[Kabar-indonesia] 3 of 5: ICG: Resolving Timor-Leste's Crisis

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-3 of 5-

IV.         VIOLENCE ERUPTS

By mid-April 2006, the petitioners seemed to have the
sympathy not only of the president but also of much of
the Dili street. Taur Matan Ruak and the top F-FDTL
leadership, blindsided by the 23 March speech, were
angry with Xanana but not to the point of being pushed
into the arms of Alkatiri. Col. Lere was rumoured to
be close to Alkatiri but largely because he was a
long-time FRETILIN member. Any FRETILIN alliance with
senior F-FDTL officers seemed unlikely in any case, in
part because of the defence force's hostility to
Rogerio Lobato. President Gusmao and Jose Ramos Horta
were locked in mortal political combat with Alkatiri,
and at some stage, Gusmao's supporters, if not Gusmao
himself, appear to have decided to use the petitioners
in that struggle.

In late April, the sacked petitioners sought and
received permission from the police to hold a
demonstration in front of the main government building
in Dili. Salsinha promised it would be peaceful, and
Rogerio Lobato warned that if it was not, the police
would shoot.[39] Police commander Paulo Martins
repeatedly assured the public the police had
everything under control. On the day the protest was
to start, Taur Matan Ruak and Defence Minister Roque
Rodrigues left the country to attend a military
equipment exhibition in Malaysia.[40] 

A.             The Petitioners' Protest

The demonstration began on 24 April in front of the
main government complex, the Palacio do Governo, and
quickly turned into a protest against the Alkatiri
government, with hundreds of local youths joining in,
many of them known troublemakers and gang members.
Some who took part were western stalwarts of the
pro-Xanana Gusmao, anti-FRETILIN CNRT, heightening
suspicions this was less and less about discrimination
in the army and more about political control of the
country. Rumours began to circulate among
demonstrators that guns were being distributed to
break up the protest, and Salsinha announced that
since the police had promised security, any disruption
would be proof the rumours were true.[41] Rogerio
Lobato told the press he had proof foreign diplomats
were behind the demonstrations.[42]

Isolated violence took place around Dili on 26 April,
with market stalls destroyed in one area and some
houses vandalised in another. Some witnesses said the
perpetrators wore military uniforms.[43] The next day,
as more violence loomed, Xanana, Ramos Horta, and
Alkatiri met and announced that a commission of
notables would be set up to look into problems within
the army. Taur Matan Ruak was still out of the country
and did not take part. But by that time, internal
problems within the defence force were no longer the
real issue: it was the government's survival.

The last day of the demonstration, 28 April, was
critical for everything that happened subsequently.
Violence, started by some youths, erupted in front of
the palace, killing two. One of Rogerio's special
police units, the UIR, specialising in riot control,
should have been in place - it had been created for
precisely this kind of situation - but only one squad
was deployed. The police seemed to melt away; the
petitioners reportedly tried unsuccessfully to control
the youths, then marched back toward their base at
Tacitolu. As they moved through the Comoro area of
Dili, fighting broke out.

With Taur Matan Ruak away, Alkatiri summoned Col.
Lere, and asked the army's help in restoring order.
This was one of the most controversial decisions of
the crisis. Depending on whom one talks to, it was
either a desperate effort to bring the city under
control or a signal that Alkatiri had usurped control,
deliberately waiting until Taur Matan Ruak was
unavailable to make his move. In either case, it was
done without consulting the president or declaring an
emergency, so it was probably unconstitutional.[44]
The results were disastrous.

F-FDTL troops with no experience in crowd control were
deployed to quell unrest that whatever the other
factors had a strong east versus west component, much
of it attacks by loromonu youth against lorosae
neighbourhoods. Because they were under Col. Lere, a
target of the petitioners' discrimination allegation,
the soldiers were assumed to be pro-lorosae and thus
parties to the conflict. Whether or not they were,
their apparently indiscriminate use of force
exacerbated the east-west rift, emboldened loromonu
attackers, and fuelled conspiracy theories. Soon there
were rumours - almost certainly unfounded - of an
F-FDTL massacre in Dili's Comoro neighbourhood, and
thousands of lorosae sought refuge in churches and
embassy compounds. 

The official death toll was five, with more than 100
houses destroyed, but others, including several
opposition politicians alleged that more than 60 had
been killed. The government ombudsman, sent with the
permission of Xanana Gusmao, Alkatiri, Rogerio Lobato,
and Taur Matan Ruak, said his team could not verify
reports because the F-FDTL prevented it from reaching
the shooting site.[45] 

The next morning, 29 April, a mob attacked the house
of Battalion I commander Falur. Xanana Gusmao tried to
visit a group of refugees, but in an extraordinary
rejection of the authority that he had wielded since
independence, he was heckled and forced to withdraw.
"First the [Indonesian] TNI killed us, now the F-FDTL
and police want to kill us again. When will they stop
shooting?" he was asked.[46] 

B.           Major Alfredo Joins the Petitioners

On 3 May, in protest over what he called the army's
deliberate shooting of civilians, a new character
appeared on the scene: Major Alfredo Alves Reinado,
head of military police. Together with seventeen of
his men and four members of the UIR, he deserted, the
second major defection of the conflict. A few days
later two more F-FDTL officers from the west, Major
Tilman and Major Tara, followed suit. Alfredo went to
Gleno, Ermera to see some of the petitioners, then set
up camp in Aileu. He left the F-FDTL, he said,
"because, on the day, on the 28th, it was easterners
who shot westerners. I am witness to that. I do not
want to be a part of the (army) that shot
westerners".[47] In fact, he did not witness anything.

Alfredo is one of the more complex characters in the
story. In 1977, at age eleven, he was forced to work
for the Indonesian army as a porter despite his
mother's protests, and saw another porter executed for
refusing to carry more weight. He was witness to other
horrific incidents, including Indonesian abduction of
children after their parents had been shot. When he
was thirteen, an army sergeant forced him onto a ship
for Indonesia, where he spent five years. He returned
in 1985 and two years later joined the resistance. In
1995, he escaped to Darwin on a boat with seventeen
others and worked in Australia until 1999, when he
returned to Timor. Two years later, he joined the
defence force and was made commander of the two-boat
navy, one of the few loromonu with a senior rank. 

In July 2004, Alfredo was removed as commander for
getting into a fight with the police, and the
following year was sent to a three-month naval
training course at the Australian Joint Command and
Staff College. He reportedly became involved with a
junior female Timorese soldier there and was
disciplined on return by being removed from the navy
and given command of the military police, a distinct
downgrading. The already bad blood between Alfredo and
his commanding officers worsened, so that there may
well have been personal factors that drove him to
desert in early May 2006, in addition to outrage over
F-FDTL actions.[48] The cocky and charismatic Alfredo
added another potentially explosive ingredient to the
mix - particularly because his men were armed, unlike
Salsinha's, who had left their weapons behind when
they deserted. 

On 6 May, Alkatiri swore in the commission of notables
to examine the allegations of the petitioners and
problems within the F-FDTL. Ana Pessoa, a member of
the Maputo diaspora and minister for state
administration, headed it, with members of the
government, parliament, church and civil society as
members. More than any of the earlier commissions,
this one had clout and the capacity to demand and
obtain documents from some of the key players. But
Salsinha rejected any investigation led by Pessoa, an
Alkatiri loyalist, and said internationals had to be
involved for the work to be credible.

Gleno, capital of Ermera district, which had become
the petitioners' base after 28-29 April, was the site
of the next major outbreak of violence. Several
dissident soldiers, including Salsinha, were
originally from Ermera, and many loromonu residents of
Dili had fled there after the violence. On 8 May,
about 1,000 people organised as part of the so-called
Ten District Movement, led by Major Tara, gathered in
Gleno. They brought with them a petition that claimed
the east-west issue was being fanned for political
purposes, criticised the government for failing to
detain those responsible for deaths on 28 April and
urged the president use his constitutional powers to
disarm those carrying guns. It demanded justice and
humanitarian assistance for the displaced
(overwhelmingly loromonu) and ended with a call for a
boycott of local government. Egidio de Jesus Amaral,
the state secretary coordinator for the region that
includes Ermera, drove in from Dili to try to prevent
the boycott. 

The crowd became violent after the arrival of the
secretary, together with twelve guards from the UIR
police (six easterners, six westerners). The visitors
were forced to take shelter in a government office.
The Ermera police commander eventually sought
reinforcements from Dili but by the time they arrived,
the crowd was calling for the deaths of the UIR men,
accusing them of responsibility for the 28 April
shootings. Ismail Babo, deputy general commander
(operations) at police headquarters, who was
commanding the reinforcements, arranged at the crowd's
insistence for the UIR men to be disarmed, then led
them to the door of the building. (He said later that
had their guns not been taken, the crowd might have
stormed the building and killed them there.[49]) The
police emerged from the building to a waiting car to
return to Dili, but the crowd began stoning the
vehicle. Two officers were pulled or fell from the car
and stabbed. One later died.[50] 

Within days over 90 people were detained in Gleno, but
the incident raised temperatures further: police
wanted to know why their colleagues had been disarmed;
westerners said the incident would never have happened
if the government had responded quickly to the
original petition; and easterners wanted to know how
they were going to be protected. It also destroyed the
police command. Ismail Babo did not return to Dili
until June, and Paulo Martins, the overall commander,
never fully regained control of his rank-and-file. The
Gleno incident also demonstrated that Xanana Gusmao
had the support of the petitioners and the much
broader political alliance behind them; the question
was how much he was actively encouraging growth of a
popular movement against FRETILIN.[51]

In Dili, the stand-off continued with the rebels.
Ramos Horta and Xanana had talks with Major Alfredo in
mid-May, much to the annoyance of Taur Matan Ruak, who
said it was bad enough for Alfredo to have deserted,
worse that he remained armed. 

On 17 May, the second FRETILIN national congress
opened in a crisis atmosphere. From the leadership's
standpoint, the issue of the petitioners had evolved
into a full-scale political assault against FRETILIN,
the Maputo group and Alkatiri personally; it was
determined that challenge should fail.[52] Alkatiri
might not have countenanced an internal challenge to
his re-election under any circumstances but certainly
not now. Therefore, when a small group of "reformists"
led by Jose Luis Guterres, ambassador to the U.S. and
UN, made a bid for leadership, Alkatiri changed the
rules. Instead of a secret vote as the political party
law required, he asked for a show of hands - and was
overwhelmingly reelected. The reformers said many who
voted for Alkatiri were afraid of retribution; on a
secret ballot support for the challengers would have
been much stronger.[53] Alkatiri sealed his victory
with a speech saying FRETILIN was the country's most
important institution; if it were divided, Timor-Leste
would explode.[54] 

Major Alfredo, in the meantime, continued to give
interviews on national radio and television from his
base in Aileu, calling for justice for those killed in
April and strengthening his position as a spokesman
for the loromonu. The more he proclaimed his
allegiance to Xanana, the more the rift widened
between Xanana and Taur Matan Ruak, who was angered by
the kid-glove treatment accorded someone who had
violated every military regulation in the book. On 22
May, Alfredo and some 25 men moved to the hills just
outside Dili. The shoot-out that took place the next
day between F-FDTL units and Alfredo's men may not
have been inevitable but the move did not help.

C.           Conflict Escalates, International Forces
Arrive

The official government version is that on 23 May
Alfredo's group ambushed F-FDTL soldiers in Fatuahi,
on the outskirts of Dili, killing one and wounding
seven.[55] Two Alfredo loyalists were killed,
including a man named Kablaki, a petitioner involved
in the attack on the government palace on 28 April.
Alkatiri maintains that Alfredo planned the ambush as
part of a political campaign, directed by others, to
oust him. More violence would serve that end.[56]

An international military adviser in Dili who analysed
the location where the clash took place said he
believed it was probably not a planned ambush but
rather a case of both groups being surprised the other
was there.[57] Film shot by an Australian television
crew on the scene at the time shows that Alfredo's men
fired first, but that is not necessarily inconsistent
with an accidental encounter.[58] 

An NGO coalition has a much more complicated
explanation. According to its analysis, two gangs had
been operating in the area since 2000, led
respectively by Alito "Rambo" and Jacinto "Kulao".
After April 2006, their rivalry was transformed along
political lines, Rambo siding with the lorosae and
Kulao with the loromonu. On 22 May, a day before the
alleged ambush, conflict erupted between the two
gangs, killing four. Locals told the NGOs that F-FDTL
personnel were supporting Rambo, so the village head
had asked Alfredo to protect Kulao's group. They also
said police from the reserve unit had set up a base
near Kulao's territory.[59]

Whatever the cause, and this is one of the incidents
the international commission of inquiry is
investigating, the result was F-FDTL operations
against Alfredo's group, most of whom managed to
return safely to Aileu.

The shootout started a new round of violence. That
evening, amid reports of large-scale police defections
to the petitioners, armed police and civilians began
gathering in Tibar, just west of Dili. Early on 24
May, this group, together with rebel soldiers,
attacked from the hills above the armed forces
headquarters in Tacitolu, killing an F-FDTL officer,
Captain Domingos de Oliveira (Kaikeri), the logistics
commander of the army training centre in Metinaro. 

A critical question is how the attackers obtained
sufficient arms and ammunition to sustain the assault
for more than four hours of heavy fighting. One of
those involved, the sacked soldier Railos, told the
Australian television program "Four Corners" that
Rogerio Lobato, with Alkatiri's knowledge, had set up
a secret security team, armed with eighteen HK-33
guns, to target FRETILIN political opponents. Railos,
whose credibility is open to question, said he met
Alkatiri on 8 May and was instructed to "terminate all
petitioners".[60] Alkatiri acknowledges meeting Railos
and two others several times during the FRETILIN party
congress but said he asked them to provide security,
not to kill anyone. 

Later the same day, Taur Matan Ruak's home was
attacked by a group of loromonu, pro-Rogerio Lobato
police under the control of the deputy police
commander for Dili, Abilio Mesquita alias "Mausoko".
In August, Mesquita, from a prison cell in Dili,
charged that Xanana Gusmao had given him the order to
attack. He also claimed to have been present at a
meeting at Xanana's house at an unspecified time
"before the crisis" when plans to oust Alkatiri were
discussed.[61] Crisis Group is not aware of evidence
to support the claim.

"There was a feeling the country was going under", an
international military adviser said. There are
differing versions of what happened next. One source
said Taur Matan Ruak went to Alkatiri that afternoon
and gave him an ultimatum - either we arm a reserve
unit, or you call in international troops. Alkatiri,
according to this account, agreed that Matan Ruak
could distribute arms to a group of ex-Falintil
fighters including some followers of Elle Sette (L-7)
- an extraordinary move given Elle Sette's history of
rebellion against FALINTIL authority. Taur Matan Ruak
and Alkatiri both deny that Alkatiri was ever involved
in the decision. But with or without his approval, the
army distributed 200 of some 1,000 weapons that had
been transferred from Metinaro to Baucau to the
"reserves". In contrast to the secret, illegal
transfer of police weapons to civilians, this was
relatively orderly and well-documented, making it
easier to retrieve the arms after international troops
arrived.[62]

The government decided to request assistance anyway,
and a formal appeal - that Alkatiri reluctantly signed
- was sent to Australia, Portugal, Malaysia and New
Zealand.

The immediate impact of the attack on the F-FDTL
headquarters was to increase hostility between the
defence force and the police, leading to disaster on
25 May. That morning, a group of F-FDTL soldiers,
together with some police from a unit based in Baucau
(eastern Timor-Leste) disarmed three policemen in
Comoro, a particularly tense area of Dili. F-FDTL
personnel exchanged shots with a police patrol car.
Later that morning, youths joined several F-FDTL
soldiers to torch a house belonging to a relative of
Rogerio Lobato's. The house burned down with a mother
and four children inside; all died. Then the house of
Ismail Babo, the police commander involved in the
Gleno incident, who, some suggest, was involved in the
attack on armed forces headquarters, went up in
flames. 

Shortly thereafter, around 11:00, F-FDTL soldiers
assaulted police headquarters. UN military advisers
went to the scene and through Taur Matan Ruak,
negotiated what they thought was a peaceful resolution
of the problem: the F-FDTL soldiers would allow the
police inside to leave, without arms, and they would
be escorted back to the UNOTIL office by UN police.
But no one had disarmed the F-FDTL personnel outside
the headquarters, and when some 85 police began
leaving the building and walking toward UNOTIL,
soldiers opened fire. Nine policemen were killed
immediately, one died later, and some 30 were injured.
The commission of inquiry is to determine who was
responsible.

As fighting spread around the city and police were
nowhere to be seen, the first 100 of some 1,300
Australian soldiers landed in Dili. Xanana announced
he was assuming control of security - on unclear
constitutional grounds: Alkatiri questioned the
legality of Xanana's actions but said he would
cooperate. Later Xanana ordered Alkatiri to sack
Rogerio Lobato and Defence Minister Roque Rodrigues.
Malaysia, Portugal and New Zealand also dispatched
troops that combined would eventually total 2,250.[63]
The UN and diplomatic missions struggled to evacuate
non-essential staff as gunfights erupted between
police and military, and gangs of mostly loromonu,
armed with machetes and "Ambonese arrows" (panah
Ambon), a lethal form of slingshot, attacked lorosae
neighbourhoods.[64] In New York, Kofi Annan announced
that Ian Martin, who oversaw the independence
referendum in 1999 as head of the UN Mission in East
Timor (UNAMET), was returning as his special envoy.

A visitor to Alkatiri and Defence Minister Roque
Rodrigues that evening said they, like everyone else,
seemed paralysed: "They were like autistic children,
sitting in the dark, hunched forward, hands clasped
between their knees, rocking back and forth".[65] The
whole city, he said, was in a state of extreme
paranoia.

Fighting continued in the streets, and Dili residents
sought shelter in church compounds, NGO offices and
with friends and relatives outside the city. The UN
estimated that more than 120,000 had fled their homes
since April, and the numbers continued to rise.[66] On
30 May, thugs raided the prosecutor-general's office,
strewing files around and making off with equipment
and papers. Press reports focused on the fact that
among the missing data were files from the Serious
Crimes Unit on some of those indicted for the 1999
violence, including former Indonesian military
commander Wiranto. There is no reason to believe,
however, that the thugs made any distinction in what
they wrecked or looted, and dark hints of Indonesian
involvement have no basis.

With international troops on the ground, attention
shifted to the political struggle: would Alkatiri stay
or go?

V.            THE POLITICAL STRUGGLE

June saw a drawn-out battle of political wills between
Xanana Gusmao and Mari Alkatiri, and while it ended
with Alkatiri's resignation on 27 June, in a sense,
both men lost.

On 3 June, Jose Ramos Horta and Alcino Baris were
sworn in as ministers for defence and interior
respectively (Ramos Horta temporarily retaining the
foreign ministry). The next day, however, in a defiant
move, the FRETILIN central committee elected Rogerio
Lobato, newly sacked, as the party's new vice
president. It issued a statement praising "the
leadership of FRETILIN for the determined and
courageous manner in which it has defended democratic
values and the Constitution of the Republic",
affirming its "total support for the government headed
by Comrade Secretary General Mari Alkatiri" and
congratulating itself for "the mature way in which the
overwhelming majority of the.people, particularly the
militants of FRETILIN, reacted to the total
situation".[67] 

On 6 June, in a demonstration organised by Major Tara,
about 1,500 people marched into town past the Palacio
do Governo and called for Alkatiri to step down. They
continued to Xanana's office, where Major Tara met the
president, and he in turn addressed the crowd. The
prime minister charged that all the moves against him
were being fanned by the same parties which fomented
riots in December 2002 that ended in his house being
burned down.[68] He strongly supported an
international inquiry to investigate the events of
April and May, as did the rest of the government, and
on 8 June, Timor-Leste formally requested the UN to
set up a commission.

Major Alfredo, from his base in Maubisse, continued to
call piously for dialogue, indicated willingness to
work with the international troops and urged support
for Xanana Gusmao - but said he would not surrender
his weapons until Alkatiri resigned. After
negotiations with the international troops, however,
groups linked to him and Major Tara began turning in
some guns. 

On 19 June, Ramos Horta delivered a message from the
president to Railos and his men that they should turn
over their weapons. The group made a public statement,
reiterating what Railos had said on the "Four Corners"
report, that they were given weapons on the orders of
Alkatiri and Lobato and would turn them in if Alkatiri
was arrested.[69] Timor-Leste's prosecutor-general
issued an arrest warrant for Rogerio the next day,
citing the distribution of arms to Railos' group as an
effort to "alter the public order and the democratic
rule of law".[70] Xanana followed this with a letter
to Alkatiri demanding that he either resign or face
dismissal because of his alleged involvement in the
arms issue.[71]

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