Timor-Leste: As fragilidades de Xanana Gusmão

Em entrevista para a Lusa apercebi-me que todos nós fomos ludibriados e continuaremos a correr esse risco se votarmos em força no recém anunciado partido xananista que usa e abusa de algo com grande significado para a história de Timor, refiro-me ao CNRT. Fiquei estupefacta ao aperceber-me que afinal Xanana Gusmão ainda consegue falar verdade, por vezes, e confessou-se “desapontado com o seu desempenho como líder do país”. Quem fala assim e teima continuar na política certamente que não o faz por bem e está-se nas tintas para os prejuízos que possa causar a toda a nação. É quase o mundo inteiro a confessar-se desapontado com o desempenho de Xanana Gusmão, questionando-se sobre se na realidade as capacidades desempenhadas durante a luta de libertação foram de sua autoria ou se não existiria outro mentor em zona pardacenta. Xanana Gusmão, afirma na entrevista concedida á Lusa que “a crise ainda não acabou” e que haverão “outras crises no futuro, embora nunca tão graves como esta”, considerou. Pois bem, se o desempenho de Xanana nesta crise foi e é desastroso – ele próprio assim considera – porque motivo se obstina em continuar na política e a dividir os timorenses? Porque motivo, insiste em fundar o partido xananista, dividindo ainda mais o espectro político, procurando obter uma maioria que o conduza ao terrível desempenho de primeiro-ministro de crises que não saberá administrar, como não o soube no desempenho das funções de Presidente da República. Ana Loro Metan Março 2007

Moçambique: A irregularidade das eleições

Missão de observação da União Europeia reafirma existência de irregularidades nas eleições em Moçambique 08/11/2014 A Missão de Observação Eleitoral da União Europeia (MOE - UE) reafirmou que uma série de irregularidades mancharam o processo das eleições gerais em Moçambique realizadas em 15 de Outubro. As eleições legislativas foram ganhas pelo partido Frelimo, no poder, e as presidenciais pelo seu candidato Filipe Nyusi. Maputo - A Missão de Observação Eleitoral da União Europeia (MOE - UE) reafirmou que uma série de irregularidades mancharam o processo das eleições gerais em Moçambique realizadas em 15 de Outubro. As eleições legislativas foram ganhas pelo partido Frelimo, no poder, e as presidenciais pelo seu candidato Filipe Nyusi, informa a AIM. Um comunicado de imprensa da União Europeia (UE) aponta casos de restrições localizadas de movimento dos observadores e de representantes de partidos políticos e de acesso à informação. "Muitas dessas irregularidades, publicamente reconhecidas pela Comissão Nacional de Eleições (CNE), descredibilizaram o processo de apuramento de resultados, principalmente em quatro províncias", avança o comunicado. Contudo, a UE acredita que as autoridades responsáveis pela adjudicação de queixas eleitorais poderão ainda contribuir para identificar e rectificar algumas das principais deficiências. A CNE enviou terça-feira, ao Conselho Constitucional (CC), órgão máximo em matérias de direito constitucional e eleitoral, o 'dossier' sobre as eleições gerais realizadas a 15 de Outubro último, no país. Assim, o CC deverá dar o seu parecer sobre o escrutínio em Dezembro. "Mesmo que as projecções de resultados, por parte de organizações da sociedade civil credíveis, confirmem os resultados do apuramento oficial provisório, a Missão de Observação Eleitoral da União Europeia considera que os problemas registados durante o processo de apuramento, e os actos de violência e de intolerância política observados durante a campanha eleitoral, evidenciam a necessidade de importantes melhoramentos para futuros pleitos eleitorais em Moçambique", refere o comunicado. A Missão que está a terminar as suas actividades de observação em Moçambique promete, brevemente, distribuir o relatório final com recomendações e uma análise detalhada do processo. Filipe Nyusi obteve 2.761.025 votos, o que corresponde a 57.03 por cento de votos válidos, contra 1.762.260, equivalentes a 36.61 por cento, de Afonso Dhlakama, líder da Renamo. Daviz Simango, do Movimento Democrático de Moçambique (MDM), recebeu 306.884 votos, o correspondente a 6.36 por cento. Nas legislativas, a Frelimo conseguiu 144 assentos, Renamo 89 e MDM 17. Quanto as assembleias provinciais, a Frelimo tem 485 lugares, contra 295 da Renamo e 31 do MDM. África XXI Digital

Timor-Leste: A Justiça é essencial

The Government believes that the improvement of the justice system of Timor-Leste, is part of a wider process of reform of the state and of economic and social development. Justice is not swift, effective and universal, contributing to a climate of impunity and weakens the democratic authority of the state. More than ever, in our recent history, justice is seen as an essential premise to overcome the crisis which we live and hope to give a vote of the people, returning him the confidence in the democratic institutions of the country. Notwithstanding the valuable progress made so far, this government believes that the judicial organisation has to be reconsidered so that, first, any citizen, whatever their social status, professional or economic is above the law and, second, to be reconciled the ideals of development, freedom and security. We live in difficult times when the constitutional democratic order has been questioned and whose factors are of a social and political complex. In the diagnosis, it is particularly important to develop the field of criminal law, with special emphasis on the investigation of crimes and greater coordination with the police apparatus, especially with the police for criminal investigation. The development of capabilities in this area, accompanied by an effective system of preventative arrests, prisons, including the creation of a military prison, and new approaches to fighting crime and insecurity, foster Justice, Security and Welfare of All, which is the purpose and reason for the rule. Xanana Gusmão, 14 de Março de 2008

Timor-Leste: "Um Parlamento irresponsável"

O ex-primeiro-ministro timorense e secretário-geral da Frente Revolucionária do Timor-Leste Independente, Mari Alkatiri, apelou hoje à união da liderança do país para encontrar uma solução para as investidas que estão a ser feitas contra o Estado timorense. "Declaro que não permitirei que se continue a politizar uma questão processual e apelo a toda a liderança timorense para se unir na procura de solução para todas as investidas contra o nosso país", afirmou, numa mensagem divulgada na sua página na rede social Facebook. Na mensagem, Mari Alkatiri reafirma que não vai permitir que se "use um erro processual para se procurarem atingir a coesão nacional do Estado de Timor-Leste". "Todo o ataque que tem sido feito contra figuras da liderança faz-me lembrar a crise de 2006. Na altura o diabo era eu", salientou. O Governo de Timor-Leste ordenou segunda-feira a expulsão, no prazo de 48 horas, de oito funcionários judiciais, sete portugueses e um cabo-verdiano. No dia 24 de outubro, o parlamento timorense tinha aprovado uma resolução a determinar uma auditoria ao sistema judicial do país e a suspender os contratos com funcionários judiciais internacionais "invocando motivos de força maior e a necessidade de proteger de forma intransigente o interesse nacional". "Um parlamento irresponsável - Parlamento de Timor-Leste (de que sou membro) - adotou uma resolução de constitucionalidade duvidosa que acabou por politizar uma questão que podia ter sido fácil e corretamente tratada por via administrativa, técnica e legislativa", refere o antigo primeiro-ministro, sublinhando que era conhecido o mal-estar que se avolumava entre o Governo, tribunais e Ministério Público. Para Mari Alkatiri, "só por milagre" um país acabado de nascer "ficaria ileso de problemas desta natureza". "Em Timor-Leste também não é a primeira vez que isto acontece. Já durante a primeira legislatura o mesmo se verificou. Só que na altura o Governo optou por apoiar o sistema judiciário timorense a encontrar soluções no sentido de se introduzirem correções no sistema. E seria este o caminho certo que teria evitado a politização do assunto", acrescenta. Lusa, em Notícias ao Minuto

Atitude timorense perante Hércules

Díli, 16 jan 2013 (Lusa) - O chefe das Forças de Defesa de Timor-Leste, general Lere Anan Timur, disse hoje que o ex-'gangster' indonésio Hércules Rosário Marçal pode entrar no país, depois de na semana passada o ter ameaçado de prisão. "Ele tem sangue timorense, mas é indonésio, e qualquer timorense ou estrangeiro, desde que cumpra as regras, pode vir a Timor-Leste", disse à agência Lusa o general Lere Anan Timur. Hércules Rosário Marçal é natural de Ainaro, sul de Díli, e fez carreira em Jacarta, capital da Indonésia, como chefe de um grupo de crime organizado. No início deste mês, o antigo 'gangster', que agora é contratado na Indonésia para organizar manifestações, deslocou-se a Timor-Leste, mas a visita irritou o general Lere Anan Timur, que o ameaçou prender se voltasse ao país. Questionado pela Lusa sobre as razões que o levaram a mudar de opinião, o general Lere Anan Timur explicou que ficou "desagradado" por não ter recebido informações sobre a visita, mas insistiu que o ex-'gangster' pode visitar Timor-Leste. "Ele deve contribuir para o desenvolvimento de Timor-Leste", afirmou, sublinhando, mais uma vez, que Hércules Rosário Marçal, apesar de ter nacionalidade indonésia, tem sangue timorense. As anteriores afirmações de Lere Anan Timur provocaram a indignação de alguns deputados em Jacarta, que afirmaram que as pessoas só podem ser detidas caso tenham cometido algum crime. O indonésio Hércules Rosário Marçal, que tem dominado nos últimos dias a imprensa em Timor-Leste, é um antigo gangster que operava em Jacarta, capital da Indonésia, e que agora se dedica a organizar manifestações naquela cidade. Órfão de pai e mãe, que morreram durante bombardeamentos da Indonésia a Timor-Leste em 1978, Hércules Rosário Marçal torno-se membro das forças especiais indonésias que travaram combates contra a resistência timorense à anexação do antigo território português. Segundo a imprensa indonésia, entre os anos 80 e 90 ficou conhecido em Jacarta por liderar um grupo de crime organizado, dedicado à cobrança de dívidas e de "taxas de segurança" às casas de jogo ilegais. Depois de se ter arrependido dos crimes praticados, o nome de Hércules, como é conhecido em Jacarta, voltou a surgir como líder do Movimento Novo Povo da Indonésia, que apoia Prabowo Subianto, um aspirante à presidência da Indonésia, que comandou as forças especiais indonésias em Timor-Leste.

A condenação de Hércules Marçal

Jakarta. The West Jakarta District Court on May 08 2014 convicted notorious gang boss Hercules Rozario Marshal for a second time in less than a year, handing him a three-year sentence for extortion and money laundering. Prim Haryadi, the presiding judge at the trial, said prosecutors had made a convincing case to prove that Hercules had strong-armed a local businessman into hiring his thugs to provide security for a property development in Kembangan, West Jakarta. “The court thus rules that the defendant must serve a three-year jail sentence,” he said

. “The defendant can accept the verdict or appeal.” The sentence was lighter than the five years sought by prosecutors, but a lawyer for Hercules said his client would appeal against it. Hercules remains free pending the appeals process. He was convicted of forcing Sukanto Tjakra, the director of the property developer Tjakra Multi Strategi, into hiring his gang’s “security services” for a 6.-hectare development in Kembangan. Sukanto and his business partner, Amin Maulana, paid Hercules Rp 400 million as demanded in March 2010. In December 2012, Hercules’s henchmen demanded an additional Rp 250 million. Sukanto said that he would pay in installments, but after paying the first Rp 50 million, reported the matter to the police. Police later revealed that Sukanto and Amin were not the only local businesses who had fallen prey to Hercules’s protection racket. “Others who ran business in that complex were extorted for up to Rp 1.5 billion,” said Adj. Sr. Comr. Hengki Haryadi Hengki, the head of the West Jakarta Police’s general crimes unit, said in December last year as quoted by Tempo.co. Thursday’s ruling is the second in less than a year against the gang boss, who was in July 2013 sentenced to four months in jail by the same court for inciting a riot and damaging property. That case was also linked to a protection racket, with Hercules ordering the riot in retaliation at a police crackdown against his gang for extorting local businesses in the Kembangan area.

Hércules condenado a três anos de cadeia

The long-running relationship between former Jakarta gangster Hercules and Prabowo Subianto has been one shaped by Prabowo’s obsession with political power, writes Ian Wilson. On 8 May 2014 Hercules Rosario Marcal was sentenced to three years imprisonment by a North Jakarta court for extortion and money laundering. Something akin to a minor celebrity with regular appearances on TV talk shows and in the tabloid press, this latest turn of fate in Hercules’ checkered career as a gangster, entrepreneur and political broker was once again intimately intertwined with the political ambitions of his patron and 2014 presidential candidate, Prabowo Subianto. Their relationship goes back to the 1980s when Prabowo was serving as a captain in the Kopassus Special Forces in East Timor. Orphaned after his parents were killed during the aerial bombing of Ainaro in 1978, Hercules was later ‘adopted’ by the Indonesian military working as an equipment courier, losing an eye and a hand in fire fights with the Falantil resistance. According to Hercules, he “owed his life” to Prabowo from this time, displaying a loyalty of unusual longevity and perseverance in the world of Indonesian politics. As he put it “Prabowo is the only man who can strike me without me lifting a hand to retaliate”. In the late 1980s Hercules along with several dozen East Timorese youth were brought to Jakarta as part of a program run by Siti Hardiyanti Rukmana, Suharto’s daughter and by now Prabowo’s sister- in-law. Given jobs making electrical parts, these were soon abandoned for a harsh life in the city’s streets. Finding his way to the central market district of Tanah Abang, Hercules and his gang of fellow Timorese fought their way to the top of the local gang hierarchy, establishing a mini- racketeering empire extracting protection money from vendors, store owners and pimps while performing political tasks on behalf of their military patrons, such as intimidating pro-independence East Timorese or hosting pro-government rallies. Splits within Hercules gang after a member was allegedly shot by the police for refusing to participate in pro-integration activities, started the eventual unravelling of his hold over Tanah Abang. In what amounted to a deep betrayal, Prabowo publicly denied having ever met Hercules, in doing so giving the green light to other gangs to launch a takeover bid. His political value to Prabowo had, for now, effectively expired. By 1997 he’d been forcibly removed from Tanah Abang after several days of bloody street fighting, to be replaced by ethnic Betawi and Madurese gangs led by figures such as Bang Ucu and Abraham Lunggana, now a PPP legislator, chairman of Jakarta’s regional parliament and also supporter of Prabowo’s presidential bid. Post-expulsion Hercules set about rebuilding his career and reputation with a lucrative debt collection, security and land brokering service that catered to the city’s business and political elites. Through this he was able to buy into the fishing industry, purchase swathes of rice-farming land and a Catholic management college, becoming something of a philanthropist with regular donations to several orphanages. He continued to be embroiled in Jakarta gang politics with ongoing violent feuds with rival eastern Indonesian gangsters John Kei and the late Basri Sangaji. Hercules remained a first point of call for many new arrivals to Jakarta from eastern Indonesia who turned to him for work, a place to stay and protection. Renowned for his generosity and loyalty to his gang, he developed a significant network of devoted supporters. Hercules’ relationship with Prabowo, shattered in the wake of his expulsion from Tanah Abang, wasn’t re-established until 2008 when Prabowo set up Gerindra as the political vehicle through which he would contest the presidency. He needed Hercules’ street level networks and ability to mobilise. Hercules had tried his luck with other elite patrons, in 2004 joining Yudhoyono’s presidential re-election success team, later claiming the Democrat Party had “used and exploited me, then me cast aside”. He jumped at the request to serve Prabowo again. In 2011 The Peoples Movement for a New Indonesia (Gerakan Rakyat Indonesia Baru or GRIB) was established by Hercules as an ostensibly independent social organisation dedicated to ‘defending and empowering the poor and the oppressed’ combined with a political mission to bringing Prabowo to the presidency. With strict orders to avoid any overt criminal activity, GRIB has become a highly disciplined organisational umbrella for Prabowo’s extensive networks of gangsters, local strongmen, Islamist vigilantes, ex-militias and martial arts groups, with his most loyal follower in command. Throughout his military career Prabowo had fostered a menagerie of violent groups, such as the infamous Gada Paksi militia in East Timor, mastering a well-established military practice of fostering working relationships with the criminal underworld and local gangsters as a means of consolidating territorial control. He has brought this logic to the task of winning the presidency. Piggy-backing on the national party structure of Gerindra, GRIB quickly established branches in 30 provinces and 265 districts, with a membership claimed to be in the hundreds of thousands, though realistically closer to around 50,000. GRIB’s expansive headquarters in Kemanggisan, West Jakarta is something akin to a bizarre shrine to Prabowo and Hercules relationship, with dozens of portraits and wall-sized murals celebrating their “close emotional bond’. On the ground GRIB has acted as a key element of Prabowo’s PR machine, distributing cash, food and goods to the poor, and working to co-opt to the cause what Gerindra officials refer to as “local opinion leaders” such as strongmen, village heads and religious leaders. The reasoning behind such a strategy is twofold: to use their influence and authority to mobilise electoral support in the lead up to the 9 July election, and to have in place a grass roots network ready to ‘secure’ the result. It has also offered its services as a means of brokering support for Prabowo. In December 2012 for example, GRIB acted as security for a demonstration of over 12,000 civil servants from the Indonesian Association of Village Officials in front of the national parliament, establishing links now proving crucial in consolidating Prabowo’s campaigning in rural areas. The rapid growth of GRIB in Jakarta unsettled the police and segments of the city’s political elites, reflective as it was of Prabowo’s aggressive counter-insurgency style approach to political campaigning. The police in particular are rumoured to be worried a Prabowo presidency may see them lose their post-1998 ascendancy over the army, both politically and financially. Forming a special ‘anti-thug’ unit, they began targeting Hercules’ networks in North Jakarta, arresting him and a dozen of his gang in 2012 for extortion and again immediately upon his release six months later. Gerindra officials insist the arrests were politically motivated, some claiming that the President himself had given the order to remove Hercules from the streets for the duration of the campaign period. Regardless of the truth or otherwise of these claims, GRIB has displaced or co-opted numerous gangs and ethnic militias throughout the city in a relatively short space of time, disrupting and realigning the ‘balance of powers’ in the political economy of street-level authority. In a world where loyalty is often largely contingent, GRIB and Gerindra have been able to outbid and out-manoeuvre their political rivals. Faced with a lengthy and very public trial close to the beginning of the formal presidential campaign period, Prabowo once more distanced himself from Hercules’ troubles, no doubt concerned any show of public support could be used as ‘black campaign’ fodder by his rivals. An initial appeal lodged by Hercules against his guilty verdict was later withdrawn, the party hierarchy reportedly telling him to ‘wait and see’ what transpires after the 9 July election. As a true loyalist, Hercules complied. Hercules has continued to run his organisation from inside Cipinang prison with weekly meetings with GRIB functionaries. Three of his gang who were granted sentence remissions refused the opportunity to be released, preferring to stay inside and protect him. Deploying his organisations significant financial resources, he provides regular free meals and clothes to fellow inmates developing a loyal following who also, unsurprisingly, are now committed to supporting their new boss’s boss, Prabowo Subianto. Many will likely join the ranks of GRIB on their release. According to GRIB’s secretary-general, if Prabowo wins they will work to “support and protect” his presidency and seek to “economically empower the poor and marginal”, perhaps hoping to take on a role not dissimilar to that played by pro-New Order youth organisation Pemuda Pancasila. When I asked what they’d do in the event of a Prabowo loss, the response was slightly more unsettling; “It’s simple, he can’t lose. It would mean the end of us. We’ll do whatever it takes to ensure Prabowo Subianto is the next president of Indonesia”. Dr Ian Wilson is a lecturer at the School of Management and Governance and a research fellow at the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University.