CIVIL REGISTRATION STAFF ARRIVES

Eighty-one United Nations Volunteers arrived this morning in Dili to take up their duties as Civil Registration Officers at sub-district level in each of East Timor’s 13 districts. All Registration Officers have previous experience in civil egistration and elections, as well as ten years of professional experience. Most of the new arrivals have served as UNVs in at least two previous UN missions. The majority of them were civil registration officers in Kosovo. The group was extensively briefed for five days by the UN Volunteers Support Unit, the UNTAET Civil Registry Unit and other UNTAET sections in Darwin, Australia. This is the final group of United Nations Volunteers that will take part in the civil registration process. An advance team of 50 was deployed in December 2000.

CIVIL REGISTRATION TO START ON ATAURO ISLAND

The Civil Registry will start the registration of the East Timorese population with a pilot project on Atauro Island in mid-February 2001. Atauro was chosen because the island provides a good sample in terms of population numbers and density. Atauro, with a population of approximately 7,500 people, also represents a good average of East Timor in terms of geography and infrastructure, with its many remote villages. The Registration Sites are located in Atauro’s main Sucos (neighbourhoods), Vila, Bikeli and Maquili. Two registration teams, each consisting of one International and two Timorese Registration Officers, will be deployed in each of the registration sites. The National Council has still to approve the regulation on Civil Registration, but according to the draft regulation approved by the East Timorese Transitional Cabinet in November, registration should be mandatory for everyone above the age of 16. Parents and family members must register children under the age of 16, as well as persons with mental or legal incapacity. People who fail to register will be unable to vote in the elections for the Constituent Assembly.

FIRST FORMAL MEETING OF JOINT BORDER COMMITTEE

The Joint Border Committee, which was established in September 2000 to deal with practical issues or problems of a cross border nature, is having its first formal meetings today and tomorrow in Denpasar, Indonesia. Today’s talks focused on general issues such as the border regime, police cooperation and security. Tomorrow, bilateral talks will be held on various issues, such as assets and claims, pensions, archives and the situation of East Timorese students in Indonesia. The UNTAET delegation is led by the Cabinet Member for Political Affairs, Peter Galbraith, and consists of representatives from different UNTAET departments, including East Timorese staff from the Foreign Affairs Office and the Border Service. The Indonesian delegation is led by Hasan Wirayuda, the Indonesian Foreign Ministry’s director-general for political affairs. The establishment of the Joint Border Committee was decided on during the third round of negotiations between the two parties in July last year in Surabaya.

UNTAET ORGANISES TRAINING COURSE FOR
SENIOR ADMINISTRATORS AND MANAGERS

The Office of Civil Service and Public Employment is organizing six training courses on governance and public administration at the Civil Service Academy in Dili. The courses, scheduled to start on 19 February, are aimed at senior administrators, managers and political leaders. The course, a follow-up to a six-day seminar organized by the Portuguese Institute of Public Administration last July, will focus on enhancing participant’s economic, political and administrative skills.

UNTAET TELEVISION INCREASES ITS PROGRAMMING

The UNTAET-run Televisaun Timor Lorosa’e (TVTL) starts its new programming on 5 February. The station will broadcast news in four languages – Tetum, Portuguese, English and Bahasa Indonesia – for a total of 168 hours per week. TVTL will broadcast more than five hours of Tetum programming a week, five hours of Indonesian, 7.5 hours of Portuguese and the remainder in English. The Tetum program includes news, culture, educational programs, special reports, talk shows, cartoons and documentaries. TVTL is broadcasting programs from BBC, Indonesian Television, Portuguese news channel RTP and MTV.