DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA INTERVIEW - Wednesday 3rd May, 2006
GEORGE NEGUS: Dr Horta, it's good to see you again. You're a
busy man.
Can I read you something from the 'Sydney Morning Herald' newspaper
here in Australia? It says, "The television scenes from East Timor are
dismaying,” talking about what's going on in your country for
the last couple of days. "Burning vehicles and houses, dead and injured
being brought into clinics and fearful families sheltering in church
grounds are the images everyone hoped had been relegated to history."
It must be upsetting you to see what's going on in your country at the
moment. We thought all of that sort of stuff was behind us, behind you.
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA, FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER, EAST TIMOR:
Yes,
certainly, but putting it in that context as such as the way you read
it, how many vehicles were burned, how many bodies were really being
brought to hospital? Altogether three vehicles and a motorbike were
damaged, not one single building of the government were burned down,
some windows and altogether five bodies been recovered.
GEORGE NEGUS: So what happened?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Some hooligans, leaders, not political
people, and
notorious gang leader and organisation called that has been there since
2000, '99.
GEORGE NEGUS: Motivated by what, though?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: He is just a pure troublemaker. His main
activity
all these years has been extortion of money from poor villagers.
GEORGE NEGUS: What about the suggestion that this is the tip
of an
iceberg, it is a microcosm of a more deep-seated problem that you face,
that your stability is still very much at risk because of the state of
the economy?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: That is too simplistic, actually, and
only very
much a small part of the problem. And it's erroneous or simplistic the
reportings about the country got poorer. Actually, that's not true. If
you look at the situation in 2000, 2001, 2002, our economy has
recovered.
Unemployment, contrary to what one daily paper in Sydney was saying
here yesterday, is 80%. That is just absolute nonsense.
GEORGE NEGUS: What is the unemployment?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: It's 7% unemployment in Dili, the capital.
GEORGE NEGUS: And outside?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Outside it goes as high as 40%.
GEORGE NEGUS: What a lot of people would wonder is how this
unrest,
this resentment, within the armed forces, and it's about a third of the
army involved, right...?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Yes.
GEORGE NEGUS: How they slipped past you and the president.
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: The President did address this issue in
2003,
2004. He produced a report with lengthy recommendations in August 2004
but the President does not have any legislative or executive authority.
GEORGE NEGUS: Because you've said, "We must ask ourselves
whether we
allow problems to linger and fester, rather than promptly and
resolutely address them." I mean, are you talking about the Prime
Minister here? Is he ultimately responsible?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: I talk about us as a collective
leadership, I talk
about us the government of which I'm a part and so we, as government,
from the prime minister to myself and everybody else, have it to answer
why this problem happened, why almost 600 soldiers left the barracks.
GEORGE NEGUS: How are you going to resolve this?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: I've met many of them and they don't want
to go
back to the army, they have had enough of the army. One reason they are
upset, one reason they left, it's not really political, it's not East
and West conflict as people have made up and it is they are angry that
they've been there since 2000, five years, they were supposed to be
there for a 2-year contact when they signed the agreement with United
Nations at the time that set up - helped setting up - their defence
force and no definition of their status.
GEORGE NEGUS: This is more than a teething problem, though,
for the
world's newest nation, isn't it? It shows the lack of cohesion, a lack
of organisation, a lack of precise decision-making.
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Well, it is part of our nation building,
our
growing pains.
GEORGE NEGUS: Is the situation going to get worse before it
gets
better?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: I would hope not. Right now, because of
the
incidents, the government is waken up and is swiftly acting on it.
GEORGE NEGUS: Dr Horta, you've expressed some interesting
views. You
know about Australia's predicament with West Papua at the moment and
refugees and our relations with Indonesia. What's the lesson to be
learned by Indonesia, Australia and West Papua from the East Timorese
experience with what's going on now with refugees from West Papua?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: I believe that the Indonesian Government
and the
people are acutely aware that the unhappiness among many West Papuans
relate to the many, many years of neglect, abuse, and lack of freedom
and so on. Indonesia has to address that. It cannot blame these
individuals who flee, or blame third parties. They have to courageously
address the root causes of their unhappiness among many West Papuans.
GEORGE NEGUS: Is the Indonesian military the cause of the
problem in
West Papua, the same sort of militia problem that you faced in East
Timor, and is the Indonesian Government ignoring that fact?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: The Indonesian leaders have a real
dilemma, a real
difficulty in addressing some of the abuses committed by the security
forces in West Papua. They cannot simply say, you know, "This does not
exist." It exists. It happened in Aceh, the Aceh people rebelled and it
had a very, very determined fight, quest for independence as a result
of years of humiliation and violence. Finally and partly because of the
tsunami that devastated Aceh and under the resolute leadership of
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, they found peace in Aceh. I tell you, I
personally knowing the Acehnese leadership for many years, I had doubts
they would moderate their stance and yet the unthinkable happened - the
Acehnese dropped independence and negotiate with the central
government.
GEORGE NEGUS: And that's what you're saying the West Papuans
should do?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: I would say because the Acehnese were far
more
radical in their demands than the West Papuans. The West Papuans are
wonderful, extraordinary human beings in general.
GEORGE NEGUS: But you didn't opt for autonomy, you opted for
independence. Why is it different for them?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Well, different in a very, very important
sense.
East Timor was never part of Indonesia. It was part of the Portuguese
empire. West Papua was part of the Dutch East Indies. Indonesia claimed
to be the successful state to all the territories of the Dutch East
Indies. That is the major historical and legal difference. If the West
Papuans negotiate on the basis of greater autonomy, justice, less troop
presence there, in West Papua, they will have the support of the
international community and they will have the support of the
Indonesian people. Then they can extract the best possible arrangement
from Indonesia.
GEORGE NEGUS: But if they press - continue to press for
independence?
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: They will not have the support of a
single country
in the world and no sympathy from the Indonesian society.
GEORGE NEGUS: It's wonderful to talk to you - it always is.
DR JOSE RAMOS-HORTA: Pleasure.