East Timorese Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao has seized upon
the crisis sparked by the February 11 wounding of President Jose
Ramos-Horta and killing of former major Alfredo Reinado to enforce
a number of repressive measures aimed at consolidating his unstable
government. A spokesperson for Gusmao’s government announced
on Monday that the “state of siege”—which involves
a 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and a ban on demonstrations and unauthorised
meetings—has been extended to March 23. More than 200 people
have already been arrested, mostly for violating the curfew, although
opposition parliamentarians and journalists have also been targeted.

The Gusmao government’s rush to utilise authoritarian
forms of rule raises yet again the many outstanding questions
concerning the events surrounding Reinado’s killing. According
to the official version promoted by the government and the Australian
and international press, the rebel soldier was shot dead after
he and his men attempted to either kill or kidnap both President
Ramos-Horta and Prime Minister Gusmao as part of a failed coup
attempt. This account represents the least likely explanation
for what took place on February 11.

While details remain murky, what is known points to the possibility
that Reinado was set up for assassination. The rebel soldier had
earlier threatened to publicly release details of Gusmao’s
alleged role in directly instigating a mutiny of soldiers (the
“petitioners”) in 2006. The mutiny sparked a political
crisis that culminated in the intervention of hundreds of Australian
troops and the ousting of the former Fretilin government. Reinado’s
allegation was issued via a DVD that was widely circulated in
January throughout East Timor.

The old adage, cui bono (to whose benefit?), remains
a standard rule in criminal investigations. In light of what has
transpired over the past fortnight, the undisputed primary beneficiaries
of Reinado’s death have been the Australian-led foreign military
forces stationed in East Timor and Gusmao himself.

The prime minister’s adoption of dictatorial-style powers
has been met with sharp criticism within the country’s parliament.
A number of Fretilin parliamentarians opposed the extension of
the “state of siege” on the grounds that the constitutional
requirement for a “serious disturbance or threat of serious
disturbance to the democratic constitutional order” no longer
existed. During the debate, opposition even emerged from within
Gusmao’s CNRT party. “I and my friends are really disappointed
with the implementation of the ‘State of Emergency,’”
CNRT parliamentarian Cecilio Caminha declared. “In the ‘State
of Emergency’ there are no rules that permit the security
apparatus to attack civilian houses at night, and to forbid people
from holding meetings and demonstrations.”

Fretilin has accused Gusmao of using the crisis to undermine
its position. On February 19, the party’s parliamentarian
and media spokesman Jose Teixeira was detained in Dili after six
car loads of armed Timorese police allegedly took him from his
home. Teixeira later claimed that police had no arrest warrant
and acted without the knowledge of the senior police investigating
officer. He was released the next day after Mari Alkatiri, Fretilin’s
general secretary and former Timorese prime minister, lodged a
complaint. “This is political persecution—Teixeira is
an effective media spokesman and someone in authority wants to
shut him up,” he declared. “It is a disgraceful attempt
to politicise the police force and use the investigation into
the shooting of the president for party-political gain.”

Both Timorese police and Australian soldiers have also targeted
journalists.

On February 23, the East Timor Post’s senior
layout editor, Agustinho Ta Pasea, was arrested while en route
to the Dili printing presses with a computer file of the newspaper’s
weekend edition. Post editor Mouzinho De Araujo told the

Australian that Ta Pasea was stopped at 2 a.m., beaten
by military police and then taken to a police station where he
was assaulted again. De Araujo said his staff member was held
for 11 hours on the grounds that he had violated the curfew, before
being released with cuts and bruises on his face. “Maybe,
it is because our newspaper has been tough on [the] authorities,”
the editor said. Ta Pasea’s detention delayed the publication
of that day’s Post edition. The Secretariat of State
Security later issued a formal apology for the police officers’
use of what it described as “unjustified force”.

The incident came a few days after Time reporter Rory
Callinan and photographer John Wilson were detained by Australian
troops for three hours at gunpoint outside of Dili as they were
attempting to reach the village of Dare. The Australian-dominated
International Stabilisation Force (ISF) was conducting an operation
in the area, supposedly in pursuit of Reinado’s followers
allegedly involved in Ramos-Horta’s shooting. Journalists
were refused entry through an ISF roadblock and were told they
were barred from the “media free area”. Callinan and
Wilson then walked for an hour through a jungle trail to try to
access Dare by foot.

Callinan later told the Australian that when they neared
the village: “Two Australians jumped out of the bushes wearing
‘camo’ paint, pointing their guns, ordering us to get
down. We were told to hand over our mobile phones, all our camera
equipment and passports and told to sit without talking. The guy
said: ‘We’re detaining you for your own safety and I
can’t tell you more.’ I said, ‘So we can’t
move?’ He said, ‘I’m telling you, I am detaining
you. I can physically detain you if I want, but I choose not to
at this point.’ We were wondering why they were letting dozens
of East Timorese wander about with no apparent concern for their
safety.”

The two men were held in the jungle for three hours, until
sundown, when they were told they would be allowed into Dare.
After they later walked back to Dili they were held again for
breaching curfew. “They confiscated our gear again,”
Callinan said. “We said, ‘But you’ve already detained
us for three hours, which is why we are in breach of the curfew....’
The East Timorese with us were saying this was the sort of thing
that happened under Indonesian times.”

The incident underscores the neo-colonial character of the
Australian occupation of “independent” East Timor. Utilising
the political crisis for its own ends, the Rudd Labor government
has bolstered the size of the intervention force and declared
that Australian forces will remain “for as long as they are
required.” As with the previous deployments in 1999 and 2006,
the latest operation is above all driven by Canberra’s determination
to maintain its domination over the strategically significant
and oil-rich territory, and to shut out rival powers such as China
and Portugal. Rudd and Gusmao appear to have reached a mutually
beneficial arrangement in which the Timorese leader gives the
Australian military a free hand, in return for the Australian
government’s continued political backing. Rudd and his ministers
have maintained a strict silence in relation to the Gusmao government’s
recent authoritarian measures.

The ISF’s actions in Dare also raise the question as to
what Australian troops were doing, that they did not want the
media to monitor. The status of the Australian military’s
supposed pursuit of Reinado’s wanted men remains unclear.
More than 1,100 Australian troops, including at least 80 elite
SAS personnel, are now on the ground in East Timor or stationed
on naval warships offshore. Gusmao has reportedly authorised these
forces to use lethal force. Yet despite the Australian military’s
vast array of surveillance technology and extensive knowledge
of Reinado’s group, amassed over the last two years, the
occupying troops have apparently been unable to track down any
of the alleged would-be assassins of Ramos-Horta.

Events since February 11 make clear just how convenient Reinado’s
death was for both Gusmao and Canberra.

The former major’s accusation that the prime minister
had deliberately instigated the petitioner’s protests in
2006 was seriously undermining Gusmao’s already unstable
three-party coalition government. Just as Reinado’s accusations
were circulating throughout East Timor, the government passed
its first budget, slashing food rations for the 100,000 internally
displaced refugees and cutting pensions. At the same time, the
government boasted that it was lowering corporate and investment
taxes to among the lowest levels in the world.

These measures, which will further increase social inequality
in the deeply impoverished country, drew widespread opposition
from ordinary Timorese and inflamed tensions and infighting within
the government. Rumours spread in Dili that Fernando “La
Sama” de Araujo, leader of the Democratic Party and now acting
president, would withdraw from the coalition. Gusmao meanwhile
was refusing to deny Reinado’s allegations and threatened
to arrest those journalists pursuing the story. Alkatiri demanded
that Gusmao resign and that fresh elections be called.

There is evidence indicating that President Ramos-Horta was
preparing to publicly endorse such demands. According to the Timor
News Line web site, which translates Timorese media reports into
English, on February 11 (the same day Reinado was killed) the
Diario Nacional reported that: “Fretilin Secretary
General, Mari Alkatiri, said President Jose Ramos Horta and the
UN Secretary General have agreed with Fretilin’s proposal
of holding another election in the country”.

The latest issue of the Indonesian Tempo magazine features
an interview with Alkatiri in which the former prime minister
claims there was a connection between the events of February 11
and a meeting allegedly convened by President Ramos-Horta a week
earlier.

“There was a meeting of politicians at Horta’s residence
a week before the shootings,” Alkatiri said. “Attending
the meeting were members of the Timorese Reconstruction National
Party (CNRT) led by Xanana Gusmao, the Social Democrat Party,
the Timor Social Democrat Party Association (ASDT) and the Fretilin
Party ... President Horta welcomed the proposal of the Fretilin
Party to the UN Secretary-General. Essentially it united all parties
under the Parliamentary Majority Alliance (AMP) with the Fretilin,
and forming an inclusive government, a national unity government.
Fretilin itself refused to join in the national unity government
like this one. The initiative was taken to resolve the problem
of Alfredo Reinado, deserters led by Salsinha Gastao and also
the refugees.”

Asked if any of Timor’s “party elites” were
involved in Reinado’s killing, Alkatiri refused to directly
answer or mention Gusmao by name, but said, “I will just
say that the person behind Horta’s shooting perhaps disagreed
with the President’s initiative to form a new government
and hold another election.”

If Alkatiri’s account is true, it places in fresh perspective
the secret deal struck between Ramos-Horta and Reinado just four
weeks before the rebel soldier was killed. On January 13, the
two men brokered a deal whereby Reinado would first submit to
house arrest and then soon after be amnestied by Ramos-Horta.
Could it be that the president, formerly a close ally of Gusmao,
regarded the break-down in relations between Reinado and the prime
minister as an intolerable threat to the agreement he had just
brokered, which required the formation of a new coalition administration
between Fretilin, the ASDT, and elements of the CNRT?

If so, the official version of Reinado’s killing becomes
even more implausible. The former major would have been attempting
to assassinate or kidnap Ramos-Horta, who had not only guaranteed
his freedom, but was also preparing to lend his weight to the
ousting of Gusmao, whom Reinado was accusing of being a criminal
and a traitor. On the other hand, if the scenario suggested by
Alkatiri’s statements is true, Gusmao would have had an even
more powerful motive to eliminate Reinado, and trigger a political
crisis through which he could extend his authority.

The possibility of such a conspiracy raises immediate questions
regarding the Australian government’s role. There is little
possibility that Australian authorities—which include highly
placed government and military advisors as well as an extensive
network of intelligence agents and informants—would have
been ignorant of the various political ructions in Dili. The prospect
of a return to a Fretilin-led government would have sounded alarm
bells. The former Howard government, with the unstinting support
of its Labor opposition, as well as the entire Australian press,
expended considerable resources ousting the Alkatiri administration
in 2006. Its protracted “regime change” campaign was
driven by concern that the Fretilin government was too oriented
towards rival powers and was unwilling to accede to all of Australia’s
demands for possession of swathes of the Timor Sea’s oil
and gas reserves. Gusmao’s recent moves—both in the
lead up to the events of February 11 and since—were no doubt
known, if not directly instigated, by Canberra.

None of these issues has been canvassed in the Australian press.
Not a single outlet has even reported Alkatiri’s statements
in Tempo. To the extent that any political assessment has
been attempted of the events surrounding the shootings outside
Ramos-Horta’s residence, Reinado’s potential motivations
are simply put down to insanity, thereby excusing the logical
implausibility of the official version. The media’s performance
is consistent with its role in 1999 and 2006, when it functioned
as the primary promoter of the Howard government’s military
operations, under the banner of “humanitarian intervention”
and “democracy”.