Mission & Justice

Stephen Fitzpatrick; 14/6/08

UN police in East Timor will hand over responsibility to the national force sooner than expected, despite a high-level report casting doubt on Timorese policing capacity. The head of the UN mission in East Timor, Atul Khare, will announce an “expedited” handover of policing duties - with complete control ceded by early next year - during an Australian trip beginning today. Some of the slack will be taken up by an increase of about 80 Australian Federal Police officers, announced in the federal budget as part of a bilateral policing arrangement. Mr Khare denied the handover meant a reduction in police numbers, saying UN police would remain in East Timor in an advisory role for several months.

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Stephen Fitzpatrick; 12/6/08

Controvesial former East Timorese defence minister Roque Rodriguez is to be dismissed from his role as security consultant to President Jose Ramos Horta, after a flurry of high-level cables between Dili and New York over the UN appointment. The sacking comes as senior security analysts in the country warn of a dangerous lurch back towards anarchy, even as the UN prepares for the “expedited” withdrawal of its international police force. Mr Rodriguez, implicated in the weapons distribution scandal that led to former interior minister Rogerio Lobato being jailed for seven years last year, signed a substantial deal several weeks ago, understood to have been for up to 12 months, to help advise on security sector reform. This was despite a commission of inquiry in 2006 recommending that he face criminal charges over the violence earlier that year, in which dozens died.

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Paul Maley; 27/5/08

The Australian Federal Police is considering pressing charges over the shooting death of Australian journalist Brian Peters, one of the Balibo Five believed to have been murdered by Indonesian troops during the 1975 invasion of East Timor. AFP Commissioner Mick Keelty told a Senate estimates committee in Canberra yesterday the AFP was considering a referral from the Attorney-General’s Department “in relation to the death of Brian Peters”. Mr Keelty declined to give any details on who, if anybody, might be prosecuted. “I don’t think it is appropriate to take it any further other than to say we are working with the department on this request,” he said. “Because the events are alleged to have occurred in a foreign country, there are a lot of issues about the gathering of evidence and where jurisdiction (lies), if it is possible, for any private prosecution that might take place.”

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24/5/08

East Timor President Jose Ramos Horta said no foreign elements were involved in an assassination attempt against him but criticised Australia’s silence on a bank account held by his slain attacker. In an interview in Sin-gapore, Ramos Horta also asked why the Australian police failed to question some Timor-born Australians who were in East Timor before the attack in February and immediately fled to Australia after the shooting. The 58-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner suffered multiple gunshot wounds in the February 11 attack on his residence led by rebel leader Alfredo Reinado and required life-saving surgery in Australia.

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22/5/08

The Catholic Church in East Timor is helping the government encourage thousands of people who left their homes in fear of violence to now return home. At a Mass on May 15 for 2,000 refugees preparing to go home in the coming days, Bishop Alberto Ricardo da Silva of Dili said, “The Church is always ready to collaborate with the government to resolve the IDP (internally displaced people) problem.” Parliament President Fernando de Araujo, other members of parliament and government officials attended the Mass at the Garden of Mother Mary from Fatima, a public park near the Dili harbor. Refugees have been a source of concern since 100,000 people sought safety from gang violence that erupted in 2006 and killed at least 20, following a dispute within the army. About 60,000 remain in makeshift camps, many on Church property, largely in the capital area.

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Sian Powell; 17/5/08

Naldo Rei was nine years old when he crept into the jungle on his first mission for the East Timorese resistance movement. Like so many in East Timor, he spent decades fighting for freedom. Now a 32-year-old public information officer in the troubled new nation, Rei says the 24 years of danger and bloody struggle have yet to deliver peace and stability. The tiny country is now riven by regional loyalties. Tens of thousands of dispirited East Timorese live in tents, fearing to rebuild their burned and destroyed homes. Worse still, earlier this year rebels tried to kill the East Timorese President, Jose Ramos Horta. “We wanted peace, stability, a democratic society,” Rei said. “We don’t want to live in violence and fearing everyone all the time.”

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6/5/08

Four former East Timorese soldiers deported from Indonesia yesterday face jail terms of up to 25 years if they are convicted over attacks on the fledgling nation’s leaders, prosecutors say. Indonesia deported the four men under heavy security, two weeks after they were caught in Indonesia’s West Timor and the capital Jakarta. The men fled East Timor after the February 11 attacks on East Timor’s President Jose Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. East Timorese Prosecutor-General Longuinos Monteiro said the men would be interrogated in Dili.

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Paul Toohey; 26/4/08

Rebel lieutenant Gastao Salsinha last night surrendered after two years on the run and put himself in the personal control of East Timor’s most senior army officer, Brigadier Tuar Matan Ruak. Salsinha’s capitulation will hopefully bring to an end two years of stand-offs, negotiations and violence that has torn the country apart. Salsinha, who allegedly led the attack on Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao on February 11 while Alfredo Reinado launched the raid on President Jose Ramos Horta’s compound, spent yesterday sitting in a house in Ermera, in the west of East Timor, with a Catholic Church priest acting as his mediator as armed forces surrounded the position. Negotiators had gone to a house near the town of Gleno, atSalsinha’s suggestion, to collect him.

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21/4/08

Indonesian police have arrested three East Timorese soldiers in relation to the attacks two months ago on two of East Timor’s most senior leaders, according to the Indonesian president. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono made the announcement on Sa turday in Jakarta, the Indonesian capital. Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor’s prime minister, and Xanana Gusmao, the president, were attacked in Dili, the capital, in February. Ramos-Horta was critically wounded, while Gusmao escaped unharmed.

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Nick McKenzie; 21/4/08

Serving and former soldiers have broken ranks to expose the neglect, bullying and bastardisation faced by some Australian Defence Force personnel with mental health problems. The soldiers, who have served in the Middle East, East Timor and Africa, claim they were denied adequate support and ostracised after seeking help for mental health problems. The Age can also reveal that the family of an army captain who has served twice in Iraq and who has severe mental health problems has claimed he received an appalling level of care at a Queensland defence base in February. A letter from Defence about the incident says its health services work in a “frugal financial environment”.

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