[Marxism] Timor - Interview with Ana Pessoa

["Alexandre Leite" <alex.fafe@xxxxxxxxx>]

Interview with Ana Pessoa, Timor-Leste Minister of State and Public
Administration translated from Portuguese Expresso online
<http://online.expresso.clix.pt/1pagina/artigo.asp?id=24761319> with the
help of Alexandre Leite and Peter Boyle and
<http://www.appliedlanguage.com/free_translation.shtml>.

* * *

Minister of State and Public Administration of Timor
"There is a strategy behind all this"

Ana Pessoa, minister of State and Public Administration of East-Timor
and member of the Central Committee of the FRETILIN, is a woman of
strong beliefs and without restrictions to say what she thinks. A jurist
by formation, she finds it "incredible" that President Xanana Gusmão has
demanded the resignation of prime-minister Mari Alkatiri in a letter
appended to a tape of a story from an Australian television, but thinks
that the institutional crisis still can be decided by negotiation and in
the respect of the legality and the constitutional rules.

Convinced, as Alkatiri and Lu-Olo (president of the Parliament) that
there are forces committed to make East-Timor "a failed State", that
must be under tutelage at least until the elections of 2007, she came to
Lisbon to ask for the support of the CPLP [Portuguese Speaking Countries].



Expresso: The UN is accused to have not prevented the politicalization
and instrumentalization of the Armed Forces and Timorese Security, which
would be in the origin of the current institutional crisis…

The main positive aspect of the interventions of the UN is the
multi-partnership, which also causes negative consequences, but we
cannot blame the UN for everything that happens now. For the
constitution of the police forces, the UNTAET had assessors of 40
different nationalities and this creates confusion necessarily. There is
no model, no doctrine, no clear strategy, which is a serious problem for
the formation of an army and police in a country as East-Timor, without
institutional traditions and with negative references, inherited from
the foreign military occupation.

Expresso: The criteria of evaluation for the conscription of employees,
police, military, had not been a tension factor, since the beginning?
There were people excluded because they didn't speak Portuguese …

It's absolutely false, it happened exactly the opposite way. When I was
Minister of Internal Affairs of the transition government, the UNTAET
complained for not finding qualified Timorese to occupy places in the
public administration and I went to see some selection interviews. I
verified that they were made in English or Indonesian Bahasa. They
explained me that the English was the official work language of the UN.
I answered: 'so you should hire interpreters. You are not recruiting
employees for the UN but to the Timorese State, whose official languages
are Tétum and Portuguese. To know English can be a supplemental
qualification, never a selection criteria.' The majority of the Timorese
do not speak English and many do not dominate Portuguese, because during
the Indonesian occupation to speak Portuguese was to be connoted with
the guerrilla, and used to give right to be imprisoned, tortured,
killed. Until today, we only demand Tétum and only recently we started
to demand tests in Portuguese. In my ministry, we only accept documents
in Tétum or Portuguese. If they come in English or Bahasa, we send them
back.

Expresso: The fact that there were police officers that used to belong
to Indonesian police, did not create problems?

The conscription for the National Police of East-Timor (PNTL) was
entirely made by the UNTAET. They had incorporated more than 100
Indonesian agents and officers, some of which had a very bad service
record, referred as torcionários. It was that what provoked the first
division between so called "nationalistic" and the group of the
"autonomists", former-agents of the Indonesian police who had been
incorporated in the PNTL on behalf of the national reconciliation. I
used to say that the police was structured to fall apart in the moment
of the first crisis. It was what happened.

Expresso: The creation of special forces also created malaise and
appears now related with paramilitary groups of self-defence.

In January of 2003, militias infiltrated through the border with West
Timor and attacked villages, killed defenceless populations, in the
region of Atsabe. Our police, that only had 15 men in the zone, armed
with pistols, was not capable to react. We used the military from the
Security and Defence Forces (FDSTL) and we were accused of violating
human rights. At that time we decided to create the Special Reserve of
the police, to act outside of the urban zones, according to the model of
the "Jungle Police" of Malaysia. Its members had been enlisted from the
PNTL, but had to have at least six months of service and no bad
discipline records. They received more adequate trainings, like rangers,
equipment and automatic weapons.

Expresso: How do weapons appear on the hands of civilians?

There are weapons on the hands of civilians because the command of the
police failed. The police weapons store were robbed; there are weapons
in circulation owned by people that we do not know to for sure if they
are civilians or policies that undressed the uniform. I do not believe
that more armament entered in secrecy in Timor. There are many
speculations that are being used by the Australians, to prove that there
is loss of control on the part of the government. We are making a survey
of the existing weapons and of those that lack to the inventory. The
FDSTL made it immediately, because they are well organized. Not the same
way in the police.

Expresso: The FDSTL do not have problems?

They have a command and when there is a command there is discipline,
fortunately.

Expresso: Who are the armed groups that Rogério Lobato admitted to have
authorized?

I do not know. I only have a certainty: they are not from the Fretilin.
As Lu-Olo said (president of the Fretilin and the Parliament), the
Fretilin does not have armed militias, it is not and never was a
terrorist party as some press wants people to believe. I also don't know
Railos, but I received a message from him, in my mobile phone, on the 12
of June. In the SMS that I received by mistake (it was directed to
Lu-Olo) Railos called him self head of the "People and Nation Safeguard
Group" and said, in Tétum, that he knew that the Fretilin did not
distribute weapons, but that who made it was Alkatiri. I believe that
they are trying to divide the Fretilin to make the Government fall.

Expresso: In an opinion article, your son, Loro Ramos Horta, accused
Mari Alkatiri and Xanana Gusmão, to be responsible of the current
situation. (see "Os senhores da Guerra" - Expresso, 10.06.2006)

My son was furious and very worried with what could happen to us, me and
to my small son, and phoned me to say that I should ask for asylum in an
embassy. Later he published a horrible article and I phoned him to say
"I thought you were an academic, but an academic does not write like
this. We can have divergences, but not go down to the insult. On the
other hand you have obligation to know what you are talking about. Even
when we disagree one has to have respect for the institutions of the
country, which cost so much blood and suffering". He feels the necessity
to defend his father, I can understand, but anyone who reads him will
think "such father such son".

Expresso: You were in Geneva to speak in the inaugural session of the
Human Rights Commission of the UN. You asked for support to investigate
the recent events in Timor?

The international support already was asked by the competent Timorese
authorities.

Expresso: Mari Alkatiri declared that the burned houses, robbing, had
been "surgical operations"…

That's another story. You should know that the fires, the pillaged
houses, the threats against people, happened massively after the arrival
of the Australian troops and after we ordered the Timorese military to
retreat to the barracks. All people asked the Government to call the
FDSTL. But after going to the barracks, they could not leave, in danger
to be unarmed by the Australians.

Expresso: The fact of the ambassador of Timor in the UN, Jose Luis
Guterres, was a candidate to the presidency of the Fretilin and publicly
criticized the P.M. and the Government does not create some confusion?

A citizen keeps being a citizen in spite of having been nominated
ambassador. He has the right to participate in political activities. I
think that he should have some restraint in certain public
manifestations, so that his loyalty does not leave doubts. Ramos Horta
made a comment in this direction in the Congress of the Fretilin.

Expresso: Is justice system in a condition to work in East-Timor?
After taking the control of the defence forces and security, Australia
and the New Zealand will want to control the justice system. It is, by
the way, an old problem. When I was Minister of Justice, was the New
Zealand that took account of the prisons. At some point, I ordered an
inspection, because rumours of irregularities had arrived to me. They
presented me with a riot of inmates, that if verified later having been
organized to compromise the Government. The New Zealanders left, and
after much war and many intrigues, Portugal was put in charge of this
sector and Justice. When I left the portfolio, we already had signed all
the cooperation protocols, for the formation of the magistrates, etc.
But there are people that don't see this Portuguese presence with
pleasure and make everything to obstruct the approval of the laws, of
the Criminal Code. Now, the Australians disembarked with police
officers, investigators, magistrates. They will want to take control of
the departments of Justice and after that the Public Administration. If
this is to happen, it will be the end of the independence and the
sovereignty of Timor. Don't let yourself be deceived: there is a
strategy behind all this. They have made exactly the same thing in
Salomon Islands. With the excuse to fight against the groups, they have
put the police against the military and managed to put in the power the
government they wanted. The problem is the time, which is short, and
there is less of one year until the elections.




Alexandre Leite
Portugal
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