Aubrey Belford, Gleno, East Timor – Gastao Salsinha, retired rebel and failed assassin, says it is probably politics that explains why he is free to roam East Timor's cloud-covered hinterlands rather than languishing in jail.
Mr. Salsinha was the most senior of 24 rebels convicted earlier this year of attempting to murder the country's president and prime minister in twin attacks in 2008.
But even as the district court in Dili, the capital, handed down a sentence of more than 10 years in jail, Mr. Salsinha, a former army lieutenant, could look forward to certain release. President Jose Ramos-Horta – who was left bleeding and near death with gunshot wounds in one of the attacks – had promised forgiveness.
In late August, he delivered, granting full sentence commutations to all 23 rebels in custody. The opposition, rights groups and the United Nations reacted with dismay, saying the decision undermined the rule of law.
Even Mr. Salsinha, sitting outside a relative's home in the hilly western district of Ermera, said that the president probably had overstepped his constitutional power to grant commutations. "But because there's been political intervention, anything can happen," he said, smiling shyly.
Critics cite the release of Mr. Salsinha and his men as the latest example of crime and no punishment in East Timor, where a series of government interventions have stifled efforts to punish those deemed responsible for crimes during Indonesia's bloody 24-year occupation and during instability since independence in 2002.
But for the government, and Mr. Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace laureate, the moves are about mercy and reconciliation in Asia's newest and poorest country. And with giant Indonesia just across the border, and local divisions still strong at home, there is one other calculation: that a blank slate can buy peace and stability.
Despite having a limited day-to-day role in government, Mr. Ramos-Horta has taken the lead in pushing for what he sees as forgiveness, seizing on a provision in the Constitution allowing him to issue pardons and commutations "after consultation with the Government."
East Timor's list of suffering is a long one. As many as 180,000 people died following Indonesia's 1975 invasion of the former Portuguese colony, including about 1,400 in militia violence surrounding UN-backed independence referendum in 1999.
A violent political crisis set off by the firing of 600 soldiers in 2006 killed at least 37 people and drove 150,000 from their homes in fighting between ethnic groups and security forces – and spawned the rebel movement, led by the late army deserter Alfredo Reinado, that shot Mr. Ramos-Horta.
In an interview outside his office building in Dili, Mr. Ramos-Horta said that, in the case of Mr. Salsinha's men, forgiveness, and preventing a return to instability, trumped the desires of justice advocates in the United Nations and international rights groups.
"You can say that when you put up that question to me, I laugh, because I am already used to the UN, academic jargon that if you forgive people who have been tried, who have faced the whole justice process, and who faced two, three years in prison, you foster a kind of impunity," Mr. Ramos-Horta said.
Not surprisingly, the United Nations – which maintains a foreign troop-backed mission in the country – sees it differently. Since his election in 2007, Mr. Ramos-Horta has dramatically increased the number of commutations and pardons handed out, prompting criticism that his actions are weakening accountability in the justice system.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, in his report on East Timor to the Security Council this month, said the rebels' commutations could endanger future investigations over war crimes and undermine "efforts to combat impunity."
Particularly egregious, in the United Nations' opinion, was the arrest and release in 2009 of Maternus Bere, a pro-Indonesian militia leader indicted by the UN-backed Serious Crimes Unit in the 1999 massacre of more than 30 people at a church in the town of Suai.
Captured by the police after crossing over from Indonesia, Mr. Bere – a leader in the militia accused of carrying out the attack – was let go by government order, succumbing to Indonesian pressure and violating East Timor's own criminal code, said Louis Gentile, the local representative of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights. The decision led to a no-confidence motion in the government, which was defeated on party lines.
Mr. Ramos-Horta said the decision was made because East Timor had decided "to close a chapter" on the 1999 violence by signing off with Indonesia on a Commission of Truth and Friendship report in 2008.
That report acknowledged Indonesian blame for much of the violence but has been criticized for doing nothing to revive moribund calls for an international tribunal, or bring to justice the more than 300 war crimes suspects living freely in Indonesia.
But for Mr. Gentile, trading justice for stability may mean East Timor could get neither. "If you look at examples from around the world, a lot of people would argue that forgiveness and reconciliation with no element of justice will leave, certainly a large number of victims – if not the leadership – feeling that they need to take revenge or that their call for justice was not heard, and they will bide their time to take justice into their own hands," he said.
The release of Mr. Salsinha and his men means no one is now in jail over the 2006 crisis and its aftermath. Although these commutations were not illegal, as critics believe Mr. Bere's release was, Mr. Ramos-Horta clearly undermined the country's justice system by broadly interpreting his constitutional power to pardon and commute sentences, including by basing his decision on his personal preference for "forgiveness," said Luis de Oliveira Sampaio, the director of the Judicial System Monitoring Program, a nongovernmental organization in Dili.
"For us this is a direct effort to minimize the meaning and essence of national law in Timor-Leste," he said, referring to the country by its official name.
Up in the hills of Ermera, Mr. Salsinha said he thought being freed was a step to helping heal the wounds of the 2006 crisis. If anyone was to be punished, he said, it should be members of the political elite, whose squabbling set off the 2006 crisis. "The officials are like Pilate. They've all washed their hands," he said. "It was only the little people, the followers, that went to jail."