Michael Bachelard, Jakarta – Nobel peace prize winner Jose Ramos-Horta is expected to announce today that he is in the running for another five-year term as president of East Timor.

Dr Ramos-Horta has been head of state of the tiny nation since May 2007, and before that he was prime minister. According to a confidant, Australian-based analyst James Dunn, Dr Ramos-Horta has seriously considered retiring to take a role in international politics.

However, on Sunday he accepted a petition from more than 116,300 people asking him to run again in the March 17 poll, and he promised to make his decision clear today. If, as widely expected, Dr Ramos-Horta elects to run again, he would be the favourite in a long list of candidates.

The head of the country's military, Major-General Taur Matan Ruak, said earlier this month that he is running as an independent and the party president of Fretilin, Francisco "Lu Olo" Guterres, who ran second to Dr Ramos-Horta in 2007, is also making another bid for the presidency.

Mr Guterres beat Dr Ramos-Horta in the first round of voting in the 2007 election before losing in the second round.

Politics in East Timor are complex and sometimes fraught, and claims of corruption and cronyism are growing along with the country's wealth. Documents obtained by WikiLeaks last year revealed that Dr Ramos-Horta had told US embassy officials that the country's parliament was "corrupt and ineffective" and that Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao had an alcohol problem. Despite this, Dr Ramos Horta and Mr Gusmao are understood to remain close politically.

Parliamentary elections will also be held later in the year. Fretilin, the political party that grew out of the country's battle for independence, will hope to turn its plurality in parliament into a majority. At the moment it is in opposition against a coalition led by Mr Gusmao.

This year will also likely see the withdrawal of the UN mission and the Australian-led International Stabilisation Force, invited into the country by the Timorese government after unrest in 2006.

East Timor's Ramos-Horta to seek second term

Agence France Presse - January 31, 2012

East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta said Tuesday he will seek another term in March polls, as the young nation votes for the first time since an assassination bid that almost killed him.

The election, East Timor's second as a free country, comes as it marks 10 years since independence and fears have been raised that the fragile stability of the impoverished but oil-rich nation could be tested.

About 10 presidential hopefuls have now entered the race, including the opposition's Francisco "Lu Olo" Guterres and the former head of the armed forces, Major General Taur Matar Ruak. Insiders say the election is set to turn into a three-way match between the 62-year-old incumbent, Lu Olo and Ruak.

The country has been largely peaceful since 2006, when rioting and factional fighting brought it to the brink of civil war, but there was violence around the 2007 parliamentary election and in February 2008, Ramos-Horta was targeted by assassins.

"After a long period of reflection and listening to international and national political leaders I have taken the decision to run," he said, officially announcing his candidacy.

East Timor won formal independence in 2002, three years after a UN-backed referendum that saw an overwhelming vote to break away from Indonesia, whose 24-year occupation cost an estimated 200,000 lives. The polls come as UN peacekeepers, stationed in East Timor since the 1999 vote for independence, prepare to withdraw.

In 2007, running as an independent but with the support of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and his National Congress for the Reconstruction of East Timor (CNRT) party, Ramos-Horta defeated Lu Olo in a second round ballot.

But insiders say that Ruak, a close friend and long-time ally of Gusmao, is capable of splitting the opposition Fretilin vote along with Lu Olo. They say Ruak may also gain the backing of the CNRT if Gusmao switches support away from Ramos-Horta.

Ramos-Horta, who was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his role in fighting for the country's independence, last year repeatedly denied he would run for president again.

His website said the president's about-turn came after supporters at a rally in Dili on Monday presented a petition with 120,000 signatures urging him to seek a second term.

Last September Ramos-Horta said the election would not see a return to the chaos and violence of the past, insisting all sides were committed to fair elections and would accept the results peacefully. Earlier this month he called for "the cleanest, most transparent and peaceful elections ever."

The election is a two-round vote. If no candidate garners an outright majority a second round with the two top candidates will be held in April.

Angela Freitas, head of the little known Timor Labour Party, is awaiting justice ministry approval to join the fray as the country's first female presidential candidate.

The ministry says it needs to verify whether Freitas, who has continually accused the president and prime minister of allowing rampant official nepotism and corruption, has garnered enough signatures from districts backing her candidacy.

The half-island nation with a population of 1.1 million is one of the world's newest and poorest countries. Under Ramos-Horta it has made some headway in poverty eradication, and is banking on vast offshore oil and gas fields in the Timor Sea for economic rebuilding.

"Backed by strong petroleum exports, Timor-Leste is now experiencing very strong growth. The Timorese people are taking important steps to manage their precious offshore oil revenues for the future," the World Bank said in a report last year.

The IMF calls East Timor the "most oil-dependent economy in the world", with petroleum income accounting for around 90 percent of government revenue.

Indonesia annexed East Timor in 1975 after Portugal withdrew from its colony of more than 400 years.

The UN handed policing responsibilities back to local police last year, although there are still more than 1,000 UN police in East Timor and hundreds of Australian-led troops under a separate security mandate.

Doctor offers antidote to East Timor's ills

The Australian - January 16, 2012

Ted McDonnell – Doctor, human rights worker and refugee are just a few of the labels put on Angela Freitas. The next tag may be East Timorese president. Ms Freitas, head of East Timor's Labour Party (Partido Trabalhista), announced her candidacy last week for the March 17 presidential run-off.

The frontrunner is President Jose Ramos-Horta, who says he will announce next month whether he will run. Despite declining popularity among the population of 1.1 million, Dr Ramos-Horta will seek a second term, family and close political allies tell The Australian.

One of his most significant obstacles is the lack of support from Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao and his CRNT party. Dr Ramos-Horta had the backing of Mr Gusmao at the last election, but CRNT will run its own candidate this time – the popular Major General Taur Matan Ruak.

Ms Freitas sees the 85 per cent unemployment rate and massive government corruption as East Timor's two biggest problems.

"Nepotism and corruption are rampant throughout the entire government from the Prime Minister down. Corruption is like a cancer in this country. It should be a capital offence," she said.

"There are five ministers being investigated for corruption but none has been charged as the government-controlled tribunal is doing nothing due to the upcoming elections."

Ms Freitas describes Mr Gusmao as a failure. "He has allowed rampant corruption within government and has awarded huge rice contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars to family members. He is not in control of his ministers and has allowed East Timor's income from resources to be wasted."

She saves a special barb for the President: "Ramos-Horta has for 10 years presided over rising unemployment, diminishing living standards and increasing government corruption. He is too busy strutting the world stage. He has done nothing to bring the country under control."

Ms Freitas says part of the corruption problem stems from the fact that the public service is replaced every five years if there is a change in government.

"We need a permanent public service, one that doesn't change with government, a public service that isn't controlled by corrupt politicians and public servants that are not trying to get as much out of the system before their time expires."

She points to an abandoned hotel opposite the East Timor National Parliament building where 120 families squat with as many as 12 family members to a room living without electricity or running water. She says the Hotel Rezende squatters are an example of the endemic poverty in East Timor. A family is lucky if it earns $80 a month.

"These people live in total poverty right under the government's nose, but the corruption and nepotism continues while people literally starve on the streets," she said.

Ms Freitas, like many East Timorese, suffered under Indonesian rule – as a student protester, she was tortured by the Indonesian army. In 2001, she was thrown into a men's prison with her three children, one of whom she was still breast-feeding, for allegedly murdering an Australian citizen.

Ms Freitas was never charged, the alleged victim never found. She was released after two weeks. She escaped to Australia as a refugee in the 1990s and gained a degree in political science and medicine at the University of Queensland.

She worked at a Brisbane hospital after being seconded into the Royal Australian Navy to act as a medical officer and interpreter aboard a naval patrol vessel, which was committed to intercepting boats heading for Australia carrying refugees. She also worked as a drug and alcohol counsellor in the Northern Territory.

In 1988, she worked as the chief liaison officer at the Institute of Human Rights, based in Indonesia, and a year later was the secretary of human rights with Amnesty International.

She has been a member of parliament in East Timor since 2000. She predicts massive government "money handouts" just prior to the elections.

East Timor to hold presidential vote in March

Australian Associated Press - January 14, 2012

East Timor will hold its second presidential election as an independent nation on March 17, President Jose Ramos-Horta said, as UN peacekeepers prepare to pull out of the once-restive country.

"Having concluded all the required consultations, I am able today to announce that the first round of the 2012 presidential elections will be held on the 17th of March," Ramos-Horta said.

"Should a second round be deemed necessary it will be held in the third week of April 2012."

Ramos-Horta last year repeatedly denied he would again run for president, although his political rivals and analysts have said he is likely to.

"I haven't made a decision yet. I will announce whether I will run closer to the deadline early next month to officially submit candidacy," Ramos- Horta told AFP.

Several figures have announced they will contest the presidency, including the Labour Party's Angela Freitas and the former armed forces chief Taur Matan Ruak.

The tiny half-island nation with a population of 1.1 million is one of the world's newest and poorest countries.

The UN has had a presence in East Timor since the nation's historic 1999 vote for independence after Indonesia's brutal 24-year occupation.

Indonesia annexed East Timor in 1975 after Portugal withdrew from its colony of more than 400 years.

The UN peacekeepers who entered East Timor after rioting and factional fighting brought the country to the brink of civil war plan to withdraw this year.

East Timor's independence was officially recognised in 2002 and was led by freedom fighter Xanana Gusmao, who won the presidency ahead of formal independence.

East Timor prepares to vote again

Agence France Presse - January 13, 2012

East Timor will hold its second presidential election on March 17, as UN peacekeepers prepare to depart.

"Having concluded all the required consultations, I am able today to announce that the first round of the 2012 presidential elections will be held on the 17th of March," East Timor President Ramos-Horta said. "Should a second round be deemed necessary it will be held in the third week of April 2012."

Mr Ramos-Horta last year repeatedly denied he would again run for president, although his political rivals and analysts have said he is likely to. "I haven't made a decision yet. I will announce whether I will run closer to the deadline early next month to officially submit candidacy," said Mr Ramos-Horta.

Several figures have announced they will contest the presidency, including the Labour Party's Angela Freitas and the former armed forces chief Taur Matan Ruak.

The tiny half-island nation with a population of 1.1 million is one of the world's newest and poorest countries.

The UN has had a presence in East Timor since the nation's historic 1999 vote for independence after Indonesia's brutal 24-year occupation. Indonesia annexed East Timor in 1975 after Portugal withdrew from its colony of more than 400 years.

The UN handed policing responsibilities back to local police last year, although there are still more than 1000 UN police in East Timor and hundreds of Australian-led troops under a separate security mandate.

The UN peacekeepers who entered East Timor after rioting and factional fighting brought the country to the brink of civil war plan to withdraw this year. East Timor's independence was officially recognised in 2002 and was led by freedom fighter Xanana Gusmao, who won the presidency ahead of formal independence.

NZ to send more troops to East Timor

ABC News - January 5, 2012

Peter Lewis – New Zealand is to send more troops to East Timor ahead of next month's presidential elections. It will take the total deployment from across the Tasman to around 200.

Prime Minister Helen Clark says New Zealand will send two Iroquois helicopters along with 32 flight and ground crew to provide additional transport support for United Nations (UN) operations in East Timor.

She says the run-up to the presidential elections is a potentially volatile time and the small nation's mountainous terrain creates significant logistical problems.

New Zealand's also sending a more senior officer to command its contingent which will comprise 180 defence force personnel and 25 police working with the UN mission.

Refugees & asylum seekers

East Timor's stolen children

Asia Sentinel - January 20, 2012

Citra Dyah Prastuti – From his village around 160 km from East Timor's capital Dili, Miguel Amaral recalls the day his 6-year-old son Cipriano was taken away. "It was 1977 and the Indonesians came in a military helicopter," he says. "We had no warning. We just saw a helicopter flying away with our son in it."

Many of East Timor's missing children have found their way home, but hundred of parents like Amaral are still dreaming of the day they will be reunited with their lost sons and daughters. During Indonesia's brutal occupation of East Timor, some 4,000 Timorese children were taken out of the country by Indonesians.

Cipriano was taken along with his uncle Urbano, where they were held in an orphanage run by the Indonesian military.

"In 1978 the wives of some Indonesian soldiers came to visit," he recalls. "Cipriano was a cute looking boy with white, pale skin and he and another girl were chosen and taken away. He has been missing since."

Urbano was later taken to an orphanage in Java and given a free education until high school. It wasn't until he graduated from university in 2008 that he returned to his birthplace, now an independent nation. For Urbano, it was a bittersweet return. He was reunited with his family and also a grieving Amaral, who is still searching for his lost son.

After gaining independence from Indonesia in 1999, East Timor set up a fact-finding commission called CAVR to investigate what had happened to the Timorese people during the Indonesian occupation. A small part of the report published seven years ago acknowledged that children were taken out of the country.

The current head of the commission, Agustinho de Vasconcelos, says there is not much more they can do to try and find East Timor's lost children.

"Basically the least we can do is keep collecting information about these cases, but then we have to wait and see how we can proceed from there. To be truthful, there are just too many cases for us too handle," he says.

Vitor da Costa heads the Jakarta-based Families of Missing People Association. His Timorese parents died when he was young and his relatives agreed to allow an Indonesian family to adopt him because they were so poor. While his stepfather always made it clear to him that he was Timorese, it was not till he was 34 years old that he went home.

"For a long time it was just a dream in my heart. I didn't have the money and I didn't know how I could go home. So I just pushed the idea aside," he says.

Deciding to take a month off work, he traveled to East Timor to look for surviving members of his family.

"When I reached East Timor, I felt really happy, but I was also confused. I did not know where to go or who to meet. I wanted to look for my family but I did not know who to ask. The only people I could count on were friends from human rights community in Dili," he says.

It was through them that he finally got in contact with his family, but he was not welcomed back into his village straight away.

"They said I was considered dead, so they had built a small grave in between my parents' graves. I have to be brought back to life again through some rituals. I felt sad... and angry," he says. "I was angry with my family, but they said the situation back then was different. They did not know where and how to find me."

Six years later, after saving enough money to pay for the necessary rituals, Vitor de Costa went back to East Timor again and met with his family.

"That was the happiest moment in my life. I was so thankful that I got to experience it. Even though I was not able to meet my parents," he says, pointing to photos of his Timorese relatives hanging on the wall.

Today, de Costa says he is determined to help more divided Timorese families reunite and rediscover their roots.

Back in East Timor, Urbano and Amarel hope they will be reunited with Cipriano one day. "I have a message for Cipriano," Urbano says. "We're waiting for you. Every time your parents hear your name, their eyes are filled with tears."

Fifteen repatriated to Timor Leste

Jakarta Post - January 12, 2012

Kupang – After living for 13 years in shelters with no certain future, 15 people who fled East Timor before it became Timor Leste are returning home.

The repatriation was facilitated by the Center for IDP Services (CIS) Timor, an NGO providing outreach programs to displaced people since 1999.

Umbu Rame Bunga, a CIS volunteer, said in a press release that the refugees would make the trip to Timor Leste by land.

Reports said that many international organizations had stopped their repatriation programs after Indonesia abolished their status as refugees in 2005. According to Umbu, around 100,000 people still live in shelters.

Land disputes & evictions

Timorese rally at El Tari, accuse Air Force of grabbing their land

Jakarta Post - January 18, 2012

Yemris Fointuna and Oyos Saroso, Kupang/Bandar Lampung – Hundreds of residents from six ethnic Timorese groups in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) occupied the El Tari Airport in Kupang on Tuesday, claiming the airport was built on their land. They said the Air Force had robbed them of 540 hectares of land where the airport sits.

They began their protest in the morning, once trying to break onto the tarmac before being held back by the police and security guards from airport administrator PT Angkasara Pura.

The rally, the second in a month, did not disrupt flights although passengers who arrived at 6 a.m. local time were held up at the entrance gate before being ushered inside when authorities ensured the protest would not disturb security.

Samuel Saba'at, a Timorese elder, said ownership of the 540-hectare land belonging to the six ethnic groups was transferred to the Air Force, based on a certificate issued by the Municipal Agrarian Agency in 1992 without their knowledge. "Our land has been stolen by the Air Force, now we are claiming it back," Samuel said.

The protesters promised to continue their rally and threatened to break into the airport to halt operations if their demand was not fulfilled. "If the government does not respond to our demand, we will come in bigger numbers," he said.

Their first rally last week was marked with the slaughter of a pig, whose blood was then drifted by winds over the airport. They said the ritual was a request for a spirit to come and help in their struggle.

The Air Force denied the land annexation allegation. "We did not steal the land. Let's go to court. We have legal certificate of ownership," Joko Winarko, an officer in charge of Kupang airbase, said when contacted by The Jakarta Post.

Meanwhile, the conflict over land in Lampung, Sumatra, between the local government and citizens has seemingly not quietened, with the former refusing to back down over a plan to remove people from a settlement on a plot of land called Register 45.

"Our target is for the plot to be vacated by the end of January 2012. We do not want more dwellers to come over, put up poles on the land and erect shelters on it. Register 45 is reserved, not for residing. Not even one person lives in the area," Hidayat, an administration official in charge of development, said on Tuesday.

Mesuji has become known for the alleged killing of a group of civilians in a land dispute involving a plantation company. The alleged incident took place last April, but only came to light in December at a hearing at the House of Representatives (DPR) in Jakarta.

Last week, two people reportedly died in land disputes in two different regions – Deli Serdang regency in North Sumatra and Tebo regency in Jambi – The first incident saw two groups of people fighting for rights over land while the second involved local residents and a company.

A councillor in North Sumatra cautioned of more potentially flaring clashes, with hundreds of land disputes remaining unresolved. Hidayat said the administration would adopt persuasive measures to clear people from the area, in which concessionary rights belong to PT Silva Inhutani. "If persuasion does not work, we resort to eviction," he said.

Thousands of residents from several villages have erected tents on Register 45, claiming that PT Silva Inhutani has taken around 10,000 hectares of land from them. They have requested the National Commission on Human Rights to help them in their struggle. They have stayed in the area to continue cultivation.

Aid & development

Bringing a ray of sunshine from Chadstone to East Timor

The Waverley Leader - January 3, 2012

Alex Munro – A Chadstone resident has been leading a team of volunteers spreading light throughout some of the most remote parts of East Timor.

Prabir Majumdar and 16 volunteers spent three weeks in Baguia, Same, Ainaro, and Ermera, installing solar panels and showing locals how to set up solar power systems to provide electricity for the villages.

"Currently, as per the government's plan, these villages won't have electricity for the next 15 or 20 years," Dr Majumdar said.

"The main benefit is we are taking them away from kerosene and candles which cost up to $5 a month. People see the benefit of solar household systems and the acceptance level is very high."

The Alternative Technology Association's International Projects Group has installed solar lighting and power systems in more than 1000 homes, community centres, schools, hospitals and training centres in East Timor since 2005. For more information, call 9639 1500 or visit ata.org.au

Language & culture

East Timor: A former colony mulls the politics of teaching Portuguese

Time Magazine - January 4, 2012

Brendan Brady, Dili – The sleeves of his button-down shirt rolled up, standing on an open-air stage before an audience of hundreds, the man read his poems with dramatic pauses, varied inflection and a sense of purpose that comes naturally to those accustomed to holding court. The man, 65-year-old Xanana Gusmao, is a former guerrilla leader and the current Prime Minister of East Timor, an island nation in Southeast Asia, which was, until South Sudan gained independence last year, the world's youngest country. That he was reading his poems in Portuguese, a language understood by just a fraction of the population, spoke to the close but often convoluted relationship between language, identity and politics in newly independent states.

Modern-day East Timor was claimed by Portugal in the 16th century. In 1975, no longer a global power, Portugal withdrew. Indonesia immediately invaded, claiming precolonial ownership of East Timor. Gusmao joined the main armed resistance group, Fretilin. A gifted orator and writer, he would become its leading voice along with Jose Ramos-Horta, now the President of East Timor and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Gusmao, Ramos-Horta and other resistance leaders were educated in Portuguese and promoted it as the language of the resistance to underline their half-island nation's historical and cultural differences from Indonesia, as well as to avoid infighting over which of the country's numerous indigenous languages was most emblematic of Timorese identity.

The resistance achieved its aim in 1999, but not until Indonesia's brutal quarter-century occupation claimed some 200,000 lives and systematically devastated the social and physical foundations of the country. In 2001 an assembly elected to draft a constitution for newly independent East Timor, also known as Timor-Leste, chose Portuguese and Tetum as the official languages of the nation, making them the sanctioned languages of parliament, schools and other public venues. Notably, the constitution and founding laws were drafted only in Portuguese. Spoken by a majority of Timorese, Tetum had emerged as the closest thing to a national language but the other selection, Portuguese, was controversial. Educated during the occupation, the majority of the country's youth had a much stronger grasp of Indonesian, but, as the language of East Timor's recently ousted tormentors, Dili's politicians viewed it as toxic.

Today, many of the practical consequences of the Portuguese language's prominent status in East Timor remain troublesome. Judges speak mostly in Portuguese even though few in the courtroom – defendants and witnesses included – can understand the language. Live translation often fails to prevent confusion and misunderstanding. Legislation is sometimes drafted only in Portuguese, leaving some parliamentarians unable to read a bill they are voting on.

The reality of Portuguese's limited reach in the country is most conspicuous in schools. After independence, many teachers scrambled to learn Portuguese themselves so they could follow the rules, though de facto use of Tetum and other indigenous languages often occurs. "Almost all of the teachers here have a problem with the Portuguese language, [but] Portuguese is what's mandated," says the principal of Colegio San Miguel, a primary school in Dili. Joao Marsao, who, at 58, is older than most of his fellow teachers and learned Portuguese when the European country was still in power, says many of his colleagues approach him with basic questions about how to talk with their students in Portuguese. (Read "World Bank to East Timor: We Messed Up.")

It is against this backdrop that a group of education-policy officials is advocating for reforms that would sanction the use of local languages in primary schools. They say international expertise is on their side. UNESCO has for years asserted that children best develop cognitive skills – and, eventually, learn to speak, read and write in multiple languages – by being taught in their early years in their household language. The group also posits that instructing children in their indigenous language promotes social equality by giving regular students – unlikely to have had private lessons in a nonhousehold language – an equal opportunity to participate in class.

"We need to create an environment in the classroom where children can express themselves [and become] thinking, contributing citizens for one of the youngest countries in the world," says Kirsty Sword Gusmao, an Australian-born former social activist married to East Timor's Prime Minister. The First Lady is chair of East Timor's UNESCO commission and has spearheaded the effort to change language policy for the country's schools. She says inveterate biases instilled by colonialism are one of the main obstacles to the program gaining support. Many parents believe that their children are taking a "step backward" by receiving an education in their indigenous language, which they often see as primitive. That perception can change, she says, when parents see improvements in how their children engage in a classroom that uses the mother-tongue system.

In the district capital of Manatuto, the main elementary school is among a few across the country where the community has decided, through a public consultation and vote, to have lessons in early grades taught mostly in their local language, Gololei. "It means our local language and identity will not be lost," says Gaspar da Costa, 52, who has two sons attending the school. One of the school's teachers, Inocencia Sequeira Miranda, says the change has spared her from the awkward pauses that used to literally silence her lessons. "It was difficult because Portuguese wasn't even a language that I knew well. When I spoke, the students would just stare at me with a blank look on their faces," she says. "Now I'm more confident and it's easier for the kids to understand."

That children learn best in their first years of school in their household language has been "proved time and time again in countries worldwide," says Robert Phillipson, a professor of linguistics of Copenhagen Business School and author of Linguistic Imperialism. He says that studies of primary schools in India and Nepal have shown that children benefit most from their education when it is conducted in the language of their community. He also points to southern Africa, where, he says, Zambia's education system has outperformed that of its neighbor and fellow former British colony Malawi by making more room for local languages in schools. "The evidence is that if you grant people rights to use their indigenous languages, it does no harm to the state. It's not a recipe for the country to be disintegrated."

Whatever empirical and anecdotal evidence exists in support of a countrywide shift in language policy, many Timorese remain skeptical. "The intention is very good, but in practice it will be very difficult to implement," says Ceu Federer, who at times during the Indonesian occupation served as a courier between resistance groups. In some communities, students don't share a common first language and, more significant, most of East Timor's indigenous languages are limited to oral communication, with little or no script. Federer, who is fluent in Portuguese, also points out that Tetum has numerous loan words from Portuguese and therefore challenges to teaching in the European language shouldn't be as formidable as they have been.

There are also suspicions that deeper motives are behind the proposed language-policy changes, says Augustinho Caet, an official at the Ministry of Education who is at odds with some of his peers in the government in pushing for this change. "[Some people] think we are going to replace the official languages," he says. "That is not what we aim to do. We aim to help them learn better Portuguese and Tetum."

The resistance Caet anticipated has materialized. A parliamentary resolution in August reiterated the country's original language policy and, pointedly, said Portuguese had a fundamental historical, social and political role in East Timor and that any changes to the language's official place "would condemn the country to irrelevance and, eventually, to subordination." Even amid this opposition, Sword Gusmao and Caet are introducing a pilot mother-tongue program in a dozen more schools across the country this year.

East Timor is still grappling with its traumatic history, and framing and reframing its antioccupation resistance narrative. Language plays a central part in this story, says Max Stahl, a British video journalist whose 1991 footage of Indonesian soldiers massacring East Timorese helped bring international attention to the occupied nation's plight. "East Timor desperately needs to consolidate its identity as a state," he says. How this effort is waged through classroom language policies could fundamentally change the script for East Timor's history, present and future.

Invasion & occupation

Archives reveal threats over Timor

New Zealand Herald - January 2, 2012

Greg Ansley – Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke's new Labor Government abandoned the party's tough stand on the annexation of East Timor under threat of huge retaliation by Indonesia, Cabinet documents from its early months in power reveal.

The 1983 documents, released by the National Archives of Australia, show deep concern that Jakarta would encourage "hostile measures" by other Islamic and non-aligned countries if Canberra tried to reverse the 1976 incorporation of the former Portuguese colony.

Indonesia would also find support among its Southeast Asian neighbours, and launch a range of retaliatory measures hitting Australian trade, transport, defence and investment. Canberra could expect no help from its powerful allies, including the United States, an analysis of the issue by Foreign Minister Bill Hayden said.

"In essence, an inflexible application of the [Labor Party's platform] on East Timor would result in a dreadful shambles in a key area of our foreign policy, alienating major regional neighbours and causing damage that would take many years, probably decades, to repair," he told the Cabinet.

Almost three decades later, Hawke still believes his Government was right to drop the party line, accept East Timor's annexation and launch new moves to boost relations with Indonesia, including a huge aid package and visits by the country's leaders.

In an Archives briefing ahead of the release of the documents he said the importance of improving relations with Indonesia was reflected in his choice of Jakarta for his first overseas visit as prime minister.

Hawke said the position paper on the issue presented to the Cabinet by Foreign Minister Bill Hayden was a "sane, practical analysis". "The annexation had taken place seven years before and we couldn't undo history," he said.

East Timor remained a festering wound in the relationship when Hawke won power. Many Australians were still furious at the invasion and incorporation of the colony in 1976 and the Liberal Government's recognition of the annexation two years later.

Anger also continued at the murder by Indonesian troops of five journalists in the border town of Balibo – including New Zealander Gary Cunningham – at the start of the invasion. The most recent party conference had condemned and rejected the annexation.

Hayden's Cabinet analysis said that while uncompromising statements of opposition and criticism had been understandable and proper, Labor was now in Government and needed to "sensibly assess" what could be done.

His assessment included a series of alarming and damaging moves likely to be launched by Jakarta if Australia made a "full-blooded" attempt to push Indonesia out of East Timor.

It said that Indonesia would be supported by its Asean partners, damaging Australia's relations with other Southeast Asian nations. The annexation was supported by all Indonesian political groups and no action by Australia or any other country would induce Jakarta to relinquish its hold, Hayden said.

Analysis & opinion

Ramos-Horta to stand again for presidency – but with party support?

Deaken Speeking - January 31, 2012

Damien Kingsbury – The announcement by President Jose Ramos-Horta that he will seek re-election for a second term in office has thrown open Timor- Leste's presidential race, all but guaranteeing that the process will now run to a second round of voting.

Although Ramos-Horta's candidacy adds another strong contender to the presidential stakes, added to two other strong contenders and what will probably be a list of around a dozen less likely candidates, it now seems unlikely that any one candidate will receive the requisite 50%+1 in order to win the presidency in the first round.

President Ramos-Horta announced his decision to run again for the presidency after receiving a petition signed by more than 116,000 East Timorese asking him to stand again for the office. He had been considering whether or not to run again throughout 2011 and had at times said that he would both run and not run again.

In part, his deliberations on the presidency were informed by the need for the political process to be handed over to other, capable candidates, to help ensure there was a broader range of political voices. In part, too, having represented Timor-Leste to the international community for decades and then been its Foreign Minister, briefly Prime Minister and then President, he had more than fulfilled his role to the nation.

After being shot and critically wounded in 2008, there were also moments of personal reflection, as well as physical recovery. However, Ramos-Horta has recovered remarkably well from that water-shed event, which marked the end of the 2006-7 political violence in Timor-Leste and ushered in a new period of a return to something approaching normality.

The real question in the presidential race will be how Timor-Leste's multiple political parties align themselves with candidates and whether the two leading independent candidates, Ramos-Horta and Taur Matan Ruak, receive backing from a major party, such as CNRT.

This will in turn depend on the status of the relationship between the candidates and the party, in particular with its founder and leader, Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. President Ramos-Horta's relationship with Gusmao has been tested over the past year, with revelations that the President had made unflattering comments about the Prime Minister's drinking habits. The two have also had their relationship tested by Ramos-Horta's perceived initial consideration of an Australian asylum-seeker processing centre on Timor-Leste and his active interest in the Timor Sea/Woodside issue, both of which stretched the bounds of the president's constitutional authority.

However, the two have otherwise been close political colleagues over decades and have had a good personal and working relationship. Gusmao has, however, also retained a very good relationship with Taur Matan Ruak, who was his 2IC as commander of Falintil. The difficulty, therefore, will be given that both candidates are formally "independent" and neither represents a specific party as does, for example, Lu-Olo with Fretilin, how Gusmao and CNRT will choose between them or, indeed, if it does.

It is possible, of course, that Gusmao and CNRT will not support either candidate for the presidency. But that would leave the presidential race wide open, with both Ramos-Horta and Ruak less beholden to a party that may seek to form a new government and potentially more problematic to that process because of it. Of course, this would not matter if neither candidate was successful in their bid for the presidency. But given that both are strong candidates, it is unlikely that Timor-Leste's senior political actors would want to leave a more successful outcome - and its implications for presidential-government relation – entirely to chance.

Familiar cries echo still

Sydney Morning Herald - January 1, 2012

Three decades, you're entitled to think, is a long time in politics. But cabinet papers revealed to the public for the first time today are a reminder, too, that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Take Indonesia and sensitivities over East Timor, for instance. And uranium mining, the US alliance, budget deficits, boat people and immigration versus job protection – governments grappling with the same problems, with differing degrees of success.

In Hawke Labor's case, of course, there was the added complication of a supposedly inviolable party platform, a collision course that the foreign minister, Bill Hayden, had to deal with in the first month.

"Misgivings remain in part of the Australian community about Indonesian actions over East Timor and Indonesian intentions towards Papua New Guinea and Australia," Hayden told a cabinet meeting in March 1983.

"These sentiments have been aggravated by the death of five Australian journalists in East Timor [on October 16, 1975] and the less-than- convincing 'act of self-determination' in East Timor. The memories, and strength of feelings of groups and individuals who espouse one or more of these causes, are enduring."

Sound familiar?

"On the other hand, certain sections of the Australian community would deprecate the government's inability to handle relations with Indonesia in a sensitive and positive manner, and would criticise any steps which had the effect of closing off trade, investment and other economic openings in Indonesia."

Familiar again to those who watched with dismay the unfolding debacle of an export ban on live cattle to Indonesian abattoirs.

And so Hayden began the delicate task of tempering the attitudes of a government bound by its platform denunciation of Indonesia.

While it was "understandable and proper that uncompromising statements of opposition" should follow Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, "we are now a government and have to sensibly assess" how to accommodate "our understandably strong feelings" with international acceptance of Indonesian control and with the need for an Australian relationship with Indonesia.

"I suspect it is often overlooked that a full-blooded attempt by Australia to change this situation would not only be certain to fail but would also guarantee tough and punitive retaliatory measures," Hayden said. Indonesia would become more isolated from Australia, would stymie negotiations on a seabed resources treaty, might jeopardise aircraft and ship movements through its territory and cease co-operation on refugees.

Bob Hawke said Hayden's was "a very sane, practical analysis". "One had to be practical about the fact that this had occurred seven years before. We couldn't undo history."

Credit for shifting the government on uranium mining, however, was Hawke's to claim. "We had inherited a platform that was founded on a lot of prejudices, but our approach [of keeping operating mines going] was a practical one," he said.

Commentary by Clinton Fernandes - January 3, 2012

This is the usual "world will come to an end" mantra that is always trotted out when policymakers want ward off democratic challenges to foreign policy. It is typically used in conjunction with phrases such the "arc of instability" and the "fragmentation of Indonesia".

Recently, when former PM John Howard realised (through the results of an opinion poll) that more than 75 per cent of Australians supported the right of West Papuans to self-determination, even if that meant independence from Indonesia, he said that "the last thing Australia would want is a fragmenting of Indonesia", "It's a very complex and difficult issue. A comment on the poll – it depends a bit what question do you ask. If you said to people: 'Do you want Indonesia to disintegrate?' you'd probably get an overwhelming majority of people saying no... If you really want a problem on your doorstep, have a fragmenting Indonesia. So it is in Australia's interests that we keep a united, unified Indonesia."

As for Hayden, he had to give the Left in the ALP a reason to cave in. His Top Secret cabinet briefings are in fact almost identical to his published memoirs, Hayden: An Autobiography, Angus and Robertson, Sydney, 1996.

In his memoirs, Hayden writes that the earlier policy was "retributive" and "unambiguously confrontationist" (p. 395). "There are ways, other than bellowing through a bull horn, to register our concerns on human rights, and in the case of East Timor we adopted sensible procedures and effective measures" (p. 397). He writes that there were many positive aspects to the Indonesian invasion and occupation:

"East Timor has benefited from more social and economic development in the past twenty years under Indonesian administration than it received through four centuries under the dead hand of Portuguese colonialism. In fact much of the dissidence occurring in East Timor today is a product of exaggerated expectations of what the new economic order could provide and not of sympathetic responses to Fretilin's sporadic and limited insurgency activity. None of this is to ignore abuses of human rights when they occur, some of which have indeed been grave violations. It might, however, serve the cause of fairness to acknowledge that considerable advances have been made in an attempt by Indonesia to curb such abuses and punish offenders, while recognising more needs to be done." (pp. 397-8)

He says that the media were "the cause of the greatest strains in bilateral relations" (p. 399). In his view, the media had a responsibility to avoid 'unnecessary damage to our national interests with other countries' (p. 398).

Then comes the "world will come to an end mantra":

"Imagine that Indonesia, for whatever reason, were suddenly cast into fissionable, internal turmoil, with the potential for heading towards social breakdown. At the very least the flow of boat people to our shores... could dwarf anything we have seen before." (pp. 399-400)

The potential dangers of Islamic fundamentalism:

"Would we remain indifferent if an aggressive, zealous, proselytizing strain of fundamentalist Islam spread like a contagion in Indonesia?" (p. 400)

Human rights advocates were "noisy groups in the community who, unlike government, can afford to behave with indifference to the broader national interest" (p. 400).

He called for greater understanding of social and economic rights, as opposed to the "paramount priority given to individuals' human rights by Western countries". He "accept[ed] the simple maxim that first comes bread then comes morals" (p. 418). After all, he argued, "the notion of universal human rights is relatively new and it is not universally endorsed... Much of what has been defined as morality over the centuries has been Eurocentric in its values and origins... there are, relatively, only a few democracies in the world... [Democracy] is a complex and difficult system... culturally a great many nations are incapable of embracing it successfully at this stage, or may not want to at any stage, of their development.' (pp. 419-420)

So it goes...

Book & film reviews

Of love and war

Brisbane Times - January 1, 2012

East Timor's first feature film revisits the tiny nation's tortured struggle for independence, writes Natalie Craig.

The people of Kasai are standing behind the camera, transfixed. Indonesian soldiers left their tiny village, just west of Dili in East Timor, more than a decade ago. Now their memories of that bloody period are being acted out before them.

In the scene being filmed, two Indonesian soldiers are sitting in the dust and smoking. Nearby, three girls are playing in a go-kart. One of the soldiers aims his rifle at the girls and makes comical "pow" noises. An officer approaches and orders the soldier to shoot. "You don't play with a weapon; use it for what it was made," he says.

Just as the soldier is about to fire, a woman rushes in and challenges the soldier to shoot her instead. He lowers his gun.

The scene takes about an hour to get right, but the group of about 50 spectators, including young children, are mute and stock-still for its duration. Later, village chief Viriato Martens says, through a interpreter: "It is true – anything the Indonesians wanted to do, they did it ... We know it is make-believe, but some of the women are scared."

A Guerra da Beatriz is the first movie authored by East Timorese artists, an emotional undertaking in a country still haunted by the memories of the Indonesian occupation. East Timor hit the big screen in the 2009 movie Balibo, about the execution of five Australian journalists in 1975, but that was essentially an Australian production. By contrast, this film is conceived, performed and directed by young Timorese, with support from volunteer Melbourne filmmakers.

Local theatre performer Irim Tolentino has written the script in the Timorese language, Tetum, and fellow stage actress Bety Reis is the director. Both are being mentored by Melbourne director Luigi Acquisto and his wife, film producer Stella Zammataro.

"Film is a way of remembering the past, but it is also a way forward," says Reis, 29, whose family was part of the clandestine independence movement. "I want this new life. I want to be a filmmaker. Foreigners can tell our story, but when we tell it, it feels real."

Invited to watch the first week of filming, I am overwhelmed by examples of art imitating life.

Women extras weep unprompted during a scene in which they are forced from their homes by Indonesian soldiers, just as they were 25 years ago. A man who lived under a bridge for the final few years of the occupation, and who avoided persecution by pretending to be permanently intoxicated, is cast as the town drunk. And former guerillas in East Timor's Falintil resistance army have been cast, more or less, as themselves.

Commander Fanu Latean, a muscular 54-year-old with smiling eyes and modern, square-framed glasses, is playing a Falintil hero. He jokes that he has been researching the role for more than a decade.

"I was a guerilla in the mountains for 11 years, until the Indonesians captured me ... They shot me in the stomach and shot off my finger," he says through an interpreter, showing me his missing digit. "They forced us to join their army, but I lied and said I couldn't shoot without my finger. So they gave me a loudspeaker and it was my job to try and get the villagers to surrender ... I fed information to my men in the mountains."

Like many of the performers, he drifts between pride in being part of East Timor's first movie, and anguish over the memories it resurrects. "I saw many people killed; many unspeakable things. But I am very happy to do the part, otherwise who else will take it?"

A Guerra da Beatriz, or "Beatrice's War", is a love story spanning the Indonesian occupation, from 1975 to 1999. (Independence was formalised in 2002.) Beatriz is a young woman whose husband, Tomas, goes missing following the Kraras massacre of 1983, a real event in which all 150 males of that village, including the infants, were rounded up and shot by Indonesian soldiers.

In the film, Beatriz continues to believe that Tomas is alive until one day, after the Indonesian withdrawal, a man claiming to be him returns to the village. Beatriz falls deeply in love with this man, who is more charismatic and confident than the old Tomas, but she is troubled by her suspicion that he is an impostor and a traitor who fought in a notorious Indonesian militia.

Jose da Costa, who plays Tomas, explains the plot reflects the country's struggle to strike a balance between forgiveness and justice. "My character is very complex; a lot of men who fought in the [Indonesian] militias are now coming back to Timor and they're trying to pretend that they are heroes, but it is a small country and it is hard to hide your past," says the ruggedly handsome 35-year-old, who also had a small part in Balibo. "I do have sympathy for my character, because sometimes people are desperate to survive, and they don't think about the future."

More than 100,000 people were killed during Indonesia's occupation of East Timor, and the presidents of both countries have said they want to close the question of who was responsible by blaming institutions, not individuals. (Among those who have escaped conviction is Prabowo Subianto, a retired Indonesian general allegedly behind atrocities, including the Kraras massacre. He intends to run for president in Indonesia in 2014.)

Da Costa says while the country is now on reasonable terms with Indonesia, not all Timorese are ready to forgive and forget. "A Guerra da Beatriz shows, I can accept you, I can accept that this has happened, but there has to be some justice."

Like others on the film, he has suffered personally from the occupation. His father was executed by Indonesian soldiers in 1985 for working with the Falintil. In 1991, he was at the pro-independence demonstration at Dili's Santa Cruz cemetery when about 250 people were killed by Indonesian police. He was arrested and tortured for a week for information about the movement.

In 1995, he escaped on a fishing boat to Australia and after gaining refugee status settled in Melbourne. He completed the VCE and gained a bachelor of education at the Australian Catholic University in Ballarat. He returned to Dili in 2004 and married his childhood sweetheart, a woman he hadn't seen since he was 10.

Da Costa says he still blames the Australian government for its failure to intervene after the Indonesian invasion, but is devoted to the Australian people. "The Australian people have supported the independence movement, and still support us today ... East Timor has a lot of stories, and Australia is helping us to start telling them."

A Guerra da Beatriz is the product of a long collaboration between East Timor and Australia. Last year, Da Costa teamed with Reis to establish Dili Film Works. Together with Acquisto and Zammataro, who live part-time in Dili with their adopted Timorese daughter, they ran filmmaking workshops for a dozen young students. Balibo producer John Maynard taught some of the masterclasses.

The students made three short documentaries and one short comedy. The films were screened, together with a dubbed version of Balibo, by Cinema Loro Sa'e, an initiative of the owners of Sun Theatre in Yarraville, which shows films in old Dili theatres and in remote towns on portable outdoor screens. The films were a tremendous success, and probably the first anyone had seen made in Tetum. The crowd favourite was the 11-minute comedy Vagabond, about a man who runs a successful dog-meat restaurant, but who is nonetheless unlucky in love.

Buoyed by this success, Dili Film Works is making the full-length movie, with assistance on the finer points of camera, sound, lighting and production from Acquisto and Zammataro's company, Fairtrade Films, and with Maynard as executive producer.

The movie incorporates a cast of 12, several remote locations, action scenes and hundreds of extras, including chickens, dogs, children and babies. In this respect, it is on the scale of Balibo, but with a much lower budget. (Acquisto will only say that it is "about a 50th" of Balibo's).

The filmmakers have had to be resourceful. The soldiers are real; borrowed from the Timor Leste Defence Force and dressed in Indonesian army uniforms bought on the internet. Rather than using sound stages, the locations are real villages, used with the permission of communities who are also being paid good local wages as extras. Equipment is on loan from Fairtrade Films. Acquisto and Zammataro are sharing their expertise with their Timorese counterparts, as are a Melbourne camera and editing crew: Valeriu Campan, Rocco Fasano, Glen Forster and Nick Calpakdjian.

Australian logistics company Toll has donated daily catering, vehicles and portaloos, and flights for the Melbourne crew. Rentlo has provided more cars, and Airnorth more flights. Cash for props and wages for local cast and crew has come mainly from a fund-raising website and individual Australian donors. The East Timorese government has made a small contribution.

About two-thirds of the film has been shot, but more money is needed. Filming wrapped up in late November, and while the intention is to resume in March in the remote village of Kraras, it will be difficult if not impossible without further financial support.

Kirsty Gusmao, the Victorian wife of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, said on a visit to the set that film was "a tremendous creative outlet" but it would be difficult to argue for more immediate funding. "I think a film industry will be a wonderful way of keeping East Timor's history, the challenges of the present and the future in the public eye internationally," she said.

"I'm sure in time there will be adequate support, but it can be difficult to see cultural endeavours as a priority when you've still got schools that don't have roofs on them, and communities that are not reached by medical services."

Another priority are the elections in May, in which East Timor will vote to decide the government and presidency. Factional fighting in the lead-up to the last elections in 2007 triggered a United Nations peacekeeping intervention, but the UN has deemed the country stable enough for it to withdraw at the end of the year.

Still, corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency remain major problems. East Timor ranks 164 out of 183 on the World Bank's list of the best countries to do business, and even the simplest task, such as registering a business name, takes months. But Dili Film Works is patient. They spent most of last year organising the shoot, and have also enlisted the help of two of Dili's best-connected people, Lurdes Pires and Gaspar Sarmento, who also work as "fixers" for foreign journalists.

It was Pires, a prominent independence campaigner, who secured the involvement of the army. Her old school friend, Brigadier-General Filomeno Paixao, is second-in-command of the Timor Leste Defence Force.

On the first morning of filming, however, the soldiers arrive two hours late. They explain they were waiting for their guns (unloaded vintage G3s and SKSs), the original weapons of the Falintil guerillas, inherited from the Portuguese colonial army. (The Portuguese withdrawal in 1974, after 200 years of colonial rule, was one of the triggers for the Indonesian invasion.) The Falintil veteran in charge of minding the hidden stock of vintage weapons went missing that morning, hence their delay.

The incident prompts the Melbourne camera crew to joke that the making of A Guerra da Beatriz could turn out to be the poor man's version of Apocalypse Now, which was almost derailed by illness, bad weather and the Philippine army's repeated withdrawal of its helicopters from filming in order to fight actual battles.

Somewhat ominously, the first day of filming of A Guerra da Beatriz is rained out. Crying babies, cast illness and communication problems are also a drag over the next few days. An actress is almost taken out by a falling coconut, and the man playing the town drunk is impossible to find.

Electricity is another problem. It's only reliable between midnight and dawn in Dili (unless you're on the "presidential grid"), so the constant maintenance of diesel generators is necessary to keep power flowing to editing equipment and computers.

The crew and most of the cast work 12 hours a day for four days straight, in temperatures well over 30 degrees. If this were a normal Australian film crew, says Acquisto, "they would be a lot shittier".

But the creative and cathartic outlet of filmmaking seems enough to buoy their spirits. There are also some astounding performances. In one scene, the women of Kraras, widowed after the massacre, are taken away in an open army cargo truck. Some of the extras are professional mourners, or "wailing women", who are paid to weep at funerals. The sound is haunting, but unlike normal crying.

Then Pires whispers something to one of the women at the front of the truck. In the next take, the woman calls out "to save the spirits of our lost children", and the crying changes; now they are weeping for real. Soon everyone, including myself and the Australian crew, is crying. Pires says it's likely many of the women have lost babies – East Timor has one of the highest infant mortality rates in the world.

In another scene, Sarmento, who plays an Indonesian colonel, executes Celestino, played by the old Falintil commander Fanu Latean. Off-camera, Sarmento, who studied Indonesian and later worked in the clandestine movement, is a jolly man with a permanent cheeky grin. But once the camera rolls, his face hardens.

On a cliff overlooking the beach, Sarmento, as the colonel, orders Latean's Celestino character to dig his own grave, but he refuses. The men lock eyes. Sarmento barks "shoot" and soldiers open fire. It's one of the best takes of the week. This, clearly, will be a powerful, professional film.

"That was incredible!" gushes Acquisto. "Actors have to project; that was just him."

The commander, too, is proud of his work. "I hope my grandchildren will see that I am more than just a fighter," he says.