Propaganda australiana a favor de Reinado

The Australian
Rebel a Che Guevara for angry Timor youth
Mark Dodd
04sep06

EAST Timor's No1 fugitive, the Australian-trained army rebel Major Alfredo Reinado, is rapidly assuming cult-hero status among many of the angry young men in this troubled country.

Since his spectacular jail breakout with 56 other inmates four days ago, Major Reinado has been making daily headlines.

A former commander of East Timor's military police, he was facing charges of attempted murder and illegal weapons possession before he walked to freedom out the front door of Becora prison.

A former indentured porter in the Indonesian army, Major Reinado escaped by boat from East Timor to Australia in 1995 with the help of a local priest. After returning to his homeland, he briefly commanded the country's two-patrol-boat navy and trained with the Australian army. He holds dual citizenship and has a wife in Perth. But Major Reinado's alleged involvement in political violence has been his undoing.

Since fleeing into the hills, there have been numerous reported sightings of the elusive fugitive whose exploits are eagerly reported in Dili's local-language newspapers and state television.

A recorded interview smuggled out from his secret hideout two days ago included words of advice to the country's warring youths not to drink too much, and an angry blast against a dysfunctional justice system.

"We have to struggle together to achieve justice and change this Government," he was reported as saying in an article published in the weekend edition of the Tetum-language Timor Post.

It included an appeal to end the gang violence that is a daily occurrence in the back streets of the dilapidated capital. "I appeal to all the country's youths to make peace and stop hating each other and stop stoning each other," he said.

"The Government must take responsibility for this problem." He added that the young men of Dili could also do worse than ease up on their drinking habits and start learning computer skills. For many East Timorese youths, disenchanted with the empty promises of their political leaders, Major Reinado has all the glamorous and heroic qualities of a 21st-century Che Guevara, but for others he is litle more than a swaggering braggart.

For those of his generation born in the east of the country, he is reviled for betraying the military and deserting his command with 20 heavily armed followers on May 4 -- actions he says he took in protest at the former Alkatiri government's violent crushing of a military protest one week earlier.

His support is strongest around his birthplace in the mountainous coffee-growing district of Aileu, and in particular among the ethnic Mambai people who account for up to 250,000, or about a quarter of the population, most of whom live in scattered mountain villages and towns in the central west.

East Timor has a long tradition of warrior heroes such as Falintil guerilla commander Nicolau Lobato, killed while fighting Indonesian troops.

The current President, Xanana Gusmao, is himself a former leader of the pro-independence guerillas.

While Mr Gusmao has shied away from public statements of support for Major Reinado, privately he is understood to be sympathetic to the soldier's plight.

Given Major Reinado's critical comments about the country's political leadership, his relationship with current Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta is more ambiguous.

Major Reinado loathes former prime minister Mari Alkatiri who he blames for the killing of six unarmed protesters during street demonstrations on April 28, actions that led to him throwing in his lot with 600 army rebels.

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