Loro Horta: East Timor ... a nation divided
The terrifying civil conflict engulfing the tiny half-island nation of East Timor is the most traumatic moment in a country that secured its independence only in May 2002 after a quarter-century of occupation by its giant neighbour Indonesia. The violence has since 28 April 2006 cost the lives of at least thirty people, led more than 100,000 to flee the capital, Dili, and created calamitous destruction across the territory.
The immediate origins of the crisis in East Timor (Timor-Leste in Portuguese, Timor Lorosa'e in the dominant indigenous language of Tetum) lay in a serious political miscalculation: the decision to sack 600 soldiers (from a national army of 1,400) who had gone on strike in March in protest at what they perceived as regional favouritism in allocating military promotions and benefits towards those from the east of the country. A simmering dispute over the issue, in which armed factions on either side started to organise and polarise, eventually exploded in April-May into a series of riots, assaults and internecine struggles.
However, the East Timor convulsions are rooted also in deeper sources, including the painful legacy of the long years (1975-99) of Indonesian occupation and the post-independence political rivalries involving some of the young state's leading figures and institutions. The violence of April-June 2006, then, needs to be understood in the context of the first formative years of the new nation.
The most important political fracture underlying East Timor's social tragedy divides the president (Xanana Gusmao, hero of the independence struggle) and the prime minister (Mari Alkatiri). President Xanana's faction includes the country's respected foreign minister José Ramos Horta, and also has significant support in the Catholic church to which 92% of Timorese people belong. Mari Alkatiri's power-base is among hardliners in the dominant Frente Revolucionária do Timor-Leste Independente (Fretilin) party. The rebel soldiers and street-mobs who have instigated most of the violence are little more than side-effects of the power-struggle between the two main political groups....
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The immediate origins of the crisis in East Timor (Timor-Leste in Portuguese, Timor Lorosa'e in the dominant indigenous language of Tetum) lay in a serious political miscalculation: the decision to sack 600 soldiers (from a national army of 1,400) who had gone on strike in March in protest at what they perceived as regional favouritism in allocating military promotions and benefits towards those from the east of the country. A simmering dispute over the issue, in which armed factions on either side started to organise and polarise, eventually exploded in April-May into a series of riots, assaults and internecine struggles.
However, the East Timor convulsions are rooted also in deeper sources, including the painful legacy of the long years (1975-99) of Indonesian occupation and the post-independence political rivalries involving some of the young state's leading figures and institutions. The violence of April-June 2006, then, needs to be understood in the context of the first formative years of the new nation.
The most important political fracture underlying East Timor's social tragedy divides the president (Xanana Gusmao, hero of the independence struggle) and the prime minister (Mari Alkatiri). President Xanana's faction includes the country's respected foreign minister José Ramos Horta, and also has significant support in the Catholic church to which 92% of Timorese people belong. Mari Alkatiri's power-base is among hardliners in the dominant Frente Revolucionária do Timor-Leste Independente (Fretilin) party. The rebel soldiers and street-mobs who have instigated most of the violence are little more than side-effects of the power-struggle between the two main political groups....