April 2012
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
| 8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
| 15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
| 22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
| 29 |
30 |
|
4/17/12 01:56 pm
STAE 17/04/2012 11:30am
Final Provisional Results:
Francisco Guterres “Lú-Olo” – 38,77% (174,386) Taur Matan Ruak – 61, 23% (275,441) 630 Polling Centres counted
Turnout: 73, 12% (458,703 votes) Abstention: 26, 88% (168,592 votes) Total registered voters for the 2nd Round: 627, 295.
11/16/11 11:25 am
(ETAN)For Immediate Release
Contact: John M. Miller, +1-718-596-7668; mobile: +1-917-690-4391, john@etan.org
Ed McWilliams, +1-575-648-2078, edmcw@msn.com
President Barack Obama 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Washington, DC 20500
November 15, 2011
Dear President Obama, President Obama meets with President Yudhoyono at the Istana Merdeka State Palace Complex in Jakarta, Nov. 9, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
We urge you to seize the opportunity of your imminent return to Indonesia to consider the challenges and opportunities posed by the U.S.-Indonesia relationship more realistically than you have up to now. Your Administration urgently needs a policy that addresses the problems created by the Indonesian security forces' escalating violations of human rights and criminality and its failure to submit to civilian control. The recent 20th anniversary of the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre in Dili. East Timor (Timor-Leste), when hundreds of peaceful protesters were massacred by Indonesian troops wielding U.S. supplied weapons, reminds us that a lack of accountability for past crimes -- in Timor-Leste and throughout the archipelago -- keeps those affected from moving on with their lives, while contributing to impunity in the present.
Indonesian military and police forces continue to operate without any accountability before the law. Only in rare instances are individual personnel brought before military tribunals for crimes against civilians, often because of international pressure. Prosecution is woefully inadequate and sentencing, in the rare instance of conviction, is not commensurate with the crime.
Indonesia's security forces, including the Kopassus special forces and U.S.-funded and -trained Detachment (Densus) 88, continue to employ against civilians weaponry supplied by the U.S. and to use tactics developed as result of U.S. training. In West Papua, these security forces have repeatedly attacked civilians, most recently participants in the October 16-19 Congress and striking workers at theFreeport McMoRan mine. Those assaulted were peacefully asserting their right to assemble and freedom of speech. At the Congress, combined forces, including regular military units, Kopassus, the militarized police (Brimob) and Detachment 88, killed at least five civilians, beat scores more, and were responsible for the disappearance of others.
Moreover, in the central highlands of West Papua, these same forces regularly conduct so called "sweeping operations," purportedly in search of the very small armed Papuan resistance. These operations have led to the deaths of many innocent civilians and driven thousands from their village into forests where they face life threatening conditions due to inadequate access to shelter, food and medical care.
Indonesian military and police forces continue to operate without any accountability before the law. Only in rare instances are individual personnel brought before military tribunals for crimes against civilians, often because of international pressure. Prosecution is woefully inadequate and sentencing, in the rare instance of conviction, is not commensurate with the crime. Several videoed incidents of military torture of civilians -- widely discussed during your November 2010 visit to Indonesia -- concluded in just such failures of justice. The concept of command responsibility is rarely considered in the military tribunals.
International monitoring of these developments in West Papua is severely hampered by Indonesian government restrictions on access to and travel within West Papua by foreign journalists, diplomats, researchers, and human rights and humanitarian officials. The International Committee of the Red Cross remains barred from operating an office in West Papua. Indonesian journalists and human rights officials face threats and worse when they try to monitor developments there.
Elsewhere in Indonesia, too many times security forces have stood by or actively assisted in attacks on minority religions, including deadly attacks on Ahmadiyah followers.
The Indonesian security forces -- especially the military -- are largely unreformed: it has failed to fully divest itself of its business empire, its remains unaccountable before the law, and continues to violate human rights. These forces constitute a grave threat to the continued development of Indonesian democracy. The upcoming national elections in Indonesia present a particularly urgent challenge. The Indonesian military is in position to pervert the democratic process as it has in the past. The military has frequently provoked violence at politically sensitive times, such as in 1998 when it kidnapped tortured and murdered democratic activists. For many years it has relied on its unit commanders, active at the District, sub-District and even village level to influence the selection of party candidates and the elections themselves. The territorial command system is still in place. In the past, U.S. restrictions and conditions on security assistance have resulted in real rights improvements in Indonesia. Your Administration should learn from this history.
Given this threat to democracy and to individuals posed by Indonesian forces, it is essential that the U.S. employ the significant leverage that comes from Indonesia's desire for U.S. security assistance and training to insist on real reforms of Indonesian security forces. Rhetorical calls for reforms are clearly insufficient. These exhortations have manifestly not worked and readily brushed aside. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's recent expression of "concerns about the violence and the abuse of human rights" in Papua were dismissed by a spokesperson for Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono , who called the escalating rights violations "only isolated incidents."
In the past, U.S. restrictions and conditions on security assistance have resulted in real rights improvements in Indonesia. Your Administration should learn from this history and quickly suspend training for those units whose human rights records and impunity are especially egregious, as required by the Leahy law. We specifically urge you to end plans to re-engage with Kopassus and to end assistance to Detachment 88. These actions would demonstrate U.S. Government seriousness in pursuit of real reforms of the security forces in Indonesia.
Sincerely,
Ed McWilliams for WPAT
John M. Miller for ETAN
see also On 20th Anniversary of Timor Massacre, Rights Network Urges Justice, ETAN Says U.S. and UN Must Act (November 12, 2011) Statement of East Timor and Indonesia Action Network on President Obama's Visit to Indonesia (November 5, 2010) West Papua Advocacy Team: Open Letter to President Obama on The Eve of His Visit to Indonesia (November 4) ETAN: Open Letter to President Barack Obama on His 2010 Visit to Indonesia (March 18, 2010)
etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan
11/12/11 08:20 pm
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PUBLIC STATEMENT
12 November 2011 Index: ASA 57/004/2011
Timor-Leste: Santa Cruz massacre - still waiting for justice 20 years later
Amnesty International calls on the governments of Timor-Leste and Indonesia to provide justice for the victims of the Santa Cruz massacre which took place 20 years ago in Dili, the capital. On the morning of 12 November 1991 the Indonesian security forces violently suppressed a peaceful procession of some 3,000 Timorese people to the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili.
Both governments must investigate and bring to justice all those responsible for unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, excessive use of force and other human rights violations during the peaceful demonstration.
The continued failure _ twenty years later _– to hold all the perpetrators to account highlights a wider problem of impunity for crimes under international law and other human rights violations committed during the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste (then East Timor) between 1975 and 1999.
Many of the Timorese had attended an early morning memorial for Sebastião Gomes Rangel, who had reportedly been killed by Indonesian security forces on 28 October 1991. As the procession made its way to the cemetery, pro-independence banners and flags were raised. Minutes after the crowd arrived at the cemetery, the security forces opened fire. No warning was given.
According to eyewitness accounts obtained by Amnesty International immediately after the massacre, some soldiers fired into the air but others levelled their weapons at the crowd. The cemetery walls and the large crowd made it difficult to escape, but the shooting continued even as people tried to flee. Some were believed to have been shot in the back while running away. Many of the demonstrators were shot and killed, or otherwise injured. Hundreds of people were said to have been badly injured during the incident.
In a report released in 1994, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions found that members of the Indonesian military were responsible for killings during the event and that the response was “a planned military operation designed to deal with a public expression of political dissent in a way not in accordance with international human rights standards”.
The precise numbers of those killed, disappeared and injured during the massacre and in the immediate aftermath remains unknown, although it is estimated that over 200 people were killed or disappeared and around 400 wounded. Two decades later, calls for justice have yet to be fulfilled and attempts to hold the perpetrators to account have been weak.
In 2001, the Timorese government set up the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in East Timor (Comissão de Acolhimento, Verdade e Reconciliação, CAVR), mandated to inquire into and establish the truth regarding human rights violations which occurred between 1974 and 1999. In 2005 the Commission published its report, which recommended the investigation and prosecution of those suspected of serious crimes under international law committed from 1975-1999, including the Santa Cruz massacre. According to the Commission, despite evidence of the direct involvement of 72 military officers, to date only 10 have been tried and sentenced by military courts to between eight and 18 months' imprisonment. The Commission further recommended steps to establish the whereabouts and fate of the disappeared and reparation for victims.
Amnesty International urges the Timorese and Indonesian authorities to initiate promptly an independent, impartial and effective investigation into the events at the Santa Cruz cemetery on 12 November 1991. This investigation should be within the framework of a wider investigation into serious crimes committed during 1975-1999. The Timorese and Indonesian authorities should also bring the perpetrators to justice in fair trials without the death penalty and ensure that victims receive full reparation.
The vast majority of those accused of human rights violations are believed to have been given safe haven in Indonesia, and Amnesty International urges the Indonesian authorities to co-operate fully with investigations and prosecutions of persons accused of crimes in Timor-Leste between 1975 and 1999, including by entering into extradition and mutual legal assistance agreements with Timor-Leste.
Amnesty International also reiterates its call to the United Nations Security Council to take immediate steps to establish a long-term comprehensive plan to end impunity for these crimes. As part of that plan, the Security Council should establish an international criminal tribunal with jurisdiction over all crimes under international law committed in Timor-Leste between 1975 and 1999.
In 2005, a UN Commission of Experts recommended that the Security Council adopt a resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to create an ad hoc international criminal tribunal for Timor-Leste if genuine steps have not been taken towards holding to account those responsible for crimes against humanity and war crimes in Timor-Leste. Six years later, such steps have still not been taken.
Amnesty International further calls on the Government of Timor-Leste to implement the recommendation of the CAVR to establish a public register of missing persons and those killed between 1975 and 1999 and to undertake jointly with the Indonesian government a systematic inquiry to establish the whereabouts and fate of those who went missing.
Amnesty International also calls on the Timor-Leste and Indonesian governments to ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance at the earliest opportunity, incorporate its provisions into domestic law, and implement it in policy and practice.
11/7/11 10:02 pm
Link to unclassified documents on arms trade to Indonesia with the implication (suprize suprize) that the UK and others pay bribes:
http://nsarchive.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/document-friday-the-department-of-state-arms-seller-extraordinaire/
10/28/11 12:31 pm
Sign the petition:
Petition
10/16/11 12:59 pm
12 October 2011
On Tuesday 11 October at 08am, the General Secretary and the National Organizer of General Workers’ Union including 17 workers were arrested by police while preparing for a peaceful protest in the office of Ministry of Justice.
The protest was being staged in support of the demand of 19 workers that been dismissed unfairly by the Justice Ministry. These two union officials, the Secretary General Mr. Almério Vila Nova and the National Organizer Mrs. Henita Casimira of the General Workers’ Union (SJT-TL) and the 17 workers are now still in the cell of Police in Caicoli-Dili.
The workers were engaged in the preparation of protest were dismissed from the Turismo Hotel because of the unfair decision of the Justice Ministry towards their management in closing the business.
The dismissed workers are all members of the General Workers' Union who had been active in attempts to negotiate with the employer and the government regarding the compensation and the continuation of their employment with the new management.
Timor-Leste's union believes that the motivation of the arrest is to protect the government member (Justice Minister Mrs. Lucia Lobato) and to intimidate workers to not speak up their right and to not protest the government members.
The president of Peak Union Body in Timor-Leste/KSTL, Mr. José da Conceição da Costa said that this is abuse of power of the government member. “She wants to take advantage (benefits) of the business that is why she decides to kick out the current management and give the contract to other business man so she can be benefited from the business”. This is unfair decision in the Democratic Country like Timor-Leste and it is caused many workers lose their jobs. The minister only thinking for herself and ignore the people who she supposed to served.
After tripartite negotiations with the employer and the Justice Minister in last year, the minister agreed to settle this matter in a very short time, but until today there is no realization yet.
Formal protests are being lodged by the union with the Government of Timor-Leste and the parliament over the intervention of the police and the attitude of the minister in causing dismissal of the workers, and urge the National Police to immediately release the union officials and the workers.
KSTL calls upon the government and the parliament to take serious actions to settle this matter as quickly as possible.
Contact Details:
José da Conceição da Costa (ZITO)
President
KSTL
+ 670 723 9824
E-mail: zito.kstl@gmail.com
10/4/11 07:59 pm
FRETILIN.Media Flash
Dili, 3 October 2011 (20:50 hrs)
Issue: CPD-RDTL Demonstration in Dili/Use of FRETILIN flags not authorized by FRETILIN
As of this afternoon a number of trucks commenced arriving in Dili from the districts, as the commencement of a “peaceful demonstration” organized by CPD-RDTL. Authorities were apparently notified, but FRETILIN, as with many others, only found out about the planned demonstration earlier this afternoon.
It appears that some of the demonstrators on the trucks were carrying and displaying FRETILIN flags.
FRETILIN wants to make it clear that it has nothing whatsoever to do with this demonstration, and the use of the FRETILIN flags are not authorized by FRETILIN. The organization in question has persistently continued to use the FRETILIN flag for some time.
Upon being informed that a number of persons on a number of these trucks were carrying and displaying FRETILIN flags, the FRETILIN leadership immediately requested the PNTL, and the PNTL agreed to act to prevent this from continuing. We are informed that action has already been taken by PNTL in this regard.
The FRETILIN flag is a historic symbol, but also according to the legislation in place, the exclusive and legally protected symbol of the Revolutionary Front for an Independent Timor-Leste (FRETILIN) as a “political party”.
It is unfortunate that this has occurred.
For further information please contact Jose Teixeira on +670 728 7080
9/21/11 07:47 pm
Sydney Morning Herald
Philip Dorling
September 22, 2011
EAST Timor's parliament is ''corrupt and ineffective'', Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao has an alcohol problem and former prime minister Mari Alkatiri is ''arrogant and abusive'', according to President Jose Ramos-Horta.
Mr Ramos-Horta's caustic observations have been revealed in leaked US embassy cables published by WikiLeaks.
But the President doesn't emerge unscathed. The Catholic Church is recorded as sharply criticising the East Timorese leader. A senior Vatican official is reported by US diplomats as observing ''Ramos-Horta started with good intentions but had let his Nobel prize go to his head''.
All the US diplomatic cables leaked to WikiLeaks were published two weeks ago, but 390 reports from the American embassy in Dili have not attracted media attention until now.
Mr Ramos-Horta, described as a ''legendary international negotiator'', brands Mr Gusmao as ''arrogant, but he likes to pretend to be humble, unlike Alkatiri, who doesn't even pretend to be anything but arrogant''.
In May 2008, the US embassy reported East Timorese parliamentary contacts as suggesting that Mr Gusmao ''may have an alcohol problem, which is impairing his relations with others''.
The embassy said that during a May 5 meeting with [US embassy officers], James Dunn, an author and long-time observer of East Timor, reported the Prime Minister angered Mr Ramos-Horta by turning up ''visibly drunk'' at a reception in honour of Prince Albert of Monaco on April 6.
Mr Ramos-Horta has also been sharply critical of Mr Alkatiri, whom he replaced as prime minister in June 2006, describing him as ''arrogant and abusive''.
The cables provide a detailed account of events leading to Mr Alkatiri's June 2006 resignation under threat of dismissal by then president Gusmao, as mob violence and looting flared in Dili. Mr Gusmao was ''particularly insistent'' that Mr Alkatiri resign or else be dismissed immediately.
The WikiLeaks disclosures provide new insight into Mr Ramos-Horta's attempts to negotiate with rebel East Timorese military leader Alfredo Reinado, including the involvement of US diplomats as intermediaries, while Australian troops tried to hunt down and kill Reinado.
In June 2007, the embassy reported that Mr Ramos-Horta had asked the Australian commander of the International Stabilisation Force to suspend its pursuit of Reinado so that he could call for the rebel to turn himself in.
But on February 11, 2008, Mr Ramos-Horta was critically wounded in an assassination attempt by Reinado, who was killed in the attack.
The President told the US ambassador that he was ''unable to explain his attacker's motivation'', and described how he lay bleeding for ''20 or 30'' minutes after he was shot before ''a battered ambulance with a driver but no medic arrived''.
James Dunn, a confidant of Mr Ramos-Horta, told The Age yesterday that much of the US embassy's reporting was ''quite perceptive''.
Read more: <http://www.smh.com.au/world/ramoshorta-savages-timor-leaders-20110921-1kl8w.html#ixzz1ybid8tjh>http://www.smh.com.au/world/ramoshorta-savages-timor-leaders-20110921-1kl8w.html#ixzz1Ybid8tjh
9/20/11 12:20 pm
As you no doubt know by now, Cinema Lorosa'e is screening movies free of charge to the public every Friday at the Sunset Fair and Saturday/Sunday at Government House (Palacio do Governo). This week, the movies will be Happy Feet - dubbed into TETUM with English subtitles (Sunset Fair on Friday, Government House on Sunday). On Saturday night at Gov. House, we will be showing Green Hornet (English with Bahasa Indonesia subtitles.
There will also be screenings in the districts across the country on the following dates. We will announce the actual movie titles closer to the time. For further information see our website at http://www.cinemalorosae.com
20th September - Viqueque. 21st September - Venilale Orphanage. 22nd September - Baucau. 27th September - Maliana. 28th September - Balibo. 11th October - Ainaro. 12th October - Same. 13th October - Aileu. 18th October - Oecussi. 25th October - Ermera. 26th October - Maubara. 27th October - Liquica. 8th November - Lospalos. 9th November - Foiluru. 10th November - Baucau. 14th November - Tutuala. TBA - Laga Orphanage.
Please use your networks to let our friends in the districts know!
Best regards Ann Turne
Ann Turner Your Timor Leste Connection Pantai Kelapa, Dili Tel: +670-7393879 Alternative email: timor.leste.connection@gmail.com
|