Ahmad Pathoni, Jakarta – Giving jobs to some 600 military rebels whose dismissal triggered deadly violence in East Timor this year is crucial to resolving a crisis there, the International Crisis Group (ICG) said in a report on Tuesday.
The ICG said the critical situation that began with widespread violence in May was not over and the release of a United Nations inquiry into the violence, due this month, was potentially divisive and could lead to fresh trouble.
A series of protests dissolved into chaos and violence, mostly in and around East Timor's capital of Dili, in May after then-prime minister Mari Alkatiri sacked 600 mutinous members of the young country's 1,400-strong army.
"Leaving close to 600 soldiers outside the system is a time bomb, even if they are mostly disarmed," said the ICG, a Brussels-based conflict prevention group. The leaders of the violence should certainly not be allowed to return to the security forces but either military or civilian jobs needed to be found for others who were not involved, the report said.
An estimated 100,000 people were displaced in the violence, which led to the deployment of a 2,500-strong international peacekeeping force before a degree of order was finally restored. Even after it arrived, there have been sporadic outbreaks of arson, and clashes between gangs of youths.
The roots of the violence are complex, with elements of political and regional rivalries involved.
Prime Minister Alkatiri resigned under pressure in June. He was replaced by Jose Ramos-Horta, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and East Timor's representative abroad during its struggle to break free of an Indonesian occupation that lasted from 1975 to 1999.
Ramos-Horta was seen as acceptable to the international community as well as many in Alkatiri's Fretilin party.
The ICG said the upcoming report of the UN inquiry into the violence was expected to name those responsible and recommend prosecutions and would be "explosive" because it would cover the most sensitive cases, including the killings of unarmed police by soldiers.
"The UN, the government, security forces and community leaders all need to have responses ready, including proposals for prosecutions that will ensure fair and reasonably speedy trials," the report said. Charismatic President Xanana Gusmao and rival former prime minister Mari Alkatiri may need to consider forgoing any role in the 2007 elections to resolve the political impasse and allow new leaders to emerge, the ICG said.
A Portuguese colony for hundreds of years before the Indonesian occupation, East Timor is one of the poorest countries in the world in income terms but has considerable oil and natural gas resources that are just beginning to be exploited.