[Kabar-indonesia] The Bulletin/E.Timor: Out and out madness

[Joyo at aol.com]

The Bulletin [Australia Newsweek]
July 4, 2006

Out and out madness
    
Last week was politically insane in East Timor. And
while Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri has resigned, the
country's problems are far from over. Paul Toohey
reports.

The man no one wanted to resign, President Xanana
Gusmao, was offering to, despite neighbouring
presidents and prime ministers pleading with him to
stay. The man many dearly wanted to go, Prime Minister
Mari Alkatiri, was refusing. Then Foreign Minister
Jose Ramos Horta unexpectedly handed in his
resignation, frustrated by Alkatiri’s intransigence.

Last week was a politically insane one in East Timor.
Thousands of protesters had moved on Dili hoping to
force a people-power outcome. On Monday, they got what
they wanted.

Acknowledging, finally, that his leadership had caused
bloodshed and that his continued presence would only
cause more, Alkatiri resigned after four years of
stubborn, autocratic rule. While there were
celebrations in the streets of Dili, his departure
will not guarantee the country’s immediate stability.

Seen by the people as mean and aloof, personally
blamed by rebels for ordering the army to fire on
unarmed protesters, a tide of filth had crept to
Alkatiri’s front door. His close ally, sacked Interior
(police) Minister Rogerio Lobato, was arrested on
Wednesday last week, charged with arming rebels in
order to eliminate political rivals of the Fretilin
party to which both belong.

In yet another humiliation, Alkatiri was this week
ordered to answer prosecutors' questions on whether he
helped or instructed Lobato to create the hit squad.
Lobato faces up to 15 years in prison.

Lobato tried to board a Regional Link flight to Darwin
last Tuesday, but was turned back. “We had no
intention of letting him flee to Australia,” said a
foreign affairs spokesman.

Lobato had attracted the attention of the Immigration
Department’s Movement Alert List. MAL is interested in
serious convicted criminals or people considered to
pose a risk to the Australian community.

Given it was Wednesday when Lobato was charged - a day
after he had tried to leave the country - why had MAL
become interested in him?

It couldn’t be about the allegations that Lobato
pistol-whipped some fellow Timorese in a road-rage
incident in west Dili, late last year. Dili
prosecutor-general Longuinhos Monteiro confirmed that
while the investigation into that incident was
ongoing, Lobato hadn't been charged.

Some speculate Lobato became known to MAL after going
to Cuba to learn the black arts of police
administration. Maybe it was simply that the
Australians had word charges were imminent and didn’t
want Lobato to claim refugee status in Australia.

Because, had he made it to Australia, on a plane, he
would have been entitled to lodge a claim on the
grounds he feared political persecution at home, which
would have made it difficult for him to face trial in
Timor.

In attempting to flee East Timor by air, Lobato’s only
choice was one of the daily flights to Darwin run by
Australian-owned Regional Link. Indonesia’s Merpati
Airlines had cancelled its flights to Indonesia in
April due to a lack of passengers (expat Indonesians
have all but fled Dili in the past two months).

Lobato could have tried to enter Indonesia by land, or
even taken a boat, but would not have been welcome
there: his older brother, Fretilin’s founding hero,
was famously thrown from an Indonesian military
helicopter to his death. He was trapped. So, too, was
Alkatiri. Not so much by geography, but by his
stubbornness.

Unlike Lobato, Alkatiri seems to have been spared some
dignity by not being arrested, but told he could turn
up to court of his own volition on Friday to answer
allegations. This allowed him to drive east of Dili on
Tuesday to meet his “supporters”. They had come in
truckloads from the east, trying to get to Dili.
Peacekeepers prevented them from entering the capital
in order to keep them at arm's-length from the more
numerous anti-Alkatiri crowds.

There are questions about the provenance of this
pro-Alkatiri group. Are they long-time Alkatiri fans
or a Fretilin rent-a-crowd? Or are they people who
have in recent weeks become aligned to soldiers and
police - confined to barracks for their roles in
several small massacres - from the east of the
country? Or are they the ones whose houses were burnt
in Dili by westerners?

Either way, they prove that East Timor is now truly
divided.

The Australian peacekeeping effort is meanwhile facing
a campaign of misinformation gaining circulation
through activist networks in Australia and East Timor.
Emails, dressed up as news stories and also
distributed to journalists, claim Australian soldiers
were interfering in the political process by urging
Alkatiri’s overthrow.

In one such “story”, Australian trade unionist and
long-time Fretilin supporter Peter Murphy, who is in
Dili, wrote: “On June 9, two Australian helicopters
flew to Los Palos at the eastern end of the island to
tell people there to support the president and oppose
the prime minister. They were surprised by a very
angry reaction and had to make a hasty departure.”

Murphy’s are serious allegations. Asked if he could
back it up, Murphy admitted he had simply “heard it
from someone” and gone ahead and reported it.

“Getting something credible and reliable out is
important,” said Murphy, who claimed it was only one
of “many incidents where soldiers tell people to
support Xanana and oppose Alkatiri”. Murphy admitted
these, as well, were hearsay.

Joint Task Force spokesman Major James Baker checked
manifestos of ADF movements and told The Bulletin: “No
Australian helicopter, or any Australian forces, went
to Los Palos on the 9th. The first time Australian
forces went to Los Palos was the 13th.”

It is understood Gusmao personally requested
peacekeepers visit Los Palos because he was hearing
rumours of unrest. Baker said Australians were
received warmly, reported no trouble and departed.
Baker insisted the Australians remained “completely
impartial. We are completely separate from the
political process”.

The concern in the rumour-frenzied cauldron of East
Timor is that misinformed reports could potentially
expose peacekeepers to unnecessary danger.

Behind the misinformation campaign is an anguish felt
by diehard Australian socialists and activists who
delighted in Alkatiri’s hardline leftist outlook and
considered him an anti-imperialist (read:
anti-Australian) regional hero. The people of Timor -
most of them, anyway - did not share their view.

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