East Timor says it will need help for a decade

The UN should help oversee elections in East Timor and stay involved in the violence-scarred nation for at least a decade, the foreign minister said today, noting that restoring order and building a democracy would take time and money.

Jose Ramos-Horta said it was in no one’s interest to see East Timor – where riots, looting arson and gunfire have engulfed the capital Dili just four years after it won independence – turn into a “failed state”.

“I believe that East Timor, even in light of current events, is still a success story,” Ramos-Horta said.

“The significance of the events of the past month has more to do with the depths of instability from which East Timor has risen, rather than the heights of security it has yet to aspire to.”

Some 600 striking soldiers were dismissed in March, triggering clashes with loyalist forces and leading to gang warfare in the capital last month. At least 30 people have been killed, and Ramos-Horta has said the death toll may be higher.

More than 100,000 people fled from their homes to makeshift shelters and camps in Dili as machete-wielding gangs have torched and looted entire neighbourhoods.

It is the worst wave of unrest since East Timor’s bloody break from Indonesian rule seven years ago, when retaliatory militia groups devastated much of the territory.

Ramos-Horta pointed out that the violence had been almost exclusively limited to the capital, although an attack on a provincial office of the ruling Fretilin party on Wednesday night raised concerns that it could spread.

The UN special representative in Dili, Sukehiro Hasegawa, today flew to Baucau, where Col. Lere Anan Timur, chief of staff of the East Timorese army, vowed to stay out of politics.

Hasegawa said the UN is “here to help and assist in resolving the dispute” and is confident that the achievements made since independence will not be lost.

Timur responded that the defence force would follow the orders of any democratically elected government.

“We do not support any party but follow what is mandated by the people,” Timur said.

Rebel forces have blamed prime minister Mari Alkatiri for the unrest, and Ramos-Horta was critical of the government.

“Some of these problems result from inexperience and poor management; others are caused by what many called an arrogant leadership,” Ramos-Horta said.

“I believe that East Timor can recover from this recent turmoil. This process may require a political change, perhaps in the form of a government of national unity. Equally, if not more important, is that the leaders jolted by the crisis reflect with humility on their own failings, and not simply look for scapegoats.”

A rebel leader warned that more street protests would be held to pressure prime minister Mari Alkitiri to quit. About 2,000 people staged a noisy anti-Alkatiri protest in Dili on Tuesday.

“He should resign now and not wait until the 2007 election,” Malaysia’s Bernama news agency quoted Maj. Alfredo Reinado as saying in an interview at his remote mountain headquarters in Maubisse, 50 miles south of the capital. “He is a danger to this democratic country.”

Fretilin, whose Portuguese acronym stands for Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor, was a resistance movement during the Indonesian occupation. Today, it holds 55 seats in the legislature.

For some East Timorese, the vital role of party members in the pro-independence struggle made Fretilin a symbol of nationhood.

But opponents question the party’s legitimacy because it won its majority in a constituent assembly under a UN administration in 2001, and has failed to deliver the economic gains that many hoped for after independence the following year.

The UN Security Council is expected next week to consider dispatching a large police force to East Timor. Ramos-Horta said, that in hindsight, UN forces likely left too early.

“The lesson of this tragic episode is that the international community cannot look for cost-saving formulas when addressing post-conflict nation building,” he said.

“It is essential that the UN stay engaged in East Timor, in some form, for at least a decade. It’s in no one’s interest to let another poor country become a failed state.”