Yara Murray-Atfield – Organisations are working to raise awareness about human trafficking, as reports find Timor-Leste is a source and destination country for people who have been sold or tricked into slavery.

The American State Department's Trafficking in Persons Report 2014 found Timorese women are sold into prostitution while men are forced into hard unpaid labor.

The Alola Foundation is one of the organisations working to raise awareness about trafficking and help victims in Timor-Leste.

The Halt Exploitation, Learn to Prosecute (HELP) program is funded by the US State Department's anti-trafficking force and works with the Timorese departments of Justice and Social Solidarity.

"Because of the lack of information in the community and society," acting advocacy manager Fatima Guterres said, "people don't know what human trafficking is and how to categorize it."

The foundation has been working to combat the growing people trade since 2004, focusing on awareness campaigns. "The districts we now prioritize are the three closest to Indonesia: Cova Lima, Maliana and Oecusse," Guterres said. "We call them the frontiers."

The Trafficking in Persons Report found Timor-Leste to be a destination for people being trafficked internationally, especially from India, Singapore, China and the Philippines.

In previous years, the report has listed Timor-Leste as Tier 2, but has been downgraded to the Tier 2 Watch List.

According to the report nations on the Watch List have had a "failure to provide evidence of increasing efforts to combat severe forms of trafficking in persons from the previous year."

Countries on the Watch List will be downgraded to Tier 3 if they do not improve their efforts to reduce trafficking.

Restrictions can be placed on Tier 3 nations, including "with holding of funding for participation in education and cultural exchange programs," spokes person for the US embassy in Dili, Jennifer Baxter said.

"Even the most effective justice system and the most innovative efforts to prevent future trafficking will not reverse the abuse and trauma victims have endured," she said.

Endure

Especially in areas full of poverty, traffickers and people smugglers find their victims with promises of more opportunities overseas.

With the offer of better pay and conditions, it is easy for people "to give them their children to go abroad or to get a job," Alola's Equality and Justice Coordinator Elisita Roserio said. "People really believe when foreigners come and try to recruit them."

The report found children are also forced to work for traffickers in order to pay off family debts.

From 2006 to 2010, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) was a part of the Timorese counter-trafficking effort. During that time, the IOM found a significant issue with people from other countries being traded and sold into work within Timor-Leste.

"When counter-trafficking was still operating, I saw that the government had regulations, but sometimes the implementations in the field were not in coordination with the government," IOM's Carlos Araujo said.

The trafficking report found "traffickers allegedly retain the passports of victims, and rotate sex trafficking victims in and out of the country every few months".

Araujo, the Assistant to the Irregular Migrants Project, said, "for everyone who wants to come into this country, of course they have to have travel documents and passports.

"Immigration has passport readers, and the machines are working well," he said. "But often with human trafficking they are not coming through the international airport. They come through illegal borders where immigration doesn't have a post or security."

Due to inexact reporting and very few prosecutions of traffickers, the number of people sold into slavery is not known. However, in 2009 IOM estimated close to 1000 construction workers and a large percentage of the 550 commercial sex workers in Dili were trafficked into the country.

For 2013-14, despite legislation pending approval from the Council of Ministers, the government did not investigate any cases of people trafficking. This is down from 2012 when three people were investigated and one was charged.

"We are lucky, because our government is aware of human trafficking," Alola's Guterres said. "Under the Minister for Social Solidarity, there is a specific budget every year to help human trafficking victims with shelter."

The report outlines several areas for improvement: anti-trafficking laws and greater police presence amongst them.

The Alola foundation is trying to raise awareness to stop trafficking at the source. "I just want to highlight the importance of the campaign that we conduct," Guterres said.

"It's important that people know recruitment for people who want to work abroad is only government now. There are no more institutions that do recruitment to go abroad," she said. "So don't believe it."

Neither the Ministries of Justice or Social Solidarity were available for comment at the time of writing.

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/news/12570-working-to-combat-human-trafficking

Media & journalism

Timor-Leste's harsh new media law still in limbo

Pacific Scoop - July 30, 2014

Shannon Gillies – Media will be silenced and the people will lose their voice if a controversial new Media Law is ratified in one of the Asia Pacific's newest countries.

Timor Leste's Parliament on May 6 passed a law that could see local journalists forced to be licensed and foreign reporters blocked at the border.

It has not yet been ratified by President Taur Matan Ruak who has referred the legislation to the Court of Appeal to review the legislation's constitutionality.

Jose Belo, a Reporters without Borders 2014 information hero and editor of the publication Tempo Semanal, says the legislation could see people arrested and at the very least fined.

He says media outlet owners will bear the brunt of the legislation through fines and will be forced to fire journalists. Timor-Leste media would move to a state of self-censorship.

The timing of the law is to show interested parties that Timor-Leste is a state and it is a state that can control the press, says Belo.

Democracy harmed

Timor-Leste's media will lose their right to report freely and the country's democracy will be harmed. The people who will take part in media will become the country's elite and political readers leaving the everyday citizen out of the process, he says.

This law challenges and symbolises a breakdown in Timor-Leste's democracy, says Belo. This law is reminiscent of previous authoritarian rulers of Timor-Leste, Indonesia's President Suharto and Portugal's prime minister Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, he says.

This law is designed to protect the country's elite residents, he says. "They're selling the wealth. The law is strengthening the corruption and the corrupters in this country. This law is a protective weapon for the corrupters," he says.

"I have to be honest as I said to the Australian ambassador that the Australian taxpayer money is going to be misused for the corrupters here. The media can't do a lot to publish their story because of the law. They handcuff not our hands but our mind. They imprison our mouth, our freedom of expression."

Belo says he has confronted judges and prosecutors who will be expected to work with the law and told them to prepare for his case.

[Shannon Gillies is an independent journalist and an Asia-Pacific Journalism graduate.]

Source: http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2014/07/timor-lestes-harsh-new-media-law-still-in-limbo/#more-23135

Timor-Leste: Global criticism mounts against repressive new media law

Pacific Media Centre - July 21, 2014

Auckland – Global criticism of Timor-Leste's draconian new media law is growing. Last week, both Time magazine and The Guardian carried stories critical of the new media law, and Human Rights Watch said East Timor's president should refuse to sign the Media Act into law.

Human Rights Watch also called on foreign donors to "publicly express concern at the attempts by the government of East Timor to rollback media freedoms".

The law was passed by Parliament over two months ago but needs to be signed into law by President Taur Matan Ruak.

PMW reported then that La'o Hamutuk had called on Ruak to veto the law – a call which was endorsed by the Auckland-based Pacific Media Centre and Timor-Leste solidarity groups from the US, Japan, Sweden, Australia and the UK.

The new law will only allow government-registered journalists to write and publish stories; and journalists will only be registered and permitted to work if they are employed by a "recognised media outlet" and if they have done an internship of at least six months in one of these outlets.

Veteran Timor-Leste journalist Jose Belo told Crikey recently that "the tale of East Timor's controversial proposed media law is a story of insiders versus outsiders, of the rich versus the poor. Those inside the elite classes are seeking to implement a restrictive new media law so as to limit and control the information available to Timorese outside the elite group, as well as all those outside of East Timor".

It is feared that this will lead to a clampdown on freelance journalists, bloggers, academics, civil society organisations and others.

The new law also restricts students from becoming journalists, stipulating that only "adult citizens" will be registered. There is also a clause restricting the media to promoting "peace, social stability, harmony and national solidarity" which could be used to discourage coverage of dissent.

According to Time magazine, the Media Act is a harsh law which threatens Timor-Leste's democracy. "Several provisions would permit government interference with journalists," says the article.

The country's appeal court is now reviewing the law's constitutionality in response to a request by Ruak, The Guardian reported. (The Guardian/Time magazine/Human Rights Watch)

Source: http://www.pmc.aut.ac.nz/pacific-media-watch/timor-leste-global-criticism-mounts-against-repressive-new-media-law-8869

A harsh media law threatens East Timor's budding democracy

Time - July 17, 2014

Charlie Campbell – A former Portuguese colony, East Timor, or Timor-Leste, only won independence from neighboring Indonesia in 2002 following a bloody civil war. Since then, despite being desperately poor, it has enjoyed a remarkably open society.

This is poised to change, say activists, with the implementation of the Media Act, passed by parliament on May 6 but yet to be ratified by President Taur Matan Ruak. The 57-year-old liberation hero has asked for the Court of Appeal to review the legislation's constitutionality, but critics claim it should be immediately expunged.

"The media played a crucial role in East Timor's long struggle for independence," said Phelim Kine, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, in a statement. "The President should tell parliament that a media law that stifles free expression won't get his signature."

The long struggle that secured East Timor's independence claimed some 100,000 lives and left the newly liberated population of one million people in abject poverty. Most East Timorese rely on cash crops, mainly coffee, to buy imported rice. A four-month "hungry season" – the period between crops – is an annual ordeal and nearly half of local children are underweight.

However, East Timor boasts abundant oil reserves and petrodollars have begun flooding in. Unfortunately, this opens the door to graft, the exposing of which brings media into direct confrontation with venal officials.

"What we've seen in the last few years is more attention to scandals and corruption," Bridget Welsh, a Southeast Asia expert with the Center of East Asia Democratic Studies, tell TIME.

Although the Media Act explicitly enshrines "freedom of the press" and prohibits censorship, several provisions would permit government interference with journalists. Rather than the self-regulation favored by media advocates, an official Press Council, staffed by state appointees, would have the power to "grant, renew, suspend and revoke" media credentials. "The law will be the death of [Timorese] journalists," Timor- Leste Press Union President Jose Belo told UCA last month.

Around half the adult population of East Timor is illiterate and Internet access is minimal. Newspapers are mostly available only in the capital, Dili, with most rural people getting news and current affairs from radio and TV. If a government was able to influence broadcast content and put pressure on journalists, it would stand a good chance of disseminating its messages unchallenged. The Media Act already proposes to require journalists to "promote the national culture" and "encourage and support high quality economic policies and services." Such provisions are open to interpretation and abuse, claim critics.

"Journalists, including freelancers, took great risks and made enormous sacrifices while reporting during the darkest days of Indonesia's occupation of East Timor," said Kine. "The government should recognize that journalists are an indispensable front line against human rights violations, corruption, and abuses of power. Donors should urge the government not to undermine the media's crucial role."

Source: http://time.com/2999566/east-timor-media-act-press-freedom/

Health & education

Push to include sexual health on national education curriculum

Dili Weekly - July 23, 2014

Paulina Quintao – The Secretary-General for the National Commission for Combating HIV/AIDS in Timor-Leste (CNCS-TL) Daniel Marcal has recommended to the government the inclusion of sexual health as a subject in the national educational curriculum. He said this could prevent the people of Timor-Leste from contracting HIV/AIDS.

Speaking at an AIDS prevention function in Fatuhada, Dili, Marcal said young people should understand sexuality and how the reproductive system works.

Increased understanding could lead to lower rates of HIV/AIDS, he said. Marcal said HIV/AIDS was fast becoming a big problem in Timor-Leste, and required the attention of all relevant authorities. Commission F (health, education, culture andveterans' and gender equality affairs) president Deputy Virgilio da Costa Hornai agreed that the education sector should contribute to the fight against this disease.

"We will talk with the Ministry of Education about including sexual health in the school curriculum, so that students can acquire knowledge," Deputy Hornai said.

He said HIV/AIDS posed a serious threat to Timor-Leste as those who were most at risk were those who had the greatest contribution to make to the country. Education minister Bendito Freitas, recognized that sexual education was important and said secondary school was the appropriate time to introduce the subject to the curriculum.

Freitas said while state institutions had a role to play in providing sexual education to children, primary responsibility lay with their families and communities.

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/health/12592-push-to-include-sexual-health-on-national-education-curriculum

Education key to preventing infanticide

Dili Weekly - July 22, 2014

Paulina Quintao – Poor family education is contributing to high rates of infanticide in Timor-Leste, and in particular in Dili, according to Secretary of State for the Promotion of Equality (SEPI) Idelta Maria Rodrigues.

Rodrigues said families have a responsibility to educate and supervise their daughters to give them good prospects in life.

"Families must provide supervision and watch out for difficulties faced by their children. The same goes for the children – they must find a way to feel comfortable to talk to their families. If they hide their problems, those problems will explode and women and children will be the victims," she said in Kaikoli, Dili.

Rodrigues said the problem of parents abandoning their newborns was a serious problem, with instances almost every year.

The problem was not only confined to Dili but also happened in the districts, she said. "Taking a person's life is crime. I ask the police to investigate thoroughly these cases and bring perpetrators to justice," he said.

Arao Noe de Jesus Amaral called on parents to educate their children about sex. "The role of family is very important. They must monitor their children's behavior and must not be shy about providing sexual education to their children so they understand the consequences of sex," Noe said.

Timorese youth Agostinha said she was unaware that this problem existed but that the issue should be investigated thoroughly so it could be combatted.

She said the investigation should call families' attention to protecting their children and in the event that sexual violence or incest was involved, the perpetrators of these acts should be punished, not just the mothers of children dumped.

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/gender/12594-education-key-to-preventing-infanticide

Women's rights

Project to increase women's participation in political sphere

Dili Weekly - July 31, 2014

paulina Quintao – The Secretary of State for the Promotion of Equality (SEPI) has allocated $10.000 across all districts to prepare female candidates for the upcoming municipal chamber elections.

Secretary of State Idelta Maria Rodrigues said the money was part of SEPI's 2014 budget to support women in rural areas and conduct a district congress to help make women's voices heard.

She said while women were highly involved with politics on a national level, at a district level, women's participation in politics was poor. Women accounted for only 2 per cent of representation at a district level, she said.

Women's Parliamentary Group president Deputy Josefa Alvares Pereira Soares said the opportunities for women to participate in politics at district and village levels were limited.

"People do not put importance on women's participation in the political sphere," she said. This was a form of discrimination against women, she said.

Aileu potential candidate Cristina Guterres said female potential candidates from her district gathered to share ideas about women's contributions to governance.

The Aileu potential candidates were well prepared to participate in the pre-decentralization program which is to be implemented this year, she said. "Working together is very important to prepare women to take part in elections," Guterres said.

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/gender/12614-project-to-increase-women-s-participation-in-political-sphere

Sexual & domestic violence

Protecting women from gender-based violence

Dili Weekly - July 15, 2014

Yara Murray-Atfield – Victims of gender-based violence are more aware of their rights, but work is still being done to ensure women feel more protected by domestic violence laws.

The Law Against Domestic Violence (LADV) was passed in July 2010, and was the first law to make gender-based violence a public crime.

MP Maria Ludes Bessa, member of the parliamentary women's group Grupo da Mulheres Parlamentares de Timor-Leste (GMPTL), said the law is a "very positive thing". "The law makes domestic violence a public crime, so what I have been seeing is more cases before the court."

Director of the East Timorese Women's Communication Forum (FOKUPERS) Marilia Da Silva Alves said the introduction of the Law meant families were more confident reporting issues.

"After the laws were approved, we saw that in the districts and Dili, domestic violence reported to FOKUPERS and also to the police has risen," she said. "The victims are more aware of their rights, because they know there are laws for this, and they have more trust of the police."

Homicide, physical abuse, sexual assault, abuse of a minor, torture and mistreatment of a spouse all became public crimes under the Law. Since 2010, the Secretary of State for the Promotion of Equality, GMPTL and several other groups have run campaigns to socialise the law.

A FOKUPERS survey from June 2012 found more than 80 per cent of participants were familiar with the term 'domestic violence', and nearly 75 per cent had heard of the LADV.

However, only half of those who had heard of domestic violence thought it was necessary to report it, whether it occurred in their own home or in someone else's.

"They interpret it as a family problem, that isn't good to bring out into the public," Da Silva Alves said. "They just seek help from their family, but they don't report the cases."

According to FOKUPERS, of 764 cases of domestic violence in 2007-2012, 554 of the perpetrators or suspects were the husbands of the victims. "They try to get things solved within the family, when the perpetrator is in the family," MP Bessa said. "That is a big concern, and those things should not be happening."

Women are often afraid of being unable to support themselves financially if they leave their husbands. Case studies tell stories of women who stay with their husband for decades due to the fear of leaving.

"Victims come to us with the minimum. They have nothing; they don't have money to send their children to school," Da Silva Alves said. "They depend on their husband, and sometimes they are afraid that if they report the cases, nobody will take care of them and look after their family."

Thanks to awareness campaigns and education in schools and workplaces, the stigma surrounding victims of domestic violence is beginning to lessen.

Da Silva Alves said the court wait times for domestic violence cases have been reduced since the LADV was passed in 2010.

"We are happy to see that many of the domestic violence cases are brought to the court, but the problem is the final outcome is often a suspended sentence," Judicial System Monitoring Program Executive Director Luis de Oliveria Sampaio said.

Article 62 of Timor-Leste's penal code states the court should always give preference to a penalty "that does not involve deprivation of liberty" where it is available.

If the punishment "adequately and sufficiently fulfills the purpose of the penalty", Article 62 encourages courts to avoid handing down prison sentences. "Sometimes victims feel the decision is not satisfactory," Da Sliva Alves said. "Because with some cases they are injured very, very badly, but all they do is apply the suspended sentence."

From 2010-2013 JSMP observed 352 cases of domestic violence. They found 71 per cent of defendants were charged with 'simple offences against physical integrity'.

This offence falls under Article 145 of the penal code, and is considered domestic violence if it occurs within a family context. Cases with psychological impact such as threats and murder do not fall into the category of domestic violence.

"Only when victims lose their hands or a part of their body, or when they lose a very important organ or die, they decide to accuse them of a serious crime," Sampaio said. "In some aspects, people do not see a difference between before and after the law was implemented," he said.

Politicians see the higher numbers of official court reporting and court cases as a sign the socialisaton of the Law is beginning to work. "It is very interesting that judges have been applying strong sentences for those who commit crimes against women and children," MP Bessa said.

"Socialising the law, going around the districts, explaining, talking about it, how it should be implemented, I think it's really important that work continues."

Although the higher rates of reporting show awareness being raised, domestic violence is still occurring. FOKUPERS' shelter in Dili only has the capacity for 25 people, yet 40 to 50 women and children live there monthly, unable to return home or to family.

"It's a struggle," Da Silva Alves said. "Sometimes with this issue the women's families don't support them. They have many children, and they have to live with it. Sometimes you see the survivors that don't survive."

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/gender/12568-protecting-women-from-gender-based-violence

Gender & sexual orientation

Transcending gender in Timor-Leste

Dili Weekly - July 15, 2014

Gabriela Gonzalez-Forward – Despite the discrimination and stigma they face every day, Timor-Leste's transgender, gay and bisexual community are learning to deal with abuse in constructive ways.

Amid reports of discrimination from health clinics against transgender, men who have sex with men (MSM) and sex workers, organisations have formed to ensure HIV and STI's tests can be performed, free from stigma and politics.

NGO Fundasaun Timor Hari'i (FTH) is a HIV and STI testing clinic which runs peer education programs with MSM and transgender volunteers.

FTH, or the Build Timor foundation, is focused on the emerging issue of HIV and AIDS in Timor-Leste. Their approach is about educating the community and uses peer based approaches to see long-term behaviour changes in MSM, transgender and sex worker communities.

Leao 'LeLe' Goncalves, a counsellor who runs rapid testing, said the NGO has 107 regular transgender and MSM patients who go in for testing every three months.

The clinic used to exist for referrals only, but since March they have been testing for HIV and STIs on site with the help of two doctors from the Ministry of Health who come in every Friday.

Goncalves said Community Based Organisations (CBOs) supported by Islands of South East Asia Networks (ISEAN)and Humanist Institute for Co-operation with Developing Countries (Hivos) helped explain gender identity and what it means to be transgender and androgynous.

"I get a lot of verbal abuse, and before these programs I didn't know much about gender identity and when people yelled at me I would just yell back with abusive words as a way to defend myself," Goncalves said.

"When I learned about my gender identity I understood that if someone yells at me I have to remember this is my sexuality and my orientation, and they must have their own problems."

As the queer community are at a high risk of contracting HIV, community support groups and peer-education programs are encouraging people to think about their health and their gender identity.

Rui Carvalho, director of Timor-Leste's ISEAN's Hivos satellite program and local fashion designer, said the CBO he runs, Gay Amor, is a space for people to talk about what they're going through.

"We have three CBOs in Dili, one is specific for MSM, Casa de Rosa is for transgender people and Gay Amor is for both. We also have one in Baucau, Maliana andOecussi-Ambeno, and ISEAN Hivos will extend to the other districts," he said. "We collect data of our members, and we have around 300 people in the five organisations."

ISEAN Hivos is working with four countries, Timor-Leste, Malaysia, the Philippines an Indonesia with goals to reduce the high rates of HIV, discrimination and stigma against transgender, gay and bisexual people.

With no safe houses for those experiencing discrimination, some who have been kicked out of home, ISEAN Hivos, through the CBOs and other programs creates connections for people to seek help.

Both FTH and ISEAN Hivos receive their funding from Global Fund and get some assistance from the government.

The recently established HIV commission in Timor-Leste is trying to spread the same message to at risk groups, targeting the under 25s, and receives nine and a half thousand dollars in government funding for educational programs.

The commission runs events at universities to engage young people on the issue of HIV with live music and quizzes together with flyers on sexual health and protection.

However Dr Dan Murphy from the Bairo Pite Clinic is doubtful about the effectiveness of these programs. "You don't really get someone's attention until they're HIV positive, then you can modify behaviour and have some effect. Trying to deal with kids who don't have HIV, it doesn't work I'm sorry," he said.

It's like saying no sex until you're married, okay good luck on that one. You can say it, you can say it a million ways but you can't show that it works."

Organisations like ISEAN Hivos, CBOs and FTH through peer education programs have speakers and educators who are living with HIV to get the message across.

"I have a friend with HIV who is MSM, he's working with the Positive group and he's a great speaker for us and our friends, it definitely works," Carvalho said.

All the groups have the same goal to end the discrimination and stigma against their communities and to fight for laws which will protect their rights.

"We have dreams to get married, but these are only dreams, what we are asking is that as long as we have a law which protects us, that's good for us," Carvalho said.

"In the future maybe, years and years, we'll have a law to get married – that's a bonus for us. But first it's protecting our rights."

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/capital/12564-transcending-gender-in-timor-leste

Analysis & opinion

Analysis: Why Timor-Leste's stability could be deceptive

IRIN - July 18, 2014

Dili – Timor-Leste's current stability could be undermined by a sharp decline in oil revenues and leadership challenges if the country's first president and current prime minister Xanana Gusmao steps down later this year as announced.

After independence in 2002, the country experienced riots and conflict in 2006 due to dissent within the army, which displaced 150,000 people and resulted in international military intervention, but since then there has been a period of relative stability.

According to a paper by World Bank analysts, the root causes of the 2006 violence were: "Failure to meet high post-independence expectations, particularly for veterans of the independence struggle, high rates of poverty and poor service delivery and frustration, and perceived favouritism in the distribution of sought-after posts."

To quell the 2006 crisis, the government used money from the Timor-Leste Petroleum Fund to pay the displaced to return home, buy off army deserters who had sparked the 2006 violence, fund pensions for disgruntled veterans of the independence struggle, and assign construction contracts to potential political spoilers.

"There is a sense among observers that buying off peace is not a reputable way of creating stability in a country – and that can be argued, particularly in terms of sustainability," said Cillian Nolan, deputy director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) in Jakarta.

"But in some ways this has worked quite well, not only because peace has been maintained but also because it signalled a strong independence from foreign influence because this was Timorese money going to Timorese people."

Timor-Leste, home to 1.1 million people, was a Portuguese colony before it was occupied by Indonesia in 1975, prompting a decades-long violent struggle during which hundreds of thousands of people perished due to conflict and famine.

Oil running out

Researchers caution that while stability has been maintained in recent years, the central steadying factors are not permanent.

"Timor-Leste has about seven years before its remaining petroleum wealth – the only ship which can take the nation away from poverty – will have sailed," said Charles Scheiner, a researcher at Lao Hamutuk, a Dili-based policy analysis organization.

According to Lao Hamutuk's analysis of government data, 90 percent of Timor-Leste's state revenues are provided by oil and gas. The Petroleum Fund contains nearly US$16 billion today. But, Scheiner warns, the oil and gas could be depleted within seven years and the fund empty by 2025.

In a 2013 report titled Stability at What Cost? the International Crisis Group explained that Timor-Leste's purchased peace rested on three anchors: "the authority of the current prime minister; the deferral of institutional reforms in the security sector; and the flow of oil and gas revenues from the Timor Sea."

These anchors are connected in political and financial decision-making. As Scheiner argued: "The elite and some constituencies proclaim their entitlement to public funds, a pattern [which was] set by 'buying peace' to neutralize possibly troublesome groups or political opponents."

And that elite, whose grip on political power is bolstered by their history as independence fighters, will probably this year undergo a major change, analysts warn. In a July 2014 report, IPAC explained: "When Xanana Gusmao steps down as Timor-Leste's prime minister, his successor will face the challenge of how to address potential sources of social and political unrest without Gusmao's unparallelled authority."

Veterans' pensions over-funded?

One result of that authority has been favouritism towards certain groups. According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the government enrolls more than 100,000 people in three fund transfer programmes – to veterans, to the disabled and elderly, and to single mothers who keep their children in school.

But the difference in payments to the three groups is huge: "Conditional cash transfers are limited to $240 per year, elderly pensions are $360 per year, and annual veterans' pensions range from $2,760 to $9,000."

As of 2011, "although the veteran pensions consumed half of the total budget, it was targeted to 1 percent of Timor-Leste's population", World Bank analysts explained. They argued that "these are high value benefits that are received by too few beneficiaries to allow for any sizeable national impact on poverty."

Noting that the "government believes it is important to reward those citizens who have served Timor-Leste in the past," the $1.5 billion 2014 budget allocates $335 million to "Public Transfers".

In January 2014, Lao Hamutuk warned that "one of the outcomes of the parliament's closed-door budget discussions is $64 million in increased Public Transfers in the 2014 state budget, which will reduce transparency, accountability and good governance."

According to IPAC, Timor-Leste's "wealth distribution remains markedly uneven, particularly between rural areas and Dili, and is probably getting worse, given that so much of government spending, which makes up the bulk of the non-oil economy, is centred in the capital."

In a 2011 report the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights noted stark differences in living standards: "The richest segment of Timorese society enjoys almost 180 times the wealth of the poorest of the poor." Poverty, food security, and unemployment are all higher in rural areas, where 75 percent of Timor-Leste's population lives.

Explained IPAC: "The elite that decides how to spend this wealth is small: the finance minister and the natural resources minister are siblings, for example."

Projects to rebuild the country's infrastructure – 70 percent of which was destroyed as Indonesia departed in 1999 – have been controversial, and often unfinished. The country's development indicators (such as one of the world's highest rates of stunting in children) continue to lag. Half the population lives in poverty today.

Gusmao's quick fix

"Part of the story of the UN in Timor after the 2006 crisis was one of frustration with the international expert advisers telling the Timorese politicians to wait, take time – that stability will come slowly," IPAC's Nolan told IRIN, noting that Gusmao instead took pragmatic action in an effort "to show that the country was going somewhere".

While he was successful in the short-term, he carried with him is own legacy as a leader of Falintil, the armed liberation front he headed in the 1980s and 90s. Issues such as formalizing discipline and selecting non- political leaders for security forces remain unresolved.

Critics say he failed to implement the necessary security sector reforms post-2006, engaged in cronyism, and allowed distrust to fester.

In 2007 Gusmao launched and led the Ministry of Defence and Security by merging the defence and interior ministries under one roof. "In doing so he succeeded in tempering inter-service rivalries and restoring stability but at the cost of reinforcing the old Falintil chain of command rather than allowing the development of independent civilian control," said the IPAC report.

For example, 650 ex-Falintil fighters remain in the army, and many have passed the retirement age of 55. "Political sensitivities have been more important than procedural questions in delaying their retirement," said IPAC.

Citizen-security force interactions are complicated by a history of occupation and violence.

A 2014 Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and The Asia Foundation (TAF) joint report explained: "During the period of occupation... the Timorese were subjected to a military-style police force. The model of control through placing a military police officer in each village to monitor and collect intelligence on the population would leave a legacy of distrust."

Fundasaun Mahein (FM), a Dili-based NGO, in June 2014 said two incidents of security force discipline decay were a "great leap backwards for the security of Timor-Leste". In one incident, a violent perpetrator was released from custody because he was the son of a police commander; in the other, junior officers of a special police battalion attacked senior officers in what FM called a "very serious breakdown of military discipline and hierarchy".

According to Nolan, "looking at a system that has in part built stability by handing out cash – as the architect of that system [Gusmao] steps away, we have to remember that he has papered over some really big issues during his tenure." (kk/cb)

Source: http://www.irinnews.org/report/100363/analysis-why-timor-leste-s-stability-could-be-deceptive

Book & film reviews

East Timor's first feature film: a quest for truth on a shoestring budget

The Guardian (Australia) - July 10, 2014

Natalie Craig – East Timor has never made a film, never told its story or seen the faces of its people on the silver screen – until this year. Beatriz's War, billed as the young nation's "first feature film", opens in Melbourne on 10 July after a blockbuster season at home.

It is the product of a group from Dili with only a few years' experience making short films. While a volunteer Australian crew, including Melbourne director Luigi Acquisto and producer Stella Zammataro, provided training and technical assistance, it remains a thoroughly Timorese export.

Dili producer Lurdes Pires will join Acquisto in answering questions at the Melbourne debut. She estimates that the film has been seen by more than 100,000 Timorese, or about one in 12 people. "Even in the small towns, we would have more than 2,000 at a screening," she says. "Then the next night 2,000 people would come, and when the film finished they wanted us to restart the projector and show it again straight away."

The film is a love story, spun around historic events in East Timor's occupation by Indonesia. Beatriz's husband, Tomas, goes missing during the massacre at Kraras by occupying forces. He reappears 16 years later, after East Timor wins independence, a tougher, more confident man. Despite longing to bury her grief, Beatriz is racked by her sense that the "new" Tomas is an imposter and a war criminal.

Acquisto says calls for encore screenings reflect, in part, how faithfully the film depicts life under Indonesia. Audiences "seemed to forget what they were watching was a film, reacting as if it was happening to them all over again".

In late 2011, I travelled to Dili with Acquisto to watch the first week of filming and met dozens of actors and extras who invoked their trauma as part of their performance. These included three men who, buried under bodies, had survived the Kraras massacre, and were now playing victims in the massacre scene.

Director Bety Reis, who worked closely with Acquisto, was 16 when East Timor voted for independence in 1999. During the Indonesian retaliation that followed, she was made to kneel and was to be executed. "I'm grateful that I was spared... I was able to make this film, and to share it with my people," she told me.

Reis and Pires were often called to embrace overwhelmed actors, even as they broke down. And at around midnight each night, the power would fail. Then, as the back-up generator kicked in, cheers from downstairs as editing equipment and computers restarted.

Frequent rain meant crew members happily doubled as "umbrella holders", prompting Acquisto to observe "if this were a normal Australian crew, they'd be a lot shittier". At times the set was full of laughter, with puns and running jokes aplenty.

Indeed, despite significant obstacles and a limited budget (provided mainly by Australian investors), the film's success is a testament to the Dili team's patience, positivity and resourcefulness.

After a remarkable five-week run in East Timor's only cinema, a duplex in a Dili mall, Reis, Pires and other cast members toured the country, showing the film using a diesel-powered projector and an inflatable screen.

Pires says that in workshops held after the film, viewers were buoyed by Beatriz's quest for truth and justice. As a metaphor for the way the country is dealing with its past, it goes against the grain of the official policy of "friendship and forgiveness".

"I think everyone in the general community wants justice in relation to their past, even if it is painful," says Acquisto.

The final film is a riveting tale, told simply and with real emotion. It is also a chronicle of important historic events in the region, with the Indonesian elections giving it a new currency. Prabowo Subianto, the army general alleged to have ordered the massacre in Kraras, along with hundreds of other war crimes in East Timor is possibly Indonesia's next president.

Beatriz's War (A Guerra da Beatriz) is at Melbourne's Cinema Nova until 14 July, then in limited release in cinemas across Australia.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/australia-culture-blog/2014/jul/10/east-timors-first-feature-film-a-quest-for-truth-on-a-shoestring-budget