Timor's crisis analysed

Emma Brown & Marcus Greville, Melbourne

Alex Tilman, a representative of Fretlin, the largest political party in East Timor, and Vannessa Hearman, an Asia-Pacific journalist and solidarity activist, addressed a July 13 Green Left Weekly-organised public meeting on East Timor's crisis.

The 40 people in attendance heard an up-to-the-minute account of events in East Timor and a strong critique of the role of Australia and the UN in holding back East Timor's reconstruction — the real cause of the country's current problems.

Tilman gave a speech on the military crisis that forced the elected prime minister of East Timor, Mari Alkatiri, to resign, and which precipitated the present crisis. Tilman highlighted the role the international media has played in polarising opinion both within East Timor and in Australia. He characterised the charges that have been levelled against Alkatiri as a "trial by media".

Hearman's presentation compared the role Australia played in 1999 after East Timor's independence referendum, when its military intervention halted a wave of violence sponsored by the Indonesian military, with its interference in national reconstruction over the last few years. East Timor has received worthless financial advice from the Australian government, along with the Asian Development Bank and International Monetary Fund, on how the East Timorese should manage their affairs.

In one case, such "advice" resulted in an expensive study on electricity provision that led to poor households having to install pre-paid electricity meters.

Finally both speakers highlighted the politicised role the Australian forces are now playing, including reports of soldiers approaching East Timorese, telling them not to support Alkatiri.

From Green Left Weekly, July 19, 2006.

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From GLW issue 675