[Kabar-indonesia] Dateline Transcript: East Timor - Downfall of a Prime Minister

[Joyo at aol.com]

Dateline - weekly Australian TV news program
broadcast August 30, 2006
-transcript-

East Timor - Downfall of a Prime Minister   
    
Two months back, when East Timor's then Prime
Minister, Mari Alkatiri, was dramatically forced to
resign after weeks of violence and chaos, from many
quarters, there was an audible sigh of relief. Gone
was the man variously described as undemocratic,
alleged to have armed a hit squad to eliminate his
political opponents and a crypto-bloody-Marxist to
boot! Alkatiri, of course, maintains he was the victim
of a concerted effort to oust him. Meanwhile,
Australia has spent millions of dollars supporting the
idea of constitutional democracy in East Timor and has
hundreds of troops there maintaining the fragile
peace.

But, post the violence, there are key strategic and
security issues at stake for both countries. Indeed,
as we'll see in a moment, new information is coming to
light that demands scrutiny. Dateline sent David
O'Shea and John Martinkus, two Dateline reporters with
a long history of covering East Timor, back to the
troubled fledgling nation to our near North.

REPORTERS: David O’Shea and John Martinkus

DAVID O’SHEA: Although he is putting on a brave face,
2006 will go down as a bad year for Rogerio Lobato.
Even the cake-maker got his birthday wrong.

ROGERIO LABATO (Translation): The birth date is
25-7-2016.

Following the violence in May, the former interior
minister resigned. Tainted by allegations he'd armed a
hit squad and under intense pressure, Prime Minister
Mari Alkatiri was forced to resign one month later.
According to Rogerio Lobato, a great injustice has
occurred.

ROGERIO LABATO (Translation): The prime minister, who
was democratically elected, was shamelessly
discredited because of a film.

The film Lobato refers to is the ABC 'Four Corners'
program broadcast in June containing the damning hit
squad allegations. Lobato has been charged but despite
the very public crucifixion of Alkatiri, there have
never been any charges laid against him.

MARI ALKATIRI, FORMER PRIME MINISTER: I am fully
confident because I have said I have nothing to do
with these kinds of things.

MAJOR ALFREDO REINADO, (Translation): This is your
last warning young men!

On 23 May, Major Alfredo Reinado fired the first shots
of the crisis. He was Australian army-trained and was
leading a group of rebel soldiers who had split from
the army and, along with some policemen, were now
firing on their former colleagues. Reinado insisted
that he had fired in self-defence but I was there and
I clearly saw and heard him shoot first. The soldiers
who were fired on that day said the attack against
them came out of the blue.

SOLDIER (Translation): He counted up to seven, I heard
him. Seven, yes, I heard that. I didn't hear anything
after seven. I only heard gunshots. I thought they
were allies so why were they firing at us? As an
officer I had to respond.

Curiously, just days before, politician Leandro Isaac,
a staunch opponent of prime minister Alkatiri, told me
that something big was about to happen, ‘I didn't
realise how big it was going to get.’ So why did Major
Reinado attack? The former prime minister insists that
what happened here at Fatu Ahi was the launch of a
premeditated campaign to oust him.

MARI ALKATIRI: I think Alfredo Reinado was instructed
to come down to Fatu Ahi and to restart everything
with violence because this is the only way they can
provoke everything - to start violence to justify
everything.

This was the beginning of four days of chaos in the
capital, Dili, before the arrival of Australian
forces. As a witness to that upheaval, I have come
back with colleague John Martinkus, who has covered
East Timor for 10 years. Following Reinado's opening
volley, the second major attack of the crisis was led
by a man called Rai Los. He told 'Four Corners' that
he was the leader of the so-called 'hit squad' and was
supposed to be killing people on behalf of Alkatiri.
Well, how then does he explain this amateur footage?
The man that filmed it told Dateline these are Rai
Los's men and they were fighting alongside the forces
they are meant to be killing. They are all fighting
the national army and, by extension, the government of
Mari Alkatiri. But Rai Los is adamant he didn't join
the forces rebelling against Alkatiri.

RAI LOS, HIT SQUAD LEADER, (Translation): I didn't go
there to join them, I went to stop them. I talked to
them, I’d been told to stop them by force, but I had
other ideas. I wanted to stop them by using
negotiation and dialogue.

You would have to say that taking up arms and firing
at the army is an unusual method of dialogue. East
Timor's Prosecutor-General is still investigating the
incident and confirms Rai Los's role in the fighting
in Taci Tolu, on the outskirts of Dili.

REPORTER: So it was confirmed that Rai Los was
involved in the fighting in Taci Tolu, they led the
attack, and they began the shooting?

LONGUINOS: Yes, thank you very much.

Just as Alfredo Reinado had started the battle and
then withdrawn, so did Rai Los. All that's left today
of this crucial event in May is a pile of empty
cartridge shells. Rai Los's claims about his role in
the attack raise serious questions about his
credibility and his damning allegations against
Alkatiri. Over the days that followed it seemed
everyone had a gun. And many of them were handed out
by this man - Police Commissioner and Alkatiri critic,
Paulo Martins. The Commissioner admits to emptying the
police armoury and distributing the weapons just
before the violence began, a fact confirmed by former
Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

MARI ALKATIRI: The Police Commander, Paulo Martins,
said the weapons were not in storage and they had been
allocated to different police units. He was saying one
of the units was in Ailieu and in Dili and in Liquica.

By coincidence or otherwise, the anti-Alkatiri forces
were concentrated in precisely the areas named by
Alkatiri.

REPORTER (Translation): The weapons you sent to
Ailieu, where are they now?

PAULO MARTINS, POLICE COMMANDER (Translation): The
guns that were transferred from Ailieu are now back in
Ailieu.

REPORTER (Translation): Where?

PAULO MARTINS (Translation): The Police Reserve Unit.

It's common knowledge that members of the police
reserve unit had joined the rebels, along with many
civilians.

PAULO MARTINS (Translation): The fact is that no one
has proved that the civilians used police guns.

If that is the case, how did this police weapon end up
in the hands of Leandro Isaac? He is a member of East
Timor's Parliament and he's carrying a police issue
Steyr rifle.

LEANDRO ISAAC, INDEPENDENT MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT
(Translation): Because East Timor, especially Dili was
in a state of war! WAR! And if I had nuclear bombs,
I'd use them.

REPORTER (Translation): Some people might be asking
why a member of parliament is using a gun?

LEANDRO ISAAC, (Translation): There's a difference
between using and owning.

REPORTER (Translation): And now the gun is?

LEANDRO ISAAC, (Translation): It is back with the
owner. I am not the owner.

REPORTER (Translation): Who is the owner?

LEANDRO ISAAC, (Translation): A policeman that was
here at the time.

The most horrific incident of the four days was the
massacre of unarmed police on 25 May. It was carnage.
9 police were shot dead and 27 were wounded, all of
this done by three soldiers, so the story goes. The UN
is investigating the incident. We can offer a
dramatically different scenario. This footage suggests
there were many more than three soldiers firing. One
eyewitness we spoke to claims he saw civilians
shooting at the police from these palm trees. And this
group of armed men, some of them in civilian clothes,
were among many unidentified gunmen at the scene. Who
were they and does the presence of groups like this
cast doubt on the accepted version of events? Dateline
was told the UN has video evidence supporting the
version we have offered. Was this deadly confrontation
part of a pattern to discredit the army and further
undermine the prime minister?
With security spiralling out of control in East Timor,
Australian troops arrived to more damaging allegations
against Alkatiri, which were big news in Australia.

SBS NEWS STORY: East Timor’s Prime Minister, Mari
Alkatiri has today dismissed a string of serious
allegations and repeated his claim that he is being
forced from power.

Forces loyal to Mr Alkatiri have also been accused of
massacring 60 unarmed protesters and dumping their
bodies in a mass grave. Mr Alkatiri also stands
accused of trying to kill opposition leader Fernando
Araujo.

MARI ALKATIRI: It is just completely false. I think
this kind of accusations and allegations is part of
the whole plan trying to demonise me but nothing is
true, it is completely false.

True or false, Australia apparently took the threat
against opposition leader Fernando Araujo very
seriously. They flew his wife and son to Darwin on two
Black Hawk helicopters from this isolated airport in
the south-west of the country. She arrived just in
time to make the Australian news bulletins.

MRS ARAUJO: In Australia where you can speak and you
can debate and your house will not be burned down and
be threatened to be killed.

It's worth noting that neither the death threats nor
the allegations of mass graves have ever been proved.
While Australia protected Araujo's family, many East
Timorese say his Democratic Party, or PD, is actually
responsible for coordinating the anti-Alkatiri mobs.

REPORTER: You provide the trucks to bring them in to
town. PD is involved in organising the transport to
bring these people into town.

FERNANDO ARAUJO, OPPOSITION LEADER: For demonstrations
this is the people's right. If they burn house, this
is a crime, they should be arrested. It's not my
responsibility.

And Araujo had plenty of help stirring up
anti-Alkatiri sentiment. Take for instance Rui Lopes -
a man made wealthy through his close connection with
Kopassus, the notorious Indonesian Special Forces.

RUI LOPES (Translation): We are ready to die, we're
ready to defend, and ready to kill.

When Dateline went looking for Rui Lopes, we found he
had crossed the border into Indonesia.

JOHN MARTINKUS: It's a shame. Rui Lopes is not at
home. He has had lots of meetings with those people
and has provided money and logistics to the PD party.
And what we wanted to ask him was - where was the
money coming from?

FERNANDO ARAUJO: I, er, I never get any money from Rui
Lopes. Actually we have the same view that Mari is
threatening this country, is destroying this country.
We organise the demonstration together.

Another of Araujo's associates and supporters is
Nemecio de Carvalho. He's a former leader of one of
the most bloodthirsty militia that terrorised Timor
during 1999. De Carvalho is under house arrest for his
militia activities.

NEMECIO DE CARVALHO: So Rui Lopes, I and other people
and, according to me, now most Timorese are against
Fretilin because they are undemocratic.

Another influential player in this drama is the
Catholic Church. The church was openly opposed to
Alkatiri and his government, as this April 2005 letter
shows.

CHURCH LETTER: ‘The citizens of this country don't
identify with the model that this government wants to
impose on Timorese society. It's completely alien and
cut off from the roots of our cultural, social and
historic realities.’

Both of East Timor's bishops signed it and sent it to
the president of parliament, asking that

CHURCH LETTER: ‘they decide on the immediate removal
of the current prime minister, Dr Alkatiri and his
government, and the appointment of a new prime
minister who would immediately form a government.’

The letter was ignored. But the church has apparently
been involved in more than letter writing. Reliable
sources in the army high command told Dateline that
two priests personally urged them to oust Alkatiri.
Father Apolinario was one of them.

REPORTER: Is that true?

FATHER APOLINARIO: I can't say anything.

REPORTER: Is it true you went to visit, to talk or
not?

Bishop Ricardo da Silva, a co-signatory of the letter,
also wasn't to keen to discuss the church's alleged
approaches to the army or FFDTL.

BISHOP RICARDO: Not true – people want to extend
everything – not true.

REPORTER: Thank you, Bishop.

MARI ALKATIRI: It means what they couldn't do at that
time they decided to plan it better and to do it in a
different way. I don't think we can really blame the
church as an institution.

And there was more. According to top level army
sources, in late 2005, armed forces chief
Brigadier-General Taur Matan Ruak and Lt-Colonel Falur
Rate Laek were approached by two Timorese leaders
accompanied by two foreigners on two separate
occasions. The four also asked the army, or FFDTL, to
remove Prime Minister Alkatiri. Again the FFDTL
refused.

MARI ALKATIRI: I was aware. I was informed by the
commanders of the FFDTL of the situation, that they
were approached by some Timorese and some foreign
nationals, but I was fully aware and confident in the
command of the army that I didn't think that it was an
issue that could worry me and for me it was nothing.

JOHN MARTINKUS: The two foreign nationals who were
involved with approaching the military here to
convince them to mount a coup against you, Were they
Australian?

MARI ALKATIRI: Even the commanders were not clear on
this, if they were Australian or American - between
these two. But I still have no clear information from
the command if they were Australian or American but
surely they were English-speaking.

So who would want to mount a coup in East Timor? And
why? Mari Alkatiri says it's simply because he was too
independent and threatened Australian interests in the
oil and gas fields of the Timor Sea.

MARI ALKATIRI: What I was doing in my term was to
defend the interests of my people in having the
resources to develop this country, independently. Not
to be dependent. I was fully aware we have our right
and we still have our right on the Timor Sea and we
have to defend it. Not because I am anti-Australian. I
like very much Australia as a country, as a nation, as
a people. I would never be anti-Australia.

JOHN MARTINKUS: Do you have any evidence that
Australia was involved at some level in the effort to
seek your resignation?

MARI ALKATIRI: Evidence, no. But the only prime
minister in the world that was really "advising me"
quote-unquote, to step down, was the Prime Minister of
Australia during these days, these difficult days.

John Howard, on the other hand, is far more disposed
to Alkatiri's replacement as prime minister Jose Ramos
Horta. Just days after being sworn in, new PM Ramos
Horta presided over the historic signing of the first
oil production sharing contract between the two
countries.

JOSE RAMOS HORTA, EAST TIMOR PRIME MINISTER: When you
deal with oil and gas and economics, well, you have to
be fair and realistic and pragmatic. Australia cannot
always be philanthropic with everything it does for
East Timor.

I asked Horta's Energy Minister, Jose Texiera, whether
he thought East Timor was getting a fair deal in the
lucrative oil and gas agreements.

JOSE TEXIERA, ENERGY MINISTER: It's not the ideal
outcome but it's the pragmatic outcome – to give us an
outcome.

It seems pragmatism has won the day but the former
prime minister says he wanted to ensure East Timor had
greater control over its natural resources,
particularly the Greater Sunrise oil and gas field.

MARI ALKATIRI: What I have been doing up until now is
to really get some independent feasibility study of
getting the pipeline to Timor Leste and an LNG plant
in Timor Leste. And this is very important. What
Australia is trying to achieve is having Sunrise sent
to Darwin. This is Australia's interests. But my
interests can't be always coinciding with Australian
interests and vice versa, and this is the reality.

In the midst of the crisis today, there's a media
event being staged at President Xanana Gusmao's house.
He's taking local journalists on a tour of his much
loved garden.

REPORTER: Is gardening one way you can forget the
troubles?

PRESIDENT XANANA GUSMAO: Yes.

Xanana Gusmao is the man who holds the greatest moral
influence in East Timor and is often portrayed as
staying above the political fray, but this murky
affair – with its many unanswered questions - has seen
him at the very centre of events. In March this year,
in a nationally televised address, he responded to the
recent split in the country's army, speaking out about
discrimination against recruits from the west of the
country.
Whatever the President's intentions, his words had
immediate effect. That very night the first
easterner's houses were burned down and the first
refugees fled their homes. Many felt that the
President had taken sides with East Timorese from the
west of the country, who are mostly anti-Alkatiri.
And again today he is very proactive. On his front
doorstep, literally, two guns and a man who said he
got them off the former interior minister.

MAN: (Translation): In the name of the government,
they distributed weapons. Coming from the mountains as
we do, how can we afford to buy these weapons?

This media event draws an intriguing cast of
characters, including Rai Los, whose hit squad
allegations brought down the prime minister. Rai Los
is warmly received by the President, but as we pointed
out earlier, Rai Los attacked the national army, which
under the constitution is headed by President Gusmao.
Kirsty Sword Gusmao is East Timor's Australian-born
first lady. In May she was quoted in the 'Australian'
newspaper saying that Alkatiri should resign. Many
here regarded her comments as symbolic of Australian
meddling.

KRISTY SWORD-GUSMAO, EAST TIMORESE FIRST LADY: There
was some rather mischievous reporting going on by the
'Australian' newspaper. I did not call for his
resignation. I said there were increasing demands for
him to resign but I didn't make any forceful demands
for him to resign but I did express an opinion on that
issue.

REPORTER: It's been picked up here as meddling
Australian intervention in the internal affairs of
East Timor.

KIRSTY SWORD: No, it was a misquote.

REPORTER: Some people are suggesting what happened was
Australia's first coup. What do you say to that?

XANANA GUSMAO: No, I already told people that we are
aware of our own mistakes, our own wrongdoings. We are
very aware of this.

REPORTER: So the coup is...?

XANANA GUSMAO: No, no.

REPORTER: Thank you.

Dateline made multiple requests for an extended
interview with President Gusmao, but he declined.

NEMECIO DE CARVALHO: He is the boss in the struggle.
Now he get nothing. Just a symbolic role according to
our constitution.

Whatever his motivations, Nemecio de Carvalho, the
former militiaman is prepared to say what many East
Timorese now believe but are afraid to spell out -
that the President and/or others wanted Alkatiri
removed and the only way to achieve it was through
drastic means.

NEMECIO DE CARVALHO: There must be a crisis and
instability, including war. So he can play in such a
situation. Without conflict, without instability,
without anarchy, war, maybe he will never get more
power.

REPORTER: There are also a lot of people - much of it
is whispers - saying the President is behind all this
stuff?

KRISTY SWORD-GUSMAO: There are bound to be comments
like that made, I can say with absolute confidence, as
an insider and someone who has accompanied very
closely this whole situation, that it's nothing but a
load of codswallop.

Meanwhile, 150,000 East Timorese sit in refugee camps,
waiting for their leaders to sort out the mess.

GEORGE NEGUS: The question marks still hanging over
our troubled northern neighbour. And with Australia
and the East Timorese committed to constitutional
democracy in the fledgling nation, Xanana Gusmao as
President may find it impossible to remain silent and
aloof about these violent events. And in a dramatic,
late-breaking development, Alfredo Reinado, the
Australian-trained rebel leader David O'Shea was with
when he got caught in the crossfire that started the
May hostilities, earlier today escaped with 55 other
prisoners being held in Dili's Becora jail. Reinado
had been arrested and charged with murder and firearm
offences.


Reporter/Camera
DAVID O’SHEA
JOHN MARTINKUS

Editors
WAYNE LOVE
SCOTT FERGUSSON

Subtitling
ROBYN FALLICK
SILVIA LEMOS

Producer
MIKE CAREY

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Joyo Indonesia News Service
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