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DE RUEHDT #0086/01 0761015
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O R 171015Z MAR 09
FM AMEMBASSY DILI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4335
INFO RUEHDT/AMEMBASSY DILI 3854

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 DILI 000086 
 
TOPEC 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR P, EAP - DAS MARCIEL 
STATE PLEASE PASS PEACE CORPS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV EAID ASEC TT
SUBJECT: RETURN OF THE PEACE CORPS TO TIMOR-LESTE 
 
REF: A) RAMOS-HORTA - OLSEN LETTER 3/10/09 
 
Summary 
 
------------- 
 
 
 
¶1. (SBU)  President Ramos-Horta formally requested the Peace 
Corps to resume its program in Timor-Leste in a March 10 letter. 
 Embassy Dili judges the security and stability conditions in 
Timor-Leste as safe and fully permitting the resumption of a 
Peace Corps Volunteer program.  Much has changed to improve 
security conditions in Timor since the Peace Corps suspended its 
program in 2006.  Politically, Timor-Leste successfully held 
three national elections in 2007, democratically installing a 
new president, national parliament and central government. 
During late-2007 and 2008, the new government acted to resolve 
both causes and consequences of the 2006 crisis, including 
settling the grievances of a large number of military mutineers, 
enhancing the coordination between the national police and 
military, resettling well over two thirds of the 100,000 persons 
left internally displaced by the events of 2006, dramatically 
reducing the level of crime, and as part of a UN mandated 
program, recertifying 85% of the national police.   An 
International Stabilization Force (ISF) under UN auspices, 
initially invited into Timor-Leste to restore order in 2006, now 
remains primarily as a back-up to the country's national 
security forces, and does not perform day-to-day law enforcement 
or other public security operations. 
 
 
 
¶2. (U) After the attempted assassination of President Ramos 
Horta and Prime Minister Gusmao on February 11, 2008, Timor's 
legal and political institutions functioned well, administering 
a short-lived state of emergency in full accordance with the 
country's constitution and laws, and peacefully compelling the 
surrender of the perpetrators.  There has been no significant 
instance of political violence, unrest, communitarian fighting, 
terrorist threat or external danger since.  All major public 
events during the past year have been remarkably peaceful.  In 
light of the improved security situation, the U.S. State 
Department revoked its travel warning for Timor-Leste in 
September 2008, the ISF reduced its manpower by 15 percent to 
roughly 750 soldiers in January 2009, and the UN will begin a 
phased transfer of police authority to the Timorese national 
police beginning as early as March 2009.  Now that the 
Government of Timor-Leste has formally invited the Peace Corps 
to reopen its volunteer program, Embassy Dili strongly 
encourages and will eagerly support an early return.  End 
summary. 
 
 
 
Timor -Leste Needs the Peace Corps 
 
--------------------------------------------- -- 
 
 
 
¶3.  (U)  Timor-Leste is Asia's poorest country, with half of its 
population living on less than a dollar a day, 85 percent of its 
labor force engaged in subsistence agriculture, illiteracy 
running at well over percent, and more than half the population 
stunted from malnutrition.  Timor's poverty is correlated with 
enormous gaps in social infrastructure, distinguished by a poor 
national road network; inadequate telecommunications (less than 
one percent% of households has a landline telephone); a single, 
increasingly congested seaport; an electricity grid that 
supplies power to only a third of the country's households and 
then only for short segments of the day; a health services 
infrastructure barely able to cope with one of the world's 
highest rates of maternal and child mortality; an education 
system in which less than a fifth of schoolchildren has a chair 
or desk, and more than half without textbooks; poor water and 
sanitation facilities (two-thirds of adults fetch water at least 
once a week); and a single international airport that can handle 
planes no larger than a 737.  Cognitive and organizational 
skills on average are very low, with close to 50 percent of the 
adult population in 2007 reporting zero educational attainment 
and only one percent of the work force engaged in industry. 
 
 
 
¶4. (U) These gaps suggest several possible activities for Peace 
Corps Volunteers should the program resume in Timor-Leste. 
Given the nationwide lack of organizational, management and 
business development capabilities, and the particular shortage 
of these skills in rural areas, there is a great demand for 
 
DILI 00000086  002 OF 004 
 
 
developing business and entrepreneurial skills.  Volunteers 
could train and advise potential Timorese entrepreneurs and 
managers in business planning, marketing, financial management 
and product design; they could advise agricultural cooperatives, 
agribusinesses and farmers; and volunteers could work with 
community and business support groups to encourage business 
development from simple retailing to handicraft production. 
There is also a widespread and growing demand for more English 
language instruction, and the need for increased science and 
math instruction is also profound (the languages of instruction 
for primary education in Timor-Leste is Portuguese or Tetum). 
Finally, the rapidly increasing population is putting great 
pressure on Timor-Leste's environment, and the country faces the 
highest rate of deforestation in Asia.  Volunteers would find 
rich opportunities in raising environmental awareness among 
Timorese communities and organizing tree-planting or watershed 
management projects. 
 
 
 
Social and Political Stability 
 
------------------------------------ 
 
 
 
¶5. (U) In 2006, the Peace Corps' Timor-Leste program was 
suspended as the result of a severe political and security 
crisis which led to an intervention by an international military 
and police force under UN auspices.   Factors underlying the 
2006 crisis included a highly contentious political elite; weak, 
politicized, poorly motivated or poorly directed security 
institutions; poor access to justice and a culture of impunity, 
especially among the elite; and the disillusionment and 
disempowerment that has accompanied Timor's failure to raise its 
people out of grinding poverty. 
 
 
 
¶6. (U) Since 2006, the GOTL and the international community have 
succeeded in restoring stability, and have made a good start in 
addressing the political and societal causes of the crisis.  In 
2007, the GOTL held Presidential and Parliamentary elections. 
It was a measure of success that episodes of political violence 
in August of that year were contained and did not re-ignite 
social and political divisions lingering from the previous 
year's implosion. 
 
 
 
¶7. (U) The government of Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, installed 
in August 2007, set out to tackle the primary consequences of 
the 2006 crisis, and to some extent its causes, and recorded 
significant success in 2008.  It has closed most of the 
internally displaced persons camps that were stubbornly 
scattered across Dili until just months ago.   During the course 
of 2008, the government reintegrated more than 70,000 persons 
displaced from their homes by the violence in 2006.  Once 
long-time residents of wretched IDP camps, these families are 
now resettled in their original neighborhoods or villages.  Only 
eight camps remain and the government is committed to their 
early closure. 
 
 
 
 
 
¶8. (U) On February 11, 2008, the Government of Timor-Leste 
averted what could easily have escalated into another national 
crisis.  Armed followers of Alfredo Reinado, a dissident former 
military officer who had been at large with a band of supporters 
since 2006, opened fire on the President and Prime Minister in 
separate incidents.  The President was severely wounded, but the 
Prime Minister, uninjured, implemented the Constitution's 
provisions for national emergencies.  The GOTL then established 
a joint command of the police and military to coordinate the 
search for, and surrender of, the attackers.  (In 2006, these 
agencies had engaged in open warfare on each other in the 
streets of Dili.  Routine and effective coordination among their 
leadership has continued.)  With Reinado dead and his followers 
in custody since May 2008, a major source of instability has 
been eliminated. 
 
 
 
¶9. (U) The government has also resolved remaining grievances 
held by the "petitioners," the soldiers that left the defense 
force in early 2006.  This settlement and the August 2008 
closure of the petitioners' Dili encampment eliminated another 
 
DILI 00000086  003 OF 004 
 
 
major destabilizing factor. 
 
 
 
¶10. (U) The Gusmao government also has also taken first steps to 
reduce social tensions by improving living conditions.  These 
included subsidizing food staples and introducing a pension 
system for veterans, the elderly and the infirm (a daunting 
logistical challenge in a rugged country without a postal system 
or banking network).  The prime minister designated 2009 as the 
year of infrastructure and rural development as a means of 
signaling his government's intent to speed economic growth and 
tackle the scourges of poverty and unemployment. 
 
 
 
¶11. (SBU) The International Stabilization Force (ISF) comprises 
military and police elements from Australia and New Zealand, and 
together with the UN Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT), 
has operated at the invitation of the GOTL under a UN Security 
Council mandate since the 2006 crisis.  Following the February 
11 events, the ISF increased its strength to about 1,100  men. 
In response to improved security conditions since then, it has 
scaled back its size to about 650 and further reductions are 
likely.  The ISF does not currently carry out routine law 
enforcement or public security operations, but rather serves as 
a deterrent to violence and as an "insurance policy" while 
Timor-Leste's own security forces remain fragile.  In case of a 
recurrence of instability, the ISF will serve as the nucleus of 
a larger international force.  Such a force would assume 
responsibility for evacuation of Australian and other, including 
U.S., nationals. 
 
 
 
¶12. (SBU) UNMIT's UNSC mandate was renewed in February 2009. 
UNMIT and the ISF will likely remain in Timor-Leste for some 
years to come, most likely at reduced strength.  The UN and 
Timor-Leste's closest international partners concluded that 
their precipitous and premature reduction in force in 2002-04 
contributed to the 2006 crisis, and are therefore now committed 
to an extremely prudent approach to maintaining a security 
presence in Timor-Leste.   Complete withdrawal of the ISF is 
unlikely until the country has experienced years of total 
stability. 
 
 
 
¶13. (U) The UN Police Mission in Timor-Leste (UNPOL) assumed 
executive authority in 2006, but will hand this over to the 
National Police starting later in 2009.  While the plan's 
timetable and benchmarks are still under preparation, 
stakeholders agree that this will be a gradual process premised 
on continued good security and improving capacity on the part of 
the National Police of Timor-Leste (PNTL).  Although the PNTL is 
still a weak and poorly trained force, it has received training 
from bilateral donors including Portugal, New Zealand, and the 
U.S.  The Australian Federal Police has opened a permanent 
training mission, the Timor-Leste Police Development Program, 
which will implement a major long-term capacity building program. 
 
 
 
 
 
¶14. (U) Local confidence in the police is very high.  According 
to a November 2008 poll national conducted by the U.S.-based 
International Republican Institute, 80 percent of Timorese rate 
the job being performed by their police as good (59 percent) or 
very good (21 percent).  A survey conducted by The Asia 
Foundation in December 2008 yielded similar results, with 84 
percent of Timorese reporting having "great confidence" in the 
PNTL, and 53 percent responding that the security situation has 
improved in the past year. 
 
 
 
 
 
Crime and Personal Security 
 
------------------------------------- 
 
 
 
¶15. (U) Timor-Leste's crime levels are low by international 
standards.  In 2008, the number of assaults per 100,000 people 
in Timor-Leste was 169, compared to the worldwide average of 250 
and 795 in the U.S. and 796 in Australia.  The murder rate in 
 
DILI 00000086  004 OF 004 
 
 
Timor-Leste in 2008 was 3.2 per 100,000 persons, down sharply 
from 8.3 in 2007, and compares favorably with America's 5.6 rate 
and 8.4 in neighboring Papua New Guinea.  Arson incidents are 
also down sharply in 2008 compared to 2007.  As in most 
countries, crime rates in the outlying districts of Timor-Leste, 
areas to be the likely hosts to future Peace Corps volunteers, 
are far lower than in the capital of Dili, and incidents tend to 
be confined to domestic (marital) and land disputes. 
 
 
 
¶16. (U) Gang and martial arts group violence, widespread 
especially in Dili in the wake of the 2006 crisis, was brought 
under control by a new PNTL Dili Task Force created in December 
2007, heightened UNPOL surveillance, and mediation efforts that 
led to a formal truce being signed in 2008 by two major martial 
arts groups. 
 
 
 
¶17. (U) Foreigners are generally welcome in Timor-Leste and are 
rarely if ever singled out for crime.  In the months following 
the 2006 crisis, there were incidents of the "wrong place at the 
wrong time" variety, such as cars stoned when foreign drivers 
found themselves between feuding gangs.  These have stopped 
since the anti-gang crackdown of late 2007.  Otherwise, post is 
aware of infrequent instances of are petty theft, minor 
break-ins and purse snatchings.  Violent crime against 
foreigners is practically unheard of.  Even at the height of the 
2006 disorder, there were no foreign fatalities in Timor-Leste. 
 
 
 
A Significant Foreign National Presence 
 
--------------------------------------------- ------- 
 
¶18. (U) The international presence in Timor-Leste numbers in the 
thousands, and comprises of representatives of the large UN 
mission and many international NGOs.  The largest single expat 
communities are Australian and Portuguese, each numbering about 
1,500.  The Brazilian Embassy estimates that it has 300 
nationals here, including Portuguese language teachers working 
in remote areas.   Australia, South Korea and Japan have Peace 
Corps-type volunteer programs in Timor, with participants 
operating throughout the country.  Australia has 55 volunteers 
serving in five government-run programs; there are dozens more 
working for NGOs.   Cuban medical personnel, Portuguese 
teachers, and Brazilian missionaries are also found in 
significant numbers throughout the countryside. 
 
 
 
Comment 
 
------------- 
 
 
 
¶19.  (U) On March 10, 2009, President Ramos-Horta formally 
invited the resumption of a Peace Corps Volunteer program in 
Timor-Leste.  Embassy Dili strongly supports a return of the 
Peace Corps to Timor-Leste and judges with a high level of 
confidence that the security conditions are now conducive to 
this.  Embassy Dili invites the Peace Corps to send an 
assessment team to Timor-Leste to survey both the security 
situation and possible future activities for Volunteers as soon 
as possible.  The need for Peace Corps assistance in Timor-Leste 
is enormous, and the Peace Corps retains a very deep reservoir 
of goodwill and respect from its precious work in Timor-Leste. 
Indeed, it is hard to imagine a better fit for the Peace Corps 
than Timor-Leste.  End comment. 
KLEMM