East Timor a nation on a knife edge

East Timorese soldiers, dismissed from the armed forces, shout slogans during a protest in the capital. Picture / Reuters

Terror has returned to East Timor. In the hills and villages around Dili and in church compounds in the capital of the world's youngest nation, tens of thousands of people are seeking sanctuary from what they fear could be a return to blood in the streets.

As many as 7000 are estimated to have spent their nights for the past month at an orphanage run by Canossian nuns. Outside Dili, at the Don Bosco Catholic mission, thousands more wait and pray for safety.

Neighbouring governments are watching anxiously as yet another crisis unfolds along the long Malay archipelago Australia regards as its "arc of instability".

With troops still in the Solomons, Canberra has ordered a substantial - and potentially draining - force of four naval ships and combat troops on stand-by in Darwin in case the new Democratic Republic of Timor Leste erupts.

New Zealand has contingency plans to evacuate its citizens and to send in troops if needed. Defence Minister Phil Goff said this week Wellington would consider any request for military intervention from the Timorese Government or the United Nations. The former colonial power of Portugal was making similar plans.

In Washington, Timor joined Iraq on the agenda of talks between United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Australian Prime Minister John Howard.

In New York, Nobel peace laureate Dr Jose Ramos-Horta, Timor's Minister for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation, told the UN Security Council his tiny nation of fewer than one million people was on the edge.

"Fear is palpable among a people traumatised by past violence. There are concerns about the ability of the PNTL [police] to maintain law and order. There are concerns about cohesion within the remaining F-FDTL [defence] forces."

Ruth Nuttall, New Zealand's ambassador in Dili, said though no violence had erupted in the capital since riots last month that killed five people and destroyed or damaged more than 150 homes, many people feared a repeat of the carnage that rocked the island in the wake of the 1999 vote for independence from Indonesia.

"There are a lot of rumours circulating that make people feel very anxious about what might happen," she said. "I think that most people here have experienced the worst that can happen, so they will in many cases be re-living past traumas and react accordingly."

Late yesterday Timor was waiting for the latest potential bomb to either detonate or be defused: Mari Alkatiri, the Muslim Prime Minister of an overwhelmingly Catholic country, was fighting for his political survival at a congress of the ruling Fretilin Party.

Fretilin, formed from the political wing of the 25-year guerilla war for independence, won 55 of the parliament's 88 seats at Timor's first election in 2001, and will go to the polls again next year.

This month Alkatiri was for the first time under serious political threat. Desertions from the Army and April's riots formed the trigger for critics long dissatisfied with his style of leadership, and prompted a challenge from Jose Luis Guterres, Timor's ambassador to the UN.

Guterres mustered significant support within senior Fretilin ranks and from the powerful Catholic Church, which dislikes Alkatiri and believes he has done little to ease poverty and other afflictions of the world's poorest country.

Last year, the church organised demonstrations to protest about a range of Government decisions, including a move to drop religious instruction from schools.

Opponents claim Alkatiri is arrogant, autocratic, confrontational and out of touch, and blame him for the crisis in the Army that led to 594 soldiers - 40 per cent of its strength - being forced from its ranks.

Alkatiri's response put Timor on its latest razor's edge. Lashing out at "hooligans", provocateurs and "destabilising" critics, he threatened to resign as Prime Minister if he was dumped from the Fretilin leadership. His supporters threatened bloodshed if he was rolled by Guterres.

As the Weekend Herald went to press it appeared Alkatiri would survive, following a change from secret ballot to a show of hands for yesterday's vote. His rivals claimed the move would intimidate many of the 571 voting delegates at the Sunrise Convention Centre, especially public servants depending on Government goodwill for their jobs.

Outside the congress, real fears continued. Alkatiri claimed that the April riots had been an attempted coup. Targets had included his home, and those of some of his relatives.

Kamalesh Sharma, head of the UN Mission in Timor, said in a communique that the violence appeared to have been a planned attack against selected targets.

Anger had been boiling since January, when former guerilla fighters in the Army, many from the west of the nation, claimed they were being discriminated against.

By March, with the failure of a commission of inquiry to address the soldiers' complaints, the Government responded with mass sackings.

President Xanana Gusmao intervened to ensure the dismissed men were paid until a solution was reached. But on April 24 up to 2000 people joined the soldiers and their families in a march from Tasi Tolu military base in West Dili to Government Palace.

Tempers snapped after three days. Protesters attacked police and pelted Government buildings with rocks and Molotov cocktails. Angry groups rampaged through the city, smashing and burning homes and cars, and devastating the large Taibessi market. By the end of the rioting five people were dead, dozens were injured, and scores of homes were razed by fire.

As many as 20,000 of Dili's 180,000 residents fled in panic to surrounding hills and villages. Thousands more sought shelter in churches, schools and UN compounds.

The violence continued last week. About 1000 anti-Government protesters attacked the office of State Secretary for Co-ordination, Egidio Jesus, at Gleno, 30km southwest of Dili. In the ensuing melee one member of the police's rapid reaction unit was stabbed to death and 100 demonstrators were arrested.

TROUBLE in the Army was not unexpected. Maire Leadbeater, of the Indonesia Human Rights Committee, says that most newly independent countries that have integrated former resistance fighters into a new, conventional, Army have had problems.

But trouble in the ranks of the military is merely one flashpoint in an ocean of political, economic and social problems facing a country that was kept in crushing poverty by 200 years of colonial and Indonesian rule.

"There's a lot to be done," said Nuttall. "There's no question about that. They are starting from zero, pretty much, in terms of physical infrastructure and in terms of building a functioning administration."

Life is hard. About 40 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line, with three-quarters surviving on subsistence agriculture.

Few are skilled, wages average about US$3.50 ($5.60) a day, and unemployment runs at up to 40 per cent among urban youth. On the UN human development index Timor Leste has a rating of 0.42, equal with Rwanda as 158th of 185 countries.

As many as one-third of the nation's children are not enrolled in primary school. According to a UN study, only 30 per cent of 13- to 15-year-olds are enrolled in secondary school.

The economy is dominated by foreign aid - comprising about 45 per cent of gross domestic product - and is heavily dependent on exports of organic coffee, especially to the Starbucks chain. Oil is growing in significance under a controversial deal with Australia on Timor Sea reserves, pumping an estimated US$244 million into the economy in 2004-05 and helping economic growth to rise to three per cent last year.

But the private sector remains tiny, credit is scarce and hard to obtain, and the World Bank rates the country as one of the most difficult to do business in. Investors are wary of tough business conditions, corruption and instability. Further problems have been identified in the US State Department's latest human rights report.

Like Leadbeater - who is lobbying for reparations from Wellington - the report complains of little progress in prosecution of militiamen and others implicated in the bloodshed of independence and crimes committed earlier under Indonesian rule.

But it also points to beatings by police, delays or refusal to investigate rape and domestic violence - especially involving allegations against police, military or Government officials - and arbitrary, illegal, arrests and detention.

The report says the police are poorly equipped, under-trained, and have been slow to respond to complaints. There were "numerous credible allegations" of abuse of authority and cases involving serious misconduct, and concern at the force's independence - at times acting on the directions of senior Government officials.

Police had also carried out a co-ordinated series of searches and detentions targeting rival political parties, apparently under Government direction, arrested people for criticising or protesting against the Government, and used evictions and defamation suits to silence the media.

But hope remains.

"There are a lot of really good people around, with strong capabilities, but putting it all together is not an easy task," Nuttall said.

"There are always issues to be worked through and I wouldn't think for a moment that, even when you confront really difficult problems, it is a real option to chuck in the towel and say it's all bad."