Ramos-Horta says East Timor finds peace at last
DILI, May 20 (AFP) — East Timor has finally achieved peace after a series of violent domestic upheavals, President Jose Ramos-Horta said ahead of ceremonies Thursday to celebrate eight years of independence from Indonesia.
The festivities will begin with a simple flag-raising ceremony outside the presidential palace in Dili, a seaside city scarred by massacres and bloody uprisings before and after the painful birth of the nation.
Nobel laureate Ramos-Horta said the former Portuguese colony, which was annexed by Indonesia in 1975, had at last turned a page on its violent past, even if it remained dependent on foreign assistance.
“The situation in Timor-Leste remains very, very calm, peaceful,” he told AFP, using the country’s formal name.
“We do have (from) time to time sporadic incidents involving youth groups, but in terms of security and the definition of security, it is of minimal concern judging from the common people’s own reaction.”
A UN-supervised referendum on August 30, 1999, saw almost 80 percent of Timorese people vote in favour of independence, signalling the beginning of the end of a brutal 24-year occupation by the Indonesian military.
An estimated 100,000 East Timorese lost their lives during the occupation through fighting, disease and starvation, but no Indonesian military leaders have ever been prosecuted.
The referendum triggered a spasm of bloodletting by Indonesian-backed militias which killed some 1,400 people and ended only after the arrival of an Australian-led military stabilisation force.
Formal independence came in 2002, but the mainly Catholic country of 1.1 million people was soon in violent turmoil again.
Festering internal rivalries erupted in 2006 with fighting between factions of the security forces that killed 37 people on the streets of Dili, displaced more than 150,000 and required the return of UN peacekeepers.
Then, in February 2008, gunmen loyal to rebel leader Alfredo Reinado shot and almost killed Ramos-Horta outside his Dili home. Reinado, a disgruntled former soldier, was killed by the president’s guards and his uprising fizzled.
Two years of relative calm have convinced many that the resource-rich country is finally on the road to peaceful prosperity.
The UN mission is starting to hand over law-and-order responsibilities to local police, while New Zealand withdrew 75 troops — almost half its 140-strong contingent — on Wednesday.
“We have increasing confidence in Timor-Leste’s journey towards permanent stability,” New Zealand Defence Minister Wayne Mapp said Tuesday.
Despite the brighter outlook, some observers point to sustained tensions among disenfranchised and unemployed youths, an ineffective judicial sector and the ill-equipped police force (PNTL) as causes for continuing concern.
The country’s Ombudsman for Human Rights and Justice has received more than 1,000 complaints, many against the PNTL, of human rights violations.
The 3,000-strong PNTL has taken back six of 13 districts from international police, but even UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has noted “the limited capacity of (UN) police to contribute to the development of PNTL”.
Gang specialist James Scambary said incidents of police violence showed the PNTL was unprepared for the job.
“It is important to remember that the 2006 implosion occurred after a major reduction in the international security presence,” he wrote in a recent report.