Bright hopes, bitter reality: East Timor after independence
South China Morning Post
March 13, 2003
Focus
CHRIS McCALL
Small boys play on a rusting warship off Dili harbour, the detritus
of war
that has become their home. On the beach, men scavenge for rubbish they
can
use or sell.
The East Timorese hoped for something better from independence. Out in
the
regions, most people are still subsistence farmers and death is a regular
visitor. And by June next year, the UN support mission to the government
will
withdraw, leaving the tiny half-island in the hands of the Timorese political
elite, many of whom missed the 24-year Indonesian occupation.
With anti-government riots late last year and now a new wave of militia
incursions from West Timor, it already seems a world away from the bright
hopes at independence last May. Then, it seemed that the United Nations'
transitional administration had, more or less, held things together, despite
the odds.
Now the Fretilin government is riven by internal dissent, with three
separate
factions vying for influence. Opposition groups accuse it of seeking to
establish a one-party state while gaping holes remain in the law, which
the
national assembly appears in no rush to fill. Law and order is deteriorating,
and all government institutions are regarded as weak except one - the
military. During riots last December, police opened fire on unarmed
protesters, an incident which has yet to be officially explained.
Meanwhile, the UN support mission is trying hard to take a back seat,
to keep
alive the impression that East Timor is a sovereign country running its
own
affairs. It is all a bit vague. As one UN source put it: "Everything
is so
artificial with the UN here, including the economy. I am not overly
optimistic."
So who, if anyone, is making the real decisions? In the words of one
analyst,
around 500 people collectively make all the meaningful decisions these
days
in East Timor. He compared the new country to other small island-states.
Many
of the elite are inter-related, they harbour long-standing grudges against
one another and their interests frequently conflict. A geneology might
be
revealing.
In a few years, they will also have something to fight over. East Timor
has a
horribly bloody past to get over, and faces a potential threat from West
Timor, where 30,000 mostly anti-independence East Timorese still live.
Further, within a few years, the hard currency proceeds of its single
most
important mineral resource - the oil and gas in the Timor Gap - will start
to
flow in. Although the government talks of using this money for development,
if the experience of other poor countries is any guide, it could just
as
easily end up in private pockets.
Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri kept a tight hand on all negotiations dealing
with the Timor Gap. Despite his Marxist past, the most powerful man in
this
Catholic country is a Muslim, the scion of a wealthy family of Yemeni
origin.
His family has huge landholdings in Dili.
In particular, they own the land around the main Dili mosque. Although
he
heads the government, Mr Alkatiri is not popular. He has no popular
constituency as an individual. His strength is his control of the ruling
party, Fretilin.
Mr Alkatiri was a member of the first Fretilin government in 1975 and
attended the declaration of independence that year. But then he ran away
to
Mozambique. In December's riots in Dili, properties linked to him or his
family were targeted all over the capital, and his house was burned.
UN officials who deal regularly with the government say that Mr Alkatiri,
party president Francisco Guterres, better known as Lu-Olo, and Ana Pessoa,
a
former exile like Mr Alkatiri, are a triumvirate at the top of the
government.
People who fought against Fretilin in 1975 are in political opposition
now.
The influential Carrascalao family members are the children of a Portuguese
dissident of the Salazar dictatorship, exiled to East Timor, and his Timorese
wife. Their son, Joao Carrascalao, staged the original 1975 coup that
sparked
the civil war.
Having lost the war, the family supported the Indonesian invasion, although
by 1999 they were pro-independence. Mario Carrascalao was governor under
Indonesian rule for 10 years and now leads one of the main opposition
parties. Unlike Mr Alkatiri, he is very popular, remembered for his efforts
as governor to blunt some of the worst aspects of Indonesian rule from
within
the system. Ever since the 1975 coup, however, relations between the two
brothers have been frosty.
Like the Alkatiri family, the Carrascalao family has large landholdings
in
Dili.
Personal ties within the elite are often complex and confusing. Foreign
Minister Jose Ramos-Horta is the childhood friend of former resistance
fighter Cornelio Gama. Better known as "L7", Mr Gama has become
a focus of
dissent against the government among veterans. Attempts to bring him into
government have so far failed.
But if anything, feelings are most bitter between Fretilin and its former
supporters. In 1975, President Xanana Gusmao was politically a nobody,
just a
young journalist on the Voz de Timor newspaper. But a few years later
he was
a leader of the Falintil resistance and ultimately the most senior one
that
Indonesian forces had not managed to kill. Mr Gusmao took the former armed
wing of Fretilin and re-modeled it in his own image, leading it away from
Marxist politics and ultimately out of Fretilin altogether.
The new East Timor Defence Force is led by his former commanders and
has
adopted the Falintil name as its own.
Unfortunately, one of Falintil's early mentors is now back and eager
to
regain his former influence. Rogerio Lobato is minister of internal
administration, a post which gives him control of the police. Within
Fretilin, the name Lobato is one to impress with. The minister's brother
Nicolau Lobato was a martyr to the cause and a major Dili street has been
renamed after him. Nicolau Lobato died in 1978, apparently taking his
own
life after all his men were wiped out by the Indonesians. Although Rogerio
Lobato spent the entire occupation overseas, his name and background has
made
him a rival centre of power to Mr Alkatiri within Fretilin.
But the past is also these people's Achilles' heel. The question many
Timorese ask is why did they leave in 1975? Former president Francisco
Xavier
do Amaral has said that in 1975 he only recalls giving permission to one
member of his government, Mr Ramos-Horta as foreign minister, to leave
East
Timor. Mr Alkatiri has claimed that he refused to leave East Timor and
only
went because of intense pressure, but such denials do not sit well with
those
who stayed. And while Mr Ramos-Horta spent two decades publicly campaigning
for East Timor, ultimately winning himself a Nobel Peace Prize, others
were a
lot less vocal.
Such a volatile mixture would challenge the greatest of political thinkers.
Mr Gusmao has been a stabilising factor, but many people ask what might
happen if he was suddenly not there? Who would become president? And would
the military, led by men with personal ties of loyalty to Mr Gusmao, accept
their new commander-in-chief? Opposition leader Fernando de Araujo says
the
outlook is bleak: "We have had this situation since 1975, but we
are still
studying. I don't know when we can become clever. There are some who are
clever."
Asked if any of Fretilin's cadres were among the clever ones, he said:
"There
are some, but the group that is not clever is stronger."