Letter From Indonesia: Struggling East Timor, a country of little hope

By Jane Perlez International Herald Tribune

Published: July 12, 2006

JAKARTA When he was proclaimed president of East Timor, Xanana Gusmão, a poet and ex-political prisoner, named his headquarters - a glorified bungalow, really - the Palace of Ashes, a reminder of the ruin Indonesian troops left as they rampaged their way out of the territory after ablood-stained occupation. Gusmão was also signaling hopes for a new beginning.

Born in the wake of Bosnia and Kosovo, Somalia and Haiti, East Timor was supposed to be the new nation that succeeded, a United Nations-administered project costing several billion dollars that would benefit from experiences elsewhere. But now people are asking: does tiny East Timor have a second chance, can another makeover by the United Nations work? Or will the country of about one million people, who subsist off some of the world's least arable land, become a perpetual ward of the world?

Earlier this week, a United Nations team of legal, political and military experts flew back to New York after investigating what caused the breakdown in law and order, the disintegration of the police force and the army, the sudden emergence of ethnic hostilities and the flight of more than 100,000 people to makeshift refugee camps.

One thing seemed sure. The United Nations' effort from 1999 to 2002 was too brief - it was known as Quickfixville at the time - and was fraught with mistakes.

At his swearing in Monday, the new prime minister, José Ramos-Horta, noted: "If it is not possible to make a small business viable in two years, consolidate it and make it commercially sustainable in two years, yet we ask, 'Is it possible to build a state in two years?' The answer is no."

An ambitious diplomat - Ramos- Horta said he is still a candidate to head the United Nations in 2012 - the new prime minister was too politic to add that the United States was at the forefront of insisting that the UN peacekeepers, military and police trainers did not overstay.

East Timor emerged from a 1999 independence referendum with a colonial heritage of four centuries of Portuguese rule followed by nearly two decades under the thumb of the Indonesian military.

The Roman Catholic Church maintains a strong influence on all social issues, including family planning and prayer in schools. Nearby Australia, separated from East Timor at its northern edge by several hundred miles of sea, also takes an interest, motivated in part by the bravery of the East Timorese who saved Australian paratroopers from the Japanese during World War II.

The exiles who returned to govern after independence brought divergent ideas: one group, led by Mari Alkatiri, the recently resigned prime minister, spent years in Marxist Mozambique; Ramos-Horta acquired the patois of international-speak as he moved around the halls of diplomacy for 24 years. The charismatic Gusmão was supposed to be a broker and leader of those who stayed behind to fight, but was endowed with few powers as president under the heavily Portuguese-influenced Constitution.

The mosaic of outside influences has left a bizarre tone on everyday life in Dili, the languid portside town that serves as capital, a pervasive feeling of second choices taken because better alternatives were too difficult or not convenient.

Hundreds of teachers are imported from Portugal every year to teach Portuguese to elementary school students. It was chosen as the official language even though East Timor is part of the world of Asia and the Pacific and though much of the population is illiterate. The almost dysfunctional judicial system, conceived and written by the Portuguese, creaks along in their language.

The U.S. dollar is used as the official currency as a way to avoid more distasteful alternatives like the Indonesian rupiah or the Australian dollar, or creating a new currency.

Adding a slightly surreal touch, hundreds of Cuban doctors serve as the core of the strapped medical services. In return, much to the annoyance of the U.S. Embassy in Dili, East Timorese medical students are trained in Cuba under a program arranged by Alkatiri.

Almost everyone agrees that the fatal flaw in the East Timor experiment came with the creation of a national army and a national police. In many respects, the building of an army had less to do with national defense than with creating a home for demobilized freedom fighters, where they would be paid, watched over and kept in uniform.

Hugh White, a former senior official at the Australian Department of Defense, said his government was aware of the problems of building an East Timorese Army. It was easy to see in advance that the army would fracture along ethnic and political lines, he said. A large, well-trained police force would have been sufficient, White said.

But Australia went along with assisting a new military, including training some of its officers in Australia, because it did not want to cede all power to Portugal.

"The Portuguese were prepared to put enough resources into an army without Australia's resources," White recalled. "We felt if they said yes, and we didn't, we'd lose the opportunity to influence the army. In the end, our minister said, 'Yes.'"

Factions in the army and the police fought one another in the past several months, and splinter groups of the police and army aligned themselves with various political figures. Now the police force, which experts say is particularly poorly trained, and the army are in shreds. White estimates that several thousand weapons remain floating about. "In a country of 925,000, that's very destabilizing," he said.

Although most East Timorese are poor farmers, little effort was placed into improving basic agriculture during the United Nations administration. Most of the resources were devoted to building government institutions, said James Fox, an anthropologist at the Australian National University who is an expert on East Timor.

He said he tried to convince the United Nations to spend more money on developing the rural economy - its productivity is the lowest in Asia - but to no avail. "We were pushing on agriculture, but it wasn't as sexy as justice and security," he said.

Would East Timor ever be able to make it on its own? "I'm very gloomy," White said. "Its viability is on the knife edge. It would take a remarkable performance, quite uncharacteristic of what we've seen so far on such a feeble base, to get East Timor back on the rails."

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JAKARTA When he was proclaimed president of East Timor, Xanana Gusmão, a poet and ex-political prisoner, named his headquarters - a glorified bungalow, really - the Palace of Ashes, a reminder of the ruin Indonesian troops left as they rampaged their way out of the territory after a blood-stained occupation. Gusmão was also signaling hopes for a new beginning.

Born in the wake of Bosnia and Kosovo, Somalia and Haiti, East Timor was supposed to be the new nation that succeeded, a United Nations-administered project costing several billion dollars that would benefit from experiences elsewhere. But now people are asking: does tiny East Timor have a second chance, can another makeover by the United Nations work? Or will the country of about one million people, who subsist off some of the world's least arable land, become a perpetual ward of the world?

Earlier this week, a United Nations team of legal, political and military experts flew back to New York after investigating what caused the breakdown in law and order, the disintegration of the police force and the army, the sudden emergence of ethnic hostilities and the flight of more than 100,000 people to makeshift refugee camps.

One thing seemed sure. The United Nations' effort from 1999 to 2002 was too brief - it was known as Quickfixville at the time - and was fraught with mistakes.

At his swearing in Monday, the new prime minister, José Ramos-Horta, noted: "If it is not possible to make a small business viable in two years, consolidate it and make it commercially sustainable in two years, yet we ask, 'Is it possible to build a state in two years?' The answer is no."

An ambitious diplomat - Ramos- Horta said he is still a candidate to head the United Nations in 2012 - the new prime minister was too politic to add that the United States was at the forefront of insisting that the UN peacekeepers, military and police trainers did not overstay.

East Timor emerged from a 1999 independence referendum with a colonial heritage of four centuries of Portuguese rule followed by nearly two decades under the thumb of the Indonesian military.

The Roman Catholic Church maintains a strong influence on all social issues, including family planning and prayer in schools. Nearby Australia, separated from East Timor at its northern edge by several hundred miles of sea, also takes an interest, motivated in part by the bravery of the East Timorese who saved Australian paratroopers from the Japanese during World War II.

The exiles who returned to govern after independence brought divergent ideas: one group, led by Mari Alkatiri, the recently resigned prime minister, spent years in Marxist Mozambique; Ramos-Horta acquired the patois of international-speak as he moved around the halls of diplomacy for 24 years. The charismatic Gusmão was supposed to be a broker and leader of those who stayed behind to fight, but was endowed with few powers as president under the heavily Portuguese-influenced Constitution.

The mosaic of outside influences has left a bizarre tone on everyday life in Dili, the languid portside town that serves as capital, a pervasive feeling of second choices taken because better alternatives were too difficult or not convenient.

Hundreds of teachers are imported from Portugal every year to teach Portuguese to elementary school students. It was chosen as the official language even though East Timor is part of the world of Asia and the Pacific and though much of the population is illiterate. The almost dysfunctional judicial system, conceived and written by the Portuguese, creaks along in their language.

The U.S. dollar is used as the official currency as a way to avoid more distasteful alternatives like the Indonesian rupiah or the Australian dollar, or creating a new currency.

Adding a slightly surreal touch, hundreds of Cuban doctors serve as the core of the strapped medical services. In return, much to the annoyance of the U.S. Embassy in Dili, East Timorese medical students are trained in Cuba under a program arranged by Alkatiri.

Almost everyone agrees that the fatal flaw in the East Timor experiment came with the creation of a national army and a national police. In many respects, the building of an army had less to do with national defense than with creating a home for demobilized freedom fighters, where they would be paid, watched over and kept in uniform.

Hugh White, a former senior official at the Australian Department of Defense, said his government was aware of the problems of building an East Timorese Army. It was easy to see in advance that the army would fracture along ethnic and political lines, he said. A large, well-trained police force would have been sufficient, White said.

But Australia went along with assisting a new military, including training some of its officers in Australia, because it did not want to cede all power to Portugal.

"The Portuguese were prepared to put enough resources into an army without Australia's resources," White recalled. "We felt if they said yes, and we didn't, we'd lose the opportunity to influence the army. In the end, our minister said, 'Yes.'"

Factions in the army and the police fought one another in the past several months, and splinter groups of the police and army aligned themselves with various political figures. Now the police force, which experts say is particularly poorly trained, and the army are in shreds. White estimates that several thousand weapons remain floating about. "In a country of 925,000, that's very destabilizing," he said.

Although most East Timorese are poor farmers, little effort was placed into improving basic agriculture during the United Nations administration. Most of the resources were devoted to building government institutions, said James Fox, an anthropologist at the Australian National University who is an expert on East Timor.

He said he tried to convince the United Nations to spend more money on developing the rural economy - its productivity is the lowest in Asia - but to no avail. "We were pushing on agriculture, but it wasn't as sexy as justice and security," he said.

Would East Timor ever be able to make it on its own? "I'm very gloomy," White said. "Its viability is on the knife edge. It would take a remarkable performance, quite uncharacteristic of what we've seen so far on such a feeble base, to get East Timor back on the rails."

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