Ezki Suyanto – As East Timorese celebrate the 10th anniversary of the referendum that led to the country's independence, the Jakarta Globe presents contributor Ezki Suyanto's interview with the nation's first prime minister, Mari Alkatiri, 59, at his residence in Farol, Dili, at the end of last month.

When you stepped down in 2006, you said there had been intervention from outside. What did you mean?

I have no doubt. I still have no doubt. It's clear to me that there was a conspiracy. It started in mid-2005 when the Australian media began to damage my image. The Australian government at that time was really a conservative government.

It was clear that they were aware that after 2006, with oil and gas revenues, I could do much better for this country. So this had to be stopped and they succeeded in getting sympathy and support from inside the country, even from Xanana [Gusmao]. The crisis was an internal confrontation between the prime minister and the president of the republic.

The president and the police were against the government because he failed to get support from the F-FDTL (Timor Leste Defense Forces, also known as Falintil) which also covers the police.

Is it the reason you say you do not want to be prime minister anymore?

A strong government needs a strong political party behind it. So it would be much better to have the leader of the party working full time for the party then to be too busy in the government. It does not mean that I won't help the government, of course I'll do it. I have made it clear to the central committee that I am not ready to go back, that the party needs to be strong.

Fretelin is the majority party and has a simple majority in Parliament with 29 percent of the seats. Why isn't Fretilin in power?

It is a very peculiar situation in this country, in which some people do not respect the will of the people. The leaders think that they are stronger than the will of the people. Leaders like Xanana Gusmao and Ramos-Horta think they are stars who will be stars all the time.

Recently, you initiated a referendum for another election. Why?

I made the suggestion. We will introduce a bill for discussion at the Parliament. This is constitutional. We cannot just sit and do nothing until (election year) 2012. We do not recognize the legitimacy of the government, but above all the situation is very bad, particularly in the economy, and corruption is everywhere.

Even though we are pushing for an early election, we have to do it through legal and constitutional means. You cannot really repeat the 2006 scenario, using violence as a tool for political gain. We need to put an end to this culture of violence, to have peace and a culture of democracy.

We have been doing campaigns and we go to grassroots meetings, spreading this message: no more violence. We need to respect our constitution and our laws.

Ten years after the referendum and seven years after independence, what is your reflection on East Timor?

Up and down. We started on the right path but had a lot of problems. People are unaware that development takes time. Combatting poverty cannot just be done overnight, and we had to face the crisis in 2006.

The mistakes are not of those at the grassroots level, but of the leadership. Some leaders dream they can do better in a short time, and that is the reason we really had to face the crisis. Now, we are regressing, particularly in institution-building as people start to dismantle everything that had been carefully constructed.

Now, we have to face a lot of problems, such as rampant corruption, for the simple reason that the system that was built has been really destroyed by the current government. We got our independence, but we could have done much better, particularly two or three years afterward when we got money from oil and gas resources.

How long will East Timor depend on the international community?

The United Nations can stay here for not more than another two years, but for foreign troops and police, it is time to leave. We needed them in 2006 when troops and police were in conflict. If you have the army on one side and police on the other, you cannot do anything.

I invited foreign troops to come, but now there is no longer such confrontation, so it's time for them to leave. Some police and army trainers can stay.

There's still a long way to go in developing this country, yet you have refused loans from groups such as the International Monetary Fund. Why?

I was always aware that sooner or later we would have revenue from oil and gas, so what are the loans for? It would only generate corruption. A state is like a big company. You need to improve the quality of your administration.

Parliamentarian Solidarity-with-Cuba created in East Timor

Cuban News Agency (ACN) - August 27, 2009

Havana – The National Parliament of the Democratic Republic of East Timor has passed a resolution to constitute the Parliamentarian Solidarity with Cuba Group.

This Group will have among its goals the promotion of parliamentary dialogue between the two states and the exchange of experiences between deputies.

The resolution was supported by all the parties represented in the legislative body, with no votes against, reports the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs website.

The Group will be made up of ten deputies from the seven parties with most seats in the East Timor parliament, including those that make up the Parliamentarian Majority Alliance, the coalition currently in power, and the opposition parties.

The Parliament's Presidency considers that this step will contribute to the strengthening of the already friendly relations between the peoples of both nations.

Solidarity group seeks international support for Timor Leste

Jakarta Post - August 26, 2009

Yemris Fointuna, Dili – A solidarity network for Timor Leste will hold a conference in Dili from Aug. 27-29 to rally international support for poverty alleviation and programs to fight injustice in the tiny country.

Solidarity activist Lita Sarmento said Wednesday that members of the network from at least 17 countries had confirmed their participation in the conference, which will coincide with the 10th anniversary of the self-determination referendum that led to Timor Leste's independence from Indonesia.

Sarmento said representatives from Australia, Canada, France, Finland, Britain, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the Philippines, Portugal, Scotland, Sri Lanka, Timor Leste and the US were expected to give recommendations on programs to help Timor Leste prosper.

John Miller of the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) said the conference would formulate efforts to propel development programs and protect human rights and justice in Timor Leste.

Dili is peaceful ahead of anniversary celebrations. Outside the presidential office, the flags of UN member countries were hoisted. A number of people marked the day with a visit to victims of past human rights violations.

East Timor's bid to boost tourism

Radio Australia - August 6, 2009

Kerry O'Brien, presenter: It's now 10 years since the people of East Timor were finally given the chance to decide their political future and vote in a referendum on independence. But the impoverished young nation's Government would prefer to look forward.

It's trying to sell East Timor to the world as a destination for foreign tourists and next month, East Timor will host its first international sporting event – a bike race for cyclists from around the globe. But while the Government argues East Timor is safe for visitors, Sara Everingham reports on a still fragile state.

Sara Everingham, reporter: It might not be the Tour de France, but East Timor's political leaders are pinning their hopes on an international cycling to put their country on the world's tourist map. Foreign riders already training with East Timor's national cycling team, for the Tour de Timor – a five day race through the remote hills of this nation.

Luiz Vieira, cyclist: I think it will be very difficult, as you can see it's very hot, humid, there are some difficult climbs, long roads. It will be great. I'm very excited.

Sara Everingham: East Timor's President says putting up $90,000 in prize money from the public purse is a worthwhile investment.

Jose Ramos Horta, East Timor President: I always try to provide our people with challenges, challenges that are positive, not only physical endurance, but make them a proud of the country.

Sara Everingham: Less than a decade ago, the people of East Timor were still fighting for their independence, the end of this month marks 10 years since they voted in a UN sponsored referendum to reject 25 years of Indonesian rule. Since then the country has struggled to maintain stability.

In 2006 Australian and other foreign troops had to restore order after a mutiny split East Timor's new army. In 2008 President Jose Ramos Horta was fighting for his life after being shot, allegedly by rebel army officers. He's now trying to reassure the world East Timor is a safe place for foreign visitors.

Jose Ramos Horta: It takes a lot of effort, first to restore peace and security in the country, to heal the wounds, and same time as we create conditions of peace and security, we try to create an economy.

Sara Everingham: But many East Timorese who fled their homes during the violence of 2006 are still refugees in their own country. The Government's been paying thousands of people living in makeshift camps to pack up and go home. For many, the return isn't easy.

Ivo Noel (translated): Life at the moment is very difficult because with us youth, we don't get proper education, we can't find any jobs, there are no jobs, so what are we supposed to do?

Sara Everingham: East Timor spent millions of dollars importing rice for its impoverished people. Much of that money coming from the biggest revenue earner, its share of the lucrative Timor Gap oil and gas fields. But some foreign investors see great potential in East Timor's other natural assets for a thriving tourist industry.

Anne Turner, tourism consultant: I think in Timor state we have probably the best shore diving in the world, where you just walk straight in off the beach. You have a world class coral reef that's within a very, very short swim, beautiful, beautiful coral and lots and lots of different species of animals, including some very rare ones.

Sara Everingham: East Timor's biggest tourist market is Australia, but the Australian Government's warning for East Timor says reconsider your need to travel.

Jose Ramos Horta: I gave up, you know, because I have talked to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Stephen Smith, countless times to the Ambassador here, who is here with his wife, his daughter even came to visit him. He goes around town with his wife, without security. And yet in Canberra, they say, you know, security level, phase level I think is 4 or something like that.

Sara Everingham: Most foreign visitors to East Timor aren't here on holiday, they're here keeping the peace. Almost a decade since the first deployment of Australian peacekeepers in East Timor, there are now 650 Australian soldiers here, their commander says they are making a difference.

Brigadier Bill Sowry, International Stabilisation Force: There has been an enormous amount of progress. The confidence on the streets, the traffic is a very good example of what is going on. The development that's going on in terms of infrastructure, roads, and general cleanliness.

Sara Everingham: The Australians are now turning their attention to training the local military and police. But it will be years before East Timor is ready to stand on its own two feet. Many East Timorese say only they can assure a prosperous future for their country.

Ivo Noel (translated): We can't sit down and wait for things to happen and see what our nation gives us, we have to do something for our nation that will give us some stability in our lives.

Sara Everingham: Brazilian Luiz Vieira sees competing in the Tour de Timor as a way to help.

Luiz Vieira: I look at this Tour de Timor not only as a sporting event but also something that can contribute to you know, to the country's development in so many ways. I think it will be a unique event worth joining in.

Sara Everingham: East Timor's President knows his country has a long road ahead.

Jose Ramos Horta: This is still fragile in this country, institutions are fragile. That's why I make a lot of effort to gather the Government in putting the violence once and for all behind us, and hopefully with that in the next two, three years we'll have an increasing number of visitors coming to this country.

Kerry O'Brien, Presenter: Sara Everingham reporting from East Timor.

February 11 attack

Reinado's lover 'stressed' by assassination trial

ABC News - August 6, 2009

An Australian woman charged with conspiring to kill East Timor's President is stressed and concerned by the trial, her Darwin solicitor says.

Angelita Pires, 43, is one of 28 people charged over the attack on President Jose Ramos-Horta in February last year.

Pires – a dual citizen of Australia and East Timor – is in the fourth week of her trial in Dili, charged with conspiracy over the assassination attempt. She was the girlfriend of rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, who was killed during the attack.

Her solicitor, Peter Maley, is still calling on the prosecution to drop the case. He says Pires is being supported by her family, friends and local residents, but she is stressed and worried about the serious allegations made against her.

Mr Maley says things are progressing satisfactorily, with two to four witnesses giving evidence each per day.

"Unfortunately the trial is expected to proceed for at least another four or five months and there are 150 witnesses," he said.

"This is probably the biggest trial that the new independent state of East Timor has ever embarked upon so she's understandably taking this seriously."

Balibo inquiry

The new film Balibo tells only part of the story

The Australian - August 21, 2009

Paul Monk – Robert Connolly's film Balibo graphically reconstructs the murder by Indonesian special forces, on October 16, 1975, of Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham, Tony Stewart, Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters because they had tried to capture on film Indonesia's covert invasion of East Timor.

It does this through the story of Roger East, another Australian journalist who, having gone to find out what had happened to the Balibo five, was himself summarily shot by Indonesian soldiers on the docks in Dili on December 7, 1975, in the first hours of Indonesia's conventional invasion of East Timor.

Neither the Indonesian nor the Australian government has been keen to see this story publicly aired. But what the film misses is that the battle for East Timor was waged for many years in the corridors of Canberra.

There has been a long and complex debate within Australian government circles since the 1940s about how to come to terms with Indonesian nationalism and the ambition of the Javanese to control the entire archipelago that had made up the Dutch East Indies.

Canberra opted to support Indonesian nationalists against the Dutch in 1948 but for two decades after that struggled to come to terms with Sukarno, his loose alliance with the powerful Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and his tendency to resort to force during territorial disputes.

When Suharto rose to power in 1965-66, destroying the PKI and overthrowing Sukarno, there was enormous relief in Canberra. Thereafter, there was a strong disposition to work with Suharto, a feeling that was reciprocated in Jakarta.

Crucial to Canberra's perceptions of what scope it had for containing Indonesian territorial ambitions was the case of Dutch New Guinea (Papua). A secret study by Army Intelligence in 1958 advised that Australia's national interest would be best served by inducing the Dutch to co-operate in developing New Guinea and giving the whole of it independence eventually, as a unified and economically viable Melanesian state.

Robert Menzies agreed. The Dutch, however, were ambivalent. Sukarno was truculent, and in 1961 Washington and London urged Canberra to accede to Sukarno's determination to annex Papua. Menzies and his advisers were vexed but felt they had no effective choice left.

This set the stage for thinking about Portuguese Timor. It was far less well endowed than Dutch New Guinea and governed even more negligently. It seemed highly likely that Sukarno would seek to annex it in due course.

Significantly, just as the Dutch New Guinea issue came to a head in December 1961, the Indians invaded Goa, the 451-year-old Portuguese enclave in India.

The fighting was over within 36 hours, with 14 Indian and 31 Portuguese fatalities. The precedent seemed clear. Canberra had to think through what its position would be as regards Portuguese Timor.

In early 1962 Arthur Tange, secretary of external (foreign) affairs, asked Gordon Jockel to write a study paper on the question. Jockel recommended that Australia openly press for the development and self-determination of Portuguese Timor; that it raise this matter in the UN to head off Indonesian ambitions; that it make clear to Jakarta that incorporation was not inevitable and that Australia would not be an accomplice to any Indonesian exercise of realpolitik in the matter.

None of this was done, in part because Tange and his minister, Garfield Barwick, were looking for ways in which Australia might acquiesce in the passage of Portuguese Timor to Indonesia, as it was about to do in the case of Dutch New Guinea.

Gough Whitlam inherited this tacit policy history and took the Barwick line.

This was all the more so because, from 1966 Canberra had decided to throw in its lot with Suharto as its least bad option in regard to the future of Indonesia. Whitlam's thinking was further affected by several things that precipitated the case in 1974-75. A left-wing coup in Portugal brought Marxists to power in 1974 and they urged leftist forces in the country's colonies to take them over.

Indonesian intelligence officers approached the Australian embassy in early July 1974, requesting support for an Indonesian takeover of Portuguese Timor. In late 1974 and early 1975, the wars in Indochina reached their denouement with the communists seizing South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

The debate in Canberra in these circumstances was nuanced and fascinating. Tange was then secretary of defence and Jockel director of the Joint Intelligence Organisation. Against the explicit advice of Foreign Affairs and the strongly expressed views of senior defence officials, Whitlam took the Barwick line. But he did not wish to publicly espouse it and seems to have expected that a Goa outcome would occur, as did Indonesia's military planners.

Whitlam and the Indonesians were seriously in error on this score.

At a meeting of senior officials with secretary of foreign affairs Alan Renouf in December 1974, Michael Cook and Jockel, in particular, made clear that there would be protracted and bloody fighting if Indonesia sought to annex the territory and that Canberra urgently needed to rethink its policy.

The Barwick-Whitlam approach would lead to "a running sore for Indonesia", so integration was "not a winnable goal", as Cook phrased it; and independence would have to be looked at in the long run.

But the prime minister wanted to see incorporation, Richard Woolcott responded, and he had "escape clauses if necessary".

Those escape clauses were his refusal to openly support the use of force by Indonesia. He did, however, privately tell Suharto in April 1975 that if push came to shove he would give priority to the relationship with Jakarta over the right of the Timorese to self-determination.

Jakarta then prepared a covert invasion in the mistaken belief that it could quickly overrun Fretilin, raise a false flag in Dili and occupy the territory under that cover.

Australian intelligence kept a close and anxious watch on the situation and, at Woolcott's urging, sought to deflect Australian public opinion from interest in or concern about thematter.

But such interest and concern went all the way back to World War II and was not to be deflected. It was into this vortex that the five journalists stepped, in mid-October 1975. The rest, as they say, is history. But only a small, all-too-human part of that history is captured in Balibo.

[Paul Monk is the author of Secret Intelligence and Escape Clauses: Australia and the Indonesian Annexation of East Timor, 1963-1976, published in Critical Asian Studies Vol.33, No.2 (2001).]

Balibo dispute 'a bid to avoid trial'

The Australian - August 17, 2009

Caroline Overington – The family of one of the Balibo Five believes the Rudd government has deliberately inflamed a wrenching dispute over the remains of the dead to avoid having to confront Jakarta over the invasion of East Timor, and the violent death of their kin.

The Weekend Australian reported that families of the five journalists were in dispute over whether the remains should be exhumed, and that the Australian Federal Police was reluctant to exhume the grave without permission from all five families.

Gary Cunningham's son, John Milkins Cunningham, said the government had linked the exhumation of the bodies with the investigation into the crime, in order to avoid a trial that would strain relations between Canberra and Jakarta.

The family has legal advice from the director of the Centre for International Law at Sydney University, Ben Saul, that the killing of the five unarmed journalists was a war crime.

For a war crime to exist, it must first be established that an "armed conflict" existed between at least two state parties.

In the current issue of the Australian Law Journal, Dr Saul argues that the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in October 1975 "triggered an international armed conflict within the meaning of the... Geneva Conventions". It was "no secret that those operations both directly involved Indonesian military forces and were closely directed and controlled by Indonesia".

Then, too, there was "protracted violence between government authorities and organised armed groups" including Fretilin (which met the invasion with military resistance on "a significant and organised scale").

Dr Saul says unarmed journalists are non-combatants under international humanitarian law, and the "wilful killing of a non-combatant" is not an act of war. He notes that "not every killing in a war zone is a war crime" since ordinary criminal conduct (such as the crime of murder) can co-exist with war.

To qualify as a war crime, the killing of the Balibo Five must be "closely related to the armed conflict as a whole" and the Balibo killings "occurred in the direct context of a military operation".

Indonesia has always said that the five were killed in crossfire in Balibo, but after taking testimony from witnesses and examining previously unreleased intelligence, a Sydney coroner ruled in 2007 that they were "shot and stabbed deliberately, and not in the heat of battle, by members of the Indonesian Special Forces".

The coroner named one of the killers as Captain Yunus Yosfiah, who went on to become an Indonesian MP.

"Most Australians would agree that there is no statute of limitations on war crimes," Mr Milkins Cunningham said.

He said it wasn't clear that the Rudd government's envoy for the Asian Pacific Community Plan, Richard Woolcott, who was Australian ambassador to Indonesia when the five were killed, had formally accepted the 2007 findings of the NSW coroner that the Balibo Five were deliberately killed in order to cover up the impending invasion of East Timor by Indonesia.

New film Balibo opens political and cultural wounds

Sun Herald - August 16, 2009

[A new film has opened political and cultural wounds. Author Paul Cleary and filmmaker, Robert Connolly present two informed views on its portrayal of history.]

Paul Cleary

Like a western movie in which all of the baddies are "redskins", the only villains portrayed in the new Robert Connolly film Balibo are the Indonesians who did the killing, which means this dramatisation of the murder of six journalists in East Timor in 1975 tells only half the story.

And instead of telling the whole story – drawing on a mountain of records that reveal the diplomatic shenanigans – about two- thirds of the film is pure fiction. Aside from the murder of the journalists, the rest of the film is fiction and yet Connolly claims at the outset it is a "true story".

None of the Australians and Americans who had a hand in the events that led to these murders – and the deaths of an estimated 183,000 Timorese – are portrayed in the film.

Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who tacitly endorsed an Indonesian takeover of the colony that Portugal was in the throes of abandoning, gets a split-second mention.

The film's official website demands that the Indonesian officers associated with the murders be tried for "war crimes", but it does not call for complicit Westerners to face justice.

US president Gerald Ford and secretary of state Henry Kissinger sanctioned the full-scale invasion of East Timor in a meeting in Jakarta with Indonesia's president Soeharto in December 1975. While the film mentions the meeting, Connolly has not extended his war crimes demands to Kissinger, a Nobel laureate who is still alive. Presumably this wouldn't bode well for potential US distribution.

While there are oblique references to the shadowy role of the Australian and US governments, the film pulls its punches by failing to name names and reveal the dirty tricks played by key politicians and officials. As a result, Balibo ends up heaping all of the blame onto Indonesia and Indonesian people and demonising them along the way.

Balibo's most glaring omission, in both a historical and theatrical sense, is the pivotal role played by officials in Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA, later DFAT) who agitated for an Indonesian takeover, and became complicit in its execution.

The film overlooks the mountain of documents on Australia's involvement in East Timor from 1974 to '76. Connolly and his co- writer David Williamson claim they relied on the book Cover-upby journalist Jill Joliffe, which is a fine book, but the film barely resembles it.

Nor does it reflect the revelations about DFA officials in the book Death in Balibo, by Australian National University academic Des Ball and Sydney Morning Herald journalist Hamish McDonald, which reveals how senior officials in the Jakarta embassy, Malcolm Dan and Allan Taylor, received detailed briefings on Indonesia's plan to destabilise and invade East Timor.

The authors conclude that through this Jakarta embassy contact, Canberra became "deeply complicit" in the invasion and did nothing to stop it.

The book reveals how on October 14, 1975, when the Seven Network broadcast a report from its news team en route to the Indonesian border, Australia's ambassador to Jakarta Richard Woolcott sent a cable to Canberra outlining in detail Indonesia's plans to attack East Timor's border towns, including Balibo. DFA could not have been unaware of the Seven report given that it was broadcast in Canberra.

No one in the government contacted the Seven and Nine networks to warn of the imminent danger. The reason? Ball and McDonald say that warning them would have revealed that Australia had intimate knowledge of Indonesia's plans.

The authors concluded: "This is a rare case where officials decided, in peacetime, to sacrifice some of their fellow citizens to protect security and intelligence interests." At the very least, it is a case of official negligence, failing to connect the intelligence with the known movement of the journalists.

Connolly and Williamson have ignored the declassified cables that show how Woolcott barracked for an Indonesian takeover and tacitly condoned the use of force. In August 1975 Woolcott sent a cable to Canberra arguing that Australia would get a bigger share of the oil and gas in the Timor Sea if Indonesia controlled the territory.

In the same cable he took the audacious step of suggesting that a minister could answer a question in Parliament or at a press conference explaining the need for the use of force in Timor from Indonesia's standpoint. While planting the seed, he also covered his backside by recommending that the strategy not be used.

None of this illuminating material gets even the slightest mention in Balibo, and nor does Woolcott, despite his controversial role in these events.

Instead, Connolly spends a vast chunk of the film on a fictional journey to Balibo by the sixth journalist, Roger East, and Jose Ramos-Horta.

This Hollywood approach to an important and sensitive part of history is unfortunate and unnecessary. The Australian-born director Roger Donaldson showed with his film about the Cuban missile crisis, Thirteen Days, how cables and minutes of meetings can produce a thriller.

In an attempt to make the film appear historically accurate Connolly appointed a so-called "consulting historian", Dr Clinton Fernandes from the Australian Defence Force Academy campus in Canberra, who claims that "everything you see is accurate". This is patently untrue.

Fernandes has explained how he went to great lengths to portray the Indonesians who killed the Australians. He even researched the pistol fired at the head of one of the journalists by the actor who played Colonel Dading Kalbuadi, the commander of the Indonesian forces in East Timor, and the safari suit he wore at the time. In reality, Kalbuadi didn't pull the trigger – he was 10 kilometres away at the time.

This immense research effort into the Indonesians associated with war crimes in East Timor, while omitting many other players in these events, seems an entirely biased approach to portraying sensitive historical events.

[Paul Cleary, a former adviser to the East Timor government, is a journalist and author ofShakedown – Australia's Grab for Timor Oil. He is writing a historical work on East Timor.]

Robert Connolly

It is inevitable that the first feature film made about the events that occurred in East Timor in 1975 will carry the responsibility by some to address all the wrongs of this terrible time and the tragedy that befell East Timor.

As filmmakers we have a tardy approach to exploring our nation's history, with Gallipoli reaching screens almost 70 years after the event and Breaker Morant taking even longer. That we are only now debating the events that occurred in East Timor 34 ago later is certainly a shame but inBalibo finally we have an opportunity to broaden a much-needed robust discussion to many who know very little of the events of this time.

There will always be issues to resolve in how to tell a story of this contentious nature and we at all times grappled with one central question while making the feature film Balibo.

How do you tell a story about the deaths of five Australian journalists set against the tragedy of the deaths of as many as 183,000 East Timorese during Indonesian occupation?

A number of jingoistic Hollywood films about white men saving the Third World come to mind and while Paul Cleary may prefer a film set in the corridors of Australian power about our country's appalling conduct during this time, we chose a different approach. It was our view that the film needed to take the audience to East Timor and to tell the story from a point of view that captured the greater context of the deaths of the journalists set against the personal tragedy that befell the Timorese people.

With this approach, we embraced the excellent work of Jill Jolliffe's The Living Memory Project, which documents the experiences of Timorese women who had been imprisoned; the powerful interviews with the Timorese by the Timor-Leste Truth and Reconciliation Commission; involved a wide range of Timorese actors whose performance Anthony LaPaglia believes "raised the bar" for the Australian cast because of their honesty and courage; and travelled to the real places, including Balibo, to tell this story.

Does the film as a result speak of the larger political landscape and culpability of those responsible? It certainly does. Baz Luhrmann and I may have made two very different films this year but I share his view that a filmmaker must value the audience's awareness and experience of a film beyond the cinema through the discussion it prompts and debate it generates.

This view respects the audience's ability to use a film as a springboard to explore in detail the issues raised and in this case I encourage anyone interested in the story to explore our consulting historian Clinton Fernandes's excellent footnotes to our film at balibo.com – it includes many of the cables and documents referred to in Cleary's piece.

Already the film has generated a huge amount of discussion and media attention, with the DFAT finally contacting the Balibo Five families about repatriation three days before the film's world premiere, Richard Woolcott coming out of hiding with his ridiculous assertions in the media last week, and Geraldine Willesee's excellent opinion piece identifying quite poignantly what happens when "good men do nothing". Even Cleary, through this newspaper, has been given a forum to promote his views and work that he would otherwise not have had, if not for the film.

As you will discover with more scrutiny than Cleary has applied, there is much in our approach that damns president Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger and Gough Whitlam for their roles in this tragedy. Only a month ago I addressed the world media at the International Press Institute conference in Helsinki and dealt with this very matter, a very public position that stands in the face of Cleary's underhand contention that I would soften my views for commercial gain. This clearly isn't true as my work attests.

While Cleary would rather I stitched all the political elements together for the audience, I would prefer to assume that the audience is intelligent enough to join the dots themselves. The lowest common denominator approach to cinema has served audiences poorly, as has a genre of films that bludgeons an audience over the head with the filmmaker's point of view.

In contrast with this, absorbing feature films such as The Killing Fields, Salvador and Hotel Rwanda found a compelling way to explore history and prompt a wider analysis without lecturing the audience, and were a huge influence on our approach to Balibo. The political thriller demands that characters lead the audience through the drama, rather than merely attempting to articulate a didactic polemic as Cleary would prefer.

For 34 years the truth of what happened to the Balibo Five has been concealed from the Australian public. Finally, with the excellent results of the NSW Deputy Coroner before the Federal Police, the film due for release this week and two books recently published, the truth may finally be acknowledged. It is certainly my hope that the film will play a role in this. While Cleary may dismiss the priority in seeking to make accountable those "who pulled the trigger", most would agree that it's certainly a good place to start after all these years of silence and inaction.

This month East Timor celebrates 10 years of independence, and a Tetum-language version ofBalibo will screen in Dili on August 28. While there is great tragedy in the story of the events that befell East Timor, there is also great optimism and Balibo also celebrates the resilient spirit of the Timorese people as they look to the future.

It is my hope that Balibo will play a part in telling the story of this incredible country to a wider audience through the film's personal, humanist ambition, rather than the lecture on the issues Cleary would have preferred I made.

[Robert Connolly is the writer and director of Balibo, The Bank and Three Dollars. He was also the producer of The Boys and Romulus, My Father.]

Balibo probe stalls over exhumation

The Australian - August 15, 2009

Caroline Overington – A federal police probe into the death of five newsmen in Balibo in 1975 has stalled due to a dispute between the families over whether the remains of the bodies, which are buried in a single grave, should be exhumed and examined for forensic evidence.

The dispute means it is unlikely that Indonesian military officers, including one who later became an MP, will face a potentially explosive and diplomatically damaging war crimes trial, as recommended by a Sydney coroner in 2007.

Coroner Dorelle Pinch found that the five reporters, working for the Seven and Nine networks, were killed in order to cover up Indonesia's impending invasion of East Timor. She said the Balibo Five were unarmed, had surrendered, and were dressed in civilian clothes when they were shot and bayoneted, and their bodies set alight.

The coroner referred the matter last year to Attorney-General Robert McClelland, who in January passed the file to the federal police. They now say they are unable to collect the forensic evidence because the families are divided over whether the single grave should be exhumed.

Anne Stewart, sister of Tony Stewart, the Channel Seven sound recordist formerly of North Caulfield, and her mother, June, are reluctant to have the grave exhumed.

Ms Stewart told The Weekend Australian yesterday that the Department of Foreign Affairs had reduced her "big beautiful brother to a pile of gruesome DNA".

"They wrote us a letter, telling us what would need to happen if the bodies were to be exhumed," she said.

"They said Indonesia would have to agree, and there might be issues, because what if all five aren't in there. They said there would have to be some bone that DNA could be extracted from. It was all pretty gruesome.

"We had a meeting with the other families about it, and there are different views, with some saying they want the bodies, but the problem is, nobody is helping to bring us together. If it was up to me, I'd rather have courses in democracy than a (war crimes) trial."

John Milkins Cunningham, the biological son of camerman Gary Cunningham, believes the Rudd government is using the dispute between the families to defend itself from criticism that it has not confronted Indonesia over the bloody 1975 invasion of East Timor.

He said the strategy appeared to be one of "divide and conquer the families" to stall the official probe. The Attorney-General's office said the decision to formally investigate the matter was "taken by the AFP entirely independent of government".

"The investigation of war crimes is complex, particularly in circumstances where there has been a considerable lapse of time and surviving witnesses are located overseas," an office spokesman said.

"Ultimately, decisions in relation to the commencement of any prosecution are for the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, again acting independently of government."

When the coroner said in 2007 that the evidence suggested that Captain Yunus Yosfiah, now 65, and a former Indonesian parliamentarian and minister, could face charges, Kevin Rudd, then the opposition leader, said: "I believe this has to be taken through to its logical conclusion. I also believe those responsible should be held to account. You can't just sweep this to one side."

Mr Milkins Cunningham said the invasion of Timor and the death of the Balibo Five was a "stain on the Whitlam government's copybook that Rudd had an opportunity to erase".

Australia's leading historian on East Timor, Clinton Fernandes, consulting historian on the new film Balibo, said there was unlikely to be anything of forensic value in the box of cindered remains.

"It was a shoebox, with the bones reduced to ash," Dr Fernandes said. "They don't need that box to bring the matter forward. There are plenty of witnesses, who testified at the coronial inquest, who would be prepared to testify again."

The role played by the Whitlam government when Indonesia invaded East Timor has been the subject of new attention since the release of Balibo. Indonesia dismissed the film as fiction.

Balibo Five film could change history

The West Australian - August 13, 2009

Mark Naglazas – When Damon Gameau was preparing to play Greg Shackleton, one of the five Australian journalists massacred by Indonesian troops in East Timor in 1975, he sought the counsel and blessing of the murdered man's widow Shirley.

Shackleton has been the most vocal of the family members keeping alive the memory of the so-called Balibo Five, demanding their killers are brought before a court and their crime acknowledged by the Australian government.

Thus Gameau was expecting an idealised portrait of Shackleton, whose to-camera reports from East Timor are now regarded as among the finest frontline journalism in our history. What she said shocked Gameau.

"Shirley told me that Greg was an absolute prick," laughs Gameau during a flying visit to Perth with Balibo co-writer and director Robert Connolly.

"She said he rubbed people up the wrong way, he was very ambitious, he was very difficult to work with, he used to give everyone the shits. It was fantastic.

"Shirley gave me licence to play Greg with all of his complexities and contradictions. Shackleton was vain – he had a suntan lamp in his office and had plastic surgery on his nose – but he had great empathy for the suffering of the East Timorese people."

This warts-and-all depiction of Greg Shackleton is a measure of the commitment Connolly and his team had to getting things right.

Drawing on Jill Jolliffe's definitive account of the massacre, Cover-Up, and the findings of the 2007 NSW coronial inquest, Connolly recreates so accurately the brutal and illegal invasion of the tiny island nation by Indonesian forces that it might well have been retrieved from the cameras of the murdered newsmen.

Connolly and co-writer David Williamson frame this story with the journey of another journalist, veteran Australian war correspondent Roger East (played by Anthony LaPaglia), who made his way to Balibo with the guidance of the young Jose Ramos Horta (Oscar Isaac) to find out what happened to his colleagues.

The event became a cause celebre for the Australian Left during the late 1970s, which was outraged by the refusal of successive Australian governments – beginning with a shockingly compliant Gough Whitlam – to demand justice, for fear of alienating our powerful northern neighbour.

It's a big political story but Connolly said he deliberately chose to keep his film from the corridors of power and stay with the tragedy itself – the deaths not just of the Australians but the slaughter of 183,000 East Timorese from a population of only 600,000.

"What I wanted to tell is the truth of what happened," says Connolly, whose career is divided between producing (The Boys, Romulus, My Father) and directing (The Bank, Three Dollars).

"In the earliest stages of the project we considered including the political context, the appeasement of President Suharto by the Americans and the Australians because of oil.

"But we realised that this shocking event in our recent history had been largely forgotten, especially by those born after 1975. So we made the decision to tell their story, to follow their journey to Timor and record their appalling end.

"The killing of the Balibo Five has been denied for 34 years. The coroner has found they were murdered but it is still not the official government line in Australia. So I felt an obligation to put those events on film."

While accuracy was uppermost in Connolly's mind, he didn't set out to give a history lesson. Rather, he sees Balibo as an edge- of-the-seat thriller, stirring mainstream entertainment in which an important piece of history is told in a way that is as exciting as it is enlightening.

"I like to see my film as part of a tradition that includes Salvador, The Killing Fields and The Last King of Scotland," explains Connolly.

He also likes to see Balibo linked to the big historical political movies made during the 1970s and early 80s (the golden age of Australian cinema) such as Newsfront, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith, Gallipoli and The Year of Living Dangerously.

"After the 1970s, the role of historical and political scrutiny shifted from cinema to television with mini-series such as Vietnam and The Dismissal. Now we've stopped making those kind of programs I think cinema is once again taking up that role."

Connolly was also inspired by the recent Peter Morgan-scripted drama The Queen, in which a strand of fiction was threaded through the largely factual tableau, most notably the conversations between Queen Elizabeth and Tony Blair.

In the same spirit, Connolly and David Williamson used fiction to flesh out the relationship between Roger East, who was later to die when the Indonesians reached Dili, and Jose Ramos Horta, the Fretilin freedom fighter who later became the second president of the newly independent nation.

While Connolly is hoping Balibo is a sizeable box-office hit, what he would really like for the film to achieve is for the men who killed the five journalists to be tried and for the Australian government finally to acknowledge they were murdered (the official line is that they died in crossfire).

One such imagined scene is when Horta comes to the Turismo hotel in Dili to persuade LaPaglia's Roger East to leave East Timor, a deeply moving moment when the Australian declares his commitment to tell the world what was happening in the embattled former Portuguese colony.

"The first time I met Jose I described the scene I'd written. He was amazed at what I'd hypothesised. 'I went to the Turismo and I spoke with Roger. That's how it happened', he told me."

While Connolly is happy to talk about using fiction to capture the truth of a situation and entertainment to bring serious issues to a broad audience, his 33-year-old star struggles to regard Balibo as just a movie. For Gameau it was a life-changing experience.

"It doesn't feel like we made a film," explains Gameau, who is part of a committee planning an event in Federation Square to mark the 10th anniversary of East Timor's independence. "It feels like we were involved in something larger."

Connolly also hopes Balibo's impact will extend beyond the box office and connect with those films which have changed history.

"If the film puts pressure on governments to have the murderers of the Balibo Five charged, then I think we will have done something special."

Darwin journalist's death: filmmaker demands inquest

ABC News - August 12, 2009

The director of the film Balibo has renewed calls for a coronial inquest into the death of Roger East, the Darwin-based journalist murdered in East Timor in 1975.

Robert Connolly was in Darwin on Monday night for the city's premiere of the film, which tells the story of the Balibo Five through East's eyes as he investigates Indonesia's invasion of East Timor. Award-winning actor Anthony LaPaglia plays East in the film.

Connolly says the truth about East's death must be told and an inquest should be held in Darwin.

"He lived there and I met at the opening the other night a whole heap of his mates who were very helpful in giving Anthony LaPaglia some information about him.

"You know, help with portraying the man. He was working for the Darwin Reconstruction Commission which is an important part of the Territory's history."

The Northern Territory coroner has said that East's death did not occur in his jurisdiction and declined to comment further.

Connolly says a memorial should be created in Darwin to honour East. "I think it would be a fitting opportunity to acknowledge him now that the film is putting him back in terms of our historic understanding of that time."

Shirley Shackleton reviews 'Balibo'

New Matilda - August 12, 2009

Shirley Shackleton wondered whether the truth of her husband's murder could ever be communicated to Australian cinema audiences. This is her response to Balibo.

During the 35 years that have passed since the cold-blooded premeditated murder of my husband, Greg Shackleton, and four other journalists at Balibo in East Timor, at least 12 filmmakers have assured me that they were going to make the definitive film about the atrocity.

When RMIT started a screen-writing course in the mid-90s, I applied. Like many, I would like to write screenplays, so I was sincere in my endeavours, but there was an ulterior motive – if a film was ever made about East Timor, I did not want to be gauche if it departed from the truth on grounds of poetic licence. A docudrama is not the same thing as a documentary.

For example, I loved The Dish because it sent up Australians with gentle affection – but it had little basis in fact and should be judged as a comedy. If you want to know the true story – which did, incidentally, involve a hell of a lot of drama – you can read the transcript of "Echoes of Apollo" from Radio National's Science Show.

However – and it's a big however – disillusionment can ruin the experience of the most successful docudrama if it departs too far from the facts.

I had enjoyed Arenafilm's The Bank so when Robert Connolly told me that he and co-director John Maynard were going to make a film based on the events at Balibo, I was initially pleased. When I saw another of their films, Romulus, My Father, I was delighted.

Unfortunately, when I read an early script of Balibo, all my film-writing training flew out the window. I thought it departed from the facts in some very alarming ways.

I won't tear the script to pieces here because the joke was on me: when I finally saw Balibo, I was deeply apologetic. In fact, I would go so far as to say that what appeared to be ridiculous on paper worked on screen, and I would suggest that any student of film could learn a lot by studying the facts as against the fiction in this film. This is an easy task as Dr Clinton Fernandes, who was consulting historian on Balibo, has done a thorough comparison between the scenes in the film and the actual facts which he discusses here.

I initially planned to wait until Balibo came out on DVD as I simply could not watch it with an audience, but the manager of the Nova Cinema in Melbourne offered me a private viewing for which I thank him.

I cried a lot, starting with the first scene where the journalist Roger East (who is the film's central character, played by Anthony LaPaglia) is on his knees at the Dili wharf. The image was so powerful that I was suddenly there. In another 15 minutes Roger – a healthy human being who loved life – would be shot like a dog.

There are those who claim Roger East was a Communist and an old hack when he decided to report East Timor's unequal struggle for independence in 1975. In fact Roger East was a hero: he did the hard slog to find eyewitnesses and wrote the first believable reports of the murders of the Balibo Five.

I researched Roger's life in the years after his death, and the more I discovered about this remarkable journalist, the more I admired him. Little insights like his manner of walking – he did not walk, he bustled – were endearing. He'd lived an adventurous life: he had faked his age to join the navy in World War II; he had reported from Cyprus, Greece, Kenya and Vietnam and he had covered the Suez Crisis from Cairo. He was always pretty good at standing up to implacable opposition, as he proved by opening a newspaper right under the noses of the secret police in Franco's Fascist Spain.

In the film, Roger is a man who is about to retire (which is true) and needs to be persuaded to go to East Timor (which is not true). Balibo's Roger East is not a faithfully represented Roger, but Anthony LaPaglia makes him believable and, more importantly, memorable.

Of course, Roger wasn't the only Australian whose memory was denigrated after his death in East Timor. My son Evan was eight when his father was murdered in 1975, and it wasn't until the opening of Balibo House in October 2003 that Evan said to me: "That's the first time I've heard any official say anything good about my Dad."

I think Evan will be proud of Greg when he sees this film – as, finally, should the rest of Australia be proud of a journalist who pursued the awful truth when even our own government was trying to suppress it.

Greg's last report – which relayed the East Timorese people's desperate plea to the international community to stand up to the Indonesians and stop the invasion – can be viewed here, and stands testament to both his skills as a journalist and his incredible bravery. Robert Connolly was initially going to show this actual footage in the film, but the actor who portrays Greg, Damon Gameau, wanted to have a go at it. He did an excellent job.

I'm particularly grateful that Greg's final piece to camera was included in the film because it showed how much he had been affected by the experience of the East Timorese people. Greg's prophetic words – "they are men who know that they may die tomorrow and cannot understand why the rest of the world does not care" – have stayed in my consciousness forever because they unwittingly spoke to the fate of Greg and his colleagues.

Although the premiere of Balibo in Melbourne last month was a very sad experience for the families of the five murdered journalists, it was also a chance to meet wonderful people whose devotion to truth and justice for all the victims in East Timor was, and is, unflagging. It was the first time I'd had an opportunity to address Jose Ramos-Horta since his well-earned appointment: "Good evening, Mr President".

And the film also has moments of great joy: the actual scene of Jose Ramos-Horta's return to East Timor after 24 years in exile will light up your evening. I thought my heart was going to explode when I saw heroic figures such as former Falintil commander Taur Matan Ruak with a smile as wide as the Sydney Harbour Bridge welcoming Jose back to his country after independence. At the close of the film I said to the director, "Robert Connolly, I salute you".

Arenafilm and their crew have done Australians a great service in making this film. The story of the Balibo Five has now been told: generations who were not alive in 1975 will be better able to grasp the significance of this episode of our national history.

In raising awareness about East Timor's struggle for independence, Balibo asks us to reflect upon – and ultimately to care about – the fortunes of our closest neighbours. Not only will Australian audiences bear witness to the brutality and injustice of the murders of the Balibo Five, they will grapple with the events they were covering: Indonesia's invasion of East Timor in 1975 and the apparent indifference of the international community to this act of violence.

And this, finally, is the story that Greg and his colleagues were trying to broadcast in 1975.

Balibo wins Brisbane film festival awards

Australian Associated Press - August 9, 2009

Australian film Balibo, about the murder of five Australian journalists in East Timor in 1975, won two of the five jury prizes at the 2009 St George Bank Brisbane International Film Festival today.

Balibo took out both the Interfaith and Fipresci Jury Awards. The film will close the festival tonight.

Balibo was to have been screened in a single cinema but will be shown in two cinemas due to public demand. The screening will be attended by director Robert Connolly, actor/producer Anthony LaPaglia, actor Damon Gameau and Shooting Balibo author Tony Maniaty.

Three other jury awards were also announced, including two for films for young people screened at the festival.

It's Not Me, I Swear by Philippe Falardeau was singled out by the Junior TransLink Cine Sparks jury, while the Senior TransLink Cine Sparks jury named Ben X by Nic Balthazar as its award winner.

The Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema jury named two titles for recognition, Agrarian Utopia by Uruphong Raksasad and About Elly by Asghar Farhadi.

Seersucker, by Mairi (Mairi) Cameron, was awarded the critics' choice in the Courier-Mail Queensland Short Film Competition awards while Behind Blue Eyes was named audience favourite.

Writer, director and producer Jackie McKimmie received the Kinetone Award for outstanding contribution to the Queensland film industry.

The edge of reality

Sydney Morning Herald - August 7, 2009

Anthony LaPaglia strived for truth about the Balibo Five, writes Philippa Hawker.

"It didn't matter to me what size the role was," says Anthony LaPaglia. "I'd already committed to playing it."

He's talking about journalist Roger East, the real-life character he portrays in Balibo, a powerful new Australian feature that premiered two weeks ago at the opening night of the Melbourne International Film Festival and which engages, viscerally and thoughtfully, with history, politics and individual experience.

It was LaPaglia who set the project in train, several years ago, after reading Cover-Up, a book by journalist Jill Jolliffe that follows events during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975.

Cover-Up (now published, with new material, as Balibo) investigates what happened to five journalists, working for Channel Seven and Channel Nine, who were killed covering the story of the invasion.

The journalists – Australians, Britons and a New Zealander – became known as the Balibo Five. Jolliffe examines not only how they were killed but also who should be held accountable and what the ramifications were – issues that are still considered controversial and sensitive in Jakarta and Canberra.

LaPaglia, who has an executive producer's credit, took the book to director Robert Connolly, with whom he made The Bank. Turning the complex, politically charged material into a script was an evolving process. "It took us a while to crack the code, to make this work," he says.

In the end, LaPaglia says, it was decided that the character he played would become a key element of the way the story was told. Roger East, a seasoned journalist, went to East Timor after the Balibo Five – Tony Stewart, Greg Shackleton, Brian Peters, Gary Cunningham and Malcolm Rennie – were killed and most foreign correspondents had left the country. The film unambiguously and with grim clarity, dramatises those deaths, leaving no doubt about who was directly responsible.

Balibo's narrative has several strands. It is framed by the figure of a Timorese woman, a child at the time of the invasion, who comes forward to recount her memories of what happened. The young TV journalists – competitive and increasingly transformed by what they were seeing and trying to report on – are another strand. The experienced East brings the perspective of a different kind of observer and witness, more aware of the dangers he was facing, yet prepared to risk his life.

And the figure of a young Jose Ramos Horta – now the country's president – is yet another element. It was he who persuaded East to come to East Timor and cover events that were in danger of being forgotten by the world.

LaPaglia became passionately caught up in the process of bringing the story to the screen. He researched "not just the Roger East character but everything." Because of the political sensitivities of the story, he says, "we wanted to make sure we could get it as right as you could get it".

The film's website has a section that addresses issues of fact and fiction; it sets out the factual background to some scenes, and the reasons why other moments were fictionalised, such as a furious argument between Ramos Horta and East over media coverage.

Exploring the character of East, LaPaglia says, was particularly tricky. Peripatetic, private, somewhat enigmatic, East had worked in Australia, Africa, the US, the Middle East, Britain, Europe and China.

As LaPaglia talked to people who knew or had met East, he kept getting contradictory versions.

"Everyone had two completely different sets of answers to almost everything I asked," he says. "So I thought, 'Based on what I've heard so far, I'm going to make these choices. I don't know if they are right, and the best that I can hope to do anyway is embody the spirit of him, and at least get that across.'

"But as soon as I started working, these emails began to arrive from friends of Roger with stories about him. And to a large degree I had guessed right. Then I got a packet of letters that he had written to a friend over a long period of time."

The small details he gleaned, from an apology for drunken behaviour to the tale of a romantic gesture – a fur coat bought for a flight attendant with whom he became smitten during a flight but never saw again – added to the stock of what LaPaglia knew about the man he was playing.

And the experience of shooting the film in East Timor – "a place that really gets under your skin" – was, for all sorts of reasons, "the most emancipating experience" LaPaglia could have had. Afterwards – going back to Hollywood and "froth" – "I'd realised I'd been chasing it or doing it for more than 25 years." Right now, he thinks, it's time to step back and take a break.

[Balibo by Jill Jolliffe is published by Scribe. The film, Balibo, opens nationally on Thursday. www.balibo.com.]

Diplomat hits media for Balibo journos' deaths

The Australian - August 7, 2009

Caroline Overington – The Australian media bears more responsibility than the Australian government for the deaths of five journalists in Balibo in 1975, according to retired diplomat Richard Woolcott.

Mr Woolcott, who was Australia's ambassador to Indonesia at the time of the invasion of Timor, said the young reporters, employed by Channel Seven and Channel Nine, should not have been sent into such dangerous territory.

"The ABC left, and others left," Mr Woolcott said. "I think proprietors (of the TV stations) bear a heavy responsibility that they've never had to shoulder."

The role played by the Australian government at the time of the invasion of Timor is examined in a new film, Balibo, which opens this week. In the film, the reporters are shown painting a wonky Australian flag on the wall of a stone house, where they are sheltering.

Mr Woolcott, who is yet to see the film, said "they always show that flag. They never show the other side of the door, which had a Fretilin (communist) flag on it.

He said the Indonesians "would have regarded (the reporters) as combatants because of their close association with Fretilin".

Mr Woolcott said he assumed the film would be "partly fiction, but I don't want to buy into an argument about what the Australian government knew, or didn't know. All my cables have been made public. I have put it all down in my book, and I would not change a word of that chapter. It is simply a tragedy that these young and inexperienced people were there, and their lives were cut short."

Mr Woolcott said he would see the film "when it comes to Canberra". As reported in The Australian on Tuesday, he attended a question-and-answer session with lead actor Anthony LaPaglia in Melbourne, the day after opening night.

"What happened was, (Timorese President Jose) Ramos Horta, who is a personal friend of mine, he was going (to see the film) and he asked me whether I wanted to go and I said, no, but I did go and see him for a coffee the following morning," Mr Woolcott said.

"He said he was going to a Q and A about the movie, and I thought, well, I'll go, and sit quietly in the back and if anybody asks me a question, I'll answer it, but nobody did."

As to the death of the reporters, he said: "If you think back to 1975, there were no computers, no faxes, no emails, a fairly rudimentary telephone system.

"Any suggestion that the embassy knew that they were there is wrong. But it's 30-odd years on now, and I'm not sure there is a great deal to be gained from going over it. It's like what happened in Nazi Germany."

Re: Diplomat hits media for journos' deaths

Clinton Fernandes - August 7, 2009

Note that the wall (not, as Woolcott says, "the other side of the door") had graffitti saying "Falintil esta sempre com o povo maubere" (Failintil is always with the Maubere people).

Also:

1. On 13th October 1975, Woolcott reported in a cable that he had been told by his Indonesian interlocutors that "The main thrust of the operation would begin on 15 October. It would be through Balibo and Maliana/Atsabe".

2. On 14th October, viewers across Australia watched Greg Shackleton's story stating that the Channel 7 team were on their way to the border.

3. On 15th October, Woolcott was once again told by the Indonesians that "Initially an Indonesian force of 800 will advance Batugade-Balibo-Maliana-Atsabe... It is of course clear that the presence of Indonesian forces of this order will become public. The Indonesians acknowledge this. The President's policy will be to deny any reports of the presence of Indonesian forces in Portuguese Timor."

4. On 16th October, the Indonesians attacked Balibo.

5. While there were no mobile phones in those days, Woolcott had immediate access to his Indonesian interlocutors face-to-face.

6. Here's an extract from the proceedings of the Coronial Inquest:

"Every single move by the Indonesians succeeded according to their plans. When informed of the precise Indonesian battle plans, no objection, public or private, was voiced. There were no news broadcasts showing Indonesian involvement in the attack on Balibo. Because senior Australian leaders had been compromised by advance warning of the attack, they were hardly in a position to disclose their true knowledge to the Australian people. When news of the deaths came out, not a single word in public or in private was uttered by the Australian Government or political leaders to suggest involvement or blame on the part of the Indonesians for the deaths of the journalists. Instead, Australian officials in public and in private persisted in what can only be called a bizarre charade of asking the Indonesian Military to use their good offices in seeking information from their Timorese militia allies about the deaths of the journalists... It is apparent that the Indonesian leaders engaged in a masterful power play worthy of an international chess grandmaster using Australian leaders and departmental officers as their pawns."

Balibo's grisly truth

The Australian - August 4, 2009

Caroline Overington – There is a scene in the new Australian film Balibo that is so sickening in its violence that it is almost unbearable to watch. Five Australian journalists – from Channel Seven and Channel Nine – have gone to Balibo, near the East Timorese border with Indonesia, on the eve of the 1975 invasion.

They've gone deliberately to Balibo. Everybody knows it's dangerous, but they want vision of the Indonesian army, coming over the hills. The journalists are dressed in civilian clothes – Stubbies, short-sleeved shirts and floppy hats – and are carrying camera gear.

They do get some footage of the invasion as it begins, but then get caught in the house where they had been staying.

They raise their hands in the universally recognised symbol of surrender. They plead their case, as Australians, and as reporters. What happens next is so barbaric that people at pre- screenings of the film have cried out.

Later, they wondered, could that possibly be true? After all, Balibo is not a documentary, it's a movie, but based on a solid foundation of historical data, of cables and documents, of reports and eyewitness testimony.

The film-makers – director Robert Connolly and his co-writer David Williamson – employed a consulting historian, Clinton Fernandes, of the University of NSW, who is perhaps Australia's leading scholar on East Timor.

Fernandes is based at the UNSW's Australian Defence Force Academy campus in Canberra. He is a graduate of the Royal Military College, Duntroon and spent 13 years in the armed forces including several years as an intelligence analyst on East Timor.

With his help, the Balibo film-makers have established a website, where it's possible to search, scene by scene, for the historical documents that support the events shown.

For example, there is a scene in which reporter Roger East (played with enormous passion by Anthony LaPaglia) is sitting on a wharf, eating fish and chips wrapped in newspaper. Look closely, and you can see the newspaper has a photograph of Indonesian president Suharto and Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam.

The film uses an exact copy of the original newspaper. Labor had come to power in the 1972 elections, and Australia-Indonesia relations were running smoothly. Whitlam is known to have discussed East Timor with Suharto on two occasions in September 1974 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, and in April 1975 in Townsville.

Fernandes sourced three official cables, that prove, he says, "Indonesia informed the Australian government in advance about its plan to invade East Timor, and that the Australian government went along with the pretence".

In another scene, the film shows a man, apparently Indonesian, ordering the murder of the five journalists in Balibo. On the Balibo website, Fernandes explains that this character is Dading Kalbuadi, the overall commander of the Indonesian forces in East Timor.

"His dress in the film is based on his actual clothing from that time," Fernandes says. "In truth, he was not at Balibo during the killing of the journalists; he was in his tactical headquarters approximately 10km away. He flew in by helicopter immediately after Balibo had been captured."

The film shows him at the site of the killings because that is the best way to show the audience what a Sydney coroner concluded in 2007, that "there is strong circumstantial evidence that colonel Dading Kalbuadi gave orders to his field commanders that anyone found in Balibo was to be killed, including the five journalists".

Fernandes says that Kalbuadi "was aware that the journalists were at Balibo and did not want them to obtain film footage of the Indonesian invasion. They were killed in a deliberate act to prevent them from revealing the truth."

Besides compiling historical documents to back each scene in the film, Fernandes spent several days discussing "history and nothing else" with LaPaglia, as he prepared for his role as Roger East, known as the sixth reporter to die in the invasion. He was shot in Dili several weeks after the Balibo five were killed.

"Every paper I gave him to read, came back to me with blue marks, blue ink and underline, and questions," he says. "I am an academic and I do not know any other actors. Perhaps wrongly, I had formed an impression that perhaps not all actors are serious people, but he was a very serious person.

"I have seen newspaper reports saying, oh, when he was in East Timor, he played soccer with the East Timorese children. I can assure you, he did much more than that. He worked and he studied and he applied himself in a way that was extremely impressive."

Fernandes has seen the film in several of its incarnations since last November.

"Every time I've seen it, it's more and more disciplined, and it's now very disciplined. Everything you see is accurate. They are so accurate that even the pistol that you see fired at the end by the guy in the safari suit is the actual model, Browning high-powered 9mm pistol, that was used.

"The photographs I used were taken in Dili, the morning after the invasion, by people who were there, so the safari suits you see, they are based on the real safari suits.

"I got my hands on all of that stuff, and gave such detail to the costume people that I thought they might start to think I was a bit pedantic, but they came back, and they actually did it.

"For me, as a historian, there's always a risk when you get involved in a commercial venture, that the film will be good and my reputation will be destroyed and other historians will laugh at me, and this has not happened."

If there is something missing from the film, it's the role played by the Australian government and, in particular, Whitlam and his ambassador to Indonesia, Richard Woolcott.

Woolcott does not appear in the film and Fernandes says "and I suppose it would have been a different film, if that had been the subject" but on the website, there are three original cables that make it clear that Australia was given confidential information by Indonesia "that they are going to attack Balibo, and the person who is writing those cables is Richard Woolcott. He has to pretend we don't know, publicly, but privately, the government knows."

Former defence minister Bill Morrison told the Sydney inquest into the death of the Balibo five in 2007 that he did not tell Whitlam about the murders in Balibo because "he had enough problems on his hands".

In his book, The Hot Seat: Reflections on Diplomacy from Stalin's Death to the Bali Bombings, Woolcott says he did not know the Australians were in Balibo, and he learned of their deaths from ABC radio on October 17, 1975.

"At that time of civil war and Indonesian clandestine involvement we simply did not know at the embassy that there were any Australians in the Balibo area," Woolcott's memoir says.

It is understood that Woolcott may have seen the film. LaPaglia believes he saw him at a Q&A in Melbourne, after the official launch. "He did not speak. But he was there," LaPaglia says.

The Australian attempted to reach Woolcott at both his Sydney and Canberra homes yesterday, but was not successful. Of the invasion, Fernandes says Woolcott has said "well, you have to be pragmatic [in diplomatic relations], but in fact, that argument fails on all grounds, because it becomes impossible for Australia to have a mature relationship with Indonesia if Australia is being asked to cover-up for Indonesia".

LaPaglia, who attended a screening of Balibo at News Limited's headquarters yesterday, says he prepared for his role as the reporter East – who dies after being dragged across the wharf, his hands tied with wire – by reading the 1996 Sherman report, the 1999 review of the Sherman report, and the coroner's report of 2007.

Like Fernandes, LaPaglia says Balibo is accurate, "except, perhaps, that the reality [of the killings of Australians and East Timorese] was much worse. You can't show some of the things that happened."

East Timor's President Jose Ramos Horta, too, says the reality was worse. "One journalist in particular, was tortured," he says.

Ramos Horta is portrayed in the film as a man fiercely committed to East Timor and its people; he's shown sleeping on dirt floors, woken by the sound of a rooster, dressed in fatigues, with calf- length combat boots.

It has long been known that he left Timor three days before the invasion, to plead his people's case before the UN. In the film, he offers East a seat on the last plane out, before the killings begin, but East declines, and dies terribly.

Ramos Horta was 24 years in exile, living in New York and in Sydney, lobbying foreign governments and the UN. In 1996 he was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Carlos Belo, the leader of East Timor's majority Catholic population.

Romas Horta says it is true that East went to East Timor at his urging and he says East's murder in Dili, was "almost 100 per cent accurate, and that it's true that he refused to leave, when told to go".

The film shows an ABC journalist Tony Maniaty meeting the Channel Seven crew of Greg Shackleton, Gary Cunningham and Tony Stewart informing them that it was dangerous to travel to Balibo.

The coroner concluded that the journalists themselves were responsible for being alone in Balibo, noting that journalists enjoy no greater protection from attack than other civilians.

In his history of the final days, Fernandes says the attack on Balibo "began with heavy artillery bombardment from the ships off Batugade at dawn around 4am on October 16, 1975". It was accompanied by mortar fire from the surrounding hills.

Three of the journalists were filming. They were told to go but decided to hang on because they were determined to get evidence that Indonesia invaded unprovoked, Fernandes says.

"The attack was launched from three directions. One company entered from the Maliana road, another from the Cova road while Team Susi led by Yunus Yosfiah was in the forefront of the middle force.

"Four journalists emerged from a house with their hands in the air in a gesture of surrender. They were all wearing civilian clothing. Brian Peters was in front of the others.

"The journalists were not mistaken for combatants. In addition, they clearly identified themselves as Australians and as journalists."

After the murders, "the five corpses were dressed in military uniforms, guns placed beside them, and photographs taken in an attempt to portray them as legitimate targets".

Some have questioned the wisdom of the journalists, for travelling to Balibo at that time, but not Ramos Horta. "They were not in the wrong place at the wrong time," he says. "They were in the right place at the right time."

New Zealand journalist killed in East Timor, a hero

Otago Daily Times - August 4, 2009

Balibo is a political thriller that uncovers the true story of five journalists, including New Zealander Gary Cunningham, killed in East Timor in 1975. Maire Leadbeater tells the story behind the story of the film.

Described as a political thriller, the film Balibo tells the story of the five young Australian-based journalists who were killed in 1975, at Balibo near East Timor's border with Indonesia. They were recording the opening shots in Indonesia's takeover of what was then Portuguese East Timor.

The movie is told through the eyes of a sixth journalist, Roger East (Anthony LaPaglia), who set out to investigate the deaths.

The movie has been warmly praised for its accuracy and sensitivity by the journalists' families.

This dramatic story is not as well known this side of the Tasman as it should be, even though one of the five was 27-year-old New Zealander Gary Cunningham. We should honour Gary as one of our heroes.

By 1975, he had already experienced a fair share of danger after filming in Vietnam and narrowly escaping with his life while covering an Australian bushfire.

In the months leading up to October 1975, Indonesia had conducted a strident anti-communist propaganda campaign against East Timor's pro-independence movement. In the meantime, its military forces were covertly engaged in operations with East Timorese volunteers.

The governments of Australia, Britain and New Zealand had already secretly been given advance warning of Indonesia's plans for direct military intervention.

Some have said that the young men should not have gone to the front line when they were warned of the danger, but they were clearly motivated by the desire to let the world know what was happening. Reporter Greg Shackleton recorded a moving piece to camera recounting the questions that the Timorese put to them: "Why," they ask, "are the Indonesians invading us? Why," they ask, "are the Australians not helping us?"

Before dawn on October 16, the Balibo Five began to record the advance of the Indonesian forces.

Had the film taken by Gary and the reports of his colleagues reached the outside world, the documentation would have revealed heavy bombardment of the border area from land and sea taking place under the direction of an Indonesian helicopter.

Witnesses said the men were advised to leave but chose to stay un momento longer to get as much on record as possible. No wonder most East Timorese regard the men as martyrs.

There was a pause in the Indonesian military offensive after the killings while Indonesia waited to see how Western governments would react.

But the Australian Government chose to take its cue from the Indonesian Government, talking about the deaths only after they were detailed in the Indonesian media. The British ambassador in Jakarta, John A. Ford, said the men were in a war zone of their own choice. New Zealand also ducked for cover.

When I probed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs documents of the time using the provisions of the Official Information Act, I found references to Gary's death – but these were included almost as afterthoughts.

Prime Minister Bill Rowling was counselled at the time to say if a journalist asked him that inquiries had been made of Australia and Indonesia.

Nine months later, a ministry briefing urged that the Government not become involved in the controversy about the deaths because Gary was an Australian resident working for the Australian media at the time of his death.

Since no rebuke was forthcoming, Indonesia concluded that its plans for annexation had the green light. Morally, New Zealand must share the guilt for the terrible tragedy that ensued, including the loss of nearly one third of East Timor's population over the 24 year occupation.

It took until 2007 before a full judicial legal probe into the deaths took place, an achievement which owes much to the determination of the victims' families.

Sydney Coroner Dorelle Pinch conducted an inquest which had the power to compel witnesses, but regrettably the Indonesian actors failed to appear.

Technically the focus was on Brian Peters, because of his Sydney residence qualifications, but effectively the deaths of all five were examined.

Ms Pinch sifted a vast body of historic evidence from earlier inquiries and weighed this against the sworn evidence of Timorese eyewitnesses, including crucial evidence from some who fought on the pro-Indonesian side.

She heard evidence from the top echelons of the foreign affairs and intelligence bureaucracies, and from Australian prime minister of the day Gough Whitlam. She also perused a mountain of confidential government records, including Signals Intelligence.

In 2007, at the time of the inquest, I directed further OIA requests to the Chief of the New Zealand Defence Force, Lieutenant General J. Mateparae, hoping to find out whether New Zealand had received intelligence information from Australia or even collected any independent intelligence. The Minister of Defence, Phil Goff released a summary of further information held about the journalists' deaths.

This confirmed New Zealand's hands-off approach – it is highly unlikely that any New Zealand embassy representative took time out to attend the funeral service held in a Jakarta cemetery on December 5, 1975, when the "remains" of the five journalists were interred, but nobody is absolutely sure.

Coroner Pinch concluded that the men were killed deliberately, despite making it clear that they were non-combatants, "by members of the Indonesian Special Forces, including Christoforus da Silva and Captain Yunus Yosfiah on the orders of Captain Yosfiah..."

The coroner also said there is strong circumstantial evidence that links the killings to the highest levels of the Indonesian command.

Capt Yosfiah retired in 1999 with the rank of lieutenant-general and has gone on to pursue a high profile political career. He scoffed when Australian journalists asked him about the warrant issued for his arrest during the inquest: "How can they do that? Remember I am an Indonesian citizen."

Coroner Pinch referred the case to the Australian Attorney- general, asking him to consider possible war-crimes prosecutions under the relevant provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

That was more than 20 months ago and there has been no action so far. Consistent with past practice, the New Zealand Government continues to wait and see what happens in Australia.

The Cunningham family believe that the film has taken up the truths that Gary and his colleagues were murdered for trying to report. It may be 34 years on but as Dorelle Pinch expressed it, "The truth is never too young to be told, nor too old."

Social conflicts/refugees

East Timor refugees return but funds not enough

ABC News - August 28, 2009

Sara Everingham – Thousands of refugees in East Timor displaced during the 2006 military crisis have been moving back to their communities, with only a few remaining in makeshift camps around Dili.

The East Timor government paid the refugees to move back to their towns and villages, but some say they still do not have enough money to rebuild their homes. Others say they have not been accepted back.

But East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta says the refugee return program has been a huge success and overall life in his young country is looking up.

"More than anyone in this country or outside this country, I know the problem. I've dealt with it," he said.

"I had internally displaced persons live in my own home; hundreds of them. I know what was the problem and I can say looking back to 2006, 2007, it has been a complete success, thanks to the very proactive and the generous compassionate attitude of the Prime Minister and his cabinet."

Tens of thousands of people were displaced by the unrest in 2006, sparked by a mutiny which split East Timor's army.

Augusta Pinto, 15, tries to keep the front yard of her home clean. Her house is not much more than a few brick walls, with tarpaulins the only roofing in some parts. Her father Manuel Gueterres say they returned last month from one of the makeshift camps set up in Dili during the security crisis of 2006.

"It was a very difficult life. We stayed three years in the refugee camps, there were no jobs. We were lucky because the government subsidises rice," her father said.

Mr Gueterres says he is happy to return home, after being given about $AU53,000 to rebuild his house. But he says it is not enough. "Security is no longer a problem. The problem we face is how to re-build our house. Materials have become expensive," he said.

In other areas it is not money but community tensions causing problems. Ivo Noel, a 25-year-oold student, says his return from a camp has not been easy. He say at first his neighbours threw stones, but now the situation has eased.

"I am not accepted but I have no choice. This is the reality I have to face," he said.

Care International works in an area of Dili which had the second highest number of internally displaced people. The country's director, Diane Francisco, says the experiences by those who return vary greatly.

"I think that the experiences are probably as varied as the number of IDPs that have been returned; from IDPs that have been warmly welcomed back into their homes, to people who are still a little unsure, maybe wary," she said.

"I think for a variety of reasons some families may have used some or all of the money to meet more immediate needs. But I do know from our experiences that some of the money is certainly being used to rebuild houses."

This weekend East Timor prepares to celebrate 10 years since its independence referendum. Mr Ramos-Horta says people in east Timor are reconciling their differences. He says the country is still young but the economy is growing.

At his home, Mr Noel says he hopes the days of violent conflict in East Timor are over. But he says the Government must create more jobs and training for young people to avoid that.

"To unite is easy but now the leaders must put more young people into training and school," he said. "If everyone is busy and has something to do, we won't be able to go onto the streets and cause problems."

Justice & reconciliation

UN says East Timor frees Indonesian war crimes suspect

Reuters - August 31, 2009

Dili – An Indonesian man allegedly involved in crimes against humanity in East Timor when the country voted for independence has been released from a Dili prison, the United Nations said.

East Timor's government has attracted strong criticism from rights groups over its policy of pardoning convicted ex-militia and pursuing a conciliatory approach with Indonesia, its neighbor and former ruler.

Louis Gentile, the East Timor representative of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the release of Martenus Bere, who was wanted for militia attacks on pro-independence civilians, sent the wrong signals.

"His release is contrary to the Security Council resolutions which set up the UN mission" in East Timor "and completely undermines the principle of accountability for crimes against humanity globally," Gentile said. "This has global significance."

A former Portuguese colony, East Timor was invaded in 1975 by Indonesia. An estimated 180,000 died during the occupation, and the UN estimates about 1,000 East Timorese died in mayhem attending the 1999 independence vote.

According to a document archived on the Web site of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Bere was a member of a militia that attacked and killed pro-independence civilians, including priests, in September 1999, in what became known as the Suai massacre.

"He was believed to have been involved in directing the attack. He was not one of the junior ones, so that's why this is so serious," Gentile said.

Bere was recently arrested near the Indonesian border on an outstanding warrant for crimes against humanity, but was released from Dili's Becora prison on Sunday on instructions from Gusmao, Gentile said. A spokesman for the East Timor government was unable to confirm immediately whether Bere had been released.

On Friday, President Jose Ramos-Horta mounted a spirited defence of his decision to oppose a UN Crimes Tribunal in East Timor. "I know what suffering is," said Ramos-Horta, who lost four siblings in the conflict.

"But I repudiate the notion that we do not care about justice. Indonesian democracy has progressed. Indonesians are the ones who will bring justice to Indonesia, in their own time."

Forgive Indonesian crimes, Ramos-Horta urges East Timorese

Sydney Morning Herald - August 31, 2009

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – The President of East Timor, Jose Ramos-Horta, has called on the United Nations to stop gathering evidence against the killers of hundreds of Timorese, saying his people must put the past behind them.

In a speech yesterday marking the 10th anniversary of his country's vote for independence, Mr Ramos-Horta said Timorese must forgive Indonesians who "committed heinous crimes against us".

"The tens of millions of dollars spent on the Serious Crimes Unit and Panel could have made a greater difference in providing training and resources to our young judiciary," he said.

Later, police used force to disperse a news conference in a Dili park where activists displayed banners reading "end impunity. UN must act".

About 200 activists were attending a three-day conference that called on the UN to establish an international tribunal to prosecute people who had committed crimes in East Timor.

Many of the activists were among Mr Ramos-Horta's strongest supporters when he was in exile pushing for East Timor's freedom.

Mr Ramos-Horta told guests at a ceremony in Dili that the UN should disband its serious crimes unit, which has completed only 86 investigations into 396 cases.

Up to 1500 people were killed before and after a UN-sponsored vote in which 75 per cent of Timorese defied threats and intimidation and voted to break away from Indonesia.

Mr Ramos-Horta said no international tribunal would be established to prosecute those responsible, even though two years ago an inquiry by a UN-appointed expert panel recommended that one be established. No action has been taken on the recommendation. "I am saying let's put the past behind," Mr Ramos-Horta said.

A UN spokesman in Dili declined to comment on his statement. Mr Ramos-Horta said the people who committed the crimes were "the ones who have to live with these crimes and the ghosts of their victims haunting them for the rest of their lives".

He said he believed that as Indonesia consolidated its democracy and rule of law the country would bring to justice those who committed serious crimes in Indonesia and East Timor between 1974 and 1999.

Amnesty International and some victims' groups in East Timor also support a tribunal. Hundreds of victims are expected to attend a conference in Dili this week.

The serious crimes unit in Dili is mandated to gather evidence against people accused of crimes in 1999 but does not have authority to prosecute them. It has sent 86 briefs of evidence to the prosecutor-general's office, which has a backlog of 5000 cases.

Since the UN Security Council set up the unit in 2000 it has issued 303 arrest warrants, including for the former General Wiranto, the commander of Indonesian troops in East Timor in 1999.

More than 75 per cent of the people named remain free. Only one person is in jail in East Timor for crimes committed in 1999. No prosecutions have been successful in Indonesia.

Fewer than 100 non-official Timorese watched a formal flag raising and parade outside Dili's new presidential palace to mark the anniversary. Later, thousands celebrated the anniversary at a festival.

The Australian Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, and the retired general Peter Cosgrove, who led Australian forces into East Timor to quell violence in 1999, were among the guests.

Ramos-Horta's 'forgiving' stance under fire

ABC News - August 31, 2009

Geoff Thompson, Indonesia – As East Timor celebrates a decade of self-rule, President Jose Ramos-Horta has called for an end to all United Nations-led investigations into the serious crimes committed along the nation's road to independence.

But it is a controversial stance, and a victim of the violence in 1999 says she is now ashamed of her country's head of state.

Last night, Indonesian pop star Krisdayanti flirted with tens of thousands of East Timor's people and danced on stage with the two giants of the country's struggle for independence – Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and Mr Ramos-Horta.

It took place on Dili's foreshore in front of the Portuguese- built governor's offices, which were overtaken by Indonesia's administrators and now house East Timor's own leaders.

And where Krisdayanti danced last night was exactly the place where, 10 years ago, journalists watched militia leader Eurico Guterres call for his men to find and kill independence supporters.

And that is exactly what they did, including an attack on the house of Manuel Carrascalao, which took the life of his young teenage son.

But such crimes should no longer be investigated by the United Nations Serious Crimes Unit, Mr Ramos-Horta said yesterday. He said the money would be better spent on East Timor's young judiciary.

"My stated preference, both as a human being, victim, and head of state, is that we, once and for all, move that 1975-99 chapters of our tragic experience, forgive those who did harm to us," he said.

"We must forgive our brothers and sisters and those in the Indonesian army who committed heinous crimes against us."

I first met Christine Carrascalao in 1999 when, strong but utterly distraught, she attended a Sunday Mass just two days after Eurico's men killed her little brother, known as Manuelita.

Ten years later, she does not agree with her President's ideas of justice and forgiveness. "Justice is not about forgiving. It is about setting what is right and what is wrong," she said.

"What you've done wrong in killing, murder, torture, you should teach them a lesson that it cannot happen again because there will be punishment. You cannot just say, sure it is fine, we'll let everything go simply because we want to. That should not be on."

Ms Carrascalao says she is ashamed of her President. "For not asking for justice, yes. For being afraid to ask for justice, yes. Yes, I am," she said.

Ramos-Horta 'out of touch' over amnesties: Timor opposition

Agence France Presse - August 31, 2009

East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta is out of touch with the people over his refusal to accept an international tribunal to try perpetrators of past atrocities, the opposition said Monday.

The Nobel laureate came under fire for his trenchant criticism of international justice during a speech Sunday to mark the 10th anniversary of a historic referendum which effectively ended Indonesia's military occupation.

"The president is out of step with the people on the issue of amnesties," Fretilin party spokesman Jose Teixeira said. "We have to enforce all laws in our country and do so equally to all, free of political interference and external considerations."

Ramos-Horta has offered Indonesian generals and their militia proxies amnesty for crimes against humanity committed during Indonesia's brutal 24-year military occupation of the tiny half- island.

In the interests of building better relations with East Timor's massive neighbour, he has rejected pressure from the United Nations and rights groups such as Amnesty International for suspects to be tried in court.

Indonesian former army chief Wiranto is among the senior officers who have been indicted by UN prosecutors over gross human rights abuses during the occupation, which claimed an estimated 100,000 lives.

In his anniversary speech, Ramos-Horta accused "those in the US and UK" of simplistically asserting that "the absence of prosecutorial justice fosters impunity and violence".

"My stated preference, both as a human being, victim and head of state, is that we, once and for all, close the 1975-1999 chapters of our tragic experience and forgive those who did harm to us," he said.

The president later danced on stage with Indonesian pop star Krisdayanti as she performed before thousands of people outside the government palace.

Teixeira said Ramos-Horta had no right to amnesty alleged war criminals. "Only the parliament can pass a general amnesty law, not the president," he said.

The Indonesian Army and paramilitaries went on the rampage after the 1999 referendum, killing around 1,400 people and forcing hundreds of thousands to flee to other parts of Indonesia.

Australian-led United Nations peacekeepers restored order, ending an occupation that is estimated to have claimed around 100,000 lives through fighting, disease and starvation. East Timor formally became independent in 2002.

Dili seeks return of heroes' remains from Indonesia

Jakarta Post - August 31, 2009

Pandaya and Yemris Fointuna, Dili – Timor Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta asked Indonesia on Sunday to return the remains of its independence fighters who died in Indonesia.

Ramos-Horta specifically named Nicolau Lobato, who died on New Year's Eve of 1978. "We're still awaiting the return of the body of our greatest hero, Nicolau Lobato," he said in his address to mark the 10th anniversary of the Timor Leste independence referendum.

Lobato's death remains a mystery for many in Timor Leste (formerly East Timor). Ramos-Horta said Lobato had been killed in combat; his body was flown to Dili, examined, the identity confirmed.

"In the name of our country and the people and the family, I am asking here for the return of the body of Nicolau Lobato," Ramos-Horta said.

Timor Leste Foreign Minister Zacarias Albano da Costa said separately that Dili had also asked Indonesia to return the remains of many lesser-known Timor Leste independence fighters killed either by Indonesian soldiers or pro-Indonesia militias during the 24 years of occupation.

Da Costa said Timor Leste also wanted the Indonesian military authorities to reveal secret graves where independence fighters may have been buried.

"Let us know where they are buried," he said. "We will exhume them and properly rebury them, as their relatives keep demanding."

The visiting Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda said he would convey the Timor Leste leaders' messages to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. "We take (the request) seriously because it's part of an effort to promote reconciliation," Hassan said.

In his speech, Ramos-Horta reached out to Timor Leste's former ruler, Indonesia. After telling of all the suffering endured by those who lost loved ones in the fight for freedom, he said he also had empathy for Indonesian mothers and fathers who lost their beloved sons in Timor Leste for their country.

"Indonesian mothers, like Timor Leste mothers, still mourn the loss of their sons in this tragic war, and to these mothers and fathers... I bow in shared sorrow," he said. "I invite them to visit the graves of their sons. Most are poor people who cannot afford such trips, but those who wish to make the journey, we will welcome with open arms and facilitate entry.

"Our relations with Indonesia have been exemplary at both government-to-government and people-to-people levels."

Ramos-Horta said he had lost his sister, Mariazinha, and brothers Nuno and Gui in the dark days of the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. Mariazinha was killed during an air raid, and her body later was found and buried by local villagers.

"But Nuno and Gui were not so fortunate," he said. "We still don't know exactly when, where or how they died. Their bodies rotted somewhere and their souls are still in pain because we haven't buried them."

Rift looms as Dili mourns dead

Melbourne Age - August 30, 2009

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – East Timor is under pressure to release an Indonesian citizen accused of leading one of the country's worst massacres, as hundreds of East Timorese attended a ceremony yesterday remembering those who died in the fight for independence.

The arrest of former militia leader Martenus Bere, an Indonesian provincial government official, has created a diplomatic headache for East Timor ahead of events today marking the 10th anniversary of the country's vote for independence.

Indonesian authorities are demanding the release of Bere, who allegedly led an attack on a church in the town of Suai in September 1999, in which three priests and dozens of people were killed.

Bere, a former commander of Laksuar, one of the most violent of militia groups behind a pro-Indonesian reign of terror in 1999, was arrested after he crossed into East Timor two weeks ago to attend a funeral ceremony for his father and pray at the same church where the killings took place.

Locals reportedly beat him severely before police intervened to save him.

Bere, who was indicted by a UN Serious Crimes Unit in 2003, would be the first Indonesian citizen to face a court in East Timor over the 1999 bloodshed that left 1500 people dead before and after the territory voted for independence. The case has the potential to cause a diplomatic rift between East Timor and its giant neighbour.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda is scheduled to attend anniversary ceremonies in Dili today.

Officials in West Timor cancelled a planned ministerial-level delegation from East Timor last week to protest against the arrest of Bere, who has been brought to a jail in Dili.

Jose Teixeira, spokesman for the Fretilin opposition party, said the government must not be influenced in by diplomatic pressure from Indonesia. "If Bere is allowed to return to Indonesia without facing trial, this would sound a death knell for justice in this country," he said.

The remains of 24 of those who died fighting for independence were buried at a "heroes' cemetery" at Metinaro near Dili yesterday. Family members wailed and hugged photographs of loved ones as the remains joined the graves of more than 400 other victims. Many of the bereaved said they wanted compensation from the Government and the perpetrators brought to justice.

Aquelinho Soares, whose uncle was killed fighting Indonesian soldiers in the 1980s, said most East Timorese believed "the actors behind these crimes must be held accountable".

President Jose Ramos-Horta told the gathering the Government would not give up the search for the remains of other victims. More than 100,000 Timorese were killed or disappeared between 1974 and 1999.

But Mr Ramos-Horta made no mention of justice for the crimes. Earlier, he dismissed calls for East Timor to support an international tribunal to put the accused on trial.

"If you went around with me, random around the country as I've done... meeting barefoot people all over the country – thousands of them, not one – not one raised the issues of 1999, not one talked about putting Indonesia on trial," he said.

Mr Ramos-Horta said the Indonesians would, in their own time, put those responsible for crimes in East Timor and elsewhere on trial. He said only a small number of human rights activists were calling for an international trial.

"And unlike many of them – these so-called international human rights groups and Timorese activists – I lost almost half of my brothers and sisters, and even myself was almost killed," he said. "So I know what being a victim is. I know what is the pain of a mother who lost her children."

Governor-General Quentin Bryce will represent Australia at today's ceremonies in Dili, where Mr Ramos-Horta will present a medal to retired major-general Peter Cosgrove, who led Australian forces into East Timor in 1999 to quell violence.

Solidarity activists press for justice

Interpress Service - August 28, 2009

Matt Crook, Dili – After three years behind bars as a political prisoner in Indonesia, British human rights campaigner Carmel Budiardjo saw firsthand the viciousness of former President Suharto's military dictatorship.

Expelled from the country in 1971, Budiardjo knew there would be suffering when the Indonesian military invaded East Timor in 1975.

In this capital for an international solidarity conference being held Aug. 27-29, Budiardjo told IPS that justice must be served for crimes committed during the Indonesian military's savage 24- year occupation that cost up to 200,000 East Timorese lives.

"Justice is really a question of accountability," said Budiardjo, who founded TAPOL (which means 'political prisoner' in Indonesian), or the Indonesian Human Rights Campaign, in 1973 with a group of activists in London to campaign for the release of political prisoners in Indonesia.

"When my organization began to campaign very hard about East Timor, this became (our focus) along with the political prisoners, to alert people about the situation," she added.

Budiardjo's late husband, an Indonesian, spent 12 years in prison without trial. At 84, Budiardjo's hearing may have diminished over time, but she is still as sharp as a tack. "I was very acutely aware of the capacity of the military for brutality," she said.

On Aug. 30, 1999, the people of East Timor voted almost 80 percent in favour of independence, but rather than leaving quietly, the Indonesian military left its mark by destroying much of the nation's infrastructure and killing about 1,400 people.

After a transitional period overseen by the United Nations (UN), East Timor became independent on May 20, 2002.

Last year, East Timor relied on Indonesia for 42 percent of all its imports. The close ties between the two nations have been getting in the way of justice.

"If you want to make people accountable, they will certainly be Indonesians, the Indonesian military, (but) there are some people in the East Timorese government who don't want to upset the Indonesians," she said. "The grassroots people don't agree with that."

"One of the important things is to make sure the Indonesian people know what happened in East Timor. We from outside can make complaints about the Indonesian government, but it's much more important if the Indonesian people, civil society in Indonesia, understand what happened," she added.

American John M Miller, national coordinator of the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network, a non-profit organisation promoting human rights, also made the trip to Dili to join solidarity activists from 17 countries.

"In many ways, the campaign for justice has proven more difficult than the campaign for self-determination and independence," he said. "To succeed in that, we again need to have that partnership between the people of East Timor and the international solidarity movement."

There has been little in the way of justice for the people of East Timor. Most of those responsible for human rights violations during the Indonesian military's occupation have got off scot- free, despite the UN's Serious Crimes Unit indicting 391 people.

The unit investigated the crimes committed in the wake of violence that marred East Timor's 1999 independence vote.

Eighty-seven of those people were brought to trial in East Timor, resulting in 84 convictions, although only one remains in prison after President Jose Ramos-Horta used his presidential power to cut many of the sentences and grant clemency.

National Union Party leader Fernanda Borges, whose push for an international tribunal is opposed by Ramos-Horta, thinks enough is enough. "These are international crimes that we should prosecute due to our international obligations and our need to end impunity in this country," she said in a recent speech.

Amnesty International has weighed in on the debate with a report titled, "We Cry for Justice: Impunity Persists 10 Years on in Timor-Leste," calling for the UN to set up an international tribunal.

According to the report, released Thursday, people in East Timor told the human rights group that the government's favouring of reconciliation over justice was "very difficult to comprehend and demoralizing for victims".

The Indonesian government immediately hit back, saying it will not prosecute alleged perpetrators of human rights abuses in East Timor, the Jakarta Post English daily reported.

On Apr. 17, victims and families gathered at late independence leader Manuel Carrascalao's house, where 10 years earlier, an Indonesian militia group murdered 12 people. Some 150 individuals had sought refuge at the house after fleeing violence in East Timor's districts.

This year, those victims and families called for an international tribunal, as well as for perpetrators of crimes against humanity to be held accountable for what they did.

These concerns and more are the hot topics at this week's solidarity conference.

East Timorese solidarity activist Lita Sarmento said, "We see that it is relevant to conduct this conference because 10 years after the referendum, we recognize that there are issues we need to take forward after independence as part of the unfinished struggle of the solidarity movement of the past."

Speaking on the opening panel of the solidarity conference, Irishman Tom Hyland, an East Timor activist, closed his speech by saying, "We have a saying in Ireland: justice delayed is justice denied."

Ramos-Horta says no to war crimes probe

ABC News - August 28, 2009

Sara Everingham – East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta has dismissed calls by Amnesty International to establish a war crimes tribunal to investigate human rights violations there during 24 years of Indonesian rule.

The report released just days before the young nation marks the 10-year anniversary of its independence referendum says many East Timorese are still awaiting justice.

But President Jose Ramos-Horta says he will not support an international investigation.

Edio Saldanha Borges says he was arrested by the Indonesian military when he was a teenager after the Santa Cruz massacre in 1991. His father suffered a worse fate.

"My father is killed by Indonesian military in 1999. They arrested my father in front of my brother and my sister and my mother, so this is traumatic for my family," he said.

Edio works with an organisation called the HAK Association. It is dedicated to advocating for justice in East Timor.

"This 10 years is time to reflect back to 1999, so how we expect to get justice, not only getting independence. So this is how to recognise the victim and human rights violence," he said. "So we tried to advocate for justice, also for reparation for victim."

'Waiting for justice'

The Opposition's David Ximenes Mandati, an independence leader, says more needs to be done to recognise the victims in East Timor. "I think that everyone is still waiting for the justice," he said.

A report by East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation recommends those accused of committing crimes in East Timor be brought to justice. But it has never been debated in Parliament.

In 2005 a joint Indonesia East Timor Truth and Friendship Commission was set up, but it did not have the power to prosecute.

Now a new report by Amnesty International says the victims of crimes against humanity in East Timor in 1999 and during the Indonesian occupation are yet to receive any justice.

It calls for an international tribunal to be set up to bring those responsible to trial. It says a culture of impunity in East Timor risks undermining the rule of law.

'Academic jargon'

But Mr Ramos-Horta is opposed to the recommendations in the report.

"Above all we also care about letting Indonesians manage their own affairs. They have made tremendous progress in the last 10 years in moving away from dictatorship, from impunity into a more robust democracy," he said.

"Indonesians in their own time, on their own agenda, their own clock, they are the ones who eventually will bring to trial those in Indonesia responsible for crimes in Indonesia, in Aceh, in Iryan, Tanjung Priok and in East Timor – not Amnesty International, not the United Nations."

"If you went around with me, random around the country as I've done for many, many months across the country, meeting barefoot people all over the country, thousands of them, not one, not one raised the issues of 99, not one talk about putting Indonesians on trial," Mr Ramos-Horta added.

"All they asked me again and again, 'Mr President, when are we going to have electricity? When are we going to have a telephone network here?'"

Mr Ramos-Horta says it is only a small number of human rights activists who are calling for an international tribunal to be set up.

"And unlike many of them, these so-called international human rights groups and Timorese activists, I lost almost half of my brothers and sisters. And even myself I was almost killed dead," he said.

"So I know what being a victim is. I know what is the pain of a mother who lost her children. I don't talk academic jargon."

Justice in Timor is key to development, says NGO

Ekklesia - August 27, 2009

Long-term development in East Timor – which celebrates the tenth anniversary of its vote for independence on Sunday 29 August 2009 – will be "seriously hindered" if justice for past crimes remains undelivered, the international development agency Progressio has warned.

Despite a decade of self-rule, East Timor is still the poorest country in the region and one of the least developed nations in the world. An estimated 40 per cent of the East Timorese people live on less than a dollar a day.

Progressio's Advocacy Coordinator for Asia, Dr Steve Kibble, comments: "Ten years ago this Sunday (August 30th), the East Timorese people bravely voted for independence and a new beginning following a quarter-century of Indonesian occupation. Yet justice for the crimes committed during that dark period of the country's history, when an estimated 100,000 people lost their lives, has still not been delivered. Without justice, instability and impunity will continue to seriously hinder East Timor's development."

Although a comprehensive investigation into crimes committed in East Timor was carried out by an independent Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) from 2001-2005, as yet no-one has been prosecuted for the human rights violations identified in its final report.

Many local and international organisations and many East Timorese, say justice remains largely undelivered and impunity is commonplace. Rameiro Ximenes dos Santos, survivor of a brutal massacre in Liquiga in April 1999, said: "Justice for the past needs to take place. If not, everything gets stuck. If we don't sort it out, then we will have more problems."

Julinho Ximenhes, who survived the Santa Cruz massacre in 1999 and now works for a human rights organisation in the East Timorese capital Dili, said: "I hope that the violence that happened here during the Indonesian occupation will not be repeated and that the next generation – our children – will be aware of these violations and justice will be done. Those who are responsible for the crimes in East Timor should be held accountable."

Progressio (formerly the Catholic Institute for International Realtions), which has a development programme in East Timor, has been running its 'East Timor: Who Cares?' campaign for the past year. The campaign calls on the UK government to provide financial and technical support for a justice centre in East Timor to promote accountability for past crimes.

The 1999 referendum – which saw 78 per cent of the Timorese population opt for independence – unleashed a torrent of violence in which an estimated 1400 people were killed. The events were widely reported by international media and condemned the world over.

In 2008 a bilateral Indonesian-Timorese truth commission agreed that "gross human rights violations" were committed by Indonesian forces as Indonesia withdrew from East Timor in late 1999.

The commission squarely blamed the Indonesian army for what it called "an organised campaign of violence". To date, none of those who ordered the massacres have been successfully prosecuted.

Rights group seeks UN tribunal for East Timor abuses

Reuters - August 27, 2009

Sunanda Creagh, Jakarta – The United Nations Security council should set up an international criminal tribunal to investigate abuses in East Timor both under Indonesian rule and in the vote for independence, a rights group said on Thursday.

East Timor, which was invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and which voted overwhelmingly for independence a decade ago, will not be able to shake off a culture of impunity unless those guilty of human rights abuses are punished, watchdog Amnesty International said in a report.

"In 1999, anti-independence militias, supported by the Indonesian military, killed more than a thousand Timorese in front of the world, but there has not been proper accountability for these atrocities," said Donna Guest, Amnesty International's Asia- Pacific deputy director, in a statement.

Amnesty said abuses perpetrated in the lead-up to the polls included rape, disappearances, arbitrary arrests and unlawful killings.

Tiny East Timor, a former Portuguese colony which achieved full independence from Indonesia in 2002, has opted for a conciliatory rather than a confrontational approach towards its much larger neighbour since independence.

An ad hoc Human Rights Court set up by Indonesia and the UN Special Panels in East Timor tried 18 people for crimes committed during the 1999 violence but all were acquitted, Amnesty said.

A 2005 joint Indonesia-East Timor Truth and Friendship Commission did not have the power to prosecute.

Indonesia's former armed forces chief, Wiranto, was indicted by the UN Serious Crimes Unit for crimes against humanity committed by troops under his command in East Timor.

But he never faced court, and has been free to pursue a political career, running as a vice presidential candidate in Indonesia's recent elections.

East Timor's president, Jose Ramos-Horta, has stressed the need to forge better relations with Indonesia, calling on his people to forgive the perpetrators of abuses, and pardoning militia members convicted of crimes. He has said he does not want a UN investigation.

However, Amnesty said that that approach would weaken the rule of law in both Indonesia and East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste.

"On two separate occasions since independence, in 2006 and 2008, political violence erupted in Timor-Leste," Amnesty said.

"Although there were complex reasons for each situation, the failure to rebuild the justice system effectively and to bring those responsible for past human rights violations to justice, contributed to an environment where there was no strong deterrent to political violence and human rights violations."

Political analyst Max Lane said the UN Security council was unlikely to establish an international criminal tribunal while Indonesia and East Timor were unwilling to support one.

"It's worth campaigning for because otherwise no one is ever held accountable and it happens all over again," he said.

"However, while the Indonesian government is reluctant, the East Timor government will be lukewarm about it and while that is the case, the chances of a tribunal are less."

East Timor's stability being undermined

Australian Associated Press - August 27, 2009

East Timor's stability is threatened by the failure to prosecute those behind the 1999 violence.

Adam Gartrell – The failure to pursue and prosecute most of those responsible for the violence that marred East Timor's 1999 independence vote poses a continuing threat to the country's stability, a new report warns.

Sunday marks the 10th anniversary of the UN-sponsored referendum in which almost 80 per cent of East Timorese voted for independence from Indonesia.

In the wake of the historic vote, pro-Indonesia militias, backed by the Indonesian military, rampaged throughout the tiny country, killing hundreds and displacing many more.

Most of the suspected perpetrators of the violence, including those in command, have yet to be prosecuted before an independent court in either East Timor or Indonesia, Amnesty International's report says.

"Of those who have been prosecuted in Indonesia, all have been acquitted in proceedings which have been severely criticised as fundamentally flawed," the report says. "Only one remains imprisoned in Timor-Leste."

The Timorese and Indonesian governments have adopted policies aimed at reconciliation that have demoralised victims, not delivered them justice, the report says.

There are concerns the impunity may pose a continuing threat to East Timor's stability, the report says, citing the political violence of 2006 and 2008.

"The failure to rebuild the justice system effectively and to bring those responsible for past human rights violations to justice contributed to an environment where there was no strong deterrent to political violence and human rights violations," it says.

"The denial of justice through effective criminal proceedings has eroded key pillars of the new state: the rule of law and a strong and independent judiciary."

East Timor's political leaders put Dili's relationship with Jakarta ahead of justice for victims, the report says. "Unless there is international intervention, impunity in violation of international law will continue."

The report calls on the UN Security Council to put an end to the impunity and set up an international criminal tribunal with jurisdiction over all crimes committed in Timor during Indonesia's occupation.

At least 102,800 Timorese died as a result of the brutal 24-year occupation that began in 1975.

Sufferers of East Timor atrocities await justice

Agence France Presse - August 24, 2009

Dili – Ten years after East Timor's historic independence referendum, victims are still waiting for justice for crimes and rights abuses committed during Indonesia's brutal 24-year occupation.

Up to 200,000 people in the tiny half-island were killed either directly by Indonesian troops or as a result of the occupation, and the Indonesian military employed a scorched earth policy which devastated the country in the wake of the vote.

On August 30, 1999, almost 80% of East Timor's population went to the polls to vote for independence. That year, more than 250,000 East Timorese fled East Timor or were expelled by troops, police and paramilitary militia.

Julio Barreto, 36, was one of those who fled across the border to escape the marauding militias, but it wasn't the first time he had found himself running for his life from Indonesian violence.

He was also at Dili's Santa Cruz Cemetery on November 12, 1991, when Indonesian troops opened fire on a peaceful protest during a memorial service for pro-independence activist Sebastiao Gomes, killing more than 270 people.

"We had climbed up on the wall of the cemetery. When the troops started to shoot at us, I jumped off the wall. My hands were bleeding because so many people were jumping, trying to escape," he said. "I saw one guy who had been working as a journalist get shot. As soon as I saw him getting shot, I ran."

Now a free man in his own country, Barreto wants closure. "We haven't heard the names of those who were shooting at us, but I want justice," he said.

No senior officials were charged with the massacre at Santa Cruz and only one of 18 junior government officials indicted received a jail term.

The UN-established Serious Crimes Unit has indicted 391 people for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in East Timor, resulting in 84 convictions and three acquittals.

Most of those yet to be arrested are given sanctuary by Indonesia, including former military chief Wiranto, who ran for the vice-presidency in July elections, and former militia leader Eurico Guterres.

Guterres's men ruled the Dili streets in the days following the independence vote, killing civilians and torching buildings. In 2006, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison for human rights violations.

Anniversary of independence

Fear in the air before the poll sparked war in East Timor

The Australian - August 31, 2009

Mark Dodd – The first act in the birth of the world's newest nation – its 1999 vote for independence – began for me before daybreak in East Timor's western border town of Maliana.

Behind our guesthouse, hundreds of Timorese were walking down a narrow road heading into town, clutching their precious white voter-registration cards, which shimmered in the moonlight. Their destination was the Maliana gymnasium hall, converted to serve as the main voting centre.

After months of brutal intimidation by anti-independence militia gangs, the sight was one of the most moving I have ever witnessed. As dawn broke, the numbers of voters continued to grow, men and women, young and old, dressed in the sort of finery Timorese typically reserve for Sunday Mass.

Unusually, there were no children present, a sign the voters expected trouble. When asked, they said they feared for their lives and wanted to cast their ballots early and get out of town – at least those voting for independence.

Maliana was a bastion for militant pro-integrationists and pro- independence student activists staying at the nearby Don Bosco, a volatile mix which in the following days would explode into violence and mass murder.

My voting day started in picturesque mountain country 12km southeast of Maliana – neutral ground and the voting centre for pro-independence Falintil guerillas and their families.

Understandably, they were reluctant to come down from their mountain redoubt and agreed only at the last moment after tortuous negotiations with the Indonesians and the UN and assurances that the feared Indonesian military intelligence operatives (SGI) would stay away.

A UN electoral official, a middle-aged American woman who had worked months to convince this group to vote, broke into tears when she saw them arrive.

By 10am I went back to Maliana where voting was orderly as UN police, their Indonesian counterparts and UN electoral staff organised voters into long queues.

And there were some hilarious scenes. Inside the gym, I watched as an elderly man was helped by staff to a cardboard voting booth. After casting his vote, the man wanted to ensure the whole process stayed a secret and he set about dismantling the booth, before laughing staff ushed up and helped to usher him away. It was the only lighter moment that day.

If any trouble was going to happen it was expected to occur in Maliana and nearby Balibo, which had seen earlier militia violence.

So it was no surprise that many Dili-based diplomats, including Australian embassy staff, arrived to observe the vote, their presence hopefully acting as a deterrent to any planned disruption by the militias. But that would come after they departed.

In Balibo, voting began well at the local high school but UN polling staff were getting nervous about the presence of truckloads of militiamen driving up and down the road outside to intimidate voters.

Their efforts appeared to be successful, because most of the town's residents were preparing to relocate, their belongings piled outside their homes.

My last stop before heading back to Dili was a small voting booth about 20km east of the border hamlet of Batugade.

It was mid-afternoon and the centre's UN staff had left in fear except for one – a former Belgian paratroop major. He was alone, armed with a wooden club discreetly placed inside his office while he guarded the ballot boxes.

I accepted his offer of some cold water and we stopped for a brief chat while armed militia did burnouts in a pick-up truck on the road outside. The peace was about to end.

Timor Leste readies for modest 10th anniversary

Jakarta Post - August 30, 2009

Yemris Fointuna – On Saturday, Dili's main streets and spotless government office complexes overlooking the touristy Dili beach were awash with colorful flags and banners. Cars roamed the streets with small fluttering Timor Leste flags.

It was business as usual for most Dili residents as the young democracy prepared for celebrations of its 10th Independence Day anniversary on Sunday. Unlike in previous years, no street demonstrations were seen throughout the day.

Portuguese President Cavaco Silva and Portuguese Parliamentary Speaker Jaime Gama will be the only foreign dignitaries to attend the party, which will feature cultural shows from the country's 13 districts. Among the most anticipated is a concert by Indonesian pop diva Krisdayanti, on Sunday.

Timor Leste President Josi Ramos Horta told a press conference that in fact some heads of state and government would have come if Timor Leste had had world class accomodation.

"Many heads of state and governments attended the 2002 celebrations thanks to a number of floating hotels with adequate facilities providing them with confortable places to stay. Now, the floating hotels have gone, they couldn't make it," he said.

This year, Timor Leste's Independence Day celebrations have been enlivened with interntional conferences on human rights and development.

People in the streets said they saw nothing very special about the 10th anniversary of their country, which used to be Indonesia's 27th province. They expressed hopes that the then President Xanana Gusmao, who ruled the country before Horta, had developed poor areas outside the capital.

Laurindo Fernandes, a resident of Manufahi district, said that in far-flung rural areas, basic commodities, especially foods, were barely affordable for most people.

"Prices fluctuate because the market is fully controlled by traders with practically no government intervention," Fernandes told The Jakarta Post. "A 35-kilogram sack of rice, which has a normal price tag of US$12, can soar to $15 any time."

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Timor-Leste has seen no significant improvement since it became independent from Indonesia and that more than 40 percent of its 1.1 million population live below the official poverty line of 55 US cents a day. In 2008, Timor-Leste's annual percapita income was $440.

Fernandes said development was concentrated mainly in Dili. In most districts, public services were hard to come by, he said. Electricity, for example, is available only three days a week, usually from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m..

"The rest of the time, it's a blackout," he said. "During these times, housewives complain about rotting vegetables and their children not being able to study properly in the evenings."

In Dili, residents enjoy uninterrupted electricity 24-hours-a- day.

Residents also complain of poor infrastructure, especially roads connecting the 13 districts with Dili. Maria Mendez from the western town of Liquisa said citizens like her were yet to enjoy the fruits of independence.

"Prices are way too high for most people, while public services, such as health and education, are still poor. I hope the government pays better attention to the welfare of mothers and children," she said.

Timor Leste 10 years after

Jakarta Post - August 30, 2009

Yemris Fointuna, Dili – After 10 years of independence, two presidents and two prime ministers, Timor Leste has not changed much, at least on the surface.

Except for the new construction of the president's office and national parliament, almost all government buildings are still housed in the structures left by Indonesian and Portuguese rule.

Intercity roads connecting 13 districts with the capital are still the same. "When roads are damaged there are only minor repairs," said Heriu, a Dili resident.

Basic public services like provision of food, clean water and electricity, are far from satisfactory. More than 80 percent of the nation's population of 1.1 million lives in rural areas with difficult access to such services.

One legislator, Arsenio Bano says, "This is all because of KKN or corruption, collusion and nepotism – the same bane cited by Indonesians under the past New Order government.

"Corruption is everywhere," said Bano, who is of the Fretilin faction, the main party of the former freedom movement.

After 10 years of independence only the elite have enjoyed its benefits, he says, with the rest of the population largely living in poverty. "Every year large portions of the budget remain unspent," he added, citing the annual US$800 million budget.

Government officials cite the nation's infancy as the main source of all shortcomings – coupled with the legacy of 1999, when the Timorese who lost the vote went on a rampage, targeting strategic facilities and spreading terror, with tacit support from Indonesian security forces, as acknowledged in the final report of the Commission of Truth and Friendship of Indonesia and Timor Leste.

Also widely blamed is the United Nations, which officially transferred its authority to the government in Dili in 2002, heading off to other new independent lands. Some Timorese blame themselves for shooing away the UN to leave as soon as possible, amid brewing jealousy of UN staff wages compared to other jobs, and protests against what were seen as the UN's various shortcomings.

Student activist Sisto do Santos criticizes both the present government under former rebel leader Xanana Gusmao and the parliamentarians.

"In 2008 there was a severe food crisis; but the MPs and government were busy debating about buying luxury cars. Students that demonstrated were arrested and jailed," he said.

The coordinator of the Timor Leste Front for the Campus Movement, do Santos said that such measures of "intervening into expression of freedom" renders the government just the same as Indonesia's New Order.

Criticism is rife over everything else in the country. Do Santos says he has found households that find it difficult to gain even one dollar in a month.

Yet for all their complaints, the Timorese can be proud that education and health services are free.

Edio Saldanha Borges, deputy director of the Hak foundation, which focuses on human rights, says a popular program is the assistance of $20 a month for each elderly citizen.

He also cited the free education of 500 students in the last five years, who were sent to Cuba to train to become medical practitioners. The target is one doctor per village by 2020, he said.

Indonesia, says Ambassador Eddy Setiabudhi, has a large role to play in boosting the local economy. As of last year Indonesia ranked first in trade with its neighbor with $109 million in imports. Cultural and social links, apart from security, will also be improved, he said.

At the last celebration of Indonesia's 64th year of independence, Eddy said, "the ones who played angklung [traditional instruments] were from Dili's St Joseph high school."

They had just learned how to play the West Javanese instrument for three months before the August celebration, he said.

Witnessing East Timor's independence

Eureka Street - August 28, 2009

Meredyth Tamsyn – The day, like most others in East Timor, started very early. But it was not the chickens or motorbikes that woke us that day, it was heart-pounding excitement.

It was 30 August 1999. An event was about to take place that had seemed entirely mythical. It was so unlikely, yet here it was. After 24 years of military occupation, the East Timorese would decide via UN referendum whether to remain a part of Indonesia, or become an independent nation.

My colleague Mandy and I were UN observers visiting Maliana, the large town close to the border with West Timor. In the darkness we sat outside the UN compound eating hot bread rolls bought from a lone man pushing a cart. As we drove to the small mountain chapel where we intended to spend the day, scores of people lined the road walking slowly towards the polling booth.

At the chapel of Odomau-Atas I saw people I had met on previous visits to Maliana. They smiled shyly as they cast their votes and seemed a little perplexed as to what to do with themselves after this momentous, yet somehow mundane event (tick the box, fold the paper, place it in the blue box) was over.

But the euphoria would not last. By mid-afternoon as UN observers and staff celebrated the remarkably peaceful day, locals began to exercise long held plans to evacuate to Falintil (Armed Forces for an Independent East Timor) held mountain areas. Their fear was of a violent Indonesian military and militia backlash for their having had the audacity to come out and vote in the face of a tremendous months-long campaign of intimidation.

By nightfall there were over a hundred refugees seeking shelter in the backyard of the UN house we were staying in. The Australian head of the UN in the district spent hours negotiating with the Indonesian Police Chief for their safe passage to the police compound the following morning.

A week after the ballot, as police looked on, militia would murder 47 people there.

By then we were back in Dili. Our journey had beem punctuated by frightening searches at militia roadblocks. The beautiful, friendly people we had known were in a quandary – stay at home, or run to the mountains to hide. Some tried to leave but were stymied by an early release of the results: almost 80 per cent for independence.

The reality of the results would take some time to sink in as an overpowering fear was now gripping the country.

After days of shooting in Dili we were picked up by the Australian ambassador John McCarthy and evacuated. On the road to the airport there were cars lined up, piled high with household objects and mattresses, not moving. The heavily armed militiamen prowled up and down the centre of the road ensuring there would be no escape. The image of the static cars would haunt me for years.

Over 200,000 people would be displaced as a result of the ensuing campaign of terror by the Indonesian military as they executed their 'Operation of Sympathy', a long held plan to destroy all the vital infrastructure in East Timor and displace as much of the population as possible.

In the face of sudden and overwhelming Australian public outrage, the Howard Government was forced to send in peacekeepers. They were mobilised fast. Several skirmishes took place between Australian and Indonesian soldiers, although for the most part these were kept from the media,

Independence came in a lavish ceremony in 2002 attended by scores of world leaders. In 2005 the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation delivered its final report in which it recommended the establishment of an international tribunal to prosecute human rights violations by Indonesian forces during the 24 year occupation, as well as reparations to be made to victims. President Xanana Gusmco was reluctant to release the findings or follow them, preferring to focus on a close relationship with Indonesia.

A photographic exhibition in Dili organised by the UN opens at the presidential palace this week to mark the ten-year anniversary of the ballot, and there will also be a special Tetum language screening of the new film Balibo. The face of Timor has changed in the intervening years. Much of the infrastructure destroyed by departing Indonesian forces in 1999 has not been replaced and some people are poorer than they were under the Indonesian occupation. But there are very few who would want the Indonesians to return.

In the last ten years this small country has seen Indonesian militia incursions across the border, an attempted coup and an almost successful assassination attempt on the President. But this week it is worth remembering back to the day in late 1999 when residents of Dili watched in disbelief as Indonesian soldiers walked down to the wharf and boarded boats to leave East Timor forever.

Exhausted, emaciated and almost delirious with shock at what had been done to their friends, their family, and their country, they laughed, yelled and wept. It was over. For a fleeting moment the East Timorese could savour this extraordinary sight before the task of rebuilding the world's newest nation would begin.

[Meredyth TamsynMeredyth Tamsyn is a freelance writer who has written extensively about East Timor and Aceh.]

A free Timor, but the price is high

Sydney Morning Herald - August 22, 2009

East Timor voted for independence 10 years ago, but its people await a better life, writes Lindsay Murdoch in Dili.

The first time I saw Pedro Unamet Remejio he had just poked his head into the world as gunfire was echoing around the United Nations compound in Dili.

It was at 3.15 am, probably the darkest hour of six long nights we spent huddled together as pro-Indonesia militias looted, raped and killed on Dili's streets. I was dozing two metres away on a concrete floor.

Pedro did not cry much and his mother, Joanna Remejio, muffled the pain of the birth of her third child, so I never woke.

Instead of opening my eyes to see killers from over the razor wire fence, as I had feared, I saw a beaming Mrs Remejio nursing her newborn son on a piece of cardboard. "I am very happy my baby is alive," she told me.

That was September 7, 1999, eight days after East Timorese defied intimidation and voted to break away from Indonesia, precipitating a wave of bloodshed that left 1500 Timorese dead and most of the former Portuguese territory destroyed.

As East Timor prepares to mark the 10th anniversary of that August 30 vote, I find Pedro in a poor suburb of Dili, where his mother, like most Timorese mothers, battles to feed and educate him and four other children aged between five and 15.

Pedro is short, skinny and blind in one eye, having been hit in the head with a rock two years ago. His smile is shy. "I want to be the health minister," he said, when I asked what he wanted to do later in life.

Mrs Remejio, 36, asks if the Melbourne Jesuit priest Peter Hosking is also returning to Timor as it was him who baptised Pedro. At Mrs Remejio's insistence, Father Hosking gave him the middle name Unamet, the acronym for the United Nations mission that made it possible for 900,000 East Timorese to win their freedom.

"A white doctor who was in the compound suggested the name and I thought it a great idea in recognition of the UN saving our lives," she said.

Mrs Remejio was heavily pregnant when she ran with her husband and two children to the UN compound as militia were rampaging through the streets.

The family was refused entry, but when militia appeared to open fire on people who were screaming to be allowed into the compound, she and scores of others climbed the fence, pulled themselves over razor wire and jumped to the ground inside. Many were cut and bruised.

"We were petrified. We believed they were going to shoot us all. I believed climbing the fence was the only way to save my baby," Mrs Remejio said.

Television footage of women and children scrambling and being pushed over the wire shocked the world and forced the UN to open the gates to 2000 refugees.

Pedro was born two days later in an area of the compound that had been set up as a makeshift clinic where a couple of doctors worked around the clock in primitive conditions.

Just as East Timor has struggled to develop during the past 10 years, Mrs Remejio has struggled to bring up Pedro and her other children.

Five years ago, her husband abandoned her and the children. Since then she has run a small carpentry business on her own. But it is hard to make a living. "Many Indonesians have come back here to start up similar businesses," Mrs Remejio said.

In 2006 she fled Dili amid violent upheaval and spent six months in a refugee camp. When she returned, the business and the small, corrugated-iron home where she and her children live in one tiny room had been looted. "We had to start all over again," she said.

Mrs Remejio has written twice to the UN pleading for help with caring and educating Pedro but has received no reply. She said Ian Martin, the former UN head in East Timor, had promised her in 1999 that Pedro would receive a special card that would help his upbringing. "I never got one amid the chaos of the time," Mrs Remejio said.

She said Pedro's damaged eye needed assessing in case the sight could be returned but she could not afford a doctor. She struggles to find the money to send him to school. "I hope my country can grow better. I want a better life for my children."

UNMIT/ISF

Peacekeeping troops prepare to pull out of East Timor

Radio Australia - August 28, 2009

The United Nations is preparing for a gradual withdrawal from East Timor early next year and expects Australia will begin to reduce its troop numbers at the same time.

But all those involved are keenly aware about the need for East Timor to be properly prepared, after Dili descended into violence in 2006 and the 2008 shooting of President Jose Ramos Horta by rebel elements of the army.

Presenter: Sara Everingham

Speakers: Lieutenant Colonel Dave Smith, Australian Army; Longuinhos Monteiro, East Timor's commissioner of police; Atul Khare, head of the United Nations in East Timor; Brigadier Bill Sowry, commander of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers in East Timor

Sara Everingham: It's one way to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of East Timor's referendum: a shooting competition between the Australian soldiers and East Timor's military and police. The Australians say it's a positive sign.

Lieutenant Colonel Dave Smith: Competition of this nature is good because it's healthy, it promotes interaction in the process of enabling these two security elements to become, to move forward as professional forces.

Sara Everingham: Three years ago East Timor's army and police were fighting each other on the streets of Dili during the crisis of 2006 when a mutiny split East Timor's army. Colonel Smith says much has changed since then.

Dave Smith: The security situation here is steadily improving, and you can see that with the way that our soldiers are now patrolling on the streets. Our patrols are lower profile and when our soldiers patrol they patrol with their weapons slung with the muzzles pointed down.

Sara Everingham: There are about 650 Australian soldiers in East Timor. They help provide security for the more than 1,000 United Nations Police here. The UN has started handing over responsibility for policing to the East Timorese. Longuinhos Monteiro is East Timor's commissioner of police.

Longuinhos Monteiro: This job has a big challenge of how to reunify the mentality of our people.

Sara Everingham: Commissioner Monteiro says discipline is the key.

Longuinhos Monteiro: Some policemen off duty went to bar, their gun with them. We have some with uniform get drunk, we punished them. I know that some of them is still try to learn and try to understand why I have to do this, including one of my best friend. Yesterday I have to kick him out from my unit. Particularly I consider this very serious.

Sara Everingham: The head of the United Nations in East Timor, Atul Khare thinks the UN can soon begin drawing down its presence in East Timor.

Atul Khare: It should commence around March or April 2010 and then in a gradual phased manner could take up to the middle of 2012 when the successful conclusion of the next national elections would give us even more hope for the future.

Sara Everingham: He agrees the UN's last withdrawal from East Timor in 2005 wasn't perfect. The commander of the Australian and New Zealand soldiers in East Timor, Brigadier Bill Sowry says lessons have been learned.

Bill Sowry: Our draw down will be determined after we have some discussions between our Government, with the UN and with the Government of Timor-Leste. You know, what we can be very sure of is that we will not do what happened prior to 2006 is make large reductions that enable other events to occur and create a vacuum.

UN to wind back mission in Timor

Sydney Morning Herald - August 20, 2009

Jonathan Pearlman – The United Nations is preparing gradually to wind down its mission in East Timor and believes Australia could do the same, says the mission's chief of staff, Gerard Gallucci.

The 1600-strong UN force, which consists mainly of police, has focused on training and mentoring local police since the eruption of violence in 2006, which followed the withdrawal of international forces. Since May, the UN police have been handing back responsibility to local authorities.

Dr Gallucci said the situation had been calm since early last year when rebels attacked the President, Jose Ramos-Horta, and he expected the UN to begin reducing its forces as soon as next year. But any withdrawals would be gradual and designed to prevent a security vacuum and the repeat of the 2006 and 2008 disturbances.

"The security level at the moment is high," Dr Gallucci said. "Things have improved considerably in the past one-and-a-half years... In the coming months and years, there will be some reductions. We are not going to do what we did the previous time the UN was turning responsibility over to local forces.

"This time we are going to keep our police numbers constant for a period of time to assist with mentoring. We are not setting dates on this."

Dr Gallucci, who visited Canberra to address the Australian Defence College and meet government officials, said the mission was likely to cut its $US205 million ($250 million) budget next year by about 10 per cent, before withdrawing forces. It was "a fair assumption" that Australia could also wind down its 650- strong force.

"We would not have started the process ourselves if we were not comfortable with the notion that Timor is increasingly able to provide their own security," he said.

"We have heard the suggestions that Australia and New Zealand will be reducing their forces. I don't think we would be surprised by that."

Dr Gallucci said that in the 10 years since the East Timorese voted for independence, the biggest achievements had been the establishment of a stable democracy and justice system.

But the international community would need to maintain its commitment, especially to help resolve land disputes and assist the Government to use wisely the wealth it had amassed in oil and gas deals.

Graft & corruption

East Timor president vows to end corruption

Australia Network News - August 24, 2009

East Timor's president says corruption is still a serious problem in his country but he is committed to stamping it out.

Jose Ramos Horta was speaking as the country began celebrations leading up to the 10th anniversary of the referendum on independence. He says he is determined, together with the Prime Minister, to stamp out corruption.

President Ramos Horta says people did not fight and die for independence, to later have a corrupt government or a corrupt system.

There have been claims of high-profile corruption in East Timor, including an allegation the Prime Minister's daughter partly owned a company that won a government food contract.

Documents have also emerged backing government statements that Zenilda Gusmao sold her shares in the company before the deal went through.

Radio Australia's parent body, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is investigating the authenticity of those documents. East Timor's ombudsman says the president has requested an investigation into how rice contracts have been awarded.

East Timor opposition says accused ministers must go

Agence France Presse - August 7, 2009

Dili – East Timor's opposition Fretilin party called for Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao to sack his justice and finance ministers Thursday after investigators recommended action against the pair for "abuse of power."

Fretilin parliamentary leader Aniceto Guterres told reporters that Justice Minister Lucia Lobato and Finance Minister Emilia Pires had to face the music for the latest corruption scandal to hit the government.

"Now an independent and impartial investigation by the country's constitutionally mandated anti-corruption watchdog has found sufficient evidence that Lobato and Pires abused their powers," he said.

Allegations were made last year that Lobato had provided business people with inside information about justice ministry projects to renovate a perimeter wall and provide uniforms at Becora prison.

In his report dated July 2, Ombudsman Sebastiao Ximenes wrote that there had been "an abuse of power by the minister of justice because she opted to implement single-source direct contracting for the rehabilitation works."

Furthermore, there had been "an abuse of power by the minister of justice and the minister of finance because they failed to duly observe the rules and procedures of procurement."

Ximenes told Radio Australia that he had recommended the prosecutor general take action against the justice minister and the companies involved in the projects.

Guterres said Gusmao hadn't hesitated to order action against low-ranking police officers and civil servants over "nothing more than allegations of misconduct," so the ministers should receive similar treatment.

Lobato has denied any wrongdoing, saying she would be ready for an investigation "anytime, anywhere." Pires hasn't commented on the ombudsman's findings.

The ombudsman's report was dated about a week after Gusmao came in the firing line for signing off on a $3.5 million government contract to a company his daughter allegedly owns an 11% share in.

Pires hit headlines in May amid allegations she gave high-paying jobs to employ under-qualified friends of hers.

Human rights/law

Call for justice over journalists' killings

Financial Times - August 28, 2009

John Aglion, Dili – Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor's president, has called for those responsible for the death of Sander Thoenes, the Financial Times journalist killed during 1999 violence in the territory, to be brought to justice.

No one has been put on trial for his killing. In November 2002 the Dili district court issued indictments against two Indonesian soldiers, Major Jacob Sarosa and Lieut Camilo dos Santos, for "crimes against humanity", including Thoenes's murder. Indonesia has not thoroughly investigated either man, let alone prosecuted them.

Thoenes was killed in September 1999 while reporting on anarchy in East Timor after the former Portuguese colony voted for independence on August 30 that year. At least 1,200 East Timorese are thought to have been killed in the violence surrounding the vote as the Indonesian military enacted a scorched-earth policy during their withdrawal.

Thoenes was not the first journalist to be killed in East Timor. In 1975, Australians Greg Shackleton and Tony Stewart, Britons Brian Peters and Malcolm Rennie, and New Zealander Gary Cunningham were killed in the town of Balibo while covering the Indonesian invasion. Jakarta claims they were caught in the crossfire with rebels, but others, including Mr Ramos-Horta, have accused Indonesian soldiers.

Mr Ramos-Horta said the killers of the "Balibo five" should also be pursued. His stance on the journalists contrasts sharply with other political crimes. He and Xanana Gusmco, prime minister, believe that East Timor should not pursue Indonesian soldiers responsible for killing Timorese.

"It's not that one human life is worth more or less," he told the FT. "It's that... we have hundreds, if not thousands of East Timorese who collaborated with Indonesians. Are we going to try everybody?"

Teuku Faizasyah, an Indonesian foreign ministry spokesman, said Indonesia and East Timor were "nurturing reconciliation".

He said: "One would not even think to reopen past cases, not to mention the aspect of their practicality.

"If there are grievances from people of other nations who want to seek justice, we will see how strong the evidence is they can present, and which avenue is the most appropriate for it to be pursued through."

A United Nations commission in 2000 concluded that the Timorese victims' "basic human rights to justice, compensation and the truth must be fully respected", but nothing substantive has been done.

An Indonesian tribunal that heard evidence against 18 people, including senior military officers, acquitted all of them. Last year, Dili and Jakarta completed a truth and friendship commission inquiry into the 1999 atrocities, but no perpetrators were named and prosecutions were not recommended.

Atul Khare, the head of the current UN mission in East Timor, told the FT there should be a determination of truth, reparations for the victims, repentance on the part of perpetrators and a degree of accountability.

A strong grassroots desire remains for accountability for political crimes dating back to 1975. Aid agencies say that until the East Timorese government attempts to secure justice, it risks losing people's trust, which could, in turn, affect its ability to deliver other services.

Remains of Dili massacre victims identified

Sydney Morning Herald - August 19, 2009

Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin – Australian forensic experts have identified the remains of three victims of an Indonesian army massacre that took place in East Timor 18 years ago.

Confirmation of the identities ends an agonising wait for the victims' families, who have been searching for their loved ones since Indonesian soldiers opened fire on East Timorese mourners in Dili's Santa Cruz cemetery on November 12, 1991.

The identifications follow years of preliminary detective work into accounts of what happened to the victims and forensic investigations by a team of experts led by Soren Blau, a forensic anthropologist from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine.

Up to 200 people are believed to have been killed in the massacre, which happened during the funeral for a man killed by Indonesian soldiers.

None of the bodies of any of the victims had been found until Timorese investigators and the forensic team unearthed mass graves at Hera, 15 kilometres east of Dili, in March.

Sixteen cadavers were unearthed and taken to Dili, where Dr Blau's team identified three and confirmed the rest were victims of the massacre.

Gregorio Saldana, a former East Timorese parliamentarian who was shot during the massacre, is expected to announce the results of the project at a media conference in Dili tomorrow amid preparations for 10th anniversary celebrations of the August 30 referendum, where Timorese voted to break away from Indonesia.

Last year Mr Saldana formed an organisation known as the November 12 Committee, which gathered evidence from family members on the numbers of those killed in the massacre and the possible whereabouts of the bodies. Dr Blau's team became involved when the Federal Government's AusAid provided funding as a humanitarian and training exercise, despite continuing sensitivities in Indonesia over the massacre.

The Indonesian Government initially claimed only 19 people were killed. Later it put the figure at 50. Mr Saldana's committee has a list of 74 confirmed deaths.

The massacre was a turning point in East Timor's struggle for independence. Video taken by the British journalist Max Stahl showing young teenagers smeared in blood and praying for their lives shocked the world.

The discovery of the remains came after a local gravedigger had testified that the army had forced him to bury the massacre victims in the local cemetery.

Dr Blau had enlisted forensic scientists from Argentina as well as local police, health and mortuary workers to clear sites of possible graves and dig for bodies. She and her colleagues spent months preparing families of the "disappeared" victims for the reality of the search.

Indonesian arrested in East Timor over attack

Jakarta Globe - August 14, 2009

Eras Poke, Kupang – Authorities in East Timor arrested an Indonesian on Sunday over his alleged role in a deadly attack at a church there during the upheaval experienced after the country's vote for independence, an Indonesian official said while appealing to the central government for help in the case.

Richard Djami, an assistant to the governor of East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), said on Friday that the provincial administration was planning to send a letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jakarta to ask the Indonesian Embassy in Dili, the capital of East Timor, to extend all necessary assistance to Martenus Bere, who was arrested during a family trip to the town of Suai near the Indonesian border on Sunday.

"We basically back efforts by the Belu district administration to bring back Martenus Bere, who is still held by East Timorese police in Suai," Richard said. "We hope that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will ask our embassy in Dili to help Martenus because the issue is a bilateral problem."

Tens of thousands of pro-Indonesia militia members went on a bloody rampage in 1999 after the East Timorese overwhelmingly voted for independence from Indonesia in a UN-sponsored referendum, ending Indonesia's occupation of the former Portuguese colony after more than two decades. The bloodshed forced hundreds of thousands to flee their homes and take refuge in churches and military barracks.

On Sept. 6, 1999, dozens of Laksaur militiamen, armed with machetes, swords, knives and homemade firearms, attacked refugees at a church in Suai, Covalima district, killing at least 40 people, including three priests and more than a dozen women.

The violence also prompted hundreds of thousands of East Timorese to flee to Atambua in NTT, where they have lived in squalid refugee centers. While most refugees have returned to East Timor, more than 10,000 others are still living in Indonesia.

According to Richard, Martenus, a former member of the Laksaur militia group, was in Suai to attend a traditional ceremony in memory of his late father at the family's home in Leogore, Suai.

The arrest was first made public by the former commander of the pro-Indonesia militias, Eurico Guterres, after receiving reports from Martenus's family members.

Richard said Martenus was currently being detained in Suai and would be taken to Dili in the next few days. Foreign Affairs Ministry officials could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Health & education

A touch of mercy for twisted limbs in Dili

Melbourne Age - August 26, 2009

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Madalena is 16 but weighs just 13 kilograms, her arms and legs thin and twisted. If she could speak, she would say how happy she is to see Sister Florencia. You can see that in her bulging eyes.

Sister Florencia, a saint-like figure here in this poor suburb of Dili, walks seven kilometres to massage and fuss over Madalena, who has been severely disabled since the age of one, when she was struck down by a still undiagnosed illness.

"Come on, that doesn't hurt, does it?" Sister Florencia says, rubbing Madalena's cheeks.

Sister Florencia is one of four nuns of a religious order inspired by the work of Mother Teresa who perform physiotherapy on more than 60 disabled children, their only treatment in this poverty-stricken country of 1 million people. The nuns also teach the children's parents to do the same.

Madalena's 30-year-old mother, Merita Faria, says she would not be able to cope without the visits of Sister Florencia, an Indonesian.

She says that when Madalena became ill, she feared her body might have been invaded by a supernatural power. "I tried traditional medicine, but it did not heal her," Mrs Faria says. "Now only Sister Florencia and God can save Madalena."

The nuns care for children scattered in homes across Dili but have only one motor scooter.

Paul Stewart, brother of slain Balibo five journalist Tony Stewart, has launched an appeal in Australia to raise money to buy them a vehicle.

"These amazing women are fighting a constant battle against the odds to treat the number of disabled children, who in their society are described as the lowest of the low," Mr Stewart says. "Until recently, physiotherapy was not available to these kids."

Sister Justina, an East Timorese member of the order, says the nuns cannot keep up with the work with only one scooter. "If we had a four-wheel car with a tray we could do a lot more work," she says. "We could even get into the countryside to visit the really disadvantaged, disabled children.

"It would be a miracle if Australians could help us get a vehicle. Not brand new, just one to help us with our work."

Mr Stewart saw the work of nuns from ALMA (Asossiasi Lembaga Misionaris Awam, or the Association of Lay Missionaries for the poor and disabled) when he came to Dili to work as a musical consultant for the recently released movie Balibo.

"We met Sister Justina, to whom we gave some donated guitars, and she invited us to join her on her rounds visiting the disabled kids," Mr Stewart says. "We were struck by the absolute poverty they live in."

Sixteen months ago, Mr Stewart was dying of liver failure in Melbourne's Austin Hospital, the result, he says, of years of rock'n'roll excess fronting the band Painters and Dockers.

One night, a Timorese nun, Sister Helena, sat on the end of his bed and said she would ask the nuns of East Timor to pray that he received a new liver. She asked that in return he promise to help poor Timorese if by chance he survived.

"I agreed, not expecting that a few days after waiting almost two years to get a new compatible liver, one actually arrived," Mr Stewart says. "Now I am keeping my part of he bargain."

He later discovered that Sister Helena is Sister Justina's best friend. "Strange, hey?" he says.

Donations for the nuns can be sent to the Jesuit Mission, PO Box 193 (31 West Street) North Sydney, NSW 2059.

East Timor quizzes Rudd's aid spending

ABC News - August 29, 2009

Sara Everingham, Dili – East Timor's President says Australia should spend more of its aid money helping educate East Timorese.

Jose Ramos-Horta says Australia allocates $100 million to East Timor each year. He says he would like to see the number of scholarships Australia offers to East Timorese increase from 20 to 100, and he would like to know how much of Australia's aid money to East Timor is spent in his country.

"I ask Kevin Rudd today, you provide us with $100 million a year, why wouldn't you increase the number of the scholarships to east Timorese studying in Australia in TAFEs?" he said.

"Why [are] they so reluctant to spend money – that money, $100 million – on East Timorese youth to study in Australia?"

Dr Ramos-Horta says he is worried much of the aid money gets spent on hiring outside consultants and never makes it to the people of East Timor.

"They are reluctant because this money wouldn't go to consultants, wouldn't go to reports, it goes straight to the students and the universities," he said.

"So I don't understand how very little money, very few scholarships – one of the wealthiest countries in the world, Australia – provides to Timor."

Economy & investment

Indonesian merchants rule the market

Jakarta Post - August 31, 2009

The kiosks at the Mercado Market tell the whole story: almost everything here, from toothpaste and household appliances, to clothing to seasoning commodities like turmeric, comes from Indonesia.

Shopping here feels much like in any market in a major urban area in Indonesia, with people speaking and shouting at each other in Indonesian. Indonesian traders mingle with locals, and the shared language makes business easier.

"Prospects are excellent," said a smiling Joko, a clothing supplier from Surakarta, Central Java, who comes to Timor Leste regularly.

On the streets, young people rev up their Japanese scooters imported from the country's closest neighbor; the countless cars and trucks clogging the streets is also indicative of a burgeoning middle class.

A decade after independence, Indonesia remains the most important business partner for the impoverished Timor Leste.

Imports from Indonesia keep growing every year. In 2008, Indonesian exports to its former colony reached US$110 million, a dramatic jump from $38 million in 2007, statistics The Jakarta Post obtained from the Indonesian Embassy there.

Next comes Singapore, with trade volume of $50 million last year, Australia with $40 million, followed by Vietnam and Malaysia with $30 million each, according to the statistics.

Indonesia supplies Timor Leste with basic goods, fuel, cars and parts, electronics and furniture. And the former colonial master is doing everything to keep its exports competitive.

"We'll keep expanding bilateral trade relations every year," says Indonesian Ambassador to Timor Leste Eddy Setiabudhi.

Opportunities to do business remain wide open for Indonesian investors, as Timor Leste gears up for infrastructure development to woo direct foreign investment and create jobs.

Faustino Cardoso Gomes, director of Timor Leste National University's research center, says the Xanana Gusmao administration has prioritized trade with Indonesia over that with other countries like Singapore and Australia, or even former colonial power Portugal, because the country relies heavily on Indonesia for the bulk of its basic commodities.

To support efforts to boost bilateral relations, Indonesia has established an Indonesian Cultural Center, aimed at promoting Indonesian culture in Timor Leste for better understanding between the two peoples.

Although the institution is already there, the embassy is still seeking to acquire a building to accommodate activities such as performances and Indonesian language courses.

Students of the St. Joseph high school in Dili, who learned to play the angklung (bamboo percussion instruments) at the cultural center, recently performed during the Indonesian Independence Day celebration at the Indonesian Embassy, along with angklung artists from Mang Ujo Studio in Bandung.

Still nursing the wounds from decades of conflict, the two countries have joined forces in security and defense, with Indonesia providing training for the Timor Leste police force, while Timor Leste military chief Gen. Taur Matan Ruak has invited his Indonesian counterpart to visit Dili this September.

The trip will be the first by Indonesia's top brass to Timor Leste to forge cooperation over the past decade.

The bilateral cooperation has to date focused mainly on joint border security, which also involves the UN police, customs and excise, as well as immigration authorities from the two countries.

East Timor calls for end to oil development delays

The Australian - August 25, 2009

Mark Dodd – East Timor has called for an end to delays over the development of the oil and gas-rich Greater Sunrise field in the Timor Sea after new interest from investors in Malaysia, China and South Korea.

Dili says Malaysian, South Korean and Chinese parties have expressed support for a pipeline from the reservoir to a production facility in East Timor rather than in Darwin.

East Timor Natural Resources Secretary Alfredo Pires said yesterday talks had been held recently with China on the feasibility of an LNG pipeline from Greater Sunrise to the south coast of East Timor.

While energy-hungry China is considering potential joint ventures with Dili in the Timor Sea, it is understood the talks, while resulting in support for Dili's aspirations for a shore-based liquefication plant and pipeline, did not lead to a firm commitment to bankroll the project.

After tortuous negotiations resulting in an agreement in 2007 to defer the question of a maritime boundary for 50 years, Canberra and Dili agreed to split the revenue from Greater Sunrise 50-50, a deal worth an estimated $10 billion to each country.

Mr Pires said Dili was now looking for potential development partners for the Greater Sunrise field.

"There hasn't been anything official regarding Chinese involvement but there have been indications of their interest,' he told The Australian in a telephone interview from Dili. "Our minister for foreign affairs has gone to talk to China and some of their companies."

China had earlier undertaken a survey of the potential oil and gas prospects for East Timor, the minister said.

"Regarding Greater Sunrise, we'd like the pipe to land on the shores of Timor Leste and as soon as everyone comes round to that idea we'll be ready to go," Mr Pires said.

"The South Koreans, Petronas (Malaysian state-owned oil company) and the Thais, they are who we've got more close relationships with. They've made much more serious proposals than anyone else."

A spokesman for Australian resources company Woodside said a decision on transporting gas from Greater Sunrise would be made in coming months, but currently the company favoured either a floating processing plant or tapping into the existing Darwin pipeline linking the Bayu-Undan field.

Woodside has a 33.4 per cent stake in Greater Sunrise, along with its partners Shell, ConocoPhillips and Osaka Gas.

Industry experts said last night that the cost of building a pipeline and liquefication plant on the south coast of East Timor could run to $8-10 billion for a plant with an output capacity of 3-4 million tonnes of liquefied natural gas per annum.

"Petronas has deep pockets, is one of the world's leading producers of LNG and has great expertise," said a Hong Kong-based energy expert, who asked not to be named.

"But you have to find a buyer for the gas. It would be curious for China to be involved (in building the pipeline and plant) if the customer for the gas is South Korean."

Military/defense

Indonesian will give East Timor military aid

Jakarta Globe - August 24, 2009

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – The country's top naval official said on Sunday that Indonesia would provide training and possibly sell equipment to East Timor's Navy as part of a broadening of defense ties between the former enemies.

A verbal agreement for naval assistance comes as East Timor prepares next week to mark the 10th anniversary of its independence referendum, when Indonesian military units and pro- Jakarta militias killed more than 1,000 people in an outbreak of violence after the Timorese overwhelmingly voted to split from Indonesia on Aug. 30, 1999.

Speaking to journalists in Jakarta, Navy Chief Adm. Tedjo Edhy Purdijatno said he had discussed a broad agreement with senior Timorese naval officials during the 2009 Indonesian Fleet Review in North Sulawesi.

In the discussion, Tedjo said he was told East Timor's Navy was developing much more slowly than officials expected from the bilateral support being provided by other countries. "That is why they are now planning to ask for assistance from Indonesia," Tedjo said.

Tedjo said he had informed the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs about the request from East Timor, which is also known as Timor Leste.

"And I told the officials from Timor Leste that this cooperation needs a legal umbrella by the defense ministers of both countries," Tedjo said. "The defense ministers would establish a memorandum of understanding as a legal umbrella."

Through the agreement, he said, the naval component of the East Timor Defense Force would learn from Indonesian counterparts how to train new recruits, improve officers' capacity through a staff and command academy, as well as naval strategies.

"And maybe we would help them to buy patrol ships from Indonesian shipbuilders," Tedjo said. "Who knows, maybe through this cooperation we can help our national defense industry."

Jaleswari Pramowardhani, a military analyst from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), praised the plan, saying it would improve relations between the neighbors. She said Indonesia was obligated to help ensure security cooperation among Southeast Asian nations, including East Timor.

"Each country in the region, particularly Indonesia, needs to create good relationships and avoid any conflicts among them," Jaleswari said. "And as neighboring countries, Indonesia and Timor Leste need cooperative ties as much as possible."

Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, but renounced its claim on the former Portuguese colony in October 2009, around a month after its last military troops left the territory to United Nations-backed peacekeepers. East Timor became an independent state in 2002.

Timor-Leste's armed forces celebrates 34th anniversary

Xinhua - August 20, 2009

Comando Falintil-Forca defeza Timor-Leste (F-FDTL), the armed forces of Timor-Leste, celebrated its 34th anniversary here on Thursday.

Addressing his remarks on the anniversary celebration held in Dili's landmark Palacio Guvernu, the F-FDTL chief commander Taur Matan Ruak said that F-FDTL would secure the country's stability so as to succeed the development efforts conducted by the Timor- Leste government.

"With the help of citizens and the Policia Nacional de Timor- Leste (PNTL), we believe that we can preserve stability to secure the government's continuing development program," Taur said. The F-FDTL currently comprises two small infantry battalions, a small Naval Component and several supporting units.

The F-FDTL's primary role is to protect Timor-Leste from external threats. It also has an internal security role, which overlaps with the role assigned to the PNTL.

This overlap has led to tensions between the services, which have been exacerbated by poor morale and discipline within the F-FDTL.

The F-FDTL's problems came in 2006 when almost half the force was dismissed following protests over discrimination and poor conditions.

The dismissal contributed to a general collapse of both the F- FDTL and PNTL in May and forced the government to request foreign peacekeepers to restore security. The F-FDTL is currently being rebuilt with foreign assistance and has drawn up a long-term force development plan.

Mystery over Jakarta firm and East Timor arms deal

Jakarta Globe - August 5, 2009

Markus Junianto Sihaloho – Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono and an Armed Forces spokesman on Tuesday both professed to have no information on a report that an Indonesian company had been contracted to supply neighboring East Timor with police and army equipment.

Juwono said he had not yet received any information on the reported multimillion-dollar contract secretly awarded to a Jakarta-based company to supply the equipment to the East Timorese army and police. "Maybe because all the arms are for police, not the military," he said.

Documents obtained by Melbourne-based newspaper The Age showed that Dili had approved a July 7 request by PT Sahabat Triguna Kesatria for advance payment of half of its 3.5 million Australian dollar ($2.9 million) equipment contract.

The report said that STK was awarded the deal, without going through an open international tender, to supply equipment such as bulletproof vests, tear gas grenades, rubber bullet rifles and pepper spray.

Some of the equipment were purchased from other countries, including the United States. The report said that the company has close ties with the Indonesian security agencies.

STK, a company providing security services that has its headquarters in Tebet, South Jakarta, is listed as a member of the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Kadin).

Juwono told the Jakarta Globe that he saw no problem with an Indonesian company making such arms deals as long as it was legal. "I think, as long as [STK] possesses the legal license for such activity, I don't think it is a problem," he said.

Military spokesman Air Vice Marshal Sagom Tamboen said he had heard of the report but had no further information or details.

"As long as they [companies] follow the regulations, why should we forbid them?" Tamboen said, adding that he believed there were no links between STK or the arms deal with the military.

Yulius Harun, a retired Army colonel once involved in the Army's business reforms in 2002, is listed as the person responsible for the company.

A female STK employee declined to confirm or deny the contract with East Timor and said that Yulius could not be immediately reached for comment.

East Timor contracts go to Jakarta interests

Sydney Morning Herald - August 4, 2009

Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin – A Jakarta company has been awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to supply police and army equipment to East Timor.

The deal to supply equipment – including bulletproof vests, tear-gas grenades, rubber bullet rifles and pepper spray – is the latest of a number of contracts awarded by the East Timor Government this year to business people and companies in Jakarta linked to the Indonesian military.

Fretilin, East Timor's main opposition party, will demand in parliament to know why the contract was awarded to PT Sahabat Triguna Kesatria without an open international tendering process. "We are concerned. We are fully investigating this matter," said Fretilin's spokesman, Jose Teixeira.

Fretilin's criticisms come as East Timorese prepare to mark the 10th anniversary of their independence vote on August 30, 1999, that sparked an Indonesian military-sponsored reign of terror that left 1500 people dead and most of the country's infrastructure destroyed.

Documents obtained by the Herald show that the Government in Dili approved a July 7 request by PT Sahabat Triguna Kesatria for advance payment of half of its $US2,895,392 ($3.4 million) equipment contract.

Some of the equipment was purchased from third countries, including the United States. The company has close links to Indonesian security agencies.

In May, Fretilin, East Timor's biggest political party, criticised the lack of transparency in giving approval for the controversial Jakarta business tycoon Tomy Winata, to build a $US150 million shopping centre and hotel on prime land in central Dili. Mr Winata amassed a fortune through businesses linked to the Indonesian military.

Fretilin has also questioned the awarding of a contract for a notorious Jakarta gangster, Hercules Rozario Marcal, to develop a supermarket on Dili's waterfront. Mr Marcal, known by his first name, Hercules, has been linked in the past to Mr Winata.

East Timor's Deputy Prime Minister, Mario Carrascalao, has been reviewing the way the Government awards contracts, including by the Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao, who has been criticised for authorising a rice importation contract to a company linked to his daughter.

Sebastiao Ximenes, the Human Rights and Justice Ombudsman, has in a report called for Mr Gusmao to take action against the Justice Minister, Lucia Lobato, and the Finance Minister, Emilia Pires, over alleged abuse of power relating to the awarding of contracts. The ministers deny any wrongdoing.

The unpublished report, dated July 2, which has been obtained by the Herald, recommends further investigation into the cases by the Prosecutor-General's Office.

Agio Pereira, the Government's spokesman, last night described Mr Ximenes's report as a politically motivated attack. Mr Pereira said the report's conclusions appeared to have been reached without support documentation or due diligence. "We welcome any further fair and impartial investigations," he said.

Mr Pereira said the Government was setting up an anti-corruption commission to ensure the country had an "independent institution to handle corruption cases free from political bias or interference".

Opinion & analysis

A new political generation rises in East Timor

Reuters - August 30, 2009

Sunanda Creagh, Dili – As a student activist in Jakarta, Avelino Coelho da Silva sought refuge in the Austrian embassy to avoid capture by Indonesian troops. Now as East Timor's Secretary of State for Energy Policy, he installs solar power in villages.

Coelho, 46, is likely to be among the next generation of leaders in the tiny, oil and gas-rich nation which voted overwhelmingly for independence from Indonesia exactly a decade ago.

Both Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, 63, who was imprisoned by Indonesia, and President Jose Ramos-Horta, 59, who campaigned abroad to keep East Timor's struggle in the public eye, are independence heroes.

But a new generation of political leaders, most of whom were children or students during Indonesia's rule, is getting ready to take over.

A former Portuguese colony, East Timor was invaded in 1975 by Indonesia. An estimated 180,000 died during the occupation, and the UN estimates about 1,000 East Timorese died in the mayhem that surrounded the 1999 vote for independence.

Since then, Dili has struggled to tackle security, social and economic woes including high unemployment, splits in the army, and poor infrastructure, healthcare and education.

"If you look at other members of cabinet, I tell you, 80 to 85 percent are new generation. People no more than 35-45 years old, who grew up in the era of occupation. This is the new generation running the country. They are the hope of this country," said Ramos-Horta.

Damien Kingsbury, an East Timor analyst from Australia's Deakin University, said there are already several people in East Timor ready to take over the reins from Gusmao and Ramos-Horta.

"It's essentially the student generation, members of the student resistance organisations and expat Timorese who went back from Australia and Indonesia," Kingsbury said.

The next elections are due in 2012. The challenges the new leaders face remain daunting. Many roads are just dirt and gravel, making communication with remote villages tough.

Almost 30 percent of the adult population is illiterate: the young men who hang around on Dili street corners are evidence of the 40 percent jobless rate in a country where average household monthly income is just $27. In parts of Dili, roadside stalls sell cast-off clothes to people who can't afford to buy them new.

Coelho's Rural Electrification Master Plan has brought electricity to 17 isolated villages in just over a year by installing solar power systems, funded by the government but owned, installed and maintained by community cooperatives.

"Now they have electricity for five to six hours a day. Before, they spent $US1 a day to buy kerosene but now they can save $US30 a month and use it for other things," he said.

Max Lane, a political analyst who covers Indonesia and East Timor, said the electrification project had helped build Coelho's reputation. "There will be other candidates around when the big guys leave politics but Coelho will definitely be in the race."

New kids on the block

Ramos-Horta, who survived an assassination attempt in February 2008, said he sees Fernando Lasama de Araujo, the 46-year-old speaker of parliament, as a future leader.

Araujo, who got almost 20 percent of the vote in the 2007 presidential elections, was acting president for several months after Ramos-Horta was shot by disgruntled former soldiers. He was also involved in negotiations with the militants, who eventually laid down their arms.

Araujo, from the Democratic Party, says the government cannot just rely on its $5.1 billion Petroleum Fund, where money from oil and gas deals is collected, to fund development.

"We need to get the money from somewhere to accelerate development. I support foreign loans to achieve this," he said.

"After 10 years of independence, we should have achieved more than we have. Water is a very important one and roads, and schools. Until we build a port we cannot attract investors and tourism."

Finance Minister Emilia Pires, 48, is another leader carving out a name for herself, as she tries to increase spending on education, health and infrastructure.

She grew up and studied law in Australia, and is now a member of Gusmao's CNRT party, which rules in coalition with several minor parties. The economy grew 12.8 percent last year and she expects it to expand 8 percent both this year and next.

Her predecessor, Fernanda Borges, an Australian-educated former credit risk analyst who helped set up the Central Payments Office, the forerunner of the Banking and Payments Authority, or central bank, is also considered a future leader.

Borges, 40, quit as finance minister in 2002 after accusing the government of corruption, and formed her own party, the National Unity Party.

East Timor ranked 145th out of 180 countries in Transparency International's 2008 Corruption Perceptions Index – on a par with Kazakhstan and below Indonesia.

"I understand my limitations as a member of a small party. I know I don't have the resistance hero image behind me. But with three seats in parliament we can be a voice to say this is wrong and when the government is doing the right thing, we can say this is the right thing too," she told Reuters in an interview.

"We are the new kids on the block but people trust us.

[Reporting by Sunanda Creagh in Dili; Editing by Sara Webb and Sanjeev Miglani.]

High price of liberty begins to pay off for East Timor

Melbourne Age - August 30, 2009

A decade after the devastation that surrounded the vote for independence, there are some promising signs.

Damien Kingsbury – Today is 10 years since the people of East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia. Following 24 years in which more than a quarter of the population was killed or died as result of the occupation, the vote of almost 80 per cent in favour of independence was not surprising.

What was extraordinary was that in what had become a war zone, 98.6 per cent of registered voters turned out.

Heavily armed Indonesian police and soldiers stood at polling centres. The Indonesian army's proxy militias strolled in and out intimidating voters. Yet wearing their best clothes, the East Timorese defiantly voted.

By early afternoon on August 30, the first polling station, at the village of Ritabou, was already in flames. Thus ended the brief "truce" that divided the violence leading up to the ballot and that which followed it. An orgy of violence and destruction spread from there, engulfing whole communities, a whole people.

Officially, about 1400 people were said to have been killed across East Timor, although many more have never been accounted for. Unofficially, the UN Serious Crimes Unit estimated that 3000 to 4000 people were murdered.

In a clever strategy of intimidation, ballot observers and UN staff had been directly threatened but rarely harmed. Yet the day after the ballot, my house in Maliana was in flames. At one of 13 militia roadblocks between Maliana and Dili, a screaming militia member affected by drugs put an M-16 rifle to my head.

East Timor began to burn more furiously, with the police, sent under a deal with the UN to protect it, standing by and watching, or helping, it burn.

After August 30, our observer group began leaving as they could, the last main group going out on September 4 on the deck of a refugee-filled cargo boat, leaving the port under gunfire as the flames spread.

It was only the strength of Australian public feeling that forced the reluctant Howard government to form the international force Interfet. After the TNI (Indonesian military) and militias withdrew across the border, the first months were devoted to keeping people alive. The hard work started after that.

In the lead-up to the ballot, the expectations of independence had been impossibly high. The reality disappointed, as it so often has after a colonial power departs, taking administrative capacity, jobs and money with it.

More than 70 per cent of the country was burnt and, beyond a few roads, there was no infrastructure left to speak of.

After promising the people of East Timor that it would not leave, the UN returned to begin building a new country. It brought very mixed skills and interest and consequently produced mixed results. As local and returning elites vied for greater political control, the UN was only too happy to hand over power and then withdraw too early.

The result was a fledgling government with limited capacity faced with growing disenchantment and dissent. In the face of dissent, the government increasingly trended towards authoritarian responses. The people of East Timor had, however, not voted out Indonesia to replace it with domestic authoritarianism.

But the party of government, Fretilin, had wrapped itself in the cloak of independence. The stage was set for a split, which in 2006 almost plunged the fledgling country into civil war.

Having left too soon, the international community returned, elections scheduled for 2007 were held and the government was changed. Despite some post-election violence, the situation increasingly settled.

Particularly in 2008 and into 2009, the economy has grown, largely due to government spending on the back of oil receipts. The drought that had plagued recent years ended and the markets are again full of food. Public works and infrastructure development is visible, notably in Dili. A sense of security and stability has returned.

East Timor continues to face obstacles. It takes many years to turn around illiteracy and limited health care, and economic growth, while good at 13 per cent, is off a very low base.

But East Timor is not a failed state and is decreasingly likely to become so.

It has avoided the post-colonial challenge of slipping into authoritarianism. There have been elections and democratic consolidation. Its people have embraced electoral politics, voluntarily turning out for elections in numbers equal to compulsory voting in Australia.

East Timor is a small country and still vulnerable, but after the Indonesian occupation, and the events of 1999, its people are beginning to enjoy at least some of the fruits of political freedom.

[Associate professor Damien Kingsbury works at Deakin University's School of International and Political Studies.]

Reconciling history and nations in Timor is a task for the young

Jakarta Globe - August 29, 2009

Ezki Suyanto – History might show that for more than two decades, the fates of East Timor and its giant neighbor Indonesia were inextricably woven together, but for many from both nations, that history has two opposing faces.

The former Portuguese colony that encompassed the eastern half of Timor Island had been part and parcel of Indonesia from 1976 until 1999, when the East Timorese overwhelmingly voted for independence.

The East Timor generation that straddled the eras of occupation and independence has a view of history that differs greatly from their Indonesian counterparts of the same generation.

For a group of 25 to 30 year olds from both countries, those differences became apparent during a flag-raising ceremony at the Indonesian Embassy in Dili to celebrate the 64th anniversary of the Indonesian republic.

Two East Timorese women, Maria Bibel and Wilhemina Lika, exchanged anxious glances when William, a member of the Indonesian flag-raising team, told them point blank that the "integration" of East Timor into Indonesia had followed a demand in 1975 from the Timor People's Democratic Association (Apodeti), which he claimed – incorrectly – was the largest political party in East Timor at the time.

Maria immediately responded with her own explanation. "This is not true. When the Indonesians came here in 1975, we were already independent. Indonesia invaded our country."

William and his four flag-raising friends – Yola, Waty, Amin and Marwanto – greeted her retort with silence.

After a long pause, they explained that William's beliefs were what they all knew from their history books and news reports of the time, all tightly controlled by the Suharto regime.

For Maria and Lika, the Indonesian invasion in 1975 and the following occupation caused many hardships for their people – more than 100,000 deaths resulted either directly or indirectly from the annexation. For the five young Indonesians, Indonesia's presence and rule in East Timor had not been all that bad.

The Timor tragedy is sadly not just about reconciliation between countries but between families as well. Despite Maria and Lika being East Timor nationals, their parents are now Indonesian citizens living in Atambua, a town on the Indonesian side of the border.

They were among the tens of thousands of East Timorese who either fled or were driven across the border following the eruption of violence surrounding the referendum for self-determination held in 1999.

Maria has never regretted her decision to stay in East Timor, but her father, a former member of the Indonesian military during the occupation, has not been able to accept her choice. "He kicks me out of the house whenever I visit him," Maria said.

She sees reconciliation as not only a means of improving ties between the two countries, but possibly also the relationship with her father.

Maria and Lika, both journalists, agreed that it has fallen to the young generations of both nations to look for what they have in common and build on that. They pointed out that they, and many of their countrymen, can speak Bahasa Indonesia and even know the words of the Indonesian national anthem.

Perhaps the meeting with William and his friends during the flag-raising ceremony could form part of that reconciliation.

A tough job done in East Timor

The Australian - August 29, 2009

Joe Kelly – Ten years ago East Timor voted for its independence, triggering a contentious Australian military intervention that transformed the nation's regional profile and provoked hostility from Indonesia.

In exclusive interviews with The Australian, former prime minister John Howard and his foreign minister Alexander Downer say their management of the 1999 East Timor crisis was a special achievement of their government.

They credit the UN-mandated Interfet (International Force East Timor) operation as a foreign policy victory for Australia. Both men say, if given their time again, they would not change anything and view the Interfet mission as near perfect.

It is a compelling stand, given the explosion of violence in East Timor following the independence ballot on August 30, 1999, and that the troubled territory has confounded Australian policy for nigh on 25 years.

"I'd have done everything the same. I wouldn't have done anything differently," Howard says. "I think it all worked extremely well."

The Defence Department deputy secretary at the time, Hugh White, disagrees. White argues East Timorese independence was never the objective of the government, that it bungled the crisis at every step and later papered over its mistakes with a triumphalist mythology.

"The former government has retrospectively sought to portray Australian policy in 1999 as an example of creative diplomacy when in fact the whole thing was a chapter of accidents," White says.

The key to understanding Howard's convictions on East Timor is to recognise they stem from an unwavering personal belief the intervention was the morally appropriate course of action.

"Morally, what we did was the right thing," the former Liberal PM says. "We worked very closely with the UN. It's seen by many UN observers as a model of UN intervention... I thought it was quite a significant foreign policy triumph for Australia."

Howard's opening came in June 1998 when Indonesian president Suharto's successor B.J. Habibie canvassed a special autonomy package for the territory. Howard was forced to respond or risk the political embarrassment of Jakarta outmanoeuvring Canberra.

The Australian response began with Downer commissioning the August 1998 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade survey of East Timorese sentiment. Downer credits the survey with critical importance in shaping the change of policy later articulated by Howard in his definitive December 1998 letter to Habibie.

"The survey showed that the East Timorese, both the diaspora and the local East Timorese, they just, just nobody was going to go along with this wide-ranging autonomy," Downer says. "(It was) the reason the letter was written in the first place."

The letter ignited the fuse of East Timorese independence and pushed the Howard government past the point of no return. But the letter was based on the assumption Indonesia would retain sovereignty over East Timor.

Howard was audacious in proposing a future act of self- determination for East Timor. But it was to follow a lengthy period of autonomous self-governance.

"The change in policy was really in December of 1998 when we decided to encourage Indonesia to grant Timor some kind of internal self-government," Howard says. "I thought it (the letter) had a reasonable chance of being acceptable. But he ended up going further... We were not unhappy when he decided to opt for full independence."

"I think he was pretty taken aback by it," Downer says of Habibie's response. "You know, president Habibie had a not unreasonable point, which was: 'Why should we invest a whole lot in East Timor when, at the end of the period, they're just going to turn around and tell us where to get off?"'

Habibie's January 1999 decision to offer, at short notice, the East Timorese people a choice between limited autonomy or immediate independence threw Australian policy into a genuine crisis. White argues that events slipped beyond the control of the government following the Howard letter.

"Once Howard had written to Habibie events quickly got out of our control... independence wasn't our desired outcome," he says. White, now the head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University in Canberra, argues that Howard was motivated by domestic political purposes in sending the letter and was caught off-guard by Habibie's unexpected response.

"Up until late 1998, there had been a very robust bipartisan support for Australian acquiescence in Indonesian incorporation of East Timor," White says. "That bipartisan consensus was first broken by the Labor Party and specifically by Laurie Brereton as opposition foreign affairs spokesman.

"It seemed to me that in the light of that, it wasn't that Howard and Downer became seized of a desire to promote East Timorese independence. What they did become worried about was that they would become outflanked politically."

As the humanitarian crisis unfolded in East Timor, the question soon became what Australia could do [about] the violence. Even today, a bitter debate still rages over whether Australia could have got peacekeepers into East Timor before the August 30 ballot.

Howard vehemently argues he exhausted this possibility in discussions with Habibie at the April 27 summit in Bali.

"I raised that issue with him and he said, 'I can't possibly do that. I can't. I would lose domestic support for what I'm doing.' So those critics are completely unrealistic. The criticism is not soundly based. They've no idea of how much he was pushing the envelope in doing what he was doing."

But White argues the issue was not pushed hard enough. "I don't know how Howard raised the issue in his private discussion with Habibie, but in the larger discussion with larger delegations present it didn't seem that Howard pressed the issue as firmly and effectively as he could," he says.

After the August 30 ballot returned a 78.5 percent vote in favour of independence, the situation in East Timor rapidly deteriorated into an international emergency. Pro-integrationist militias, aided by the Indonesian military, waged a brutal campaign of retribution, forcing about 250,000 people across the border into West Timor.

In early September, Howard and then UN secretary-general Kofi Annan agreed Australia should lead a multinational force in East Timor, later dubbed Interfet, with Howard specifying Indonesian approval as a key condition for any mission.

US pressure proved critical in securing Habibie's approval of the mission. "American support, diplomatic support, was very important," Howard says. "The Americans put a lot of diplomatic pressure on Jakarta to agree to the Interfet."

But the US refusal to provide a troop commitment was a blow for Howard in his dealings with president Bill Clinton. "While I understood, I said to him that you had to realise, given Australia's long history of supporting the US, that there would be many people in Australia who would feel a little let down. Including me."

Interfet commander Peter Cosgrove says: "Clinton had to be talked into this effort in East Timor when he was in Wellington for APEC (the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum). And the Pentagon (was) very reluctant to have any commitment in East Timor."

Howard concedes Australia could have led Interfet without US support but insists Clinton provided "a package of assistance that proved quite valuable in the end".

"I'm always a little wry about this," Cosgrove says. "The US is a great friend, but the US did not provide strategic lift of any weight to us. We did it."

Arriving in Dili on September 19, Cosgrove was struck by the devastation. "There was an eerie similarity between Dili and the Darwin I saw after Cyclone Tracy," he says. "The destruction, particularly in the commercial areas, seemed almost total, with only some government buildings and TNI (Indonesian military) barracks being spared. It was obvious that the population had fled or, if still around, was in deep hiding."

At dawn on September 20, 1999, Interfet forces began arriving by RAAF C-130 Hercules at Dili's Komoro airport. Twenty-two nations eventually comprised the force, with key contributions from Association of Southeast Asian Nations members including Thailand, The Philippines and Singapore.

Cosgrove's key objective was to make an instant change of circumstances through a show of force. "I had a feeling the bully-boy militia would be intimidated by trained, powerfully equipped regular troops," he says. "We wanted to be powerfully on the ground early so the militia would say, 'Whoa! I'm off."'

Despite moments where an exchange of shots between Interfet and TNI was narrowly avoided, the mission succeeded in restoring security quickly and efficiently. The indicators of success were the low casualties and smooth transition to the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor on February 28, 2000.

Cosgrove says East Timor was an example of a "mercifully brief, economical, serious security challenge successfully negotiated".

Next to the long campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 1999 intervention also proffers an attractive legacy for Howard and Downer. It is keenly embraced by both and carefully defended.

There are lessons to be taken from the East Timor intervention. Most important, it established the limits of Australian influence on Jakarta. Howard could not leverage Habibie to accept peacekeepers before the ballot.

It also revealed Canberra's relationship with Jakarta was hostage to the turbulence of Indonesian politics. But, at the same time, the successful mission revealed Australia as a robust regional leader. To mount Interfet, Canberra used the full range of tools in its strategic arsenal. It mustered the support of ASEAN, used the US alliance to secure Habibie's approval and provided the bulk of the force.

It also saw a maturing role for the Australian Defence Force. "The modern historical experience of the ADF took its first big step forward in East Timor," Cosgrove says.

The verdict on the intervention hinges on a simple question: whether an independent East Timor can justify the humanitarian tragedies that occurred after the August 30 vote. This is a moral issue to which Australia must reconcile itself.

"Many Indonesians felt that their pride had been wounded over East Timor," Howard says. "(But) I thought what we did in East Timor was absolutely correct."

Yet even Annan would express his doubts. "If any of us had an inkling that it was going to be this chaotic, I don't think anyone would have gone forward. We are not fools," he said.

East Timor's lost opportunity

Sydney Morning Herald - August 29, 2009

Ten years after voting for independence, the Timorese have little to show for supposed freedom. Lindsay Murdoch paid a visit.

Celina Guterres does not care about the bloodshed that swept East Timor when it voted 10 years ago to break away from Indonesia. Each day in her village deep in the heart of the mountains she struggles to find enough food for her four children, her husband and his gravely ill father.

"After 10 years of independence our lives have not improved," she says, nursing her eight-month-old daughter, Louzelia, outside the family's bamboo house, with its dirt floor and no electricity. "We grow rice but no one will buy it. We have a small fish pond but no one will buy our fish. We have no way of earning money and only eat what we grow. I am not optimistic about the future for my children."

Guterres's village of Loi Hunu is a bone-jarring six hours' drive east from the capital, Dili, where plane-loads of international visitors are flying in for events tomorrow marking the 10th anniversary of the vote for independence.

For weeks the village has been preparing for the anniversary because it was selected as an overnight stop for the inaugural Tour de Timor, a five-day bike race which this week tapped rarely seen nationalistic sentiments across the tiny half-island nation of a million mostly impoverished people.

The village's drum band practised day and night, leading proud warriors, machetes raised, across a rocky parade ground in a valley below vertical cliffs disappearing into misty clouds. Flags were hung and feasts of local delicacies were prepared, including buffalo and deer.

They even built a bamboo throne on which to hoist the President, Jose Ramos-Horta, in case he arrived for the race (he cancelled at the last minute, due to other commitments). Every day this week thousands of Timorese waved flags along the 450-kilometre race route, cheering 320 riders, many of them Australian.

"This is all about pride for our people who were repressed for decades. It's like a coming out," says Domingas "Falur" Raul, a former commander of anti-Indonesian guerillas and a native of Loi Hunu.

The race and adjacent "festivals of peace" have fostered a festive mood for tomorrow's formalities. Raul, a lieutenant colonel in East Timor's army, says the difference with colonial times is that people now can smile. "My people still don't have material things. But they are free."

Satellite images of Dili in 1999 showed a city of empty blackened ruins. Ten years later East Timor has emerged from ashes to become a rapidly growing and busy city not unlike many in neighbouring Indonesia.

More than 100,000 people who fled to squalid refugee camps amid violent upheaval in 2006 have returned to rebuild homes. New hotels and a shopping mall are being built. Streets are jammed with vehicles. Markets are full of produce. And 600 Australian and New Zealand soldiers and 1600 United Nations police patrol streets mostly cleared of politically motivated gang violence.

Those on the government payroll, from the President down, collect street rubbish on Friday mornings before starting work. Instead of the "failed state" criticism of a couple of years ago, the government spokesman Agio Pereira boasts East Timor is the world's second-fastest growing economy, albeit from a very low base. "This is a moment in time when we should recognise our collective achievements," he says.

But a decade has not erased uncertainty about the future of a country where 70 per cent of people live rurally, surviving on subsistence farming and food bartering.

Forty per cent of Timorese live below the poverty line, life expectancy hovers around 60, and one woman in 35 dies in childbirth (compared with one in 13,000 in Australia).

It is a mistake to think East Timor is inevitably maturing into a stable democracy. Trouble can erupt again. The country's elite decision-makers probably number no more than 40, and most carry baggage from past disputes, places and events. Their loyalties and enmities make it difficult to establish a professional, corruption-free bureaucracy.

Vast goodwill from other countries has largely been squandered. La'o Hamutuk, a non-government organisation in Dili, estimates only 10 per cent of $US5.2 billion aid sent to East Timor in the past 10 years went direct to East Timor's economy. It says the rest was spent on international salaries, overseas procurement, imported supplies, consultants and the like.

For all their generosity, however, key donor countries have exhibited self-interest, too, buying up large tracts of land along Dili's main beach road for their fortified embassies and residences. That is land that should have been set aside for hotels, resorts, cafes and other businesses that support a tourist industry.

Coffee is East Timor's only significant export other than oil but the tourism potential is huge, particularly community-based eco- tourism.

Loi Huna, where cyclists stopped one night, is spectacular, with waterfalls, swimming holes and a vast network of limestone caves. An eco-tourism village is being built there.

Rebuilding East Timor after its destruction by rampaging pro- Indonesian militia in 1999 was always going to take decades, given every institution had to be rebuilt from scratch. But thousands of reports from the UN, the World Bank and other international agencies have done little to help build those institutions. The military and police consequently lack appropriate values.

Until elections in 2012 the coalition government in Dili will continue to dip heavily into a $US5 billion oil and gas revenue fund intended for future generations. The Government plans this year to spend $US681 million, a 40 per cent increase on last year. Critics say money is wasted on quick fixes that do not create permanent jobs and do not build self-sufficiency.

The only oil and gas field in production will be exhausted in 2023. East Timor and Australia agreed in 2002 to share equally the Greater Sunrise field royalties – about $US15 billion to East Timor over the life of the deal.

East Timor's leaders want a pipeline built from the Timor Sea field to a gas processing plant in East Timor. The switch would create local jobs and bring an extra $US3 billion revenue but Woodside, the field operator, insists it has two options: a floating plant above the field or piping the gas to an existing plant in Darwin.

If East Timor blocks development until 2013, the treaty with Australia could collapse and East Timor's reputation for business reliability dashed.

Probably East Timor's most serious wrong turn, according to non- government organisations in Dili, was its biggest infrastructure investment: three power plants that are 20 years old and are fuelled by heavy oil. They were bought from the Chinese for $US400 million and will need expensive importations of heavy oil for decades. Such plants are banned in most countries because they are heavily polluting, create acid rain, and produce toxic solid and liquid wastes. They are also hard to operate.

Like many of its contracts, the Government refuses to reveal details. Acquisition of the generators was not put to open tender and there are no wharves capable of handling the generators' arrival.

Violence still haunts Timorese. Pat Walsh, a senior adviser in a secretariat established to disseminate Chega! – the report of East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation – says tomorrow's anniversary and the release of the film Balibo, depicting the killing of six Australian newsmen by Indonesian soldiers in 1975, have revived memories of atrocities.

Timorese MPs have delayed discussing the commission's findings, which were handed to the Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao, late last year.

More than 100,000 were killed or starved to death in East Timor between 1974 and 1999. In the months before and after the UN- sponsored independence vote in 1999 up to 1500 were killed, most of the country's infrastructure was destroyed and a third of the population was forced into degrading refugee camps in West Timor.

The 2800-page report Chega! (Portuguese for "Enough!") was the result of three years' intensive investigations of countless atrocities. Of those prosecuted in East Timor, only one remains in jail. Of those prosecuted in Indonesia, all were acquitted in flawed proceedings.

A UN serious crimes unit indicted the prominent Indonesian general Wiranto for crimes against humanity over his command in East Timor in 1999. But there has been no prosecution, and Wiranto has contested Indonesian elections since.

This week Amnesty International called on the UN Security Council to establish a tribunal with jurisdiction over abuses in East Timor, saying the path pursued by governments in Dili and Jakarta has weakened the rule of law in both countries.

The UN mission in Dili has completed 86 investigations into 396 crimes committed in 1999 and submitted reports to East Timor's Office of the Prosecutor-General, which has a caseload of 5000 and lacks the political will to bring them to court.

The trial of the Timorese-born Australian Angelita Pires – the former girlfriend of the slain rebel leader Alfredo Reinado – and rebels accused of involvement in attacks on the President and Prime Minister last year will take months, and there are suspicions about the investigations.

Ramos-Horta says the idea of an international tribunal to prosecute past crimes is stupid but Walsh, an Australian who has lived in Dili for years, says people keep returning to it because they see no option. "The parliament seems oblivious to the fact that continued stonewalling on Chega! is contributing to growing militancy and is bad politics," he says.

Hundreds of atrocity victims will soon converge on Dili with demands that the guilty be brought to justice and that victims be compensated. Edio Saldanha Borges's father was shot dead by Indonesian soldiers two days after the independence vote. He says East Timor leaders who oppose pursuing prosecutions are not listening to ordinary Timorese. "The Government has paid compensation to the victims of the 2006 violence and pensions for the war veterans and others but not for the victims of 1999."

Jose Nunes Serao was holding his four year-old son when a pro- Indonesian militia member smashed a machete into his head at a massacre at the church of Liquica in April 1999. "My hope for Timor is to have a good future, but with peace and justice," he says.

East Timor struggle persists 10 years on

Canberra Times - August 29, 2009

Ten years ago tomorrow, the people of East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia in a popular referendum sanctioned by the United Nations.

The immediate consequence of the vote was an outbreak of violent clashes orchestrated by pro-Indonesian militia and elements of the Indonesian military. About 1400 people were killed and an estimated 300,000 East Timorese fled over the border into neighbouring West Timor.

The killings triggered a humanitarian and foreign policy crisis, with a UN peacekeeping force dispatched to restore law and order and a UN administrator, Sergio Vieira de Mello, appointed to oversee the country's transition to independence.

That independence was formally negotiated about three years later, but East Timor has yet to shake off its inauspicious start to nationhood.

The continued presence of UN and Australian troops in East Timor is compelling evidence of the inability of the country's political elite to achieve anything like stable and efficient government.

In 2006, the Fretilin Government of Mari Alkatiri collapsed after widespread unrest in the capital Dili prompted by the dismissal of 600 mutinous soldiers, and last year a disaffected former soldier went close to assassinating President Jose Ramos-Horta. The present coalition government led by Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao is weak and ineffectual, and said to be racked by corruption and cronyism.

The economic outlook is little better. East Timor remains one of the world's poorest nations (per capita GDP is about $A924), despite royalties from extensive oil and gas reserves on the Timor shelf.

Unemployment is about 20 per cent in the capital, Dili, but approaches 50 or 60 per cent in rural areas. Social indicators such as life expectancy and infant mortality are at Third World levels, despite the presence of many non-government organisations in East Timor and the infusion of tens of millions of dollars in foreign aid.

There is a general lack of respect for the rule of law, too, most likely stemming from the fact that the police force is poorly trained and administered, and the court system under-resourced.

Even East Timor's class divisions, probably expressed most eloquently by the political elite's insistence in conducting government business in Portuguese when most East Timorese speak Tetum, are dauntingly wide.

Yet, despite the troubles of the past decade, tomorrow's anniversary is cause for some celebration. The UN is preparing to draw down its peace-keeping contingent next year, and the Australian Government is about to begin talking to the UN and the East Timorese Government about reducing its commitment of troops.

More importantly, petroleum-related revenues doubled last year to $US2.8 billion ($A3.3 billion). East Timor's petroleum fund, into which all gas and oil revenues are being invested for future use, now totals about $A5 billion, and a decision to boost investment in the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field, expected later this year, should add to the coffers.

That said, the exploitation of the Greater Sunrise and Bayu-Undan oil and gas fields have created no new jobs in East Timor, the energy companies involved preferring to site related infrastructure in Darwin rather than strife-torn Dili.

Greater foreign investment (and job creation) in East Timor is clearly contingent on better governance, and while there is no doubting Prime Minister Gusmao's good intentions, his record of decision-making to date does not inspire confidence.

Indeed, the Government's decision to buy three 60 megawatt power plants from China for $A476 million when Dili's power needs are just 12.5 megawatts provoked considerable disquiet. Only about 5 per cent of households in East Timor have power.

East Timor's long struggle for viability as a nation has been replicated in other countries which have attained independence after long battles against colonial powers. The skills needed to successfully wage a war of liberation are not the same as those required to run an efficient, democratic government.

Inevitably, however, the heroes of independence struggles end up dominating post-independence political life. Moreover, the authority and respect they command as heroes of liberation shields them from the criticism and scrutiny that is so essential to good governance.

It's unlikely East Timor will achieve the status of fully- functioning democracy until after the departure of Gusmao, Horta and the other veterans of independence. Whether it can manage the transition from client state to viable economy is more problematic. The country's small size and lack of natural resources suggest it will be an uphill struggle, even with the advantages of a petroleum fund.

That means East Timor will remain a foreign policy headache for Australia for the foreseeable future, not just because of its weak government apparatus and its continuing dependence on Australian military aid, but because without that aid and comfort there is a real risk the country will drift into China's orbit.

A day to celebrate and mourn

Melbourne Age - August 29, 2009

Australia is still atoning for East Timor's suffering 10 years after the independence vote. No nation has paid a higher price for independence than East Timor.

The former Portuguese colony first declared independence in 1975, but that triggered an Indonesian invasion and annexation, condoned by the United States and Australia. In a brutal campaign of pacification over 24 years, as many as a third of the East Timorese population died.

Little more than a year after the fall of the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia, President B.J. Habibie surprisingly agreed to a United Nations-sponsored referendum and on August 30, 1999, the people voted overwhelmingly for independence.

Tomorrow East Timorese celebrate the 10th anniversary of a day of proud defiance but also of great sadness because so many of them did not live to see the dream of independence realised.

Even after the vote, in the weeks before Australian-led peacekeepers arrived in late September, Indonesian military- backed militias went on a rampage that killed as many as 1500 people and drove 300,000 refugees into West Timor. Most of the country's infrastructure was destroyed in a scorched-earth campaign.

As in 1975, Australia was wary of confronting Indonesia but the horrifying scenes out of Dili galvanised public opinion and the Government deployed troops to East Timor. The peacekeeping force ended the violence and kept the militias at bay, but the country had been ravaged.

East Timor formally became the first new sovereign state of the 21st century on May 20, 2002, but it has depended heavily on Australian security support and aid ever since. The country is the poorest in Asia, ranking 158th on the UN Human Development Index, and the rebuilding process has been painfully slow. Equally painful has been the price of good relations with Indonesia.

This week Amnesty International released a report calling on the UN Security Council to establish a criminal tribunal with jurisdiction over atrocities in East Timor since 1975. Only one person was in jail for the crimes committed in 1999, while those prosecuted in Indonesia had been acquitted in "fundamentally flawed" proceedings.

The report said the rule of law and hence stability had been undermined by East Timor's leaders, who put Dili's relationship with Jakarta ahead of justice for the victims.

A report to East Timor's Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation found there were between 102,800 and 180,000 conflict-related deaths – out of a pre-invasion population of 628,000 – as a result of killings, starvation and illness. The establishment of the commission reflects, however, the decision of East Timor's leaders to follow the South African model of reconciliation for dealing with human rights abuses on an egregious scale.

President Jose Ramos Horta reportedly favours a general amnesty law if Indonesia acknowledges the abuses committed since 1975. The Government has been quite open about its assessment that stability and good relations with Indonesia remain the priority for a vulnerable nation with long-standing divisions.

In 2006 deadly fighting between security forces and disaffected troops required peacekeepers to return. Further violence occurred in the lead-up to the April 2007 presidential elections and Mr Ramos Horta was critically injured in an attack by rebel soldiers in February last year. Australia sent troop reinforcements to East Timor, where a 650-strong force remains in place.

Australia and East Timor are both struggling to deal with the legal and moral fallout from the bloody past. Only this month the remains of victims of 1991's Santa Cruz cemetery massacre, numbering up to 200, were identified for the first time.

Australia's official response was timid, but the atrocity marked a turning point in public support for the East Timorese. The movie Balibo, about the killing of six journalists during the 1975 invasion, is another topical reminder of Canberra's complicity in Indonesia's crimes, even when Australians were among the victims.

Australia has begun the process of atonement by restoring security and helping to rebuild East Timor. Democracy has taken root and the justice system will be strengthened by the creation of a commission to deal with a troubling number of corruption allegations.

Canberra has been less generous in relation to disputed oil and gas rights, although some concessions on sharing royalties have helped East Timor's Petroleum Fund accumulate about $5 billion. If used wisely, the fund could free the country's 1.15 million people from the hardship and insecurity of poverty. A sign of progress is that the UN is ready to wind down its 1600-strong mission and believes Australia can do the same. Earlier this year, however, the Government said Australian forces would stay as long as East Timor said it needed them. It is the least Australia can do.

Baibo film puts spotlight on failure

Illawara Mercury - August 24, 2009

Australian governments, both Labor and Coalition, knew what was happening.

James Dunn – I saw an early screening of the film Balibo and was quite impressed at the way it presented events surrounding the tragic deaths of journalists in East Timor in 1975.

As the author, in 1977, of the first witness-based account of these atrocities, I was impressed with the way the crimes and atmosphere were depicted, if somewhat inaccurately. Thanks to the findings of the coronial enquiry, we needed atmosphere rather than evidence. The film conveys the emotions of the time, the commitment of the newsmen, the determination of an abandoned people, the calculated brutality of the invading forces.

Up to now Roger East has been sidelined by the Balibo Five. In Balibo he is seen as a man of commitment and courage – the Roger East I knew in Dili in 1975.

The film, and the radically changed position of East Timor, has aroused a questioning of our complicity in this affair. There is now widespread awareness of our callous response 34 years ago, when we just might have saved the lives of the newsmen and spared more than 180,000 East Timorese.

Balibo exposes the brutal culture of the Indonesian military, from 1975 until 1999, and which thoroughly deserves the scorn this film will arouse.

Hence, the film's shocking portrayal of events at Balibo and Dili should arouse searching questions about the roles of all players in this drama.

At the forefront are the roles of the TNI (Indonesian military) and the Suharto regime, of Australia and, to a lesser extent, of the United States.

Our accommodation of the rape of East Timor was accompanied by a policy of helping shield the Suharto dictatorship from growing international disquiet.

At every step, Australian governments, both Labor and Coalition, knew what was happening and, with a bit of active diplomacy, just might have prevented a loss of life six times greater than our entire losses in War World II.

As our government of the time knew what the Indonesian generals were up to, it was a dismal failure of our obligations under the UN Charter and of our responsibility to help a small population.

We offended many Indonesians, too, for we helped perpetuate the life of a repressive dictatorship.

We are good at blaming others – the weak Portuguese administration, the US backing of Suharto, the Timorese for leftist leanings and divisions. But these factors would have diminished in importance with a little international support.

If indeed our support for US policy helped the alliance, what a pathetic treaty it is! Why didn't Australia challenge the US position and warn of the humanitarian consequences?

The brief conflict between two Timorese parties at the time was the deliberate outcome of an Indonesian intelligence campaign to break up the Timorese independence movement.

And when East Timor was a killing field, we helped shield Indonesia from international criticism.

The message of this film is that we have a lot to learn. Indonesians and Australians need to start by taking an honest look at the awful reality of this disgraceful episode.

[James Dunn is an author with four decades of experience as a foreign affairs official and with UN agencies.]

Gone, but never to be forgotten

Canberra Times - August 23, 2009

Paul Stewart recalls the day in 1975 when a newspaper banner shouted "Five Newsman Missing In Timor". "I knew one of them must be Tony [his brother, television soundman Tony Stewart]."

Stewart, then aged 14, ran home to find his mother, distraught, surrounded by other members of the Melbourne family.

The release of the film, Balibo, on the death of five Australian newsman, has once again brought those memories, and the tragic consequences of the invasion, into stark relief.

The five were later confirmed as killed in Balibo near the border of Indonesia and East Timor during the Indonesian invasion of East Timor.

The Indonesians claimed they were caught in crossfire but family members always accepted independent reports that they were executed by the Indonesian invasion forces.

"People ask if I am upset by the film but for me it started the day of that headline and has never really stopped," Stewart said.

He has seen it twice, once in a private screening for the family and at the opening night of the Melbourne Film Festival. He also acted as a musical consultant on the film. But Stewart said it was decided the film would be too much for his 82-year-old mother, June.

He admits he and his family are still bitter towards the Australian Government. "In 34 years, the only time my mother heard from Canberra was a couple of weeks after the confirmation of Tony's death when someone rang to ask where to send the bill for his coffin."

There had always been a failure on the part of the Government to acknowledge the suffering of the families. "It has been amazingly disrespectful," Stewart said.

Kevin Rudd in opposition had said he would do something to acknowledge the Balibo Five, but Stewart said it had not happened and Rudd had never made contact with his mother or the other families.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister said the Government was consulting with the families on the return of the remains of the Balibo Five but was awaiting agreement between the families on the best way to proceed. He said if the families wanted to meet with the Prime Minister than they were welcome to make contact with his office through the normal channels.

Since the time of the invasion, and even following eventual independence in 2002, the deaths have been a sensitive aspect of relations between Indonesia and Australia.

"The irony is that Tony would have known very little about the issues surrounding the conflict. He was a Collingwood-supporting, Monty Python-quoting rascal," Stewart said. This coming from someone who could hardly be described as an angel.

Stewart, or "Paulie" as he is widely known, was an angry young man and became lead singer for the legendary Melbourne punk band, the Painters and Dockers.

He was also, for many years, a hard-drinking news journalist. But he remained connected to the former Portuguese colony after being contacted to speak at independence rallies in Australia "It would draw more attention for the events if family of the Balibo Five were there."

It was in the 1980s that Stewart became even more involved in the East Timor independence movement. "I never set out to help but I met some Timorese people who became my pals," he said.

It led him to co-write the song Liberdade, accepted as the anthem for East Timor independence, and also to form the Dili Allstars, which performed to thousands of adoring fans, including President Xanana Gusmao, following independence from Indonesia.

He has been to East Timor eight times to perform and help raise funds for local causes. His latest charity is a group of four nuns who care for hundreds of disabled children in and around Dili. Fully qualified physiotherapists, they teach parents techniques to improve flexibility.

"You have to understand the children are among the most disadvantaged in one of the poorest places on Earth," he said.

Stewart said the ALMA Order nuns travel around Dili on a single motor scooter. "We are trying to raise enough money so they can get a car and travel further around Dili and carry physiotherapy equipment to help with their work."

Stewart, who had a liver transplant two years ago, said the nun who cared for him in hospital in Melbourne had by coincidence trained with the head of the ALMA Order in East Timor.

He is once again actively involved in music and said it was possible the Painters and Dockers would do some touring later this year. "We have always got great support in Canberra and it would definitely be on the itinerary."

He said although a NSW Coroners Court inquiry confirmed the newsmen were executed by Indonesian forces he still hopes the day will come when Indonesian authorities are prepared to bring those responsible to justice.

Donations for the nuns can be sent to: ALMA Nuns East Timor, C/O The Jesuit Mission, PO Box 193 (31 West Street) North Sydney, NSW, 2059.

Whitewash of East Timor

News Statesman - August 23, 2009

John Pilger – On August 30 it will be a decade since the people of East Timor defied the genocidal occupiers of their country to take part in a United Nations referendum and vote for their freedom and independence.

A "scorched-earth" campaign by the Indonesian dictatorship followed, adding to a toll of carnage that had begun 24 years earlier when Indonesia invaded tiny East Timor with the secret support of Australia, Britain and the United States.

According to a committee of the Australian parliament, "at least 200,000" died under the occupation, a third of the population.

Filming undercover in 1993, I found crosses almost everywhere – great black crosses etched against the sky, crosses on peaks, crosses in tiers on the hillsides, crosses beside the road. They littered the earth and crowded the eye.

A holocaust happened in East Timor and it tells us more about rapacious Western power, its propaganda and true aims, than even current colonial adventures.

The historical record is unambiguous that the US, Britain and Australia conspired to accept such a scale of bloodshed as the price of securing south-east Asia's "greatest prize" with its "hoard of natural resources."

Philip Liechty, the CIA operations officer in Jakarta at the time of the invasion, told me: "I saw the intelligence. There were people being herded into school buildings by Indonesian soldiers and the buildings set on fire.

"The place was a free fire zone... We sent them everything that you need to fight a major war against somebody who doesn't have any guns. None of that got out... [The Indonesian dictator] Suharto was given the green light to do what he did."

Britain supplied Suharto with machine guns and Hawk fighter- bombers, which, regardless of fake "assurances," were used against defenceless East Timorese villages.

The critical role was played by Australia – this was Australia's region. During the second world war, the people of East Timor had fought heroically to stop a Japanese invasion of Australia.

Their betrayal was spelled out in a series of leaked cables sent by the then Australian ambassador in Jakarta Richard Woolcott prior to and during the Indonesian invasion in 1975.

Echoing Henry Kissinger, he urged "a pragmatic rather than a principled stand," reminding his government that it would "more readily" exploit the oil and gas wealth beneath the Timor Sea with Indonesia than with its rightful owners, the East Timorese.

"What Indonesia now looks to from Australia," he wrote, as Suharto's special forces slaughtered their way across East Timor, "is some understanding of their attitude and possible action to assist public understanding in Australia."

Two months earlier, Indonesian troops had murdered five newsmen from Australian TV near the East Timorese town of Balibo. On the day the capital Dili was seized, they shot dead a sixth journalist, Roger East, throwing his body into the sea.

Australian intelligence had known 12 hours in advance that the journalists in Balibo faced imminent death – and the government did nothing.

Intercepted at the Australian spy base Defence Signals Directorate near Darwin, which supplies US and British intelligence, the warning was suppressed so that it would not expose the Western governments' part in the conspiracy to invade or the official lie that the journalists had been killed in "crossfire."

The then secretary of the Australian defence department Arthur Tange, a notorious cold warrior, demanded that the government should not even inform the journalists' families of their murders. No minister protested to the Indonesians.

This criminal connivance is documented in Death In Balibo, Lies In Canberra by Desmond Ball, a renowned intelligence specialist, and Hamish McDonald.

The Australian government's complicity in the journalists' murder and, above all, in a bloodbath greater proportionally than that perpetrated by Pol Pot in Cambodia has been cut from a major new film, Balibo, which has begun its international release in Australia.

Claiming to be a "true story," it is a travesty of omissions. In eight of 16 drafts of his screenplay, distinguished Australian playwright David Williamson graphically depicted the chain of true events that began with the original radio intercepts by Australian intelligence and went all the way to prime minister Gough Whitlam, who believed East Timor should be "integrated" into Indonesia.

This is reduced in the film to a fleeting image of Whitlam and Suharto in a newspaper wrapped around fish and chips.

Williamson's original script described the effect of the cover-up on the families of the murdered journalists, their anger and frustration at being denied information and their despair at Canberra's scandalous decision to have the journalists' ashes buried in Jakarta with ambassador Woolcott, the arch-apologist, reading the oration.

What the government feared if the ashes came home was public outrage, directed at the West's client in Jakarta. All this was cut.

The "true story" is largely fictitious. Finely dramatised, acted and located, the film is reminiscent of the genre of Vietnam movies such as The Deer Hunter (1978), which artistically airbrushed the truth of that atrocious war from popular history.

Not surprisingly, Balibo has mostly been lauded in the Australian media, which took minimal interest in East Timor's suffering during the long years of Indonesian occupation.

So enamoured of General Suharto was the country's only national daily, the Australian, owned by Rupert Murdoch, that its editor- in-chief Paul Kelly led Australia's principal newspaper editors to Jakarta to shake the tyrant's hand.

I asked Balibo's director Robert Connolly why he had cut the original script and omitted all government complicity.

He replied that the film had "generated huge discussion in the media and the Australian government" and in that way "Australia would be best held accountable."

Milan Kundera's truism comes to mind. "The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Ten years since East Timor's vote for freedom

Direct Action - August 2009

Jon Lamb - August 30 marks 10 years since the UN-sponsored referendum on Indonesian-occupied East Timor's political status. On that day, despite almost 12 months of intense repression and terror conducted by the Indonesian military (TNI) and its East Timorese militia gangs, some 98% of registered voters went to the polls and nearly 80% of the votes were cast in favour of independence, after 24 years of Indonesian rule.

The TNI and pro-integration militia terror campaign had failed. While incidents were few on the day of the ballot itself, this changed markedly as the announcement date for the results drew closer. The militia gangs stepped up attacks in towns and isolated villages across East Timor, especially in the border districts adjacent to West Timor.

When the result was made public on September 4, international media reports depicted scenes of mixed and muted emotion – finally the East Timorese were to be able to chart their own destiny, free of Indonesian military rule. Celebrations quickly turned to heightened fear and preparation for the promised TNI and pro- integration militia rampage. Thousands of East Timorese had already fled from towns and villages for the hills to escape the impending TNI backlash. Secret TNI documents, which had been leaked prior to the referendum, referred to a planned "scorched earth" policy if the vote favoured independence.

Starting in the outlying centres, every United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) building or office in East Timor's 13 districts came under attack and was destroyed by September 6, with the partial exception of UNAMET's main compound in the capital Dili. All the hotels in Dili where international journalists and election observers were based very quickly came under attack, forcing nearly all to leave immediately.

The UNAMET compound was quickly flooded with waves of internal refugees, some scaling or throwing children over razor wire fences in an effort to escape the violence. The compound remained under siege until the arrival of the first contingent of the International Force for East Timor (Interfet) on September 20. By this time around 600,000 East Timorese had been displaced from their homes, with nearly 350,000 of them forced across the border into West Timor. At least 70% of East Timor's physical infrastructure was either stolen or destroyed by the TNI and pro-integration militia gangs with at least 1000 East Timorese being killed in the post-ballot carnage. Many of those killed were known independence supporters or leaders.

East Timorese independence, church and community leaders, along with international solidarity activists and organisations warned that the carnage would take place as long as Indonesian police and the TNI were responsible for providing security for the ballot. So how did the UN ballot come about in the first place and why were the Indonesian security forces given this role?

Fall of Suharto

The collapse of the Suharto dictatorship in May 1998 was a key factor in the stepping-up in activity of the East Timorese national liberation struggle. With the caretaker government of president B.J. Habibie announcing it would offer some form of autonomy (along with troop reductions from June) and the TNI on the back foot in the face of the political upheaval within Indonesia, this gave added confidence and drive to the liberation movement.

Outside of East Timor, the collapse of the Suharto regime led to stepped-up efforts on the diplomatic front with a push for fast- tracking tripartite talks involving the UN, Indonesia and Portugal (the former colonial power in East Timor prior to the country's short-lived period of independence in 1975). East Timorese resistance leaders lobbied to be included in the talks as legitimate representatives.

Within East Timor, students and other youth activists had been strongly influenced by the radical wing of the Indonesian pro- democracy movement and the mass anti-Suharto dictatorship struggle. They used the period from June through August to organise "dialogue" meetings, which involved teams of student activists travelling through the districts and organising impromptu meetings about the options being offered in the referendum. Open forums and discussions like these had never been seen before under Indonesian military occupation and gave new impetus and determination for independence rather than becoming a "special autonomous region" within the Republic of Indonesia.

The situation also provided a new tactical period for the armed resistance movement Falintil which while still vastly out- numbered and under-resourced compared to the TNI was able to conduct some more successful guerrilla strikes and harrying of Indonesian forces. Falintil was also able to consolidate some of its remote bases and encampments as well as strengthen links with new youth activists involved in open and underground resistance activity. The TNI chiefs and their East Timorese political collaborators sought to turn this situation around as quickly as possible.

By October 1998, the campaigning for independence had increased markedly. In mid-October tens of thousands (reports at the time varied from 15,000-60,000) participated in two days of protest action in Dili, demonstrating against the decision of the pro- Indonesian governor, Abilio Osorio Soares, to sack civil servants who were not pro-integration. Cars and trucks and motorbikes cavalcaded repeatedly around Dili and civil-servants staged a "stay-at-home" strike.

Between June and October 1998, the Indonesian government had been claiming that it had been reducing troop numbers in East Timor. Televised departures of Indonesian troops from Dili harbour proved to be a stage-show – troop numbers actually increased and TNI forces were secretly redeployed in locations across East Timor or re-entered along the West Timor border.

These forces included new contingents of the infamous Kopassus special operations forces and associated secret intelligence operatives. By the end of 1998, East Timorese resistance leaders and international solidarity groups estimated that the Indonesian troop levels exceeded 25,000 (around one soldier for every 40 East Timorese).

At the same time, throughout East Timor the TNI increased its organising and co-ordination of the pro-integration gangs. This included reactivating old civil militia networks as well as arming, funding and training new groups. Tensions and violence in the western border districts of East Timor increased dramatically towards the end of 1998 and into the new year. By January 1999 the pro-integration terror campaign was well underway with murder, rape, torture and other human-rights abuses escalating daily. UN referendum agreement

On January 27, Indonesian foreign minister Ali Alatas announced that if the existing autonomy offer was unacceptable to the East Timorese, then the new parliament to be elected in Indonesia in June 1999 should consider how to "let Timor go". The proposal was widely viewed as a stunt given the actual situation within East Timor and the actions of the TNI and the pro-integration militias.

However, it also reflected rifts within the Indonesian political elite over how to resolve the increasing international pressure to grant East Timor a genuine act of self-determination. Part of this pressure also came from the mixed signals the Indonesian government was receiving from its closest and strongest ally, the Australian government, following the letter then Australian PM John Howard sent to Habibie at the end of 1998. This suggested a staged process of self-determination might be the way to proceed, while at the same time maintaining that Australia fully supported East Timor remaining part of Indonesia (Australia was the only country that had legally recognised Indonesia's 1976 annexation of East Timor).

The Indonesian political elite adopted a strategy of partially conceding to the international pressure by accepting that some sort of act of self-determination should take place. This resulted in the adoption of the May 5, 1999 agreement between Indonesia and Portugal, which outlined the process for a referendum to take place (originally set for August 8).

At the same time, key civilian and military figures opposed to this devoted all available resources and support to the pro- integration terror and destabilisation campaign within East Timor. Along with this, the Indonesian government stepped up its propaganda campaign that claimed East Timor was entering into a stage of civil war between pro- and anti-independence sections of the population – a distortion dutifully repeated by Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer.

While the UN-sponsored agreement between Indonesia and Portugal marked a significant political defeat for Jakarta which for 24 years had never accepted that East Timor could be independent, the biggest and most problematic weakness was Portugal's and the UN's acceptance that the Indonesian police and the TNI would provide security for the ballot. The TNI and pro-integration leadership within East Timor exploited this loophole to the utmost to prevent the ballot from taking place. The fact that they failed is testament to the courage and determination of the East Timorese to win their national independence.

[Jon Lamb first visited East Timor in April 1999 and is a member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party].