The Dili Insider

Violence Shall Meet Violence 4 days after PNTL Handover?

2011-04-01T17:49:00.000+09:00

Ro Funu Timor-Leste nian Oecusse 2010

2010-12-22T10:28:00.001+09:00

UNTAET Sosa Kilat

2010-12-21T23:51:00.000+09:00

Back when the UN was buying guns in Timor-Leste

Andre Los Ona?

2010-12-20T03:36:00.000+09:00

Xanana Rules, er hmm Xanana's Rules.

2010-12-18T16:29:00.004+09:00

Hmmmm.

"Rule No. 1, Xanana is always right;
Rule No. 2: if he is wrong apply Rule No. 1; and
Rule No. 3: everyone has to understand that both Rules No. 1 and 2 cannot ever be amended because they are in the "national interest"

(Arsenio Bano to Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao in parliament this week)

Salariu Sae, Maibe Serbisu Tun

2010-12-18T16:25:00.003+09:00

PRESS RELEASE

Meeting of the Council of Ministers of 16th of December of 2010

The Council of Ministers met this Thursday, 16th of December of 2010, in the Council of Ministers Meeting Room in the Government Palace, in Díli, and approved:

1. Decree-Law about an extraordinaire Payment of one month basic salary to the public service The IV Constitutional Government intends to carry out a policy for the preservation of the human resources attached to the Timorese State's activity, and thus considers it important to acknowledge and to encourage the good performance of its public servants. This is an equitable measure, even though of exceptional nature, that tends to bring the public servants closer to other national workers, placing them at the same level.

Letefoho 2002

2010-12-17T17:52:00.000+09:00

PNTL Dez 2010

2010-12-01T23:07:00.001+09:00

Wikileaks dumps 350 US Embassy Dili cables.

2010-11-29T13:34:00.000+09:00

OJE 2011 #7 - Pilots for PNTL and FDTL.

2010-11-25T18:13:00.000+09:00

People train to be pilots if they are going to have planes and or helicopters to fly. Unless of course you need a pilots license for an APC or a patrol boat. Planes and helicopters in OJE 2012?

for complete info see:

http://www.laohamutuk.org/econ/OGE11/ExpenditureEn.pdf

OJE 2011 #6 - $36 million Tase Mane

2010-11-24T18:54:00.001+09:00

$36 million for major development of Tase Mane Oil and Gas sector. Not enough. Kiik liu.

for complete info see:

http://www.laohamutuk.org/econ/OGE11/ExpenditureEn.pdf

Operasaun Foxtrot, atu kaer malae ilegal.

2010-11-24T01:32:00.000+09:00

Did you ever wonder what happens when the PNTL immigrations guys go looking for illegal aliens in Dili? Well in 2005 they did just that, and they found alot of visa busters. Have a look here and read about over 25 Dili businesses using illegal labour. That was back when the Government had 150 million / year. Now there is a perhaps a billion a year. How many malae are their entering country and illegally working?

Private Security in Polynesian Timor

2010-11-24T01:21:00.000+09:00

The Spanish think that Timor-Leste is in Polynesia?

And they wonder why we are so frustrated with tripping malae in the country?

Firstly, oddball security guys suggest that the law may enable guns for private security when other law runs contrary to the contention.

Secondly, the Spanish think that the island of Timor is Polynesian. Where did the fly from in order to land in Dili? Savu or Denpasar....

OJE 2011 #5 - Saude ba Se?

2010-11-23T18:56:00.000+09:00

If doctors coming home, why foreign medical for $3 million? Poor people get starter doctors trained in Cuba while rich people fly to Singapore for US trained doctors? Also very expensive plane tickets from Cuba. If 200 come back in 2011 that is $7,500 per person. First Class. Diak.

for complete info see:

http://www.laohamutuk.org/econ/OGE11/ExpenditureEn.pdf

OJE 2011 #4 - Sosa saida husi UNMIT

2010-11-22T18:56:00.000+09:00

What will Government buy from UNMIT for $700,000? Broken generators?

for complete info see:

http://www.laohamutuk.org/econ/OGE11/ExpenditureEn.pdf

OJE 2011 #3 - the Port and Airport make money!

2010-11-21T19:19:00.001+09:00

for complete info see:

http://www.laohamutuk.org/econ/OGE11/ExpenditureEn.pdf

OJE 2011 #2 - Lian, Buku, Projetu Paz iha Sudan

2010-11-20T19:22:00.005+09:00

OJE will give $1 million for a peace project in Sudan, but only $1.6 million for school textbooks, and just $150,000 for language via UNTL

for complete info see:

http://www.laohamutuk.org/econ/OGE11/ExpenditureEn.pdf

Baucau Blue

2010-11-19T20:57:00.000+09:00

OJE 2011 #1. EDTL Loses 33 million. Pay your bills!

2010-11-19T20:42:00.000+09:00

for complete info see: http://www.laohamutuk.org/econ/OGE11/ExpenditureEn.pdf

Dec 2008

2010-11-15T01:24:00.000+09:00

PNTL Nov 2010

2010-11-01T23:07:00.000+09:00

KPRI Kupang

2010-10-22T11:08:00.000+09:00

Loron Ikus Informazaun Mak Sae.

2010-10-14T03:13:00.000+09:00

PNTL Out 2010

2010-10-01T23:32:00.000+09:00

Horta Lobato Kilat iha Nov 1975

2010-09-17T18:58:00.003+09:00

Xanana - Jackie Tuku Malu iha 2009

2010-09-14T20:43:00.000+09:00

Ro Funu dan Ro Biasa

2010-09-12T20:42:00.000+09:00

The is a recent foto of a FALINTIL - FDTL patrol boat visiting Oecussi Enclave a month ago in support of Commandante Lere Visit. In backround is Nakroma Ferry. Oecussi Town.

Oan Kiak no Teki Timor iha 2009. Oan Kiak Maio 2006.

2010-09-10T20:45:00.000+09:00

DYNASTY - DEMOCRACY?

2010-09-10T19:04:00.000+09:00

THE DILI DYNASTY

Eric Ellis, Dili

May 20, 2002

ON A dusty afternoon in Dili, capital of a haunted land that is soon to be proclaimed the 190th member of the United Nations, a babel of languages issues from the foreign clientele at the City Café. Here, at $2.40 a shot, a caffe latte costs either what most of East Timor's 800,000 people earn in a day, or 1/70th the average per diem of the 20 or so UN workers patronising the cafe.

There is inequity and there is poverty, but at least Dili is no longer so dangerous. Without backing from Indonesia, the militias that trashed East Timor during the 1999 independence referendum that first brought the UN here have evaporated. Today, a truckload of Australian bricklayers in Stubbies and singlets, VBs in hand, jangles past a platoon of soldiers double-parking their Humvee and setting down automatic rifles on the cafe's chic silver tables for their third coffee break of the day. Territorian muscle might be rebuilding East Timor but the "Third Portuguese Cappuccino Armoured Brigade" is at least keeping Lisbon's former colony safe for espresso lovers.

Sitting serenely in the midst of this hubbub is the cafe's only East Timorese customer, an old man sipping a short black and stroking his long, grey beard. At 30cm, the beard is of a length that might even be regarded as magnificent were it not so wispy. But the dishevelled whiskers of 70-year-old Manuel Carrascalao are magnificent, if not for their vigour then certainly for what they mean for his family, East Timor's grandest clan, the Carrascalaos

In 1999, Manuel Carrascalao made a pledge to the memory of his youngest son, Manuelito (Little Manuel). He was dismembered by the machetes of the Aitarak militia in April that year, murdered in the family home defending 140 refugees who had sought sanctuary, as East Timorese have done for generations from the Carrascalaos, just two doors from where his father now sits with his coffee. Manuel has vowed not to shave until Manuelito's killers are brought to justice.

Clan members expect Manuel's beard to become even more magnificent. East Timorese are being encouraged to forgive past injustices. A South African-style reconciliation commission examining Indonesia's 24-year occupation has been formed. The militia killers are still at large, sheltered in Indonesia, where they are likely to remain forever. Aitarak's chief, Eurico Guterres, is a member of Indonesia's President Megawati Sukarnoputri's ruling party. The Carrascalaos are experienced at hoping for the best but expecting the worst. They've had four generations of practice.

Few families grow as big, as epic, as tragic and as controversial as the Carrascalaos. Their history traverses the joyous peaks and desperate troughs of East Timor's past -participants in it and victims of it. They are, at once, East Timor's Medicis, its Kennedys and possibly even its Corleones, with a story as sweeping a Latino saga as anything Isabel Allende or Gabriel Garcia Marquez could conceive.

There's a towering, pitiable patriarch and a patient, adoring wife and mother. There's love honoured in defiance of political, social and racial prohibitions, against a shimmering backdrop of revolutions, civil wars, invasions, coups, myriad intrigues, marriages, separations and exiles that have sent the Carrascalaos from Portugal to East Timor to Australia, Indonesia, back to Portugal and its former colonies of Angola, Mozambique, Macau, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and now, full circle, to an independent East Timor.

THE CARRASCALAO story begins in 1901 in the tiny village of Sao Bras de Alportel in the Algarve region, on Portugal's southern coast, with the birth of Manuel Viegas Carrascalao to a working class family. Today, the Algarve is God's Waiting Room for superannuated British golfers, but then it was one of Europe's poorest regions, and unable to contain the young Manuel Viegas. Strikingly tall at two metres - his daughter Alice reckons he looked like Charles de Gaulle - he left home for Lisbon, finding work as a printer's apprentice in the capital.
These were volatile days in Portugal. Civil war and rumblings in Lisbon's African colonies had crippled the First Republic. By 1926, it had collapsed in a right-wing military coup, ushering in five decades of dictatorship, 40 years of it under the iron grip of António de Oliveira Salazar.

Manuel Viegas was also intoxicated by the heady political climate. Drawn to the emerging anarchist movement that was reshaping politics across the Iberian peninsula Portugal shares with Spain, he became a leader of Portugal's biggest trade union in the mid-1920s, a nascent Lech Walesa of his day. Branded a terrorist, Manuel Viegas was jailed, tortured and, in 1927, deported to East Timor, Portugal's penal colony in the East Indies.

"The Portuguese never sent common criminals here, they only sent political prisoners," says his tenth-born child Joao, over pork ribs and rice in his comfortable bungalow on Dili's embassy row. "There was no communications, no transport from East Timor in those days. He couldn't run away from here."

Manuel Viegas was jailed on arrival in Dili but was released shortly after on condition he toe the line. It was a condition he didn't keep. In 1928, he met Marcelina Guterres, a Timorese woman. Although she hailed from local nobility, theirs was a mixed-race, or mestiço, liaison that discomfited authorities. In colonial East Timor, a Portuguese man could quietly take a Timorese mistress but to step out socially and, worse, marry her was unacceptable.

"My father was different," says Joao. "He was very loyal to my mother so it was not very comfortable sometimes for Portuguese officials and the governor at official functions when my mother was there at his side."

Manuel Viegas and Marcelina began their family. Dora was born in 1929, then Maria, then Manuel, the first son and today's bearded patriarch. He was born on Atauro, East Timor's prison island 10km off Dili's coast, where Manuel Viegas was again briefly imprisoned for refusing to abandon his political activity, even in the colony.

Through the 1930s the family continued to grow: Ermelinda, Mario, Artur, Alice and Jose, the eighth child, born just as World War II and the Japanese arrived to brutalise East Timor, even though Portugal was officially neutral. "My father refused to go to Australia with the other Portuguese. He stayed in East Timor to resist the Japanese," says Joao. But stubbornness had its price. Deprived of medication, four-year-old Jose died in his sister Dora's arms en route to hospital, just as the Japanese were being routed by Allied forces. A nameless ninth child, a girl, had died in childbirth a year earlier, strangled by her umbilical cord.

Joao arrived on August 9, the day that war ended after the US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki. "My father said he didn't know which event to celebrate the most," says 12th-born daughter Gabriela.

After the war, the family returned to a Portugal now firmly in the dictator Salazar's grip. But Manuel Viegas had been transformed in official eyes. He was now hailed as a hero for keeping the Portuguese faith in East Timor during the Japanese occupation, and Salazar asked him to return to Dili. Manuel Viegas was reluctant to go back but, showing a political pragmatism his children would inherit, he wrung concessions from the dictator. He was granted title over a 386ha government-owned coffee estate he'd cultivated in the sierra 55km west of Dili. Rehabilitated and with a Portuguese Order of Merit on his chest, the patriarch and his family returned in 1946. Manuel Viegas became a member of East Timor's constituent assembly of local Portuguese worthies, founded the Dili chamber of commerce and eventually became mayor of the colonial capital. The union firebrand once tortured by the state was now a don, part of Portugal's landed establishment in East Timor.

Back in Dili after the war, Francisco was born, number 11, the sixth and last son, then Gabriela, Angela and Natalia.

The Carrascalao family was now complete. From 1928 to 1954, Marcelina had given birth to 14 children, eight girls and six boys. Eleven Carrascalao children are alive today, after first-born Dora's death of cancer in 1980 in a Portuguese refugee camp, and the 1940s deaths of two infants. These children produced 46 of their own and possess more than 20 passports - Portuguese, Australian and Indonesian - and soon to rise above 30 when East Timor prints its own.

THEY STILL talk in East Timor about the 1987 funeral of Dona Marcelina Guterres Carrascalao. She died in Dili during the Indonesian occupation. It was a huge, very Catholic event and for many Carrascalao grandchildren born or raised outside East Timor, it was a defining moment in their national consciousness.

One of the grandchildren, Vasco Carrascalao da Silva Lino, the eldest of Maria's four children, remembers it well. Born in Dili in 1963, he was an army brat, his Portuguese father posted by Lisbon to fight colonial wars in faraway Angola, Guinea-Bissau and later, East Timor. "When I was growing up, I lost contact with Timor. It became like a legend, a myth, of stories that my mother told me, distant, and it stayed like that mostly up until I came here for my grandmother's funeral."

When Marcelina died, Vasco was living in Portugal's remaining Asian colony, Macau, a 24-year-old accountant running a Portuguese media company. He flew to Dili for the funeral. "This was my first time here, as an adult. It was shocking to me, to see how Indonesian it had become. I think for all of us, we were all committed to East Timor from that point on."

In October 1999, Vasco returned to help rebuild East Timor. He has re-established Portugal's government-owned Banco Nacional Ultramarino in its old head office, which had been looted by militia.
Marcelina's funeral was special too for Vasco's aunt Gabriela. She had been stranded in Lisbon when the Indonesians invaded in 1975, in the midst of a month's holiday from her reporting job in Dili. Gabriela didn't return to East Timor until her mother died in 1987. Marcelina is now buried at Dili's Santa Cruz cemetery, site of the notorious 1991 massacre of around 250 East Timorese by Indonesian troops that shocked the world and marked the beginning of the end for Jakarta's brutal rule.

IT began far away in Portugal. On April 25, 1974, the Portuguese military ousted Salazar's heir, Marcello Caetano, and turned left, declaring that Portugal's colonies of Asia and Africa, including East Timor, would be allowed self-determination. Portugal's "Carnation Revolution" had changed the political landscape but it led to a vacuum in East Timor - and an opportunity for Jakarta.

Three main political parties emerged in East Timor. The Uniao Democratica Timorese (UDT) favored gradual independence and a commonwealth relationship with Portugal. With Manuel, Mario and Joao as key organisers,the UDT represented East Timor's landed elite. Some called it the 'Partido Carrascalao,' the Carrascalao Party.

The Marxist Frente Revolucionaria de Timor L'este Independente, or Fretilin, wanted full and immediate independence. The Jakarta-backed Associacao Popular Democratica de Timor (Apodeti) wanted integration with Indonesia. East Timorese were to be given three choices in a referendum scheduled for March 1975: autonomy under Portuguese sovereignty, independence, or to join Indonesia.

But when Lisbon reneged on its referendum pledge, the UDT formed a short-lived coalition with Fretilin to challenge Apodeti. But the coalition dissolved. The UDT seized Dili on August 11, 1975 and nine days later Fretilin seized it back. East Timor plunged into civil war.

A Carrascalao by marriage, Vasco's father, Vasco Lino da Silva, is regarded as a family hero for his role in 1975. As East Timor erupted into chaos that year, "Capitan Lino" was dispatched from Lisbon to East Timor on a special assignment, most likely to destroy government records. The Portuguese authorities abandoned Dili on August 26. With his Portuguese masters in retreat, Capitan Lino then joined the UDT of his brothers-in-law, Manuel, Mario and Joao, whom da Silva had once opposed in Portuguese Angola.

On December 7, 1975, Indonesian marines swept over the border near Balibo and stormed ashore in Dili. East Timor would become Indonesia's 27th province for 24 years.
The invasion was terrifying for all East Timorese and particularly for the politicised Carrascalaos. The daughters were in Lisbon with their anxious parents but the sons became refugees, detained first in Atambua, the West Timorese border town, and when the Indonesians realised who they were, in Bali, where officials tried to persuade them to support the annexation. Their brother-in-law, Capitan Lino, was badly treated, spending 18 months in an Indonesian military prison in West Timor.

In Lisbon, patriarch Don Manuel Viegas Carrascalao, who had made his life in East Timor almost 50 years earlier, felt powerless and anguished. An 80-a-day smoker, he had come to Portugal in early 1975 for treatment of lung cancer. The old man was dying.

Gabriela remembers the time with her father as horrible. "Mario had been appointed to write to father to tell him what was going on at home. My father was particularly worried about Kiko (Francisco) because he was never mentioned in Mario's many letters. That's because even we didn't know where he was for a long time, that he had fled on a boat into the islands."
This once towering patriarch, now wizened by cancer, could only watch as his life's work, his family, his coffee estate, his beloved adopted homeland were being destroyed by an alien culture. In October 1976, not even a year after East Timor became part of Indonesia, Don Manuel Viegas Carrascalao died in Lisbon, broke and broken. "He wanted to come back to East Timor to die but the Indonesians wouldn't let him," says Joao. "He didn't have enough money to buy cigarettes. Completely broke, no house, no property anywhere else except East Timor and now that was gone, nothing."

The next 24 years of Indonesian occupation were tough on the Carrascalaos. Joao was exiled to Sydney with his wife Rosa and her brother, Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor's most public advocate and, later, awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Sydney's Timorese community gathers in Liverpool and it was from here that Joao kept up the independence fight while running a few small businesses and lecturing in the surveying he'd learnt in Angola. Francisco and Artur became accountants in Sydney. One of his nine children, Nene, is today a nightclub DJ in Dili; another son, Nuno, an actor in Channel Seven's Pop Stars. Gabriela ended up in Melbourne, married an Australian and worked as a journalist at SBS. Alice, who had been living in the Mozambican colonial capital, Cidade de Lourenço Marques, (modern-day Maputo) divorced her Portuguese banker husband and joined her sisters in Australia, first in Sydney and then Darwin, and is now a translator with an Australian aid agency.

Son Manuel, who'd been a member of Salazar's Uniao Nacional party (that had originally deported his father) became a member of Indonesia's rubber-stamp parliament representing then President Suharto's Golkar party. He stayed in East Timor protecting the family's interests, which amounted to the coffee fazenda at Liquica, the family home in Dili and 175ha of farmland outside Dili where Marcelina had raised cows and vegetables to feed the family and where Manuel lives. (Today he collects rent and a profit-share from what has become an Australian-managed hotel and apartment complex for foreigners, one of Dili's most lucrative $US businesses). With the family so widespread, it was also expensive, in pre-Internet days, to stay in touch. "We could be millionaires if we didn't have all these phone calls, I am not kidding," says Gabriela. "And we talk a lot." The East Timorese also talk a lot about the Carrascalaos and their myriad interests in East Timor, many whispering that they are in fact millionaires.

THE old politician Don Manuel Viegas Carrascalao raised a politicised family. Son Joao co-founded two political parties, attempted a coup to overthrow East Timor's Portuguese administration, fought a civil war and was a senior figure in East Timor's anti-Indonesian umbrella resistance group, CNRT. He was briefly Infrastructure Minister in the current government until resigning in pique last year. Joao's brother-in-law Jose Ramos-Horta is now East Timor's foreign minister. Businessman Manuel has had what would politely be described as quixotic political career, dancing with the Portuguese fascists, Suharto's Golkar and, later, the pro-independence CNRT. In Lisbon, last-born Natalia, 49, represents the Partido de Social Democracia in Portugal's parliament. (She also wrote a popular Timorese cookbook in Portugal.) A cousin is the former Portuguese Prime Minister Anibal Cavaco da Silva. Also in Lisbon, 13th-born Angela became Portugal's highest profile AIDS campaigner after losing her only child to HIV. Gabriela, the 12th born, runs TV Timor Lorosa'e, East Timor's equivalent of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and was, in 1974, the world's first female East Timorese journalist. She was also a key organiser of the Independence Day celebrations. Another distant family cousin is Joao Tavares, the pro-Jakarta militia leader now living in Indonesian West Timor. His goons trashed East Timor during the 1999 independence referendum. (He wears, as a trophy, the watch of one of the five Australian journalists infamously killed by Indonesian invading forces in 1975) With this pedigree, its seems almost logical to note that East Timor's Mandela figure, the guerilla leader-cum-President Xanana Gusmao, is a distant cousin on the family's maternal side.

And then there is Mario. He did it differently. He became Indonesian, rising to be a highly paid senior foreign ministry official. His daughter, Sonia, was one of Indonesia's most famous soap opera stars, his son an oil executive. In 1982, Mario was appointed Jakarta's governor in Dili and, ten years later, appalled by the violence of Indonesia's dirty war, appealed to Gusmao, then fighting a jungle campaign against Indonesian rule, to end his "crazy independence" idea and let East Timorese live in peace.

James Dunn, Australia's consul-general in Dili before 1975 and one of the world's leading authorities on East Timor, insists that it's too neat, and also wrong, to regard Mario as Indonesia's puppet. "It's much more complex than that," he says. "He was the advocate East Timor needed to check Jakarta's excesses. The truth is that things would've been much, much worse in East Timor if it wasn't for his governorship."

Jakarta's wooing of Mario began just five days after the invasion. Indonesian officials plucked him from the Atambua refugee camp and flew him to New York to help explain the invasion to the UN Security Council. Playing an anti-communist card at the height of the Cold War, Indonesia's invasion was a fait accompli that had the tacit blessing of neighbouring Australia and, crucially, the United States.

Mario didn't read to Jakarta's script at the UN but the Indonesians persisted. For four years, Mario was under a peculiar type of detention, staying passport-less with his family in a luxury Jakarta hotel as the generals tried to persuade him to their cause.

Seeing his task as defending East Timorese interests around the world, Mario joined Indonesia's foreign ministry, learnt Bahasa Indonesia, was posted to New York as the deputy head of Indonesia's mission to the UN and, improbably, was appointed Jakarta's ambassador to Romania during the 1990's.

In 1982, the Indonesians offered him the governorship of East Timor. His ten years in the governor's palace draws mixed, mostly positive reviews in East Timor. Harder-line East Timorese regarded him as Jakarta's well-paid puppet. The more moderate majority, including today's President Gusmao, who secretly met Mario twice as a jungle guerilla, say he was an outspoken advocate for East Timor in Jakarta when true power in Dili rested with the Indonesian armed forces. One Western diplomat sees him "as almost a fifth columnist in the great Iberian tradition", forever leaking details to diplomats and journalists about what Indonesia was really doing in East Timor, most notably the 1991 massacre. Mario resigned in disgust the following year.

During the 1990s, Mario says he never ceased pushing East Timor's interests to Jakarta. He claims to have directly influenced President BJ Habibie into allowing the 1999 UN independence referendum. Today, Mario is leader of the Partido de Social Democracia, a small party in the independent East Timor's parliament, and an advisor to Gusmao. A prominent moral authority in the parliament - "my real family is the Timorese people" - but has little direct power.

Nobel laureate Jose Ramos-Horta calls him "a man of integrity". "He could've gotten very rich but he did not. He saved a lot of people during those years." (Ramos-Horta was less polite about his brother-in-law, Joao, whom he last year described as the "Jonas Savimbi of East Timor')

Manuelito Carrascalao's murder was page-one news in April 1999. He died defending the family home from the savagery of the Aitarak militia. I certainly remember him. Fluent in English, Portuguese, Bahasa Indonesia and East Timor's Tetum dialect, Manuelito was my interpreter when I first came here in April 1999 to cover the emerging militia violence. Then a wiry 17-year-old, he proudly told me he was preparing to enter university in Lisbon, to continue the Carrascalao tradition. He was going to call his first son Manuel, in honour of the grandfather he'd never met. Two weeks later, he was dead.

Manuelito's memory lives on in his father's beard. For his 39-year-old sister Gina, indeed for the entire Carrascalao clan, Manuelito's death was the defining moment in their East Timorese struggle, one far more poignant than the 1999 referendum, the fall a year earlier of the Javanese potentate Suharto that made the plebiscite possible, or even the May 20 independence celebration.
"We had a sense that our house could be attacked because the militia were saying anyone who didn't fly an Indonesian flag would be attacked," Gina recalls. "There was no way in the world my Dad would fly that flag."

Gina spoke to her brother from Darwin a few days before his death. "He was at the house playing guitar with some friends. I asked what was he going to do and he said there's nothing I can do. 'The only thing I can do is to pray', there is a houseful of refugees here' and he said there was no way he would leave them, they had come to our house for protection."
On that fateful day, Manuel went to Dili airport to greet his wife. Manuelito called his father en route to the airport to tell him the family house was under attack. Shots were being fired into the house and a mob was rioting in the street. "My Dad turned around but he could not get through because Aitarak had blocked the road," says Gina. "We have pictures of what they did to my brother. One of my cousins witnessed everything. Manuelito was shot in the legs and then they started slashing him."

The Carrascalaos abandoned the family house in Dili that had been their home for more than half a century. The house has been re-built by the Portuguese Fundacao Oriente that is also developing the old Hotel Makhota, the place where Jakarta's secret police preferred foreigners to stay during Indonesian rule, and where Gina is now an executive.

IF THERE is a unifying centre to the Carrascalao family, it probably lies 2000m up at the cloudline of the lush sierra behind Liquica, 55km west of Dili. Here, in a stunning setting the British in India would've described as a hill station, sits a gracious white-washed plantation house. Tended by staff with teeth stained red with betel, the house sits on a spur, commanding a view above 386 hectares of organic arabica coffee plants, wild banana, avocado and rambutan trees. The gardens explode with bougainvillea, poinsettia, hibiscus, frangipani and bamboo.

This is Fazenda Algarve, named after the Portuguese region where Don Manuel Viegas Carrascalao began his remarkable life. His daughter Gabriela calls it "the soul of her family", where the youngest nine of the Carrascalao children were born in a birthing ritual with Timorese midwives that the family's descendants are determined to revive. And it will be here, some time later this year, that the clan will gather for a special occasion.

This time it won't be for a birthday or Christmas, a wedding or a funeral. It will be to fulfill the deathbed wish of Don Manuel Viegas Carrascalao, to return his ashes, now in Portugal, to his adopted country, a now independent East Timor. His eldest son, Manuel, will officiate as patriarch. He hopes to do it clean-shaven.

Ministru Sira Hare Tempo Semanal: Halo Sira Frustrado?

2010-09-10T12:59:00.000+09:00

Se mak haruka se atu sosa fos?

2010-09-10T01:58:00.002+09:00

BabblesFinnSpeak: Equals, be careful with your money.

2010-09-09T19:07:00.001+09:00

Xanana and Mario - 1983

2010-09-09T03:16:00.000+09:00

So Mario out. Old history, but let us remember Xanana and Mario in 1983.

Mario Carrascalao on Xanana in 2007

2010-09-09T03:06:00.001+09:00

Subject: Mario Carrascalao on Xanana/CNRT
[via forum-loriku list]
(translation from Portuguese article published in Lusa)
The ex president Xanana Gusmao, leader of he CNRT and candidate for the legislative elections of 30 June, is surrounded by "the worst people there are in Timor-Leste" , affirmed today MVC.
"There are individuals with him who were called for example, Francisco UDT, then called themselves Francisco APODETI, today are Francisco CNRT", the president of the PSD who heads the coalition list with ASDT to Lusa today.
"They are group of people who saw in the fascination of Xanana, the position which Xanana holds, the possibility of living in his shadow", added Mario Carrascalão in an interview granted in the middle of the electoral campaign, adding that "the primary objective of Xanana is to destroy Mari Alkatiri".
"It's not to destroy FRETILIN", analyzed the PSD leader ad ex governor of Timor for ten years when the territory was under Indonesian occupation.
"Xanana Gusmo is giving protection to the so called FRETILIN-Mudança, which will later return to FRETILIN when they destroy Alkatiri", secretary general of the majority party and ex prime minister.
"This is not desirable for Timor", considered MVC.
"I would like to see Alkatiri destroyed democratically, and when I say destroyed I mean eliminated from the political scene in elections", not in any other way.
"But the last thing I would want is to be accused of contributing to instability in Timor-Leste and I have to find a way of coexisting with CNRT itself, which has many people, many people, who I do not like", stated Mario Viegas Carrascalão
"This deceives the people, who look at the sign and think that this party fought for the liberation of Timor", continued the PSD president holding a newspaper of the day pointing at an article on the first page regarding the CNRT.
"I have explained during the campaigned that, if this party was the old CNRT, I myself would have been a part of it, joining our efforts. But this is not the case", highlighted the PSD president, who was a part of the first CNRT (National Council of Timorese Resistance) before the country became independent. Eu não gostaria de ver um herói nacional, um dos pais da nossa unidade nacional, como primeiro-ministro se o CNRT vencer, sofrer as consequências de erros que o destituirão da História como o homem de quem todos os timorenses se orgulham que passa a ser como qualquer outro».
"I would not like to see a national hero, one o the fathers of our national unity, as prime minister if CNRT won, suffering the consequences of mistakes which will destroy the history of a man who all Timorese look at upon with pride to become like any other".
For Carrascalão, Xanana runs the risk of losing the credibility he had, because "to govern, its necessary to have sensitivity for administrative issues and social themes. Its not just speechmaking. Its necessary to know how."
"Of course there are technical people o do the things, but if a leader does not follow things, he is co-responsible. He is swallowed", he said further, opining that Alkatiri is hated in Timor-Leste.
"The majority of the population hates him. Perhaps without reason. I don't know", he affirmed, clarifying that he lead a Government which "never said to Alkatiri that they disagreed with him or in which any minister threatened to leave. Everyone wants to eat. And that is going to be worse with CNRT".
"Xanana is too good a man to do what I did in ten years here in Timor: use the principle that I will only die once but that which I believe is right, is what I will do", analyzed yet MVC.
"Xanana starts with the worst conditions, because he already has a very large adversary which is FRETILIN-Maputo, or Radical as many people say (…), and they will mobilize with ever more strength against him".
"Xanana is a very sensitive man, a man who acts very emotionally. He is a generous man", said Mario Viegas Carrascalão in an interview with Lusa.
"I am not like him. I am generous man but am not as generous as Xanana, who cries and moves people. For me, what is, is. Whoever likes it, likes it, whoever doesn't like, doesn't like it. I am not going to change just for pretense", he declared.
Regarding Xanana Gusmão's candidature, the PSD candidate for the legislative elections declared that "he is a person who should have continued in his position as the father of this nation, an not to involve himself in questions of governments".
"Already with José Ramos Horta I said: you are a Nobel Peace Laureatte, you should take care of the peace, the harmony, and a head of government has to make drastic decisions. It will cause much antipathy."
To Mario Viegas Carrascalao, the new President of the Republic "made a mistake with his first step" in proclaiming the elections amendment law.
"I would have postponed the lection but would never have signed into being a law which was against my conscience. José Ramos Horta himself said that he did not agree with the law.
(translated by anonymous)

Xanana Kilat

2010-09-09T03:04:00.000+09:00

East Timor's Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao (R) checks a machine gun as he is accompanied by Portuguese sailors during a visit on board of a patrol boat in Dili, East Timor, 02 February 2008

There is already a Detention Centre in Timor. West Timor.

2010-09-07T23:37:00.000+09:00

Gillard is in and Detention is back?

SE Asia/STRAITS TIMES
HOME > BREAKING NEWS > SE ASIA > STORY
http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/SEAsia/Story/STIStory_565815.html
Aug 13, 2010

Illegal immigrants escape

KUPANG (Indonesia) - A GROUP of illegal migrants escaped from an Indonesian detention centre on Friday and was believed to be heading for Australia, where boatpeople are a hot issue ahead of elections next week, an official said.

Local immigration office head I Gusti Ngurah Rai said the 21 from Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran were among 44 people who ran away from the detention centre in Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara province.

Officials managed to arrest 23 of the migrants in Kupang town.

'The 21 people may have left to Australia using different boats,' he told AFP.
'Some witnesses said that seven migrants had rented a boat and left this morning to Australia,' he added.

Indonesia has been a key staging point for people smugglers taking migrants on the perilous sea journey south to Australia. -- AFP

Ali Cobra accused over deaths of 14 illegal immigrants
Stephen Fitzpatrick, Paige Taylor
From:The Australian http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/cobra-accused-over-death-voyage/story-e6frg6nf-1225710578623
May 08, 2009 12:00AM

THE biggest single flood of asylum seekers to Christmas Island in seven years was under way last night as Indonesia confirmed that Ali Cobra, the country's alleged people-smuggling mastermind, would be questioned over the recent deaths of 14 illegal immigrants.

But Indonesian police acknowledged that Cobra, who was arrested on Monday night in a raid in the eastern port city of Makassar, could serve less than five years' jail if convicted over a failed January operation.

The voyage, which set out from Kupang, in West Timor, on January 12, was allegedly organised by Cobra, a native of Sulawesi. He was caught as he was allegedly arranging to send 10 Afghan boatpeople into Australian waters. The breakthrough arrest was part of a joint operation between Indonesian authorities and the Australian Federal Police, which included mobile phone detection technology provided by the Australians.

According to a Kupang detective, Indonesian authorities had six separate mobile phone numbers for Cobra, accused of being one of the leaders of Indonesia's people-smuggling racket, and had been tracking him since the Kupang voyage using the Australian technology.
Last night on Christmas Island, Australian Customs officers used a barge to bring ashore 189 asylum seekers from HMAS Tobruk before taking them to island detention camps.
Some of the asylum seekers have been aboard navy ships since Anzac Day, while others were plucked to safety and transferred to the Tobruk after being detected on April 29 and May 5. There are already 270 people in detention on the island, including 198 men in the $400 million Immigration Detention Centre.

Kupang police chief Adjutant Chief Commissioner Heri Sulistanto praised the Australian involvement in Cobra's arrest, saying the AFP's role in such investigations "relates to information-gathering, observation, monitoring, then they ask us to make an arrest".

But he revealed it was unlikely any significant penalty could be imposed on Cobra if he were to be found guilty over the January voyage -- the victims of which were Afghan and Pakistani asylum seekers -- "because the deaths were accidental".

Of the 18 who set out on that trip after a violent escape from a Kupang detention centre, only four people were rescued, including a boy, 10. Five bodies were found at sea and the rest were never recovered. The three surviving adults each face up to eight years' jail for their escape from detention -- allegedly orchestrated by Cobra.

Mr Sulistanto said prosecutors would try to charge Cobra under Indonesia's maritime laws with negligence causing death, but doubted that would succeed since he was not in charge of the tiny fishing boat when it hit rough seas off Rote island, southwest of Kupang, and sank.
"The evidence against him has been provided by those whose escapes he facilitated," Mr Sulistanto said. "This included providing a (Mitsubishi) L300 (van) and getting them into it, and taking them to the beach where they boarded the fishing boat, which later sank."

He said it was these survivors who had confirmed that Cobra also operated under the name Labasa Ali -- although it was under the former, more evocative name that he bought the doomed fishing boat "for around 40 million rupiah ($5127)".

"The illegal immigrants themselves told us that he used both of those names, although it was as Ali Cobra he bought the boat," Mr Sulistanto said.

But the police chief said the local fishermen who sold Cobra the craft had warned him not to take it to sea. "They said the conditions were not right, but the group still put out, from Lasiana Beach (in Kupang, the capital of East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia's easternmost province)," he said.

If the charge under Indonesia's maritime laws could not be made to stick, he said, the strongest penalty available would be a maximum of five years for negligence causing death under the general criminal code.

Additional reporting:
Paul Maley

Crisis Group Says Timor Officials Discuss Weapon Purchase in Jakarta

2010-09-07T23:13:00.001+09:00

Ami husu ba Crisis Group. Se mak koko atu sosa kilat?

Sira relatoriu iha ne'e

Tio Hercules

2010-09-06T01:23:00.000+09:00

4 Primeiru Ministru Hamnasador

2010-09-05T00:57:00.000+09:00

Sira hamnasa, nu sa? Tanba sira haan malu bebeik, no ema kiak mak selu.

Malae Naok Teen ga?

2010-09-04T06:39:00.001+09:00

13,000 USD per bulan. AusAID mak selu

2010-09-03T20:35:00.000+09:00

PNTL Sept 2010

2010-09-01T23:05:00.000+09:00

TMR dan Gugus

2010-08-31T14:31:00.002+09:00

Panglima F-FDTL berbicara akrab (dan lama) dengan Komandan Gugus Tugas Tempur Armada Timor TNI-AL Laksamana Muda Widodo. Besoknya, mereka berdua meninggalkan seminar "TImor Leste Negara Maritim) pada saat seminar baru dua jam. entah bicara apa lagi.

Laos mane deit katak hadomi kilat

2010-08-30T04:42:00.001+09:00

Ameasa SMS

2010-08-30T04:41:00.001+09:00

mp7 demo

2010-08-29T01:38:00.000+09:00

Inkeritu Foz Parlementu Nian: Husi TS

2010-08-29T01:37:00.000+09:00

Calendario PNTL 2010: Sira Hadomi Kilat

2010-08-29T01:32:00.001+09:00

SRSG Preciza Hemu Tua

2010-08-28T01:20:00.002+09:00

SRSH Haq UNMIT (left)

TS 24 Aug 2010 - Net iha Liman. Poderes iha liman....

2010-08-27T23:19:00.000+09:00

Rogerio: Nia tuir loron FALINTIL maibe lakoi atu fila ba Sanur, Bali. Agora hela iha Fomento. Prepara ba Elizaun 2012?

2010-08-27T01:59:00.000+09:00

Rona?

2010-08-27T01:48:00.002+09:00

Pedro Klamar Fuik: Agora Kolega ho Bapak Sira.

2010-08-27T01:47:00.000+09:00

Ruben Taveres: Oan Mane ba Joaa Taveres. Iha Tinan 2009 Atambua

2010-08-27T01:46:00.000+09:00

Mari Cantador?

2010-08-27T01:44:00.000+09:00

4wd in Timor Leste

2010-08-27T01:43:00.000+09:00

PD no FRETILIN Dansa nafatin

2010-08-26T01:48:00.001+09:00

Libre tiona

2010-08-26T01:47:00.001+09:00

KILAT MP7

2010-08-26T01:45:00.000+09:00

*Govt to purchase MP7 type weapon for F-FDTL
*Suara Timor Loro Sa’e, August 25, 2010 language source: Tetun

The Timorese constitutional Government led by Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao has planned to purchase MP7 type weapons for the Timorese Defense Force (F-FDTL), as the weapons are being out of date and is not good for operations. State Secretary for Defense, Julio Thomas Pinto said the F-FDTL’s weapons were being out of date to be used for its operations and was not in good conditions if compared with other military force’s weapons. Therefore, the Government through the State Secretariat for Defense to purchase weapons, so that the F-FDTL could respond to technological situation of war in the world, Pinto said. He added that during the joint training with the US Army, the F-FDTL’s weapons were longer and such condition impeded them not to move freely.

Heckler & Koch MP 7 & P 8

2010-08-26T01:43:00.000+09:00

Rate iha Atambua: Joao Tavares nia fatin ikus liu.

2010-08-26T01:19:00.000+09:00

The Bounty of Trainiing with Bonhomme Richard: 11th Marine Expertionary Unit. Want more guns.

2010-08-26T01:16:00.000+09:00

USS Bonhonne Richard 11th MEU October 2009 Dili.

In yesterday newspapers there were reports from F-FDTL defence force that they intend to purchase weapons in order to upgrade so they can train more with the USA and others. In 2009 the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit was in Timor trainning with the Timorese defence force.

What were they training with?

This give some ideas as to what F-FDTL may be wanting to buy. A F-FDTL realmente precisa de mais armas? Parece que poderia ser um problema, mas eles podem obter algumas armas depois de os barcos.

Lance Cpl. Ian Wiseman, a mortarman with Company E, Battalion Landing Team 2/4, teaches members of the Timor Leste Defense Force and Australian soldiers with the International Stabilization Force (ISF) how to operate the 60mm mortar system during a training exercise Oct. 17. Members of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit trained with Timor Leste and Australian soldiers during an exercise focused on promoting theater cooperation through civic action projects and military interaction.

Lance Cpls Derek Crawford (left) and Joseph Frigo, with Company E, Battalion Landing Team 2/4, teach members of the Timor Leste military how to properly operate a shoulder-launched multipurpose assault weapon during an exercise here October 17. Members of the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit trained with their Timor Leste counterparts during an exercise focused on promoting theater cooperation through civic action projects and military interaction. Photo Date Taken: 10/17/2009Unit: 11th MEU

Sira Halimar Nafatin

2010-08-26T01:00:00.000+09:00

UNMIT FPU During Tactical IED Training Exercise
A member of the Portuguese Formed Police Unit (FPU) Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit (EOD) serving the United Nations Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT), wears heavy fire-retardent protection as he takes part in an improvised explosive device (IED) exercise to destroy six grenades. 02 December 2008
Metinaro, Timor-Leste Photo # 233469

Patronising and Feudal: Timorese Political Leadership August 2010 Maubisse

2010-08-26T00:56:00.000+09:00

At least the 5 time Xanana and Alkatiri have hugged in public since 2006. Maibe la hetan buat ida.

Hera Boom Town? Chinese Built Patrol Boats and Power Plants

2010-08-24T12:20:00.000+09:00

View Larger Map

Naval Open Source INTelligence: Australian- Indonesia coordinated patrol

2010-08-24T12:13:00.000+09:00

Naval Open Source INTelligence: Australian- Indonesia coordinated patrol: "A closing ceremony was held today at Larrakeyah Barracks to mark the successful completion of the inaugural Coordinated Maritime Security Pa..."

Timor Sky Traveller

2010-08-24T10:51:00.000+09:00

Airport Extension on the way: Chinese Fortune Cookie Gift?

2010-08-24T00:13:00.000+09:00

Yellow Hummer

2010-08-23T16:17:00.001+09:00

The Hummer is a cool car, at Hotel Timor

Numero Telemovel

2010-08-23T08:43:00.000+09:00

List of Timor-Leste State Officials July 2009

Hummer se nian? Husu tok.... plat Dili nian.

2010-08-22T03:20:00.000+09:00

PNTL Glock Style

2010-08-21T10:46:00.000+09:00

The Jaco sets for the sea.

2010-08-20T17:10:00.000+09:00

Its cold in Maubisse

2010-08-20T17:09:00.000+09:00

Xanana, Ramos-Horta, Mari Alkatiri, Lu Olo, Fransisco Xavier Amaral, and Taur Matan Ruak are holding a "retreat" in Maubisse tomorrow. Is a Xanana-FRETILIN power sharing deal in the works? Where is PSD, PD, and CNRT leadership? Out in the cold? Who gets to sleep in Alfredo Reinado's old room? Xanana perhaps - its the biggest room.

Rogerio: Fila Fali Loron FALINTIL 20 Aug 2010

2010-08-20T16:25:00.000+09:00

Rogerio Tiago Diamantino Lobato, the former Minister of Interior, forced to resign in 2006 for distributing weapons in 2006 is back for loron bot.

Tanah Air Beta - Eurico Still a Celebrity

2010-08-17T15:57:00.000+09:00

Alot of people talk about the Balibo Five Movie.

In Indonesia they are also talking about their view of 1999 in the new film Tanah Air Beta filmed in West Timor last year. It was recently released in Atambua.

Kick Andy, Aitarak Militia Boss Eurico Guterres and the Film Cast all made it to Atambua for the film release in the border areas where many refugees still live - many from the Haliwen Camp near where Militia Boss now deceased Joao Tavares of Bobonaro Halilintar Militia spend his last days before he died.

East Timorese in Atambua

The Film Release

East Timorese in Atambua

Kick Andy - Metro TV

Eurico Guterres

The Film Crew

Ministra Emilia

2010-08-16T20:26:00.000+09:00

Ministra sibuk hela

Maun Bo'ot nia Kolega: gosta atu halimar kilat, nu sa?

2010-08-16T05:01:00.004+09:00

The Dili Insider Featured in Lonely Planet?

2010-08-15T03:26:00.000+09:00

Most interesting - despite being closed down for sometime we have managed to be mentioned in the Lonely Planet 2010 guide South East Asia on a shoestring. Funny how its not mentioned as one of the "excellent" blogs.

HUMMER: Vehicle of Choice for Dili Corruptor Crew

2010-08-09T01:07:00.002+09:00

PNTL Agostu 2010

2010-08-01T23:05:00.000+09:00

PNTL Julho 2010

2010-07-01T23:04:00.000+09:00

PNTL Junho 2010

2010-06-01T23:03:00.000+09:00

Ro Funu Timor-Leste Nian: Husi Cina

2010-05-25T09:42:00.000+09:00

Rogerio is back

2010-05-21T08:15:00.000+09:00

Pictured is former Minister of Interior, an Becora Prison inmate, Rogerio Lobato (blue shirt light pants immediately to the right and behind former Prime Minister Alkatiri). They are attending Antonio da Silva's funeral in Leorema, Liquica a few days ago.11 May 2010.

Interesting in your face technique by UNPOL Strategic Information Division (SID) clown.

Irresponsible Amphibians

2010-05-21T08:09:00.002+09:00

...are what these people are.

Role models for PNTL indeed.

"UNMIT Police Unit Performs Amphibian Exercises at Dili Beach A SWAT team from the Portuguese Formed Police Unit of the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) performs amphibian exercises at a Dili beach as part of special police training."
04 March 2010 Dili

Hotel Kristal Kupang. Indonesia nian hanoin kona ba fronteira?

2010-05-08T11:38:00.000+09:00

Kilat - dala ida tan

2010-05-08T11:23:00.000+09:00

Lae, ami la fahe kilat ba ema sipil/pntl iha 2006, nunka! Se mak bosok ba se?

IOM Timor, Eyes Wide Shut?

2010-05-08T10:57:00.001+09:00

What is the idea here. IOM with alot of smart people falling the fool.

Everyone and his dog knows that trafficking of women "to" Timor occurs as a result of connivance between Timorese political, business, and police interests. Everyone. If IOM does not know this, they are fools, if they do know this then they are negligent.

ooops....

So Fishing Competitions: Dili versus Kupang?

2010-05-07T04:39:00.000+09:00

President Horta going fishing in Kupang?

PNTL Maiu 2010

2010-05-01T23:03:00.000+09:00

Kris dan Raoul

2010-04-17T09:00:00.000+09:00

Zac Kontra Lasama iha Bali? Se Mak Menang iha 2012?

2010-04-17T08:51:00.002+09:00

PNTL Abril 2010

2010-04-01T23:03:00.000+09:00

Korrupsaun no Foz: Inkeritu besik atu sei publiku ga?

2010-03-13T14:43:00.000+09:00

PNTL Marsu 2010

2010-03-01T22:29:00.000+09:00

PNTL Fev 2010

2010-02-01T22:29:00.000+09:00

PNTL Fev 2010

2010-02-01T01:14:00.000+09:00

PNTL Jan 2010

2010-01-01T22:28:00.000+09:00

Threats. Shutdown - to return in time.

2009-12-17T02:45:00.003+09:00

Due to a series of telephone and email threats, this blog will shut down effective immediately.

It will however return.

The DI Team