Loro Horta, Dili – With its political and security institutions in shambles, East Timor, also known as Timor Leste, is now emerging as a soft landing spot for regional organized crime syndicates. In early January, United Nations Police (UNPOL) and their Timorese counterparts launched a series of raids in the capital Dili aimed at disrupting growing narcotics and human trafficking operations in the country.
Two Chinese-run bars were targeted where 15 Chinese females and a handful of suspected ringleaders were detained on prostitution and immigration violations. On interrogation it became apparent to the authorities that some of the Chinese women were likely misled to Timor on false offers of legitimate jobs and forced into the sex trade once in the country. The recovery during the raids of a Taser electroshock weapon and the fact that the women's passports were found in the possession of the alleged gang leader suggested to police authorities that the Chinese women were being held against their will.
During the same police operation, seven Indonesian and one Timorese female were also detained on suspicion of being prostitutes and immigration violations. The presence of Chinese and Indonesian women indicated to authorities the wider links of the Chinese crime syndicates now operating in Dili. Interrogation of the various Timorese detained during the crackdown revealed that Chinese crime syndicates are also increasingly spreading to the rural areas, mainly in search of young Timorese girls for the sex trade.
In early December 2007 members of a self-proclaimed French-run non-governmental organization (NGO) were detained by the local police in the remote Timor town of Bastugade near the border with Indonesia while attempting to cross the border with 18 undocumented Timorese girls. The Bastugade case notably came just a week after members of another French pseudo-charity were sentenced in the African state of Chad for allegedly trying to smuggle 100 children out of that country.
In the second week of January, Timorese police also detained another group of individuals who had tried to smuggle an unspecified number of young Timorese girls to Indonesia. An undisclosed number of foreigners, including a Nigerian national, had their requests to adopt young Timorese girls denied on suspicion they could end up in the sex trade.
The police raids also seized unspecified quantities of narcotics, including amphetamines, "ice" and several opium-derived drugs. While there is no reliable data available about the depth and dimensions of Timor's illegal drug trade, authorities believe it is growing rapidly and is beginning to undermine the already delicate law and order situation in this politically unstable nation.
The fast-growing trade in amphetamines and the crystallized methamphetamine "ice" has reportedly led to more violence among Timor's youth, while at the same time brings some of the most dangerous criminal elements in the region, including Chinese triads, into the country.
UNPOL and Timorese security personnel have expressed their concerns that ice and amphetamine use is spiking among local martial arts gangs, which often engage in criminal activities and are routinely used as thugs-for-hire by political groups. For instance, during the May 2006 crisis various political figures were known to have distributed upper narcotics, particularly ice, to local youths to lure them into acts of violence on their behalf.
The January raids on the Chinese-run bars showed to police officials how deeply organized Chinese crime syndicates have over the past three years taken root in Timor. They are not alone, however. Indonesian crime rings, engaged primarily in smuggling, are also said to be increasingly active. Knowing that Timor has only two aging gunboats – one of which has been in repair in Indonesia for the past six months, to cover 870 kilometers of coastline – Indonesian smugglers have increased their operations in Timor's maritime area.
Criminal profits
As a result, Timor is losing an estimated US$45 million annually from smuggling and poaching activities, equivalent to 11% of the government's current annual budget or more than the entire police and defense budget combined, according to official estimates. That figure, of course, may be much higher if the true scale of the problem was better known.
Meanwhile, Timor's lack of naval assets has allowed for the indiscriminate plunder of its fisheries, with as many as 100 vessels from Indonesia, China, Thailand and South Korea believed to be illegally operating in Timorese waters at any given time.
The recent police raids no doubt revealed only the tip of the organized crime iceberg and the revelations from those operations represent the latest jarring development for the country's already battered and bruised political establishment. Some in Dili note that while the authorities targeted several Chinese-run bars, several other suspected underground establishments were left unmolested, allegedly due to their close ties with senior politicians and police officials. A month after the Moonlight and Mona Lisa were raided, both now are for unknown reasons back in business.
A joke now doing the rounds in Dili is that certain establishments were not raided because UNPOL feared that it may have to arrest half of the government in the process and that early elections would have to be called as a result. There is also growing evidence of expanding protection rackets, allegedly run by local thugs with powerful political and police backers. The local heavies hail primarily from the various martial arts gangs active in Dili and prey on everyone from small street sellers to major commercial establishments.
All of this points to major corruption in Timor's already fragile security institutions and is fast infecting other sectors of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao's multiparty coalition government. For instance, a leader of the so-called "petitioners", the group of army soldiers who to disastrous effect deserted from the defense forces in February 2006 on complaints of unfair treatment, was recently caught with an entire truckload of sandalwood he had attempted to smuggle out to Indonesia using a military vehicle.
There is also emerging evidence that organized crime elements, in association with local political actors, played a role in the February assassination attempts against President Jose Ramos Horta and Gusmao. An autopsy conducted on Alfredo Reinado, the rebel leader who shot Horta and was killed during the melee, showed that he was on ice at the time.
In any country plagued by the presence of strong crime syndicates alongside a weak state apparatus basic law and order comes under threat. In a country as politically and economically fragile as Timor, if left to fester without sweeping reforms, it could prove fatal to national survival.
[Loro Horta is a research associate fellow at Singapore's S Rajartnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technology University. He also served as a former advisor to the Timorese Defense Department.]