Timor-Leste: The Harsh Reality After Independence

Southeast Asian Affairs 2007 TIMOR-LESTE The Harsh Reality After Independence Damien Kingsbury Even set against its long history of misery, 2006 was one of Timor-Leste's worst years. While there have been other years in which more people have died and in which its physical infrastructure has been more destroyed, 2006 saw, if not the ending of a dream, then the harsh realization that the value of independence was only as good as its political community made it. In 2006, Timor-Leste's political community tore itself apart, setting in train an internal conflict that had scope to run well beyond the year's end, and which threatened to relegate the country to the status of just another post-colonial failed state. Timor-Leste's descent into factional conflict and the related forced resignation of its Prime Minister reflected the type of political chaos that has affected many newly post-colonial states, in which competition for power overwhelmed a fragile and still fragmented political environment. So much had been hoped for and invested in Timor-Leste by the international community, by the United Nations, and not least by the people of Timor-Leste themselves, yet so little was shown to have been achieved. Despite the change of prime minister, with the ascendance of the popular Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta, the establishment of a UN police presence,1 along with continuing external military support from some 3,000 foreign troops, violence and destruction continued, entrenching a regional divide that challenged Timor-Leste's future. Damien Kingsbury is Director, Masters of International and Community Development, School of International and Political Studies, Deakin University, Australia. 364Damien Kingsbury Before the Crisis Prior to the crisis, the state had been moving along at a steady, if slow, pace towards achieving a series of its development goals. Timor-Leste's most pressing issue was poverty. At around US$366 per capita GDP (corrected for purchase pricing parity)2 Timor-Leste was the poorest country in the world, although with a slightly better Human Development Index ranking of 140 of 177 states. Such poverty underpinned and exacerbated all other social and political tensions.3 Against this backdrop, Timor-Leste's Fretilin government, led by Mari Alkatiri, had made several sound development decisions, in particular avoiding external debt, seeking local food security and bringing down inflation.4 Alkatiri also led difficult negotiations against Australia for the best possible deal from the Timor Gap oil and gas field. The income from oil and gas receipts increased from US$649.8 million in June to US$847.1 million in September5 and was invested in interestbearing US government bonds, returning 8.37 per cent in 2006. The economy had moved from negative to positive growth by 2005, if still at low levels and off a low base, education was developing and medical services had been considerably expanded, if somewhat controversially by importing Cuban doctors. However, the government of Timor-Leste also made some poor decisions.6 According to the World Bank, corruption was becoming a problem.7 The government 's dismissal of these concerns, in particular in relation to the letting of government contracts to Alkatiri's brother to build roads and supply weapons, and the Interior Minister and close Alkatiri ally, Rogerio Lobato, being involved in smuggling, alienated many Timor-Leste citizens and the international community, upon which the country still significantly relied. Despite destructive riots in late 2002 and the activities of quasi-criminal political organizations such as Committee for the Popular Defence ofthe Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste (CPD-RDTL), Sagrada Famiglia, and Colimau 2000, the government had exercised considerable restraint by not proscribing them, although there was some persecution of Colimau 2000 members. However, the government and its institutions had been noted for a tendency towards authoritarian responses,8 as well as incompetence in the face of serious challenges to state authority.9 More importantly, the government also interpreted expressions of alternative perspectives as disloyal and potentially seditious. This lack of acceptance of legitimate dissent and a loyal opposition was perhaps its greatest political failure.10 By way of illustration, the opposition Democratic Party head, Fernando de Araujo, and other party members reported...