By John J. Brandon

From 2002 to 2006, The Asia Foundation implemented a series of exchanges for 80 promising young professionals from Southeast Asia and the United States to help develop a better understanding of one another’s region. This program was initiated by the Foundation because of concern that fewer Americans had been involved with Southeast Asia since the end of the Vietnam War and subsequently were less familiar with the region’s nuances and complexities. Consequently, a younger generation of Southeast Asians had limited exposure to the United States and their understanding has been limited as well.
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By Jeremy Gross

On Friday, October 9, the people of Timor-Leste went to the polls to elect their local suco council members. There are over 440 of these councils, and the voting took place at 748 polling stations throughout the country.

Formally gaining independence from Indonesia in 2002 after a UN-administered transition, Timor-Leste has not had an easy start. Much of the country’s infrastructure was destroyed by the departing Indonesians and their supporters. Then in April and May 2006, Dili was rocked by violence between the military and police after one-third of the military was dismissed. This violence spread to civilian gangs in many neighborhoods of the capital, continuing up until March 2007. The fighting resulted in a return of foreign peacekeepers, as well as a large number of internally displaced people the government had to deal with. Further violence related to pre-existing social tensions broke out in 2007 around the presidential election, though confined to a few hotspots, and in the following year the president was critically injured in a dawn raid on his home by disgruntled elements within the military. The economy has been distorted by the high prices associated with the large international aid and peace-keeping missions, despite local citizens suffering from some of the highest levels of poverty and unemployment in Asia.
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By Silas Everett

Silas Everett is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Timor-Leste. He can be reached at severett@asiafound.org.

Earlier this week on August 30, under clear blue skies and a hot Dili sun, President José Ramos Horta delivered remarks at the official ceremony of Timor-Leste’s 10-year anniversary since the popular consultation, when nearly 80 percent of the people voted for independence from Indonesian occupation.

In front of a military parade and stands filled with ministry and political party officials, dignitaries of the foreign diplomatic corps, senior representatives of multi-lateral donor institutions, and past and present United Nations missions to Timor-Leste, President Horta pleaded for all to lay aside grievances against governments that were directly or indirectly responsible for the serious human rights abuses carried out between 1975 and 1999. Dr. Horta also asked the international community and the peoples of Timor-Leste to forgive Indonesia and called for the UN Serious Crimes Unit to be disbanded.
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Earlier this month, The Asia Foundation’s office in Timor-Leste released the results of a landmark opinion poll conducted over the past year: “Law and Justice in Timor-Leste: A Survey of Citizen Awareness and Attitudes Regarding Law and Justice – 2008.” Designed to inform policymakers about progress in the justice sector and to increase citizens’ access to justice, the Foundation’s second nationwide perceptions poll convened focus groups to compare citizens’ perceptions of law and justice today to their perceptions in the 2004 survey. The surveys are the only records of their kind available for longitudinal comparison of the establishment of rule of law in Timor-Leste. Read the full survey.

By Silas Everett and Butch Ragragio

Silas Everett is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Timor-Leste and Butch Ragragio is Chief of Party for the USAID-funded local governance, elections, and civil society project. They can be reached at severett@asiafound.org and bragragio@asiafound.org, respectively.

It’s a sunny day and the wind is blowing in off the sea from the port in Dili. Behind the government palace, the white, octagon-shaped parliament building shines in the hot, tropical sun. Outside the parliament – a few pick-up trucks, then a taxi, drives by some sauntering pedestrians.

In front of the Parliament stands Senor Jose Barreto amid a group of university students smoking cigarettes, one of whom is text messages on his phone. Senor Barreto is Chief of Lauhata Suco. Suco is a term that describes a traditional administrative unit of governance and is often translated into English as “village.” In practice, however, Suco means more than that: it is an administrative unit that has been the main local governing structure for the majority of East Timorese for at least five centuries.

While Timor-Leste, newly-independent, rebuilds itself, state services are still far from the reach of many.
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By Almerio Borges and Hugo Fernandes

Almerio Borges is The Asia Foundation’s Mobile Library Project Officer and Hugo Fernandes is the Foundation’s Books for Asia Manager in Timor-Leste. They can be reached at aborges@asiafound.org and hfernandes@asiafound.org, respectively.

Last summer, we drove a mobile library – a specially equipped mini-bus fit for travel on our small island nation’s rugged roads – outfitted with books, audio recordings, and visual media from Dili to remote parts of the country. Nothing like it had ever existed in Timor-Leste before, and what we saw on our travels to all 13 districts of the country confirmed the deep intellectual curiosity and enthusiasm this young nation has for books.

In Timor-Leste, 36 percent of the population is under the age of fourteen, 61 percent is between the ages of 15-64, and nearly 50 percent of the total population is illiterate. In this new, democratic nation with no lending library and no postal system, pervasive poverty and a lack of public access to information hampers the development of a culture of reading.
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Challenged by ongoing social unrest and marred by violence in 2006 that left 37 dead and displaced close to 150,000 people, Timor-Leste just signaled a positive step forward. Last Friday, the government announced plans for the district-by-district transition of policing authority from the United Nations security forces to the Policia Nacional de Timor-Leste (PNTL), which coincided with the appointment of a new chief of police and the nine year anniversary of the establishment of the PNTL.
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By Silas Everett

Silas Everett is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Timor-Leste. He can be reached at severett@asiafound.org.

The United Nations police (UNPOL) will soon relinquish its lead in patrolling Timor-Leste to the national police force, Policia National Timor-Leste (PNTL). Last month, the Government of Timor-Leste and the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) officially decided that PNTL would resume policing responsibilities and called for a “gradual and phased approach – district-by-district and unit-by-unit in accordance with mutually-agreed and clearly-defined criteria.”

Mr. Xanana Gusmao, Timor-Leste’s Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, added that the first phase of the handover would be held in the districts of Alieu, Lautem, Manatuto, and Ainaro, pending evaluation by a joint technical team of government and UNMIT representatives.

History shows that the process may not be easy. In the past, the UN has had difficulty handing over executive policing authority in Timor-Leste. In 2005, UNPOL’s handover had left a few remaining UN officers behind, when the 2006 crisis broke out. Spurred by political opponents, factions within the PNTL and the National Defense Force (F-FDTL) battled each other. Tragically, eight PNTL officers were shot and killed (one other died later) beneath the United Nation’s flag. These events prompted the full return of the UN police and mobilization of an Australian-led International Stabilization Force. During two months of violence in 2006, 150,000 were displaced. This was a major setback for the country. Almost three years later Timor-Leste is still recovering.
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On January 9, 2009, the President of Timor-Leste’s National Parliament, Fernando La Sama de Araujo, officially inaugurated the Parliamentary Research Center. The Center will be staffed with eight Timorese researchers who will work to develop creative approaches to policy analysis, anticipate legislative needs, and respond to specific requests from legislators in a timely and impartial manner. The objectives of the Center, which is located within the National Parliament, are to maintain parliamentary library resources and IT infrastructure, to strengthen legislative research functions, and to preserve official documents.
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By Angie Bexley

Angie Bexley is a Ph.D. Scholar at the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. The Asia Foundation funded her print-making project in Dili, described below.

In early October, the Timorese art collective Gembel launched its first major exhibition in Dili, with financial assistance from The Asia Foundation. The exhibit, Recovering Lives Across Borders, featured the print works produced from successful collaborations between Gembel and two unique art groups: Taring Padi from Indonesia, and Culture Kitchen from Australia. The collection of works explored the inter-connection among the three nations, particularly in terms of environmental and social justice. The collaborations and the themes in the artworks themselves promote young Timorese as productive, vital members of society.
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