a generation deprived of the universalistic culture formerly taught in Portuguese schools and nurtured on Suhartoeist materialism and narrow state ideology is poorly equipped to make mature value judgements about language. Their call for a referendum on the official language shows a dangerous tendency to politicize language without any real understanding of the underlying sociological, educational and other cultural issues crucial to enlightened language planning.

In Alkatiri's biography we also see that once the great majority of the Timorese people opted for the independence option, formation of an interim administration to draft the Constitution and holding free Presidential and parliamentary elections, he was given by this administration the economy portfolio (he still maintains this portfolio in the current Government) through which he showed unique talents in terms of gaining economic support for his country from the donor powers and international organisations.

However, there are some who criticise him for his method of negotiating with the Australians over the division of the oil and gas wealth in the territorial waters separating East Timor and Australia, ending with his approval of the principle of getting 20 per cent of such wealth.

To this criticism, he responded by saying that this deal was imposed by the principle of the weakness of the emerging Timorese state and its inability to engage in a conflict with its powerful Australian neighbour, let alone the fact that adopting a hard-line position could deprive the Timorese of the sympathy of Australia's western allies and could delay the arrival of the promised aid.

Nevertheless, this incident should not be cited as evidence of Alkatiri's soft approach and his leniency in relinquishing his country's rights. Alkatiri has recently showed, in view of Canberra's refusal to mark the sea boundaries between Australia and East Timor, that he is not complacent nor willing to bargain in issues of sovereignty.

Another proof of his tough policies is his determined insistence upon putting on trial all those involved in cases of murder, extermination and terrorism by forming pro- Indonesia militias and opposition to independence from the latter.

Perhaps that is one of the reasons of his differences with his chief Xanana Gusmao who feels that the past should be forgotten and forgiveness shall be the order of the day to enhance national unity.,

Abdullah Al Madni is a Gulf researcher and an Asia expert

East Timor in brief

Jose Ramos Horta May 2006

ABC Lateline May interview with Horta 'Soldiers did not shoot protesters'

East Timor Horta news briefs

Report of Geneva Centre for the Democratic control of armed forces paper 139

SEEING EVERYTHING IN EAST TIMOR being set up from scratch makes me realise how many systems we inherit and take for granted. Here, basics, like what language will be taught in school and used for government documents, as well as what currency to trade with, must be defined.

There are some 34 indigenous languages in East Timor. While many rural people only speak the language of their area, Tetun (tet toon) is the most common local language and would have to be the front runner for official language status. But Tetun hasn’t really emerged from the 19th century. It works for conversation, but it doesn’t have the technical vocabulary needed for politics, sciences or electronics.

An alternative is Portuguese, East Timor’s traditional colonial language. It is the language of choice for many older Timorese, especially those who did their university training in Lisbon. It is these old boys who have scooped the ministerial positions in the interim government. They are pushing for Portuguese as it would certainly help secure them into the power structure. Younger people, for the most part, don’t speak or see the point of Portuguese.

Bahasa Indonesia is the most widely understood language in East Timor. For 25 years, all schooling and administration was in Bahasa Indonesia and realistically everyone who speaks more than their indigenous language, speaks it. This is exemplified by the fact that at conferences and courses, the proceedings are always translated into Bahasa Indonesia. But while it is a practical solution to East Timor’s language dilemma, it is the language of oppression and many people won’t speak it unless all else fails. Those who support Bahasa Indonesia as an official language are branded as pro-Indonesian, which is like saying nasty things about their mother.

A fourth possibility is English. It is the language of the UN and having some English skills is a requirement to get a government job, or just about any job, for that matter. Australia is aggressively promoting English and I reckon there are more Aussie English-as-a-Second-Language teachers here than boys selling cigarettes in the market. It can be reasonably argued that English is Australia’s late run at colonising East Timor. Young people here see English as their link to the rest of the world and are enthusiastic to learn it. Downsides are that, at the moment, hardly any Timorese speak it fluently, and its value in government may well diminish as the UN scales down its presence here.

The envelope please. And the winners are … Tetun and Portuguese.

Stand up, the real Mr Alkatiri

The Australian Government and media have demonised East Timor's PM without knowing all the facts, writes Helen Hill.

 

While Alkatiri was being told by Australians he should resign, the Portuguese and other leaders were wishing him well and urging him not to.

Ever since the August 2001 elections for the Constituent Assembly in East Timor - when the longest-standing party of resistance, Fretilin, won a convincing 57 per cent of the vote against 14 other parties - I have observed among Australian embassy employees in Dili, and most Australian journalists who write about Timor, a readiness to criticise Mari Alkatiri, East Timor's Prime Minister, on grounds that show they barely know anything about him.

The Bulletin and The Australian regularly recommend his overthrow. The week before the Fretilin congress in Dili, the ABC joined them as regular Alkatiri critics. Jim Middleton on the ABC's evening news wondered "what would happen if Alkatiri decides to resist" calls for his resignation, and uncritically put to air claims from a sacked Fretilin central committee member alleging that 80 per cent of the central committee was against the Prime Minister. A week later, after further violent episodes in Dili, we saw Maxine McKew on Lateline trying to put words into the mouths of MPs Malcolm Turnbull and Peter Garrett: "Wouldn't you say there's not much support for Alkatiri?" How could they possibly know, if all they saw were the Australian media?

Who is Mari Alkatiri and why does he arouse such hostility from Australian politicians and media presenters? While Alkatiri was being told by Australians he should resign, he was also taking phone calls from the Portuguese and other prime ministers, wishing him well and urging him not to.

With Jose Ramos Horta, Alkatiri helped found Fretilin when, back in the early 1970s, it took the form of a clandestine group of young people meeting under the nose of the Portuguese colonialists in front of the building where he now has his office. On the eve of the full-scale Indonesian invasion, Alkatiri, who had already graduated as a surveyor in Angola, was sent with Ramos Horta and Rogerio Lobato to put Timor's case at the United Nations. His exile lasted 24 years, but it was productively used; he studied law and economics at Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique, with South African exiles and others struggling for freedom. Mozambique had offered scholarships to any Timorese students who could qualify for admission, and it was this group, who worked in many professions on graduating and gained a great deal of experience in economic development, who now form the backbone of the public service. In Mozambique, Alkatiri learnt a great deal about international organisations and how to avoid falling into some of the traps Mozambique had encountered. His negotiating skills that the Australian Government finds so fearsome were gained during this period.

Every year he was with Ramos Horta at the UN General Assembly for the debate on East Timor. In 1998 it was Alkatiri who did most of the thinking that led the multi-party National Council for Timorese Resistance to adopt its "Magna Carta", linking Timor's future policies with the best standards in international practice coming from the UN's conferences on human rights, environment, population, women and social development during the 1990s.

Detractors frequently allege that Alkatiri's presence in Mozambique for 24 years means he is some sort of unreconstructed Marxist. In reality, he is an economic nationalist with a strong awareness of environmental issues and woman's issues; he regularly speaks out on violence against women. He has spoken against privatisation of electricity and managed to get a "single desk" pharmaceutical store, despite initial opposition from the World Bank. He hopes a state-owned petroleum company assisted by China, Malaysia and Brazil will enable Timor to benefit more from its own oil and gas in addition to the revenue it will raise from the area shared with Australia. At the Fretilin congress, he announced initiatives for scrapping school fees in primary school and introducing state-funded meals in all schools.

There is widespread support in Timor for Alkatiri's decision not to take loans from the World Bank, although it gave Timor a few years of extremely low salaries in the public service. The Cuban doctors invited by Alkatiri to serve in rural areas are also very popular, as is the new medical school they are establishing at the national university.

The young intellectuals at the university and the leadership of many Timorese non-government organisations praise Alkatiri's economic knowledge and his ability to defend Timor's interests against the likes of the World Bank and the Australian Government (over the Timor Sea issue), while being disappointed with slow progress on educational reform and development of the co-operative sector.

His major errors of judgement include a draconian defamation law, which has drawn the ire of much of Timor's media, and his tardiness in intervening on the sacking of the dissident soldiers, in which he has supported decisions made by army commander Taur Matan Ruak.

Another frequent accusation is that Alkatiri is "arrogant", and, while this might be the case, he has increased massively the public consultations held over the last year. Under East Timor's semi-presidential constitution, the president is popularly elected while ministers are appointed by the party with the majority in the Parliament. Alkatiri has sacked some ministers for poor performance, and some of them provided support for his challenger at the Fretilin congress.

In a rather bizarre twist, one of Alkatiri's unashamed supporters during this crisis has been the World Bank, whose director wrote last week that "Timor-Leste has achieved much thanks to the country's sensible leadership and sound decision-making which have helped put in place the building blocks for a stable peace and a growing economy".

Helen Hill teaches sociology at Victoria University and is author of Stirrings of Nationalism in East Timor: Fretilin 1974-78, Oxford Press.

Thanks for the helpful links. Will study carefully and looking forward to your lost comments when replaced. I've been following the Fairfax (Age) and Murdoch (Australian) coverage fully and watching main cable news reports (Sky/BBC/CNN/Fox) while having to skip most other reading to do so while still embroiled in other crises.

Won't be able to digest links or do any actual research on background for a while and probably won't be posting at all for a week or so, so I just thought I'd respond with this cryptic comment below to show interest.

1. Helen Hill is clearly right about unfair blame on Alkatari (and Lobato whose police were massacred by "loyalists" in what looks like an open military coup backed by Australia).

2. Nevertheless I think her analysis does suffer from the problem that worried me about need for independent analysis - ie that genuine supporters of solidarity with East Timorese (of which Helen "Sunrise" is an excellent example are far too uncritical of the "revolutionary leadership" they are in solidarity with to rely on for objective analysis. In particular she doesn't even mention what I still think is likely to be a really fundamental problem - the deprecation of Indonesian by making Portuguese the only modern national language. That would have been a mistake common to the whole leadership, not just Alkatiri and Lobato or their opponents in a power struggle among a lusophone elite divorced from their malay ("Indonesian" and tetum speaking middle strata (with most of the masses still living in tribal subsistence economy with over a dozen local languages). Note how Malaysian troops have been needed because they can at least communicate with the locals in malay which is still far more popular than Portuguese while the main intervention force, Australians, simply cannot in any language at all.

3. Australian contribution to that mistake may have taken the form of pushing for english instead of recognizing that you cannot simply deny recognition to the language in which a generation have been educated. (The odious Greg Sheridan has been chauvinistically pushing for Australian rule pointing out the absurd choice of Portuguese but not mentioning the necessity to recognize Indonesian and instead trying to impose english instead of allowing it to emerge naturally as it does as an international second language everywhere else).

Q: But many young people cry: Communist, Muslim, Mozambiquean, arrogant.



A: We all know where this country’s idea of independence comes from. And if they do not know it, they should learn it. Some have died, the struggle goes on. In those days nobody talked about my religion or my character. We were adventurous, half-an-island between two giants. We achieved independence and I suddenly became a foreigner. Arrogant? Even my family says so. But I have sensibility. What I do not have is that Javanese culture of smiling to everyone and then stab them in the back. As to Communist, I cannot see how East Timor could be Communist when no one else is it anymore.

Timor-east: Ramos available Horta to substitute Mari Alkatiri 
07.06.2006 - 16h56 Lusa, PUBLICO.PT

 The minister of the Foreign affairses and the Defense of Timor-East, Ramos Horta, admitted today that he is available to assume the first-minister position, if Mari Alkatiri to present its resignation.

“In the hypothesis of that the first-minister resigns, since that is made in a constitutional and democratic picture, obviously I will accept any responsibility”, said the head of the timorense diplomacy in declaration to the Radio Renaissance.

Commenting the situation of instability and violence that the country lives since the end of April, and that it took the authorities of Díli to ask for to the aid of a military and police force Portugal, Australia, New Zelândia and Malaysia, Ramos Horta it supported that it is necessary to assure the “dialogue of brothers, without a definite agenda”.

The availability revealed for Ramos Horta already received the commentary from the bishop of Baucau, Basílio of the Birth, that if finds in Portugal, and that today it was in the cerimónia of presentation of a campaign of solidarity in favor of Timor-East in Walls (Port). “It is one of the possibilities, but I think that inside of the Government he has other members that also could assume the position”, it affirmed the bishop, without specifying.

But Basílio of the Birth considered that the eventual resignation of Mari Alkatiri and the installation to the position on the part of Ramos Horta could “decide the situation in the territory”, but could not be enough to decide the crisis. “I do not know which is the best solution, if the anticipated elections or not. What I intend is the creation of a climate, where these violências and this instability disappear, while thus it will be. Anticipated elections are not alone that go to change the situation”, supported the prelate.

Basílio de Nascimento defended to be necessary to guarantee “stability in the territory” and, for this, it will be able to contribute the presence of international forces of security. “The things do not pass only for the resignation of the first-minister and elections, I wait that the presence of the international forces can stabilize the life in Timor”, it added.

The bishop still defended a “international and independent inquiry” to the occured violence in Timor-East and also the “punishment”, in case that he is proven that it has responsible for the occured deaths.

To the edge of the same cerimónia in Walls, Basílio de Nascimento revealed surprised with critical to the Church the Catholic of Mari Alkatiri, who if affirmed “a little shocked” for seeing the “high hierarchy of the Church to make politics”.

The timorense Government has had a litigation with the local Church, accumulated in the year passed for the decision to decree lay education in the schools of Timor-East, whose population is maioritariamente catholic. But although the tense relations between Government and Church, the timorense first-minister said that he still has business space for agreements.

Basílio of the Birth assures that the Church “has attemped to collaborate” and that “it collaborates in the way that can”, having, however, in the passed year, when convoked a manifestation, intended “to send a signalto say that was necessary to have a certain care in the behavior of the people and the decisions that were to be taken”.

“The things had not been taken in account, it thought that it was a species of whim of the bishops, or the people of the Church, but the certainty is that it was seen that the dissatisfaction, after all, started to develop itself”, related the bishop of Baucau.

In its opinion, the dissatisfaction of the people in the person of the first-minister is not recent, already it has some years, and it must, over all, to the type of language and boarding and to the form of approach of the heads in relation to the people. The bishop said, however, to be available to collaborate in the pacification in the territory.

June 9, 2006

Alkatiri rejects Railos 'hit squad' allegations 

In a moment of deadlock in which the opponent factions in East Timor hold their breath but do not drop their weapons, PM Mari Alkatiri talks about the critical episode that led the rebels to the mountains: the alleged “Raikotu massacre” on the 28th of April.

Expresso: Last week you told Expresso that you believed it were not just kids acting on themselves in the streets of Dili and that there was an organization behind them. What or who are you talking about exactly?

Mari Alkatiri: Luckily that is not just my own opinion anymore. The forces in the field, the international forces, have also come to the conclusion that there are people behind the groups who are assaulting and burning houses, because they have radios and walky-talkies. They communicate between themselves, which suggests there is a central organization managing everything. Some of those groups are active. Other groups organize themselves just to take advantage of the chaos in the city.

E: Are you referring to criminal groups associated to former 1999 pro-Indonesia militias?

MA: Some groups, yes. But we cannot say that all the groups burning houses have the same nature. Some are doing it with the clear purpose of hitting certain persons. Not because they are Loromonu or Lorosae but key persons.

E: Who are those key persons?

MA: The purpose is to frighten public servants of a certain level to neutralize the government’s action, to create political collapse.

E: And do you believe groups interested in political collapse are associated to the rebels major Alfredo, majors Marcosand Tara, and lieutenantSalsinha?

MA: I do not have exact data to say they are associated to majors Alfredo or Tara. I cannot make that accusation but the truth is in some declarations they themselves let us believe so: that they will do everything to create a collapse in governing and that they have infiltrated groups. There are other groups that appear spontaneously, that are opportunists and take the opportunity to steal. The majority is even of that sort.

E: The rebels insist that they will only accept starting the dialogue after the PM resigns.

MA: A group of rebels cannot want to determine the future of a country. That cannot be admitted anywhere.

E: Is that a condition that you will not really accept?

MA: Never. The country would never again be a country. Today it is they; tomorrow there will be others.

E: The rebels accuse you of having given orders on the 28th of April so that the FDTL army used force against civilians.

MA: The order was given by me. The police was completely unstructured, without a command. There are laws that say when the police is not able to do their job the army may be asked to intervene, and restore law and order. But the order given was not to shoot civilians but to control and keep them away.

E: At the Dili National Hospital, where we were, there is confirmation of more than 60 civilians shot. The rebels name it the “Raikotu massacre”. In a moment when they are claiming to assume the responsibility, whoshould be responsible?

MA: I know some people even threw grenades against the army. One grenade exploded and another did not. Two people were killed as a reaction of the army to those grenades, even before the order I gave. Some talk about civilians but do civilians carry grenades? Do civilians carry automatic guns? Should we keep considering these civilians as civilians?

E: Are you saying the petitionersand civilians with them were armed?

MA: Of course. Andif they were not armed, they should not be with the petitioners. Why did the petitioners push the civilians ahead as a human shield? That was the strategy – a strategy used by Suharto’s forces many times here in East Timor.

E: At Falintil/FDTL headquarters, where we also were, the soldiers say the petitioners are militias.

MA: The truth is that civilians were pushed to death so they could accuse and cause the government’s fall. And they could not have caught the army; otherwise it would have been a total disaster.

E: Do you not attribute that responsibility to colonel Lere Anan who commanded the forces in that day?

MA: What responsibility?

E: The responsibility of the army having shot civilians.

MA: It is better to have an investigation first.

E: But is the investigation being done?

MA: No, it is not being done. But it has to be done in order to find out who shot whom. The others were armed as well. There are soldiers who were shot in the back.

E: Is that investigation not urgent?

MA: We have asked for it everywhere.

E: And who should investigate?

MA: The Minister of Foreign Affairs has already written to the Human Rights Commission so they can do their report. We are the first country in the world to ask for that. We have also written to the United Nations (UN) so they can take part in the investigation. We have all justice systems working to initiate it. We have international prosecutors and judges in our justice system, nominated by the UN. They are not just Timorese. That will all be done. Because what it was wanted was that many people had been killed they keep claiming more than 60 deaths. The last number given by lieutenant Salsinha already mentions more than 500 people. It has been multiplied by ten. If 60 people were killed who are they? Where are the relatives who lost them? This is a simple investigation, it is not like in Indonesian times when Suharto did not allow anyone to come and investigate. How many journalists are in this town right now? Journalists also have a certain capacity to investigate. Nobody puts forward the names of the dead, nor even of the victims’ relatives. They keep talking, however. It smells like propaganda.

E: Have you got precise information on the weapons that have been confiscated in Dili?

MA: I do not have any official data. More than 400 fire weapons have been mentioned but I cannot confirm it. I hope it is true because it means there will be less 400 weapons in the neighbourhoods.

E: Is the communication with the international forces working well?

MA: The Australian Minister of Defence and the commanders in the field – from Australia and New Zealand – have just been with me.

E: There is a conspiracy thesis that defends Australia is behind the chaotic situation in East Timor. It is a fact that the dossier on the exploration on natural gas in Timorese waters with the government in Canberra is still an open one. Does this make any sense?

MA: To anyone who wants to make an analysis of all this, all the parts in the puzzle have to be looked at in order to understand the origins of this conflict. To someone who is ruling the country, the problem of stability and the problem of law and order have to be solved now and objectively.

E: There is a tension with Australia, for example, on the decision about the natural gas pipeline of the Great Sunrise wells. The company that operates in that area is Australianand there is an agreement that waits to be ratified by the parliament in East Timor that could jeopardize future pretensions of your government to enlarge the Timor Sea limits.

MA: I do not agree with the interpretation that such an agreement could jeopardize the Timorese pretensions. There are countries in the world with centuries of history, which have still not defined their maritime borders. It is better to have an agreement with a neighbouring country to explore maritime resources than to postpone that agreement. If we insist with the borders we will not reach a consensus and we will need another 30 or 40 years. After the current crisis we will be able to respond much quicker to the problems of rebuilding the country because we will than have the resources. Everything that has so far been done with Australia aiming for a more equal distribution of revenues was positive.

E: How do you see Australia’s PM John Howard position and declarations? He has put in doubt your performance has the leader of the government in Dili.

MA: The only interpretation I can make is that John Howard has surely not been following the governing of East Timor. Because f he had so he would not have said the silliness he said, accusing the governing of being a bad one when it was praised by everything and by everyone, including the Australian government. East Timor’s development partners were in Dili in April, where an important Australian delegation was also present and everyone praised the governing. Suddenly, in two months I became a demon to the Australian media. If I were PM of a powerful country I would never interfere in the political managing of smaller countries.

E: The Australian press suggests that you were trying to reinforce your own personal power. In last Fretilin’s congress the militants had to vote in you raising their arm. It was also written that you did not want elections in 2007 to be followed by the UN.

MA: That is a lie. They are trying to demonize someone, has other leaders in the world were demonized, so it can later be overthrown. If someone supported the secret vote in the Fretilin’s congress, I did. Everyone ignored this. When the suggestions came from the districts that the voting would be by raising of the arm, I stood up asking for the secret vote. But the majority voted on the raising of the arm. And the involvement of the UN was asked by the government.

E: By yourself?

MA: Yes, through the Minister of Estate Administration. We asked the UN to send an evaluation team to find out what was needed to be done. What they want though is an electoral law approved by theSecurity Council and not by the National Parliament. That is not possible. This is a state with sovereign institutions that can approve laws. Because otherwise we will continue as a protectorate of the UN. We are not a protectorate – not even from the UN. But we do want the participation of the UN in the elections. Why so much noise?

E: What about the fact that you reinforced the capacity of the police? The police was better armed than the FDTL army.

MA: The police was not even formed by the government. We inherited a police formed by the UN.

E: But you reinforced it. You created new unities within the police.

MA: When problems in Ermera, Atulia and Atsabe arose, related to the reintroduction of militias that killed people, there was the need to send forcesas the international community saw that as an internal conflict and it could not get involved. At the time it was a decision of the Estate. Of President Xanana. The Estate decided to send the FDTL to Atulia and Atsabe. This was in January 2003. From then on and because we were sending the Falintil/FDTL to fight that armed group, we were criticised as it was a police matter. But the group was using machine guns and our police had pistols. Where did you see a policepistols fighting bandits armed with machine guns? Therefore the idea of creating a special group within the police, the reserve unit, formed by 80 men.

E: And what do they do?

MA: They are used to fight those armed groups in rural areas. They are 80. That unit was created when the UN still had the responsibility of defence and security.

E: How do you explain the internal divisions within the army and the police?

MA: They were politicized. If you talk with the FDTL commands you will find out that the first thing that happened was an attempt of enticing them to support a military coup.

E: Was General Matan Ruakenticed by someone?

MA: I said the command, I did not mention names.

E: And who was the command enticed by?

MA: I will not mention names. Those who listen to me know whom am I referring to. There was an attempt to entice the FDTL command to support an eventual Estate coup.

E: An Estate coup related to the militias?

MA: Related to various sectors of the country. Sectors outside the Estate. The command was clear in saying that there would only be changes through constitutional and electoral means and that they do not allow coups. From then on, the best way was to weaken the Falintil/FDTL.

E: Have you been receiving enough support from Portugal in managing this crisis?

MA: Yes. I have spoken several times with PM José Socrates. There is a total availability by Portugal in the sense of helping us once again, in restoring law and order and in supporting us in the economical recovery of East Timor. I only have to thank. The Portuguese position has been exemplar in not involving itself in internal affairs, but by helping only.

E: Do you believe you will win elections in 2007?

MA: I have no doubts.

E: Do you feel nervous?

MA: No. I work very well under pressure. I am more nervous when I have no pressure.

E: Are you not afraid?

MA: No. If I were afraid I would have already died scared.

E: And have you been able to sleep?

MA: No. But not because I am afraid or nervous but because I have worries and I have sense of responsibility. I sleep a bit. I do not use any medicine to sleep. From time to time I have another whisky or two. But no medicine.

Press Release June 20, 2006

REPÚBLICA DEMOCRÁTICA DE TIMOR-LESTE

GABINETE DO PRIMEIRO-MINISTRO

 

PRESS RELEASE

 

 

 

Alkatiri rejects Railos 'hit squad' allegations

 

Prime Minister of Timor-Leste, Mari Alkatiri, today totally rejected allegations by Commander Vicente Railos made on RTTL TV the previous day, that he had armed Railos and asked him to kill oppositionists as well as opponents inside FRETILIN, and that delegates to the FRETILIN Congress had been given arms to kill opponents before the 2007 elections. The Prime Minister presented his response to journalists from RTTL just before noon at the Government Palace.

 

He also rejected Commander Railos' opening political statement on the TV news, that the Prime Minister symbolised foreign ideas that would divide and destroy the country. “This kind of statement has been used against me ever since I became Prime Minister in May 2002,” he said, condemning Railos for appearing armed, with other armed men, in the uniform of the Police Reserve Unit (URP), and for attacking the headquarters of the national army (F-FDTL) on May 24.

 

 

Railos offers to disarm

 

During questioning, the Prime Minister reported that Railos had telephoned him this morning, to say he wanted to hand in his guns to President Xanana Gusmão. “I told him to give his weapons to the police or the Australian army, and asked him not to be used by people who want to destroy FRETILIN,” said Mr. Alkatiri. “I took his call because he is a FRETILIN member and because a lack of communication is behind many of our problems”.

 

The Prime Minister said he spoke to Railos two or three times during the 3-day FRETILIN Congress, and certainly never told him to form an armed group. “I myself have called for independent, international investigations of all these incidents and allegations,” he said. “Police have interrogated FRETILIN Congress delegates from Maliana about the alleged arms they received, and nothing was found”.

 

The Prime Minister put the Railos allegations into the context of previous failed efforts to smear his name with the aim of forcing the resignation of his government. He noted the alleged bribe from the oil company ConnocoPhilips, which could not be substantiated in court, or the misleading statements in 2005 that he was against religion., and this year, the allegations that he was the cause of the trouble with the petitioning soldiers. “They were calling for my resignation before the F-FDTL was deployed after the violence on April 28. They don't want to highlight the attack by Major Reinado on the army and the home of Brigadier General Taur Matan Ruak on May 23, or his attack on the F-FDTL HQ the next day. They only focus on what can damage the Prime Minister,” concluded Mr. Alkatiri.

 

 

Dili, June 20, 2006

 

For further information please contact the Media Advisor:

Para mais informações contactar:

Miguel Sarmento/Rui Flores — Tel. +670 723 01 40 ou rui.flores@gmail.com

Peter Murphy — Tel. + 61 418 312 301

Efrem dos Anjos — Tel. + 670 728 2076

"Mr Gusmao wrote to Mr. Alkatari on Tuesday saying he had lost confidence in him after watching Monday night's Four Corners program on ABC television about the hit squad"

 Timor PM resists President's call to resign

   

Hamish McDonald, Dili
June 22, 2006


EAST Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri yesterday resisted a call by the country's President to resign, as prosecutors worked on legal charges against him over the transfer of police guns to a secret hit-squad in the ruling Fretilin party.

After talking with Fretilin leaders last night, he was preparing to meet his cabinet this morning, with the resignation demand the only item on the agenda.

If Mr Alkatiri decides to dig in his heels against President Xanana Gusmao's resignation demand, East Timor will head into a new level of tension.

"It's a balancing act between the constitution and bloodshed," said a Fretilin source. "People here are saying maybe the best option is for the President to ask Fretilin to provide a different prime minister."

President Gusmao yesterday convened his top advisory body, the Council of State, to assess allegations that Mr Alkatiri and dismissed interior minister Rogerio Lobato provided 17 police automatic rifles to a secret Fretilin security force. An arrest warrant has been issued for Mr Lobato.

Meanwhile Foreign Minster Alexander Downer has won the backing of France in pushing for the United Nations to take the policing role in East Timor.

The Age reports seem to be part of a flurry of "pressure" for Alkatiri to resign amounting to a slow coup. Latest newsagency reports indicate Fretlin CC has backed Alkatiri and Gusmao now threatening to resign as President.

Fundamental problem for the coup is that Fretlin has 55 of 88 members of legislature so they would have to scrap the constitution and dismiss the legislature if the "pressure" does not work.

Mooted suggestion is that Freitlin may appoint Deputy PMs to ease tension. Other possibility would be counter pressure by mass mobilization - Freitlin is still much larger than opposition. No idea what's actually happening and no way to know for a while. All I can conclude so far is still that this is worth following carefully to be able to do some independent analysis as no sources can be relied on to be objective - eg the same agencies that now report Freitlin has backed Alkatari and Gusmao will resign reported only a few hours earlier that Fretlin had rejected Alkatiri who would resign as demanded by Gusmao.

Thanks for the links. I'm still catching up but please keep them coming...

One obvious point I haven't seen made yet anywhere is that the "Republican" cause in Australia has been considerably set back by the sheer idiocy of a popularly elected President with no constitutional power to dismiss.

Just picture the situation in Australia with some celebrity figure head President posturing with the radio shock jocks about his outrage about an unpopular Prime Minister and demands that the PM resign.

Should Indonesian troops remove the PM or wait until he actually loses a majority in the legislature or refuses to hold a scheduled election?