LH urges UN SC to focus on justice and sustainability

The UN Security Council will renew UNMIT's mandate following discussions in New York on 22-23 February.  To inform their debate, La'o Hamutuk has written the following letter to the Council, which can also be downloaded here. 

La’o Hamutuk, Timor-Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis

Rua Martires da Patria, Bebora, Dili, Timor-Leste

Tel: +670 3321040  email: info@laohamutuk.org  Web: www.laohamutuk.org

15 February 2012

Members of the United Nations Security Council

New York, New York, USA  10017

Dear Distinguished Members of the United Nations Security Council:

We are writing to bring some concerns to your attention prior to your meetings next week to discuss UNMIT and Timor-Leste. We expect that this will be the last year for a United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in our country. Even though time is short, we hope you will use this opportunity to start meeting some unfulfilled obligations and to lay a solid groundwork for the evolution of Timor-Leste as a stable, democratic nation, as well as for future United Nations engagement here.

La’o Hamutuk is a Timorese civil society organization which has followed UN activities in Timor-Leste since 2000, often meeting with UN officials and writing to the Security Council, especially about the unmet international commitment never to tolerate impunity for crimes against humanity.

The most recent Secretary-General’s report on UNMIT highlights several important developments but focuses on political events in Dili, rather than the situation of the majority of the Timorese population, most of whom are rural farmers. Although relations and activities among leaders are progressing fairly well, skyrocketing inflation and negligible progress in developing the non-petroleum economy are leading to increasing rural poverty and a widening gap between rich and poor.  [According to the National Statistics Directorate, year-on-year inflation was 17.4% at the end of 2011, with food at 19.8%.]

More than three billion dollars of petroleum revenue have been spent, but this has scarcely improved the lives of most people, while greatly benefiting a few. This social injustice lays the basis for insecurity and instability which threatens to undo all the UN’s good work. In about a decade, declining oil revenues will not be able to sustain an economy which totally depends on government spending and imported production, running an annual non-oil trade deficit of over a billion dollars, and about to incur debt repayment obligations.

We expect that the electoral process and formation of a new Government will go fairly smoothly, and that the conditions for UNMIT withdrawal at the end of 2012 are likely to be met, but we are less confident in Timor-Leste’s journey after that. We hope that Timor-Leste will not disappear down a memory hole, and that the Security Council will continue to pay attention to this UN “poster child” as she grows up. In particular, we encourage the Council and the UN family to help build a strong foundation for justice, equity, inclusion and sustainable economic development which will enable security for current and future generations of Timorese citizens.

We continue to be concerned by the reluctance of UNMIT, the Security Council, the international community and the government of Indonesia to exercise their responsibility to hold accountable the perpetrators of serious crimes during the illegal Indonesian invasion and occupation between 1975 and 1999, during which more than 150,000 of our people were slaughtered. The authors of these crimes against humanity, most of which were committed under the direction of the Indonesian state, continue to enjoy impunity – many are still in positions of power in Indonesia, committing similar crimes against people in West Papua.

Members of the Security Council unfairly and disingenuously place the burden of reconciliation and justice on the Timor-Leste Government and Parliament, urging Dili to enact legislation for Timor-Leste to provide reparations to survivors and to create an institution to follow up the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR). Your governments limited the mandate of  UNMIT to assembling case files on a few hundred murders committed during 1999 –ignoring the hundreds of thousands of Timorese murdered, imprisoned, raped and tortured by Indonesian forces between 1975 and 1998, as well as Jakarta’s current facilitation of impunity for anyone who committed crimes here before and during 1999.

We call your attention to the recommendations which CAVR directed to the international community, especially to members of the Security Council and countries which supported Indonesia’s brutal, illegal occupation, which include recommendations 1.1, 1.4, 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, 7.1.1, 7.1.2, 7.1.3, 7.1.7, 7.1.9, 7.1.12 and 7.2.1 (international tribunal) and 12.10 (reparations).  Council members should also encourage the Indonesian government to implement the CAVR recommendations directed to Jakarta, including 1.3, 3.2.3, 4.1.2, 4.2.7, 7.1.5 and 7.1.11, 7.5.5, 10, 11 and 12.10.

We also encourage the Council to discuss the still-relevant report of the independent UN Commission of Experts, which was put to sleep on your agenda in 2005, when Timor-Leste was one-third as old as it is today.

After laying out time frames that ended more than five years ago without their recommendations being implemented, the Experts recommended:

525. If for any reason the above recommendations relevant to Timor-Leste and Indonesia are not initiated by the respective Governments within the time frames set out above, or are not retained by the Security Council, the Commission recommends that the Security Council adopt a resolution under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations to create an ad hoc international criminal tribunal for Timor-Leste, to be located in a third State.

In their final paragraph, the Experts concluded

531. The international community is fully aware of the story of murders, rape, torture and enforced disappearances of East Timorese in 1999 and before. These are crimes that extend beyond the responsibility of the Governments of Timor Leste and Indonesia. These are crimes that concern humanity. The Report of the Commission of Experts may provide the last opportunity for the Security Council to ensure that accountability is secured for those responsible for grave human rights violations and human suffering on a massive scale and delivery of justice for the people of Timor-Leste.

We implore you not to discard this “last opportunity” and entrench impunity for the foreseeable future. Ongoing impunity undermines future peace, stability and development. When accountability is ignored, institutional consolidation, judicial mechanisms and security forces cannot preserve the accomplishments of UN missions in Timor-Leste over the last twelve years.

Impunity is a time bomb, undermining rule of law and planting the seeds of instability and insecurity. It must be disarmed.

In our letter to the Council last November, La’o Hamutuk was disappointed with the UN’s preoccupation with maintaining security through police and military force. We urged more attention to human resources – health and education – and sustainable development, which could provide longer-lasting security from poverty, hunger and disease. We will not reiterate the argument here, although it remains critically important.

We encourage the Security Council to urge UN agencies in Timor-Leste to be more honest and outspoken, even if their priorities or conclusions are not the same as the government of the day. Only last week, a UNDP-Government conference, originally planned to discuss how developing the (currently almost non-existent) private sector in Timor-Leste could contribute to inclusive economic growth, was watered down into a discussion of cooperatives, which make only a tiny contribution to development here and which may contradict Timor-Leste’s extended-family society.

The UN can perform a valuable service to citizens of this country and the world by using its experience and expertise to encourage longer-term, practical thinking, providing information on development models appropriate to this country which will benefit its people.  In this promise-filled election year, with the ruling party dangling an unachievable vision of achieving upper-middle status by 2030 by squandering its resource birthright on wasteful petroleum industry infrastructure, truths and serious planning are often overlooked.

The UN and its agencies can help citizens, civil society and leaders from all sectors and parties develop paths which will reach more realistic goals, rather than chasing a chimera.

When UNMIT departs Timor-Leste in less than a year, we hope you will leave with a proud record, having helped this country achieve nationhood and lay a foundation for sustainable, equitable economic, legal and social security for our people. This would help fulfill the time-tested promise of the UN Charter, wherein the peoples of the United Nations expressed their determination

• to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
• to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
• to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,
• to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,

Thank you for your attention, and we are happy to respond to questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Inês Martins, Mariano Ferreira, Juvinal Dias, Charles Scheiner, Guteriano Neves

Human Rights Review for TL coming up

Every four years, the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva conducts a process called Universal Periodic Review (UPR) on the human rights situation in every country. Timor-Leste is currently undergoing this process for the first time, and La'o Hamutuk has posted a web page with key information and documents from this process.

Following the presentation of information and submissions from several sources during 2011, a HRC Working Group reviewed Timor-Leste on 12 October 2011. The members gave many suggestions to Timor-Leste's Government, which will be discussed and adopted in a Council plenary meeting on 16 March 2012, as described on this Fact Sheet (also Tetum) from UNMIT and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

Click here for information on other UN-related processes in Timor-Leste.

Final 2012 budget documents online

Nearly two months after Parliament approved the 2012 state budget and more than a month after the President promulgated it, Timor-Leste's Ministry of Finance has posted the six books for the promulgated General State Budget to their website, with changes made by Parliament and some other changes. They include the final version of the Budget Law, and reduce information about borrowing and infrastructure spending after this year.

La'o Hamutuk made some of the files smaller and posted them to our page on the budget. You can also download them here:

• Book 1 Budget Overview (including budget law). English (2MB) or  Portuguese (3 MB)
• Book 2 Annual Action Plans. Portuguese (5 MB)
• Book 3 Districts. Tetum (3 MB)
• Book 4A Expenditure line items part 1. Portuguese/English
• Book 4B Expenditure line items part 2. Portuguese/English
• Book 5 Development Partners. English  or  Portuguese
• Book 6 Special Funds. Portuguese

CPI2: Perceptions of corruption, inflation increase in Timor-Leste

Transparency International just published its annual report on perceptions of corruption for nearly every country in the world. Timor-Leste scores 2.4 out of 10 (a higher score indicates that people believe the country is less corrupt), ranking 143 least corrupt out of 183 countries. This is slightly worse than last year's score of 2.5, but our ranking has slipped significantly (last year it was 125 out of 178). In this year's report, Timor-Leste is seen as having equal corruption with oil exporters Azerbaijan, Mauritania, Russia and Nigeria, who rank worse than 78% of the countries in the report.

Transparency International's rating for Timor-Leste is calculated from five ratings published by other agencies (ADB, Global Insight, World Bank and World Economic Forum). The 2011 ratings reflect how people perceived corruption during 2009-2010. In the graph above, the lower score in the 2008 report reflects the 2006 crisis, while the higher score in 2010 reflects post-election optimism. Although Timor-Leste's score improved in 2010, its ranking improved even more because the global economic crisis increased perceptions of corruption in other countries. Timor-Leste's worsening score and rank in the latest report is cause for reflection.

La'o Hamutuk often writes about the resource curse afflicting Timor-Leste, of which corruption is one symptom. Another symptom is escalating inflation, which hits poor people hardest. Timor-Leste's National Statistics Department just published the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report for July-September 2011, showing that inflation nationwide is running at 12.4% annually. In Dili, it is even higher, with the October monthly Dili region CPI report showing 14.4% (15.1% excluding housing).

An IMF team which visited Timor-Leste recently believes that rapidly rising prices here are mostly caused by factors within the country -- higher rates of state spending than local productive industries can absorb, which is sometimes called "Dutch Disease."

If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed. Although Parliament's refusal to appropriate $200 million for the Timor-Leste Investment Company in the 2012 budget was a positive step, the hasty addition of $111 in other expenditures and the authorization to borrow $160 million were not. Ita hein!

Parliament passes $1.7 billion 2012 State Budget

In the dark hours of Friday, 25 November, Timor-Leste's National Parliament approved a $1.674 billion budget for 2012, including $1.495 billion from the Petroleum Fund. Although the MPs had eliminated $200 million the Government had proposed to kickoff the Timor-Leste Investment Company, they added $111 million in other expenditures, so the total enacted budget is $89 million less than the Government's proposal. Despite the cuts, this represents a 381% increase in the state budget during the last four years, a higher rate of growth than every country in the world except Zimbabwe. See La'o Hamutuk's website for more information on the State Budget, including documents.

	Salaries	Goods & Services	Transfers	Minor Capital	Develop. Capital	Total expenditure	Parliament changes
Consolidated fund (all gov't) excluding autonomous agencies, TL Investment Company, Special Funds and Borrowing	137,401	232,484	199,579	38,917	111,192	719,573	61,481
Autonomous agencies	2,670	113,784	-	4,000	-	120,454	24,472 [fuel for EDTL]
TL Investment Company					-	-	(200,000) [CITL]
Special Funds
* Infrastructure Fund					761,003	761,003	14,803
* Human Capital Development Fund		30,000				30,000	0
Borrowing					43,100	43,100	10,000 [Maubisse-Ainaro road]
Total including Autonomous agencies, Special Funds and Borrowing	140,071	376,268	199,579	42,917	915,295	1,674,130	(89,244)
Withdrawal from the Petroleum Fund						1,494,956	(99,244)
Parliament's changes (including all.)	0	31,568	5,350	12,966	(139,128)	(89,244)

New MCC scorecard shows mixed results

The United States government's Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) calculates a scorecard every year to determine which countries are eligible for its foreign assistance agreements, called Compacts. For the last three years, Timor-Leste has failed the test, but the changes in scores from year to year are interesting. For Timor-Leste, they show how slowly our country is improving; in some cases things are getting worse.

Due to confusion about whether Timor-Leste is a "Low Income Country" or a "Low-Middle Income Country," MCC's new scorecard for Fiscal Year 2012 cannot be compared with the past two years. However, La'o Hamutuk has recalculated it to produce the graph at right and the scorecard at left. Our website describes the original and revised calculations, with links to documents and details on the indicators, methodology and history.

Like all such rating systems, the MCC scorecard is flawed and sometimes fails to capture the reality of Timor-Leste, which is the second most petroleum-export-dependent country in the world, with the second-fastest-growing state expenditures. Nevertheless, La'o Hamutuk believes that indicators like this can help us understand how our economy, governance and social welfare are going, especially in comparison with other countries. We should be doing better.

Parliament rejects TL Investment Company. PN rejeita t$200 ba CITL

Monday morning, Timor-Leste's Parliament voted 30-26 (with five abstentions and four absent) to delete $200 million from the Government's proposed $1.8 billion budget, for start-up capital for the not-yet-established Timor-Leste Investment Company. 

La'o Hamutuk appreciates the wisdom of the Parliamentarians in protecting the people's resources, as we suggested in several newspapers (bele le'e artigu husi LH iha Tetum) during the last two weeks. We especially applaud the courage and leadership of the Partido Democratico, a member of the AMP governing coalition, in putting the welfare of Timor-Leste's people ahead of political expediency. The successful amendment to remove CITL funding was also supported by Fretilin, PUN and some members of PSD and ASDT.The following is the speech presented by PD Bench Chair Adriano do Nascimento just before to the vote (La'o Hamutuk's unofficial English translation follows afterwards):

Deklarasaun politika ba CITL

Initiative politika hodi hamosu Kapitalizaun Industria Iha Timor Leste, ami la kestiona, nein kontra nia importansia no nia ezistensia. Ami apresia tebes boa vontade politika no kbit intelektual hodi hamosu konseitu ida, Iha debate orsamento 2011.

Maske nune, nudar politiku nebe Iha mos sensibilidade politika, ba kestaun de konseitu dezelvolvimentu global ba povu no nasaun ida ne'e, mak ami hakarak haklaken, ami nia pozisaun politika ba publiku katak Politika kapaitalizasaun ho osan dollar juta 200, seidauk oportunu, atu hahu kedas iha tinan 2012.

Razaun nebe Lori ami hodi hateten zero ba CITL ba tinan 2012, mak razaun legal, ekonomiku no sosial nebe haktuir iha fraze hirak tuir mai ne'e:

1. Lei ba investimentu publiku, atu hari Impreza estatal, mak seidauk iha hodi servi hanesan kuadru legal no mata dalan, ba oinsa atu hari? ho kapital inisiu no masimu hira?se mak atu zere saida? investmentu saida mak sai preiorida? no tamba sa? investimentu ne'e, halo ho se? Iha nebe no bainhira? No mos kestaun teknika ekonomika no politika sira seluk, nebe lori ita atu ba mundu transparansia no akontabilidade estadu nian.

2. Kapitalizasaun ho osan dollar juta 200 ne'e, bot tebes atu aloka iha tinan 2012 nudar, tinan ba dezenvolvimentu demokrasia. Eleisaun presidential no parlamentar sei nesesita, rekursu no esforsu hot-hotu, ho nia finalidade lori emvairomentu foun ukun nian, no adaptasaun ukun nain sira, ba sira nia ukun ne'e rasik.

Ho razaun fundamental rua nebe haktuir Iha leten, maka ami konklui katak:>

1. Tinan 2012, nudar tinan de konsolidasaun demokrasia no estabilidade. Tamba ne'e, maka rekursu no esforsu hot-hotu, diak liu oriente hodi responde nesesidade baziku no urgente hanesan; kadeira no meja ba estudante sira, irigasaun no trator ba agrikultor sira, aimoruk ho mediku ba ema moras sira, estrada, be mos no ahi ba ita hotu.

2. Ho hanoin Iha leten, mak lori ita iha diferensia tatika ba implementasaun CITL, katak guvernu hakarak hahu ohin, ami hakark hahu aban. Ne'e siknifika katak, kestaun de tempu no prioritizasaun, importansia vida moris povu no nasaun nian, mak lori ita haksesuk malu no satan malu, ba buat nebe los no justu, ba ita hotu no ba Timor nia oan, iha Timor ida deit.

Tamba ne'e mos mak Ami hakarak hahu aban, ho konseitu ka filozofia dezenvolvimentu ida hanesan tuir mai ne'e:

"....ohin tau lai osan ba Han kalan nian, no matabisu ba aban dader nian. Hafoin, la'o hakat ba eskola, no dada is iha mahon ida, iha uma nia laran, tur iha kadeira ida, no hakerek iha meja oan ida, hafoin, iha lorokraik, mak buka Internet hodi akompanha dezenvolvimentu Timor Leste nian, inkluindu CITL...".

Ami konsiente katak, maluk sira nia hanoin Luan no naruk duni, maibe, ami nia hanoin mos, la klot no la badak hanesan buat nebe deputado Manuel Tilman hateten. Ita nia diferensia mak ne'e, Imi Mai ho orgulho no optimism, ami fihir ho Laran susar no todan. Laran todan atu hakat kedas ohin ho osan dollar juta 200, no laran susar, atu husik deit sira nebe halerik hodi hein ita, atu hatutan sira nia moris ohin nian, hanesan mensiona iha leten.

Los duni, moris aban tenki hahu ohin, maibe, moris ohin mak han no hemu la to'o, estuda iha aihun no tur iha rai, no moras seim aimoruk, halo moris aban sei namlaek no la iha serteza.

Maske nune, se proposta ida ne'e pasa ho votus maioria, ami tatoli ami nia preokupasaun. Mos, se karik projectu ne'e hetan susesu bot, ami tatoli ami nia parabens. Obrigado wa'in.

Dili, 21 Novembru 2011
Adriano do Nascimento
Chefe Bancada Partido Democratico

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Policy Declaration on CITL (unofficial translation by La'o Hamutuk)

We don't question the policy initiative to create capitalization for industry in Timor-Leste, nor its importance or urgency. We greatly appreciate the political good will and intellectual power to develop this concept in the 2011 budget debate.

However, as politicians we are also politically sensitive to the question of the overall concept of development for this people and nation, which we want to explain, our political and public position that the $200 million capitalization is not yet opportune to start immediately in 2012.

The reasons we say to cut CITL to zero for 2012 are legal, economic and social reasons, which we follow according to these reasons:

1. The public investment law to create state businesses has not started to work as a legal framework and guidline, so how to create them? With how much initial and maximum capital? Who will manage what? What investment will be prioritized? And why? This investment will be done with what? Where and when? There are more technical, political and economic questions, which bring us to the sphere of the state's transparency and accountability.

2. Capitalization with $200 million dollars is too large to allocate for 2012, which is a year to develop democracy. The Presidential and Parliamentary elections will need everyone's resources and efforts, and result in a new leadership environment, with our leaders having to adapt to the new government.

For these two fundamental reasons, we conclude that:

1. 2012 is a year to consolidate democracy and stablility. Therefore, it is better to orient all our resources and efforts to respond to basic and urgent needs, such as chairs and desks for students, irrigation and tractors for farmers, medicine and doctors for sick people, roads, water and electricity for us all.

2. These thoughts lead us to a tactical difference for implementing CITL, which the Government wants to start today, and we want to start tomorrow. This means that, the question of time and prioiritization, importance for the lives of our people and our nation, brings us to some truths and conclusions that are true and fair, for all of us and for all Timorese, in our single Timor.

Therefore, we want to begin tomorrow, with a concept and philosophy of development as follows:

"today put aside money to eat supper, and tomorrow morning's breakfast. Later, we go to school, live under the same roof, in the same house, sit in one chair, and write on one desk, later, in the afternoon we look for internet to accompany Timor-Leste's development, including CITL..."

We realize that some of our friends's have far-seeing, long-term ideas, but we also think, not short or narrow like MP Manuel Tilman says. Our difference is this -- you come with pride and optimism, we observe with worry and deep consideration. We feel that it is difficult to move forward quickly with $200 million. We find it troubling to ignore the cries which appeal to us, to continue their daily lives, as explained above.

It's true that tomorrow's life begins today, but when life today doesn't have enough food and drink, students under the trees sitting on the ground, sick without medicine, life tomorrow will be shriveled and uncertain.

Therefore, if this proposed amendment passes with a majority vote, we offer our concerns. But, if this CITL project is a big success, we offer our congratulations. Thank you.

Dili, 21 November 2011
Adriano do Nascimento
Chief of Bench, Democratic Party