As Australian, Portuguese and Malaysian commandos land in East Timor to quell the island nation’s spiraling violence, questions loom large about the actual motivation behind the military and police mutiny that led to the unrest and how best to salvage the country’s tumultuous experiment with independence.
Rebel soldiers under the command of Military Police Major Alfredo Reinaldo on Wednesday mounted an all-out assault in East Timor’s capital Dili, including attacks on key government strategic installations, including the Ministry of Defense and the house of the Timorese defense force commander.
More than 70% of the capital’s police force have since deserted their posts, and many have joined the rebel soldiers. Of East
Timor’s 1,500-member defense force, an estimated 400 men now remain loyal to the government. Even the most trusted elite units, such as the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR) and the jungle police, have abandoned the chain of command.
Last week, the rebel leaders and Timorese government officials were confident that the crisis sparked a month ago by a group of 500-600 disgruntled decommissioned soldiers had been defused through negotiations. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer had earlier said that he foresaw no need for foreign intervention to stabilize the situation.
Australia’s projected battalion of 1,300 men should all be in place over the weekend, bringing with them armored personal carriers, warships, tanks and Black Hawk helicopters. Malaysia has deployed a battalion and Portugal, East Timor’s former colonial occupier, is sending a company of its elite GNR special-policy unit. The United Nations has endorsed the intervention.
Timorese officials moved quickly to call on perceived friendly nations to lead the intervention, fearing the potential of Indonesia reintroducing troops into the country if the violence escalated. Early reports indicate that the rebel leaders have retreated, and that Australian troops have enforced a modicum of law and order.
Indonesia has so far remained mum about the three-country intervention, but the heavy deployment of the Australian military could spark tensions between the two unfriendly neighbors. Bilateral relations hit a nadir when Australia led an international force against the Indonesian military and their proxy militia to end bloodshed in East Timor in 1999. More recently, Indonesia has balked at Canberra’s decision to grant asylum to a group of 42 refugees from Papua province on humanitarian grounds.
Four years after establishing an independent government, East Timor is once again under occupation - this time by an Australia-led force.
Points of contention
There are many factors underlying East Timor’s political tinderbox: regional and ethnic rivalries, political factionalism, unemployment and a culture of violence stemming from 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation. But some argue the real trigger to the violence was the dubious circumstances behind the re-election of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri as secretary general of the ruling Fretilin party.
Breaching Fretilin’s own internal rules, voting by secret ballot was recently replaced with an open vote, by way of show of hands. Alkatiri, an Arab Muslim with a controversial ruling style, was recently re-elected as the party’s leader in a landslide 97% open vote.
Rebels had recently abstained from new attacks, hoping that the earlier unrest would have persuaded Alkatiri to step aside and make way for Jose Luis Guterres, East Timor’s current ambassador to Washington and the United Nations, to take over the party reins. Rebel leaders have repeatedly said they want Alkatiri to resign his leadership position.
Alkatiri’s personal popularity has steadily waned during his four-year term, even though the former rebel Fretilin party’s credibility is still strong among the general population. Most of the party’s leadership was killed during the war for independence and the only surviving founding figures, such as Jose Ramos Horta, or longtime members, such as President Xanana Gusmao, abandoned the party in the late 1980s to become independent figures for the sake of national unity. Alkatiri is one of the party’s few surviving founders.
Alkatiri spent the 24-year fight for independence from Indonesia in relative obscurity in exile in Mozambique. Upon returning, his style of leadership, akin to that of some of the abusive African leaders he may have encountered, has been characterized by confrontation, particularly with the influential Catholic Church. That Alkatiri is an ethnic-Arab Muslim while 92% of the population is devout Catholic has pitched his vocal stands against the Church on dangerous religious lines.
Precarious international politics
More significantly, perhaps, Alkatiri has implemented a foreign policy overtly confrontational to the West. His recent decision to hire nearly 500 Cuban doctors after visiting that country, despite strong objections from the US ambassador, was highly controversial and oddly aligned East Timor with the resurgent leftist movement gaining ground in Latin America.
Likewise, Alkatiri’s bizarre attempt to declare a national day of mourning for Yasser Arafat’s death did not endear him to the US or other Western countries. There was also widespread speculation that Alkatiri planned to award a multibillion-dollar gas-pipeline project to PetroChina, an invitation that would have won both the United States’ and Australia’s ire.
The United States’ discontent with Alkatiri was clearly on display when the US ambassador openly supported the Catholic Church against his government during street protests last year, with the senior US official even briefly attending one of the protests in person. Political insiders now wonder about the United States’ connections to rebel leader Reinaldo, whose wife works for the US Embassy and helps to oversee the Peace Corps program.
The Timorese police and military had been called upon to defend his government’s sometimes controversial positions on numerous occasions since independence, regrettably at the cost of four civilian deaths in 2002. Inside the police and military, senior officers had become increasingly uneasy using force to protect an increasingly unpopular leader.
The last straw, it appears, came when the military was ordered to replace the police to contain the recent riots, which led to five civilian deaths. When a new bout of disquiet broke out after Alkatiri’s unconventional re-election as Fretilin party leader, the massive desertions ensued. Now only foreigners can ensure the island’s security.
As East Timor burns, one thing is certain: Alkatiri has lost the support of the people, the military, the police, the Church and potentially the country’s most important foreign allies. President Xanana had recently relieved Alkatiri of his security responsibilities and assumed command himself, a decision Alkatiri refused on a legal technicality. With the security forces now in open revolt, even with foreign troop intervention, there will not be a definitive end to the crisis until Alkatiri unconditionally resigns, some insiders contend.
As Australia, Portugal and Malaysia all dig their boots into East Timor’s sands, many now wonder how long they will need to stay put to ensure the young country’s security. East Timor’s problems are entirely internal, with a pinch of foreign salt perhaps, but in the end will require an internally brokered compromise and solution. And the longer the unpopular Alkatiri holds on to power, the more distant that prospect remains.
Loro Horta is a master’s degree candidate at Nanyang Technological University’s Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies in Singapore. He previously served as an adviser to the East Timorese Defense Department. The views expressed here are strictly his own.