UNMIT – MEDIA MONITORING - Thursday, 14 June 2007

National Media Reports

UNMIT Representative visits Baucau
In response to the concerns raised by district authorities and political parties regarding the legislative election on 30 June, a representative from UNMIT, Wolfgang Weisbrod-Weber, visited Baucau and met with the District Administrator and political party representatives.

At a press conference held on Tuesday (12/6) in Baucau, Mr. Wolfgang said that discussions focused on issues such as logistics, elections and security.

He added that security surrounding the movement of ballot boxes to the District Counting Centers and the lack of transportation for political parties were amongst the main concerns brought up during the meetings. (TP)

UNPOL will set up seven police stations in Dili
The UNPol Police Commissioner Rodolfo Tor informed journalists that UNPol will set up seven police stations in Dili to strengthen the security force currently in place.

Mr. Rodolfo added that the seven police stations will be located in Biro Pite, Kampung Liberdade (Comoro), Fatuhada, Ailook Laran, Tuana Laran and Fatumeta. (TP)

The Court has the authority to capture the perpetrators involved in last year’s crisis
In response to the recent demands made by the former commander of the military police, Alfredo Reinado, to capture the perpetrators of last year’s crisis, Feliciano Fatima Alves from the Commission responsible for security said that the court has the authority to capture them after a warrant has been issued.

“Only the court has the authority to issue this warrant,” said Mr. Alves on Wednesday (13/6) at the national parliament. (STL)

PDHJ gets evidence of violence
After monitoring the 13 districts across the country, the Human Rights and Justice Prosecutor (PDHJ) said that it has evidence that political parties in the districts are violating the code of conduct. (STL and TP)

Sinco-Sinco object to the accusations
The Sinco-Sinco group headed by Antonio dos Santos and Lebo denied and objected to the accusations made regarding their involvement in terrorizing and intimidating the population in Ermera district over the last three weeks.

“These are false accusations and there have not been any confirmations made by the victims,” dos Santos said on Wednesday (13/6) at the national parliament. (STL)

Inconsistency in the laws regarding gambling
In response to the issue of illegal gambling in Dili, the lawyer of the Game Zone Company, Natercia B. de Deus, said that the case involving Game Zone is very complicated and different from the other cases. She added that the cases demonstrate the inconsistencies in the laws of Timor-Leste. (STL)

UNMIT and UNDP responsible for ballot papers
Three members from the CNE and four members from STAE went to Surabaya, Indonesia yesterday (13/6) to supervise the printing of the ballot papers for the parliamentary elections. The team was accompanied by STAE Director Thomas Cabral.

UNDP and UNMIT suggested that the ballot papers be printed in Surabaya because it would be cheaper than printing them in Timor-Leste. Mr. Cabral said that they (UNDP and UNMIT) must therefore take responsibility of any problems that arise. (TP)

Australian security analyst worried about F-FDTL improvement
An Australian defense and security analyst expressed concerns over the government’s plans to develop the F-FDTL.

“East Timor is in danger of building a military that it cannot afford and far bigger than it needs,” Prof. Hugh White from the Australian National University told the ABC.

He added that the proposal to expand the Timor-Leste defense force raised concerns in Australia. "It would not be enough to defend itself from neighboring countries, but much bigger than necessary to defend itself from illegal fishermen or other security threats that it may face,” said White. (TP)

Alfredo calls on Ramos Horta not to blame the police
Former military police, Maj. Alfredo Reinado Alves, called on President José Ramos-Horta not to condemn the PNTL for the incidents that took place in Viqueque last week.

Reinado said that as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Horta should encourage the PNTL to investigate the case.

“I was unhappy when I heard that the President condemned his forces,” said Mr. Reinado. (TP)
International Media Reports

Timor-Leste’s Parliamentary Elections
Dili/Brussels, 13 June 2007: Inflammatory rhetoric during the current parliamentary election campaign could reignite violent tensions in Timor-Leste.

Timor-Leste’s Parliamentary Elections,* the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, explores the political environment as the young country faces a key vote on 30 June. Successful elections could strengthen political institutions and thus be an important part of nation-building for a country badly shaken by civil unrest in 2006. Yet, the key issues underlying the violence remain unresolved.

“Although the presidential elections this year were largely peaceful, many of the wounds from 2006 are still visible”, says Sophia Cason, Crisis Group’s South East Asia Analyst.

The presidential elections, which Nobel Peace prize laureate José Ramos-Horta won with nearly 70 per cent of the vote, were viewed as a resounding verdict of disapproval of former Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri and his Frente Revolucionária de Timor-Leste Independente (FRETILIN) party.

Fourteen parties are contesting the parliamentary election but none is expected to win a majority. After the election, the new Congresso Nacional de Reconstrução de Timor-Leste (CNRT) party, led by former President Xanana Gusmão, is likely to join forces with several smaller parties to form a parliamentary majority and the next government.

A CNRT-led coalition would be more consultative and transparent than FRETILIN and thus better equipped to deal with the social-political rifts that revealed themselves in 2006. The expected coalition’s openness to advice on institution-strengthening and awareness of the needs of vulnerable groups bodes well for Timor-Leste’s future but its lack of technocratic skills and contradictory statements regarding appointments and policies emphasises the potential pitfalls of such a newly-formed political grouping.

There is real concern over the fiscal management competencies of a CNRT coalition given its proposals to distribute money quickly to alleviate poverty. Such a program could squander the Petroleum Fund and thus jeopardize the country’s economic future. Also, there has been virtually no discussion of proposed names or policies for the all-important ministries of the interior and defence raising further anxieties.

“The June election by itself will not solve any of Timor-Leste’s many problems”, says Sidney Jones, Crisis Group Senior Adviser. “Much will depend on the government formed after 30 June and how well – and how soon – it can ensure the effective functioning of key institutions”.


Contacts: Andrew Stroehlein (Brussels) +32 (0) 2 541 1635
Kimberly Abbott (Washington) +1 202 785 1601
To contact Crisis Group media please click here
*Read the full Crisis Group briefing on our website: http://www.crisisgroup.org



EAST TIMOR: MAKE VOTE DEMOCRATIC, U.N. ENVOY URGES
Adnkronosinternational- the global information gateway
13 June, 2007

New York, 13 June (AKI) - With campaigning for East Timor's parliamentary elections in full swing, the senior United Nations envoy to the country called on all concerned to ensure a democratic process. "It is important that campaign messages be delivered freely, fairly and without violence or intimidation or misuse of state resources," said Atul Khare in a news release.

So far, only four of the more than 150 campaign activities held across East Timor, by the 16 political parties have been marred by violent incidents, according to the UN Integrated Mission there (UNMIT).

Khare stressed that the 30 June elections should have a restorative and unifying impact and must not lead to divisiveness.

In view of a number of security incidents that occurred during this campaigning period, the Special Representative reminded all political players that justice and the rule of law will be upheld.

"Those who break the law and use political campaigning as an opportunity to indulge in criminal activity will continue to be dealt with swiftly by police" Khare said.

UNMIT is mandated by the Security Council to support East Timor in all aspects of the 2007 presidential and parliamentary electoral process.

Balibo inquest shows the futility of appeasement
By Bruce Haigh - posted Thursday, 14 June 2007

The New South Wales coronial inquest into the killing of five journalists in East Timor in 1975 has achieved far more than earlier government inquiries into the deaths.

The Deputy NSW Coroner, Dorelle Pinch, has been able to uncover facts that other investigations could not, and the inquest has confirmed the cover-up engaged in by successive Australian governments.

This cover-up was maintained through a loose consensus of foreign policy-makers, known as the pro-Jakarta lobby, including public servants in the Department of Foreign Affairs, politicians, journalists, academics and businessmen.
It came into being and was maintained to try and protect the Indonesian government from adverse commentary and scrutiny which it was felt might damage a fragile relationship. This policy amounted to appeasement and brought few rewards.

Maintenance of the policy included sweeping under the carpet Indonesian military atrocities in Aceh, Flores, East Timor and West Papua and complicity in military corruption.

There were three previous inquiries. The first was conducted in 1976 by an official from Foreign Affairs, Alan Taylor, which reiterated Indonesian denials and regurgitated publicly available information that the deaths by shooting were accidental.

Under pressure, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer instituted an inquiry in 1996 by the former head of the National Crime Authority, Tom Sherman; it concluded that the five had been killed by crossfire.

This finding did not satisfy those outside the pro-Jakarta lobby and under further pressure Downer, in 1999, again whistled up Sherman, who surprisingly came to the same conclusion, although adding the useful rider that if the journalists had been murdered it was the result of a blunder.

The coronial inquest lays bare the Australian attempt to get Indonesia off the hook over the cruel and calculated murder of five journalists done in an attempt to hide the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. It also exposes the shallowness and expediency of the policy of appeasement peddled by the pro-Jakarta lobby.

However, it fights on under the patronage of Downer who apparently urged NSW law authorities not to serve the visiting Governor of Jakarta, Sutiyoso, with a subpoena to appear before the coroners court. A police request to do so was met with flight and anger expressed on his return home which prompted the NSW Premier, Morris Iemma, to apologise, no doubt on advice from Downer.

Given what has transpired at the coroners court, I would have thought that Indonesia should be apologising to the families of the victims and the Australian people. Imagine the fuss if the boot was on the other foot.

Indonesian forces invaded East Timor on October 7, 1975. The five Australian journalists were murdered on October 16 in Balibo.

They have long been referred to as journalists but in fact they were war correspondents. The reason they went to Balibo was because they, along with other members of the media, intelligence, defence and foreign affairs officials, were convinced that Indonesia would invade East Timor. I spoke briefly to Greg Shackleton before he went to East Timor and that was the gist of the conversation.

Why they have never been accorded the status of war correspondents presumably rests with the fact that Australia has for so long tried to demonise them, blame them for their own deaths and accords them the role of non-persons, not deserving the protection or respect of the Australian government.

Well they do. They were five brave young Australians dedicated to exposing the truth and by doing so perhaps prevent a great injustice to the people of East Timor.

If the Government can put money into finding the Australian World War I submarine AE1, if it can put money into bringing back the bodies of two formerly missing Vietnam veterans, it can put money into bringing back from Indonesia the bodies of Gary Cunningham, Greg Shackleton, Malcolm Rennie, Anthony Stewart and Brian Peters.

They should be posthumously awarded the Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal and an appropriate memorial erected in Canberra which might go some way towards making amends for 32 years of Australian government vilification and denial.

National self-esteem demands nothing less. If a nation cannot honour its heroes it will slowly decay from within. In 2000 I wrote in my book The Great Australian Blight, that the reason the bodies of the newsmen were not brought to Australia for burial was because of fears a funeral would stir up anti-Indonesian sentiment.

This should not now be the excuse for not bringing them home and honouring them.

The only way to develop a strong long term relationship with Indonesia is on the basis of honest exchanges, anything else has a well demonstrated propensity to unravel with negative results.

Australians are angry at their war correspondents having been shot by members of the Indonesian Army and they should be told so.

The coronial inquest has demonstrated that the Taylor and Sherman inquiries were fundamentally flawed. Where does this leave the Flood inquiries into the intelligence services, refugee detention camps and the Cole inquiry into the AWB?

There is a lesson in this for the Howard Government: eventually the truth will out.

First published in The Canberra Times on June 8, 2007.

E Timor defiant on boost to forces
Mark Dodd
June 14, 2007
The Australian

EAST Timor's Prime Minister has thumbed his nose at Australia by announcing plans to give military chiefs free rein to spend millions of dollars raised from oil and gas fields to upgrade the country's defence force.

Just a week after Foreign Minister Alexander Downer called on the impoverished nation to spend money on infrastructure, not weapons; Prime Minister Estanislau da Silva has endorsed pre-election military spending and argued the armed forces should have more autonomy on procurement.

While Mr Downer said last night he was confident the plan would not proceed, Mr da Silva has told East Timorese reporters that the Timor Defence Force should manage its own finance and recruitment and should pursue development of its assets.

This would weaken the current system, under which parliament oversees defence procurement.
The news triggered a warning from defence expert Bob Lowry that the tiny nation could descend into chaos if it spent its scarce resources on weapons and allowed the watering down of good governance standards.
The Australian revealed last week that East Timor had produced the equivalent of a defence white paper outlining a plan for big military spending.

Mr da Silva said: "The head of the Government agrees with F-FDTL (the defence force) on the question of financial procurement, which should be the responsibility of the defence ministry in order to allow it to improve its work. To continue this program (Force 2020), attention needs to be given to purchasing new equipment, including a naval component allowing the F-FDTL to operate in East Timorese waters."

The 2020 report, prepared without the advice of Australian defence officials or others helping keep security in East Timor, recommended the purchase of several missile-equipped corvette-class warships to enforce the country's vulnerable maritime zone.

Last night, Mr Downer played down the Prime Minister's remarks, linking them to electioneering ahead of a national poll on June 30.

"I am confident Force 2020 will not happen as East Timor does not have the resources to deliver such a large military," he said. "Australian and international defence advisers are working with their East Timorese counterparts on the 2007-2010 force development plan to develop realistic capabilities."

Mr Lowry, an expert consultant in Southeast Asian politics and defence, warned the events pointed to a real danger that East Timor's fragile democracy could be derailed.

"Some people in the Australian defence community over there (East Timor) are saying, 'don't get too worried, it's just an aspirational doctrine'. But the trouble with these sort of things (defence plans) is, they do infiltrate themselves into the political system.

"Anyone with half a brain would know there is only one role for the (East Timor) military - if they decide to have one - and that is to back up the police."

Gusmão’s party tipped to win Timor polls despite lack of policies: ICG
14 June 2007
The Nation

Jakarta - The new party of East Timor's ex-president Xanana Gusmao appears likely to head a government after parliamentary polls this month despite a lack of policies to lure voters, a report said Wednesday.

The International Crisis Group said that ahead of the June 30 polls, personalities rather than party platforms were swaying East Timor's voters and that no party was offering concrete solutions to the tiny country's problems.

Gusmao, a former independence fighter who remains popular across the impoverished half-island nation, has formed a new party in a bid to take the prime ministership after stepping down as president last month.

But his party, the Congresso Nacional De Reconstrução de Timor-Leste (CNRT), "has a poorly developed structure, no policies and little more going for it than its leader's charisma," the ICG report said.

"That, however, may be sufficient," it added, noting that based on last month's presidential polls, the CNRT is likely to win 20 to 25 per cent of the vote and then ally with smaller parties to form a parliamentary majority.

Gusmão’s ally, President and Nobel peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta, won 22 per cent of the vote in the first round and 69 per cent of the presidential run-off.

A CNRT-led coalition, the Brussels-based think tank said, would be more consultative and transparent than the Fretilin-led government of Mari Alkatiri, though it may be less cohesive and less competent in economic management.

Of all the parties contesting the polls, only Fretilin, the ICG said, "seems to have any understanding of the complex technical issues involved in management of revenues and regulation of the petroleum sector."

East Timor has more than one billion dollars from oil and gas revenues locked away in a Petroleum Fund, and a debate over how, and how quickly, the money should be spent has emerged.

Fretilin has dominated parliament since East Timor officially gained independence from Indonesia after decades of occupation in 2002.

Alkatiri was forced however to resign last year amid unrest in the wake of his sacking of around a third of the army.

Street battles between rival security factions led to at least 37 deaths and forced Dili to ask for international peacekeepers to be dispatched to restore a fragile calm.

The ICG said that a CNRT-led coalition would be in a better position to address the political and social divides exposed by last year's bloodshed and more open to advice on how to rebuild and strengthen national institutions.

"But implementation of programmes... will depend not just on political will, but also on professional skills," it warned.

The ICG noted that Gusmao was not widely seen as a promising prime minister "because of his impatience with detail, among other things," so his advisers are recommending he have two deputies.

The report also warned that while presidential elections were largely peaceful, "accusations and inflammatory rhetoric may feature heavily in the parliamentary campaign in a way that could heighten tensions and lead to more violence."

Nevertheless, the fact that the presidential vote took place with few serious incidents showed that the country may emerge from last year's crisis more easily than first thought, it concluded. Agence France Presse

Gusmao headed for poll victory
By Samantha Brown in Jakarta
June 13, 2007 10:19pm
Article from: Agence France-Presse

THE new party of East Timor's ex-president Xanana Gusmao appears likely to head a Government after parliamentary polls this month despite a lack of policies to lure voters, a report said today.

The International Crisis Group said that ahead of the June 30 polls, personalities rather than party platforms were swaying East Timor's voters and that no party was offering concrete solutions to the tiny country's problems.

Mr Gusmao, a former independence fighter who remains popular across the impoverished half-island nation, has formed a new party in a bid to take the prime ministership after stepping down as president last month.
But his party, the Congresso Nacional De Reconstrução de Timor-Leste (CNRT), “has a poorly developed structure, no policies and little more going for it than its leader's charisma,” the ICG report said.

“That, however, may be sufficient,” it added, noting that based on last month's presidential polls, the CNRT is likely to win 20 to 25 per cent of the vote and then ally with smaller parties to form a parliamentary majority.

Mr Gusmão’s ally, President and Nobel peace laureate Jose Ramos-Horta, won 22 per cent of the vote in the first round and 69 per cent of the presidential run-off.

A CNRT-led coalition, the Brussels-based think tank said, would be more consultative and transparent than the Fretilin-led Government of Mari Alkatiri, though it may be less cohesive and less competent in economic management.

Of all the parties contesting the polls, only Fretilin, the ICG said, “seems to have any understanding of the complex technical issues involved in management of revenues and regulation of the petroleum sector.”

East Timor has more than one billion dollars from oil and gas revenues locked away in a Petroleum Fund, and a debate over how, and how quickly, the money should be spent has emerged.

Fretilin has dominated Parliament since East Timor officially gained independence from Indonesia after decades of occupation in 2002.

Mr Alkatiri was forced however to resign last year amid unrest in the wake of his sacking of around a third of the army.

Street battles between rival security factions led to at least 37 deaths and forced Dili to ask for international peacekeepers to be dispatched to restore a fragile calm.

The ICG said that a CNRT-led coalition would be in a better position to address the political and social divides exposed by last year's bloodshed and more open to advice on how to rebuild and strengthen national institutions.

“But implementation of programs ... will depend not just on political will, but also on professional skills,” it warned.

The ICG noted that Mr Gusmao was not widely seen as a promising prime minister “because of his impatience with detail, among other things,” so his advisers are recommending he have two deputies.

The report also warned that while presidential elections were largely peaceful, “accusations and inflammatory rhetoric may feature heavily in the parliamentary campaign in a way that could heighten tensions and lead to more violence.”

Nevertheless, the fact that the presidential vote took place with few serious incidents showed that the country may emerge from last year's crisis more easily than first thought, it concluded.