Dili, 10 July 2001
ALL 16 POLITICAL PARTIES REGISTERED
FOR 30 AUGUST ELECTION


The Associação Popular Democrática Timorense Pró-Referendo (Apodeti) today received its official registration certificate from the Independent Electoral Commission in Dili, bringing the registration of political parties for the purpose of presenting candidates to the elections for the Constituent Assembly to its final conclusion. All 16 East Timorese political parties have now been officially registered. On 6 July, the Partai Liberal (PL) received its official certificate of registration. This Friday, 13 July, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) will conduct a lottery to determine the position for each party and independent candidate on the national ballot. The lottery will take place at the IEC Headquaters, in Dili. The District Electoral Offices will conduct their own lotteries before 12 noon on Saturday.

TEAM ALPHA SUSPECT ADMITS ROLE IN LOS PALOS MASSACRE

A prominent member of the Team Alpha militia today publicly admitted his involvement in the murder of a group of clergy, church workers, a journalist, and a youth during an ambush on a minibus in Lautem district in 1999. “It was my most fatal mistake,” Joni Marques told a three-judge panel today at East Timor’s first Crimes Against Humanity trial. “Because it was the wrong thing to do in the eyes of the community and the people, I am ready to make my confession for this mistake.” Marques also admitted to being present at the torture and subsequent killing of Evaristo Lopes, a Falantil supporter, in Lospalos town; and to murdering a man in northern Lautem district whom Team Alpha allegedly suspected of supporting the pro-independence umbrella CNRT.

However, Presiding Judge Marcelo Dolzany da Costa determined that not all of Marques’ admissions were consistent with the Prosecutor’s case and the charges against him, and subsequently ruled his statements to be non-admissions of guilt. Marques will thus likely have to undergo cross-examination by the Prosecutor and face evidence provided by witnesses before his guilt can be determined and any sentence imposed. Marques is the first of 10 East Timorese defendants to respond to a series of charges that include 13 murders, an attack and burning of a number of villages and subsequent deportation of their inhabitants, and torture. All of these incidents took place in Lautem district, in the eastern part of East Timor, between April and September 1999. The eleventh suspect indicted in the case, Indonesian Syaful Anwar, was the second-in-command of the Indonesian Kopassus special forces in Lautem district at the time and is still at large. Marques today accused Anwar of torturing Evaristo Lopes and then beating him to death with an iron bar. Preliminary hearings into the case started in mid-February and over 600 pages of statements by the accused and 78 witnesses have been translated since then. The trial began last week at the newly renovated Court of Appeals in Dili. The Special Panel for Serious Crimes, which consists of one East Timorese and three international Judges, can try cases of Genocide, War Crimes, Crimes Against Humanity, Murder, Sexual Offences and Torture, carried out between 1 January and 25 October 1999. The Special Panel was set up in June last year.

NEW MARKETS OPEN IN DILI

Three new markets have opened in Dili, East Timor’s capital, after months of rehabilitation work funded by the Japanese Government. The central market area, which had become chronically overcrowded and unwieldy, is now being cleaned and prepared for future public development. “The relocation of the central market has now made markets available to the population, with far better conditions in the three new locations. It has relieved traffic congestion in the city centre, as well as reduced the possibility of a major fire,” Anna Korula, Acting Dili District Administrator, said today. “A larger number of traders are able to have stalls than was possible in the central market.” The relocation of the central market vendors started on 11 June. Hundreds of vendors commenced clearing their sites and building stalls in the new markets. The operation involved the assistance of UN Civilian Police, the Peacekeeping Force and community leaders.

INSPECTOR GENERAL’S REPORT ON PORT ADMINISTRATION

The Inspector General of the East Timor Transitional Administration, Mariano Lopes da Cruz, released a report today on the operation and administration of the ports of East Timor. The report looks at port activity over the past year and at the financial activity of the port during the last three months of last year. The Inspector General focused on five areas of risk: staffing, management systems, financial systems, revenue losses and port development activities. The report identifies significant deficiencies in all of these areas. The Inspector General said today that the Department of Infrastructure of the East Timor Transitional Administration (ETTA) has made little progress in hiring East Timorese staff to run the port. The shortage of Timorese staff is exacerbated by the low number and high turnover of international staff. There were only two international staff at the time of the examination and there have been three different port managers in 14 months. The report says that the port lacks adequate job descriptions, appropriate separation of responsibilities, and has an inadequate distribution of supervisory responsibility.

The Inspector General estimated that lost revenues at the port amount to US$500,000 per year, most of which are related to non-compliance with regulations. The major sources of revenue loss were the failure to collect user fees in relation to UNTAET cargo and military vessels and the failure to charge for the movement of empty containers. In respect to development activity, the Inspector General found that many consultants had made recommendations for the port, but few of these recommendations had been implemented. The report says that recommendations fall into "a black hole". The report of the Inspector General makes more than fifty recommendations to improve the administration of the port. A key recommendation is that control over port activities should be centralized in a central executive position. The Inspector General also urges the Transitional Administrator to immediately reassign a professional bookkeeper already on the UNTAET mission to the port administration to develop the bookkeeping capacity at the port. The Department of Infrastructure has accepted all of the findings and recommendations of the report and has developed an action plan to address many of the problems.

UNIFEM REPRESENTATIVES VISIT EAST TIMOR

An Independent Expert Assessment Team from the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) arrived in East Timor yesterday for a four-day visit that is a component of a multi-country study on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and the role of women in peace-building. The seven-strong delegation is led by Elisabeth Rehn, former Minister of Defence of Finland and former SRSG in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a former candidate for the Liberian Presidency and Assistant Director of UNDP for Africa. As well as Dili, the delegation will visit the districts of Aileu, Maliana and Liquiça. The delegation plans to gather information from community based-organizations at the district level and East Timor Transitional Administration officials dealing with issues of gender, human rights and politics. The program is being coordinated by UNTAET’s Gender Affairs Unit.