Repúblika Banana

Karikatura ne'e hatudu ba ita katak ita duun matak deit Xanana! Xanana laos halo politika iha Australia nia bolsu, Xanana hatene liu saida mak proprio ba Timor tomak.
Uluk Fretilin halo propaganda iha distritu tolu, Baucau-Lospalos-Viqueque katak Xanana mak bolu forsa Australia sira hodi mai intervene problema iha Timor. Maibe realidade katak Xanana lakohi atu ema seluk intervene ita nia problema, maibe tamba proposta husi PM-Mari Alkatiri no Pr PN Lu-Olo, no hare ba situasaun neebe governu Fretilin laiha ona kapasidade atu kontrola, neebe lideransa iha partidu no governu laran fahe kilat ba sivil hodi halo situasaun sai komplikadu liu tan, entaun Xanana mos apoio hodi bolu forsa Australia sira tama mai Timor. (Lee Teoria Konspirasaun Xanana nian).

Oras ne'e, Fretilin frustradu no dezesperadu tamba Xanana halo partidu foun hodi kompete ho Fretilin iha Elisaun tinan ida ne'e. Ba Fretilin, Xanana hanesan moru boot ida, jigante boot ida neebe Fretilin labele kontra. Entaun agora halo manobra oin-oin, diskreditu Xanana. Dehan Xanana mak iha Alfredo nia kotuk, etc hodi tenta atu sobu relasaun diak entre F-FDTL no Vetranus sira ho Xanana, maibe, tempu responde dadauk ona, oras ne'e F-FDTL hatudu ona lealidadi ba Xanana. Ida ne'e halo Fretilin frustradu aat liu tan!

Antigu kombatantes iha base, sai 'ujung tombak' ba partidu foun CNRT, Fretilin nia ema neebe lakontenti ho lideransa partidu nian moos agora afilia an ba CNRT. Igreija mos fo apoio ba Xanana, povo barak maka sei leal (loyal) ba Xanana, tamba, atu simu ka la simu, Xanana duni maka bele salva tan Timor dala ida. Fretilin halo rahun tiha ona nasaun, agora tempu to'o ona atu Xanana, hamutuk ho veteranus no antigu kombatantes 75, hamriik hamutuk hodi rekonstroe fali Timor neebe Fretilin halo rahun tiha ona. Fretilin hakarak duun krize nee ba Xanana, Opojisaun, no Igreija, maibe labele ona, ema hatene tiha ona see loos mak halo krize nee. Inkompetensia governu Fretilin nian maka hamosu krize ne'e!
Tuir lolos, Fretilin aprende husi krize ne'e hodi hadi'a aan, maibe Fretilin hanesan foin maka hader husi mehi, lahatene atu halo tan saida.
Lider senior, Lobato, oras ne'e hein deit ona atu tama ba kadeia, ida ne'e hatudu momos katak Fretilin partidu ida nebe hakiak terorista, kriminozu hodi estraga Timor tomak! Fretilin lafo suspensaun, tamba Fretilin persija ema nebe hatene halo terror para bele manan iha elisaun!

Hader ona Fretilin, labele dukur demais. Mehi atu ukun tinan 100 hela mehi deit ona...Fretilin labele ona! Se CNRT manan no ukun, karik, karik koruptor balun moos sei tama iha komarka becora! Tamba nee mak koruptor sira tauk tebes ho figur Xanana neebe sai hanesan 'monster' ba sira, figur neebe sei lori sira selu sira nia sala!

Ita hein deit iha Elisaun mai ne'e, atu hare, se Liao nia nehan sei iha ka 'kolo' hotu tiha ona! Liao ida ema dada ona besik ba nia luhan...!

Geta Lolo!
 

I can't read a word of Tetum. Apologies to those who can't read English. But I infer from the cartoon and what I take to be not exactly friendly suggestions as to what the 'R'in CNRT might represent, that the Xanana/CNRT party formation is not welcomed by Fretilin.

Ridicule is commonly used in Australian political culture as a valid political weapon, but it is usually used by people when evidence or logic or political tide is going against them.

I would have thought Fretilin had many reasons to be confident of their support amongst the masses of Timorese and would welcome a chance to demonstrate this in electoral terms with Xanana standing with another party. But ridicule of Xanana makes me think that confidence might be wrong.

By the way: I think its a great pity that Fretilin and Xanana seem unable to work together for the greater good of Timor. Whatever their differences (and I would like to know what these REALLY are), this was possible in the past. I feel both are failing the Timorese by not seriously trying to do it again. It will require compromise by both.

Aussie Timorphile
 

Lalika trata ema seluk! Lalika hatun ema seluk! Se o sente o nia an mos bele, forma deit o nia partidu rasik ida! Tamba o rasik dehan katak "R" ne kan bele uza ba buat bar-barak. Buat la gentleman ne maka hanesan ne tamba buka halo situasaun iha Timor ohin loron sai nune. Koalia bebeik2 konaba dialog maibe nunka halo tuir! Buka mak trata ema husi kotuk deit. Ema hanesan ne maka la iha intelijensia, kapasidade, moral diak i so hatene kria buat nebe at ho instabilidade. Kria tan instabilidade maka depois buka dun tan fali ba ema seluk. Haree ba hanoin ona atu muda hanoin no hahalok nebe ladiak atu soran malun i liu-liu uza povu nia naran!!! Hadiak
 

Aussie Timorphile,

If your government were not so arrogant as to be the deputy sherrif of the US and have the Australian soldiers came under UN command, then the hatred towards Australia could have been very minimal.

Many Timorese saw the Australian assault on Reinado as Australians shooting at the Timorese in their own land, something a lot of people have tied to the anti-colonial struggle, the Iraq war, and stuff. It was not a UN operation. It was an Australian operation.

Right now, whether the Australian army were invited in or not, they present themselves as foreign mercenaries working for a political establishment against their political enemies. The UN is the only organisation in the world accepted by every country for this kinds of operations.

By the end of the day, if Australians are targeted in Timor, you should blame it on your government in Canberra.

Alexis
 

Geta Lolo, ha'u só iha konkordánsia ida de'it ho Ita-Boot: hein de'it eleisaun mai ita haree.

Gelo Talo
 

Hullo Alexis

I agree with your description of the Australian government as arrogant in its relationship with Timor. For this reason, I wish Australian soldiers were not in T-L at all. But they are, and I agree with you again - they should be under UN command.

On the Reinado operation: This was requested by the T-L government. Whatever the justice in his cause, Reinado and friends are operating outside the law. Even a non-Australian UN operation might have had the same result of Timorese deaths. Would you then blame the UN for "working for the political establishment"?

Or would you rather that F-FDTL or special police conduct operations against Reinado? Then you can have Timorese killing Timorese. Would that make you happier?

My preference: No more military actions. Mr Reinado and T-L government peacefully negotiate a surrender. Without this: more miltary actions, more division and no stable future for T-L.

Of course, I hope very much that Australians are not targeted. But if it happens, I will NOT first blame the Australian government. I will first blame the Timorese responsible for the action and those who encourage, for political purposes, hatred (your word) towards Australia in this time of political and social uncertainty.

I hope you are doing whatever you can to calm the situation and not make even more flames.

Thank you.

Aussie Timorphile
 

Ausie Timor Phile,

I agree with you completely. No more military operations. In the past the Timorese leadership requested outside help precisely for this reason. Had they wanted to pursue Reinado and the other mutineers, they could. But his would have resulted in irreparable damage, physically, psychologically and socially. And I applaud the Australian soldiers for doing a good job in Same in hunting Alfredo and his gang down. I used to be sympathetic to Alfredo's call. But lately I realised that this man is nothing more than a trouble maker using the people's grievances as a vehicle to get whatever it is that he wants. The East Timorese leaders have shown a lot of constraint and patience with regards to him. But restraint and patient can go so far and they have to stop somewhere sometime before it is too late, before the country completely disintegrates. Now thanks to the Australian soldiers, Reinado's influence has been reduced very much. He no longer had the same confidence as he used to when he was still of the illusion that the only military power that can bring him down were actually his friends. Now that he realised the Australian soldiers can hunt him down anytime the state requested, suddenly he freaked out. The Australian soldiers are putting a lot of psychological pressure on him and tis is good as it will eat him up slowly. Now he can no longer move about with complete freedom as he used to making his operations that much hard to undertake. Still, Reinado must face justice like everyone else, from Rogerio Lobato, Abilio Warga, etc. As for the Australian soldiers, I hope the Labour Party wins the upcoming election and finally put an end to this colonial style diplomacy.

Alexis
 

Alexis

I agree with everything you say, but I have a few doubts about your last sentence on the Labor Party.

I am certain a Rudd Labor government will not be arrogant like the Howard Government. They have no-one as stupid and offensive as Alexander Downer, for example.

But I was disappointed in Labor shadow foreign affairs minister McLelland's recent comments on T-L. I agree with him that Australia should not (like Howard) see military action as a main tool for controlling instability in this region. But if you read his words about alternative strategies, they sound very paternalistic; they don't sound like he really knows much about T-L; they don't have a clear sense of co-operativeness (with T-L) in them.

You can see his comments at the top of the list from this link:

http://www.alp.org.au/search.php?keywords=timor&x=13&y=4

But I am sure of this. Kevin Rudd will be much more respectful of proper conduct between government's of Australia and T-L. And that will be a definite improvement over Howard.

But will this be enough to soften the short-sighted and opportunistic anti-Australian comments from the Fretilin and (now) Reinado camps?

I hope so.

Aussie Timorphile
 

Frtilin Lalika Laran Moras.

Agora tempo to'o ona atu ita loke ona lia bosok ten nebe durante tina 30 nia laran Fretilin usa hodi habosok povo.

Durante tempo luta ba Independencia, Fretilin bosok povo katak depois da independencia, povo sira sei tau liman deit ba bolso, lalika serviso tanba osan sei moso sai deit mai husi Timor nia minarai. Osan mean sei naklosu sai deit husi foho matebain ho foho ramelau, maibe agora ita hare katak lia sira ne'e mesak lia bosok nian deit.

Independensia liu tiha, ita hare katak Fretilin sei usa nafatin manobra ato habosok povo. Por exemplo, kor bandeira Fretilin nian hanesan los kor bandeira nasional republika nian. Falintil nia naran sei usa nafatin hamutuk ho FDTL. Hau hare ne'e hanesan manobra ida ke Fretilin halo atu habosok ho hamtauk povo sira atu hili deit partido Fretilin. Ho hahalok bosokten ida hanesan ne'e, Fretilin hakarak bosok povo katak Fretilin ne'e hanesan governo tamba kor bandeira nian hanesan e Forsas armadas Falintil nede uluk apoia Fretilin ne'e hanesan mos FDTL.

Se Xanana labele usa CNRT entaun Fretilin mos tenki troka nia bandeira nia Kor atu labele hanesan ho bandeira nacional nian. FDTL mos labela usa tan naran hanesan Falintil ona, tanba naran sira ne'e pertense ba historia hanesan mos CNRT.

Tenki iha lei ida ke proibe partidu sira usa bandeira nia kor hanesan bandeira nasional nian.

Viva Xanana.
So o deit mak bele ukun Timor

Fitun Lotuk Lemorai

Sorry for english readers if you cannot read Tetun, since my target readers is only Timorese people, but briefly speaking, I just want to say thay if Xanana is not allowed to use CNRT, then Fretilin has to also change its party's flag no to be similar with the nations flag as it is also misleading the illiterate people. It has to also accept to delete the abbreviation of Falintil from the Wast Timor army force FDTL/FALINTIL.

Cheers
 

Fitun Lotuk Lemorai,

Maun hatudo ke maun ema ida ke lahatene historia, e laiha contextu ho buat ida ita kolia.

Maun kolia los hanesan ema autonomista ida ke la iha esperanca ba Timor ukun aan rasik.

Maun hakarak muda historia, hasai naran FALINTIL nian ke fo sira nia aan para ita hetan liberdade. Troca bandeira, parece maun hakarak ita hasae fali bandeira mera puti.

Maun diak liu ba estuda lai historia Timor nian.

Kuitadu desesperado atu hetan cadeira....tenki sunu uma no buka estraga ita nia rai so para tenta hetan chave parlamento.

Hein deit povu nia votasaun sa lalika hatenu demais.
 

Hei, hau hanoin ita bot la komprende saida mak hau hakerek. Hau laos haruba atu muda bandeira RDTL, maibe Fretilin tenki troka nia bandeira, tamba bandeira Fretilin nian kor hanesan mos bandeira RDTL nian. Tuir los bandeira partido ida nian labele hanesa bandeira nasional. Maibe hau hare katak Fretilin usa bandeiran de de proposito atu habosok povo katak RDTL ne'e ho Fretilin hanesan deit.

Kona ba Falintil, hau los nega Falintil nia luta ba independensia, maibe hau husu atu FDTL labele usa tan ona Falintil nia naran. Tanba agora Timor independente tiha ona, lapresisa tan Frente ida atu funu hasoru ema seluk. Hau hare katak Fretilin hakarak tau belit nafatin Falintil ba FDTL atu habosok povo katak Forsa Fretilin ida naran Falentil ne'e agora hanesan fali FDTL. Tuir los FDTL hanesan forsas armads nasaun ida nian labele usa forsas armadas nebe pertense deit ba Fretilin nian.

hau nia amigo tenki le'e didiak hau nia intensaun atu labele kritika arbiru deit.

Hau hanoin ita bok kal Fretilin maubeik ida nebe agora lahateno los halo saida ona tanba tauk ho presensa partido CNRT nebe Xanana forma.

Se Alkatiri kritika katak Xanana usa CNRT atu habosok povo entaun Fretilin nia estrategia hodi usa partidu nia bandeira hanesan mos nasaun nia bandeira nee hanesan deti. Fretilin mos hakarak habosok povo e povo laos beik.

Fretilin labele haluha katak povo bele lahatene le'e surat, maibe sira laos beik.

Povo bele tauk tanba Fretilin usa Falintil nia naran iha FDTL hodi hamtauk povo, maibe povo laos beik. Povo hate saida mak diak e sira hatene saida mak at.

Iha tinan 1999, povo hili independensia tanba sira hanoin katak independensia ne'e diak liu, maibe agora povo hare'e ho matan katak Fretilin ne'e fo promesa bosok deit.

Tempo to'o ona atu ita haruka Fretilin aruma sira nia mala e fila fali ba ailaran, ba ke'e kumbili maran hodi han.

Husik oportunidade ba gerasaun foun atu bele ukun Timor.

Fernando Lasama bele beik, maibe nia kal sei matenek liu witoan Lu Olo.

Avelino bele radikal, maibei nia kal sei diak liu Lu Olo nebe horon deit Arabe ida nia kidun.

Hanesan Timor oan hau moe husik hau nia heroi ida naran Lu Olo atu horon tuir deit Arabe metan ida nia kidun.

Fitun Lotuk Lemorai
 

Fitun Lotuk Lemorai kalma ituan lalika tolok tun tolok sae...FRETILIN nia bandeira historico, no mos RDTL nian, no mos CNRT nian. Troka ka la troka ne FRETILIN nian urus, so ema hanesan Fitun ke laiha abut no lahatene historia maka gosta troka tun troka sae.

Diak liu Doutor Professor Fitun Lotu Lemorai tama deit CNRT e tuir eleisaun. Lalika tauk FRETILIN nia bandeira se povu conhece tamba bandeira historico.

Diak liu maun ba husu veteranos sira para hasai naran FALINTIL.

Sr Doutor Professor bele mehi sae PR mais Lo-Olu bele sai PR tamba nia iha apoio, se maka apoio Doutor Fitun.

Hau acho Maun Doutor Fitun Lotuk Lemorai autonomista ida karik.
 

Timor oan, se o hakarak hari tan CNRT ketiga hari ba!
Se mak impede o!
Sorte karik o nia aman, inan sei vota ba o nia CNRT.

Hau mak lae duni. Hau sei vota ba CNRT hosi Xanana.
 

how sad to that many people are blinded by so much lies, xanana and ramos haorta are both working closely with australia for their pockets and australia intreset of srilling east timor's oil..........
wake world and see the truth.
 

Two leaked autopsy reports—which have been published in full on the Wikileaks web site—definitively refute the official version of the events of February 11 in East Timor, according to which former major Alfredo Reinado had engaged in a shoot-out with President Jose Ramos Horta’s security forces while attempting to storm the president’s residence. This was supposedly part of either a coup attempt or planned assassination of both Ramos Horta and Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao. The available evidence now strongly points to the likelihood—raised by the World Socialist Web Site from the very outset—that Reinado was set up and lured to Dili in order to be murdered
 

Reinado’s autopsy report indicates that he died after being shot through the eye at near point-blank range. According to a forensic expert consulted by the Australian newspaper, the autopsy’s finding of “burning/blackening of the surrounding skin” to each of Reinado’s four wounds (to the eye, chest, neck, and hand) means that he must have been shot from a range of less than 30 centimetres. The report on Reinado’s colleague Leopoldino Exposto found that he was killed by a single gunshot to the back of the head, also by a “high-velocity rifle fired at close range
 

Reinado and his men were heavily armed when they entered Ramos Horta’s house in the early morning of February 11. The autopsies reported that Reinado was wearing a green vest with 12 magazines containing a total of “347 live ammunitions” in the pockets. Exposto had one magazine with 39 live ammunitions in his vest, as well as a bag with another 98 live ammunitions. It is inconceivable that Reinado—who had received militarily training in Australia—could have led his men into a hostile operation against Ramos Horta but was then somehow shot at point-blank range while not a single presidential guard was wounded
 

Reinado’s men, who have since been arrested, have all sworn that they understood that they had an appointment to meet with the president. Several civilian witnesses have now backed this testimony.

For months after the former major’s killing and Ramos Horta’s wounding the Australian press echoed the official line presented by both the Timorese and Australian governments. Deeply sceptical statements issued by a number of senior political figures in Dili went unreported, most notably those of Fretilin leader and former Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, who declared he had photographic proof that the alleged attack on Gusmao’s vehicle had been staged.
 

The official version of events is now so implausible and discredited that even the Australian media feel obligated to change tack.

After reviewing the autopsy evidence, the Australian’s Paul Toohey concluded on August 13: “What is certain is that the events inside the villa that morning are not as clear as previously presented, and may have involved Reinado and Exposto either walking into a trap or being held at close quarters before being shot.” A later article in the same newspaper added: “Many East Timorese believe the whole thing was a set-up; that rebel leader Alfredo Reinado was invited down to Dili to be killed, to end the two-year stand-off in which he and his rebel band remained armed and roaming the hills in the country’s west
 

An article published in the Fairfax press on August 19 cast serious doubt on the earlier allegation that one of Reinado’s men, Marcel Caetano, had shot President Ramos Horta. “Investigators now believe the shooter was wearing a different uniform from that of Reinado’s men—a uniform gang members used to wear,” the story revealed. “The revelation will fuel fresh speculation in Dili that Reinado was lured to Mr Ramos Horta’s house, where gunmen were waiting.”

The series of leaked evidence and news reports that has emerged in the past fortnight raise the obvious question: if, as appears increasingly certain, Reinado was lured to Ramos Horta’s residence to be killed, who set him up and why? But this question has not been raised by any section of the Australian media. Even more astonishingly, not a single question about the events of February 11 and their aftermath was put to either Gusmao or Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd during a joint press conference they held in Canberra last Monday.
 

The new evidence points to the possibility that Prime Minister Gusmao, or forces closely aligned with him, were responsible for setting up Reinado’s assassination. There is no question that he was among those with the most to gain from Reinado’s death.

Just weeks before his death, the former major released a statement accusing Gusmao of directly instigating the 2006 split in the Timorese military which precipitated widespread violence and culminated in the deployment of hundreds of Australian troops, followed by the resignation of Fretilin Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

There was already substantial evidence pointing to Gusmao’s provocative role in the 2006 crisis. Reinado’s statement, however, indicated that the prime minister had not merely exploited the military split for his own ends but had actively worked to provoke the violence in order to bring down the Fretilin administration. The widely circulated DVD in which these allegations were made also included Reinado’s threat to reveal more information about Gusmao’s actions.
 

Reinado was killed before he had the opportunity to release further information. But even his initial allegations had seriously destabilised Gusmao’s already unstable coalition government.

By early February, President Ramos Horta had publicly indicated that he agreed with Fretilin’s demand for fresh elections and the formation of a new administration. In a meeting held in Dili on February 7—just four days before Reinado was shot dead—Ramos Horta convened a meeting of Fretilin and government parliamentarians to try to reach an agreement for new elections. With Gusmao strongly opposed and insisting that his government could continue to govern, the meeting ended inconclusively. Further meetings were planned but never held, due to the February 11 violence, after which Gusmao announced a “state of siege” and claimed emergency authoritarian powers.

Ramos Horta’s apparent rapprochement with Fretilin and moves against Gusmao coincided with the president’s attempts to finalise a “surrender” deal with Reinado. The president met with the “rebel” soldier on January 13 and offered to amnesty the murder charges against Reinado (stemming from his 2006 attacks on government forces) if he first disarmed and submitted to house arrest. These negotiations again point to the absence of any logical motive for Reinado to lead an armed attack against Ramos Horta.
 

Investigation blocked, evidence corrupted

In the aftermath of the February 11 events, Prime Minister Gusmao has blocked the formation of an international inquiry, despite the Timorese parliament demanding one. As a result, the sole investigation underway is headed by the country’s prosecutor-general, Longuinhos Monteiro, who has little credibility in Dili. An earlier UN report into the 2006 crisis accused Monteiro of blindly following Gusmao and concluded that he did not “function independently from the state of East Timor”.

According to a leaked UN report on Monteiro’s investigation into Reinado’s death and Ramos Horta’s wounding, the National Investigation Department has been subjected to “political and military interference” and a lack of cooperation. An Associated Press report added: “Poor handling of evidence—including the weapons used by the rebels—has also botched the investigation. A source close to the investigation said the F-FDTL [Timorese Defence Force] soldiers guarding the president’s home took Reinado’s cell phone off his body, and continued to receive and make calls for days after his death, before handing it over to investigators.”

This corruption of critical evidence, combined with Gusmao’s veto of an international investigation, may result in the exact course of events leading up to Reinado’s death and Ramos Horta’s wounding never being known. Monteiro’s final report will likely be a whitewash.
 

Serious questions have been raised by Portuguese journalist Felícia Cabrita about Albino Assis, one of Ramos Horta’s military security personnel. In a report published in the weekly Sol newspaper in March, Cabrita suggested that Assis betrayed both Reinado and Ramos Horta. Phone records indicate that Assis and Reinado had maintained frequent contact in the period leading up to the February 11 violence. The Portuguese report also alleged that Assis contacted Salsinha, leader of the mutinous military “petitioners”, and told him that Reinado had been killed and Ramos Horta badly wounded. Salsinha had travelled from the western districts with Reinado but, instead of going with him to visit Ramos Horta, had waited near Gusmao’s residence. Why did Assis tell Salsinha what had happened? Did Ramos Horta’s guard know in advance that the petitioners’ leader had come to Dili with Reinado? The many unanswered questions only add to the uncertainty about what really happened in relation to the alleged attack on Gusmao’s vehicle convoy which followed the shootings at Ramos Horta’s home.

Suspicion has also fallen on the Indonesian-based Hercules Rozario Marcal, who visited Dili just days before February 11. “Hercules was born in East Timor and gained notoriety in Jakarta in the 1990s as a gangster running protection rackets,” Melbourne’s Age reported. “His gang also served as enforcers for the Suharto regime, intimidating dissidents and East Timorese independence activists. His military patrons were reputed to include the then general Prabowo Subianto, Suharto’s son-in-law. At one stage he lived in the Jakarta house of Major-General Zacky Anwar Makarim, who in 2003 was indicted by a UN war crimes tribunal for crimes against humanity.”
 

Timorese investigators have reportedly established that Hercules contacted and may have met Reinado. His contact number was also found stored in Reinado’s mobile phone. On January 21, just three weeks before Reinado was killed, Hercules met with Gusmao, ostensibly as part of an Indonesian business delegation investigating hotel and housing investment opportunities. In an extraordinary move, the Gusmao government announced earlier this month that it was awarding Hercules a contract to build a mini-mart and swimming pool on the site of a refugee camp in central Dili—despite the gangster reportedly being under investigation for his potential involvement in Ramos Horta and Reinado’s shooting.


Australian forces stood down?

There remain a number of outstanding questions regarding the Australian government and military’s murky relations with Reinado, going back to his role in the 2006 crisis. (See “East Timor: Hunt for ‘rebel’ military leader called off”)

In the weeks leading up to February 11, Reinado and the Australian military, using Angelita Pires as a go-between, informed each other about their respective movements in order to avoid any unexpected encounters in the jungle of Timor’s western districts. In addition, it is now also known that at least one senior Australian military figure was directly involved in the negotiations between Ramos Horta and Reinado in January. According to an August 22 article in the Australian, Major Michael Stone accompanied the president to the January 13 meeting in the western town of Maubisse. Stone was appointed Ramos Horta’s military affairs adviser in late 2007 after being granted a two-year release from his Australian Army duties.
 

There can be no doubt that Australian intelligence would have had the former major under close surveillance up to and on February 11. Similarly, it is highly unlikely that Reinado’s many phone calls and text messages sent from his mobile phone—including calls made to and received from Australia—would not have been intercepted.

How then were Reinado and his men able to drive from the Ermera district, south-west of the capital, through the capital and straight into Ramos Horta’s residence without being detected by anyone, including the hundreds of Australian and New Zealand troops in the country? With twelve heavily armed men accompanying Reinado in two vehicles, and another ten with Salsinha in two other vehicles, it was hardly an inconspicuous convoy. In addition, Reinado’s men have told the media that they drove slowly to avoid being early for what they believed was a 6 a.m. appointment to meet the president. “The rebels point out they dawdled on the way to Dili, stopping in places to kill time to arrive at the appointed hour,” the Australian reported.

The day after the February 11 attacks, East Timor’s army chief Taur Matan Ruak expressed his concern: “Given the high number of international forces present in East Timor, in particular within the capital, how is it possible that vehicles transporting armed people have entered the city and executed an approach to the residences of the president and the prime minister without having been detected? There has been a lack of capacity shown by the international forces, who have primary responsibility for the security within East Timor, to foresee, react and prevent these events.”
 

Ramos Horta later made similar comments: “I didn’t see any ISF [Australian-led International Stabilisation Force] elements or UNPOL [police] in the area ... normally they are supposed to show up instantly, and in this case of extreme gravity they would normally seal off the entire area, blocking the exit route of the attackers. That didn’t happen. As far as I know, no hostile pursuit of the attackers was made for several days. How did Mr Alfredo Reinado happen to be totally undetected in Dili when the ISF was supposed to be keeping an eye on his movements?”

The circumstances of Reinado’s death raise the question as to whether Australian forces were deliberately stood down on February 11.

Such an act would in no way be inconsistent with Canberra’s filthy record in East Timor. In 1975 the Whitlam Labor government encouraged the Indonesian military junta to invade and annexe the former Portuguese colony; the Hawke-Keating Labor government later finalised an agreement with the military dictator Suharto for the illegal exploitation of the billion dollar oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea. In 1999 the Howard Liberal government dispatched hundreds of troops in order to protect the Australian ruling elite’s vital interests in the tiny half-island, and oversee its transition to so-called independence amid the collapse of the Suharto regime.
 

The precise role played by Australian forces in the 2006 military split and subsequent violence is yet to be determined. There is no doubt, however, that the Howard government manipulated the unrest to send in the troops and then engineer a “regime change” commensurate with its strategic and financial interests. The Alkatiri administration was regarded as too close to rival powers, particularly Portugal and China, and had proved unwilling to fully accommodate Canberra’s demands during negotiations over the allocation of the Timor Sea’s oil and gas.

Having expended substantial efforts resources in ousting Alkatiri, the Australian government would have viewed with alarm President Ramos Horta’s apparent readiness to back the dissolution of the Gusmao government, potentially facilitating Alkatiri’s return to power. Amid escalating hostility among ordinary Timorese towards Australia’s military presence, this would have marked a major setback, with potential geo-strategic consequences beyond Timor’s borders. China’s rising influence is creating serious concerns within the Australian foreign policy establishment that Canberra’s hegemony in the South Pacific is being fatally undermined. It is this, above all, that has led to a series of Australian-led police and military operations throughout the region in recent years, including in East Timor.