Dili, 8 May 2000
The Civil Service Campus was inaugurated today in Dili by the SRSG Sergio Vieira Mello, a landmark in the rehabilitation of the future East Timorese Administration.
Capacity building must be given a central place in UNTAET s work, Vieira de Mello said during the opening ceremony. I cannot stress enough how we must break the cynical climate of corruption, cronyism and nepotism, or the 7-0-2 mentality. Signing in at 7 am, producing zero and going home by 2 o clock in the afternoon.
The East Timorese people must know that in their government, good jobs will not be bought, nor secured through personal favors.
The Campus houses the Civil Service Academy, the Human Resources Development Centre, the Central Recruitment Office and the Public Service Commission, all institutions that will be in charge of capacity building.
They will help provide East Timor with a well-qualified and well-trained civil service which will be ready to take over from international staff once East Timor becomes fully independent.
Also today, the first classes started in the Civil Service Academy. Currently there are two classes: an English course for some 20 Border Service Officers, and a security class for about 25 Security Guards, taught by a private security service. More courses are expected to respond to the needs of civil servants.
Currently there are 4,000 people on the civil service payroll: 1890 secondary school teachers (more than 6000 primary ones are being taken care of by UNICEF), 688 health workers and 795 general civil servants.
INDONESIAN COUNSELOR PRESENTS CREDENTIALS
Today the Counselor Head of the Representative of the Republic of Indonesia, Kristo Wahyono, presented the equivalent of a letter of credentials to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General Sergio Vieira de Mello in a ceremony in the Governor s Office.
DRAFT LEGISLATION FOR CORAL REEFS PROTECTION
UNTAET s Legal Affairs Unit is currently drafting legislation to protect East Timor s coral reefs. The draft laws are expected to be ready soon for approval by the National Consultative Council.
The draft legislation will emphasize the importance of coral reefs to East Timor s fishing industry and the country s marine ecology. Heavy fines will be imposed on those who willfully destroy coral reefs. Destructive fishing practices using dynamite could be outlawed.
UNTAET is also trying to discourage people from buying and selling pieces of coral. A campaign will be launched soon to explain to foreigners why the purchase of coral could encourage the destruction of East Timor s marine environment.
For Timorese, the campaign will help explain to them why the destruction of corals is harmful to East Timor as an island state. Local vendors, many of whom have set up stalls on the Dili sea-front selling coral, will be encouraged to sell other things.
ASSISTANCE TO FARMERS
The Food and Agriculture Organization s Relief Operations Department will start a project in July that will benefit at least 20,000 farmers in East Timor, with a budget over US$1,2 million.
Through this project, farmers will be provided with simple hand tools, and there will be a countrywide cattle vaccination campaign. Thousands of three-week-old chicks are expected to be distributed to some 20,000 vulnerable families to support poultry farming and 1,000 water buffaloes will be imported to replace those killed during the violence last year or which dies of natural cause.
Also, a seed multiplication project funded by the Government of Japan has commenced on 1 May. The objective of the project is to produce during the off season 50 MTs each of good quality maize and rice seed to be ready for distribution at the beginning of the main cropping season.
DECREASE IN NUMBER OF RETURNING OF REFUGEES
Last week, it was the thirtieth week with a record low of only 65 people returning to East Timor. For months, hundreds, if not thousands of people would return to East Timor from the camps in West Timor.
Bernard Kerblat, the UNHCR chief of operations, says it is a combination of reasons. Propaganda, false perception about the security situation, delays on the payments of pensions and salaries of the former civil servants, and the fear of having missed the planting cycle.
Please find attached the transcript of the media briefing by Bernard Kerblat, the UNHCR Chief of Operations
OECUSSI AUTOPSIES
The autopsies conducted to ten of the twenty bodies exhumed in the Oecussi enclave by the forensic experts of the Human Rights Division, have shown that the victims are all male and were all killed with machetes.
The autopsies of the bodies exhumed in Oecussi are still on going since the second phase started in the last week of April.
Passabe, Tumin and Kiubiselo are the three villages included in the Oecussi exhumation. It is estimated that about 75 people died in the Oecussi massacre in September of last year. So far 65 bodies have been exhumed.
