[TimorLesteStudies] JAPE article by Tim Anderson - Timor Leste: the
second Australian intervention
Jennifer Drysdale
jenster at cres10.anu.edu.au
Mon Mar 5 15:03:32 EST 2007
Enquiries: T.Anderson at econ.usyd.edu.au
>Timor Leste: the second Australian intervention
>By Tim Anderson
>published in Journal of Australian Political Economy, No. 58, December 2006
>
>“We did not expect that the elected leader of a
>party with an overwhelming mandate could be
>forced to stand down in this way in a democracy”
>- Fretilin press release, 26 June 2006
>
>Two stories are in circulation over the second
>Australian intervention in Timor Leste (East
>Timor). The first has it that the small,
>newly-independent country, beset with leadership
>and ethnic divisions, and led by an arrogant and
>even despotic Prime Minister, out of touch with
>the people, called once again on Australian
>assistance to avoid collapse into a ‘failed
>state’. The second maintains that the losing
>leadership faction, in a struggle for control of
>the senior ranks of the army, initiated a coup,
>then drew on the support an Australian oligarchy
>that had distanced itself from Timor Leste’s
>ruling party and the then Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri.
>
>How these competing stories are understood has
>important implications for the future Australian
>relationship with Timor Leste, and for the
>possibilities of independent development in the
>new nation. In the reading of these stories
>there are important lessons for Australians over
>their capacity to act as internationalists,
>developing friendly and supportive neighbouring
>relations, or as neo-colonialists, attempting to
>dominate the development of a client state.
>
>Naturally, the historical context of the
>relationship, the post-independence policy
>direction and the main elements of the 2006
>crisis need to be understood, before attempting
>to look at the future challenges. So this
>article will begin by examining the postcolonial
>tensions in the relationship between Australia
>and Timor Leste, and some of the country’s post
>independence achievements, before analysing the
>main elements of the 2006 crisis and the
>arguments over the intervention. Finally the
>development of a broader ‘Australian elite
>consensus’ (before and after the crisis) over
>the future of Timor Leste will be discussed,
>pointing to some of the challenges for both countries.
>
>The postcolonial tensions
>In the face of Australian demands, three areas
>of tension developed between the Australian
>elite and the newly independent state. First,
>the Australian demand for privileged access to
>resources, in particular oil and gas, confronted
>an East Timorese determination to reclaim and
>assert sovereignty over these resources. Second,
>the systematic Australian (and World Bank)
>obstruction of the building of public economic
>institutions (in the name of privatisation and
>open markets) has been resented and sidestepped
>by the Fretilin-led government. Third, the
>Australian desire for ‘strategic denial’ of
>other significant powers in the region has been
>frustrated by Timor Leste’s diversification of
>its foreign relationships, particularly the
>restoration of ties with the former colonial
>power Portugal and the building of a new relationship with China.
>
>The oil and gas negotiations are the best known
>source of tension between the Alkatiri and the
>Howard governments. Even before Timor Leste’s
>independence day, on 20 May 2002, Canberra had
>moved to head off a possible legal challenge to
>its oil and gas claims. The Howard Government
>proclaimed itself “generous” (SBS Insight 2002)
>for offering to convert the 50-50 royalty share
>deal it had done with Indonesia - in relation
>to a designated Joint Petroleum Development Area
>(JPDA) - to an 80-20 share in favour of Timor
>Leste. Nevertheless, East Timorese negotiators
>managed to shift this to a 90-10 deal, which was
>set to be signed off at independence day. Yet
>several weeks before independence, the Howard
>government unilaterally withdrew from
>International Court of Justice (ICJ)
>jurisdiction over maritime boundary disputes,
>under the United Nations Convention on the Law
>of the Sea (UNCLOS). UN-appointed negotiator
>Peter Galbraith, who worked for Timor Leste in
>the transition period, said he was “shocked” by
>the Australian withdrawal, because “Australia
>has been one of those countries that has stood
>up for international law” (SBS Insight 2002).
>
>The significance of Australian withdrawal was
>not in the 90-10 deal, but in the question of
>maritime boundaries, and the second round of
>negotiations over the Greater Sunrise gas field,
>only 20% of which lay inside the JPDA. Timor
>Leste claimed that, under UNCLOS, it owned all
>of Greater Sunrise. The Australian government
>said that there was no more talking to be done,
>and that it would not open maritime boundary
>talks as this would raise similar boundary
>problems with Indonesia. Total revenues from the
>Greater Sunrise field were estimated, over the
>life of the project, to be $38 billion, of which
>Australia was claiming $30 billion (McKee 2002).
>This amount dwarfed all the aid money Australia
>had put into Timor Leste (Anderson 2003: 123),
>and even a modest change in share could mean
>billions of dollars for basic infrastructure in
>the poor and underdeveloped country.
>
> From this seemingly intractable starting
> position began a long series of difficult
> talks. In the course of these, Prime Minister
> Alkatiri was reported to have been lectured by
> Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander
> Downer, “You can demand that forever for all I
> care
Let me give you a tutorial in politics
> not a chance” (Economist 2003). Alkatiri
> persisted, at some cost to the balance he had
> tried to develop between appeasing the big
> powers and maintaining a degree of economic
> independence. The East Timorese intransigence
> over Greater Sunrise was rebuffed by the
> Australian Government and also by ‘realist’
> academics such as Alan Dupont (a former
> diplomat), who muttered vague threats over the
> consequences of such ‘aggressive’ bargaining:
>“There’s a line beyond which no government can
>go and I think the East Timorese are in danger
>of actually now crossing over that line, if they
>pursue too aggressively the claim to renegotiate
>the maritime border and get a greater share of
>the resource cake.
the East Timorese have to
>be careful they don’t alienate the Australian
>government, and even Australian popular opinion” (SBS Insight 2002).
>
>Aware of such threats, Timor Leste’s Foreign
>Minister Jose Ramos Horta had been more cautious
>than Alkatiri over oil and gas. In 2001, when
>asked whether he wanted to renegotiate maritime
>boundaries with Australia, Ramos Horta replied,
>“I hesitate to say yes or no .. It’s not an
>issue that East Timor can negotiate
>unilaterally” (Far Eastern Economic Review
>2001). In 2002, while admitting he had not
>discussed the matter fully with his Prime
>Minister or his Cabinet, Ramos Horta suggested a
>possible “gas-for-security” deal with Australia
>(Dodd 2002). This came to nothing. In 2003 Ramos
>Horta was said to have “reassured investors that
>Timor is happy with the treaty on sharing the
>Timor Sea’s oil wealth with Australia, despite
>claims by a cabinet colleague [Jose Teixeira]
>last month that it was unfair” (Australian
>Financial Review 2003). Ramos Horta said
>Australia’s attitude in the oil dispute was “very natural” (Banham 2003).
>
>Yet many East Timorese felt they were being
>robbed. For example, from 2000 onwards,
>Australia extracted several hundred million
>dollars in revenues from the Laminaria-Corallina
>field which, like Greater Sunrise, lay just
>outside the JPDA. However this field was
>expected to deliver such revenue for only a few
>years. The table below shows an estimate of
>Australian revenues, none of which were shared
>with Timor Leste. The field is much closer to
>Timor Leste than Australia and, according to
>UNCLOS maritime boundary principles, a maritime
>boundary should be at the mid-point between the
>two countries. Timor Leste should have taken all the revenue, but it took none.
>
>
>Table 1: Estimated tax paid to Australia on Laminaria-Coralina
> 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
>US$ million 16 346 277 214 172 133 136
>Source: calculations by La’o Hamutuk 2006
>
>
>Despite Ramos Horta’s soothing diplomacy,
>Alkatiri had not relented on Greater Sunrise,
>and in 2004 matters came to a head, with
>President Xanana Gusmão joining Alkatiri
>(despite their political rivalry) in a series of
>public pleas over the oil and gas dispute. In
>April, Alkatiri said the oil and gas issue was
>“a matter of life and death” for his country
>(ABC Radio 2004). In the Portuguese newspaper
>Publico, Xanana accused the Australian
>government of the theft of Timor Leste’s assets:
>"It's a disgrace
[Australia is] using all the
>dirty tactics it can
They steal from us and
>then they hold conferences about transparency,
>anti-corruption
We're creating a wave of noisy
>protest so that the world can see what's going on.” (ETAN 2004).
>
>This was a shift in diplomatic tactics. Ramos
>Horta and the opposition parties joined in. In
>Australia, a public campaign helped push
>opposition leader Mark Latham into declaring the
>renegotiation of the oil deal Labor policy, and
>thus an election issue for 2004 (Burton 2004).
>Pressure was being turned up on the Howard
>government. But in June Alkatiri declared the
>discussions with Australia “hopeless” (Alkatiri
>2004), and proceeded to call for new tenders on
>oil and gas exploration rights, and for building
>refinery capacity. Apart from the royalty share,
>refining of gas had become a sensitive issue.
>Australia had pushed hard to send all the
>Greater Sunrise gas to a Darwin-based liquid
>natural gas (LNG) refinery which, apart from
>company profits, would create 1,500 jobs in the
>construction phase and 100 jobs when in
>operation (SBS Insight 2002). This pulled the
>Labor government of the Northern Territory into
>the Howard government’s strategy. Competition from Timor Leste was unwelcome.
>
>Ramos Horta’s son, Loro, later observed that
>Alkatiri’s dealings with PetroChina would
>attract the “ire” of both the US and Australia
>(Horta 2006). In fact, by September 2005,
>PetroChina and a Norwegian partner (GGS - Geo
>Global Services) had been awarded the first of
>the new contracts and, by late 2005, PetroChina
>had begun talks to build refinery capacity in
>Timor Leste (Petroleum Economist 2006). Alkatiri
>sought assurances from Australia that it would
>not block the construction of a gas pipeline to
>Timor for gas from Greater Sunrise. While
>Alkatiri said he had no “immediate” plans to set
>up a national (public) oil company (Dow Jones
>2005), in August-September of 2005 his
>government began to auction a number of
>exploration rights ‘blocks’, both inside and
>outside the shared JPDA. Initial interest was
>expressed by Australia’s Woodside Petroleum, but
>also by Malaysia’s Petronas, Norway’s Statoil,
>Kuwait’s KUFPEC and China’s PetroChina (Wilkinson 2005).
>
>By the beginning of 2006, the pressure appeared
>to have worked. In January Foreign Minister
>Alexander Downer announced that Australia had
>agreed to “share equally” the royalties from the
>Greater Sunrise field. As part of this deal,
>Timor Leste would agree to suspend for 50 years
>their claims for fixed maritime boundaries.
>Downer estimated that the shift in royalty
>shares (from 18:82 to 50:50) would mean an
>additional $4 billion in revenue for Timor Leste
>(Petromin 2006a). Earlier estimates suggested
>that a 50:50 split could amount to an extra $11
>billion (McKee 2002). The ‘realists’ had been
>proved wrong, on revenue outcomes; but perhaps
>they were to be proved right over the
>consequences of ‘alienating the Australian government’?
>
>Alkatiri’s government continued its
>diversification of oil contracts, right up to
>the May crisis. Exploration contracts were
>awarded to Italy’s ENI and India’s Reliance
>Group in May (Petromin 2006b). The Government
>also opened an office of its new company Ta Fui
>Oil in Macau, to further its relationship with
>PetroChina (UNMISET 2006a). President Xanana had
>been involved in developing the country’s
>Chinese connection, announcing PetroChina’s
>first inland operations, while on a visit to
>Japan (AFP 2004). He was on the verge of an
>official visit to China in late May (Macauhub 2006), when the crisis broke.
>
>An important second level of aggravation in the
>Timor Leste-Australia relationship had been the
>Australian (and World Bank) obstruction of the
>building of public economic institutions in the
>new country. In the transition period
>(1999-2002) the East Timorese leadership
>requested the use of aid moneys to rehabilitate
>rice fields, build grain silos and public
>abattoirs. These requests were flatly denied.
>The World Bank had been made trustee of the aid,
>before independence. Australian aid (AusAID)
>projects were similarly focussed on ‘corporate
>welfare’ (Aid/Watch 2005) and privatisation, and
>thus hostile to the building of public economic institutions.
>
>For example, the initial World Bank Agriculture
>Rehabilitation Project rejected East Timorese
>proposals for public sector involvement in “the
>provision of research, extension and input
>supply services” because, it was claimed, “such
>public sector involvement has not proved
>successful elsewhere; and the anticipated
>government ... would not be able to afford such
>a burden”. For these reasons the World Bank team
>demanded that the publicly funded Pilot
>Agricultural Service Centres must be privatised
>(World Bank 2000: 14). Australia backed this
>argument, despite the fact that its own
>scientific and industrial research group, the
>C.S.I.R.O., had provided public services to
>Australian agriculture over many decades. The
>World Bank noted that its rejection of the silo
>and abattoir request was “possibly
>controversial” and that “some members of UNTAET
>and East Timorese counterparts may not
>appreciate the lack of public sector ...
>structures and activities, and may not support
>the Project” (World Bank 2000: 21). Indeed,
>this was a fundamentally anti-democratic move,
>deliberately excluding East Timorese voices.
>
>A strategy document on agricultural policy
>(compiled for the IDA by World Bank and
>Australian officials) similarly suggested that
>'the principle [of agricultural development]
>should be public financing and private delivery
>of most of those services'. Although it was said
>that projects should be “participatory in
>design, selection and implementation”, the document demanded that:
>the government should not own revenue generating
>enterprises, such as meat slaughterhouses,
>warehouse facilities, grain storage facilities,
>tractor pools or rural service centres.
>Government participation in these and similar
>activities would be costly and would inhibit
>private entrepreneurship (IDA 2000: 3-4).
>‘Participation’ and exclusion were woven
>smoothly together. A few years later,
>Agriculture Minister Estanislau da Silva
>observed that, while agriculture had been
>neglected during the Indonesian period and
>facilities had been destroyed, the foreign
>controllers of the transitional regime
>(1999-2002) “did little” to help agriculture in the country (da Silva 2005).
>
>Faced with this, Alkatiri’s government built
>public grain silos with FAO assistance, and
>promoted domestic rice production with Japanese
>assistance (MAAF 2005: 18, 40-41). One
>international program consistent with this
>policy did secure some Australian support. The
>Australian Centre for International Agricultural
>Research (ACIAR) was a partner in the Seeds for
>Life program, aimed at rehabilitating East
>Timor's domestic crops. This program tested a
>range of crops (such as cassava, potatoes, maize
>and rice) for the suitability in East Timor's
>conditions (Palmer 2002; ACIAR 2006). However,
>the AusAID and World Bank preference for
>‘corporate welfare’ and privatisation schemes,
>often at odd with East Timorese priorities,
>helps explain why the Alkatiri government sought
>to diversify its trade, aid and investment partners.
>
>Timor Leste also developed a substantial
>collaboration with Cuba, a move which
>effectively marginalised Australian aid and
>influence in yet another critical area of
>development. The US Ambassador, Grover Rees,
>opposed the Cuban connection. He also gave some
>support to church-led protests against the
>Alkatiri Government in 2005 (Grupu Estudu
>Maubere 2006; Horta 2006). These protests were
>at plans to make religious education voluntary
>in schools. Certainly the Catholic Church has
>become an important opponent of Alkatiri and the
>Fretilin Government, and the US clearly has
>enormous influence on the Howard Government.
>However, Loro Horta probably overstated the
>matter when he suggested that Alkatiri’s
>collaboration with Cuba represented the
>construction of “a foreign policy overtly
>confrontational to the West” (Horta 2006). The
>Cuban connection did undermine some Australian
>influence. On matters of alignment with “The
>West” Loro’s father, Jose Ramos Horta, was the
>only minister to support the US-led invasion of
>Iraq (Ramos-Horta 2005), and he repeatedly and
>publicly supported this war. His diplomatic
>instincts seem to have made him keen to
>ingratiate himself with the big powers. Alkatiri
>and Xanana spoke out against the war (Rood 2003).
>
>By 2006, therefore, the Alkatiri government had
>forced the Howard Government into a humiliating
>back down over revenues from Greater Sunrise,
>had pursued an independent agricultural policy
>(prioritising domestic crops) and had
>marginalised Australian health assistance. Not
>only this, there were new players in the oil and
>gas business. China, in particular, had been
>made a partner in new exploration, and in the
>building of gas refining capacity. These moves
>competed with Australian corporate interests. As
>part of the diversification in strategic
>partners, China had been joined by Norway,
>Italy, India and Cuba. This did not sit well
>with the pretensions of an Australian Government
>which had proclaimed itself a ‘deputy sheriff’
>of the US in this region, with supposed special
>hegemonic responsibility (Brenchley 1999: 22-24).
>
>Some post-independence achievements
>Despite references to Timor Leste as a potential
>‘failed state’ (Sydney Morning Herald 2006), the
>country can boast some modest achievements since
>independence. First amongst these was the
>construction of public institutions, a
>constitution, parliament and the coordination of
>basic services. All this has been in an
>environment of post-traumatic stress. Wresting
>back control of at least some of its natural
>resources from a bullying neighbour has been
>difficult, but has shown some resilience and
>maturity of leadership. The prudent use of
>limited resources - both in containing demands
>for debt and suggested ‘rapid development’, as
>well as the management of oil revenues - has
>been notable. One central element of cautious
>fiscal policy was the establishment of a Timor
>Leste Petroleum Fund Act, to invest royalties
>and ensure long term dividends from these funds
>(Timor Sea Office 2006). Significantly, a focus
>on public institutions and human resource
>development has so far avoided a collapse into
>the privatisation, corruption and waste that
>characterises many developing countries under
>neoliberal tutelage. A group of young East Timorese say that:
>“The government of the independent state of RDTL
>[República Democrática de Timor-Leste the
>official name] through the leadership of Prime
>Minister Mari Alkatiri has strived to turn
>Timor-Leste into a country truly independent by
>making its decisions based on the people's
>interest” (Grupu Estudu Maubere 2006).
>They observe that, despite the constraints, the
>Alkatiri administration opposed privatisation
>pressures (eg. over power), avoided debt,
>provided access to health and education and
>developed some infrastructure for domestic
>agriculture (Grupu Estudu Maubere 2006).
>Alkatiri maintained the popular ‘debt free’
>start for the country, though there have been
>plans to borrow from the Kuwait Fund, to support
>a national energy grid (Asia Source 2006).
>
>According to the UNDP, income and income poverty
>figures for TL are unimpressive. The country
>experienced a serious economic recession when
>the UN and aid caravan left Dili in 2002-2003.
>Growth rates of 13 to 16% in 2000-01 collapsed
>to minus 6% over 2002-03 (UNDP 2006: 82). The UN
>and the aid industry had, of course, taken most
>of the aid money in their passing. However, and
>importantly for a poor, developing country,
>there was some significant capability
>development. Adult literacy rose from 40.4% in
>1999 to 50.1% in 2004, with higher secondary
>enrolments rising from 37% to 46.5%. Such
>improvements are typically not reflected in
>income poverty figures. Gross school enrolments
>increased from 59% in 1999 to 66% in 2004.
>Infant mortality was static (mainly due to a
>lack of skilled birth assistants) but under-5
>mortality continued to decline (UNDP 2006: 10, 80, 81).
>
>There have been serious pressures on
>infrastructure in Dili, and substantial youth
>unemployment. The large unemployed and young
>urban population added to the strains that built
>up around the Gusmao-Alkatiri rivalry, which I
>will discuss in the next section. However, a
>central focus on unemployment in Timor Leste
>would miss some important developmental
>realities. Rural development and a genuine
>national network of services remain fundamental,
>as they affect the great majority of people and
>can work to slow the tide of migration to the
>capital. Of course, the UN and aid industry
>presence created a ‘bubble economy’ which was
>unsustainable, fuelled inflation and aggravated
>urbanisation. This urbanisation continued
>post-2002. Because rural development remains
>central, some attention should be paid to the
>Alkatiri administration’s achievements in
>support of domestic agriculture and national health.
>
>There had been dependence on rice imports, and a
>limited capacity to pay for them. Before oil and
>gas, the major export had been coffee, but
>revenue from coffee was minimal - about six
>million dollars per year (ADB 2005). A lot of
>maize is grown, but rice is now the preferred
>staple of the East Timorese population. However
>local rice production in 2001-02 was only 37% of
>the 78,000 tonnes demanded. Most imports had
>come from Vietnam (57%) followed by Indonesia
>(35%) and Thailand (8%) (World Bank 2002:
>43-44). Yet the Alkatiri administration
>maintained a focus on rice production. The UNDP
>tells us that domestic rice production was
>37,000 tonnes in 1998 but 65,000 tonnes in 2004.
>This increase was mainly due to increased land
>under cultivation, rather than productivity
>improvement. This has meant less dependence on
>imported rice, an important concern for a
>country with a history of famines. However the
>2006 crisis again disrupted domestic supply.
>Table 2 below shows the modest but important
>consolidation of staple food production, after 1998.
>
>
>Table 2: Staple food production, Timor Leste, 1998-2004
> 1996 1998 2001 2004
>Rice (tonnes) 52,607 36,848 53,845 65,433
> Wetland rice area (ha) 17,418 12,054 na 19,800
> Dryland rice area (ha) 2,266 1,772 na 4,321
>Maize (tonnes) 106,616 58,931 69,000 70,175
>Cassava (tonnes) 53,781 32,092 55,845 41,525
>Roots & tubers (tonnes) 44,000 38,000 40,000 43,000
>Source: UNDP 2006: 84
>
>
>Agricultural policy emphasised consolidating and
>improving domestic food production. Practical
>measures include support for small farmers
>(improved seed supplies, home gardening,
>livestock development measures), some expansion
>of irrigated rice areas and diversified cash
>crop development, as well as home gardening and
>permaculture of fruit and vegetables (MAAF 2005:
>18-22). Infrastructure and other support would
>be through modest extension services, unsecured
>microcredit, feeder roads and possible marketing
>support (MAAF 2005: 24-28). Food reserves, in
>case of “harvest failures or disruptions in
>supply” would underwrite this food grain policy
>(MAAF 2005: 18-20, 32), rather the ‘buffer fund’
>which was irresponsibly suggested by the World
>Bank (World Bank 2000: 21; IDA 2000: 3-4; World Bank 2002: 47-51).
>
>The most significant development in health has
>been the collaboration with Cuba, which began in
>2004. Cuba has the best health system in Latin
>America and the largest bilateral medical aid
>program in the world. This collaboration at
>first involved 20 Cuban doctors, plus 50 East
>Timorese students sent to Cuba to study
>medicine, on scholarships fully funded by the
>Cuban government. After a visit to Havana in
>December 2005, Alkatiri managed to increase the
>commitment to almost 300 doctors and 600
>scholarship places (Granma 2005: 1). This was an
>extraordinary program given that, as at 2006,
>there were less than 50 doctors in Timor Leste.
>Cuban doctors are an affordable and well
>organised resource. They earn a monthly salary
>of only around US$200, plus housing and some
>other allowances. As local observers note, this
>is “only a fraction [of] the salaries of doctors
>from other countries who are contracted to work
>in Timor-Leste” (Grupu Estudu Maubere 2006).
>
>The Cuban program is now centrally important for
>health services, capacity building and
>organisation of the national health system. By
>June 2006 the Health Ministry under Dr Rui Maria
>de Araujo, emphasising primary health care and
>free access, had 65 Community Health Centres
>(each with one or two doctors and 6 to 10 nurses
>or midwives) and 175 health posts (each with one
>or two nurses and/or midwives) (PMCTLG 2006).
>Although doctor training is carried out in Cuba,
>the Cubans are contributing to building up local
>training capacity. One year nursing diplomas (in
>exchange for a three year contract to work in a
>remote health post) are offered through the
>National Institute of Health. In the middle of
>the crisis, in June, the Dili District Health
>Service was able to set up 19 centres, running
>24-hour services for the many internally
>displaced persons. The government noted that the
>“220 Cuban doctors and 30 Cuban health
>technicians” were at the centre of its capacity
>to mobilise such resources (PMCTLG 2006). The
>country’s ambition of a fully coordinated
>national health system was developing strongly.
>
>The second intervention
>Australia’s 1999 and 2006 military interventions
>were in one respect similar: they were both
>requested by the East Timorese leadership.
>However the second intervention (reluctantly
>supported by Alkatiri) saw partisan engagement
>in a leadership struggle, with Australian
>commentators, troops and government providing at
>least passive support for the coup plotters.
>Prominent Australian media commentators and
>heads of aid organisations blamed Alkatiri for
>the crisis, and demanded his removal from power.
>In the first two months of its presence in Timor
>Leste, the Australian military did nothing to
>disarm the coup plotters, and little to stop the
>young looters and arsonists. The Howard
>administration claimed it was simply acting at
>the request of the Timor Leste government.
>However, most of the unrest and all of the armed
>coup attempt had been aimed at deposing the
>Prime Minister. After Alkatiri had been forced
>to resign, Howard told reporters: "We have done
>our job and have been very effective” (Murdoch
>2006). Such partisan engagement, however, would
>not have been possible without a genuine
>internal leadership conflict. Some detail of
>this conflict, and some detail of the crisis and
>second intervention, seem necessary background
>before resuming the broader narrative.
>
>The central political dilemma was the
>estrangement of President Xanana Gusmão from the
>ruling party, Fretilin. Xanana left Fretilin in
>the 1980s, at first seeking to dissociate the
>guerrilla army Falantil from Fretilin, then
>helping form a national coalition (the CNRM,
>later CNRT) in the late 1990s. After the split
>from Indonesia, the UN encouraged the
>dissolution of this coalition and the formation
>of electoral parties, prior to the 2001
>elections, for what became a joint constituent
>assembly and national parliament. Fretilin won a
>clear majority of 55 out of 88 seats. Without a
>clear political base, Xanana sought to withdraw
>from politics, but was persuaded to stand for
>the Presidential elections in 2002, against
>Xavier do Amaral of the ASDT. With his personal
>popularity and the backing of Fretilin he won
>easily. But the constituent assembly had made
>the Presidency a largely titular position. The
>Parliament and its executive were created to
>exercise substantial power. This structure set
>the post-independence framework for the rivalry
>between President Xanana and the Fretilin
>General Secretary and Prime Minister, Mari
>Alkatiri. Xanana had popularity but no political
>base or real executive power. His voice in East
>Timorese politics had been diminished.
>Apparently he was counting on ongoing personal
>loyalty from the army; yet the army leadership
>was increasingly Fretilin (or government)
>loyalist. This was not an open problem, so long
>as there was not a serious fracture between the
>President and the Fretilin-dominated Government.
>Xanana had supported the Government’s struggle
>over oil, its efforts to rebuild domestic
>agriculture and the building of national
>institutions. However, his main preoccupation
>was reconciliation as a means of sustaining
>national security. He made the point, more than
>once, that international military intervention
>and assistance was unsustainable, and had to be
>replaced by good relations with Timor Leste’s
>big and powerful neighbours (Gusmão 2002). To
>this end he had opposed the demands for war
>crimes trials, and had literally embraced the
>Indonesian generals who had directed the death
>squads in his country. If this had helped mend
>bridges with Indonesia, it had also obstructed
>the struggle for justice, post-1999. Further, it
>identified Xanana with militia elements, who had
>been supported the Indonesian military (TNI).
>The reconciliation focus had also encouraged a
>culture of impunity, which would have
>consequences for the 2006 crisis. Xanana was
>clearly seen by some as the big man who could pardon all sins.
>
>Alkatiri, on the other hand, had been the
>country’s chief development strategist. While
>there had been some private disparagement of his
>Muslim background (in a largely Catholic
>country) and his long period in exile, none of
>this had stood in the way of his gaining respect
>as a key leader of the country’s independence
>movement. The economic nationalism, fiscal
>conservatism and tough mindedness he
>demonstrated as Prime Minister enhanced this
>respect, within Fretilin. He had been criticised
>for arrogance and lack of consultation and,
>while he had engendered particular aggravation
>with Australia over the oil dispute, he had
>always acted within his entitlements. His fiscal
>management had even drawn praise from the
>US-controlled World Bank (AFP 2006a). There were
>no substantial public attacks on Alkatiri, from
>outside the country, prior to the crisis.
>
>It was the desertion of several hundred soldiers
>from the army (FNTL) in February that eventually
>led to the 2006 crisis. These soldiers were then
>dismissed for desertion by the head of the army,
>Brigadier-General Taur Matan Ruak, with the
>backing of Prime Minister Alkatiri. Though this
>mass desertion has been portrayed as
>representing an ‘east-west’ ethnic tension, Jose
>Ramos Horta, as interim Defence Minister, told
>the Jakarta Post that while the police had been
>“very factionalised”, the army was “very
>disciplined” and that of the 600 that had
>deserted and had been sacked, “were mostly from
>the east”, while 200 of those remaining in the
>force “are from western regions like Liquica”
>(in Nurbaiti 2006a). Nevertheless, it seems that
>promotions had fallen to many easterners who had
>been more closely identified with the
>resistance, and had been refused to others
>because of questions either over their loyalty
>to Fretilin or because of their links to some
>western communities with pro-Indonesian militia
>links. Many of these communities were the people
>Xanana had been trying to include. So an
>important factor in the army conflict was the
>perception that Xanana could represent the
>ambitions of the disaffected soldiers, against
>the wishes of the government and the army
>hierarchy. For his part, Xanana clearly held an
>intense bitterness at the country’s main
>independence party, a bitterness which came out
>in a 22 June speech, after the crisis broke.
>“[their] old ideology is no longer suitable .. a
>small group of people, who lived abroad, want to
>replicate the attitudes we witnessed from 1975
>to 1978
In 2006, Fretilin wants to stage a
>coup to kill democracy
I had to take Falantil
>[the guerrilla army] out of the party ... I left
>Fretilin to liberate our land and all our people
>
I did not kill Fretilin and I continue to
>respect Fretilin .. if I were to return to
>Fretilin, Lu-Olo would never be Chairperson” (Gusmão 2006).
>This emotional tirade emphasised Xanana’s
>personal role, belittled others (including
>guerrilla leader and Fretilin loyalist Lu’Olo)
>and exposed his own mixed feelings about
>Fretilin, the country’s main independence movement.
>
>Xanana became a magnet for dissatisfaction, and
>a foment around the President had been going on
>for some time as, according to Martinkus (2006),
>there had been two attempts at a coup, prior to
>May 2006. The axis against the Fretilin-led
>government included figures in the hierarchy of
>the Catholic Church and middle ranking army
>officers, who pledged exclusive loyalty to the
>President. After the Church-backed 2005
>demonstrations against Alkatiri, army chief Taur
>Matan Ruak had been approached to lead a coup,
>but had refused. Then early in 2006 he and
>Lt-Col Falur Rate Laek were approached by “two
>prominent East Timorese leaders and two foreign
>nationals” to lead a coup. Both had refused and
>had reported the incident. Alkatiri knew of
>these coup attempts, but he refused to implicate
>Xanana (Martinkus 2006). However the May crisis
>was seen by the Fretilin Government as a
>development of these earlier coup attempts.
>
>Accounts of the April-May conflict have proved
>controversial, and this account is mainly drawn
>from the United Nations Secretary General’s
>August 8 report to the Security Council. On 24
>April the 594 soldiers (‘the petitioners’) who
>had been dismissed from the army began four days
>of “generally peaceful” demonstrations in Dili.
>On 27 April PM Alkatiri agreed to the demand
>for a commission of inquiry into their
>complaints. However on 28 April some in the
>ongoing demonstration attacked government
>buildings, seriously injuring one police officer
>and damaging property. The government called in
>the army and in the ensuing confrontation five
>people were killed and more than 40 injured. A
>first wave of internally displaced persons
>sought refuge in churches, UN offices and public buildings.
>
>On 3 May Major Alfredo Reinado left his post
>with two others, and on 8 May a group of 500
>surrounded government offices in Gleno and
>attacked two police officers of eastern origin,
>killing one who had been persuaded to disarm by
>an officer of western origin. This was said to
>have “exacerbated” east-west tensions in the
>police (Secretary General 2006). On 11 May the
>Australian government positioned two war ships,
>the Kanimbla and the Manoora, close to Timor
>Leste, though there had not yet been any request for assistance (ABC 2006a).
>
>In this tense climate Fretilin held its National
>Congress, over 17-19 May, overwhelmingly
>re-electing Mari Alkatiri and Lu-Olo as
>Secretary General and President, by a show of
>hands. On 23 May Reinado came down from Aileu
>to lead an attack on the army in Dili, causing
>an exchange “that resulted in deaths on both
>sides”. The next day, the army headquarters at
>Tacitolu was attacked by a group “reportedly
>consisting of petitioners, PNTL [police]
>officers and civilians”. This operation included
>an attack on the house of Brigadier-General Taur
>Matan Ruak, and lasted several hours. Several
>were killed. After this, a number of eastern
>origin police abandoned their posts and took
>refuge at the army training centre at Metinaro.
>On 25 May, members of the army, along with some
>police and civilians, counter-attacked the
>police national and Dili headquarters. UN
>training staff negotiated “an agreement” for
>these police to leave, unarmed; however some
>soldiers opened fire on them, killing eight
>police officers and injuring more than 25,
>including two UN advisers. The following day,
>“incoming international forces” secured the
>airport and other facilities, and began an
>occupation of Dili (Secretary General 2006).
>
>The attempted coup had sparked wider violence,
>some of which was opportunistic and some
>politically motivated. A mother and five
>children, closely related to Interior Minister
>Rogerio Lobato, were killed in one house fire.
>It seems that they were targeted for their
>family connections (ABC 2006b). Many other
>houses were burned, in a manner similar to the
>1999 militia destruction. Thousands more sought
>refuge. Families both ‘east’ and west’ were
>affected, but more ‘easterners’ seemed to be
>targeted. East Timorese people were shocked by
>the unprecedented rise of what was presented as a regional, ethnic divide.
>
>On receiving a joint invitation from Xanana,
>Ramos Horta and Alkatiri, the Howard Government
>had sent in Australian troops. Immediately,
>prominent Australian voices began to blame
>Alkatiri for the crisis, and shortly after to
>demand his removal. His responsibility, it was
>generally said, stemmed from the unwise
>dismissal of a large group of soldiers.
>Criticisms widened to observe that he was a
>Muslim and was supposed to have given
>preferential contracts and jobs to his relatives
>(Cave 2006). It was said that he was arrogant
>and out of touch. Yet there was no significant
>Australian condemnation of the renegade soldiers
>who had taken up arms against their own
>government. Xanana escaped criticism for not
>denouncing the renegade soldiers and gangs who
>were acting in his name. However some observed
>the foreign connections of Reinado’s wife, who
>worked for the U.S. Embassy, with the Peace Corps (Loro Horta 2006).
>
>Paul Kelly - prominent Australian journalist and
>member of the Jakarta lobby, which had opposed
>independence for Timor Leste asserted on 28
>May that it was “questionable” that Alkatiri had
>any future political role in his own country
>(Kelly 2006a). The following day Tim Costello
>CEO of World Vision, one of Australia’s largest
>aid organisations suggested ‘regime change’, and named a new Prime Minister:
>“I suspect a government of national unity, where
>Xanana may think about sacking the Prime
>Minister Alkatiri, inviting the opposition into
>a government of national unity, probably under
>somebody like Ramos Horta” (Costello 2006)
>On 31 May Kelly spelt out the Australian elite view, with great clarity:
>“Australia's intervention in East Timor
is
>both military and political
Australia is
>operating as a regional power or a potential
>hegemon that shapes security and political
>outcomes
Australia's obvious preference is for
>the removal of Alkatiri as Prime Minister and a
>political victory for Gusmão and Ramos Horta
>The Howard Government was told before the
>Fretilin congress 10 days ago that Dili's
>ambassador to the US, Jose Luis Guterres, had
>the numbers to depose Alkatiri. But such
>predictions were dashed
[if Alkatiri were to
>survive, politically] the political poison
>within East Timor's politics would only
>intensify, with Alkatiri sure to take an even
>greater set against Australia.” (Kelly 2006b)
>Encouraged by these strong comments, Xanana’s
>Australian wife, Kirsty Sword-Gusmão, joined in:
>“We certainly support calls for his resignation”
>(in Ong and Dodd 2006). A few days later, Greg
>Sheridan entrenched the attack on Alkatiri: “If
>Alkatiri remains Prime Minister of East Timor,
>this is a shocking indictment of Australian
>impotence” (Sheridan 2006). Expressing
>frustration that Alkatiri appeared to be surviving the crisis, Kelly added:
>“The chief difficulty has been on display all
>week. Australia underwrites police and military
>security in East Timor yet it cannot dictate the
>domestic political outcomes on which any
>enduring stabilisation of the country depends.
>We have responsibility without power” (Kelly 2006c).
>In face of this onslaught, Prime Minister Howard
>made few overt remarks against the Alkatiri
>government. An Australian consensus had been
>laid out. All that was required was for the East Timorese to comply.
>
>Yet there was no real reason for Alkatiri to
>step down, and he retained strong support from
>Fretilin. The Australian ‘elite consensus’ on
>Alkatiri needed something extra. Leader of the
>largest opposition party Fernando ‘Lasama’
>Araujo claimed that he had been targeted by
>Alkatiri, particularly after his house was
>burned down, during the crisis (Siapno 2006).
>However he had been previously investigated for
>defamation, and Ramos Horta’s office had accused
>him of “instigating unrest” (Santos 2006). At
>one stage during the crisis Fernando moved to
>occupy the parliament, attempting to lock other
>MPs out. His Democratic Party (PD) gained seven
>seats in the 2001 elections and by 2006 was
>reported to have eight seats (Lusa 2006a). But
>on 10 June an ABC television team had
>interviewed a group of armed men on the farm of
>another opposition leader, Mario Carascalao.
>They claimed that Alkatiri had hired them as a
>‘hit squad’, to assassinate political opponents
>(Jackson 2006b). This story was later run in the
>Australian documentary television program, Four
>Corners. Xanana delivered a video copy of the
>program with a letter demanding Alkatiri’s
>resignation. In the ensuing storm of publicity,
>and weakened by the crisis and the presence of
>foreign troops, independent Timor Leste’s first
>Prime Minister resigned, on the 26th of June.
>
>A little analysis shows serious problems with
>the ‘hit squad’ story. It conflated two claims.
>The first claim seems well established: that
>some government departments distributed weapons
>to irregular forces after the coup attempt
>began, and as the police force disintegrated.
>This could be understood as a measure to
>maintain security, and for self-defence. The
>second claim from the men interviewed by the ABC
>team - that they received arms from Alkatiri for
>political assassinations lacked credibility
>from the start. The interview was backed by
>opposition figures, and the main character
>Vicente “Railos” da Conceição, was a dismissed
>army officer who had been involved in Reinado’s
>23-24 May attacks on the army. The ABC team had
>been told of this involvement (Jackson 2006a).
>Although Railos had been a Fretilin delegate,
>from Liquica, his subsequent collaboration with
>Reinado, against government loyalists, make it
>unbelievable that he would be entrusted by
>government leaders to assassinate opposition
>figures. In any case, his evidence would be
>tainted by his links to the coup plotters. Even
>The Australian, which had led the campaign to
>remove Alkatiri, questioned the role of Railos
>(Dodd and Fitzpatrick 2006). The ‘hit squad’
>story had been a political ‘coup de grace’ for
>Alkatiri, but it had no future as a criminal
>prosecution. The UN Commission’s report on the
>crisis, released in October 2006, said it “does
>not accept” that Alkatiri “gave instructions” to
>the Railos group to “eliminate” his political
>opponents, but it suggested “further
>investigations” to determine his possible
>knowledge of arms distribution to civilians (UN 2006 p.40).
>
>Meanwhile, others were escaping prosecution.
>Well into the crisis, and in opposition to the
>expressed views of Army Commander Taur Matan
>Ruak, Xanana continued to insist that Alfredo
>Reinado was not a danger, and that he was acting
>“to ensure the safety of the population”
>(UNMISET 2006b). Even in mid June, after the
>attacks on the army at Tacitolu, Xanana insisted
>Reinado was “not a rebel", but rather he “went
>to the mountain
to avoid a conflict” (Nurbaiti
>2006b; AFP 2006b). The Australian armed forces,
>obligingly, did not move against Reinado when
>they landed. In fact, Reinado expressed his
>pleasure at the Australians arrival (Banham
>2006). Nor did chief prosecutor Longhuinos
>Monteiro move against either Reinado or Railos.
>Xanana would now begin to say that
>“reconciliation required justice over recent
>wrongdoing” (da Fonseca 2006), but this was
>clearly aimed at Alkatiri, not Reinado.
>
>However on 26 July, after the expiration of an
>amnesty on weapons possession, a Portuguese
>police unit uncovered an arms cache held by
>Reinado, and international forces arrested him.
>The Attorney General’s office indicted Reinado
>for “conspiracy and attempted revolution” (LUSA
>2006b), then for attempted murder. The
>Portuguese media noted this as an embarrassment
>for Xanana, given the support he had afforded
>the mutineer (Diario de Noticias 2006). In
>August, the Judicial System Monitoring Program
>criticised the Prosecutor General’s “apparent
>failure to date” to investigate Railos, and the
>delay in investigating Reinado. The JSMP said it
>believed the Prosecutor General’s office “played
>no role in the [Reinado] arrest” (TLDSN 2006b).
>In other words, the political impartiality of
>judicial processes was in serious question, and
>linked to the favouritism of President
>Xanana. The UN Commission’s report on the
>crisis found “no evidence” that Xanana
>authorised Reinado and others to carry out armed
>attacks but it did find that Xanana “did not
>consult and cooperate” with the army command,
>thus “increasing tensions between the President
>and the army” (UN 2006: pp.30, 63).
>
>In the wake of Alkatiri’s forced resignation,
>and with the necessary approval of Fretilin,
>Xanana appointed Jose Ramos Horta as the interim
>Prime Minister, pending the 2007 elections. The
>President said those elections were “the
>appropriate means to resolve the conflicts
>peacefully, and to overcome the crisis” (da
>Fonseca 2006). This, to some extent, pacified
>the Australian voices, though it did not seem
>that Ramos Horta’s elevation would lead to any
>immediate policy change. In the past he had said
>he would like more “privileges” for foreign
>investors (Ramos Horta 2003) and, more recently,
>that he would like to “fast track” investments
>with World Bank help (Fitzpatrick 2006); but he
>was also committed to the new oil and gas deals,
>and influenced by Alkatiri’s fiscal conservatism
>and diversification strategy. Further, Fretilin
>had not been sidelined and Alkatiri was still its Secretary-General.
>
>An Australian ‘elite consensus’
>With some background on the domestic aspects of
>the crisis, we can return to discussion of an
>‘elite consensus’ in Australia. What Edward Said
>(1993) termed a “powerful, ideological, cultural
>consensus” forms a necessary part of a
>neocolonial project, to back military and
>economic power. The pre-crisis consensus in
>Australia had been limited to those groups
>(media, finance, mining, government) with direct
>interests in managing the neighbouring country
>and its resources. It focussed on the classical
>colonial demands for privileged access to
>natural resources, an obstruction of public
>economic institutions and ‘strategic denial’ of
>potential rivals. A second stage of this
>consensus, elaborating the project, drew in a
>wider intellectual elite (including aid
>managers, academics and journalists), with
>paternal interest in the new responsibilities.
>This consensus grasped deeper into the roots of
>Timor Leste’s political institutions and
>included demands for: the ‘reform’ or fracturing
>of Fretilin, marginalisation or abolition of the
>army (FNTL), and the inclusion of English as an
>official language of the country. Most of this
>had little basis within Timor Leste.
>
>The ‘reform of Fretilin’ demand sought to link
>up with internal forces. First of these was
>Xanana’s estrangement from Fretilin; second was
>a small group of disaffected members who had
>unsuccessfully sought to challenge the Fretilin
>leadership; and third were the opposition
>parties. For its part, the crisis must have
>demonstrated to Fretilin that it needed to
>rebuild in the new circumstances, to offer
>participatory opportunities, especially for the
>younger generation. This, however, was not the
>Australian elite’s idea of ‘reform’. According
>to Rupert Murdoch’s journalists at The
>Australian, a ‘democratic’ Timor Leste was
>equated with one that was pro-Australia. There
>was not much room for Fretilin views
>“Gusmão and Ramos Horta are pro-Australian and
>cognisant of working with Canberra. By contrast,
>the Howard Government sees Alkatiri as a
>1970s-style pro-Marxist anti-capitalist
>suspicious of democratic practice” (Kelly 2006b).
>Alkatiri’s policies had been anything but
>doctrinaire, but this did not stop Cold War
>style attacks. Mark Aarons, in The Australian,
>warned over the dangers of Alkatiri’s “faction”,
>suggesting East Timorese must: “remove the
>stultifying control of political, civic and
>economic life by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri's
>dominant faction within Fretilin” (Aarons 2006).
>Professor James Cotton, of the Australian
>Defence Force Academy, another fierce critic of
>Alkatiri, predicted that the country’s party
>system “appears set to fracture” (Cotton 2006).
>Lawyers John Dowd and Bernard Collaery (who had
>been advisers to Xanana) even suggested that the
>Fretilin government had never been elected: “The
>only person elected in East Timor is the
>President Xanana Gusmão. There has been no
>democratically elected government”, said Dowd
>(Sunday 2006). This was a reference to the
>August 2001 elections, which were initially for
>a Constituent Assembly but also functioned (as
>voters understood) for the country’s first
>democratic government. Dowd was trying to
>elevate Xanana and undermine the legitimacy of
>Alkatiri and the elected parliament. The
>partisan nature of these attacks illustrates the
>danger of an ongoing Australian occupation.
>
>Marginalisation or abolition of the country’s
>army (FNTL) was the second new demand, coming
>from sources close to Canberra and the
>Australian Defence Force (ADF). Yet there was no
>such demand within Timor Leste. The crisis and
>attempted coup had indeed centred around
>attempts to seize control of the army, but as
>the independent armed force (Falantil, now FNTL)
>was a powerful part of East Timorese history and
>identity. Falantil-FNTL was a defining pubic
>institution of the new state, and no serious
>political party in Timor Leste would suggest its
>abolition. In large part because of this, an
>independent army was seen as an obstacle to
>Australian tutelage and influence. Cotton (2006)
>suggested that the “deep divisions” in the army
>“made it unlikely that a viable military can be
>reconstructed”. Yet, even after the 600
>dismissals, and the rebellion of the Reinado and
>Railos groups, Ramos Horta had noted the
>discipline of the bulk of the army, and the army
>command (Nurbaiti 2006a). Whatever the
>management problems of the army, it was the
>police that collapsed, not the army. Yet in
>Australia academic Damien Kingsbury bluntly
>asserted the army was “an expensive and
>politically divisive institution within the
>state, and quite frankly it needs to be gotten
>rid of.” (in Hazzan 2006). At a public seminar
>in Canberra to discuss the crisis, retired
>Lieutenant-Colonel Bob Lowry spoke of the
>struggles he had observed over the army, during
>his time as a security adviser in 2002-03. His
>2003 recommendation to the Alkatiri Government
>that the Falantil veterans in the army be
>pensioned off was rejected. He claims that the
>army and defence ministry is dysfunctional and
>should be disbanded or changed into “police
>support and disaster alleviation” function
>(Lowry 2006). Cotton bluntly asserted that “the
>wrong people” were in government and that “if we
>cannot have a say in who is in charge in East
>Timor, we should withdraw our troops” (in Boyle
>2006). The Australian elite consensus was feeding itself.
>
>The third new Australian demand, that English be
>officially recognised, emerged from several
>years of Australian frustration with the
>adoption of both Tetum (the national dialect)
>and Portuguese as joint official
>languages. This reflected a frustration of
>Australian governmental and aid industry people
>at the problems of communications in a small
>country with several languages not their own.
>Small countries are always cursed by language,
>in that their educated classes have to learn
>several languages. On the other hand,
>Australians are notoriously lazy at learning
>other languages. This discomfort was elevated
>into a public policy argument. Kingsbury
>asserted that “national unity” can only be
>achieved by the East Timorese “settling on one
>language and embarking on a major literacy
>campaign in that language” (Kingsbury 2006).
>This simple, reductionist view ignores the
>varying historical processes that shape the
>national institutions and languages of many
>countries. One cannot understand why, for
>example, India, Canada, South Africa and Papua
>New Guinea have adopted their multiple national
>languages without reference to their particular
>histories. Canberra academic George Quinn, in a
>scathing attack on Timor Leste’s institutions,
>called both for the abolition of the army and
>“the scaling down of the Portuguese language policy” (Quinn 2006).
>
>There had indeed been an debate within Timor
>Leste over language, but it was not so much over
>English, as over the place of Indonesian and
>Tetum. It was indeed the case that few East
>Timorese in 2001 (when the constitution was
>created) spoke Portuguese, and this seemed to
>privilege the older generation. However the
>younger generation had been educated in
>Indonesian, and most higher education had been
>in Indonesian colleges and universities which,
>after 1999, were no longer accessible. Tetum, a
>genuine national language, was only in its
>beginning stages as a written language. Yet a
>significant proportion of Tetum (perhaps as much
>as a third) comes from Portuguese, which is of
>course a world language. It is therefore
>somewhat easier for Tetum speakers to learn than
>English. Portuguese also maintains the country’s
>connections with the Lusophone world (Portugal,
>Brazil and others). So Portuguese was a rational
>choice but, more importantly, it was a choice
>made by East Timorese people, through their
>constituent assembly. This is a fundamental matter of self-determination.
>
>At a practical level, there is hardly hostility
>to the teaching of English in Timor Leste, as
>many people wish to learn this important world
>language. But that is a different issue to
>insisting that Timor Leste’s Constitution be
>changed, for Australian convenience. Those who
>feel this way might best look at the very low
>level of tertiary scholarships offered by
>Australia to East Timorese students: twenty per
>year in the transitional period, and only eight
>per year in 2006 (AusAID 2006). This compares
>unfavourably with the six hundred medical
>scholarships offered by Cuba, over three years.
>In addition, Cuba provides one year’s language
>training, so students can master their language
>of instruction (Spanish). Australia offers no
>such scholarship extension for English training,
>rather it requires that all tertiary students
>“have an English language proficiency of at
>least 5.5 in IELTS” (AusAID 2006) before they can enter the country.
>
>Concluding comments
>Australia’s second intervention in Timor Leste
>came after a period of aggravation in which the
>independent nation faced down Australian elite
>demands for privileged access to the country’s
>natural resources, Australian and World Bank
>obstruction of public economic institutions
>(including support for domestic agriculture) and
>Australian irritation at diversification of the
>country’s strategic partners. Most of the
>hostility was aimed at Prime Minister Mari
>Alkatiri, the chief development strategist. Some
>modest but important achievements were made in
>the first few years after independence, notably
>the construction of national institutions,
>reclaiming natural resources from a greedy
>neighbour, prudent management of finances, the
>consolidation of domestic agriculture and staple
>food production, and development of human
>capital through expansion in education and in the health system.
>
>However internal rivalry expressed through a
>struggle over the leadership of the army, and
>revolving around a President alienated from the
>dominant party, sparked a coup attempt in May
>2006. When the military coup failed, a partisan
>Australian intervention, including a powerful
>and partisan media, forced the resignation of
>Alkatiri. Evidence does not support the notion
>of a benign or independent Australian assistance
>role. The interim government appears more
>‘Australian friendly’, but relations between the
>Howard Government and Fretilin have been
>seriously damaged. At the same time there are a
>new raft of Australian demands, an ‘Australian
>consensus’ that Timor Leste’s main party be
>‘reformed’, that its national army be sidelined
>or abolished and that the country adopt English
>as a national language. These new demands (seen
>as necessary for a more energetic and sustained
>Australian intervention) are elaborations of an
>Australian ‘elite consensus’, the cultural
>product of a primary elite (media, mining,
>finance, government) with direct interests in
>resource and strategic control, and a secondary
>elite (aid managers, academics, journalists)
>which has associated itself with the
>paternalistic project. However the demands
>represent a dangerous escalation of neo-colonial
>pressures, compromising to East Timorese
>independence and corrosive of normal domestic
>politics. Such pressures will encourage
>disaffected groups to align themselves with the
>neo-colonial power, to avoid engagement in
>‘normal’ politics. These groups may well be
>encouraged to play ‘the Australian card’, as
>pro-Indonesian militia groups did under a previous occupation.
>
>
>
>
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