We could have done more for Timor: Portugal

Australia Network News

Representatives from East Timor, Portugal and Australia have meet in Canberra.
Created: Tue, 10 Feb 14:35:12 UTC 2009
Last Updated: 13 hours 36 minutes ago

A year on from rebel attacks that left East Timor's president fighting for his life, Portugal's Foreign Minister Luis Amado has suggested the international community failed to do enough for the new nation early in its independence.

Mr Armado has been in talks with his Australian counterpart Stephen Smith today, and says the world was too optimistic about East Timor's transformation.

"Probably we were too optimistic a couple of years ago and we didn't pay the attention that we probably should have paid to the importance of the presence of the international community in assisting this process," he says.

Mr Smith says while security in East Timor has stabilised in the year since the near-fatal shooting of President Jose Ramos-Horta, the situation remains fragile.

"That's why in ... Australia's view there is an ongoing need for the United Nations presence [and] the International Stabilisation Force," he says.

"Australia and Portugal both play a shared role for the capacity building of East Timor's own institutions - particularly training of police, training of military."

On a knife-edge

On February 11 last year, Mr Ramos-Horta was shot and wounded in a clash with renegade soldiers at his home outside the capital, Dili.

The incident also claimed the life of rebel leader Alfredo Reinado, and was followed an hour later by a failed attack on Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao.

Last year's events prompted fears of a return to chaos in the country just two years after fighting among police, soldiers and street gangs left at least 37 dead.

But instead of triggering fresh violence, one analyst says the death of Reinado has brought an end to a rebellion of 600 disgruntled soldiers.

"One shouldn't speak ill of the dead, but Reinado's death removed a major impediment to peace," says the Australian National University's George Quinn.

But he says grinding poverty, a dysfunctional education system, gangs of unemployed youth and a culture of impunity has the country on a "knife-edge".

"The risks of a recurrence of violence and stagnation are very real ... my impression is that East Timor is on a knife-edge at the moment. It could go either way."