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EARLY WARNING (EAST TIMOR): New State in a 'State of Emergency'

December 6, 2002

ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION - URGENT APPEALS PROGRAM
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6 December 2002
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UA-63-2002: New State in a 'State of Emergency'
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EARLY WARNING (EAST TIMOR): A demonstration by students, which was mishandled by the UN-led police, pushed the country towards a state of emergency.
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The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has learned from sources in Dili that the incident that triggered the riots on Dec. 4, 2002, occurred when the police tried to arrest a student at East Timor University who was accused of destroying a police motorcycle. A scuffle broke out, and one or two students were shot by the police (the number of casualties is very uncertain with some reports stating that five people were shot dead). A crowd of angry students stormed Parliament and smashed windows and furniture.
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According to the main hospital on the morning of Dec. 5, they treated 25 injured people - 16 with gunshot wounds of which one died (an 18-year-old male student, Manuel Da Silva). The hospital sources, however, could not confirm the number of dead at the university as apparently the students took away the body of at least one student. During the course of the riot, a forgotten and ignored Muslim minority who are living in a mosque in the Farol area of Dili also came under attack, but the attempt to burn down the mosque resulted in a neighboring house being set on fire.
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The incidents led the government to declare a state of emergency and to call in the military (UN troops and East Timor Defence Force) to take control of the situation. Demonstrations planned for Dec. 5 though were cancelled. There were reports on the street on Dec. 5 that the students would parade the body towards the cemetery. This procession though was cancelled due to threats from the government. It implies that the newly established State has acknowledged that UN police are not capable of controlling the situation.
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Meanwhile, UN headquarters in New York reported on the incident, stating that &quot;United Nations peacekeepers and police were called in to restore order in Dili, Timor-Leste, today [Dec. 4] following a violent demonstration involving more than 600 people that left one student dead and a Timorese parliamentarian slightly injured.&quot;
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East Timor, after generations of suffering, gained its independence in May this year. The country emerged traumatized and brutalized with its economy in ruins after a UN-sponsored referendum by the United Nations Assistance Mission in East Timor as the world's first independent nation of the new millennium. The independence that had been the dream of so many for so long brought no magical transformation of people's lives, however. A national non-governmental organization (NGO), Ya Yasan Hak, suggests that the crisis on Dec. 4 and in the recent past in other districts is due to people having high expectations after independence that have not been fulfilled by reality. The country is still desperately poor, and unemployment is extremely high, especially among young people. Partly, however, they blame the failings of the United Nations for having conducted their mission without involving, consulting or training the local population to adequately assume control of the nation. They also feel that the United Nations did not do enough to meet their expectations for justice for the victims of the Indonesian occupation, including the violence before and after the 1999 referendum. Lastly, they believe that the United Nations failed to create a space in which ordinary people could express their grievances and disappointments. In short, it is a perception among the masses that the previous UN missions, the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) and the United Nations Mission in Assistance of East Timor (UNMISET), have failed to deliver.
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The tragic outburst of Dec. 4 should be taken as a wake-up call to both the government and the international community. It has been reported that the students accused the government of corruption and of government officials, especially Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, of living an extravagant life at the expense of the poor. The frustration and anger in the country's youth, supported by about 1,500 former Falantil soldiers, is so great that even the most respected person in East Timor, President Xanana Gusmao, was reportedly ignored by the demonstrators when he asked them to disburse.
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Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta said that the riot should send a strong message to the international community on &quot;the need for lasting aid in order to consolidate peace and stability.&quot; While the international community should not abandon East Timor now that it has achieved independence, it appears from the protests against corruption that aid, while needed to rebuild the country and offer people seeds for a better future, is also part of the young nation's problems; for based on the complaints of the demonstrators, it is apparently the misappropriation of aid that was a major factor in inflaming the passions of the people.
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Meanwhile, UN Security Council Resolution 1410 (2002) gives UNMISET a mandate: To provide interim law enforcement and public security and to assist in the development of a new law enforcement agency in East Timor, the East Timor Police Service (ETPS).
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In reality, the police are still led and controlled operationally by the United Nations Mission in Support of East Timor. The issues relating to law and order are the direct responsibility of the UN special representative of the secretary-general and UN police commissioner in East Timor, not of the government of Timor Leste. The riots on Dec. 4 highlight the failure of the UN police to respond to major disruptions of law and order and an inability of the police operational command to prepare a strategy to deal with such a massive outbreak of public violence. At the same time, it is evident that they have failed to adequately train police officers in riot-control measures. During the past year, there have been many cases where the police have used highhandedness to deal with violent situations. The UN police, who are responsible for maintaining law and order, tend to assume that they have reached the stage where they are no longer responsible for law and order and instead use local police officers, who are primarily still undergoing training, to face complex situations, like those of Dec. 4.
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AHRC stresses that UNMISET should take responsibility for its inability to control the violent situation that erupted on Dec. 4. At the same time, the events of Dec. 4 highlight a procedural discrepancy in the police's use of force that has no judicial or civilian oversight. It is suggested that the East Timor government involves the judiciary and other institutions in investigating these violent incidents and demand a thorough public investigation to determine operational responsibility. AHRC also stresses that appropriate compensation be given to the victims of the incident and their families.
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Document Type :
Urgent Appeal Case
Document ID :
UA-63-2002
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Extended Introduction: Urgent Appeals, theory and practice

A need for dialogue

Many people across Asia are frustrated by the widespread lack of respect for human rights in their countries.  Some may be unhappy about the limitations on the freedom of expression or restrictions on privacy, while some are affected by police brutality and military killings.  Many others are frustrated with the absence of rights on labour issues, the environment, gender and the like. 

Yet the expression of this frustration tends to stay firmly in the private sphere.  People complain among friends and family and within their social circles, but often on a low profile basis. This kind of public discourse is not usually an effective measure of the situation in a country because it is so hard to monitor. 

Though the media may cover the issues in a broad manner they rarely broadcast the private fears and anxieties of the average person.  And along with censorship – a common blight in Asia – there is also often a conscious attempt in the media to reflect a positive or at least sober mood at home, where expressions of domestic malcontent are discouraged as unfashionably unpatriotic. Talking about issues like torture is rarely encouraged in the public realm.

There may also be unwritten, possibly unconscious social taboos that stop the public reflection of private grievances.  Where authoritarian control is tight, sophisticated strategies are put into play by equally sophisticated media practices to keep complaints out of the public space, sometimes very subtly.  In other places an inner consensus is influenced by the privileged section of a society, which can control social expression of those less fortunate.  Moral and ethical qualms can also be an obstacle.

In this way, causes for complaint go unaddressed, un-discussed and unresolved and oppression in its many forms, self perpetuates.  For any action to arise out of private frustration, people need ways to get these issues into the public sphere.

Changing society

In the past bridging this gap was a formidable task; it relied on channels of public expression that required money and were therefore controlled by investors.  Printing presses were expensive, which blocked the gate to expression to anyone without money.  Except in times of revolution the media in Asia has tended to serve the well-off and sideline or misrepresent the poor.

Still, thanks to the IT revolution it is now possible to communicate with large audiences at little cost.  In this situation there is a real avenue for taking issues from private to public, regardless of the class or caste of the individual.

Practical action

The AHRC Urgent Appeals system was created to give a voice to those affected by human rights violations, and by doing so, to create a network of support and open avenues for action.  If X’s freedom of expression is denied, if Y is tortured by someone in power or if Z finds his or her labour rights abused, the incident can be swiftly and effectively broadcast and dealt with. The resulting solidarity can lead to action, resolution and change. And as more people understand their rights and follow suit, as the human rights consciousness grows, change happens faster. The Internet has become one of the human rights community’s most powerful tools.   

At the core of the Urgent Appeals Program is the recording of human rights violations at a grass roots level with objectivity, sympathy and competence. Our information is firstly gathered on the ground, close to the victim of the violation, and is then broadcast by a team of advocates, who can apply decades of experience in the field and a working knowledge of the international human rights arena. The flow of information – due to domestic restrictions – often goes from the source and out to the international community via our program, which then builds a pressure for action that steadily makes its way back to the source through his or her own government.   However these cases in bulk create a narrative – and this is most important aspect of our program. As noted by Sri Lankan human rights lawyer and director of the Asian Human Rights Commission, Basil Fernando:

"The urgent appeal introduces narrative as the driving force for social change. This idea was well expressed in the film Amistad, regarding the issue of slavery. The old man in the film, former president and lawyer, states that to resolve this historical problem it is very essential to know the narrative of the people. It was on this basis that a court case is conducted later. The AHRC establishes the narrative of human rights violations through the urgent appeals. If the narrative is right, the organisation will be doing all right."

Patterns start to emerge as violations are documented across the continent, allowing us to take a more authoritative, systemic response, and to pinpoint the systems within each country that are breaking down. This way we are able to discover and explain why and how violations take place, and how they can most effectively be addressed. On this path, larger audiences have opened up to us and become involved: international NGOs and think tanks, national human rights commissions and United Nations bodies.  The program and its coordinators have become a well-used tool for the international media and for human rights education programs. All this helps pave the way for radical reforms to improve, protect and to promote human rights in the region.