East Timor spent centuries as a Portuguese colony. It was occupied by the Japanese during World War Two and then back to the Portuguese, before a brutal Indonesian occupation began in 1975.

After years of resistance struggles, the people voted overwhelmingly for independence at a UN referendum and the Indonesian forces exacted their revenge by killing, raping and destroying as they left in 1999.

As many as 200 people died in a massacre at a church in Liquica and the parish priest there, Father Jose Filipe, says the joy of freedom is mixed with sorrow.

Filipe: This is the path to our nation becoming independent. This is very important to our nation, and then we hope in this celebration that people also to happy that their family give one sacrifice to this country.

Cochrane: While almost everyone is grateful for peace and proud of the long resistance struggle, balancing respect for the past and the needs of the future, can be tricky.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono attended the independence celebrations and received the Order of Timor medal from outgoing President Jose Ramos-Horta.

Horta: I take this very special occasion to express my country's deepest appreciation for your leadership and the courage and support that you have displayed.

SBY: I am proud to bear witness to the success of my brothers and sisters in Timor Leste.

Cochrane: But the red carpet treatment offered to Indonesia's President is a humiliation to victims, says Jose Luis Oliveira from the National Association of Victims.

Oliveira: They do nothing for these people but in contrary they are doing a lot to just receive the people who make us suffer, very, very painful for them.

Cochrane: For veterans, too, it's a time of mixed feelings.

In Liquica district we meet 58-year old Napoleano Dos Santos Coliati.

Cochrane: He tells us his name has only just been added to a list of recognised resistance fighters that have been promised compensation. But he's heard the promises before and says he's sad many of his friends from the resistance have died without recognition or financial support for their families.

The new President Taur Matan Ruak is a national hero of the resistance and has promised to do more to help veterans, as well as tackle rural poverty, introduce national military service and reduce the country's dependency on oil and gas money. Half the country still lives in poverty and East Timor has a long road ahead of it, but James Batley, who was Australia's ambassador to East Timor 10 years ago, says the change is enormous.

Batley: It's easy to forget just how badly damaged this country was, how traumatised its people were. And I think in the space of ten years to come from that situation to where we've reached now, I think the people of East Timor are really to be congratulated.

East Timor celebrates a decade of independence

Agence France Presse - May 20, 2012

Vincent Souriau – East Timor's new president on Sunday lauded the "maturity" of his young country's democracy at celebrations marking 10 years of independence, which come as UN forces prepare to leave at year's end.

"It was on this day 10 years ago that we took over the destiny of our country from the hands of the UN," Taur Matan Ruak said in a speech, referring to the 1999 UN mandate that followed Indonesia's 24-year occupation.

Ruak, a former guerrilla leader, spoke only hours after being sworn in shortly after midnight and said the peaceful elections he won testified to "the maturity of our democracy and bears witness to the stability" of East Timor, known as Timor-Leste in Portuguese.

His speech followed a minute of silence for fallen heroes of the resistance against Indonesian occupation, before invited guests that included Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and some 400 ordinary Timorese gathered outside the gates of the presidential palace in Dili.

After his speech Ruak inaugurated a new Resistance Museum in the capital, saying now "our children will have the opportunity to learn about the most important legacy that previous generations have bequeathed unto them."

The celebrations included traditional dances to be followed by an evening concert with local, Indonesian and Brazilian musicians.

In his inaugural speech earlier, Ruak urged his countrymen to work hard to lift the country out of poverty and turn the page on its bloody past.

East Timor, one of Asia's poorest nations, has enjoyed several years of relative peace and is in a crucial period, with general elections due in July and UN forces stationed there since 1999 set to depart by the end of the year.

But despite having left bouts of major unrest behind it, the half-island country of 1.1 million people remains hobbled by extreme poverty and corruption.

Ruak, 55, took over the presidency from Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta in an emotional ceremony at the beachfront area of Tasi Tolu near Dili where East Timor declared its independence exactly 10 years ago.

"There was a time in the past when blood and fighting spirit was what was demanded from us," the ex-army chief said, to loud applause from thousands of people. "Today, what is required from us is sweat and hard work."

Ruak also called for the country to diversify its economy – more than 90 percent of state spending currently comes from oil and gas earnings.

"It is imperative to change the essence of the economic system on which the country is currently based," he said at Tasi Tolu, calling for "the diversification of our economy" and "reducing our dependency from abroad and from oil".

The nation first declared independence on November 28, 1975, after Portugal ended four centuries of colonial rule, but was immediately invaded by Jakarta's forces. Up to 183,000 people died from fighting, disease and starvation under the Indonesian occupation.

Since independence, the nation has endured a political crisis in 2006 that killed 37 people and displaced tens of thousands, and Ramos-Horta was lucky to survive an assassination attempt in 2008.

"Our history is a narrative of struggles and of hard work," said Ruak, who spent decades in the mountains fighting Indonesian forces.

"This tradition of hard work and dedication to our country... has to be transposed to the present, to lift our people from their current predicament where the majority are poor, to a stage in the future where the majority will be well off," he said.

"Today, the responsibility of leading a peaceful, serene and stable state has been entrusted upon me," Ruak added, in a speech where hard work and labour figured at least nine times.

New plea on hero as East Timor marks independence anniversary

Sydney Morning Herald - May 19, 2012

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – East Timor has made a new plea for Indonesia to return the remains of Timorese national hero Nicolau Lobato on the eve of the country's 10th anniversary of independence.

The plea followed speculation that Indonesia will make a grand gesture to the half-island nation to mark the celebrations following a warming of relations between the neighbouring countries over recent years.

The Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is leading a large delegation to the seaside capital, Dili, for ceremonies today and tomorrow.

The return of Mr Lobato's remains would prompt an outpouring of emotion across deeply religious East Timor. He is regarded as East Timor's greatest national hero and a state funeral will be held if the remains return.

The issue has been highly sensitive in relations between East Timor and Indonesia for years.

The charismatic Mr Lobato, East Timor's first prime minister and one of the founding members of the Fretilin party, was shot dead in an ambush in December 1978, three years after Indonesia invaded East Timor.

His death was seen by Indonesia as important in breaking the morale of the Timorese resistance movement, and it boosted the career of then Captain Prabowo Subianto, who later married one of the daughters of then Indonesian president Suharto and is now one of the most powerful political figures in Jakarta.

East Timor's President since 2007, Jose Ramos-Horta, who leaves office today after election defeat, told the Herald he met Indonesia's ambassador in Dili, Edi Setiabudy, this week and "asked the Indonesian side for the 10th time to make an extra effort to find the remains".

Following the meeting, Mr Setiabudy said: "The time will come... I can't give clear information now." Officials in Jakarta said they had no knowledge of any plans for Mr Yudhoyono to make an announcement about the remains while in East Timor.

Dr Ramos-Horta earlier met Mr Lobato's son, Jose Lobato, a Dili executive with the multinational company ConocoPhillips. Mr Lobato asked Dr Ramos- Horta to raise the issue with Mr Yudhoyono this weekend.

Dr Ramos-Horta first publicly called on Indonesia to return Mr Lobato's remains in 2009 on the 10th anniversary of the UN-sponsored ballot where Timorese voted to split from Indonesia.

The Indonesian military has never publicly disclosed what happened to the remains. Suharto is believed to have demanded that Mr Lobato's head be sent to Jakarta as proof of his death after the body was paraded around Dili.

Bones that were believed to be have been Mr Lobato's were sent to Darwin for forensic testing in 2004 but were proved years later not to be his.

Australia's Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, will be among guests at the anniversary ceremonies which include flag raisings across the country.

Hundreds of Australian and New Zealand peacekeeping troops will return home by the end of the year, the East Timor Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao, said last night. He told the Herald the troops sent to East Timor to quell unrest in 2006 had helped prepare his country's security forces for any new challenges.

SBY to attend East Timor's 10th anniversary

Jakarta Globe - May 18, 2012

Arientha Primanita & AFP – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono will attend the 10th anniversary celebrations of East Timor this weekend, according to Teuku Faizasyah, special staff to the president for international relations.

Yudhoyono will make a "working visit" to East Timor, which is also known as Timor Leste, on Saturday and Sunday, Faizasyah said. "The visit of President Yudhoyono is in the framework of the commemoration of Timor Leste's 10th anniversary. We hope that it will strengthen the friendship and bilateral cooperation between Indonesia and Timor Leste," Faizasyah said.

He added that the visit was at the invitation of East Timor's current Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. Relations between Indonesia and the half-island nation and former Portuguese colony – which was under heavy-handed Indonesian control from 1976 to 1999 – has been based on a forward-looking approach, Faizasyah said. He added that the ties have constantly shown progress.

Yudhoyono is scheduled to hold a tete-a-tete with current President Jose Ramos-Horta shortly after arriving in Dili on Saturday. He is also scheduled to hold a bilateral meeting with Gusmao and witness the signing of a number of memorandum of understandings between the two governments.

Yudhoyono is also scheduled to visit the Santa Cruz cemetery, where Indonesian troops shot into a crowd of peaceful pro-independence demonstrators in 1991, killing At least 250 East Timorese.

On Sunday, Yudhoyono will attend the inauguration of newly elected East Timor President Jose Maria Vasconcelos, and is also scheduled to meet with him.

"The meeting with President Vasconcelos will present an important opportunity for the two leaders to strengthen their joint commitment to safeguard a continuity in the good relations between the two countries," Faizasyah said.

Following a referendum in 1999, East Timor separated from Indonesia and came under UN supervision for what was supposed to be just three years, before proclaiming the state of Timor-Leste on May 20, 2002.

Timor will choose a new prime minister and government in general elections on July 7, then at year's end will finally say goodbye to UN forces stationed since 1999.

Shadow of the past haunts nation's future

Sydney Morning Herald - May 18, 2012

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Celebrations down the mountains marking the 10th anniversary of East Timor's independence today mean little to Ines Lemos. "I don't think about anything other than my daughter, and her killer being free."

Her daughter, Ana, had worked for the United Nations organising a referendum on independence for East Timor. On September 13, 1999, a pro- Indonesia militia commander known as Bola Guling came for the 34-year-old. Ana was repeatedly raped, once in front of her mother and children, and then paraded through her home town of Gleno, in the coffee-growing region two hours south of Dili. Her body was found days later.

As anniversary banners are erected and young hawkers stand on street corners selling Timorese flags in the seaside capital Dili, Lemos wipes tears from her eyes and pleads with authorities to pursue and prosecute Guling, who is believed to be in Indonesia.

"Justice must be done because he killed my daughter," she said as Ana's 16-year-old son Ferdenco sat sobbing nearby, too upset to speak about his mother.

Ten years after then UN secretary-general Kofi Annan anointed the world's newest nation, East Timor is struggling with the legacies of 490 years of foreign occupation, war, trauma, impunity, poverty and under-development.

But East Timor's government, elected 4-and-a-half years ago after violent upheaval, is presenting a rosy picture of the country of 1.1 million people as dignitaries fly in for tonight's celebrations. They include Australia's Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, and Indonesia's President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

"There was not a single Timorese citizen who did not have at least one traumatic experience," the Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao, says of crimes committed in the months before and after Timorese voted in 1999 to break away from Indonesia.

"There were still many open wounds that did not have time to heal and many feelings that were hard to let go. However, the greatness of our people's character is in their tolerance and in their deep yearning to live in harmony... and for Timorese people, peace meant living free from hatred, revenge and distrust."

Ahead of the celebrations, roads from Dili airport where the dignitaries will travel have been resealed, squatters have been moved, sheets of iron have gone up to hide slums and putrid canals, and government reports boast double-digit economic growth, reduced poverty, increased employment, improved health and the development of huge infrastructure projects, including an electricity grid to light up the entire country.

Thirteen years after Indonesia's humiliating loss of East Timor, the nation is free and democratic, and its citizens can say what they think without fear of retribution – unlike during Indonesia's 24-year occupation when tens of thousands of people were arrested, tortured or killed.

But government critics say the ruling five-party coalition has taken a number of serious missteps at a critical time in the country's young history as the UN prepares to withdraw its 1700-strong police, military and civilian mission in Dili and about 400 Australian and New Zealand peacekeeping troops depart by the end of the year.

This week, almost 200 non-government organisations in Dili delivered a damning assessment of East Timor's progress, warning the country has fallen into the trap of a "resource curse" where there is almost total reliance on money from diminishing oil and gas reserves.

In a joint report handed to Gusmao after a donors' meeting, the organisations said that despite a big increase in government spending there has been a "shocking under-investment in sustainable development which would address critical issues of poverty, malnutrition and unemployment".

The organisations said until the crimes and consequences of the past have been dealt with "they will continue to haunt our people and limit our ability to move forward".

Dan Murphy, an American doctor who has worked in East Timor for 14 years, says nobody will disagree that the most important change for East Timor is that violence has ended.

But in rural areas, where 75 per cent of the population live, he says life is as difficult as it has ever been, with people entrenched in intergenerational cycles of poverty.

"When we set up our mobile clinics in the mountains we see that people are still suffering from extreme malnutrition and many treatable diseases," he says. Murphy says his patients, mostly women and children, are gracious and smiling "but scratch the surface and inside they are hurting".

He points to a recent study showing that East Timor is the world's third worst place for stunted growth in children. "This shows the children are not getting enough to eat... it means their brains are not fully developing, impacting on their ability to become educated and live fruitful lives," Murphy says.

Fifty-eight per cent of children under five suffer chronic malnutrition and 70 per cent of young people in Dili cannot find work. Fifty per cent of people live below the poverty line, more children die from diarrhoea than malaria, and about 2000 children under five die from preventable conditions every year.

In the government's $US1.8 billion budget this year, only 6.3 per cent of the money is allocated to education, less than 3 per cent to health and about 1 per cent to agriculture, compared to almost 50 per cent to infrastructure.

While domestic violence is the No.1 crime in East Timor – more than 50 per cent of women in Dili have been victims – funding for overwhelmed legal aid organisations dries up at the end of the year.

Government officials say big spending on infrastructure projects such as the electricity grid, which could cost $US1 billion by the time it is completed, is needed to kick-start the economy. Once the projects are completed, officials say, capital spending on them can fall.

But Jose Teixeira, a former government minister and spokesman for Fretilin, the main opposition party, says the government is paying 40 per cent more than it should to award contracts, with corruption and waste rampant, as most people remain impoverished.

Several ministers are under investigation by an anti-corruption commission and the Justice Minister, Lucia Lobato, is facing trial for corruption, which she denies.

Government ministers and high-ranking officials are notorious for flying to Bali for weekends and making frequent overseas study tours.

The gap between a small wealthy elite in Dili and the poor majority has widened in recent years, analysts and residents of the capital say. People linked to the ruling elite have built sprawling homes and drive expensive vehicles.

"Most Timorese remain untrained and unemployed spectators in their own country as the bulk of the work goes to foreign companies with 10 per cent Timorese partners," Teixeira says. Many of the workers on infrastructure projects are Indonesian and Chinese.

Charles Scheiner, a founder of the La'o Hamutuk organisation, says disaster could be looming in 10 years as oil and gas revenues dry up, interest on loans becomes due and the number of youths entering the workforce doubles.

He points out that almost all the food and goods bought in East Timor are imported, a consequence of the resource curse where "everything is seen in terms of dollars". "It is easier to buy things rather than build or grow them," he says.

Last year East Timor exported goods worth only $US16 million, mainly coffee, but imported goods worth $US288 million.

Most of the bottled water and canned tuna in East Timor's stores and markets comes from Indonesia. Frozen poultry comes from Brazil while chickens are prolific breeders in East Timor's villages and towns. Garlic that could easily be home-grown comes from Bangladesh and fruit juice arrives from Cyprus, including papaya, banana and mango, which are grown in East Timor.

By some estimates, up to 80 per cent of East Timor's budget actually ends up outside the country.

The Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta, who steps down as the country's president at midnight tonight, concedes the country has made mistakes. "But remember, this is only a 10-year-old country and the challenges and priorities have come at us from every direction," he says.

Ramos-Horta says that since gaining independence the international community has spent several billion dollars in East Timor, which has been welcomed by Timorese. "But I look around and ask myself: 'Where has it been spent?'... I can't see it," he says.

Ramos-Horta says that non-government organisations and international agencies have written more than 3000 reports on the country.

"We are the most psychoanalysed people in the world," he says, adding that he no longer wants to read reports. "Do you think it is a major discovery to be told there is extreme poverty... we just need to go to the villages and ask the poor people: 'Are you poor?' They will reply: 'Yes we are'."

East Timor's future will be decided at elections in July, heightening political tensions in the coming weeks. With 21 parties contesting, it is likely no single party will win enough votes to form government without soliciting the support of other parties to form a coalition.

The government has come under growing pressure over its failure to negotiate a deal with a Woodside-led consortium to pipe gas to East Timor from the Greater Sunrise field in the Timor Sea, which the country jointly owns with Australia.

Emotions are running high over the issue. On Wednesday, guests at a waterfront lunch waited with great expectation for the unveiling of something special for Timorese to mark the anniversary.

When Gusmao pulled open black curtains they saw a length of pipe encased in a see-through cubicle that is usually laid under the sea, one of the more unusual official unveilings by a world leader. As Gusmao rejoined his guests, who included Dili's top diplomats, Alfredo Pires, the Secretary of State for Natural Resources, explained the German-made pipe a few metres long was laid as a monument to symbolise his government's fight to have the pipeline come to East Timor.

The consortium wants to build a floating platform to process the gas above the field. "We have made up our minds," the minister declared.

Asked if the government has drawn a line in the sand on the issue, Pires replied: "No, in concrete." He said studies commissioned by East Timor show it is "rubbish" for Woodside to claim its proposal would be billions of dollars more profitable than building a pipeline to Timor.

Ramos-Horta has criticised the government for making the pipeline a matter of national pride, saying the issue should be decided on the best available technical and economic advice.

Manuel Tilman, the leader of the small Timorese Hero's Union and a member of a parliamentary committee dealing with finance and corruption, says unveiling the pipe was a "comical" stunt by Gusmao to win support before the election.

He says that like most Timorese, he believes a pipeline will one day come to Timor to benefit all Timorese. "But at the moment it is only a pipe dream," he says.

There is a renewed sense of optimism in the air ahead of tonight's party in Tasi Tolu, a beachside area on the outskirts of Dili where East Timor proclaimed its independence from Indonesia in 2002.

The tiny nation has emerged from the ashes of the Indonesian-sponsored campaign of terror in 1999 and violent upheaval in 2006 that displaced 150,000 people.

Gusmao says that "with all that our people have suffered, with all that our people have given and with all that our people have struggled, they deserve to celebrate".

He says his government has honestly tried to take stock of the country and discuss what has been working well and what has not. "Independence provided our people with the opportunity to set their own priorities and the right to determine their own future," he says.

Ines Lemos, now in her 60s, says life has become harder as she gets older and cannot work but she has family to look after her. Tomorrow morning she plans to go to an independence anniversary ceremony in her village on a slope overlooking coffee plantations, like all the other villagers.

There will be a flag-raising and prayers. "My daughter died for independence... I am proud of her," she says.

[Lindsay Murdoch reported from Dili throughout the violence of 1999 and covered East Timor's proclamation of independence in 2002.]

East Timor ends first decade fighting oil curse

Bloomberg - May 17, 2012

Shamim Adam and Ramsey Al-Rikabi – The Southeast Asian nation of East Timor celebrates 10 years of independence tomorrow night facing a challenge that has eluded emerging economies across the world: How to stop oil wealth wrecking your economy.

After a decade of contract delays, deadlocked oilfield negotiations with Woodside Petroleum Ltd. (WPL) and a political crisis that almost precipitated civil war, East Timor has moved from the poorest country in Asia, dependent entirely on international aid, to one with a $10 billion resources fund and almost entirely dependent on oil.

East Timor is trying to beat an economic trap called the resource curse where dependence on mineral exports hurts other industries by boosting the currency, and workers are drawn from agriculture and business, making the country reliant on imports of food and other goods. Success may make Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's 20-year development plan a guide for other oil- dependent nations such as Chad, Angola and Gabon.

"The real responsibility of the government is to ensure that the oil revenues are not just consumed in a quick binge – that's the resource curse," Columbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs said. "This country started out impoverished, war-torn, under a long era of colonial rule, so there's a lot of building to be done."

This year is a critical test for the nation, formally known as Timor-Leste. Gusmao, now prime minister, faces a general election in July and outgoing president and Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta hands over his role this weekend to former army chief Jose Maria Vasconcelos, known by his nom de guerre Taur Matan Ruak. United Nations peacekeepers are scheduled to leave by the end of the year.

Coup attempt

The last time they pulled out, in 2005, was followed a year later by a dispute within the country's military that escalated into an attempted coup and violence across the country that killed 37 people and forced 155,000 people, or 15 percent of the 1.1 million population, from their homes.

"We were on the edge of a civil war, a failing state," said Ramos-Horta, who also survived an assassination attempt by rebels in 2008. "We have to make sure that we have a stable and credible government."

At the heart of East Timor's future are offshore energy deposits that the country needs to wean it off international aid and build an economy before the biggest field currently producing, Bayu-Undan, starts to run dry in about 2023. Extending the revenue stream will require the government to break an impasse with Woodside, which leads a consortium including Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), ConocoPhillips (COP) and Osaka Gas Co. (9532) to develop the larger Sunrise gas field.

Timor Gap

While East Timor gets revenue from the fields under a UN-brokered agreement with Australia, about 500 kilometers (310 miles) to the south, it doesn't control them because they lie partly in a disputed area known as the Timor Gap.

East Timor wants to pipe the gas to a processing plant on its soil that would liquefy the gas for shipment by tanker. Woodside, Australia's second- largest oil and gas producer, and its partners including Royal Dutch Shell Plc, want to use a floating LNG plant.

"By early 2013 we'll reach an agreement," Ramos-Horta said in a May 4 interview in Singapore. "It's in our common interest to develop that area in such a way that's fair, equitable and brings real tangible benefits to our people."

Ramos-Horta said East Timor would consider Woodside's option as long as the company proved it was more economic for both sides and his country will "benefit from downstream activities, such as supply services based on East Timor." Onshore Options

Woodside Chief Executive Officer Peter Coleman said the company is prepared to consider alternatives including locating some production facilities in Australia or East Timor. "I'm hoping 2013 is the year we agree," Coleman said in a May 14 interview in Adelaide.

Sunrise, which was discovered in 1974, a year before Portugal ended two centuries of colonial rule, could produce 4 million metric tons of LNG per year, according to Deutsche Bank. That's worth about $3.2 billion a year at current prices.

East Timor and Australia share royalties from the field 50/50. The project could cost $13.2 billion to develop and would export its first cargo by 2017, analysts at Deutsche Bank said in a May 11 report.

The government appointed State Street Global Advisors to manage its oil fund and said in a March 17 e-mail it plans to increase investment in global stocks by June to as much as $2 billion, or 20 percent of the fund. The MSCI World Index of stocks has since dropped more than 9 percent.

Assets in the fund, all invested in US government bonds until 2009, were $9.9 billion in February.

Rampaging militia

The money is needed to rebuild infrastructure, much of which was destroyed during a rampage by Indonesian militia who burned schools and hospitals and wrecked power pylons across the country in 1999 after the Timorese voted in a referendum to end 24 years of Indonesian occupation.

East Timor's Finance Minister Emilia Pires remembers trying to get through Indonesian immigration before independence.

"I was shaking, so scared," she told bankers and investors in a May 5 presentation in Manila. "I went to the counter and was putting money and more money on top of it as a bribe so I could get through. And the guy looked at me and said no because my name was on the blacklist."

Relations have improved with Indonesia, whose West Timor shares a land border on Timor island. In March 2011 former guerilla fighter Gusmao visited Jakarta, where he spent six years in prison in the 1990s, to sign an agreement that will see the former occupiers help train officials in tourism, trade and education and invest in infrastructure.

Asean Goal

Reconciliation with its neighbor may help East Timor's goal of joining the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in 2013. "We have been very much supported by Indonesia," said Ramos-Horta. "Right now, we're the odd man out in the region."

Meantime, East Timor is trying to use existing oil revenue to help rebuild. The country has adopted the US dollar as its currency, partly shielding it from the resource curse. The government is upgrading about 3,000 kilometers of roads and plans to build two ports in the next five years, Pires said.

"We are investing in basic infrastructure," she said. "No one can do that for us. We have to do it. In four years, we turned the country around. We have grown by double digits in the past four years, and we plan to do that in the next decade."

Still, the country has far to go. In the World Economic Forum's ranking of global competitiveness published in September, East Timor came 131st out of 142, the lowest in Asia. Of the 22 countries in a May 2011 Bloomberg Economic Momentum Index for Developing Asia, a measure of ability to maintain steady and rapid growth over the next five years, East Timor was last.

"There are tremendous challenges ahead and the road is not a smooth one," said Noeleen Heyzer, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok. "They are trying extremely hard to avoid the resources curse. Now, they should be capitalizing on fisheries, agriculture and tourism and not just oil and gas."

East Timor marks 10th anniversary in crucial year

Agence France Presse - May 17, 2012

Meagan Weymes, Dili – Ten years after winning formal independence following a brutal occupation by Indonesia, East Timor is struggling to escape extreme poverty, corruption and an over-reliance on energy revenues.

As the half-island nation of 1.1 million prepares to celebrate Sunday's anniversary, the dusty, potholed streets of its capital Dili are being spruced up to welcome VIP guests including Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Australia's governor-general and Portugal's president.

This is a crucial year for the country also known as Timor-Leste. It will choose a new prime minister and government in general elections on July 7, then at year's end will bid goodbye to UN forces stationed since 1999.

This Saturday, a day before the 10-year anniversary, it also inaugurates a new man in the largely ceremonial post of president with Nobel-laureate Jose Ramos-Horta handing power to his newly elected successor, Taur Matan Ruak.

Ruak is a former armed forces chief and ex-guerrilla fighter who won a run-off election last month that was widely lauded as orderly and fair.

Ameerah Haq, the top UN representative in Dili, said there have been significant improvements for a country that was "building itself from nothing" since the end of Indonesia's 24-year occupation.

"Now you see a country that is far more mature, and (which) has developed greatly in the institutions it has. But I think also what you sense here is people are relaxed and happy," she said.

Francisco Tilman, a 40-year-old customs officer, agrees there has been progress, but says the economy remains a wreck.

"Of course there has been progress in 10 years. The first thing is freedom, then there is education, health, agriculture," he said. "But the problem is unemployment. There are no factories here, nothing."

The International Monetary Fund calls East Timor the "most oil-dependent economy in the world" after the discovery of large fields of oil and natural gas at sea.

Petroleum products account for more than 90 percent of total government revenue. A special fund, geared for development spending now and to cushion the next generation, recently swelled to $10 billion.

La'o Hamutuk, a local non-governmental organisation, says East Timor has a limited amount of oil and gas, and cannot depend on them indefinitely.

"The next government of Timor-Leste will be the last to live in the luxury of oil money, and we would hope whoever comes into office will think a little more seriously about the future," he said, in anticipation of the July polls.

The former Portuguese colony voted for independence in a UN-supervised referendum in 1999, after Indonesia's occupation had left up to 183,000 people dead from fighting, disease and starvation.

The Indonesian military and anti-independence militias went on a savage campaign of retribution after the vote, ravaging the new nation's infrastructure and killing more than 1,000 people. The UN administered East Timor until May 20, 2002, when sovereignty was formally handed to its first president.

Since then the nation has suffered bouts of violence – a political crisis in 2006 killed 37 people and displaced thousands, and Ramos-Horta was lucky to survive an assassination attempt in 2008.

There has been no major political unrest since then, and government spending has increased dramatically in line with East Timor's increased energy income. But the grinding poverty is still visible everywhere.

In Dili, away from the venues for this weekend celebrations, mud canals flood slum neighbourhoods after rains, and barely clothed children play in the streets alongside pigs, chickens and stray dogs.

Infrastructure is limited to a few paved roads, a single port and a tiny airport. There is no local currency – everything runs on US dollars – and opposition politicians say that wealth has been concentrated on a lucky few in Dili.

"If we continue ignoring our rural areas the way we have been doing until today, we're going to be in big trouble," Democratic Party vice-president Lurdes Bessa said.

Graft remains another scourge, with campaigners saying that political rhetoric about clamping down on endemic corruption has failed to translate into action.

But Damien Kingsbury, a politics professor at Australia's Deakin University, says the 10-year anniversary is still an important milestone.

Political parties & elections

Coalitions and alliances

The Dili Weakly - May 21, 2012

Damien Kingsbury – As Timor-Leste heads towards it parliamentary elections, it is increasingly likely that no single party will receive sufficient votes to hold an absolute majority in parliament in its own right.

Despite claims by some parties' leaders about the extent of their impending victory, none is likely in the manner in which it is being touted. As a result, the next government can be expected to be formed through an alliance or coalition of parties.

While the terminology is not the determining factor, within Timor-Leste, it is commonly assumed that a 'coalition' is a political agreement reached between two or more parties prior to an election. An 'alliance', on the other hand, is understood to be where two or more parties enter into a partnership following an election.

The term 'alliance' has particular resonance within Timor-Leste, reflecting Article 106.1 of the Constitution, which specifies that the President must appoint as the Prime Minister either the head of the party that receives the most votes or the head of an alliance of parties that are able to form a majority in parliament.

The idea of a coalition has the immediate appeal of showing voters what sort of political deals their preferred party will make prior to them voting. There is a transparency in this that is not available to post- election deal-making that can form alliances. Coalitions also come to act more like a single party, if with internal factions, which is how most political parties operate in any case.

The advantage of a coalition, tending towards being a larger single party, is that it creates a more stable political environment through consistency of ideological alignment and by helping to consolidate voting around larger blocs rather than a less coherent fracturing of smaller parties. More and smaller parties may represent specific political interests more accurately. But they also tend to become compromised by having to do deals with other parties in order to achieve a degree of political power.

It is also a truism in democratic politics that while a two-party political system can narrow potential political options, it tends to offer voters a fairly clear either/or voting proposition, which in turn implies greater political stability. One need only look at the outcome of the 2012 elections in Greece to see the type of political impasse that can arise when there are a number of smaller parties that are deeply divided over key political issues.

It is such chaotic political circumstances in the past that have led, in Weimar Germany in the 1930s, to an increase in presidential control over the political process, ending up with the suspension of civil liberties and the ascension of a dictator. Similarly, as a consequence of political incoherence in France in the 1950s, it changed its constitution to increase the powers of the president from being largely ceremonial to making the system semi-presidential, with extensive presidential powers for the first years of the transition.

It is unlikely that Timor-Leste will fall into political chaos as a result of its numerous small parties, primarily because it is not facing a major crisis over which the parties do not agree. But the potential for political chaos does remain larger rather than smaller while numerous parties exist.

The reason for Timor-Leste's numerous small parties is its proportional representation political system. This ensures that voters do not feel disenfranchised by being forced to vote for one of a smaller number of larger parties they might not feel political sympathy for. But this system does encourage the existence of more and necessarily smaller parties than is otherwise politically ideal.

The main driver for maintaining a proportional representation system is to ensure that local political control does not consolidate in the hands of local power holders, as is possible under a direct representation system. But the leaders of the smaller parties also have a much greater chance of being elected under a proportional model. This self-interest is also the main driver behind party leaders not wanting to enter into coalitions ahead of elections.

Party leaders believe that if they commit prior to an election, their supporters may come to believe they are not voting for their favourite party but, in effect, from the major party in the coalition. There is an element of accuracy to this assumption.

As part of a pre-arranged coalition, the party leaders would also lose their capacity to bargain for ministerial positions and other influence following an election. So they tend to want to wait and then, they hope, capitalise on their vote.

However, being in a coalition means that the bargaining for post-election position takes place not on the basis of votes, but on the basis of agreement. In 2007, based on the first round presidential election results, the Democratic Party, for example, looked as though it would have a strong bargaining position after the parliamentary elections. However, its vote significantly declined in the parliamentary elections, along with some of its bargaining power.

The real question in 2012 will be, however, not how well presidential representatives did in the first round of voting, but what deals can be offered by the larger parties as they try to bring together a majority of seats in the new parliament. The two, or possibly three, main parties will each have their own agenda which, depending on the final alignment of parties in parliament, will produce very different political outcomes for Timor-Leste.

It may be, as some observers, think, that there will be few surprises arising from the parliamentary elections and that the shape of the next government is relatively predictable. However, numerous smaller parties and the potential for opportunism, shifting loyalties and political revenge, Timor-Leste's political process may yet throw up a surprise outcome.

Timor PM's party under scrutiny over political donations

ABC Radio Australia - May 18, 2012

This weekend, East Timor will see the installation of the new head of state after the recent presidential elections. But it's also facing a parliamentary poll in less the two months time and it looks like it is going to be a tough political fight.

The Global Organisation of Parliamentarians against Corruption in Timor- Leste has referred claims of illegal political donations to the country's Anti-Corruption Commission, Prosecutor-General and the National Election Commission.

Local media have reported Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's party, the CNRT, raised more than $2.5 million in political donations – much of it in apparent violation of Timorese law. The donations have come from a range of local and international companies that have also won large government construction contracts.

Presenter: Bill Bainbridge

Speaker: Fernanda Borges, Chair of GOPAC Timor Leste and the Parliamentary Leader of the oppositon National Unity Party

Borges: The claims are based on a fundraising event that the Prime Minister, Xanana Gusmao, did for his party recently in Timor Leste. They are illegal because these companies are foreign companies or individuals which is by law prohibited to donate political funds or funds to parties. Also included are national companies which also prohibit donations to political parties. Only individuals in Timor Leste are allowed to fund political parties. However the law is quite clear in that they have to provide the funding through bank cheques in order to ensure that companies are not laundering money through the directors to political parties.

Bainbridge: So why is that, why shouldn't companies be able to donate to political parties in East Timor?

Borges: It's in order to prevent corruption. Mr. Gusmao campaigned in 2007 to fight corruption and because of that we have approved the UNTAC Convention, the Convention Against Corruption and since we have been fixing our national laws to prevent corruptions from taking hold. This donation activity by CNRT clearly violates our laws and because of that, the rule of law is not being upheld. This is critical as we celebrate our ten years of anniversary. We need to have the rule of law, everyone upholding the law in Timor Leste in order to have good governance, democracy in place firmly for it to embedded in our society, so that then poverty can be reduced and in the next ten years when we celebrate 20 years again, we will be able to say that the people of Timor Leste have improved the living standards, and no longer live under the poverty line and the oil money which we have now in our coffers have been used, invested to generations and for the well being of the Timorese society that are currently living in Timor Leste.

Bainbridge: But surely the CNRT isn't the only party to have received political donations. I mean do you have the backing of the other parties in the parliament in your calls for an investigation here?

Borges: Well, the issue now is what evidence we have before us. We are calling for an investigation. Previously we questioned Fretilin's donations, assistance that they got for a Congress, for the voting of the Secretary-General, Mari Alkatiri and the President of Fretilin Party, which was seemingly done in this fashion. It was questioned, it was brought to the attention of the authorities. Nothing was done. This was done in the parliamentary forum. Now CNRT is blatantly doing it again. As chair, executive president of GOPAC, Parliamentarians Against Corruption, we cannot sit by and allow these type of action to continue. It will mean that corruption will become endemic.

Bainbridge: You are the chair of GOPAC, but your also a political opponent of the CNRT. Shouldn't you be making these claims more in your role as opposition leader than in your role as a chair of GOPAC?

Borges: I am also making in my role as Opposition leader. I have sent a request to the prosecutor and the Tax Commissioner to invest and what we're asking is investigations. What we've had so far is media reports of that evening, the fundraising event. Now what we need to do is investigate. We need to put in real institutions that work to ensure that the laws are violated. The competent institutions need to investigate. As a politician, I have done my duty, I have raised it public attention, I have taken it up and have asked for an investigation. I have also verified the laws and they're in clear violation. Now what needs to happen is a clear investigation.

Bainbridge: Are the other parties backing you in that though? Is Fretilin behind you in this push?

Borges: Well, it's difficult for Fretilin. As I mentioned earlier, Fretilin also carried out a fundraising event similar that late, late last year to fund their Congress, so they're a particular bind at the moment and PD, the President of PD, which just happens to be the president of the parliament has made a statement that he considers this to be corruption. But I've discussed it with them. They're not willing to come forward publicly and make this announcement. We cannot stand by my party and watch corruption take hold, particularly I am conscious of my moral role as a parliamentarian against corruption and particularly because of my specific role as president. I need to report this and I need to take it forward and ask for investigation. If the investigation proves that nothing and no violation took place, then that's fine. But a competent authorities need to now investigate. We have set them up for this purpose and we need to ask them to do their work in order to give the Timorese the comfort that corruption is not being encouraged by politicians and by parties.

Bainbridge: If it does find that a violation has taken place, what kind of penalties apply?

Borges: There are strict penalties in the political financing laws. It's very clear there. Leaders of political parties, individuals, or managers of corporations or companies who breach these laws or rules face a penalty of six months to years imprisonment or a fine of $500 to $5,000. This is Article 23 of our legal regime for the financing of political parties, law number six/2008. In addition to that, there is also our penal code. There are various clauses in the penal code which prohibit this kind of activity on corruption, so naturally the prosecutor will have to investigate with the Anti-Corruption Commission and justify what charges will be appropriate.

At this stage, we're asking for an investigation, because it is clearly in violation of the political financing laws in this case at the moment.

East Timor 'ready for generational change'

ABC News - May 17, 2012

East Timor's new president says the 10th anniversary of his country's independence from Indonesia is a time for generational change.

Taur Matan Ruak was elected after a run-off vote on April 16, defeating another former independence fighter, Francisco Guterres "Lu Olo", from the opposition Fretilin party.

Incumbent president Jose Ramos-Horta, who won the Nobel peace prize for his role in the country's independence campaign, was eliminated in the first round.

Mr Ruak, a former general, has told Australia Network's Newsline that while the current generation of leaders saw the country through transition, it is time for younger people to take the reins of power.

"My election as the president of the republic is proof of this change. I belong to the generation immediately after Xanana Gusmao, Jose Ramos Horta and Mari Alkatari," he said.

"It's interesting that the two candidates in the run-off presidential election belong to this post-1940s generation. Soon there is going to be the opportunity to show that the team that will support me in my presidential duties is young and ready to serve the people and the country."

The president plays little role in policymaking but is seen as vital to promoting stability in the country. Mr Ruak says he sees the role as providing a focus and objectives for the East Timorese people and government.

"Our constitution gives details of the power and the competencies of the president," he said. "If they are entirely understood, and rightly exercised, such powers influential in a decisive way in the dialogue between every arm of the state, as well as other organisations, both political and in civil society."

Mr Ruak comes to power facing the challenge of tackling high unemployment, poverty and a lack of infrastructure. "One of the thoughts that came to me on May 20, 2002 – when we declared the restoration of our independence – was, 'now the work begins'," he said.

"The struggle for liberation was easy when compared to the building of the state. What I want to say is that we have been all learning. We are a secular state, we are a very young state and we're all committed to working hard to guarantee a better life for our people.

"A decade has now passed since that day. This is now the time to plan and get people united around objectives that we all agree on and can work hard towards."

Labour & migrant workers

Police arrest 84 in East Timor May Day protest

Agence France Presse - May 1, 2012

Police in the East Timorese capital Dili fired warning shots and arrested 84 people to disperse some 500 May Day protesters calling for higher wages on Tuesday, police and a witness said.

Police said they were forced to intervene after protesters began hurling stones and marching to a nearby hotel where some staff had recently been laid off. Three policemen and a private security guard were injured, police said.

"It was an illegal demonstration because by law any demonstration needs permission four days in advance," said Dili District Police Commander Pedro Belo.

"When we tried to explain they didn't want to listen and threw stones at the police and our vehicles. We've arrested 84 people – nine females and the rest males," he said.

"Three policemen and one private security guard were injured. Two vehicles were damaged and seven windows broken," he added. A witness said the protesters were calling for higher wages.

The half-island nation of 1.1 million, which this month celebrates a decade of formal independence from Indonesia, ranks as one of the world's poorest countries. It is labeled by the International Monetary Fund as the "most oil-dependent economy in the world", relying on a petroleum fund that reached $10 billion this year.

Refugees & asylum seekers

SBY wants action on Timorese refugees

Jakarta Globe - May 19, 2012

Fitri & Arientha Primanita, Mataram – President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered the acceleration of development in the impoverished province of East Nusa Tenggara, particularly for those people who fled East Timor following its independence from Indonesia in 1999.

Yudhoyono said on Friday that he recently visited Oebelo, a village in Kupang, the provincial capital, where many refugees resettled and which is now wracked by poverty and unemployment.

"By 2014, I want all existing problems to be solved. [The refugees] must have somewhere to live, because they have inhabited the area since 1999 with little money," the president said.

Officials have built 2,000 out of a proposed 5,600 homes for East Timor refugees who fled to Indonesia, with the remainder scheduled to be built this year. The Public Housing Ministry plans to build an additional 2,200 homes for the refugees but has given no details as to when the project will be completed.

Several groups have estimated that between 10,000 and 20,000 East Timorese reside in the Indonesian part of Timor Island, including 5,000 still living in temporary shelters and impoverished conditions.

Yudhoyono will make a working visit to East Timor today and Sunday, according to Teuku Faizasyah, a presidential spokesman on international relations.

"The visit of President Yudhoyono is in the framework of the commemoration of Timor Leste's 10th anniversary. We hope that it will strengthen the friendship and bilateral cooperation between Indonesia and Timor Leste," he said.

He added the visit was at the invitation of East Timor Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. Relations between Indonesia and the former Portuguese colony – which was under Indonesian control from 1976 to 1999 – have been based on a forward-looking approach, Faizasyah said.

Yudhoyono is scheduled to hold a meeting today with Jose Ramos-Horta, the outgoing president, as well as meet with Gusmao and witness the signing of several memoranda of understanding between the two governments.

On Sunday, he is scheduled to attend the inauguration of president-elect Jose Maria Vasconcelos. Yudhoyono is also scheduled to visit the Santa Cruz cemetery, where Indonesian troops shot into a crowd of peaceful pro- independence demonstrators in 1991, killing at least 250 East Timorese.

[Additional reporting from AFP.]

Graft & corruption

Corruption claims sour Timor party

Sydney Morning Herald - May 20, 2012

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – The East Timorese political party headed by Prime Minister and former guerilla leader Xanana Gusmao has been accused of corruptly raising hundreds of thousands of dollars in political donations, as Mr Gusmao leads this weekend's celebrations marking the 10th anniversary of his country's independence.

Several companies that reportedly pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars for the election campaign of Mr Gusmao's CNRT party have been awarded lucrative government contracts in the past.

But as dignitaries including Australian Governor-General Quentin Bryce arrived in Dili for today's celebrations, Mr Gusmao hit back at his accusers, saying the promises of money by East Timorese and Indonesian companies at a recent fund-raising dinner were "fictitious... more show than real".

Mr Gusmao told The Sunday Age that his party, one of five in the ruling coalition, faced difficult elections in July and needed to raise money. "If that is corruption then I think political parties around the world are going to find it very hard to continue to do their work," he said. Conceding that East Timor had made mistakes, he said "we are going to correct them and move on".

A multi-party committee of politicians, including some from ruling coalition parties, has called on the country's Anti-Corruption Commission, the Office of Prosecutor-General and the National Election Commission to investigate the fund-raising.

Fernanda Borges, chairwoman of the 13-member Global Organisation of Parliamentarians Against Corruption in Timor-Leste, said the reported donations "appear to be a clear breach of laws that the current government introduced to prevent corruption".

Ms Borges, leader of the small National Unity Party, said: "Unlawful donations to political parties pose a serious threat to the democracy that we have fought so hard to protect. "As we prepare to celebrate 10 years as an independent nation, it is critical that the law is upheld and that these claims are investigated."

Under East Timor's laws, political parties are prohibited from receiving donations from local companies. Leaders of political parties, individuals or managers of corporations who breach the laws face up to two years in jail or fines.

East Timorese media have published a list of companies and individuals who reported pledged donations totalling $2.6 million at the fund-raising event, which Mr Gusmao hosted. He said the allegations against his party were "politically motivated".

Police & law enforcement

East Timor police in the firing line as UN exits

Agence France Presse - May 22, 2012

Dili – With UN peacekeepers set to leave East Timor at the end of the year, local police are striving to shed a reputation for rough justice as the nation learns to fend for itself 10 years on from independence.

Every day at 8:00 am, Carlos Almedia Jeronimo Sousa inspects a class of recruits at the East Timorese police academy, the first to go into training without the support of UN forces.

In less than a year the 250 recruits, chosen from more than 9,000 applicants, will join the 3,100-strong police force, which celebrated its 12th birthday in March last year, just as it took over policing duties from the UN.

"We are ready," declared Almeida, who heads the academy, after inspecting cadets who line up for him in complete silence every morning in crisp uniforms with hands clasped at the back. He pointed to the peaceful conduct of East Timor's presidential election last month.

The run-off winner, former army chief Taur Matan Ruak, said Sunday that the former Portuguese colony was becoming "a state under the rule of law".

Ruak was speaking as East Timor celebrated 10 years of formal independence, following a period of UN administration after its bloody separation from Indonesian occupation in 1999, when UN peacekeepers first arrived.

The current UN deployment – the United Nations Integrated Mission in East Timor – came in 2006, after a political crisis in which dozens were killed and tens of thousands displaced, with a mandate to restore security.

The only major major violence since then was a 2008 failed assassination attempt on Jose Ramos-Horta, the Nobel laureate president who on Saturday handed power to Ruak.

The next big test is on July 7, when East Timorese elect a new prime minister and government in general elections.

Ameerah Haq, the top UN representative in the capital Dili, has said that if the elections go well, the remaining 1,280 UN peacekeepers will be able to pull out as planned at the end of this year.

Despite bountiful oil and natural gas off its coasts, East Timor remains hobbled by extreme poverty and corruption. The challenge for the fledgling police force is to administer justice impartially, and professionally.

On the lawn of the police academy's training ground, the cadets are divided into small groups to simulate the arrest of a violent suspect.

The practical training of these youngsters – they are aged from 18 to 22 – began two weeks ago and will last for the next six months. Their gestures are still hesitant as they rehearse disarming and arresting the suspect.

"It's good that they train like this. Usually here the police do anything they want," said Sejanto da Silva, a 27-year-old social worker. "Lawful or not, they don't care. They catch you and they hit you for no reason. They are not yet developed," he said, sitting in a cafe in Dili.

While UN peacekeepers still carry out patrols, security enforcement has been entirely in the hands of local police for more than a year.

Damien Kingsbury, an expert on East Timor at Australia's Deakin University, said there was "still a relatively high level of police impunity", particularly in the rural areas outside Dili.

"But the police, while a bit rough, are generally not sadistic and not heavily involved in organised crime," he said. "The law and order situation in Timor-Leste (East Timor) is pretty good, although some people are still learning that they need to take their disputes through more formal channels."

Haq, the UN secretary general's special representative for East Timor, said that the police force had come a long way, but still needed time to improve.

"I think PNTL has developed a lot of its capacity since we started this mission (in 2006)," Haq told AFP, using the Portuguese acronym for the National Police of Timor-Leste.

"Does that mean that PNTL is an absolutely top-notch police force if you compare it to countries that have existed for 100 or 200 years? Absolutely not. An institution is not built in 10 years," she added.

About 20 burly officers from the National Republican Guard of Portugal are helping with the training.

"The goal is to improve skills, to have a police force better and stronger in all areas," said Captain Luis Candeias, a Portuguese officer who teaches ethics in law enforcement.

"It is not only about technical and professional training," he said. "One must also work on their mentality, so that they manage to win the confidence of the Timorese people."

Foreign affairs & trade

A decade after independence, East Timor's surprising best friend? Indonesia

Christian Science Monitor - May 24, 2012

Edward Rees – Last weekend, a number of uniformed Indonesian military officers were lounging about the Dili Beach Hotel drinking coffee, laughing, and shooting pool.

That would have been a shocking sight a decade ago, when tiny East Timor (Timor-Leste) was still crawling out of the ashes of a scorched-earth withdrawal by Indonesian forces after a 24-year military occupation.

But now, Indonesians are practically everywhere you look in East Timor, never more so than this past weekend, when the soldiers were just the advance team for the star of the show: A beaming Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who attended the country's 10-year independence anniversary as a guest of new President Taur Matan Ruak.

As Asia's youngest and poorest state enters a new era, it's doing so with its old foe Indonesia as a crucial partner – a once unthinkable proposition after the war crimes committed in 1999. But what was once unthinkable is now a necessity, and no one knows that more than President Ruak, a former guerrilla commander whose forces were once hunted by a younger Yudhoyono, when he was a battalion commander here.

Indonesia is home to 240 million people and continues to hold the western half of Timor Island. For East Timor's 1 million people, it is both a potential source of capital, expertise, diplomatic assistance – and trouble, as the recent past makes all too clear.

Trouble is the last thing East Timor wants again. East Timor has occasionally tottered in the 13 years since its independence referendum and the 10 since the UN, which administered the country in its most ambitious nation-building effort, returned full sovereignty. In the years after the referendum, Indonesia permitted cross-border raids by militias. In 2006, a civil war was averted by the return of Australian troops and a new UN peacekeeping mission.

New money

Since 2008, East Timor has undergone a dramatic transformation, powered by new oil wealth and the rapidly evolving relationship with Indonesia. In 2005 Timor-Leste's annual national budget was $200 million. Today, it's a staggering $1.7 billion, thanks to oil production in the Timor Sea, which has swollen the coffers of the government's Petroleum Fund to nearly $11 billion.

The money has provided the self-confidence and the means whereby the Timorese can reengage with Indonesia and the country is awash with Indonesian contractors and businesses. Armed with skills and capital, they renovate the homes of the new Dili elite, build bridges and extend the power grid into the mountains.

They're also making their mark at the bottom rung of the economy. Groups of young Javanese laborers are now seen all over the country. Easy oil money has many Timorese unwilling to work for wages, and the underemployed of East Java frequently beat the skills and wage demands of those who will.

All this has created ferocious economic growth, although not changes in the skills or positions of the workforce. GDP has expanded by more than 7 percent a year since 2007, but has come at the price of dramatic inflation, growing corruption, and a widening gap between rich and poor.

Humvees and BMWs are the vehicles of choice for the nouveau riche in Dili. Timorese and Indonesians huddle everywhere making deals. Rich wives sport Louis Vuitton handbags, their husbands', flashy gold watches. This new class seeks medical care in Surabaya and Singapore, and they pay cash.

But there are concerns that Dili's oil bubble is dangerously unsustainable, with much of the money stolen or wasted. The economy is now 95 percent oil-reliant, yet the petrodollars may dry up as early as 2022. Time is short, and the list of needs is long.

The road network is crumbling, reliable electricity supply remains elusive, and the majority of the population remains subsistence farmers who earn less than a dollar a day and survive on what they grow.

Indonesia at the center

President Ruak will be guiding a National Development Plan that projects that East Timor will become a middle-income country in the next generation. That ambitious goal has Indonesia at its center.

The occupation, generations of intermarriage, and geographical proximity are the foundations for the expanding relationship. Some 6,000 Timorese are studying everything from human rights to chemical engineering at Indonesian universities.

Believing that integration into the region is critical, the Timorese have made a bid to join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Singapore blocked the move last year, but the Timorese have Indonesia in their corner on the bid. As the largest member of the group, Indonesia carries a lot of weight.

And ties to the once-hated Indonesian security establishment have been expanding. Last year, Indonesia's Gen. Tri Sutrisno (ret.) attended a ceremony with senior military officials to commemorate the founding of FALINTIL, the independence army that fought Indonesia for almost 20 years. Sutrisno presided over the 1992 capture of Timorese independence hero Xanana Gusmao, who became East Timor's first president and is the current prime minister.

The youthful Julio Pinto, currently secretary of State for defense, arranged that visit, and he represents one vision for the future. Mr. Pinto has warm relations with the Indonesian defense and security establishment and was educated in Indonesia, where he converted to Islam. He's also the nephew of Ruak.

The military ties have left many Timorese uncomfortable. Many complain that no Indonesian military officers have ever been tried for the crimes against humanity for which the UN indicted them in 2003. While the lack of justice remains a sore point, the official stance in Dili is that Timorese must allow Indonesia to reform at its own pace, and that they are in no position to press the issue. Washington, London, Canberra, and Tokyo are also mute on the matter.

Since Sutrisno's visit, a wide array of joint defense and security initiatives has been under discussion. At the independence commemoration, and with Yudhoyono looking on, Ruak appeared to call for a formal military alliance to "safeguard the security... and well being of our peoples."

With general elections planned for July 7, Prime Minister Gusmao seeks to continue his program of rapid and dramatic reconstruction of East Timor. He is counting on Indonesia's help. In a recent fundraiser for his National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction Party, more than $2.5 million was raised to support his reelection campaign, of which 25 percent came from Indonesian companies heavily involved in rebuilding East Timor's infrastructure.

Australia acted nobly on East Timor: Howard

Australian Associated Press - May 18, 2012

Lisa Martin – On the eve East Timor's decade anniversary of independence former Prime Minister John Howard has reflected Australia's involvement was one of its more noble appearances on the international stage.

Mr Howard said he considered Australia's role in East Timor's independence one of his greatest legacies.

"It's got problems, it's got governance issues but it's free... I'm very proud of the role of Australia played in bringing that about," he told SBS TV. "It's one of the more noble things Australia has done on the international front for many years."

Mr Howard was heavily involved at a personal level. He said the fact Australia, Indonesia's nearest neighbour, had argued that East Timor should be given greater autonomy was a "catalyst" internationally.

However, for a quarter of a century Australia governments turned a blind eye to human rights abuses in East Timor following the Indonesian invasion. "Governments on both sides of politics put relations with Jakarta ahead of anything else when it came to East Timor, I acknowledge that," he said.

East Timor, a half-island nation with a population of 1.1 million, broke away from Indonesia and won formal independence in 2002. Indonesia's occupation of East Timor came to an end in 1999 following the resignation of Indonesian dictator Suharto.

His successor B J Habbie allowed East Timor to have a self-determination referendum, under UN auspices. Militia thugs used terror tactics to intimidate people into voting for continued union.

Australia led an international peacekeeping mission to help restore security. Australia sent 5500 peacekeepers under the command of Major General Peter Cosgrove.

Asked if Australia should have acted pre-emptively on intelligence the Indonesian militia was going to react badly to news of the referendum Mr Howard said he had done his best.

"The idea of sending in troops before, amounts to an invasion and that's ludicrous," he said, adding Australia needed Indonesia's permission and the UN mandate.

Mr Howard had asked Mr Habbie to allow peacekeepers in ahead of the referendum but had been refused because the Indonesians consider that a violation of the sovereignty.

East Timor is one of the poorest countries in the Asia-Pacific and its efforts to lift itself out of poverty are tied to the Greater Sunrise gas field in the Timor Sea which has an estimated $100 billion in oil and gas reserves.

Australia and East Timor are to share the spoils 50-50. However many in East Timor feel Australia has ripped them off.

Mr Howard denied playing hardball with Dili over the dividing up of the maritime assets. He said the deal struck was fair and balanced.

"I thought we were quite generous, we agreed with most of the East Timorese demands," he said. "We had obligations to Australia's future as well as East Timor's."

Australia's Woodside Petroleum is in an ongoing dispute with the East Timor government over the gas plant. Dili wants the gas piped and processed onshore to create local jobs while Woodside wants to use a floating hub and argues the pipeline is too expensive to build.

East Timor's president-elect hopeful for good ties with Australia

ABC Radio Australia - May 17, 2012

This weekend, East Timor's president-elect will be sworn in to office as the country celebrates ten years since its formal independence from Indonesia. East Timor's president-elect hopeful for good ties with Australia (Credit: ABC)

The former military chief Taur Matan Ruak comes to office at a time when East Timor faces major economic challenges. He's hopeful about East Timor's future and his country's relationship with Australia.

Correspondent: Sara Everingham

Speaker: Taur Matan Ruak, East Timor's president-elect

Sara Everingham: Taur Matan Ruak was a key figure in the armed resistance to Indonesian occupation. He's told Australia Network's Newsline program East Timor has come a long way since independence.

Taur Matan Ruak (translated): East Timor has everything it takes to be a rich, strong and prosperous country.

Sara Everingham: East Timor has revenues flowing from oil and gas reserves and it's just announced its petroleum fund has reached $US10 billion – but 40 per cent of people in East Timor live in poverty.

Taur Matan Ruak (translated): Fighting for our liberation was "easy" in inverted commas, that is to say that we have all been learning. We are not a 100 year-old state, we are a young state where all have been committed to hard work and to guarantee a better life for our people.

Sara Everingham: When it comes to the relationship with Australia Taur Matan Ruak says he is confident the two countries could resolve any differences over shared oil and gas projects in the Timor Sea.

Taur Matan Ruak (translated): Australia has been an unwavering neighbour and friend of Timor Leste. I truly believe that dialogue can get both countries through with an agreement.

Sara Everingham: But it's East Timor's government rather than the president that's responsible for those negotiations.

Yesterday in Dili the prime minister Xanana Gusmao unveiled a small piece of European-built piping as a symbol of the government's push to develop the multi-billion dollar Greater Sunrise gas field on East Timor's terms.

(Sound of champagne cork popping and cheering)

Negotiations over how to process gas from Greater Sunrise have stalled.

The Australian-based operator Woodside wants to build a floating LNG processing plant above the field at sea. But East Timor wants the gas piped to a plant on the country's south coast for onshore processing.

Under an agreement between Australia and East Timor the revenue from the Greater Sunrise field will be split between the two countries. But if there is no deal on how to develop the field by next year either country can cancel the agreement.

Government talks carbon tax with East Timor

Australian Associated Press - May 4, 2012

The federal government is in discussions with East Timor about carbon price liabilities for gas companies which operate in the Timor Sea.

East Timor has raised concerns it could lose millions of dollars from revenues from the offshore natural gas fields it shares with Australia. Facilities that emit more than 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year will be liable to pay the carbon tax.

Climate Change Minister Greg Combet said the issues were being worked through at a government-to-government level. Mr Combet was not involved in the talks but said they were underway.

But he said there was plenty of time to resolve the question. "The regulator won't be selling the permits... until about April next year, even though the mechanism starts on the first of July," he told reporters in Canberra.

"Companies won't be acquitting those permits for the first time until around June 2013."

Mr Combet said it was likely entities involved in the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry would be liable for the carbon tax but ultimately the regulator would determine that.

Mining & energy

East Timor unveils disputed gas field pipeline

ABC News - May 16, 2012

Liam Cochrane, Dili – The government in East Timor has shown off a European-built pipeline which it says can be used to send natural gas to the country from the disputed Greater Sunrise Field off the north-west coast of Australia.

East Timor and Australian company Woodside have been in a long-running dispute about how to process gas from the field, which is estimated to be worth tens of billions of dollars.

Prime minister Xinanhua Gusmao unveiled the short section of pipe outside the parliament in front of government leaders and foreign development partners.

The pipe is only a few metres long, but secretary of state and natural resources Alfredo Pirez says it symbolises the country's commitment to build a refinery in East Timor.

The Greater Sunrise project is operated by Woodside, which favours a floating conversion facility. There was no comment from the Australian ambassador at the launch and Mr Pirez says talks with Woodside are continuing.

People

From unlikely undercover agent to East Timor's first lady

Christian Science Monitor - May 24, 2012

Kate Hodal – Young, blonde, and Australian, she was an unlikely undercover agent for an unlikely cause: a far-flung province on a Southeast Asian island that had been in a bloody fight for independence for more than two decades.

Most of her colleagues were either guerrilla soldiers fighting Indonesian troops in the jungle-thicketed hills of their native East Timor, or resistance leaders serving life sentences in prison in Jakarta.

From her apartment in the Indonesian capital, however, Kirsty Sword Gusmao – who worked as a human rights activist by day and as Ruby Blade, her nom-de-guerre, by night – was a key element in the eventual success of the underground Timorese movement that become the cause-celhbre among Western outsiders in the mid-1990s on the heels of a bloody massacre.

Working as a courier shuttling correspondence between guerrillas, Ms. Sword Gusmao also facilitated asylum applications, lobbied for international media coverage, and acted as personal secretary to the leader of the resistance, Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao, who was serving a life term in Cipinang prison in Jakarta.

"Most evenings, I would have Timorese knocking on my door," Sword Gusmao explains from the home she shares with her now-husband Xanana and their three boys in Dili, East Timor's dusty, village-like capital of roughly 250,000 that overlooks a turquoise bay framed by palm-fringed hills.

"They were either in trouble or the military was coming after them, or they needed help getting out of the country, or a human rights report that needed translating and safely e-mailed out of the country."

Her relationship with Xanana began as furtively as her work in the resistance. Smuggling in English grammar lessons and document translations to his Jakarta prison cell, Sword Gusmao also managed to smuggle in video cameras, laptops, and cellphones – materials that greatly helped Xanana's capacity to undermine Indonesia's hold over East Timor.

Xanana was released from prison in 1999 and, after serving as the country's first president in 2002, was elected prime minister in 2007.

"Kirsty has greatly understood my personal limitations and obligations, and without her, my life would have been very difficult," says Xanana today from his office in the colonnaded Government Palace.

The new struggle

It has been 10 years since East Timor finally declared independence from Indonesia after a UN-brokered peace deal three years earlier. Sword Gusmao has transitioned from helping the nation fight for independence to fighting for women's rights – keeping with her the resistance movement's motto "a luta continua" (the struggle goes on).

Through the Alola Foundation, a women's empowerment organization that she founded in 2001, Sword Gusmao has lobbied for greater gender equality by establishing literacy, advocacy, economic development, and maternal and children's health programs. One of the foundation's greatest successes, she says, has been helping to secure a 2010 law criminalizing domestic violence.

While considerable improvements have been made since independence, the challenges still facing this nation of 1.1 million are vast. Only 2 in 5 homes have electricity, more than 40 percent of the country lives on less than $1 a day, youth unemployment is a staggeringly high 70 percent, and domestic violence is rampant, affecting nearly one-third of women older than 15, according to government statistics. More than 1 in 2 women suffer from domestic abuse in the capital alone.

"The law is a great step forward and awareness among the public has greatly improved that domestic violence is a crime – and a barrier to development, and to women's health and well-being," Sword Gusmao says. "But we still have a long way to go in terms of providing our law-enforcement agencies with the tools to be able deal with it adequately, and we need more and better women's shelters, and legal and other services for women who have survived domestic violence."

Come a long way

Activists point to a long and brutal history of colonization as one reason for the violence and trauma that still scar Timorese society.

After nearly 500 years of Portuguese rule, East Timor became an independent state in 1975, only to be bloodily annexed one week later by Indonesia. During the 24-year takeover, one-third of the Timorese population died from famine, violence, and disease.

Uprisings were routinely stamped out, demonstrators forcibly disappeared and the tortured, headless bodies of activists dumped around villages served as macabre threats to those hoping to for an end to foreign rule.

The mass shooting of at least 250 pro-democracy demonstrators in the capital in 1991 thrust the country into world view and helped its fight for self-rule become an international cause.

When East Timor finally voted for independence in a 1999 referendum, Indonesian troops ransacked the country, destroying essential documents, burning down private homes and public buildings, and sending thousands of Timorese into the relative safety of the hills. "The country was smoldering. The population was traumatized," Sword Gusmao sighs. "Rebuilding from scratch has been no easy task."

New documentary on Sword Gusmao

"Behind her gentle facade, she has a steely determination," says British documentary filmmaker Peter Gordon, who hired Sword Gusmao in East Timor as a researcher for a 1991 Yorkshire Television documentary on the country. He says that at the time, "everywhere we filmed, [Sword Gusmao] seemed to embrace and be embraced by all those she had contact with."

Despite being the subject of two new films – Peter Gordon's second documentary on East Timor, "Bloodshot: The Dreams and Nightmares of East Timor," and the feature documentary "Alias Ruby Blade" – Sword Gusmao plays down her contribution.

"A lot of people think what I did was terribly dangerous and terribly intriguing, but really it's what you do when you're a human rights activist, you've got a conscience and you're able to do something."

Not all her work has been free of controversy: She's recently come under fire for spearheading a pilot education program for children during an election year for her husband.

Sword Gusmao is hopeful for the future, pointing to legislation requiring one-third of all seats in parliament to be reserved for women, improvements in maternal and children's health, and great reductions in infant mortality rates.

"Expectations have been huge, not just among ordinary citizens but policymakers and leaders of the country as well – everyone has been impatient for change to come," she says. "But I think what we have managed to achieve is commendable and a cause for celebration."

Balibo 5

East Timor medal for a slain son honours an Australian mother

Melbourne Age - May 27, 2012

Paul Stewart – My mother has had one contact from the Australian federal government in the 37 years since my brother, Tony Stewart, was murdered at Balibo in East Timor.

"A week after official confirmation of his death in 1975 with four other newsmen, an official from Foreign Affairs rang and said: 'Do you know you will have to pay for the body to be returned to Australia?' and then he hung up," she told me this week.

That's it. In all those years since Gough Whitlam was prime minister, an Australian leader has never once made contact.

Nowadays, a young Australian is arrested in Indonesia on drug charges and the prime minister is on the phone offering their family support and financial assistance.

This total lack of respect and compassion from Australian political leaders makes the recent decision by outgoing East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta to award Tony Stewart a Presidential Merit of Honour medal all the sweeter.

Tony Stewart and the four other journalists murdered at Balibo – Gary Cunningham, Greg Shackleton, Malcolm Rennie and Brian Peters – are now considered by the East Timorese as real heroes of their independence struggle.

The President called me into his office in Dili earlier this month to give the award to Mum because he heard she was not travelling so well and he wanted to give her this honour before he left office.

She appreciated his gesture: "I am so thrilled that at the time when they are celebrating 10 years of independence and freedom the East Timorese have included Tony among those who made this happen."

My mum is a pretty special person in that she never once spoke of hatred for the Indonesian troops that killed her boy or the Australian prime ministers who neglected the Stewarts.

"They are more to be pitied than scorned," she would often say. "The Indonesians were all probably just boys taken from their mothers and conscripted into the army."

Rather than complain at the lack of recognition from most Australian politicians, Mum has been quick to concentrate on that given by former Victorian premier Steve Bracks.

"Steve and his wonderful wife, Terry, were there with all the family members of the Balibo Five after his Victorian government bought the house where the journalists were killed to open as a community centre for the locals in 2003. "He stood with us all up there at Balibo and I will forever remember that."

President Ramos-Horta, whom I first met in his bow tie with his battered suitcase in the St Kilda flat of an independence activist in 1986 (where he was sleeping on the couch) has always felt guilty about the "Balibo Five". "I often think I should have tried harder to convince them to leave before the Indonesians came," he has often said to me.

Despite the fact he was busy handing over to newly elected East Timorese President Taur Matan Ruak, Ramos-Horta was thinking about Mum before he departed. Also keen for her to get the presidential medal were several influential East Timorese women leaders, Emilia and Palmira Pires, Vicky Chong and Maria Carrascalao Heard. I first met these women at a backyard barbecue in Broadmeadows in the mid-'80s, where we all sat around dreaming of the impossible – East Timorese independence.

Emilia is now East Timor's Finance Minister, Palmira is director of the East Timor Development Agency, Vicky is East Timorese ambassador to China, and former SBS journalist Maria is press secretary for Foreign Minister Zacarias Da Costa. Despite losses in their own families, all felt for Mum, who lost her 21-year-old boy in the invasion of their country.

Mum's story will soon be featured in a new Melbourne Theatre Company production written by my cousin Aidan Fennessey that opens on June 11. National Interest is his version of events. Julia Blake plays Mum.

Another great thing that happened on my recent visit to East Timor was that Melbourne Catholic bishop Hilton Deakin insisted on visiting the Alma Nuns at the humble house in Dili where they look after disabled children. I first met the nuns while in Dili working on the soundtrack for the Balibo movie. I was told they looked after the "lowest of the low" and were desperate for more support.

For his fearless and tireless support of East Timor over decades, Bishop Deakin was also awarded a presidential medal. It was his 34th visit to the former Portuguese colony.

I remember seeing him at a service in Suai in the aftermath of a bloody massacre in the church there in 1999 when the Indonesians pulled out after the overwhelming majority of the population voted for independence. A group of soldiers was standing near some women who were obviously terrified by their presence. The bishop, in full attire, walked over and told the soldiers in no uncertain terms to "piss off", which they did.

Check out "Work of the Alma Nuns In East Timor" on YouTube and consider donating to their school.

Analysis & opinion

Timor-Leste: 10 years of independence

Deaken Speaking - May 19, 2012

Damien Kingsbury – On Sunday 20 May, East Timor will celebrate ten years of independence. As a nation born from the ashes of destruction, its first decade has been marked by problems and set-backs. Many in East Timor, not least its outgoing president, Jose Ramos-Horta, lament a lack of development since independence. Ramos-Horta notes that the international community has spent billions of dollars in East Timor, yet most East Timorese remain amongst the world's poorest people.

But a little over a year ago, Ramos-Horta said that the country had never been better. The question is, in part, whether the metaphorical glass is half empty or half full. It is also, in part, whether the speaker – in this case Ramos-Horta – had a political score to settle. In early 2011, Ramos-Horta was still firmly in Gusmao's political tent. A year later, he is an ex-president outside that tent.

Many East Timorese have also been disappointed with independence. With independence came statistical indicators – and a reality – that showed East Timorese people amongst the most underprivileged in the world. A recent report noted that, as a result of malnutrition, most East Timorese children suffered from stunted growth.

But East Timorese people have always been critically poor, and the situation getting worse before it gets better is an almost universal post- independence phenomenon. Unsurprisingly, rising popular frustration ran up against limited government capacity. The 2006 result, as it has been in many other newly independent countries, was chaos.

Since then, however, a democratic change of government coincided with rising oil receipts and developing local capacity has seen its key development indicators vastly improve. Infant and maternal mortality rates have been cut in half and literacy has increased along with average incomes and life expectancies.

If East Timorese children do have stunted growth, they are much less likely to die of starvation. But East Timor still has many challenges ahead of it, the biggest of which is the sustainable management of its $10 billion plus oil fund. It is this – and realistically only this – that will underpin the economy into the indefinite future.

However, the oil fund is being spent at well beyond a sustainable capacity. The government argues this spending is necessary to boost infrastructure development and skills and, in effect, buy off problems such as high unemployment. But there is the very real risk that spending will not produce the desired outcomes, will promote corruption and will eventually leave the country broke.

Ten years on from independence, East Timor has two saving graces. One is that while the UN and the Australian-led peacekeepers are due to leave at the end of the year, the international community remains committed to East Timor's longer term success.

But, most importantly, the people of East Timor have embraced the idea that they can determine their own affairs. It is this commitment to regularising and further embedding political accountability, evident in the election process that is coinciding with its 10th anniversary, which gives East Timor the best chance for the future.

Consolidating democracy

The Dili Weekly - May 9, 2012

Damien Kingsbury – As Timor-Leste moves towards marking the 10th anniversary of its independence and completing the third round of its national elections, the question arises as to whether it has consolidated its democracy.

The assumption is that consolidating democracy is a necessary step towards ending internal conflict and regularising the affairs of the state. But, the second question is, when one talks about consolidating democracy, what they mean by the term?

Having three sets of elections at regular intervals is certainly a good sign of democratic consolidation in Timor-Leste. Yet elections alone do not comprise democracy. Indonesia had regular elections between 1977 and 1997 under its New Order government, yet it was very far from being a democratic state at that time. It is not enough to have the formal procedure of democracy; one also requires the substance, if the term is to have meaning.

In simple terms, the substance of democracy is when the government not only represents the free choice of the majority of voters but also acts in the interests of all citizens, basing its policies on the choice of the majority but not to the exclusion of a minority. To ensure this, the government should be accountable to the citizens of the state, through the already noted regular elections, an independent electoral body, a separate and independent judiciary and other balancing institutions such as an ombudsman or anti-corruption commission, and responsive state agencies.

Timor-Leste scores well on the institutional scale, having both a National Electoral Commission and a Technical Secretariat for Electoral Administration (even if the two do sometimes compete with each other) and a strongly developing Anti-Corruption Commission. Even Timor-Leste's judiciary is beginning to develop well, if having had a slow start and still struggling with the country's multiplicity of languages.

It is a truism that justice is delivered in a language that cannot be directly understood then it is, in effect, unavailable. The issue of language remains vexed for the country, in a range of ways. Having the judicial process conducted in a language that a small minority of the population can understand, much less its legal complexity, militates against access to the judicial process.

So, too, the access to justice in the districts is limited, particularly outside district capitals, and the back-log of cases remains significant. But from having a limited previous existence and a design primarily intended to promote control and compliance rather than justice, the rule of law in Timor-Leste has made great strides in a relatively short period of time.

The judiciary also remains able to advise the President on constitutional questions and otherwise acts as a disincentive to illegal or corrupt behavior.

The extent to which Timor-Leste's state agencies are responsive varies, ranging from the slow and inadequate to the quick and competent. Perhaps the point here, though, is that each are being pushed to work harder, faster and better, to be more responsive and more accountable. Such a shift in institutional cultural does not, however, come quickly. This, then, requires executive ministers who are prepared to require consistent standards of their employees and who are not subject to the pressures of family or friends.

Most importantly, however, for real political consolidation, is the sense that voters know that they have the power to endorse or reject political candidates at the ballot box. The change of government through the 2007 elections most ably demonstrated this capacity.

The 2012 elections look set to more subtly change the political landscape. Taur Matan Ruak may have been Xanana Gusmao's preferred candidate for President, but that the incumbent, Jose Ramos-Horta, did not have a stranglehold on the position spoke volumes for the ability of voters to make and accept political change. At least as importantly, the grace and dignity with which Ramos-Horta accepted this change and handed over authority said much for the type of political society Timor-Leste was becoming.

But perhaps most importantly, what are referred to as the 'informal rules' of democratic processes shape and locate democratic consolidation. In this, the idea of sharing a democratic space with others equally and fairly to overall mutual benefit consolidates the meaning of democracy in the minds of the state's citizens.

In its original connotation, this idea of informal democratic rules' differentiated between citizens who were not aware or only partially aware of the function of the political system, and those who were more fully aware of the roles of the executive, the administration and the judiciary.

This implies an internalising of the 'rules' of political processes, so they become acculturated or 'second nature' to their participants. That is, there is a general expectation about the rights and obligations of each of the political actors, including the voters, which works as a harmonious whole.

In this sense, Timor-Leste is still in transition, as voter knowledge of political processes has begun to take hold but could not yet be said to be embedded. Moreover, Timor-Leste's citizens are still internalising ideas of free and equal political participation, of winning and losing with calm and equanimity, and of the idea that politics is the mechanism by which a society as a whole speaks to itself and makes internally acceptable decisions.

Having said this, Timor-Leste does not come from a long democratic tradition, as do other societies in which there is a stronger sense of such processes. And even where there is such a democratic tradition, voter knowledge and understanding of political processes is often only rudimentary and, if different ways to Timor-Leste, quite tribalised.

Perhaps, though, the saving grace of Timor-Leste's political process is the way in which their involvement in it has been embraced by its citizens, as an important and meaningful community decision-making ritual. Timor-Leste's voters have clear political favorites and, in some cases, an equally clear view about who they do not want to lead them.

Individually, none can determine who is and who is not in government. But by registering to vote and then voting, often in difficult and challenging circumstances, and by making a social occasion of the process, the people of Timor-Leste have moved quickly from an authoritarian, unrepresentative form of government to one which, if it is not always as successful as voters would like, is much more responsive to their needs and aware of their ability to endorse or dispose of them at electoral will.

No political society is perfect and democratic consolidation can only exist in relative terms. But in Timor-Leste, democracy has become increasingly consolidated and, if the process continues, will stand as a shining example to others with much longer, less challenging and more generous democratic traditions.