Word: fretilin
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Democracy can be a messy business. The tiny Southeast Asian nation of East Timor, just five years old, learned that lesson this week after parliamentary elections on Saturday resulted in no one party capturing a majority. Preliminary official results released on July 5th gave former ruling party Fretilin 29% of the vote, while the National Congress for the Reconstruction of East Timor (CNRT), the party newly formed by popular ex-President and independence fighter Xanana Gusmão, trailed with 24%. The split vote means that East Timor - already fractured along geographical and socioeconomic lines - will most likely be ruled...
...Timorese cherish independence. But no amount of freedom masks the fact that nearly 45% of the country lives on less than $1 a day. When the international community began decamping in 2002, thousands of jobs associated with its presence disappeared. The current government, run by the political party Fretilin, a key resistance force during the Indonesian occupation, hasn't improved the economic situation much. Although Fretilin's reputation is burnished by the brave ex-guerrillas and former exiled activists among its ranks, many members of East Timor's government are woefully inexperienced. "For many of these people, this...
...Some members of Fretilin do acknowledge that divisions have widened under their leadership. "Our biggest mistake was pretending we are not a traumatized people," says Minister of State Administration Ana Pessoa, who is a senior member of the ruling party. "By focusing almost exclusively on the physical reconstruction of this country, we didn't pay enough attention to people's mental states. People's irrational fears helped trigger the crisis last year, but we didn't understand it well enough to take it seriously." For his part, Ramos-Horta is urging his countrymen to look ahead, speaking glowingly...
...Fretilin's pledges of concern were undermined last month when Deputy Prime Minister Estanislau da Silva denied reports of famine in the countryside, insisting that not a single person in East Timor had died of hunger since independence. "Every day I have people coming to my door who are slowly starving," says Bishop of Baucau Basílio do Nascimento. "Are you saying these people do not exist?" Even if the April presidential election is supposed to give these citizens a voice, many are so disenfranchised that they see little point in participating in the democratic process. Back...
...military is unable to prevent Laskar Jihad troops from continuing their attacks, it will constitute a chilling victory for the Islamic extremists. "They've managed to evict the military from Poso: not even Fretilin could do that in East Timor," says Tamrin Tomagola, a Muslim sociologist at the University of Indonesia. "If the situation is not brought under control, Poso could become the peak of all communal conflicts in Indonesia. The whole of Sulawesi could be engulfed and the conflict could then spread as far as the southern Philippines. This is a key fear...