Paulina Quintao – The National Parliament has approved proposed law no. 26/III/2015 on the prevention and fight against human trafficking. Of the 64 MPs, 34 were present, with 32 voting in favor, two abstentions and none against.

Deputy President of Commission A (responsible for constitution, justice, public administration, local authorities and anti-corruption) Arao Noel de Jesus Amaral said the law would provide a legal basis to fight against human trafficking in the country.

"So far we have no law and so it is hard for the judges in court and the prosecution to take preventive action in human trafficking cases," he told parliament.

He said the law would criminalize the trafficking of people in and out of Timor for the purpose of sexual exploitation and forced labor.

He said the law contained 39 articles, including a significant one which officially categorizes those under 18 years old as a child. This means that offenders involved in the trafficking of minors will face two separate charges.

The minimum sentence for those found to be involved in human trafficking is two years, with the maximum being 10 years, although that could be increased depending on the severity of the offence.

The law was approved on October 25 and the government is now raising awareness among communities before it comes into force.

However, member of the Timor-Leste Parliamentary Women's Group (GMPTL) Josefa Alvares Pereira Soares said the law was still not complete, although it would at least partly respond to some of the issues linked to human trafficking.

"We do not want our young people to fall victim to drugs and we also do not want our sisters and children to become victims of human trafficking, therefore the two laws are very important for our country," she said.

She said the content of the law places a high value on human life and provides protection for victims without discrimination as is everyone's right in Timor.

Under the new law, the Timor-Leste government will be responsible for coordinating with embassies to return foreign victims of trafficking to their country of origin with dignity. "We must implement this law effectively," she said.

She said organized crime occurred as a result of economic conditions, which forced some people to engage in human exploitation. She hoped that Timorese people would protect each other from such crimes in the future.

Meanwhile, Justice Minister Ivo Jorge Valente said the government is planning to establish the Commission to Fight Against Human Trafficking, which will be responsible for devising a strategic plan for the implementation of the law in order to protect vulnerable groups.

"It is a new law so it will take time to implement," he said. He said the commission will consist of representatives from the ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs, Social Solidarity and Interior Ministry, and will also involve the Immigration department and civil society.

He said the main role of the commission was to raise awareness among communities about the content of the law and the different characteristics of human trafficking.

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/news/14243-parliament-approves-law-to-fight-human-trafficking

Women's rights

The trouble with Timor-Leste's gender quotas

The Diplomat - December 17, 2016

David Hutt – I ask for no outpouring of sympathy, but those of us who spend our days jotting down opinions and making them available for public consumption face a perennial question of whether we want feedback. Perhaps, though, that's just me. A response might arrive in the inbox with sentiments of support but, more often than not, they come with the opposite intention.

In such opinionated circles, the publication of one op-ed can provoke a brief guerre de mots. That is what happened last month when Mark Lilla, professor of humanities at Columbia University, wrote a piece for the New York Times' Sunday Review called "The End of Identity Liberalism." Whatever Lilla's views – some are fine, others questionable – his article was certainly relevant in that it provoked a discussion of the merits of identity politics. Sifting through the discourse, I was reminded of a remarkably obvious, yet neglected, statement expressed by the late Christopher Hitchens almost a decade ago. "People who think with their epidermis or their genitalia or their clan are the problem to begin with," he wrote. "One does not banish this specter by invoking it. If I would not vote against someone on the grounds of 'race' or 'gender' alone, then by the exact same token I would not cast a vote in his or her favor for the identical reason."

But how does this get us onto the topic of this article, which, as the reader might have noticed from its title, is about gender quotas in Timor-Leste? Well, the small, half-island nation has been praised in recent years for having one of Asia's highest percentages of female parliamentarians: 38 percent. This was a direct result of a law introduced in 2006 that requires political parties to nominate one woman for every group of four candidates at national elections. Three years later, another law was enacted that means every suku (village) council must have two reserved positions for women, and two for youth representatives, one male, one female. Then, in July, another law was passed that requires a female candidate to stand in every election for village chief in Timor-Leste. At the time, only two percent of village chiefs were women. The local elections that took place in October and November were the first to apply this law and saw the number of female village chiefs double.

But are these gender quotas actually achieving anything? Wait, given how combustive this issue is, allow me to refine my question: Are gender quotas allowing East Timorese women to gain genuine positions of power or are they simply creating a statistic that can be wielded as a sign of progress?

First, it needs to be stated that Timor-Leste has a grand history of female activism. Rosa Muki Bonaparte was one of the founders of Fretilin, the nationalist, anti-imperialist movement and later political party. She went on to lead the party's women's arm, Organizacao Popular Mulher Timorense (Popular Organisation of Timorese Women). She was gunned down nine days after the Indonesian invasion in 1975. And, during the 24-year independence struggle, women played an indispensable role, not only as soldiers, but also as messengers, spies, and breadwinners. Still, female combatants rarely held positions of power in the anti-colonial forces and, worse, the historical narrative created after independence focused on the actions of the male fighters, particularly those in senior positions who have dominated East Timorese politics since 2002.

Now, that said, chart your mind back to when I informed you that in Timor-Leste 38 percent of parliamentarians are women. In my opinion, there are three different conclusions that can be drawn from this fact. First, that there are few problems with gender discrimination in Timor-Leste. Second, that gender discrimination remains prevalent and that is why quotas are necessary. Third, that gender discrimination remains and the country needs to aim higher than 38 percent. However, not one of these conclusions actually reveals anything about what the parliamentarians are doing, how they're changing politics, and what power they have.

In a 2002 essay, the anthropologists Sofi Ospina and Tanja Hohe described contemporary life in rural Timor-Leste thusly: "The decision making process is the domain of the senior male of the existing social groups within the hamlets. Rural women are not supposed to be outspoken and take the floor in public meetings." Responding to this quote, Sara Niner, an anthropologist at Monash University, wrote in a 2011 paper Hakat Klot, Narrow Steps that "in public or political decision-making processes senior men dominate, while women, particularly senior women, have symbolic and ritual power." She went on to say that "although Timor has one of the highest levels of female parliamentary participation in the world, many of these women are often ineffective and viewed merely as token representatives (possibly forced on the Timorese by the idea of a foreign quota system)."

Amongst all of these fine words, the most important is symbolic. Politics, however much one might disagree, is about power. And what is a rank without power? Symbolic. This is a problem with gender quotas: it can become style over substance; numbers over meaning. The 38 percent of parliamentarians in Timor-Leste become just that, a statistic to be quoted by journalists, praised by the government and lauded by the international community. Indeed, take the 38 percent as an example. Of the 38 cabinet positions, women hold only eight. Although these include important positions (including Santina Cardoso as minister of finance; Maria do Ceu Sarmento Pina da Costa as minister of health; and Isabel Amaral Guterres as minister of social solidarity) the percentage of women in high-placed roles is just 21 percent.

It becomes more problematic than that. In her 2011 paper, The Problem of Gender Quotas: Women's Representatives on Timor-Leste's Suku Councils, Deborah Cummins found that since the introduction of reserved seats, "there appears to have been limited public interest in how these women are performing. Instead, the focus of the Timor-Leste government, the United Nations, and NGOs alike has been on encouraging more women to run for election to the post of xefe suku (chief of the suku council)." Indeed, the climax of this goal was the legislation passed in July.

But what Cummins intends to show, as I read it, is that once a quota system is introduced, there is little insight into how effective it is. So, in one way, not only are gender quotas merely creating symbolic positions of power, they are also working to create more and more symbolic position of power without ever stopping to consider the effect. Once the ball is rolling, all that matters is the ball is rolling, not where it's heading. In another way, the desire for more and more quotas is becoming the end, not the means.

But what should be the means and what are the ends? It seems rather simple, but the ends should be female emancipation and autonomy. But it is not only in Timor-Leste where the ends and means become blurred. The American politician Madeleine Albright once commented that there is "a special place in hell for women who don't help each other." Albright sparked controversy during the last year for criticizing female Americans who did not vote for presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

One might parry Albright's quote with one by Mary Wollstonecraft, from A Vindication of the Rights of Women, published in 1792: "My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their 'fascinating' graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone."

One must never forget that there is a short stumble from advocating to patronizing. If the intention of having gender quotas is only to have more women in politics so that they can agitate specifically for policies that affect women then not only is this incredibly patronizing, as it belittles the role of women on national issues, but it also has the effect of homogenizing women into one single bloc, solely based on gender (not the best start if the goal is to foster more autonomy and individuality).

For a newcomer to Timor-Leste and its politics, I cannot recommend enough Gordon Peake's Beloved Land. Writing of the political situation, Peake cuts away the fat and notes that it is a country of "family relationships, friendships, romances, and antagonisms that collectively render ideas and concepts such as 'accountability' and 'separation of powers' almost completely impractical... Kinship and opaque connections are the ties that bind – not five-year plans and detailed strategic documentation."

Indeed, when one speaks to an East Timorese official (an ambassador to another Southeast Asian country, let's say) one regularly hears that the president is a personal friend or the prime minister is a cousin. Last year, when I was in Dili, the country's capital, which has a population of less than 200,000 people, I was told that that it is a city of cousins and friends. If everybody knows everyone then amongst the claustrophobic political class this is even more true. And this is the same for men as it is women.

Writing in the East Asia Forum in June, Netina Tan provided a decent summary of gender quotas in Asia, but left this reader wanting more when, in conclusion, she wrote that "the rise of elite women does not signify a revolutionary change with regards to gender equality in the region." Tan left this sentence lingering, but it is well worth looking into its implications. Consider what Cummins had to say in her paper about Timor-Leste: "While the elite female parliamentarians have through their intelligence and political savoir faire earned for themselves a certain degree of respect by men, the stereotype of the 'uneducated' and 'weak' village woman remains." Such a statement can be paired with one by Niner: "There is often tension within the women's movement about these priorities and a divide between less-educated rural women and middle class urban women with a more feminist agenda."

Take as an example the position of a suku council member (remember two seats on each are reserved for women). Because this is essentially a voluntary position, members only receive a small stipend to perform their tasks. Because of this, Cummins wrote, "only those with a good income stream can afford to take on these roles, a fact which automatically limits participation in terms of social class." Indeed, gender quotas take no account of differing attitudes amongst women in Timor-Leste, nor the role of class in gender politics. What one woman from the urban elite might think is best for women might differ radically from what one who suffers in rural poverty might consider more important. Quotas solve none of these problems.

Forgive me for drifting off on a tangent, but in my relatively short life I have come to the conclusion that one of the only known cures for poverty, and genuine social equality, is female emancipation. This means autonomy over money; over reproduction; over relationships; over laws. But this means more than mere numbers and requires a good deal of iconoclasm.

First, one should find it detestable that abortion is only available to women in Timor-Leste if it can save their lives; everything else remains illegal. The 2009 Penal Code added this rather paltry allowance. Second, one would also have liked to have heard a little more opprobrium from gender-rights activists when, in March, Prime Minister Rui de Araujo met with Pope Francis. This is the man who last year said a defiant no to the ordination of women to the church, making it one the last institutions in the world without women leaders; the man who continues to believe abortion to be more evil than contraceptives, meaning many women, mostly the poorest, still cannot control their reproductive cycles; and the man who rails against divorce. (And before your mind flickers to the thought, Timor-Leste is a Catholic country, that's just the way they think, then consider the corollary that Timor-Leste is a patriarchal, traditional country, so men in the power is normal.)

Returning to my point about differing attitudes toward what is best for women, these are seldom specific to the realm of gender. Consider the observations I just made above: most are first and foremost theological matters. What then, for example, if all women in politics were hardline Catholics? None would vote to allow abortion or divorce or an increase in contraceptives. Or consider the comments of Niner and Cummins about the distinctions of social class. If all women in politics were from the wealthier classes, as the situation tends to create, would they be the best advocates for women who endure rural poverty?

A profound issue lies here: gender quotas seek to force Timor-Leste to transcend the very same problems that require their introduction. Either Timor-Leste is a tolerant country in which women would be elected to political positions without laws requiring it; or Timor-Leste is an intolerant country and wouldn't elect as many women if such laws didn't exist – and, in turn, such intolerance won't be ended just because people see a few more women in power. With the quotas, one cannot ascertain an answer to these questions.

"According to a growing number of Timorese women in politics, the quota should only be seen as a 'temporary special measure,' a means to an end, and not an end itself," reads a 2012 article by Susan Marx of the Asia Foundation. "The women we spoke with said that there is an opportunity with the new generation of female leaders to eventually transition to a purely merit-based participation, but only if political parties are willing to change their own patriarchal ways and allow women full participation in leadership."

[David Hutt is Southeast Asia columnist at The Diplomat in Cambodia, where he has been based for more than two years. He was previously a reporter at Southeast Asia Globe magazine, where he wrote about Southeast Asian politics and current affairs, and the editor of Focus Asean magazine. Before that, he reported from Nicaragua and Costa Rica. David currently writes about politics in the Asia-Pacific region for numerous local and international publications.]

Source: http://thediplomat.com/2016/12/the-trouble-with-timor-lestes-gender-quotas/

Agriculture & food security

Hard times ahead for Ermera farmers as coffee price drops

Dili Weekly - December 1, 2016

Paulina Quintao – The falling price of coffee makes has saddened growers in Ermera municipality who are struggling to improve their lives and send their children to school.

The President of Ermera municipality authority, Jose Martinho do Santos Soares, said the coffee price is a perennial problem for farmers, which has not been tackled so far.

The local coffee price is set based on the international market, which is falling in price at the moment, and therefore directly impacting Timor-Leste.

"Coffee costs 30 cents per kilo and this isn't fair for the farmers, so how can they send their kids to schools and how can their family have good health?" Soares said at celebrations to mark Farmers Day in Ermera.

That is why the local government has suggested fixing a fair price so that both farmers and companies can benefit from the coffee, he said.

Farmer Francisca Ximenes also called on the government to set a fixed price for Timorese coffee (Kafe Timor) as the existing price was too low. Ripe coffee costs 35 cents per kilo, with ground coffee costing $1 per kilo.

"We want the coffee price to be increased from $1 to $2 because we have many children who need to go to school and we can't afford to pay for their school fees if the price is falling," Ximenes said.

As well as school fees, growers spend the money they earn from selling coffee on traditional ceremonies such as funerals (lia-mate) and weddings (lia-moris), as well as other daily needs.

President of the Ermera Community Leadership Association Luis dos Santos said some of the coffee trees were so old that they can only produce a little fruit.

"Some 100-year-old coffee trees don't fruit well [and] that's why the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has started doing coffee reforestation in some villages," dos Santos said.

He also urged the government to standardize a coffee price that is fair for farmers.

Source: http://www.thediliweekly.com/en/news/news/14229-hard-times-ahead-for-ermera-farmers-as-coffee-price-drops

Border & security issues

Jokowi: Indonesia's border outposts better than Timor Leste's

Tempo.co - December 28, 2016

Yohanes Seo, Jakarta – President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has expressed his appreciation to the Public Works Ministry for establishing border outpost (PLBN) in the border between Indonesia and Timor Leste.

"The PLBN construction is better than that of over there [Timor Leste]," President Jokowi said in his opening remarks in the inauguration of three border outposts centered in Mota'ain, Belu District, East Nusa Tenggara, on Wednesday, December 28, 2016.

There are three outposts in the border between Indonesia and Timor Leste. The outposts are located in Belu District's Mota'ain and Motamasin, and North Central Timor District, which serve as entry points to neighboring country Timor-Leste.

In the early stage of the border outpost construction, Jokowi said he had asked the Public Works Minister to make better border outposts than Timor Leste's. "I had asked for better [border outposts] than that of over there. The results are too good. Too grand," he said.

On the occasion, the President instructed the Public Works Minister to establish a traditional market in Mota'ain, the border between Indonesia and Timor Leste, and expected it to complete by 2017.

"I expect to see Mota'ain to becoming an economic area. In 2017, [I also expect Public Works Ministry] to complete construction of a traditional market in the border," Jokowi said.

The traditional market, Jokowi said, can bring together the people of the two countries, turning it into an economic area which can boost growth in East Nusa Tenggara.

Source: http://en.tempo.co/read/news/2016/12/28/307830961/Jokowi-Indonesias-Border-Outposts-Better-than-Timor-Lestes

Economy & investment

East Timor is going for broke as oil runs out

Forbes - December 7, 2016

Damon Evans – East Timor could be bankrupt within a decade unless it takes urgent action to diversify its economy and reassess its fixation with mega-petroleum projects

East Timor was once seen as the poster child for developing nations. It had natural resources, a comprehensive legal framework governing their extraction and an oil fund. But without new sources of income the Southeast Asian state could be bankrupt as early as 2027, research from Dili-based thinktank La'o Hamutuk shows.

The government's finance ministry is more optimistic, forecasting that its sovereign wealth fund, derived from oil money, will stretch until 2032. But there seems to be some confusion among high-level ministers, including the Prime Minister, Rui Maria de Araujo, about the timelines, as Guteriano Neves, a Timorese post-graduate student at the Crawford School of Public Policy in Australia, highlights in his post "Are We The Victims Of Our Own Fantasies?"

Significantly, the fledgling nation is almost entirely dependent on petroleum revenues. But its oil and gas income peaked in 2012 and continues to fall. The ConocoPhillips-operated Bayu-Undan project – East Timor's only producing field – has provided about $20 billion over the past 10 years, but the oil money has all but dried up as output is expected to stop sometime between 2020 and 2022.

Still East Timor's government, which hopes to be reelected in 2017, recently issued a press release "East Timor's Economic Outlook Positive As Reforms Begin To Show Results and published a similar article East Timor Approaching 2017 Elections With Confidence".

But "the articles, which draw on government, World Bank and IMF sources, portray a rosy outlook for the future of East Timor's economy. Unfortunately, by quoting out of context and ignoring key underlying realities, they paint – like Salvador Dali – a surrealist image very different from the reality facing East Timor as our oil revenues end, investments produce limited income, and planned state spending threatens to exhaust our savings in 10-12 years," La'o Hamutuk said in its article Spinning Straw Into Gold

As La'o Hamutuk highlights, the government press release cherry picked the most flattering aspects of the World Bank and IMF reports, omitting dire warnings about urgently-needed economic diversification in the medium term, unsustainable spending patterns in the state budgets, and the need to analyze large infrastructure projects more carefully.

Indeed, East Timor has moved from dependence on revenues from selling petroleum to dependence on revenues from its Petroleum Fund investments. But the balance in the Fund continues to fall, as the withdrawals are larger than the income.

The proposed 2017 budget of $1.39 billion will require a withdrawal of over $1 billion from the fund, and the government plans to take out almost four times the estimated sustainable income every year between 2018 and 2021, by which time the sovereign wealth fund's balance will have fallen by at least $3 billion, to $13 billion, the NGO warned in a submission to parliament in early November.

Nevertheless, the state budget proposes spending almost $2 billion by 2021 on grandiose plans for a mega-petroleum project, which most experts believe is economically unviable. The whole scheme is dependent on commercializing the Woodside-operated Greater Sunrise oil and gas fields in the Timor Sea. But development of East Timor's last known major oil and gas field, which straddles Australia's seabed, remains indefinitely stalled. A dispute over maritime boundaries with Australia and the treaties that govern the joint development of Greater Sunrise means Perth-based Woodside – and its partners ConocoPhillips, Shell and Osaka Gas – has shelved plans to develop the gas.

Yet the government continues to throw money at its petroleum development fantasies and other dubious infrastructure projects. The amount of money allocated to these projects is much higher than small-scale economic and social spending, in a country where 42% of the people still live in poverty.

"The new sources of income that East Timor desperately needs will not come from unsustainable extractive projects like Greater Sunrise, but from a productive, diverse economy based on East Timor's human and renewable resources," Charlie Scheiner, an analyst at the NGO told me.

La'o Hamutuk's main point, and the goal of its recommendations to cancel unproductive mega-projects, including the petroleum development known as Tasi Mane, is for the focus to shift towards health, education, agriculture, sanitation and water, as well as other sectors that will lay the foundation for a sustainable economy.

"East Timor's response to pressure caused by the imminent end of oil revenues should be to diversify its economy and spend more wisely," adds Scheiner.

Making a quick deal on Greater Sunrise, which could be competitively developed using the existing facilities at Bayu-Undan as production is exhausted, "is not an effective or logical response," said Scheiner.

Jeffrey Feynman, a physics and economics specialist that has consulted on various energy projects in the region, estimates that Greater Sunrise would at best bring in $8.5 billion worth of revenues for East Timor over the 30-year production life of the project, and perhaps less than zero if it were ever developed on East Timor's southern shores, which the government has been striving for. Most experts agree that building a new gas export plant in East Timor is uneconomic and that reusing the existing facilities from the ageing Bayu-Undan fields is far more compelling.

Still, "if current government spending trends continue, $8.5 billion in the 2020s and 2030s could pay for two to five years of state spending, hardly a long-term solution. It's less than half of the amount the country has received from Bayu-Undan, and won't go as far after inflation, population growth and the need to maintain infrastructure and provide services," added Scheiner.

Yet, minister of state and government spokesperson, Agio Pereira, told me that East Timor "is striving for the delimitation of maritime boundaries [... and that] every decision is attached to the process". The government hopes that by shifting its maritime boundary it will take control of Greater Sunrise and realize its vision of processing the oil and gas at home, despite the huge risks involved, rather than using the existing facilities from Bayu-Undan in northern Australia.

Still, there is hope that East Timor's government heeds the IMF's advice that "public investment should be better prioritized, focusing on projects with higher returns determined by rigorous investment appraisal".

The World Bank echoes the IMF's warning saying that "East Timor must employ its finite resource effectively and implement key reforms to support a more diversified economy... a combination of marginal investments and high costs also raise important questions of the quality and prioritization of the [infrastructure] programme."

If it does not, then it's hard to avoid the conclusion that East Timor will be a failed state within the next decade.

[Damon Evans is a consultant, editor and journalist based in South East Asia. Damon covers the energy industries globally, with a particular focus on the politics and economics in Asia Pacific, as well as LNG and oil markets.]

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/damonevans/2016/12/07/east-timor-is-going-for-broke-as-oil-runs-out/#326e83286325

People

Timor Leste honors George Aditjondro

Tempo.co - December 12, 2016

Mahinda Arkyasa, Jakarta – The Timor Leste government extended it condolences for the passing of Dr. George Junus Aditjondro on December 10, 2016.

Aditjondro was an Indonesian academic, activist, researcher and journalist who exposed conditions in Timor-Leste during the country's time of struggle. Aditjondro was also a committed advocate for proper development following Timor-Leste's independence in 2002.

Timor-Leste Government spokesmen, Minister of State Agio Pereira stated that "the voice of George Aditjondro was crucial in challenging the thinking of many in Indonesia and Australia about the events occurring in Timor-Leste between 1975 and 1999."

Pereira added that Aditjondro's commitment in exposing injustice played an important role in moving Timor-Leste towards the restoration of its independence.

"His voice of advocacy, warm friendship towards the Timorese people and unremitting support in the struggle will not be forgotten," Pereira added.

Aditjondro first visited Timor on May 1974 as a correspondent of Tempo magazine, and later interviewed various Timorese leaders about political persuasions that occurred inside and outside of Indonesia.

Following the Santa Cruz massacre in 1991, Aditjondro became the leading figure who opposed Indonesian occupation, and has a critical role in exposing media reporting on Timor and the positions of Indonesian intellectuals, who according to Aditjondri, had allowed themselves to become influenced by censorship and media manipulation.

On the May 20, 2010, the National Parliament of Timor-Leste recognized Aditjondro's contribution by awarding him with the Princess Grace of Monaco medal.

In addition to his passion for Timor-Leste, Aditjondro was also known as an unrelenting critic of corruption in Indonesia, a dedicated advocate for empowering local agricultural communities and a key figure in nurturing environmental awareness.

Source: http://en.tempo.co/read/news/2016/12/12/074827375/Timor-Leste-Honors-George-Aditjondro

Balibo five

Brother seeks answers from Australia over NZ death at Balibo

Asia Pacific Report - December 17, 2016

Duncan Graham – Greig Cunningham wants to know how and why his brother Gary died. The New Zealand news cameraman was killed in 1975 by Indonesian Special Forces in what was then East Timor – now Timor-Leste.

In his four-decade fact hunt, the retired Australian accountant's latest stopover has been the brothers' birthplace, New Zealand.

In the capital Wellington he asked Foreign Minister Murray McCully to pressure the Australian government for release of secret legal documents about his older sibling's death.

After the meeting, Cunningham said McCully had agreed to contact the Australian government for the papers "but suspects they will refuse".

However, the minister agreed to open the files about Gary held by the New Zealand government once public servants can access the archives. These have been inaccessible since a major earthquake hit Wellington in mid-November. Several office blocks have been closed until security can be assured.

Cunningham's quest has also taken him to Timor-Leste several times, but he has never visited Indonesia because he says he fears for his safety. He has heard that others have been threatened for asking questions about one of the ugliest incidents still affecting relations between Australia and its northern neighbour.

Cunningham says he wants to meet the former soldiers allegedly involved to hear their side of the story. Two are still alive.

"This is not about money," he said. "I find that idea repulsive. Nor is it about vengeance. The Cunninghams don't do that.

"Settling this issue would let Indonesian-Australian relationships improve. There has been no justice. What happened was wrong. That needs to be acknowledged so we can draw a line."

Gary, 27, was a New Zealander shooting film for an Australian TV network. He was on assignment with four other newsmen, two Britons and two Australians in Balibo, a tiny town on the border with Indonesia.

The corpses were cremated. Some witnesses alleged the bodies were dressed in military fatigues and photographed with weapons in an attempt to portray the crews as not genuine journalists.

The Indonesian government claimed the media men were killed in crossfire during a clash with Timorese guerrillas. This explanation is still officially accepted by Australia, though not by the victims' families.

Books have been written and a play and film, Balibo, produced about the Balibo Five, a term that's become Australian shorthand for public concerns about relations with Indonesia

Shortly before the men were shot, Indonesian troops had entered the former Portuguese colony to suppress the independence movement. The Western media described this as an invasion but Indonesia said it was "defence action" to protect its borders.

Six weeks later another Australian journalist Roger East, 53, was investigating the deaths of his colleagues when arrested by Indonesian soldiers. He was executed in the capital, Dili, along with many Timorese and his body thrown in the sea.

Constant agitation for justice by the men's families eventually forced a coronial court inquest in Australia. This concluded that "the Balibo Five... were shot and or stabbed deliberately and not in the heat of battle" and that this had been done to prevent reporting on the Indonesian military's movements.

As this meant a war crime, the Australian Federal Police got involved. Two years ago their investigation was abandoned, allegedly because of insufficient evidence. Cunningham has so far been refused access to the AFP's "independent legal advice" which apparently supports this decision.

"I've got no quarrel with individual officers, but what the Australian government has done to us is just appalling," he said. "There's been political interference to appease Indonesia – it's just a cover up."

Because his brother was a Kiwi, Cunningham sought release of all historical records through the NZ government. In 2007, former Foreign Minister Dr Michael Cullen told him New Zealand would "carefully consider" the coroner's findings and regularly raise the issue with the Indonesian government.

The families and former employers of the dead journalists have established the Balibo House Trust to "honor the memories of the Balibo Five by working with the Balibo Community to enrich their lives."

It has set up a kindergarten, learning center and tourist enterprise to "foster awareness of the significance of Balibo to relationships between Australia, Timor-Leste and Indonesia".

Gary has been recognised by the Timor-Leste government with an award collected by his brother last year. "The Timorese see the newsmen as heroes," said Cunningham. "They think of them as family. Why haven't their own governments given recognition?"

Cunningham acknowledged the issue had remained alive because journalists were victims. "Red Cross workers might have been forgotten by now," he added dryly.

Last year, a War Correspondents' Memorial, which included the names of the Balibo Five, was opened in Canberra by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull who said "democracy depends on a free and courageous press".

The killings are barely known in Indonesia, where the award-winning 2009 Australian feature film Balibo is banned. However, bootleg DVD copies have apparently sold well in Jakarta, with young buyers keen to know more about the recent history of their nation.

Before East Timor gained independence in 1999, former Indonesian Foreign Minister, the late Ali Alatas, called it the "pebble in the shoe" in his nation's relationship with Australia.

Cunningham, 65, said that will remain the situation till the truth about the Balibo Five killings is known.

"People talk about revelations damaging the national interest, but this happened 41 years ago. More recently the Australian government was caught out bugging the phone of former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono; what could be more damaging than that?

"I'm still passionate about finding out the truth. Even when I've gone this matter will not go away until resolved. Gary's son, John Milkins, will keep this going. So will Gary's grandson.

"This is an opportunity for Indonesia to acknowledge the facts and get a better relationship with Australia. It needs to be settled."

[Duncan Graham is a contributor to Strategic Review.]

Source: http://asiapacificreport.nz/2016/12/17/brother-seeks-answers-from-australia-over-nz-death-at-balibo/

Invasion & occupation

East Timor: Reflections 41 years after invasion day

Counter Punch - December 21, 2016

Pamela Sexton, Dili, Timor-Leste – Recently, thousands of U.S. military veterans travelled to North Dakota to support the peaceful struggle of the Standing Rock Sioux to defend their sovereignty and protect their land and water. I watched the veterans bend down to ask forgiveness from the many indigenous tribes gathered there. They apologized as veterans from the same military that has carried out genocide against Native Americans since before the U.S. achieved independence. In this way, they acknowledged the past and affirmed their commitment to ensuring the bitter past doesn't repeat itself.

This December 7, I bent down in Timor-Leste to apologize for the crimes of my government against the East Timorese people. On that day in 1975, U.S.-armed and -trained Indonesian troops launched their illegal invasion. I feel a deep sadness and shame that my government has not yet formally and responsibly acknowledged its support for crimes committed here on that day and the 24-year Indonesian occupation which followed. An important first step would be for the U.S. to declassify and release all its records related to Indonesia and its invasion and occupation of Timor-Leste.

As a citizen of the United States, I have a responsibility to learn and respond to injustices done by my own government. While my government would prefer not to emphasize or even acknowledge this past, I can still access this information, and I can speak freely. I am obligated to act when I see injustice – to use nonviolent means to prevent, reduce or acknowledge my complicity in my government's actions.

In the U.S., most people know December 7 as Pearl Harbor Day, the anniversary of the 1941 Japanese bombing of a U.S. Navy base in Hawaii. Japan's target was strictly military, and the pre-emptive strike was carried out because Japan believed that the U.S. was close to joining the war. In contrast, Indonesia's invasion of Timor-Leste was an attack on a civilian population who did not want war with Indonesia. Most people in the U.S. don't know about Timor-Leste, but the Indonesian invasion could not have happened without the military, economic and diplomatic backing of the U.S.

From December 6, 1975, until 1999, the U.S. supported Indonesia's invasion and occupation. For this, they are responsible for numerous serious crimes committed here.

Some basic facts:

December 6, 1975: President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger met with Suharto in Jakarta and gave a green light to the invasion.
December 7, 1975: Indonesia launched the invasion; 90% of the weapons used came from the U.S.
December 1975-1976: President Ford's Ambassador to the UN, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, wrote proudly that the U.S. wanted the UN to be "utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook [on Timor-Leste],...and I carried it forward with no inconsiderable success." From 1976 to 1983, the U.S. voted against every General Assembly resolution supporting Timor-Leste.
January 1976: A U.S. State Department official stated: "In terms of the bilateral relations between the U.S. and Indonesia, we are more or less condoning the incursion into East Timor.... The United States wants to keep its relations with Indonesia close and friendly. [It's] a nation we do a lot of business with."
1977: President Jimmy Carter (known by many as 'the human rights president') increased military aid to Indonesia, including authorizing an additional $112 million worth of weapons. U.S. support for the occupation continued under the Reagan and Bush administrations of the 1980s.
December 10, 1991: A month after the notorious Santa Cruz massacre in Dili, capitol of Timor-Leste – witnessed by U.S. journalists Amy Goodman and Allan Nairn – U.S. officials met with Indonesian military leaders to reinforce their support, telling them: "We do not believe that friends should abandon friends in times of adversity."
1992-1999: East Timor Action Network (ETAN) activists worked with members of Congress to restrict U.S. government support for the occupation, resulting in a decrease in military assistance, training and arms sales to Indonesia. Despite this, President Clinton authorized hundreds of millions of dollars in weapons sales and provided over US$500 million in economic aid.
Early September 1999: Despite the killings and massive destruction by the Indonesian military and their militia which preceded and followed Timor's vote for independence – the Clinton administration delayed ending military and economic support for Indonesia. U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, Stapleton Roy, told a journalist: "The dilemma is that Indonesia matters and East Timor doesn't." Finally, on September 10, in the face of strong public and Congressional pressure, President Clinton suspended all U.S. economic aid and military ties to Indonesia.

The U.S. government has not yet responded to the basic recommendations presented in Chega!, the report of Timor's truth commission. The commission called on the U.S. and others to support an international tribunal to bring perpetrators of crimes committed during Indonesian illegal occupation to justice. The commission recommended reparations to the Timorese people from countries like the U.S. that backed Indonesia.

Fidel Castro is now dead, and Donald Trump will be the next U.S. president. People in Cuba have access to quality healthcare. In the U.S., 17% of the population are food insecure and at least a million people have no permanent home. While the health system doesn't yet cover everyone, many people's insurance is now threatened with elimination by Trump.

While Cuba has little money, they have sent doctors and provide medical education to develop the health sector in many countries, including Timor-Leste. The U.S., a far richer nation, gives relatively small amount in aid, largely focused on promoting private business and supporting militaries.

As a U.S. citizen, I acknowledge this and redouble my commitment and solidarity as an individual, as an activist, and as a member of ETAN, to struggle to ensure genuine accountability and justice for crimes committed in Timor-Leste. I will continue to push my government to make people and their basic needs the priority, as opposed to corporate profits and the rich. I will continue to demand that my government:

release all U.S. government documents relating to Timor-Leste from 1974-1999, including intelligence files and intercepted communications between different parts of the military and government.
create an independent commission with the power to investigate, analyze and report on U.S. involvement in Indonesia's invasion and occupation of Timor-Leste.
actively support the establishment of an international tribunal or other mechanism that can end impunity for those who committed crimes against humanity.
follow through on all the recommendations laid out in the Chega! report, including continuing to block visas to military officers who are mentioned in the report as possible perpetrators or command officers, and stopping weapon sales to Indonesia if human rights violations continue (as they do in West Papua).
apologize to the Timorese people for U.S. support for Indonesia and the crimes against humanity and war crimes carried out as part of the invasion and occupation.
begin discussions with Timorese people from various sectors about reparations from the U.S. government to the people of Timor-Leste.

A luta kontinua...

See also, Nevins, Joseph. A not-so-distant horror: mass violence in East Timor, Cornell University Press, 2005

[Pam Sexton currently lives and works in Timor-Leste. She is a member of the Executive Committee of the U.S-based East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN, www.etan.org).]

Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/12/21/east-timor-reflections-41-years-after-invasion-day/