Back to the drawing board in East
Timor By Adam Wolfe
In
April, Paul Wolfowitz, the World Bank president,
visited East Timor and praised the "bustling
markets, the rebuilt schools, the functioning
government - and above all, the peace and
stability". East Timor, the world's youngest
country and one of the smallest, was widely
considered a success story, a model for future and
current United Nations nation-building missions.
Just weeks after Wolfowitz hailed the
country's "remarkable story", East Timor nearly
collapsed. Four days after the country celebrated
its fourth anniversary, it asked for the return of
international peacekeepers.
The collapse
seems to have taken the donor community by
surprise, and exposed ethnic tensions few
recognized as late as
three months ago.
Governmental mismanagement, corruption, political
positioning for an upcoming election and simmering
ethnic tensions acted as kindling for the fiery
dispute between the prime minister and the
president, which culminated on Monday when the
prime minister stepped down. As Australian
peacekeepers seek to restore order, East Timor now
faces the challenge of rebuilding its political
institutions.
The current crisis stems
from an ethnic imbalance in the country's armed
forces, but its roots are political. Most of the
officers are from the eastern regions, while the
majority of the rank-and-file men come from the
west. When a group of soldiers protested the
discrimination in March and called for the
dismissal of prime minister Mari Alkatiri, the
government sacked about 600 of the country's 1,400
soldiers. A group of about 500 of the dismissed
soldiers sparked large-scale riots in Dili on
April 28 - including looting, arson, and the
murder of at least five civilians - then took to
the hills in the country's interior, where they
remain.
Armed gangs took advantage of the
security void, and terrorized eastern descendents
in the western regions. Thousands in Dili and the
surrounding region fled their homes out of fear of
further violence. Small battles between security
forces and their former colleagues popped up
throughout May and gang violence increased.
Until a few months ago, few recognized any
ethnic differences in the population, let alone
within the military. There is little record of any
divide between the Lorosae in the east and the
Loromonu in the west. One explanation is that the
Lorosae consider themselves closer to the
guerrillas who fought against Indonesia, while the
Loromonu are closer to the former occupying
country. Resistance to Indonesian rule, however,
was fairly uniform by most accounts.
When
the Loromonu soldiers protested the perceived
discrimination in pay and promotions, it was the
first most observers had heard of such an ethnic
divide. While political gain was likely at the
heart of the initial protest by the soldiers,
street gangs used the divide for their own
objectives. The street gangs emerged from the
martial-arts groups that formed during the
Indonesian occupation; moreover, the 70%
unemployment rate in Dili has made recruiting
easy. The looting and violence launched by the
street gangs in the wake of the soldiers' protests
have caused an estimated 75% of Dili's population
to flee their homes.
While the current
divide in East Timor does have an aspect of ethnic
tension, its roots are political. Former prime
minister Alkatiri led the Fretilin Party, which
controls 55 seats in the 88-seat parliament.
Alkatiri is feuding, again, with President Xanana
Gusmao. When East Timor was drafting its
constitution, Alkatiri was able to leverage the
support of the Fretilin Party to establish a
parliamentary system. Gusmao and his supporters
preferred a presidential system, knowing that they
could not compete against the Fretilin Party
machine within a parliament, but would easily win
a popular election. This proved an accurate
assessment, and the wildly popular Gusmao now
holds the largely ceremonial role of president,
while Alkatiri controlled the government until
Monday. Gusmao has supported the
opposition parties - the Democratic Party and the
Social Democratic Party - and the political divide
between the two leaders has filtered down through
the ranks in government institutions, including
the military. Alkatiri, an Arab Muslim, further
caused public resentment by taking on powerful
groups, including the Catholic Church - which
counts 90% of the population as followers - when
he made religious education optional rather than
compulsory.
Although the prime minister
has stepped down, his replacement is likely to
reignite the political tensions that have been
further strained by the current crisis. President
Gusmao, using powers some have questioned as
unconstitutional, assumed from the prime minister
the power of overseeing the security forces after
the soldiers' protest. He then gave Jose Ramos
Horta, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning foreign
minister and Gusmao's longtime ally, the Defense
and Interior portfolios and asked for the prime
minister's resignation.
Alkatiri, using
the support of his dominant Fretilin Party,
refused to step down. Gusmao then threatened to
resign if Alkatiri would not; he later backed away
from this announcement. Alkatiri's position was
weakened by an Australian documentary that linked
him and other Fretilin leaders to an alleged plot
to arm a civil militia. Then, on Sunday, Ramos
Horta, via a text message, quit the government to
protest against Alkatiri staying on. The following
day, Alkatiri resigned.
Alkatiri's
resignation, however, will not end the political
crisis. In fact, the following day, thousands of
Fretilin supporters gathered in the streets to
show their support for Alkatiri. This will make
Gusmao's preferred method of resolving the crisis
- appointing an interim prime minister to serve
until elections next year - more difficult to
implement. Gusmao and the donor community prefer
to see a non-Fretilin prime minister, specifically
Ramos Horta, in office until the scheduled
elections. Fretilin prefers to select the next
prime minister from its own ranks; its likely
candidates are Ana Pessoa Pinto, Ramos Horta's
ex-wife, who was acting as vice minister to
Alkatiri, or Arsenio Paixao Bano, the young
minister for labor and solidarity.
Holding
elections as scheduled would signal that the
country's political institutions have not been
broken by the current crisis. Dissolving the
government and holding early elections in the face
of protests would have the opposite effect. Gusmao
is negotiating with Fretilin leaders to install an
interim prime minister, but if the negotiations
are stalled, he may be forced to dissolve the
government.
International reaction to
the crisis At the request of East Timor's
president, Australia sent about 150 commandos to
quell the violence on May 25, followed by an
international force of about 2,500 troops from
Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Portugal.
Australia's interest in East Timor dates back to
1999, when it led the peacekeeping mission to the
tiny country after it voted for its independence
from Indonesia. There are economic interests for
Australia as well: in January, East Timor and
Australia signed a deal to divide billions of
dollars in expected revenues from oil and gas
deposits in the Timor Sea.
This
deployment, however, is another sign of
Australia's growing peacekeeping presence in the
region. It has several hundred soldiers and police
in the Solomon Islands. Teams of Australian civil
servants are working to rebuild the public service
in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu. The police
commissioner and several judges in Fiji are
Australian.
There are concerns in Canberra
that these deployments may be unsustainable. The
military budget is set to increase by 11% next
year and at least 3% each year until 2010. Also,
Australia's growing security role in the region is
likely to strain relations further with Indonesia.
For these reasons, the UN can be expected to play
a larger role in the stabilization mission in the
near future, although Australia will maintain a
leading role in any new UN mission in East Timor.
The UN's role in East Timor can be
expected to take on greater importance in the near
future, but many have blamed the current breakdown
on the previous UN mission. On June 21, the UN
Security Council asked the Secretary General'S
Office to prepare a report on taking over the
security mission from Australia at the end of the
year, to stay on at least through the elections
scheduled for 2007.
While the UN-led
peacekeeping mission after East Timor's vote for
independence in 1999 was considered a success by
most, there was a debate within the organization
about drawing down the mission last year. Those on
the ground in East Timor cited the need for the UN
to maintain its large presence in the country, but
the UN Security Council allowed the mission to be
scaled down dramatically in the past year, with
only a small political aspect remaining, and even
that only remains because of two extensions that
have been granted after the crisis sparked by the
protesting soldiers.
The UN has been
criticized for leaving East Timor too early,
before it was able to build the necessary
political institutions. The Security Council
wanted to conclude its mission to the country that
was costing hundreds of millions of dollars each
year, and it was scheduled to depart in May. UN
reforms enacted since the original mission in East
Timor may help prevent relapses like the current
crisis in Dili.
The newly created UN
Peacekeeping Commission is to coordinate
development, security, and political transitions
in post-conflict societies. However, this new
"layer of bureaucracy", as a US congressional
report calls the commission, will not be able to
act if the Security Council does not will it to do
so. Current UN missions in Liberia and Afghanistan
can only be expected to stay on as long as the
Security Council considers it necessary. These
missions will likely point to the example of East
Timor for extensions.
East Timor's current
crisis - in which half the army deserted and is
encamped in the country's hills, 130,000 people
have fled their homes in fear of gang violence,
the prime minister has quit his post, and an
international peacekeeping mission led by
Australia attempts to keep the peace - has taken
the international community by surprise. The
initial response by Australia is further evidence
of its growing security role in the region. While
the UN has taken much of the blame for allowing
the crisis to come to a head, it is likely to
reinsert itself vigorously, if only to make East
Timor an example, once again, of its role in
nation-building.
Still, while the
Australian-led peacekeeping mission may be able to
contain the violence, and a political solution may
soon be found to resolve the split between the
president and the Fretilin Party, an economic
solution will be needed to make any forthcoming
peace stick. East Timor is the poorest country in
Asia. Although the billions of dollars in
potential revenue from oil and gas fields in the
Timor Sea will generate revenue, the country will
need to combat the armed gangs that have
terrorized Dili during the political crisis.
The political crisis has exposed the
weaknesses of East Timor's government and the
country's underlying social tensions, for which a
long-term solution has yet to be found.
Published with permission of thePower and Interest News
Report, an analysis-based
publication that seeks to provide insight into
various conflicts, regions and points of interest
around the globe. All comments should be directed
tocontent@pinr.com
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