APSN | Timor-Leste's displacement crisis

Home > South-East Asia >> East Timor

Timor-Leste's displacement crisis

International Crisis Group Asia Report 148 – March 31, 2008

Executive summary and recommendations

The shooting of President Jose Ramos-Horta in February 2008 underscored the urgency of addressing sources of conflict and violence in Timor-Leste. The unresolved displacement crisis is one of the important problems, both a consequence of past conflict and a potential source of future trouble. Nearly two years after the country descended into civil conflict in April 2006, more than 100,000 people remain displaced. Successive governments and their international partners have failed to bring about the conditions in which they might return home or to prevent further waves of displacements. The new government's national recovery strategy needs to be properly funded and accompanied by a number of other crucial elements, most significantly the creation of a fair and functioning land and property regime, an increase in overall housing stock, an end to the cycle of impunity and reform of the justice and security sectors.

With 30,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) living in camps in the capital, Dili, the displaced are highly visible evidence of the failure to provide security and enforce the rule of law. As well as a humanitarian tragedy, they are a conflict risk in their own right. The 70,000 living outside camps, with families and friends, may be less visible but are a significant burden on their hosts.

Four main obstacles prevent the IDPs from going home. First, many continue to fear further violence from their neighbours and do not trust the security forces to guarantee their safety.

This needs to be tackled by speeding up security sector reform, including prioritising community policing; prosecuting arsonists and violent criminals; and promoting a process of local and national dialogue and reconciliation. Still, in some cases, it will not be possible for people to return to their original community, and alternatives will need to be provided.

The attacks on 11 February 2008 on President Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmco, which left the former seriously injured, showed why many people fear further violence. However, the death of rebel leader Alfredo Reinado may help reduce fear, particularly if his remaining fighters can be dealt with. His death has not sparked the unrest among his urban supporters and sympathisers that many predicted, though there is still potential for trouble after the curfew and state of siege are lifted. But Reinado was a manifestation, not the cause, of Timor's divisions. The government needs to address fundamental drivers of conflict, such as communal tensions, problems within the security forces and lack of economic opportunities – before the next Reinado appears.

Secondly, the provision of free food and shelter makes life in a camp in some respects more attractive than the alternatives. A further factor that makes IDPs from the countryside reluctant to leave the camps in Dili is that the capital offers many more economic opportunities.

Thirdly, some of the camps are in effect run by individuals and groups that have vested interests in keeping numbers high, either because they control the black market for reselling food aid or because they believe greater numbers give them more political weight. In a few instances, they have intimidated or prevented people from leaving.

Finally, many displaced do not have homes to go back to. Destroyed or damaged houses have not been rebuilt, and others are subject to ownership disputes that cannot be settled under Timor-Leste's incomplete and inadequate system of land law. More generally, housing stock is simply not sufficient for the country's population.

Unless more houses are built and systems introduced for resolving ownership disputes and providing secure tenure, the sheer demand for homes will continue to be an impediment to resettling displaced persons and a driver for further displacements.

Little beyond humanitarian aid was done in 2006-2007 to address the displacement crisis, but the government that assumed office in August 2007 has a more vigorous approach. It is phasing out universal food distribution in the camps and has not backed down despite protests and fears of unrest after Reinado's death. It now is moving on a government-wide plan – the national recovery strategy – which addresses many, though not all, aspects of the problem. Some senior officials still retain unrealistic expectations about the ease and speed with which IDPs can be induced to go home. However, the government as a whole is beginning to understand the complexity and is planning on a more realistic multi-year basis.

While the new national recovery strategy contains many of the elements needed for reintegrating IDPs into their communities or, where not possible, moving them into new homes, the government has not allocated sufficient resources to it. Only the first pillar – rebuilding houses - is funded in the 2008 budget, and that inadequately. No money has been provided for the equally important non-infrastructure elements, such as bolstering security, livelihood support, reconciliation and social safety nets.

The strategy also does not address options for rebuilding those properties – the majority – that are the subject of ownership disputes. Timor badly needs new land laws, a land register, a system for issuing titles, and mediation and dispute-resolution mechanisms. Most land ownership records were destroyed in 1999, and many people never had them in the first place; there are also conflicts between traditional, Portuguese and Indonesian land regimes. These problems underlie many displacements – people took advantage of the 2006 chaos to chase neighbours out of disputed properties – and risk undermining long-term stability and economic growth. Draft land laws exist, but successive governments have considered them too controversial. They need to be passed but, important as it is, land law reform will take time and alternative ways are needed to house IDPs whose houses are the subject of ownership disputes.

Implementation of the recovery strategy should be a properly funded priority for all ministries concerned. While the government needs some donor and international financial institution help, Timor-Leste has the resources to cover more of the shortfalls for IDP programs in its 2008 budget itself and should do so. All parties need to recognise that the longer they let the problem fester, the harder it will be to resolve it and the greater the chance that it will lead to yet more violence.

Recommendations

To the Timor-Leste Government:

1. Publicise and explain the Hamutuk Hari'i Futuru national recovery strategy fully to IDPs and receiving communities, emphasising that it is the best and final package for returnees and that those who do not accept it may miss out.

2. Cost those elements in the strategy which are currently unfunded and use the mid-term budget review to ensure each pillar of the strategy, and each line ministry, is allocated at least some funding from central government resources, with the balance made up from international concessional lending and external donor support.

3. Restart the social solidarity ministry's dialogue processes, focusing on communities where violence displaced large numbers of people, to encourage them to accept IDP returns and allocate additional resources to the ministry for this purpose.

4. Disseminate and adopt the recommendations of the Commission of Reception, Truth and Reconciliation's Chega! (Enough!) report, as a contribution to national dialogue and reconciliation.

5. Bring those primarily responsible for the 2006 violence, including arsonists, to justice and ensure that the crime of arson is treated seriously by the justice system.

6. Accelerate the process of security sector reform, giving priority to community policing and protection of vulnerable persons, while increasing the police presence in troubled parts of Dili and patrolling regularly in the camps and in communities to which IDPs return.

7. End universal food distribution in the camps and, with the assistance of donors and others, carry out a thorough assessment of vulnerable people and groups both within and outside camps to assist the setting up of effective social support mechanisms.

8. Develop programs, in cooperation with donors, to create more employment opportunities outside Dili and focus not only on short-term jobs, but also on creating permanent livelihood opportunities with a strong emphasis on the needs of women.

9. Develop a functioning land and property regime, including by:

(a) passing the land laws drafted by the justice ministry in 2004 to replace the current unsatisfactory mix of Indonesian, UN and post-independence legislation;

(b) prioritising creation of a land register and a land title system;

(d) providing adequate resources to deal with the large number of disputes, as well as tenure issues that particularly afflict women.

10. Implement the 2004 National Housing Strategy, so as to ease the general housing shortage that underlies many individual displacements.

11. Accept that the people who have been displaced are and will remain Dili residents, make plans to provide housing and basic services for the capital's growing population and replace the Dili Urban Plan with a new one that has input from all stakeholders and reflects the city's actual size and circumstances.

12. Do contingency planning for future displacement crises, including those resulting from natural disasters, by:

(a) identifying suitable sites for camps; and

(b) developing the government's disaster management and response capabilities, under the leadership of the prime minister's or vice prime minister's office.

To the UN Mission (UNMIT), Development Partners and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs):

13. Support the government in implementing the national recovery strategy, including by encouraging the international financial institutions to make concessional loans available for infrastructure and job creation, and by providing additional funding to top up the government's own allocations for the other elements.

14. Require all requests for assistance to the national recovery strategy to come through one government body, such as the office of the vice prime minister.

15. Encourage the government to give attention to all five elements of the strategy, and to crucial areas not covered by the strategy, including ending impunity for the 2006 violence, new land laws, a land register, a title system for issuing titles, and mediation and dispute-resolution mechanisms, and offer technical support in areas such as disaster management, urban planning and land administration.

Dili/Brussels, 31 March 2008