The Judiciary in East Timor - Re-building a Nation
Rotary Club of Mordialloc
RTF version - 60.6 KBThe Democratic Republic of East Timor only formally gained its independence on 20 May 2000, following over two hundred years of colonization and occupation.
The history leading to an independent East Timor is a sad one, characterised by struggles and conflict. Australians will well recall the violent war in 1999 waged by pro-integration militia at the time of the historical vote by the people of East Timor to begin a transition to independence. While a multinational peace keeping force eventually established peace in East Timor in late 1999, paving the way for it to begin the transition to become a self-governing territory, the legacy of the militia war was one of devastation and destruction. Most public and private buildings had been destroyed and looted and thousands of East Timorese had been killed. Entire communities were cut off from each other and over half the population had been displaced from their homes, many fleeing, by force or otherwise, for refugee camps in neighbouring West Timor.
A multidimensional effort was required to re-build East Timor: to re-build a governance structure, a judicial system, a sustainable economy and a culture founded on peace, democracy and the rule of law. Under the auspices of the United Nations, many organisations and agencies, governmental and non-governmental alike have worked to build an independent future for the people of East Timor.
In the course of my address, I will give a summary of the history leading to East Timor's independence and a summary of the multi-faceted process of the re-building of the nation. I will also and, in particular, address the challenges faced in creating a judicial system in East Timor.
A History of East Timor's independence
East Timor came under the colonial administration of Portugal in 1702. In the 20th century, Portugal assumed direct control of the territory.
In 1960, the United Nations General Assembly passed the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, a declaration which proclaimed the need to bring an end to colonization and the need for a recognition of the rights of territories to be self-governing. The United Nations recognized East Timor as being one of the many territories still under colonial rule.
In 1974, Portugal, adhering to the principles of the United Nations on decolonisation, sought to establish a provisional government and popular assembly in East Timor which would assume the role of determining the future status of the territory. Subsequently, a civil war broke out between the two major parties in East Timorese politics - those who favoured an independent East Timor and those who advocated integration with Indonesia. Unable to control the situation, Portugal withdrew its colonial administration and its troops in 1975.
In December 1975, Indonesia saw the opportunity presented by internal division and invaded East Timor. In 1976, Indonesia annexed East Timor as its 27th province.
The invasion and occupation of East Timor by Indonesia was brutal and horrific with estimates of 100,000 or more East Timorese dead, many through starvation or disease due to the disruption of food and medical supplies.
A guerrilla war was fought against the occupation by the pro-independent force in East Timor, Falintil. Falintil was the armed wing of one of the major East Timor parties which had emerged during the collapse of Portugese administration of the territory, the Frente Revolucionaria de Timor Leste (Fretilin), lead by Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao and his successor Antonio Gomes "Mauhunu" da Costa. After the first two or three years of occupation, the guerrilla force began to weaken considerably and retreated to the jungles where it maintained underground activity for many years thereafter.
The United Nations never recognized the integration of East Timor by Indonesia. It continued to regard Portugal as having proper legal administration over the territory and called for Indonesia's immediate withdrawal.
From 1982, regular talks were held by the United Nations with Indonesia and Portugal with the intention of resolving the status of the territory. In 1990, Indonesia and Portugal agreed that a parliamentary delegation from Portugal would visit East Timor with the intention of ending the long dispute. The visit was however cancelled.
What followed was a devastating massacre of civilians by the Indonesian army in the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili on 12 November 1991.
The Santa Cruz massacre attracted international media attention and under international pressure, Indonesia commenced a judicial inquiry into the events surrounding it. The ultimate report of the inquiry condemned the actions of the military, however, the officers whom were implicated in the massacre received only light sentences or were disciplined.
The talks between Portugal and Indonesia, which had commenced in 1982, finally made significant progress in 1998 when, in June of that year, Indonesia under the administration of the Habibe government proposed a limited autonomy for East Timor within the unitary Republic of Indonesia. Many East Timorese and internationals had hoped that that change of government - the replacement of Soeharto with Habibe - would see the decline of Indonesia's tough stance on East Timor.
In light of Indonesia's proposal, a set of agreements between Indonesia and Portugal were signed on 5 May 1999 in New York. As part of the agreements, Indonesia and Portugal entrusted the Secretary-General of the United Nations to organize and conduct a "popular consultation" of the people of East Timor to establish whether the people would accept or reject Indonesia's proposal of a special limited autonomy for East Timor within Indonesia.
A United Nations body, UNAMET carried out the consultation of the people of East Timor. Despite an extremely tight timetable, a high level of tension between pro-integration and anti-integration elements, and the Territory's mountainous terrain and poor roads, which made communications with remote villages difficult, UNAMET managed to register 451,792 voters among a population of just over 800,000.
On voting day, 30 August 1999, some 98 per cent of registered voters went to the polls. By a huge margin, the people of East Timor rejected Indonesia's proposal of a limited autonomy. They voted, instead, to begin a process toward independence.
Sadly, the announcement of the result of the poll was followed by a massive campaign of violence, waged by pro-integration militia. The militia were often supported and funded by the Indonesian military presence in East Timor and at times the militia were Indonesian soldiers out of uniform. Many East Timorese were killed in the militia attacks and as many as 500,000 East Timorese were displaced from their homes. About half of those displaced left the territory, in some cases by force.
Despite commitments made under the New York agreements, Indonesia did not respond effectively to the violence and in the face of condemnation by the international community, attempted to down play the militia attacks. Consequently, the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Security Council undertook strenuous diplomatic efforts with the Indonesian government, urging it to intervene to halt the violence.
Eventually, Indonesia agreed to accept the offer of assistance from the international community and on 20 September 1999, an Australian-led multinational peace keeping force entered East Timor. The peace keeping force was authorised by the Security Council to bring the situation under control and restore peace and security in East Timor.
While peace was established by October 1999, what was left was a legacy of destruction and devastation. Many East Timorese had lost their lives, half a million people had been displaced, and the country's infrastructure had been shattered. Entire communities were cut off from each other and cut off from food and medical supplies. Telecommunications, power installations, bridges, water pipes, government buildings, courts, shops, houses and schools were completely guttered and destroyed by fires set by the militia. Before being torched, buildings had been looted. All court equipment, furniture, law books and case files, materials indispensable to the administration of justice, had been stolen or burned.
To immediately address the humanitarian crisis, a large-scale emergency relief effort was commenced, including airdrops of food, aid convoys and the provision of shelter and basic services for the thousands of displaced East Timorese.
Following the establishment of peace, there was no body to govern the territory and to make decisions about law and order. The United Nations Security Council thereby established the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) on 25 October 1999, to provide security and stability, maintain law and order and to provide a transitional government in East Timor.
In order to see East Timor through the transition to becoming an independent, self-governing nation, East Timor needed to create a new government structure and a judicial system. In addition, seeing East Timor through to independence required the enormous tasks of:
- re-building infrastructure, including the reconstruction of airports, ports, public transport, bridges and telecommunications;
- establishing a civil service;
- creating a network of social services, including health care;
- establishing police and emergency services;
- ensuring the provision of education;
- creating the necessary conditions for sustainable economic development – banking systems, foreign investment, budgetary policies, a taxation system; and
- establishing a public broadcast system.
To ensure that the East Timorese people would participate in the re-building of their nation, UNTAET established the National Consultative Council (NCC), a political body consisting of 11 East Timorese and four UNTAET members. The role of the NCC was to oversee the decision-making process during the transition period leading to independence.
With the consent of the NCC a series of urgent regulations were made to establish effective administration in the Territory. These included setting up a legal system, re-establishing a judiciary, setting an official currency, creating border controls, creating a taxation system, and instituting measures to ensure sustainable development.
Meanwhile, during the first six months of 2000, more than 167,000 refugees returned from Indonesia, primarily from West Timor. An estimated 85,000 to 120,000 remained in camps in West Timor.
In September of 2000, a series of armed attacks were waged against United Nations troops and East Timorese people along the border and in refugee camps in West Timor. UNTAET declared the areas of the attacks to be "high threat" areas. On 6 September 2000, three United Nations staff members in Atambua, West Timor were murdered by armed militias. As a consequence, humanitarian relief efforts in the region were suspended.
The United Nations Security Council responded to the deteriorating security situation by adopting a resolution on 8 September 2000 which called on Indonesia to take immediate steps to fulfil its responsibilities under the New York agreements. Indonesia was to disarm and disband militia, to restore law and order in the affected areas in West Timor, to ensure safety and security in the refugee camps and the safety and security of humanitarian workers, and to prevent cross-border incursions into East Timor. In addition, on 12 September 2000, an East Timor Defence Force was created consisting of 1,500 troops drawn from the ranks of the former East Timorese pro-independence guerrilla force, and supplemented by a reserve of equal number.
On 30 August 2001, two years after the vote to begin the transition to independence, the East Timorese again went to the polls to elect an 88-member Constituent Assembly. The Assembly was to have the task of drafting East Timor's Constitution. The Fretilin party, East Timor's largest political party, won 55 of the 88 seats.
Shortly thereafter, 24 members of the new all-East Timorese Council of Ministers of the Second Transitional Government were sworn into office. The new Council together with the Constituent Assembly were to govern East Timor during the remaining transitional period before independence.
The Constitution was drafted and was signed on 22 March 2002.
Presidential elections were held on 14 April 2002. Xanana Gusmao, the former leader of the East Timorese guerrillas who had opposed Indonesian rule, arrested in 1992 and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in Jakarta, was appointed president-elect of East Timor. Gusmao is the country's hero of independence.
On 20 May 2002, the Constituent Assembly became East Timor's parliament. East Timor had emerged as a newly independent and sovereign state.
The re-creation of a judicial system in East Timor
Re-creating a judicial system in East Timor was a matter of urgency and priority, a necessary part of maintaining law and order. The militia-led violence had left in ruins the judicial system which had been in place during the years East Timor had existed as an annexed province of Indonesia. The militia destroyed court buildings and court infrastructure. Furthermore, the territory was left with barely a qualified jurist. All the judges, prosecutors and lawyers who had been publicly sympathetic to the Indonesian regime had fled East Timor after the results of the popular consultation were announced. Fewer than ten lawyers were estimated to have remained in East Timor.
Establishing a judicial system
The following institutions have been established as part of the judicial system in East Timor:
- an East Timorese Prosecutor General's Office and a Defender Service;
- 4 District Courts in Dili, Baucau, Suai and Oecusse, to hear criminal and civil proceedings;
- a national Court of Appeal; and
- prisons in Dili and two other locations.
The task of re-creating a judicial system in the territory was not as simple as creating and building judicial institutions. Judges, prosecutors and public defenders needed to be appointed in wake of the mass exodus of qualified persons. Amazingly, the first East Timorse judges answered a "leaflet drop" conducted by the United Nations inviting those with law degrees to come to Dili. Seventeen people sat on the floor for the first meeting in Dili because all the tables and chairs had been destroyed in the violence of 1999. Those seventeen, most of whom were in the 20s, became the first judges of the new nation.
Obviously, there was a significant lack of relevant experience amongst the new judiciary. Adequate legal and judicial training programs needed to be established. On the whole, those appointed received minimal training before being required to manage extraordinary caseloads.
The task of training those appointed to positions of judge, prosecutor and public defender was more than providing just technical legal training. There was also a need to ensure the new judiciary would not be tainted by the corruption of the past or make unjust decisions out of fear of ramifications if they decided against particular elements of society. As a result, anti-corruption projects have been implemented in East Timor and codes of ethics have been drawn up. As for the independence of the judiciary, security of tenure is major issue, as currently all serving District Court judges are classed a "probationary judges". Independence from the political system is a necessary part of a proper functioning legal system which has the confidence of the public and foreign investors.
In relation to public confidence, many East Timorese, having had no experience of an independent and impartial judicial system, remain distrustful of the new judiciary. In pre-independent East Timor, the "law" was perceived as an instrument used by those in power to wield arbitrary power and control. There is thus a continuing need to educate the public that the courts are institutions of justice where persons can seek to enforce their rights and the obligations of others.
There is real concern that the current legal system is inadequate and that the numerous problems facing the judicial system will mean it will perform poorly. This could very possibly impact on the building of the community's faith in justice. The problems currently facing the judicial system include the fact that the courts are under-resourced - the judges have no court staff (associates or personal assistants as judges do here in Australia) and do not have access to the Internet. Most of the relevant legal texts are in Portugese but many of the judges speak only Tetum (the predominant indigenous language) or Bahasa Indonesian. The judges also have enormous case-loads. Furthermore, while there are 40 cases on appeal awaiting a hearing in which some of the appellants are in custody, the Court of Appeal exists only in theory and cannot currently operate as only been one judge is presently appointed to it. This means that those whose cases are on appeal, including those in custody, are enduring an indefinite wait to have their appeals heard.
There are at present concerns in East Timor that the government is not respecting the orders of the Court. For example, an order recently made by the District Court for the arrest of customs officials was not carried out by the police and the government did not force the police to do their job. Gusmao protested at the government's failure to deal with the police refusal to carry out the arrests and the judges of the District Court went on strike for a short time. As far as I am aware the customs officials have not been called to account for their failure to attend Court.
An example of Australian judicial assistance
In my capacity as a judge of the Federal Court of Australia, I recently spent a week in East Timor as part of a judicial training project organised by the International Labour Organisation ("the ILO"). The Project I worked under is the SIMPLAR Project, the long title of which is "Strengthening and Improving Labour Relations in East Timor". As its title suggests, the purpose of the project is to strengthen and improve industrial relations in East Timor.
I had the task of assisting the training of District Court judges in labour (employment) law. East Timor recently adopted a new Labour Code which, based on ILO Conventions, sets up a system of industrial law and regulates, amongst other things child labour, conditions of work and employment contracts. The Code prohibits discrimination in employment and forced labour. The Code also establishes a system of registration of trade unions and employer organisations and a collective bargaining regime.
The workshop was attended by judges, departmental officials, prosecutors, public defenders and court staff. The topics covered by the workshop included a comparison between the Australian and East Timorese legal systems, the Constitution of East Timor, the powers of the Labour Relations Board, discrimination in employment, sexual harassment as well as judicial independence and the importance of the rule of law as underpinning a democratic society.
Prosecuting serious crimes committed in East Timor
Another aspect of the recent history of East Timor's judicial system was the need to deal with or prosecute militia or Indonesian military personnel in connection with the violence, terror and genocide of 1999 and throughout the invasion and occupation of East Timor by Indonesia.
Within East Timor, the United Nations established two bodies for the purpose:
- the Serious Crimes Unit to investigate and prosecute the cases; and
- a Special Panel within the Dili District Court to hear the cases.
The Serious Crimes Unit was established in June 2000 as the body to investigate and prosecute "serious crimes" (defined as genocide, war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity, sexual offences and murder by UNTAET Regulation 2000/15). The Unit is composed of 111 persons, 64 internationals including 23 UN police officers, and 57 locals. Currently, the Unit is working on priority case being the most horrific incidents of violence in 1999. One of these priority cases is the Liquica Church Massacre – on April 6 1999 up to 60 civilians were slaughtered at a church compound in Liquica. Four of the persons accused of Crimes against Humanity in relation to the Liquica Massacre are Indonesian military officers, including the former Liquica district TNI commander, Lieutenant Colonel Asep Kuswanti.
The Special Panel for Serious Crimes which is part of the Dili District Court has the exclusive jurisdiction to try all cases of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and torture whenever they took place in the years preceding the vote for independence. The exception is for cases of sexual offences and murder. For the Panel to be able to hear them, they must have been committed within the period of 1 January and 25 October 1999. The Panels are made up three judges – two international judges and one East Timorese judge.
At the time of writing, 141 alleged perpetrators of serious crimes have been indicted; 129 of those are charged with various counts of Crimes Against Humanity, of which 10 are Indonesian military personnel. To date, 23 perpetrators had been convicted of serious crimes. The priority cases which, for the most part involve multiple dependents, are still underway.
The United Nations mandate to prosecute serious crimes in East Timor is to come to and end on 1 July 2004. The task will then be completely handed over to the East Timorese. Currently, the East Timorese are being trained in prosecutions and investigations and forensic examinations, in order to see a smooth handover next year.
Many East Timorese and international human rights agencies have criticised the process of holding accountable those who perpetrated violence and crimes in 1999, in particular the failure to prosecute high-level military personnel. Few of those convicted by the Special Panels held any command positions in the military. An article in The Times (London) on 7 January, 2003, noted that the United Nations sponsored trials in Dili "have failed to bring justice even to the low-ranking suspects within their jurisdiction. The neglected and under-funded system is blighted by apathy. Appointments to key positions in the judiciary are left vacant, and the court process is paralysed as a result".
In East Timor, community leaders are increasingly demanding that such persons be brought to justice. Many also feel that the investigations and prosecutions are moving too slowly. This is particularly in respect of the priority cases which involve multiple accused – including the prosecutions surrounding the Liquica massacre and the murders at the house of Manuel Carrascalao. These prosecutions have been under way since March 2002.
The criticism that things are moving too slowly may be fair but, at the same time, it must be recognized that the Serious Crimes Unit was in its initial stages under-resourced. Investigating serious crimes is a time consuming and complicated task and in its initial stages the Unit lacked the basic resources to properly perform technical investigations – DNA tests, forensic reports and ballistic analysis. The Special Panel is also said to suffer from a continuing lack of resources. A commentator on the East Timor system, David Cohen, noted that the budget for the prosecutions in Dili is meagre in comparison to the budget allocated to other ad hoc international criminal tribunals set up in the 1990's by the United Nations – the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The ICTY and ICTR have now been trying cases for eight years, at a budget of approximately US$100 million per year[1].
Cohen remarks that as a result of the duration and expense of the trial in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Security Council has become increasingly reluctant in funding large-scale operations. The East Timor model therefore suffers from a lack of funding and personnel, with 141 alleged perpetrators indicted at this stage but with about one-twentieth of the funding allocated to the ICTY and ICTR to prosecute those indicted. Cohen says that the United Nation's compromise solution in East Timor does an "injustice to those individuals convicted without a fair trial and undermines the very standards of the justice and the rule of law that the tribunals are supposed to advance"[2].
Furthermore, bringing the perpetrators to justice requires cooperation from all parties involved. At the time of writing this paper, of the 141 indicted by the Serious Crimes Unit, 84 remained at large or are assumed to be residing in Indonesia. Bringing those to justice will only occur with the assistance of the Indonesian authorities which is yet to be seen despite UNTAET issuing a number of arrest warrants to INTERPOL and to Indonesia. Commentators have noted that only with international pressure will Indonesia cooperate to extradite indicted nationals. In any event, the Constitution of Indonesia prevents the extradition of its nationals (as does the Constitution of East Timor).
Prosecuting serious crimes in Indonesia committed in East Timor in 1999
A process of prosecuting "serious crimes" in connection with the 1999 violence in East Timor has also been established within Indonesia itself. The process began under the Habibe government of Indonesia. Approval was given by the government for the formation of an independent commission of inquiry to investigate human rights crimes committed during 1999 in East Timor.
In January 2000, the inquiry released an executive summary of its report which stated that "gross violations of fundamental human rights have been carried out in a planned, systematic and large-scale way in the form of mass murder, torture and assault, forced disappearances, violence against women and children (including rape and slavery), forced migration, a burnt-earth policy and the destruction of property". The report accused 33 people of involvement in gross crimes and stated that high-ranking Indonesian officials including former armed forces chief General Wiranto and former head of military intelligence, General Zacky Anwar had to be held accountable for the violence.
In February 2000, Indonesia's Attorney-General announced that it would take three months to decide whether to file charges against those named in the report. In November the same year, the Attorney-General promised that Jakarta would try 22 suspects.
The promise was never fulfilled. Subsequently, there were calls by the international community for the establishment of an international body to try those accused of involvement in the gross violations of human rights.
Jakarta was however insistent that Indonesia itself be given the opportunity to try the suspects and following talks with the United Nations, promised to properly try suspects through a court in accordance with international standards. On 23 April 2001, Indonesian president Abdurrahaman Wahid approved the establishment of an ad hoc Indonesian Human Rights court to try those accused. The mandate of the Human Rights Court was, however, limited and in August 2001, was changed in response to international criticism.
The process of the trials has been heavily criticised by international rights groups. Critics suggest that the court was set up simply to ease international pressure, no to uphold justice. In December 2002, Human Rights Watch named the trials a sham. An article at p 14 of The Age newspaper on Saturday, January 11, 2003 stated that critics say the process was flawed even before it began, with the government of Megawati "lacking the political will to bring senior officers to justice". The article noted that high-ranking officials who had been named as suspects by the Human Rights Commission set up under the Habibe Government, including General Wiranto and General Zacky Anwar, had escaped charges. Other critics have noted that those formally charged may have been merely sacrificed to appease the international community. Bishop Belo has stated that, "We have no faith in the investigations being conducted in Jakarta. Those who authorized the crimes in East Timor will not face justice there".
Further, the article took a cynical view of the trials of Indonesian soldiers accused of crimes in East Timor suggesting that the court is partial to the defence. The article noted that of the 18 people charged over the 1999 violence, 11 have been acquitted, 3 have been found guilty but are currently free pending their appeal being heard (a process which could take years) and 4 trials are still under way. The article also recounted one of the trials currently under way, that of Major-General Tono Suratmanm, accused of involvement in two of the worst massacres in 1999 – the slaughter of up to 60 civilians at a church compound in Liquica on April 6 and the killing, eleven days later, of at least 12 people sheltering in the Dili house of a pro-independence figure, Manuel Carrascalao. In the course of the General's trial, one of the witnesses, the Major-General's former chief of staff, was asked what he knew about the killings. In response the former chief of staff replied that he didn't know, didn't remember and had no information. The article comments that, "(a)s a courtroom spectacle, this week's performance in Indonesia's Human Rights Court confirms what human rights groups and independent observers have been saying for months: Jakarta's effort to bring to account officials for a murderous campaign of intimidation and revenge has degenerated into a farce".
The Commission for Truth, Reception and Reconciliation
In 2000, the National Council of Timorese Resistance proposed the establishment of a Commission for Truth, Reception and Reconciliation. It was recognised that many persons and communities in East Timor remained outraged and that while the United Nations would set up an ad hoc system to deal with serious crimes committed during the violence in 1999, there needed to be put in place a mechanism for discovering the truth of the atrocities in the years which followed the outbreak of the civil war in 1974. There needed to be truth in respect of the 25-year Indonesian occupation. Only through the establishment of the truth could East Timor properly commence its healing process and aim for peace in the region.
On 21 January 2002, the seven National Commissioners were sworn into office and the Commission, an independent statutory authority, was formally established. The Commission's aim is to establish the truth about human rights violations committed between April 1974 and October 1999. Unlike the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the East Timor body will not deal with the more serious crimes of rape and murder.
The Commission will not give amnesty but will facilitate community reconciliation and make recommendations to the government of East Timor to further promote reconciliation and respect of human rights.
Postscript
There is still much work to be done in the effort to build and re-create East Timor. Recent violence in the district of Atsabe, close to the border shared with West Timor, has shown that the threat of instability and militia waged violence still looms. Seven civilians have been counted among the dead in the attacks and there have been reports abound that the attacks were waged by militia on the command of the Indonesia military. Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta has sought to quell those reports stating that he was convinced that Jakarta was not involved in trying to destabilise the re-building process.
The United Nations continues to maintain a presence in East Timor to ensure the security and stability of the territory and to support the East Timorese authorities in internal security, law enforcement, external security and border control, and it is questionable whether East Timor has the ability itself to maintain peace. A clause in the Constitution prohibits the use of the new East Timorese Defence Force to deal with localised violence. In Atsabe, this clause resulted in the police having to assume responsibility of dealing with the violence, despite the police force being grossly under-equipped.
The country is plagued by a lack of education, poor health (significantly the result of the war waged by the militia which cut off medical supplies and food) and poverty. The number of unemployed is astronomical – approximately 75% of those able to work are unemployed. As part of an East Timor Human Development Report, Gusmao made the following statement:
"On the eve of independence, we have much to celebrate. We have liberated our country, and with the support of the international community and the family of the United Nations, we are building an independent future on foundations of peace and democracy.
From independence we must now go on to develop our country. We must choose which path is most appropriate for our development. We must ensure that the basic needs of our people are met, and that living standards are improved.Recently the people of East Timor participated in a remarkable nationwide consultation. In every village, they described their vision of East Timor in the year 2020. They told us what they hoped for in the development of our country. Their vision shows that they are determined to improve education and health.
Selecting their top three priority areas for development, 70% said that education is the most important priority for East Timor, whilst 49% chose health. They also spoke of the need to improve agriculture and roads, to provide water and electricity, increase employment and protect the environment. Above all, they were determined to participate in development, meeting their needs by involving themselves as actively as possible.
Yet in developing our country, we face many challenges. More than two in five people in East Timor live on less than 55 cents per day. Life expectancy is only 57 years. Women die unnecessarily in childbirth. Many children die from preventable diseases before they reach 5 years of age. 43% of the population is illiterate. 46% have never attended school. Many young people are unskilled and unemployed.
…."
In spite of the enormous trials and tribulations with which they continue to be faced, the East Timorese remain ever hopeful that their future will be one of stability and peace, democracy and freedom. International organisations continue to contribute significantly to the re-building process. While East Timor's economy relies on a combination of traditional agriculture, forestry and fisheries, there are also large oil and gas reserves in the Timor Sea which, through a new agreement with Australia signed on May 20, 2002 to develop the reserves, will assist with East Timor's economic development.
At the heart of the desire of the people of East Timor to rebuild their nation state is the wish to foster a strong democracy. That wish is not likely to be fulfilled unless there exists a fiercely independent judiciary, adequately resourced and determined to uphold the rule of law as the presence of an independent judiciary which adheres to the rule of law is an essential component of any truly democratic society. An independent judiciary is also a necessary prerequisite for the people of a society to have confidence that the law will be applied fairly. Finally, foreign investors are more likely to be attracted to invest in East Timor if they can be sure that their interests will be protected by a proper functioning legal system.
**The author acknowledges the substantial contribution of his Associate, Ms Anoushka Bondar, in the preparation of this address.
[1] See Cohen, D. "Seeking Justice on the Cheap: Is the East Timor Tribunal Really a Model for the Future?" Asia Pacific Issues, Analysis from the East-West Center No. 61 August 2002.
[2] As above.
