Failed Timor assassination may lessen rebels' sway

The bold attack on President Ramos-Horta raises key concerns about efforts to rebuild security forces.

from the February 12, 2008 edition

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But various initiatives to bring Reinado back into the fold failed to jell, to the mounting frustration of Gusmao – a former resistance leader and independence hero. Reinado, who was wanted on murder charges, was blamed for a recent spate of nonlethal attacks on Australia troops. Yesterday's apparent assassination plots may have been a sign of desperation by a rebel whose popularity was waning.

"In the short-term there will be a lot of fearfulness because some of his supporters are still running around with guns, but for the long-term one of the government's major headaches is now out of the way," says Helen Hill, an East Timor expert at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia.

Sophia Cason, an analyst for the International Crisis Group, says other renegade factions had tired of hiding out and sought a settlement without Reinado and other hold-outs.

"His support was definitely dwindling. Some of the other [ex-soldiers] had already come for dialogue with Xanana Gusmao. [Reinado] may have been feeling that he had fewer options available," she says.

Other observers warned, however, that Reinado loyalists may stage reprisals and seize on his death as a form of martyrdom, further destabilizing the country.

"There's a sense among people in the security sector that we've been in the eye of the storm for the last few weeks and it's going to get more turbulent," says a US aid worker in Dili.

That status as a martyr may be burnished by rumors that Reinado was betrayed by Gusmao and other negotiators. One story circulated Monday by Reinado supporters claimed that he had died before the attacks took place. Perhaps to debunk such rumor, Gusmao has pledged that a full autopsy will be carried out.

East Timor is part of what military strategists call an "arc of instability" to Australia's north, including states such as Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Its modern history has been marked by violence, upheaval, and internal strife. Ramos-Horta and Gusmao were key players in much of the drama.

After Indonesia seized the former Portuguese colony in 1974, former journalist Ramos-Horta became a roving diplomat for Timorese independence. He campaigned in exile to keep his nation's occupied status on the agenda and highlight Indonesia's military rule. In 1996, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Bishop Carlos Belo for his work. Meanwhile, Gusmao led a ragged resistance to Indonesia's rule until his capture in 1992 and detention in a Jakarta jail.

Gusmao and Ramos-Horta returned to their homeland in 1999, after Timorese voted overwhelmingly to secede from Indonesia in a UN-sponsored referendum. The result of the ballot triggered widespread violence by Indonesian-backed militia and a scorched-earth retreat by Indonesian troops. East Timor declared independence in 2002, after three years of United Nations rule, the first new nation-state of the 21st century.

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