At its second meeting yesterday, the East Timorese Cabinet agreed to appoint Mr. Mari Alkatiri and Mr. Peter Galbraith to the Ministerial Council for the Zone of Cooperation in the Timor Gap. The council has the overall responsibility for matters relating to the exploration and exploitation of petroleum resources in the Timor Gap.
The cabinet also discussed its procedures, a draft Code of Conduct, as well as salary levels for its members. The salaries will be subject to further consultations and will be made public once confirmed.
Furthermore, the cabinet endorsed, and sent to the National Consultative Council for consideration, a draft regulation imposing a temporary freeze on the sale of property held by Indonesian corporations and by non-resident Indonesians.
EAST TIMOR TO ATTEND ASEAN MEETING
East Timor is invited to officially attend the opening and closing ceremony of the ASEAN ministerial meeting starting on Monday, 24 July. The SRSG, Sergio Vieira de Mello, together with the Chief of Staff, Parameswaran Nagalingam and Xanana Gusmao, Jose Ramos-Horta and Mario Carrascalao from CNRT, will take part in the meeting, which is being held in Bangkok, Thailand.
Even though East Timor, whose representatives are invited as guests by the host country of the meeting, will not take an active part in the meeting, it is expected that a number of bilateral meetings will take place between the representatives from East Timor and representatives from ASEAN.
The East Timorese delegation will return to Dili on 27 July.
East Timor can only apply to become a full-fledged member of ASEAN after its independence.
ELECTORAL ASSESSMENT MISSION
A needs assessment mission from the Department of Political Affairs at United Nations Headquarters arrived in Dili yesterday, 20 July. The purpose of the visit is to gather information needed to recommend a plan of action for the electoral process in East Timor.
The mission will assess the capacity of local and regional actors to determine the available resources for the establishment and conduct of sustainable democratic elections. The delegates will talk to UNTAET, the East Timorese civic society, NGOs and the Australian Electoral Commission before returning on 28 July.
In addition, a working group on civic education, comprising UNTAET’s Political Affairs Office and local NGOs, met today to discuss strategies to disseminate information to the population in the run-up to the elections.
JUDGES AND PROSECUTORS SWORN IN
Thirteen newly-appointed East Timorese judges and prosecutors and six international judges were sworn in at the Dili District Court yesterday, 20 July.
“This is indeed a momentous occasion not only for the courts in East Timor and the nation as a whole, but for the establishment of the rule of law through an independent and fully functional judicial system,” said SRSG Sergio Vieira de Mello, at the ceremony.
The swearing-in of the local judges and prosecutors was the third to date.
INDONESIAN INVESTIGATORS HOLD PRESS CONFERENCE
At a press conference called by the investigation team from the Indonesian Attorney General’s Office currently in East Timor, questions were raised by local journalists about the independence and objectivity of the team.
The team is in East Timor to question witnesses with regard to the five priority criminal cases presented by the Indonesian authorities.
The investigator’s team reaffirmed its commitment to conducting a fair and impartial investigation and underscored that the five cases currently under investigation are the first in a row of cases to be investigated in the future.
The team is expected to hold a second press conference next week.
RADIO UNTAET KEEPS TRACK ON PRICES
As of Monday, 24 July, Radio UNTAET will keep its listeners up to-date on consumer prices in Dili, Baucau and Los Palos. Exchange rates as well as the price of basic food, petrol and other essential goods in Dili will be announced everyday, Monday to Friday at 11.45 a.m. in English and 12.15 p.m. in Tetum.
Information from Baucau and Los Palos will be disseminated on a weekly basis.
UNHCR OFFICE IN BETUN CLOSED
UNHCR will continue to deliver basic services such as food aid, distribution and repatriation services to the 120,000 refugees in West Timor. The decision came at a meeting in Denpasar, Indonesia, with UN agencies and NGOs working in West Timor.
UNHCR closed its office in Betun, West Timor, due to security concerns on Wednesday. Its staff has been relocated to Atambua, from where they will carry out their functions in the Belu district.
The meeting in Denpasar on Wednesday followed the cancellation, due to violence, of the registration exercise in the West Timorese camps.
SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY CENTER TO BE REBUILT IN SUAI
The reconstruction of a secondary school and the rebuilding of a community center in Fohorem subdistrict, Suai district, started last week under the Temporary Employment Project (TEP).
The reconstruction work is expected to be completed by the end of August.
Because of the bad condition of the road after the heavy rains a few weeks ago, UNTAET in Suai and the TEP workers from the sub-district used horses to bring the materials from Suai’s Tilomar sub-district to Fohorem.
So far, about US$ 3.8 million have been spent in funding TEPs in East Timor. By 31 August, US$4.5 million will have been spent. Approximately 50,000 people work under TEP in the whole territory at the moment.
