East Timor News Digest 6 – June 1-30, 2009
- Displaced Timorese head home - Agence France Presse
- East Timor ends era of camps - Agence France Presse
- Forgotten victims of East Timor's independence - Melbourne Age
- Still waiting for justice in East Timor - Direct Action
- East Timor government rejects corruption claims - ABC News
- Timor prime minister facing calls to resign - Sydney Morning Herald
- East Timor to protect eco hotspot - Associated Press
- East Timor should decriminalize abortion to save lives - Associated Press
- East Timor penal code approves emergency abortions - Zenit.org
- East Timor president hopes for decision on pipeline - Associated Press
- Timor film 'understates journo deaths' - Agence France Presse
Displaced Timorese head home
Agence France Presse - June 20, 2009
Metinaro, East Timor – On a sweltering day at a camp for displaced people outside East Timor's capital, children play excitedly in the dust as their parents pack their meagre possessions for the trip home.
A girl holds up a fragment of a DVD – "Rambo" – a reminder of how more than 9,000 people became marooned in this camp after a bloody spasm of factional fighting between security forces in 2006.
The unrest displaced an estimated 100,000 people, brought the new country to the brink of civil war and triggered the second international peacekeeping intervention to East Timor in less than a decade.
Authorities are now confident the security situation is stable, so the camps dotted around Dili have been closing one by one.
The last to close is Metinaro, but many of the IDPs (internally displaced persons) here are anxious about their homecoming.
"It's not clear what will happen. We're going to follow the government programme, but we still ask for security," said Gonzalo Gusmao, 40, who fled Becora village near Dili with his wife, daughter and about a dozen relatives.
"It's not clear if, when we arrive back there, some of the neighbours or people living in that area will accept us," he said.
With piglets, puppies and children darting all around her, 40- year-old Bemvinda Freitas said that while she's happy to be going home, she's a little nervous about how people in her village of Becora will react.
"I'm a bit unhappy by the rejections from that village, but on the other hand I'm excited to be returning to my home," said the mother-of-four.
"I have no idea about why they reject us because we are the victims of the crisis. I hope as citizens that now we will have peace in our country."
International aid workers have been preparing the ground by mediating between the camp dwellers and those who remained in the villages. Mediation has also been used to settle disputes between IDPs and squatters who have been occupying their vacant homes.
In the Camea neighbourhood of Dili, residents were reluctant to accept returning IDPs due to safety concerns resulting from long-standing land and trade disputes, aid workers said.
A series of meetings organised by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Social Solidarity Ministry and the United Nations Development Programme helped allay the fears of both groups and saw the setting up of two new police posts in the area.
IOM camp coordinator Brad Mellicker said the homecoming tensions were common to many displacement situations around the world.
"We've been doing mediation and dialogue in the camp and communities, especially when the IDPs are going back to areas where there have been some acute problems related to the return," he said.
"There have been about 150 families total so far that have left (the Metinaro camp). There's been nothing beyond the usual tensions that are inherent in movement."
A delay in verifying the state of their homes, to determine how much money they are entitled to as part of a resettlement package, meant the IDPs living in Metinaro had to wait a little longer than expected.
But a few minutes' drive out of the camp, police-led convoys of dump trucks crammed with radios, clothes, tools, dogs, people and bundles of wood are now making the slow journey home. It will likely take another four weeks before the camp is finally closed.
Meanwhile, there's one last step for Daniel Fernandes, 25, to complete. Families have to sign-off so they can collect their resettlement package – up to 4,500 dollars per family.
"We have all our belongings in two trucks. What I feel now is expectation about going back to my own house," said Freitas, part of a four-family, 25-person contingent.
For Gusmao, the task of rebuilding his life with his family is only just beginning. "My house was really badly damaged during the crisis – we're going to fix it with the resettlement money," he said.
East Timor ends era of camps
Agence France Presse - June 17, 2009
Dili – East Timor began emptying its last remaining camp for thousands of internally displaced people on Wednesday, more than three years after unrest drove an estimated 100,000 people from their homes.
Aid workers started dismantling the Metinaro camp on the outskirts of the capital after more than 700 families agreed to accept money in return for going home, officials said.
The camp, once home to in excess of 9,000 people, is one of 65 camps built to hold people displaced by political turmoil in 2006 that left 37 people dead in fighting among police, soldiers and street gangs.
"This is the culmination of a long process of work done by the government, all the organizations involved and the people since 2007 to find a solution to problems that were a result of the 2006 crisis," International Organization for Migration camp coordinator Brad Mel-licker said. "This is an important step on the road to development."
The families of internally displaced persons were entitled to payments of as much as 4,500 dollars to help them settle in and rebuild homes.
"Within slightly more than one year, working together, we will have managed to close all 65 IDP camps," Social Solidarity Minister Maria Alves said earlier in the week.
The return of many of East Timor's displaced people has been delayed by land disputes and fears of violence in their home villages.
Forgotten victims of East Timor's independence
Melbourne Age - June 16, 2009
More than 20,000 East Timorese live in dire poverty over the Indonesian border
Miki Perkins – Maria Augusta Martins doesn't know why her son died. For two days the 18-year-old had an intense pain at the base of his skull, but refused to go to hospital. The motorbike journey would kill him and the family could not afford medication, he told his mother. On the third day, Honorio Martins was dead.
Sitting in the wooden hut she shares with her husband and five remaining children, Mrs Martins clutches her son's portrait. "Now, when I sit down alone, I feel really sorry I could not do something to save his life," she says through an interpreter.
Mrs Martins and her family are East Timorese refugees, part of an exodus that fled the post-referendum bloodshed to the Indonesian province of West Timor in 1999.
Almost a decade later, they are forgotten people. More than 20,000 remain in limbo in about 60 refugee camps dotted along the border or near the West Timor capital of Atambua.
Most of them voted for East Timorese autonomy, rather than independence, and fear reprisals if they return, so they eke out a life in grinding poverty with no land and little support.
In 2002, Indonesia said the refugees could stay and dubbed them "new citizens". But many long to return to their home.
The East Timorese Government says refugees – regardless of political affiliation – are welcome to return. But repatriation is difficult; the land they owned is now farmed by others and their old homes are occupied.
In East Timor, Mrs Martins and her husband (who didn't want his name used) owned a small coffee garden in the Ermera district and ate three times a day. Now they live in the Haliwen camp, he collects firewood and they have one meal. If he misses a day of work, they do not eat.
"As human beings we are all the same... we still have a hope, we still try to fight for a better life," Haliwen camp spokesman Saturnino Do Rosario said.
Bureaucratic buck-passing means many of the refugees who should get a free identity card that gives access to subsidised rice, gas and education, are forced to pay. The 25,000 rupiah ($A3.05) cost of the ID card is almost a week's income.
The Indonesian Government has built about 80 settlements to house the refugees. Conditions are better than in the camps but there is no running water or electricity and residents say the wooden houses are beginning to disintegrate.
When The Age visited the 1600-strong Aitaman-Manleten settlement, plain-clothed military intelligence officials mingled with the crowd and tried to influence the discussion. Refugee advocates later said residents were too scared to answer questions openly.
CIS Timor Association of Volunteers director Winston Rondo has worked with the refugees for 10 years and said the most pressing issue was a lack of farming land.
The complicity of Australia in the Indonesian invasion of East Timor meant it owed a debt to the country's refugees, regardless of political affiliation, he said. "Nobody accepts responsibility and the refugees don't know what to do in the future. They have become hopeless."
Still waiting for justice in East Timor
Direct Action - June 2009
Jon Lamb – The people of Indonesia will go to the polls to elect a new president on July 8. The current president, former general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, will face competition from two tickets in which both vice-presidential candidates – Prabowo Subianto and Wiranto – are former generals.
All three were prominent leaders in the Indonesian military (TNI) who played critical roles in the bloody 24-year military occupation of East Timor. All three men have been linked to gross human rights abuses and war crimes in East Timor stretching back to the TNI invasion in December 1975.
Yudhoyono was a participant in the planning and implementation of Operation Seroja (the code name for the invasion) and commanded the Dili-based 744 Battalion. Subianto also served in East Timor as part of the early occupation force. He was part of Tim Nanggala X, a special forces unit that was later integrated into the infamous Kopassus, which Subianto was to command in the 1990s. Kopassus was involved in the repression and disappearance of Indonesian pro-democracy activists and students during the reign of the dictator Suharto and was instrumental in the creation of the pro-integration militia terror groups active in East Timor in 1999.
Wiranto, who served in East Timor in 1981, was defence minister and the head of TNI when the Habibie government announced in early 1999 that it would conduct a referendum on autonomy – in effect giving East Timorese the choice of being an autonomous region within Indonesia or "separating". The announcement angered sections of the military that had long personal and business ties in East Timor. Wiranto was complicit in supporting subordinate officers directly involved in funding, arming and organising the pro-integration militia. Yudhoyono was TNI chief of territorial affairs in 1999 and reported directly to Wiranto.
None of these former TNI figures – along with other senior and junior officers who served in East Timor in 1999 – have been brought to justice for the human rights abuses they committed, especially the terror campaign that uprooted more than 650,000 East Timorese, destroyed over 70% of the country's infrastructure and claimed the lives of more than 1000 people.
Some of the worst TNI/militia war crimes occurred several months before the August 30 referendum. Two of these incidents took place in April 1999 and contributed to speeding up the negotiations that led to the tripartite agreement (involving the United Nations, Portugal and Indonesia) signed on May 5, 1999, which outlined the general terms on how the referendum would be conducted.
One was a massacre in the seaside town of Liquica on April 6, approximately 50 kilometres west of the capital Dili, while the other took place in Dili on April 17. At Liquica, some 60 people were killed when a joint force of pro-militia gangs, TNI and Indonesian police terrorised and attacked East Timorese seeking sanctuary in the town's church.
On April 17 a large militia rally was organised in Dili by infamous militia leader and criminal Eurico Gutteres (who also stood in the recent Indonesian parliamentary elections). It was the first sizeable pro-integration militia rally in the capital and was intended to spread fear and break the resolve of the East Timorese masses. In the week leading up to the rally, "death lists" of East Timorese civil servants suspected to be pro-independence activists and community leaders were circulated through the city. Militia thugs killed at least a further 19 people that day. Many of these were displaced persons sheltering in the home of prominent East Timorese leader Manuel Carrascalao. One of Carrascalao's sons was among those murdered.
A statement released by the United States-based East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) on the tenth anniversary of the Liquica massacre notes: "Those responsible for the many crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide committed during Indonesia's illegal occupation of East Timor between 1975 and 1999 must be held accountable.
"The victims of the Liquiga massacre and their families should not have to wait another decade for justice. Calls for justice are not calls for revenge. Only through credible trials and respect for the rule of law will victims find closure...
"The events of 1999 and the preceding years of illegal occupation continue to affect the East Timorese, who continue to suffer from largely unhealed mass trauma. This is one of the underlying causes of the 2006 crisis in Dili. The failure to hold accountable those responsible for organizing and implementing the violence in Liquica and throughout the occupation has created a culture of impunity. Perpetrators believe they will not be held accountable for their crimes and victims often feel that they must take justice into their own hands. These attitudes contributed to the attacks on the President and Prime Minister early last year.
"In Indonesia, impunity for past human rights crimes undermines the rule of law and democratic progress. Instead of facing trial, key figures in East Timor's oppression are running for prominent political offices."
The victims and survivors of TNI persecution and war crimes have also been frustrated by the reluctance of the East Timorese political elite to heed their calls for justice. Although they promised to attend community commemorations in Liquica to mark the tenth anniversary, President Jose Ramos-Horta, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and UN mission chief Atul Khare all failed to appear.
While initially outspoken in demanding an international war crimes tribunal, the East Timorese political elite have chosen a pragmatic "business first" approach. "We have consciously rejected the notion of pushing for an international tribunal for East Timor because, A, it is not practical, B, it would wreck our relationship with Indonesia, and, C, we are serious about supporting Indonesia's own transition towards democracy", Horta told reporters in New York in January 2006. "In today's Indonesia or in the foreseeable future, there will be no leader strong enough who can bring to court and prison senior military officers who were involved in violence in the past... They are still too powerful."
East Timor government rejects corruption claims
ABC News - June 29, 2009
East Timor's government has defended Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's authorisation of a multi-million-dollar contract to a company in which his daughter was a major shareholder.
The government says it is taking action to eliminate corruption and on Monday approved plans to establish an anti-corruption commission.
But the leader of the National Unity Party, Fernanda Borges, has told Radio Australia's Asia Pacific program the new commission's first task should be an investigation into the Prime Minister's office.
An investigation by Radio Australia found Mr Gusmao signed off on a deal with Prima Food last year for it to supply rice worth $US3.5 million. Zenilda Gusmao, the Prime Minister's daughter, is listed as a Prima Food shareholder in East Timor's 2008 business registry.
On Saturday, the East Timor government released a statement.
"While we welcome the interest of the ABC in reporting on Timor- Leste, we would ask for better due diligence in ensuring the facts are correct before misinformation is widely disseminated," it said.
"There are several inaccuracies in the reporting, especially when referencing the laws of the constitution, which seem to be the basis of the corruption allegations."
The statement was issued by Agio Pereira, the Secretary of State for the Council of Ministers and official spokesman for the Fourth Constitutional Government.
It also declares that Mr Gusmao has not broken any laws under the constitution that address guidelines for business interests.
'Convenient' interpretation
But Ms Borges says the government has chosen a convenient interpretation of the constitution.
"I'm very unhappy the government interpreted in that fashion because that shows denial of responsibility for acts which members of the government have the responsibility to ensure that anything it does is done with transparency, and is not in the interest of any family member," she said.
"And the Prime Minister should be very, very aware himself that he was awarding very healthy contracts to his own daughter who is a shareholder of this company," she said. "That is highly unacceptable, highly irregular in any democracy."
But one watchdog organisation has voiced concerns about the new corruption commission's ability to function effectively.
The non-government organisation La'o Hamutuk, which has been working in East Timor since before the country gained independence, has reiterated concerns that the commission would make East Timor more vulnerable to corruption.
East Timor's Deputy Prime Minister, Mario Carrascalao, has told Radio Australia there will be inquiries into the rice contract scandal, while the Fretilin Opposition says it will be calling for answers when parliament sits on Tuesday.
Timor prime minister facing calls to resign
Sydney Morning Herald - June 27, 2009
Tom Allard, Jakarta – Xanana Gusmao, East Timor's Prime Minister and independence hero, is facing calls for his resignation amid allegations he personally signed off on a lucrative contract that benefited his daughter.
It's the latest in a series of corruption scandals to hit the fledgling nation and, if the allegations are proven, could pose serious problems for Mr Gusmao, who has staked his reputation on cleaning up East Timor's bureaucracy and tender system.
A protracted dispute over the corruption charge also risks creating civil disorder in the country if Fretilin supporters take to the streets to protest.
According to documents obtained by East Timor's Fretilin opposition, Mr Gusmao awarded a $US3.5 million ($A4.4 million) contract for rice imports to Prima Foods, a company it says is partly owned by his daughter Zenilda.
The contract was awarded under a $US45 million program to import basic foods, part of the Government's economic stabilisation program.
"This is indicating very strongly that it's a collusion, nepotism and corruption," Fretilin spokesman Arsenio Bano told the ABC. "How can a prime minister sign a multimillion-dollars contract with a company that his daughter is also a shareholder?"
Mr Bano said Mr Gusmao should step aside.
Mr Gusmao's office was not returning calls yesterday, but the country's President, Jose Ramos Horta, declined to back his political ally, saying he would not intervene in the matter.
Mr Gusmao's Government has faced a steady stream of corruption allegations.
It awarded a contract to a Chinese Government-owned company to build two power plants without calling for open tenders. Under the deal, East Timor will be importing expensive and highly polluting heavy oil, even though it is rich in natural gas.
Meanwhile, the husband of Justice Minister Lucia Lobato was reportedly awarded a lucrative contract to rebuild a prison and supply prison guard uniforms. Ms Lobato, who is responsible for the jail system, is suing Jose Belo, the journalist who broke the story.
There have also been allegations of dubious contracts awarded without an open tender to build patrol boats and provide luxury cars to parliamentarians.
Since taking office, Mr Gusmao has blamed Fretilin cadres installed in the bureaucracy for being behind rampant corruption.
Last year he launched an anti-corruption drive, saying: "We need to take bold action and strong measures. This is not the time for small, incremental change."
East Timor to protect eco hotspot
Associated Press - June 25, 2009
Dili – The government of East Timor says it plans to establish a national park to protect a bounty of dolphins and whales – some of them endangered species – recently discovered mingling and feeding off the coast of Asia's youngest country.
But officials say they will need foreign assistance to preserve the area and develop eco-tourism in one of the few places in the world with such numbers and variety of large sea mammals, thanks to its unusual geography and, possibly, to years of relative isolation.
Aerial surveys of the hotspot by scientists from the Australian Institute of Marine Science recorded "an exceptional diversity and abundance" of dolphins and whales, according to findings recently handed to officials in Dili.
"What you have in East Timor is a period of the year where there really is an incredible diversity of cetacean species, of dolphins in particular, small whales and even large whales," lead scientist Mark Meekan said.
"That makes Timor quite unique." Between April and November, the Australian and Timorese researchers spotted endangered blue whales, sperm whales and sei whales during flights along the island's northern and southern coasts.
Activity peaked in November, when they recorded spinner and spotted dolphins – internationally classified as depleted species – gathered in groups or pods of several hundred and mixing with small whales.
The waters around the mountainous island are squeezed into a narrow, deep sea trench that brings the animals together in vast numbers. More research is needed to learn why they are there and if it is an annual migration route, Mr Meekan said.
The discovery has prompted vows from the Timorese leadership to declare the area a protected national park and develop it for ecotourism. Funding is being sought from the Asian Development Bank, the newly established six-nation Coral Triangle Initiative and other foreign donors, he said.
The marine institute recommended that East Timor promote whale watching and conduct follow-up studies to identify migratory pathways and establish guidelines for protecting species.
Mariano Sabino, the minister for agriculture and fisheries, told The Associated Press in an interview that it has become a priority to implement the recommendations. "It is our moral responsibility to implement them for the affluence of the Timorese people," he said.
Mr Sabino said outside help was essential for the effort, but did not immediately have a firm estimate of how much was needed.
East Timor should decriminalize abortion to save lives
Associated Press - June 11, 2009
Guido Goulart, Dili – The UN population agency is urging predominantly Catholic East Timor to soften laws that criminalize abortion and to promote contraceptives, saying in a report released Wednesday that women are dying from secret abortions.
Women living in Timor's remote mountains are using unsafe techniques to terminate pregnancies, such as drinking herbal cocktails, beating their bellies or inserting blunt instruments, the report said, citing hundreds of interviews with women, friends and doctors at several clinics.
Centuries of Portuguese colonial rule left a deeply entrenched Roman Catholic culture in the tiny Southeast Asian nation of less than a million people, and women have an average of seven children.
Last week, East Timor's parliament passed a controversial law permitting abortions when a woman's life is at risk. In all other cases, practitioners can be punished by up to three years in prison for terminating a pregnancy.
About 650 Timorese women per 100,000 births die during pregnancy or shortly after delivery, triple the rate in neighbouring Indonesia and the Philippines, 2006 figures from the UN Population Fund and the World Bank show. It is unclear how many of the cases in East Timor may be related to unsafe abortions.
For comparison, the maternal mortality ratio, which is commonly used to gauge a country's health system, is 11 women's deaths per 100,000 births in the United States, according to 2005 figures.
The report was released by the UN Population Fund; the Alola Foundation, a women's group established by the wife of East Timor Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao; East Timor's Health Ministry; and the Graduate School for Health Practice at Charles Darwin University, Australia.
It recommends that "modern methods of contraception should be promoted" and that conducting abortions should be removed from the criminal code.
"It is advisable from a public health approach, not to criminalize the termination of pregnancy but regulate it," it said.
Several Roman Catholic Church officials contacted Thursday by The Associated Press declined to comment.
The report detailed the case of a 19-year-old, identified only as Imelda to protect her family's privacy, who visited a clinic and was diagnosed with a serious heart condition and told she was unfit to carry a child. But the doctor gave no further advice or contraceptives.
Imelda returned several months later in labour and died in front of her family 30 minutes after giving birth to a baby girl.
To reduce deaths like hers, the report said Timorese health officials should be required to record abortion-related deaths and increase awareness about family planning.
However, any move to decriminalize abortion could prove unpopular among devout Timorese.
On the streets of the capital, Dili, Carlito Ximenes Araujo, a 43-year-old father of five, said his position on abortion was unwavering and he opposed the new law allowing terminations to save a mother's life.
"Anyone who practices abortion is a killer, and a killer should be treated like a criminal," he said. "This really goes against the Catholic Church doctrine."
East Timor penal code approves emergency abortions
Zenit.org - June 3, 2009
Dili – A new penal code implemented in East Timor this week is adding an exception to allow emergency abortions, despite opposition from the predominantly Catholic country.
Thus far, abortion has been penalized in the 97% Catholic country, but it will now be allowed in cases where the mother's health is in jeopardy. The law states that the mother's life should be prioritized over that of her unborn child in an emergency situation, UCA News reported Tuesday.
After discussions in last week's parliament meetings, the lawmakers added a provision that three doctors and the parents must agree "to extract an embryo from the mother." However, in rural areas where there are few doctors, midwives are allowed to perform the abortions.
An April 15 pastoral letter from the heads of both Timorese dioceses, Bishop Alberto Ricardo da Silva of Dili and Bishop Basilio do Nascimento of Baucau, stated their opposition to the law.
The prelates clarified the Church's position that the doctors should try to save both mother and baby in an emergency.
Bishop da Silva met with the prime minister, Xanana Gusmao, on March 9 to discuss the draft penal code. Similarly, Bishop Nascimento met with Deputy Prime Minister Josi Lums Guterres on March 13 to emphasize the Catholic teaching on abortion.
"The Catholic Church will never change its stance toward abortion," the prelate said, "because one of the Ten Commandments says 'you shall not kill.'"
The bishops' letter affirmed the "sacred and inviolable nature of life from conception to death," and noted that this is based both in Church teaching and traditional Timorese culture. It appealed to the country's leaders to provide for the needs of mothers and children, and punish those responsible for violence against them.
East Timor became independent in May 2002 after more than two years under the temporary administration of the United Nations.
The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute reported last month that the country is under UN pressure for its abortion laws.
It stated that despite general support in East Timor for the continued criminalization of abortion, several non-governmental organizations such as the Alola Foundation and Rede Feto, with the support of the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Children's Fund, have been lobbying for more liberalized abortion laws.
East Timor president hopes for decision on pipeline
Associated Press - June 24, 2009
Frank Jordans, Geneva – East Timor's president said Wednesday that venture partners in a vast underwater oil and gas field would be better served if they choose to lay a deep sea pipeline to his country instead of Australia.
President Jose Ramos-Horta said he hopes agreement on where to pump oil and gas from the Greater Sunrise field will be reached by the end of the year.
"We are closer to the market, which is China and Japan and so on, and our tax regime is far simpler and (more) generous than Australia's," he told The Associated Press in an interview.
"I believe it should come to Timor Leste in the interest of the investors and the interest of the two countries," Ramos-Horta said, using his country's official name.
Greater Sunrise is estimated to contain about 300 million barrels of light oil and 8.3 trillion cubic feet (0.24 trillion cubic meters) of natural gas worth around $90 billion. It lies closer to East Timor's shores but with a deep trench known as the Timor Trough in the way.
"Technology today allows for deep water pipelines," Ramos-Horta said. "Technology-wise there is no problem. Cost-wise in bringing the pipeline to Timor-Leste or Australia, it's still to be decided."
Australia and its largest oil company, Woodside Petroleum Ltd., have argued it would be cheaper and safer to build a pipeline to Darwin in northern Australia.
Australian Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson's spokesman Michael Bradley said Thursday that the government "does not advocate any particular method for handling" Greater Sunrise oil and gas. "This is a commercial matter for the joint venture, in line with the relevant treaties," Bradley said.
Woodside spokesman Roger Martin said Thursday that the only two options under the venture partner's consideration were a pipeline to Darwin or a floating facility at which gas tankers could be loaded at sea. "We're looking to make a decision between the floating facility and a Darwin facility by the end of the year," Martin said.
Excess oil and gas from Greater Sunrise and other fields in the region would be sold to generate revenue for East Timor, Ramos- Horta said.
The Southeast Asian country, which only gained independence from Indonesia in 2002, already earns some $100 million from oil and gas exports each month, and has built up foreign currency reserves of almost $5 billion while having almost no debt, he said.
Some of that money could be invested into other forms of energy production such as solar and wind power as part of an ambitious plan to become energy independent and contribute to efforts to reduce climate change.
Speaking on the sidelines of an event on climate change organized by former UN chief Kofi Annan's Global Humanitarian Forum, Ramos-Horta said it was up to countries like East Timor to take matters into their own hands rather than wait for rich polluters to help.
"Do not have any illusions that the rich are going to help you mitigate the impact of climate change," he said.
Timor film 'understates journo deaths'
Agence France Presse - June 19, 2009
A new film about the killing of five journalists by Indonesian troops in East Timor in 1975 fails to depict the true cruelty of their deaths, East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta says.
The film Balibo, directed by Robert Connolly and starring Australian actor Anthony Lapaglia, has been shot in Dili and the northern Australian city of Darwin and is due for release later this year.
It dramatises events surrounding the deaths of the five reporters working for Australian television stations in the East Timorese border town of Balibo on October 16, 1975, as Indonesian troops invaded the former Portuguese colony.
Indonesia maintains the men were killed in crossfire but an inquest in Australia last year heard testimony from several East Timorese witnesses who described their killings at the hands of Indonesian forces.
"If anything, the film is sort of an understatement of the cruelty of what happened to the five journalists and to the sixth, Roger East, on December 7," Ramos-Horta told reporters late on Thursday.
East went to Timor to investigate the deaths of the so-called "Balibo Five" only to be killed himself.
Ramos-Horta said he had spoken to survivors of the Indonesians' attack on Balibo as well as people who were "with the attacking forces".
"From numerous, numerous interviews I had at the time immediately after their killing in Balibo... (the deaths of the journalists) were in the most cruel form," he said.
The murders were "not of the simple execution style with bullets and you die instantly without suffering, without humiliation", Ramos-Horta said.
An Australian government lawyer, Mark Tedeschi, told the inquest the journalists had been attempting to surrender to the invading troops, who were headed by Captain Mohammad Yunus Yosfiah, when they were killed in cold blood.
At least three of the journalists were shot on the order of Yosfiah, who joined in the shooting, he said. Yosfiah later became a minister after the fall of the Suharto regime in 1998.
Another journalist was shot separately and the fifth was stabbed to death by officer Christoforus Da Silva, the inquest heard.