[Kabar-indonesia] 5 E.Timor articles: UN criticises leaders; Fear of new unrest as UN to release

[Joyo at aol.com]

5 Reports:

- The Australian: UN criticises E Timor
  leaders

- Former East Timor PM rejects findings of
  report into unrest

- Transcript: Fears UN report release will spark
  more E Timor violence

- East Timor PM downplays violence threat
  from report

- The Australian: PM promises E Timor
  'adequate' troops



The Australian
Friday, October 13, 2006

UN criticises E Timor leaders

Mark Dodd and Sid Marris

EAST Timor President Xanana Gusmao and his former prime minister Mari
Alkatiri have been singled out for criticism in a report from the UN
into the violence last April.

The wide-ranging report is understood to be a brutal assessment of the
breakdown of control that culminated in an Australian-led peacekeeping
force being deployed.

The UN report, expected to be released next week, says the leadership
should have done more to solve its political differences and restrain
rival supporters and dissident military.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group believes the report will
"name names" and is worried that its release could spark more
violence.

Former UN representative in East Timor Sukehiro Hasegawa, before he
finished his term there, warned there would be "tears" over the
report.

In its evaluation of the situation in East Timor, the ICG has advised
Mr Gusmao "to think the unthinkable - forgoing any role in the 2007
elections so new leaders can emerge".

But East Timor Prime Minister Jose Ramos Horta - who was in Australia
yesterday and has talked about the need to encourage a younger
generation to develop in politics - talked upMr Gusmao's popularity
and the desire of people for him torun again in elections due next
year.

"I have been travelling throughout the country since the crisis, every
conceivable place you think of - neighbourhoods, even talking with the
gangs, the youth - I have not found one single individual in the
country that says Xanana Gusmao should not run; quite the contrary,"
Dr Ramos Horta said.

"As recent as a few days ago, people were telling me we must tell
Xanana he has to stand for a second term, but he seems to be
determined not to."

Dr Ramos Horta said he was confident that the release of the UN report
would not lead to further unrest.

"Primarily, for us it is an important report so that we do some
soul-searching and look at the weaknesses of the institutions, the
responsibility of individuals, so that we learn and do not allow this
type of situation to happen again," he said.

East Timor and Australia yesterday signed an agreement covering
security in the lucrative joint petroleum development area between the
two countries, which would allow co-operation in responding to threats
in the area, where both nations share government revenues from
petroleum developments.

Mr Ramos Horta said he hoped the East Timorese agreement on sharing
revenue from the Greater Sunshine development would go before the
parliament next year.

The violence in April grew out of simmering tensions between those
from the east, known as Lorosae, and those from the west, Loromonu,
which infected the military and police.

The situation was exacerbated by attempts by ambitious interior
minister Rogerio Lobato to build up a rival security force under
direct control of the Government, rather than the President.

A strike by some soldiers, followed by fighting between rivals, led to
a breakdown of law and order that was seized on by street gangs. In
May, 1300 Australian troops led soldiers from several countries to
restore calm.

That deployment is now down to 950, with the Government planning to
reduce it to about 600 by the time of East Timor's elections, next
May.

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Former East Timor PM rejects findings of report into unrest

LISBON, October 12 (AFP) -- East Timor's deposed prime minsiter, Mari
Alkatiri, rejected Thursday a report by a conflict-prevention group
which recommended that he and President Xanana Gusmao sit out next
year's general election to reduce tensions in Asia's newest nation.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group blamed deadly clashes
between rival armed factions which swept Dili in April and May partly
on a longstanding rivalry between the two men in the report released
Tuesday.

The report said internal divisions pose the greatest threat to the
elections and that "the most important guarantor against violence
might be for the more controversial figures in the capital to sit this
election out voluntarily."

It advised Gusmao and Alkatiri "to think the unthinkable -- foregoing
any role in the 2007 elections so new leaders can emerge."

But in an interview published in daily Portuguese newspaper Publico,
Alkatiri said the report's findings were "a simplistic way to
understand what happened in the past in East Timor."

"I don't want the conflict to be reduced to two people -- me and
Xanana Gusmao. Or that today's situation be seen as the result of old
conflicts," he added.

Alkatiri resigned as prime minister under pressure in June following a
wave of unrest in which more than 30 people were killed and an
estimated 100,000 people were displaced.

The violence erupted after Alkatiri sacked over a third of its armed
forces and it led to the deployment to East Timor of more than 3,200
international peacekeepers from Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and
Portugal.

Alkatiri was replaced as prime minister by Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel
Peace Prize winner and East Timor's representative abroad during its
struggle to break free of an Indonesian occupation that lasted from
1975 to 1999.

A neglected Portuguese colony for hundreds of years before the
Indonesian occupation, East Timor is one of the poorest countries in
the world in terms of income terms but has considerable oil and
natural gas resources that are just beginning to be explored.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
October 12, 2006
-transcript-

Fears UN report release will spark more E Timor violence

Anne Barker

PETER CAVE: The Brussels based International Crisis Group has warned
that a United Nations report on the political and security crisis in
East Timor will be explosive and may touch off another round of
serious violence.

The UN report is due out within days, and is expected to name those
responsible for the recent turmoil.

The Crisis Group, led by former Australian foreign Minister Gareth
Evans, has also called on the President Xanana Gusmao to think the
unthinkable and step aside from politics in the interests of his
nation.

Anne Barker reports.

ANNE BARKER: It's six months since East Timor first descended into
violence, with riots sparked by the sacking of nearly 600 soldiers.

In the months since then, around 30 people have been killed, a Prime
Minister has resigned and tens of thousands of people still live in
refugee camps in Dili.

And as the country still struggles to get back on its feet, the
International Crisis Group has warned that the worst period in East
Timor's short independent history is not over yet.

On Radio Australia, the group's South-East Asia Director Sidney Jones
said East Timor would remain in limbo as it awaits the results of a
United Nations inquiry into the recent turmoil.

SIDNEY JONES: Everyone is waiting to see who is going to be held
responsible for different incidents and no one wants to take any moves
to, for example, move towards restructuring the security services or
look towards prosecuting anybody who was responsible for anything that
happened from January until the present, until those findings come
out.

ANNE BARKER: The ICG pinpoints numerous causes for East Timor's
crisis, including years of unresolved infighting in the ruling
Fretilin Party, the politicisation of the country's security forces
and the rivalries between an authoritarian Fretilin and the largely
powerless President, Xanana Gusmao.

It's widely expected the UN report will sheet home the blame to as
many as 100 senior political and security figures, and recommend many
face criminal charges.

Sidney Jones says the findings will be explosive.

SIDNEY JONES: If it suggests that a people in the Alkatiri camp, for
example, were responsible for some incidents, they're going to be very
unhappy.

If Mari Alkatiri himself is exonerated, people who believe that he or
Fretilin more generally were involved in distributing arms to
civilians, they're going to be very unhappy even though their own
analysis of the situation may be flawed.

There's also the problem that people who are satisfied that the names
that the Commission gives are in fact the correct ones, are going to
expect that justice be done instantly.

And it's not at all clear how justice is going to be done when you've
got a very, very problematic court system in Dili.

ANNE BARKER: Among its recommendations, the report calls on both
Xanana Gusmao and Mari Alkatiri, who's still the Secretary-General of
Fretilin, to leave politics altogether to allow new leaders to emerge.

Jose Ramos Horta is in Australia this week and says Xanana Gusmao said
only recently that he didn't plan to stand again at next year's
elections.

But he says what the report's authors think is best for East Timor
doesn't necessarily match reality.

JOSE RAMOS HORTA: I have been travelling throughout the country since
the crisis, every conceivable place you can think of, neighbourhoods,
even talking with the gangs, with youth. I have not found one single
individual in the country that says Xanana Gusmao should not run.

Quite the contrary. As recently as a few days ago people were telling
me we must tell Xanana he has to stand for a second term, but he seems
to be determined not to.

ANNE BARKER: It was Jose Ramos Horta who asked the United Nations in
June to hold its inquiry into the recent crisis, but unlike many, the
Prime Minister says he's confident the UN report won't lead to more
violence.

JOSE RAMOS HORTA: I'm confident that we will react to it with
serenity, because the vast majority of people don't want violence and
the political leaders obviously in the last few weeks have shown
responsibility and maturity, so I'm more confident than some observers
who have expressed, and legitimately, rightly so, some concern about
the possibility of violence.

PETER CAVE: East Timor's Prime Minister, Jose Ramos Horta in Canberra.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

East Timor PM downplays violence threat from report

By Rob Taylor

CANBERRA, October 12 (Reuters) - East Timor Prime Minister Jose
Ramos-Horta on Thursday played down the chance of violence next week
with the expected release of a U.N. report into ethnic clashes, but
urged foreign forces to stay until 2007 elections.

The report, which Ramos-Horta expects on Monday, could recommend
prosecutions for those responsible for the April-May violence in Dili.
More than 30 people were killed and more than 150,000 displaced from
their homes.

"I'm confident that we will react to it with serenity, because the
vast majority of the people do not want violence," Ramos-Horta told
reporters following talks in Canberra with his Australian counterpart
John Howard.

"The political leaders (in) the last few weeks have shown
responsibility and maturity, so I am more confident than some
observers," he said.

Security analysts expect the report, prepared by the U.N.-appointed
Independent Special Commission of Inquiry, to name as many as 100
police and senior officials, although dumped Prime Minister Mari
Alkatiri was expected to be cleared.

"Everyone is waiting to see who is going to be held responsible," the
International Crisis Group's (ICG) Sidney Jones told Australian
Broadcasting Corp. radio.

East Timor's majority Fretilin Party called for the immediate release
of the report on Thursday and warned delays were fuelling rumours of
unrest and violence.

"The delays in releasing the final report only endanger the most
vulnerable in East Timor," spokesman Sahe da Silva said in a statement
released in Australia.

Ramos-Horta said the government would not interfere if the report
called for prosecutions because "the country demands to know the
truth".

"But primarily for us it is an important report so that we do some
soul-searching, look at the weaknesses of the institutions, the
responsibility of individuals, so that we learn and this type of
situation does not happen again," he said.

Australia in May led a force of 3,200 foreign peacekeepers, to end the
fighting, which pitted ethnic gangs and East Timor's fledgling police
and military against one another.

Ramos-Horta said the security situation had calmed, while political
tensions were significantly lower in recent weeks.

But Howard said around 950 Australian peacekeepers would remain in the
country at least until elections due in May 2007 at Ramos-Horta's
request.

The Brussels-based ICG has called for Alkatiri and popular President
Xanana Gusmao not to run again to help lower tensions, but Ramos-Horta
said no East Timorese wanted Gusmao to quit politics.

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The Australian
October 12, 2006

PM promises E Timor 'adequate' troops

By Sandra O'Malley

AUSTRALIA is promising to keep "adequate" troops in East Timor, which
is planning to tell the UN that it doesn't need its peacekeepers.

Prime Minister John Howard today told East Timorese Prime Minister
Jose Ramos-Horta Australian troops would remain in his country to
ensure its peace and stability.

"I assured the Prime Minister of Australia's ongoing commitment to the
stability of his country and our willingness to maintain an adequate
force level in East Timor," he said.

"Obviously in the longer term the future of this country rests on the
shoulders of his fellow countrymen and women and that is something we
fully understand."

Australia sent troops into Dili in May to quell deadly violence
between rebels and police, devastating the tiny nation.

They've been assisted by New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal, as well
as Australian Federal Police.

Mr Howard promised that the current troop level of around 950 would
remain for the moment.

"We don't have any current intention of bringing that down," he said.

"That is not to say at some time in the future, it wouldn't, on proper
military advice, be appropriate to bring it down."

With the Australian-led commitment, Dr Ramos-Horta believes a UN
peacekeeping force being considered for the country may not be needed.

He thanked Australia for committing its troops until at least new
elections in Timor next year.

And he has told the UN that the current arrangement with Australia was
working well and the UN's forces might be better used elsewhere.

"(The) bilateral force led by Australia since May till today has
worked very effectively and because the UN is overstretched in so many
other important conflicts ... we on the Timorese side should not push
too much for a UN peacekeeping for the sake of it," Dr Ramos-Horta
said.

Labor foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd urged Australia not to
withdraw its troops too soon.

Mr Rudd warned strife had returned to Timor earlier this year because
Australia had removed its soldiers too soon.

"There was a problem in the past and that problem in part arose
because Australia pulled out its troops from East Timor too early," he
said.

"We believe that we cannot allow a security vacuum to occur. We need
in particular to make sure that security is underpinned right though
to the next East Timorese elections."

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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