Harald Bruning – Less than a fortnight after becoming the world's newest nation, East Timor is struggling to consolidate its hard-won democracy and solve myriad social problems left behind by Portuguese colonial neglect, brutal Indonesian occupation and rather transitory nation-building efforts by the United Nations.
The half-island's nascent democracy came under threat just one day after it regained its independence on May 20 when East Timorese Catholic Bishop Carlos Belo demanded that a respected Portuguese journalist be kicked out of the country for writing an article that allegedly slandered the Church.
Bishop Belo, who is notorious for his temperamental outbursts, claimed the article by Antonio Sampaio, head of the Portuguese national news agency's bureau in East Timor, was "full of insults".
In the article, headlined "The strength of the Church and the power of a bishop", Sampaio matter-of-factly described the Catholic Church as East Timor's "most powerful institution", maintaining that Bishop Belo was more powerful than the new state's directly elected President, Xanana Gusmao.
Sampaio also claimed that Portugal's pre-1974 fascist regime had relied on the Catholic Church to maintain its colonial rule of East Timor.
The just-installed East Timorese Government must be given due credit for its unequivocal defence of press freedom in reaction to the bishop's explosion of anger.
Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, who is a Muslim, stressed that he would personally "guarantee that the media have freedom in this country, because that's what we fought for".
Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta, who shared the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize with Bishop Belo, promised he would "never ask for the expulsion of a journalist from my country", stressing that even though he did not always agree with what the media was saying about him or his country, "that's what press freedom is all about". Fortunately, the controversy has died down.
Unfortunately, hard on the heels of the dignified independence celebrations, several Portuguese parliamentarians, on their return from Dili, started belly-aching in Lisbon about the fact that six of them had been forced to share a cramped car during their visit, a situation that had required "some gymnastics" to get in and out of the vehicle. The pathetic bunch also complained that they had been denied "special treatment" by the organisers of the independence bash.
As someone who saw tens of thousands of dirt-poor East Timorese walking for hours, due to a dearth of public transport, to attend the celebrations, sitting on the dusty ground of a dirt field with them because there were no chairs for the public and the press, I can only express disgust at the sheer impertinence of certain European lawmakers.
East Timor should now revive its great slogan in the national Tetum language – ami mos bele (we too can) – that it invented to cheer on its small team that participated in the country's first Olympics in Sydney in 2000.
The 800,000 East Timorese must prove they have the ability to run their own affairs with the help, but not the neo-colonialist interference, of friendly nations. The country has a long history of betrayal by foreign countries – Portugal, Indonesia, Australia, Japan and the United States – and its own political leaders, some of whom in 1975 begged Jakarta to invade their homeland. Quite rightly, the preamble of East Timor's constitution pays tribute to its people's "centuries-long resistance" to colonialism and illegal occupation.
Hopefully, East Timor's leaders will be particularly careful when handling the sensitive language issue. While the Portuguese language is certainly part of East Timor's multicultural heritage, it should never be allowed to edge out Tetum, which expresses the nation's soul in a way a language imported from Europe cannot.
The departure of the 2-1/2-year UN Transitional Administration, whose well-paid presence an East Timorese priest described as "luxury in the midst of misery", has been succeeded by a democratically elected government that, while depending on foreign donations for the time being, has vowed to develop self-reliance in the long term.
Unlike many other former colonies at the time of their independence, East Timor's leadership enjoys full democratic credentials and a seemingly genuine commitment to the protection of civil and social rights.
After all, the fact that Dili's main waterfront street has been named "Human Rights Avenue" appears to be a good omen for future political developments.
[Harald Bruning is the Post's Macau correspondent.]