able to peacefully re-enter society. The apparent amnesty comes as political tensions are on the boil four months after an assassination attempt on Ramos-Horta and the botched kidnapping of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao by an armed rebel group. They also coincide with questions about the president's mental state after his long hospitalization in Australia, critics say.

Those released included Joni Marques, a notorious militia leader who in 2001 was found guilty of committing crimes against humanity, including torture and murder. He was originally sentenced to 33 years and four months in prison and briefly escaped in 2006. Critics contend Marques has never demonstrated remorse for the murders he ordered, including that of a Catholic nun.

His and the others' release was only discovered by chance last week when a Portuguese news reporter went to Dili's prison to interview Marques, only to be informed that the former militia leader was no longer in custody. "Many people in the community are saddened because they feel people like these should serve their entire sentence," said Alfredo de Araujo, a radio producer from Lospalos, a town on Timor's eastern tip.

So far the United Nations High Commission for Human Rights (UNHCR) representative, local legal watchdog groups and members of Commission A, a parliamentary committee which oversees judicial processes, have not seen the actual court order for their releases. "We haven't been consulted at all on any of this," said Fernanda Borges, president of Commission A. "It seems the courts are operating without rules at the moment."

Louis Gentile, the local UNHCR representative, has warned that the early releases could represent a danger to public security as militia members convicted of crimes against humanity were now back on the streets and apparently free to reorganize.

"The establishment and development of rule of law are critically important to restoring stability in Timor-Leste," said US ambassador Hans Klemm, according to press reports. "By-passing the national judicial system would weaken the very institutions required to ensure justice."

Observers in Dili wonder why Ramos-Horta would pardon such potentially dangerous prisoners at a time of political turmoil. The president has yet to publicly explain his decision and was unable to be reached by telephone for this story. Many here suspect the assassination attempt, which nearly claimed his life and left him hospitalized after heavy surgery, played a part in his controversial decision.

The 58-year-old Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ramos-Horta is still recovering from three gunshot wounds inflicted during the failed assassination bid. He has said, while under an induced coma following the attack, that God defended him against demons who had tried to claim his soul. Since his return to Timor from an Australian hospital two months ago, Ramos-Horta has variously compared himself to India's Mahatma Gandhi and US civil rights crusader Dr Martin Luther King, and emphasized his heartfelt desire for forgiveness over the assassination attempt.

Appeasing the rebels

Ramos-Horta, however, is not the first Timorese president to order controversial clemencies. In 2005, former guerrilla fighter, then-president and now prime minister, Xanana Gusmao, shaved eight years off Marques' and his cohorts' original prison sentences to mark the country's second independence day. Gusmao said at that time that the sentence reductions were "a symbolic act of forgiveness".

One of Asia's poorest countries, Timor has, since achieving independence from Indonesia in 1999 and leaving UN custodial care in 2002, sought to maintain good relations with its large and wealthier former occupier. That's a delicate policy to maintain locally in light of Jakarta's well-documented military support for the militia-led destruction of the island in 1999 after the Timorese voted for independence in a national referendum.

Although Ramos-Horta's amnesty release is not clearly related to any known diplomatic effort to appease Indonesian interests, political allies Gusmao and Ramos-Horta have been reluctant to attempt to extradite and try in Timor any Indonesians associated with the 1999 spasm of violence and destruction. According to reports at the time, militias were responsible for the destruction of 75% of the island's infrastructure and the deaths of 1,300 people.

This year, in his first state trip abroad as prime minister, Gusmao met with Eurico Guterres, the notorious Indonesia-backed militia leader who fled East Timor after the 1999 violence. An Indonesian court charged Guterres with crimes against humanity and sentenced him to 10 years in prison.

He was released this year after his conviction was overturned by Indonesia's Supreme Court. According to press reports that quoted Guterres, he met with Gusmao to discuss Dili's relations with the adjacent Indonesian province of West Timor, where Guterres has said he hopes to run for election to Indonesia's parliament.

Among the recent releases ordered by Ramos-Horta, Marques is the most notorious former militia member. He once led the Indonesia- backed youth militia known as Team Alpha in Timor's easternmost district, and, like other militia groups, he terrorized Timorese who supported independence rather than autonomy within Indonesia.

In September 1999, just before UN troops arrived in Timor, Marques and Team Alpha placed a roadblock in front of a church delegation delivering humanitarian aid and shot nine people, including two Catholic nuns. They later dumped their bodies in a nearby river, according to the court testimony that led to his conviction.

Marques refused during his trial to name any Indonesians who may have supported his armed group. The UN-backed Serious Crimes Panel, which convicted Marques for crimes against humanity, also indicted 2004 Indonesian presidential candidate General Wiranto and charged him with crimes against humanity. Wiranto has never appeared in a Timorese court, nor has he ever been charged or tried for the alleged crimes in Indonesia. Paulo and Joao da Costa, brothers and key members of Team Alpha, as well as Sakunar militia member Mateus Lao, were also included in the recent release order.

Disregarding the UN

From 1999 to 2005, the UN-backed Serious Crimes Unit indicted nearly 400 people for crimes committed during the 1999 orgy of violence. Over the past four years however only 48 people have been convicted, two of which were later overturned. According to independent estimates, there are currently five or fewer convicted militia members still in Timorese detention. The rest of the indicted have filtered back into society, raising worries that the country's cycle of violence will not end any time soon, particularly in light of the recent rebel-led assassination attempt against Ramos-Horta.

Ramos-Horta's recent amnesty did not end with apparent pardons for the 1999 violence. Rogerio Lobato, the former interior minister who was found guilty in court of arming the civilian militia groups in 2006 which led to nationwide civil unrest, dozens of deaths and left over 100,000 homeless, was also recently released. In March 2007 he was found guilty of illegally distributing weapons to vigilante groups and was given a sentence of seven-and-a-half years in prison.

Lobato was the only person to serve any jail time for the 2006 violence, which eventually led to the armed intervention of Australian and New Zealand peacekeepers, but spent a mere five months in detention before boarding a luxury jet and leaving Timor for emergency heart treatment in Malaysia. Lobato has never returned from that alleged emergency health evacuation and several sources say he's currently vacationing in the Indonesian resort island of Bali.

The UN's Gentile has previously said such flagrant disregard for the rule of law and human rights would cause the UN mission to reevaluate its mandate. "Fundamental principles are not to be played with," he recently said, referring to Ramos-Horta's soft treatment of those convicted of crimes against humanity.

But, it is not the first time Ramos-Horta has failed to heed the UN's counsel. Critics cite the case of former defense minister Roque Rodrigues, who according to UN investigations had extensive knowledge about illegal weapons transfers in the run-up to the 2006 violence but did nothing to stop them. He resigned his office in May 2006 and after months of investigation the UN pushed for Rodrigues's prosecution for complicity in the violence.

The government never pressed charges and Rodrigues was never brought before a judge. Instead he was subsequently made a security advisor to Ramos-Horta, and in an apparent diplomatic snub, was appointed over the weekend to a new UN-sponsored security sector reform team. "We are also concerned, as a matter of principle, that justice is done and seen to be done for perpetrators of... serious offenses cited in the [UN] Commission of Inquiry report relating to the events of April through May 2006," said Gentile.

Those controversial actions also have local civil society and legal groups up in arms. "The freedom of such perpetrators may bring into question [East Timor's] international human rights commitments," said Timotio de Deus, a lawyer and head of the Judicial Systems Monitoring Program in Timor. "However laudable in spirit, attempts to move on from the country's legacy of violence must not outweigh the rule of law."

Ramos-Horta's clemency is also pouring cold water on his bid to eventually leave government service and head the United Nations top human rights body, where he is currently among short-listed candidates to win the prestigious post. Local groups contend he is not qualified for the position. "I am worried with what he's doing to my country with respect to the rule of law and human rights," member of parliament Fernanda Borges said. "I leave it to the deciding panel to choose someone who really, really wants to defend human rights in the world. But [Ramos-Horta's] track record in my country with his presidential pardons does not speak well."

Borges said a number of politicians and civil society groups plan to go before a court of appeal later this week and present their case to reverse Ramos-Horta's early releases. Yet it is altogether unclear how the government would respond should the appeals court move to reverse the presidential order.

[Jesse Wright is a freelance journalist based in East Timor.]

Profiting from peace in East Timor

BBC News - June 14, 2008

Lucy Williamson, Dili – Lily's wide, gentle face crumples when I ask her why she is doing it.

Sitting outside the corrugated tin walls of her temporary home, she holds my gaze as she wipes away tears, and explains that she wants her children to have a better life than the one they have now. She wants them to have qualifications, she says, to sleep easy at night.

Two things can keep you awake at night in East Timor. One is the threat of instability. The other is money.

Lily and her husband Ozario are not the poorest here. Ozario makes almost $300 (#154) a month. But that is not enough to send their children to university, and so they are renting their family home to foreign aid workers.

It gives them an income of $1,350 a month, more than four times Ozario's salary. It is just as well. Ozario estimates a university education will cost around $5,000 per child – and the couple have seven of them.

Lily and Ozario may not realise it, but they are part of a growing experiment here in Dili, to channel international dollars into the local economy.

One of those conducting this experiment is the man who found the couple their latest tenants, Carlito Alves. Carlito is Dili's first ever estate agent. He runs his business from a sparse lock-up in one of the city's hushed and dusty streets.

There is an expectant feel to the area. New entrepreneurs are tiptoeing cautiously into a post-conflict landscape.

Carlito proudly showed me round his office. "I started the agency because I want the money to go to the community," he told me.

"All the houses I show belong to local Timorese owners. Before, no-one knew how to get the money in, but I'm a Timorese and I want the money to go to the community."

Carlito's customers are East Timor's international aid workers, peacekeepers and ambassadors. Some of them, he said, had been living for months in foreign-owned hotels. He told me stories of how he would call them up, and persuade them to move to Timorese-owned property.

'Peace dividend'

Capturing the dollars of international staff is one thing, but what about the organisations they work for?

In a cool, sprawling house in another part of the capital, Edward Rees is thinking about exactly that. "Every year, $850m is spent on East Timor," he told me. "Very little is spent in East Timor."

Edward Rees runs the Peace Dividend Trust, a project set up six months ago, to pair the needs of major international buyers like the UN with local Timorese suppliers.

So far, the trust estimates it has channelled $3.5m into the Timorese economy, mainly from international aid agencies. But getting the UN mission on board, it says, is proving difficult.

The problem, says Mr Rees, is that the procurement systems used here in Dili are set by people in New York, who are not necessarily thinking about the best way to procure in a peacekeeping environment. "They're thinking about the best way to procure in Geneva or Nairobi," he explained, "not in Dili, or Khartoum, or Port-au-Prince."

The Peace Dividend Trust grew out of a UN peacekeeping report into the economic impact of its missions in post-conflict countries. The research found that only a tiny fraction of those budgets was spent locally.

And that putting more money into the local economy could potentially leave countries better off, even after peacekeepers withdrew. The UN mission here in Dili currently has a budget of $150 million a year.

Practical limitations

Around 6% of that is spent directly on local companies, which is an improvement on a few years ago.

The UN chief of procurement in Dili, Hugh Price, admits that more could probably be done, but he says there are limits on how practical and how wise spending locally is.

First of all, the money issue: "It is cheaper for the taxpayers who pay for the UN to have generic systems contracts for things like computers, spare tyres, office furniture," he told me. "So we'll turn to the local economy when those things are either not available or when we have an urgent need to pick it up."

But Mr Price says there is also a security issue. "Peacekeeping missions are primarily designed to be a stand-alone operation, because you're operating in what are often volatile environments. So you're not going to have yourself exposed by having all your stuff sourced and maintained locally, because if that is not available, then you have a problem."

But down the road at Camp Phoenix – home of the international forces here – they see things differently.

Jobs and peace

Commanding Officer Wade Stothart says that Timorese companies are considered before foreign ones for every contract that is signed. That does perhaps make it more expensive, he said, but it pays off in other ways.

"You could potentially make some savings to the defence operation here," he told me. "But from a whole national perspective, in terms of improving East Timor and improving its security, we still think it's money well spent. We could be doing things cheaper, but overall it's having a difficult to quantify but very positive effect."

Jobs and peace often go together. A healthy economy gives people good reasons to avoid disruption, and gives bored – often frustrated – young men something to do.

According to the World Bank, some 15,000 young people enter East Timor's job market every year. Only 400 will find jobs. Leaving the rest with nothing to do could be a very expensive decision indeed.

East Timor media review

June 20, 2008

Xanana: 'No business monopolies' - STL

The Prime Minister has authorized the PNTL to arrest any business person who sells rice at an inflated price. Prime Minister Gusmao said yesterday that the Government is trying to intervene to regulate the prices in the market. In relation to this, the Government has invited district commanders from all districts to decide on a convenient mechanism of coordination in order to handle this case. The PM said again that anyone who sells rice for more than US$16 will be arrested.

Horta: investigations into rights abuses to continue - STL

President Jose Ramos Horta has instructed the PNTL and F-FDTL to continue investigating the officers who have committed human rights violations during and after the Joint Operation Command. According to the President, F-FDTL and PNTL must be serious in investigating these abuses otherwise the reputation of these two institutions will be tainted, as a consequence people will not believe and respect these them. "I heard there have been allegations of human rights abuses. I want a deep investigation into this," said the President.

Australia-China: big commitment to continue supporting F-FDTL - TP

The Government of Australia and China will keep their commitment to support the F-FDTL to become a professional institution capable of serving the people as well as contributing to the security of the nation. The Australian Ambassador for Timor Leste Peter Heyward said that as neighbouring countries and friends, Australia and Timor Leste have established a lot of bilateral agreements. These include assistance for the F-FDTL and the Ministry of Defence along with supporting the development of infrastructure. In the coming days, Australia wants to cooperate with the F-FDTL on how to provide qualified training for the F- FDTL as well as providing the appropriate military equipment.

June 18, 2008

Salsinha's trial may take one year - STL

Law researcher and the Secretary-General of Timor-Leste's Lawyers' Association Tiago Sarmento said that based on the penal code process of Timor-Leste, a criminal case of a person who was accused of committing a crime against the nation may take up to one year before his/her case is judged. This was said in relation the cases of Salsinha and the other rebels. Mr. Sarmento said that when a suspect's case is under investigation, this does not mean that the case is processed immediately as the prosecutor needs to collect evidence for the trial.

High level discuss to strengthen Government-UNMIT Accord - STL

The nation's leaders met in the Presidential Palace, Farol Dili on Tuesday (17/6) to discuss the strengthening of the Accord between the Government of Timor-Leste and UNMIT to reform security sector in Timor-Leste.

After the meeting, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmco informed that President Josi Ramos-Horta had called him together with Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak, PNTL Commander Designated Afonso de Jesus and others to talk about the development of security sector [of the nation]. "We know that I have just signed an accord with UNDP to assist us in this process. The result of this accord signifies that Timor-Leste should organize [prepare] itself to join with the technical assistance of UNMIT," said the Prime Minister.

PM Xanana also said that President will write a release to UNMIT about the placement of those who are involved in the commission in order to establish a working calendar to start the process.

Australia becomes team leader for security and defence development plan - STL

The Secretary of State for Defence has concluded and indicated that Australia has become the team leader of the development plan in the areas of defence and security.

"We met with the donors to talk about the national priority in security and defence and justice. From the meeting we have established a team to provide program implementation assistance in the area of justice, prosecutions and security and defence," said Secretary of State for Defence Julio Tomas Pinto on Tuesday (17/6) in Dili. Mr. Pinto said the Ambassador of Australia for Timor-Leste has appointed to lead the team as Australia has given a lot of support to the country in these areas.

Separately, Prosecutor-General Longuinhos Monteiro accepted the decision to appoint the Australian Ambassador to lead the team of development plan for security, defence and justice sector.

JOC might become operational again at request of the state - DA

Lieutenant Coliati has said that the Joint Operation Command had planned to head to the eastern districts to continue searching for weapons, but that this would depend on the decision of the State.

"The operation to search for weapons in the eastern district will be implemented if there is a decision from the State. So far we still awaiting the decision from the State as it has to be carried out based on the rule of law," said Lieutenant Coliati at the HQ of Joint Operation Command in Memorial Hall Dili.

Joint Operation commander Lieutenant Coliati added that the main priority for the Joint Operation Command is to ensure the return of the IDPs to their communities in peace and stability.

June 16, 2008

Guterres: conditions are needed to establish rule of law

Vice Prime Minister Jose Luis Guterres has said that certain conditions are needed to guarantee a democratic system. "We need to create conditions for all institutions who take part in the State of Timor-Leste to guarantee a democratic system," said Mr. Guterres in his briefing at the inauguration of Dili District Court office on Friday (13/6) in Dili.

Mr. Guterres said that the Government intends to create appropriate conditions for the justice sector even though the justice sector is not functioning well in many areas. He also said optimistically that the Government has resolved many of the nation's problems, such as IDPs, petitioners, veterans and the elderly and will now turn its attention to improve the quality of work. (Suara Timor Lorosa'e)

Government signs reform of security sector with UNDP-RTL, 14 June

The Government has signed an agreement to reform the security sector with the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) until 2009. At the Government Palace yesterday, PM Xanana Gusmao said during his speech that this support offered by the UN to the Government will guarantee the sustainability of human development. The PM added that this cooperation is a part of the overall support to the Government in order to assist with the Government's efforts to reform and the development the security sector.

"The State of Timor Leste is a group which is collectively protected by the President of the Republic, the National Parliament and the Government who pay attention to the security in our country," said the PM. The agreement of cooperation was signed by the PM and the UNDP Representative.

This agreement will also help strengthen the capacity of both officials and national authorities in the areas of foreign affairs, justice, customs, intelligence, fishing protection, border control, natural disaster, finance, maritime protection, health and the PNTL and F-FDTL. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General Atul Khare said that the reform of security sector is a step to reinforce and help this nation in establishing itself as a stronger democratic nation and to promote human rights.

Horta surprised at NP plans to create law to buy luxurious car

President Jose Ramos-Horta said he was surprised to hear that the National Parliament (NP) is creating a law to justify the purchase of 65 luxurious cars for each MP. "I do not accept this as people are still suffering," said PR Horta in a community dialogue on Friday (13/6) in sub-district Laleia, Manatuto. The President suggested that it is good for the National Parliament to buy cars for each bench or commissions and/or a mini bus for the daily transportation of MPs. (Suara Timor Lorosa'e and Diario Nacional).

UNDP supports security sector

Prime Minister Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao signed an agreement between the Government of Timor-Leste and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP to formalize support for the security sector reform in Timor-Leste on Friday (13/6).

The Review will encompass a comprehensive evaluation of the security sector in order to support the Government's efforts to reform and develop national institutions. The Review will be carried out by national institutions with UN assThe overall aim of the Review is to strengthen the nation's ability to protect itself, both internally and externally. It will do this by identifying threats, proposing steps to ensure that the security architecture is able to mitigate them, and by helping develop the capacity of public servants and national authorities to implement those measures in accordance with the democratic principles of law. istance.

The Review will consider all areas connected with the sector including, foreign affairs, customs, intelligence services, justice, fisheries protection, border control, natural disasters, finance, maritime protection, health and the police and army.

The Review will allow the authorities of Timor-Leste to further the work they have undertaken in the sector so far and to fine tune its national security policy. It will also provide national authorities with the tools they require to make informed decision in the implementation of this policy.

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for Timor-Leste Atul said: "The review, reform and development of the security sector are vital to strengthening institutions that can weather future crisis without external assistance and that will help Timor-Leste establish itself as a strong democracy, upholding the rule of law and promoting human rights."

Furthermore, the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary- General (DSRSG) and UNDP Resident Representative Finn Reske- Nielsen said: "The reform of the security sector is based on the fact that the stability of a nation and its development go hand- in-hand. Without stability based on democratic principles and firmly anchored in a respect for human rights, sustainable human development can not be achieved." (Suara Timor Lorosa'e) Defense Secretary: 50 veterans to retire from F-FDTL by end of 2008

The State Secretary for Defense, Julio Tomas Pinto, said that at least 50 veterans have decided to retire from the F-FDTL by the end of 2008 and return to civilian life as veterans.

"Those veterans will receive a pension fund as has been planned," said Mr Pinto on Wednesday (11/06) in his office at Palacio. (Timor Post)

June 10, 2008

UNTL students demand NP cancel plan to buy cars - TVTL

Students from the University of Timor-Leste have called on the National Parliament to cancel plans to purchase luxury cars for each MP. During a press conference held yesterday, the students' spokesperson, Maria do Seu Nunes, argued that it was not the right time to be buying such luxury goods when most of the people where still suffering. The students threatened that if the Government did not abort this plan within the next two days, they would make enemies out of the students. In response, the NP President Fernando Lasama reiterated the Government's position to move ahead with the plan, arguing that the cars were needed to facilitate the work of the MPs.

Students to protest rising prices - RTL

JOC Deputy Commander Mateus Fernandes has confirmed that university students had sent a letter to the PNTL and F-FDTL asking them to provide security for the students while they held a peaceful demonstration in Dili. The demonstration is related to the increase in the price of most goods. The demonstration will be held on 12/6/08.

President to visit Cuba - RTL

The Cuban Ambassador, Ramon Hernandes, has confirmed that President Ramos-Horta will visit Cuba in September this year. The Ambassador said that the objective of the visit is to discuss the relations between the two countries and to provide support to East Timorese students currently in Cuba.

Govt should eliminate suffering in addition to buying cars - TP

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General Mr Atul Khare said following his meeting with the President that he did not have an opinion regarding the purchase of luxury cars for the MPs. He did stress that the most important thing was to find a solution to the current problems facing the nation. "I do not want to give a specific comment about the luxury cars, but it would be more proportional or rational if they [MPs] eliminated the suffering of the people in addition to buying the cars," said the SRSG.

Uni Students to demonstrate govt purchase of cars - DT

In response to claims made by university students that they would hold demonstrations against the Government if the of purchase luxury cars went ahead, the NP President, Fernado Lasama responded: "I am not afraid of the demonstrations everyone have right to hhold demonstrations, but they should be in peace."

June 9, 2008

All political parties have a duty to Timor-Leste - DN

In the seventh National Conference of PD, held yesterday in Manleuana, PM Xanana Gusmao said all Political Parties are set up in Timor Leste to respond to the needs of the nation. According to the PM, when any political party participates in an election, they are elected to lead in order to monitor the democratic process. The PM also added that all political parties have a great responsibility to educate the population to be tolerant, to value human rights and democracy.

Veterans to receive US $20 million - DN

The State-Secretary of Veterans Marito Reis said in Baucau that those Timorese who contributed in the war for a period of 3-7 years will receive a premium from the Government. Mr Reis confirmed that he has ratified US$ 4.000.000 of funds to complete the US$ 16.000.000 that they have before bringing the total of funds to US$ 20.000.000. According to plan, this money will allotted next year and every veteran will receive a one-off payment.

Parliament approves resolution to implement Chega Report - TVTL

The National Parliament has approved a resolution to recognize the implementation of the final report of CAVR "Chega". National MP Fernanda Borges said her commission has approved the resolution and they will continue discussing it in the plenary. She added that the National Parliament formally recognizes the importance of this report which contains the serious crimes occurring from 1974 to 1999. "This resolution is very important because this is the first time the relevant organ of the NP has officially recognized the importance of this report. Therefore, I ask all Timorese to acknowledge the writers as well," said Ms Borges.

German gov gives 4 million euro to Timor-Leste - TVTL

The Government of Germany will give 4.000.000 euro to the Government of Timor Leste in order to expand the programs of bilateral cooperation for development in rural areas. After the trilateral meeting held between the Government's of Timor Leste, Indonesia and Germany in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Zacarias Albano da Costa said the meeting aimed to discuss the bilateral cooperation among these nations in the areas of education, rural development, security, health, maritime transportation, and trainings including youth training.

NP approves intelligence law - TP

National MP Duarte Nunes has confirmed that the National Parliament has currently approved the intelligence law for the F-FDTL and the PNTL. "The law has been approved by Parliament, so we ask that the government implement it well in both institutions in order to strengthen our intelligence capacities," said Mr Nunes. Duarte also said that candidate chosen to be the Chief of Intelligence should be a neutral candidate and not be a part of either institution.

June 6, 2008

SRSG meets with civil society - TVTL

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) Atul Khare has asked members of civil society to keep their commitment to establishing peace in Timor Leste. During a meeting held in the office of FONGTIL in Kaikoli yesterday, civil society members and students discussed security and defence issues, reformation of the PNTL and F-FDTL, corruption and cost of goods among other things.

SRSG Khare said that before long, the United Nation would be transferring power to PNTL in all districts. He also added that the officers involved in crimes would not be allowed to undertake their positions in the police or military. Regarding this, UNMIT has signed an agreement with the General Prosecutor to set up an investigation team in some districts including Dili, Baucau and Bobonaro to investigate alleged crimes.

Horta told Salsinha not to be afraid to tell truth - RTL

President Horta has encouraged Gastco Salsinha not to be frightened to tell the truth of the 2006 crisis and the events of February 11 and to collaborate with the Court. The President confirmed that Salsinha is being treated well in prison and is able to give his statement to the Court. Salsinha is awaiting his judgment in Becora Prison.

Rogerio to be freed conditionally - RTL

The Former Minister of Interior Rogerio Tiago Lobato has been freed conditionally for five years as he return home from Malaysia. President Ramos-Horta has praised the decision to free Rogerio as he has already fulfilled a quarter of his sentence. "I think it is a good thing... if he does something wrong then he should be back to prison for seven years," said PR Horta.

Horta encourages Salsinha to tell the truth - TP

President Jose Ramos-Horta has strongly encouraged Gastco Salsinha to tell the truth about the events surrounding February 11. "It is true that I asked the Prosecutor-General and the Court if I could have a short time to meet Salsinha. As a human being and a President, I wanted to talk to him and tell him not to be afraid and to collaborate with the Court and to reveal what he knows. I also inquired about his condition in Becora [Prison] to see whether there have been any abuses committed," said the President. "I am not influencing him. I do not know his information. I just told him not to be afraid as there no one could take vengeance on him."

Luxury cars, laptops necessary for the dignity of MPs - TP

Opposition MPs have criticised the plan to provide MPs with luxurious cars (Toyota Prado) and high capacity laptops. AMP Government MPs argue that purchases are a positive step and are necessary to preserve the dignity of MPs. However, MPs from Fretilin and PUN are vehemently against the plan arguing that this is not time to buy luxury items when people are still going hungry. "I think it will cost lots of money to buy cars for each MP. It is better to buy two or three cars for each commission of the National Parliament," argued Ms. Fernanda from PUN. The costs of the cars is estimated at US$2million.

June 5, 2008

US Senator meets Horta - TVTL

US Senator Richard Lugar yesterday met President Horta to discuss the establishment of an extractive industry in Timor-Leste. The President also met with the German Minister of Economy, Volker Sowade, to talk about providing any projects which targeted youths. The President also received a visit from Miss Australia.

TMR: lack of human resources in F-FDTL/PNTL - RTL, STL, DN and TP

The General Commander of the F-FDTL Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak (TMR) said that a lack of human resources was the main challenge faced by F-FDTL and PNTL. "We need to strengthen these two institutions," said TMR after a weekly meeting with President Jose Ramos-Horta on Wednesday (3/6) in Farol, Dili. Talking about new F-FDTL recruitment, TMR said that the recruitment for the armed forces will be held in June and July. The Ministry of Defence is working on the recruitment process for the 300 new F- FDTL members set to be trained in August.

Secret meeting of Horta-Salsinha: Horta obstructs justice - STL

President Horta's secret meeting with Salsinha is not normal and jeopardises our nation. Including the pardons, this shows that the President is starting to obstruct justice. The President of PUN Fernanda Borges said that President Horta has begun to interfere in forbidden areas of justice by secretly meeting with Salsinha. "I am concerned with why PR Horta meets Salsinha privately. I feel something is going wrong. So I need him [PR Horta] to go to the court to give his statement as he knows a lot [about February 11]," added Ms. Borges.

In response to this, a law observer, Timotiu de Deus, said yesterday that the secret meeting between Horta and Salsinha was indeed legal given that the meeting was authorized by the Court. Separately, CNRT MP Aderito Hugo da Costa said that following the controversial decision to pardon Rogerio, PR Horta has taken yet another step to interfere with the judicial process.

Secret meeting of Horta-Salsinha is legal - STL

The Director of Judicial System Monitoring Programme (JSMP), Timotio de Deus, has said that the secret meeting between President Jose Ramos-Horta and Salsinha is considered legal as it was authorized by the Dili District Court. According to Mr de Deus, the function of President is to guarantee national unity, so the President's initiative [to meet Salsinha] was to guarantee national unity.

Lucia Lobato: Rogerio Lobato is free - STL

The Minister for Justice, Lucia Lobato, has confirmed that Rogerio Lobato has been freed conditionally based on the pardon granted by President Horta. "Yesterday I had a meeting with the Dili District Court Judge and he informed me that the Court's decision was to conditionally free Rogerio because he has been pardoned and because he served half his sentence before having received the pardon," said Minister Lobato on Wednesday (4/6).

Editorial: Horta steps on justice - STL

President Horta calls Salsinha to meet him in the presidential office in Farol, Dili. We do not know what the subject was. It was an urgent meeting, no one knows. Maybe the meeting was about a possible pardon to Salsinha or perhaps on any other matter related to February 11 - only President Horta and Salsinha know the truth.

The meeting between Horta and Salsinha can be considered unique as it has only happened in Timor-Leste, not in the world. Maybe because of his position as a Noble Prize Laureate the President wants to make history by following in the steps of Pope John Paulo II who met Ali Aca (the man who shot the Pope) in prison.

It is possible for Horta to use his position to do whatever he wants, because he is the President and also as the first man of the nation, what ever he does is legal, even though it may interfere with justice.

The phenomenon shows that PR Horta has stepped over the lines of justice, and is embroiled in conspiracies with his friends and enemies for his own private interest.

Horta-Salsinha meeting: CNRT-Fretilin for, PSD against: DN

The meeting of Salsinha and PR Horta has solicited many reactions from MPs in the National Parliament. CNRT and Fretilin consider the meeting to be acceptable as it is for the sake of national stability. The PSD party however is calling the meeting illegal. Former Minister of Justice and Fretilin MP Domingos Sarmento said that the meeting of Horta and Salsinha is a positive step to accelerate the judicial process. PSD MP Mario Viegas Carrascalao however believes that as a prisoner, Salsinha had no right to meet others outside the prison.

Balibo filmmakers looking for Darwin helpers - ABC News, 5 June

Producers of the Balibo film - which will be partly shot in Darwin - need local filmmakers to help out. The film looks at the death of five newsmen who were gunned down in the town of Balibo in East Timor in 1975. A pre-production crew will arrive in Darwin tomorrow and will start filming at the end of the month. The film's producer, John Maynard, says locals are needed to help with production, direction and camera. "We're intent on making sure that the skilled people we've got on board can actually leave something behind in Darwin."

June 4, 2008

NZ forces to stay - RTL

The New Zealand Ambassador to Timor-Leste, Ms Ruth Nutall, confirmed that the NZ Government would not be withdrawing their forces, including 200 police, from Timor-Leste. The Ambassador explained that the NZ Forces' presence in Timor-Leste is to maintain, support and strengthen the PNTL and forces of Timor- Leste.

State Secretary for Defence visits international meeting in Singapore - RTL

The State Secretary for Defence, Julio Tomas Pinto, said via telephone yesterday that the objective of attending the international meeting in Singapore is to discuss regional and national security defence with the Ministers' for Defence of Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and to encourage Timor-Leste to cooperate well with these nations. Mr Pinto also reaffirmed the statement made by the New Zealand Minister of Defence that the NZ government would still support Timor-Leste in the security and defence sectors.

Timor-Leste's plan to join ASEAN not rhetoric - STL

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zacarias Albano da Costa, has confirmed that Timor-Leste's plan to join ASEAN in 2012 is not mere rhetoric. The Minister explained that currently Timor-Leste has only four embassies in the ASEAN member countries of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and The Philippines. These four embassies could ask for accreditation from other ASEAN members. He also said that opening embassies is a strategic objective of Timor-Leste.

Pardon to Rogerio against justice - STL

The Vice Director of the HAK Association, Aniceto Guro Berteni Neves, has said that he considers that President Horta's pardon to the former Minister of Interior Rogerio Tiago Lobato has created discrimination and injustice. "We could say that President Horta's pardon to Rogerio is discrimination and an injustice given that Rogerio is the alleged principle actor of 2006 crisis," said Mr. Neves. Mr. Neves said that while constitutionally all citizens have the rights to receive a pardon this should not apply to Rogerio.

Salsinha & Horta held secret meeting - TP, STL and DA

President Jose Ramos-Horta held a secret meeting with Gastao Salsinha in his office on Saturday (31/5) in Farol, Dili. The meeting, which lasted for two hours, was closed to public. The National Director of Social Services, Helena Madalena Gomes, confirmed that Gastao Salsinha went from Becora Prison to meet PR Horta in Farol and that this was authorized by the Dili District Court. "I know about the meeting, but I do not know what PR Horta and Salsinha talked about. What I know is on Thursday, the President asked Minister Lobato to authorize Salsinha to meet with him," said Ms. Gomes.

Ediorial: F-FDTL Withdraw from Ermera - STL

Since the establishment of F-FDTL/PNTL Joint Command Operation (JOC), many criticisms have been levelled against the F-FDTL. However, many people do not realise that the JOC allowed many fearful people to sleep well. The two institutions act in good faith to protect the population from irresponsible people even though some members of the F-FDTL and PNTL fail in their role.

The issue raised by MP Joao Maia in the National Parliament is not intended to improve the institution – it was only a statement with a political agenda. We cannot withdraw the F-FDTL from Ermera. Let's see whether Ermera is an independent nation or Timor-Leste's territory; if Ermera is the territory of Timor- Leste then there is no reason to withdraw F-FDTL from the area as the institution belongs to Timor-Leste.

We need to improve the attitudes of the members of F-FDTL - they have an obligation to protect nott to intimidate. We are worried if someday the MPs will withdraw F-FDTL from Timor-Leste. It is bad if this MP compares the F-FDTL with the National Army of Indonesia (TNI) - thhe TNI were here to occupy while the F-FDTL belongs to Timor-Leste.

'Rogerio's pardon was based on his attitude' - DA

The Fretilin MP Francisco Branco said that the decision of President Ramos-Horta to pardon Rogerio Tiago Lobato was based on Lobato's attitude and cooperation with the justice system. According to Mr. Branco, public comments are not balanced and tend to discriminate against people who they dislike. "I am concerned about the reactions from the community over the decision of the President to pardon Lobato," said Mr. Branco.

Horta promises all IDP camps to close in July – Diario Tempo

President Jose Ramos Horta promised yesterday during his visit to IDPs in the Motael camp that all IDP camps would be closed by July. "I promise to IDPs that from June to July, all IDPs will be returned to their residence. We know that the Government has a strong commitment to do this but we need to have a dialogue with tthe communities to make sure the IDPs return with dignity," said the President.

June 3, 2008

NP questions Horta's pardon - STL

The PSD Member of Parliament, Vidal Sarmento 'Riak Leman', has questioned the pardon given by President Jose Ramos-Horta to Rogerio Tiago Lobato, the former Minister of Interior, arguing that as a criminal, Mr Lobato did not deserve the pardon. "I think that the pardon of President Horta to Rogerio is not good. It is not good when a criminal who just spent two months in prison before going abroad for medical treatment receives a pardon for half of his sentence," said Mr. Riak Leman on Monday (2/6) in the National Parliament. Mr Leman also said that he believes PR Horta's pardon to Lobato should have acceptance from the public, especially the victims of the weapons' distribution that Lobato is alleged to have been involved in May 2006.

UNDERTIM demands Fretilin stop early election's campaign - STL

UNDERTIM President Cornelio Gama 'L-7' has demanded that Fretilin stop their campaign to hold early elections. He said that Fretilin has to provide an opportunity for the Government to improve people's life through development. According to L-7, it is difficult to have an early election as people are not prepared yet. He suggested that Fretilin should consider the progress made so far by the AMP Government and to provide constructive criticism when needed, rather than to demand early elections.

PNTL violates law, UN asks government to take action - STL

The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) Atul Khare is asking the AMP Government to take immediate action against the members of the Defence Forces of Timor-Leste (F-FDTL) and the National Police of Timor-Leste (PNTL) who have committed human rights violations.

"There are some members of F-FDTL and PNTL who have violated human rights," said SRSG Khare after his weekly meeting with President Horta on Monday (2/6) in Farol, Dili. SRSG Khare has asked the F-FDTL Commander Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak and the National Parliament to investigate the allegations of human rights violations. "If the investigation proves that violations have occurred, we will take action," added SRSG Khare. During the meeting, the SRSG and President Horta also discussed how to accelerate the reform of the PNTL. SRSG Khare said that in a short time, the United Nations Police (UNPol) based in the districts will hand over to the PNTL, but will still maintain a presence in the districts.

NP asks F-FDTL to withdraw from Ermera - STL

The PUN MP Joao Maia yesterday claimed that the F-FDTL soldiers still operating in Ermera are considered illegal as there is no recognition of their work from Parliament. "It's illegal, so they (F-FDTL) have to retire. The state of siege ended last month on 23 of May. I ask the F-FDTL to explain what they are doing and on what basis are they still continuing their operation," said Mr Maia. Mr Maia added that they had violated the law, and if the were still continuing their investigations, such as the search for illegal weapons, then the Government should present their case to the Parliament. "Their presence in Ermera is just nonsense- they go to the market and beat the youth." Responding to this, CNRT MP Duarte Nunes said that the F-FDTL presence in Ermera is not illegal and is based on the organic law of the PNTL law.

Tara: difficult for the petitioners to return to F-FDTL - TP

After the government announced to the public that some of the petitioners would be returning to the F-FDTL, the coordinator of petitioners, Agusto de Jesus 'Tara', said that this would be difficult.

"It's to hard for us [petitioners] to return to the F-FDTL because our big brother from F-FDTL will not welcome us, specially Maun Lere who made the comment that if we returned, he (Lere) would have his members leave and form a petitioner's group. So from our perspective, it's really hard for us to return," said Major Tara on Monday (2/6).

Major Tara also said that the statement of Colonel Lere would greatly impact on the petitioners who want to return to the military. He also said that any decision made by the Government will be warmly welcomed for the sake of freedom and stability of people and the nation.

Pessoa asks for report on advisors employed in finance ministry - TVTL

Fretilin MP Ana Pessoa has asked for a written report from the Ministry of Finance explaining the high numbers of advisors employed in the ministry as well as to explain the Government's decision to give financial assistance to NGOs that support the Government's programs. "I never heard of so many advisors employed in a ministry. It is normal that in any ministry there are two or three advisors. Why should a ministry employ 10-60 advisors?" asked Ms Pessoa. "Why should they not employ Timorese people in such positions? Why do not they value Timorese capability?"

The Minister of Finance, Emilia Minister Pires, responded that "talking about finance it is big and complex. All areas, including budgeting and treasury need skilled people. We do have 18 long term advisors and other short term advisors- they are employed when needed." Related to the financial assistance to NGOs [ETDA], Minister Pires said that it was the decision of the Government.

Fernando Lasama: AMP always works with ASDT party - DA

The President of the National Parliament Fernando Lasama de Araujo has said that AMP is always together with the ASDT party, although the President of the ASDT Francisco Xavier do Amaral has declared that his party no longer has any responsibility in making decisions with the AMP Government. "There has been no formal notification that the ASDT party has pulled itself from the AMP alliance, but it was stated in a document that ASDT no longer has a responsibility in making decisions with the AMP," said the National President Fernando Lasama de Araujo in the National Parliament(02/06).

Gusmao: Government committed to improving children's lives - DA

Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao said that the Government is committed to improving the lives of children. "We all should work together to improve the life of our children because they are the future of our nation," said the Prime Minister during the ceremony of World's Children Day on (2/06) at Kampu Demokrasia in Dili. Meanwhile the President of the National Parliament Fernando de Araujo Lasama asked parents to not allow under-aged children to work. "If the children are still under-aged, the parents should not force them to work very hard, including selling goods in the streets. If this happens, then it is the fault of the parents and not the State," said Mr Lasama.

[Compiled by UNMIT. Sources: DL - Diario Nacional, RTL - Radio Timor-Leste, STL - Suara Timor Lorosa'e, TP - Timor Post, TVTL - Televisao Timor Leste.]