Timor-Leste — No News Is No News
I started researching Timor (as locals call it) again about 2 1/2 months ago. Earlier I had followed events there from 1974 till 2002. The disastrous Indonesian occupation lasting 24 years has now been studied extensively. But independent Timor got seriously neglected by scholars. Most of us assumed all would go well with Timorese themselves in control (tutored by a beneficent United Nations and generous donors), though the road to recovery would be long. It didn’t go well. Timor may never recover.
This is a long story. You probably read some months ago about some disaffected Timorese soldiers (over a third of Timor’s army) alleging discrimination, quitting their posts, holing up in the mountains, and languishing while their demands went unheeded and they were formally dismissed. An unexpected proportion of Timor’s divided police force supported them, despite bitter rivalries between the two, often ending in violence. Other police deserted, stayed home, or fled. Timor’s police force subsequently ceased to function. Gangs of youth roamed Dili, fought each other, burned houses, and terrified residents. About 150,000 Timorese fled and became internally displaced persons (IDPs) and still fear returning to their former homes. The Timorese government sought international armed intervention to restore order. Australian, Portuguese, New Zealand and Malaysian troops and/or police responded. The threat of civil war soon seemed contained. But violence broke out again as a political campaign continued to oust an increasingly authoritarian, unresponsive, capricious and corrupt government, exemplified by the Prime Minister, Defense Minister, and Interior Minister. The latter two were dismissed. Finally, under great pressure from President Xanana Gusmao’s office, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri resigned. He now faces trial on serious criminal charges. A transitional Prime Minister, Jose Ramos-Horta (JRH), was installed, but the ruling party, Fretilin, remained in power after much wheeling and dealing. Its own internal dissidents were purged from the party and from the very few Cabinet level posts they still occupied. Violence still continued, the IDPs still feared returning home. Finally, about a week or so ago, the United Nations agreed to an invitation from the JRH government to send in a new peacekeeping force (UNMIT), mainly international police, now just beginning to arrive.
It would be good to write that Timorese and foreign observers know a lot about these recent events and what is happening. Incredibly, neither does, and there are few ways to remedy this situation.
Inside Timor, radio reaches more people than any other mass medium, but its Timor news content is very limited, its budget miniscule, its paltry staff poorly trained. Local community radio functions in some districts, when electricity is available. TV can be seen only in Dili and now occasionally in Baucau. But only a handful of rich Timorese living in Dili and owning satellite dishes can receive foreign TV news broadcasts, mainly from Indonesia and Australia. Timor Telecom, a private monopoly, controls Internet access and makes the country’s 1,000 or so subscribers pay dearly. As a result, few local Timorese create websites, post to lists, maintain blogs, or even use email. SMS is a major means of communication even among the governing elite. The very few remaining local newspapers have taken down their websites, and their limited print runs, sold in the streets to the few who can afford copies, do not circulate outside Dili. Most foreign news agencies and news organizations maintain no presence at all in Timor. Foreign reporters there suffer severe language, access to information, and transport constraints (to almost anywhere outside Dili, and even to many parts of Dili). Local reporters now worry about writing candidly for fear of ‘defaming’ the government and getting charged in court. UNMIT promises a new expanded website of its own, but past UN online performance in Timor arouses no great expectations. Donor and consultant reports, some published eventually on the Internet, create often useful analysis, but are careful not to offend a now sovereign government and do not challenge highly problematic articles in Timor’s Constitution, written to entrench Fretilin and its policies. Hundreds of local NGOs thrive in Timor, but only a few get their messages to the outside world through the Internet or by any other means.
In short, the vast majority of Timorese do not know what is happening in their own country and have no control over events. Foreigners are even more ignorant, not to mention uninterested. And this information gap is only the tip of the iceberg of Timor’s crisis. Stay tuned.
