Mozambique: Journalists Call for Solidarity With Timorese Government

Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo) - Posted to the web June 5, 2006

Mozambique: Journalists Call for Solidarity With Timorese Government

Two prominent Mozambican journalists, in the latest edition of the
independent weekly "Savana", have written in defence of embattled East
Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, who has been subjected to all
manner of slander and insult from the right wing Australian media and
from the Catholic Church. During the current crisis, Alkatiri has been
literally demonised, with some posters from his Catholic opponents
declaring "Alkatiri is a communist and a devil".

But many Mozambican journalists have a very different picture of
Alkatiri. For in exile he lived in Maputo, where he played a key role
in the attempts to mobilise international solidarity against the
Indonesian invasion of East Timor.

In the dark days of the late 1970s and the 1980s, it was not
Australia, and not even the former colonial power, Portugal, that kept
the Timorese issue alive in international fora - that task fell on the
shoulders of Mozambique and Angola.

During those long years Mozambican journalists and other intellectuals
came to know and admire Alkatiri, and have no time for absurd claims
that he is "a devil".

In his "Savana" column, Fernando Lima notes that Alkatiri has been
subjected to the rage of the Catholic church since 2002.

Among the causes for this were the Timorese government's attempt to
separate church and state - but also Catholic hostility to a
politician of moslem descent (though Alkatiri has never defined
himself in terms of religion).

The fact remains that Alkatiri is popular - particularly in the ranks
of the movement that fought for Timorese independence and is now the
country's ruling party, Fretilin (Revolutionary Front for an
Independent East Timor). At the recent Fretilin congress, Alkatiri was
easily re- elected as the party's leader: his sole opponent dropped
out of the race before the final vote. Lima believes it was no
coincidence that the unrest in Timor erupted immediately after the
Congress - because "the wrong man won".

Some of the more ridiculous columns in the Australian press claim that
Alkatiri was indoctrinated by "communists" in his years of exile. But
by the time Alkatiri left, Mozambique had long since jettisoned
marxism as its official ideology.

Lima argues that Alkatiri learnt quite a different lesson in Maputo.
He had watched the growth of corruption in Mozambique in the 1990s,
and was determined that the same should not happen in Timor.

Alkatiri, Lima points out, is the architect of petroleum legislation
that has won international praise - but which certain sectors,
coveting the oil under the Timor Sea, do not like.

This position is shared by the second column, written by Joao Machado
da Graca, who believes that supposed ethnic divisions in East Timor,
about which there has been so much chatter, is secondary to the issue
of Timor's potential oil wealth.

Machado da Graca notes that the Australian government is no supporter
of Alkatiri - for Alkatiri fought long and hard over the delimitation
of East Timor's maritime border with Australia, an issue of key
importance given the "millions of barrels of oil waiting to be
extracted" under the seabed.

"The government of Timor is not corrupt and things were not resolved
in favour of Australia through a few million dollars deposited in
Swiss banks as the Australians may have imagined", wrote Machado da
Graca.

The sequence of events last week was most interesting.

Machado da Graca notes that on Monday it became publicly known that no
Australian company had won the oil exploration tenders launched by the
Timorese government. On Tuesday, the violence in the Timorese capital,
Dili, worsened dramatically. On Wednesday Australian troops arrived in
Dili.

As for the Timorese "rebels", these are mutineers led by a man who
played no role in the Timorese struggle against Indonesian occupation.
Instead he spent the whole period living comfortably in Australia.
When Timorese independence was retired he rose to a senior position
thanks to Australian advisers who were then with the United Nations
force.

In the background are the Americans, who seem to have thrown their lot
in with the Catholic church. Machado da Graca notes the presence of
the US ambassador at the Catholic church demonstration against the
Timorese government's decision to end compulsory teaching of the
catholic religion in state schools.

One might have expected the US embassy to applaud this: after all, the
Alkatiri government was merely following the separation of church and
state that was first declared in the Constitution of the United States
of America.

Machado da Graca warns that "after a short period of independence, a
prolonged period of Australian tutelage, with American support, on the
pretext of maintaining law and order, could be disastrous. Mainly
because it would take away from Timor the strength to negotiate
independently its main wealth, the oil under its territorial waters".

The article concludes with a call for solidarity "with the legitimate
government of East Timor, led by Mari Alkatiri, in this difficult
moment".