Timor-Leste’s Veterans: An Unfinished Struggle?
Dili/Jakarta/Brussels | 18 Nov 2011
Ten years after the demobilisation of its guerrilla liberation
army, Timor-Leste must strike a balance between recognising veterans’
role and promoting strong and independent institutions in order to
ensure stability.
Timor-Leste’s Veterans: An Unfinished Struggle?, the
latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, examines attempts
by the young state to recognise and honour those who fought for its
independence. While these efforts initially targeted on symbolic
measures, the state’s increasing wealth means that they have
increasingly focused on cash benefits. The government has deferred
difficult decisions on who will qualify for these payments. It has done
so because of the complexity of Timor-Leste’s 24-year resistance and
fears that refusing benefits to claimants could create potential
spoilers to the stability the country now enjoys.
“The question of who will qualify for veteran status remains both
difficult and politically charged”, says Cillian Nolan, Crisis Group
South East Asia Analyst. “While the promise of money eased discontent
among dissident former fighters, it has also brought a flood of
apparently false claims of service. A definitive list of veterans is an
unreachable goal. Once the long-deferred decisions on who will qualify
are made, they risk creating real discontent”.
Beyond cash benefits, there are two areas where the government
will have to manage the demands of some veterans for greater influence.
The first is plans for an advisory council that will manage decisions on
veterans’ affairs. It could be a useful forum for regulating these
matters in general, and overseeing a carefully bounded set of benefits,
including designing eligibility criteria for financial compensation.
Some former fighters hope it will play a broader role in setting
government policy and bring back the influence they enjoyed during the
occupation; these expectations will need to be managed.
Second, the government will also have to decide on how to deal
with pressure to give former fighters a formal security role as well as
how to make clear the distinction between the state armed forces and
their resistance-era predecessors. While it may make sense to give the
former guerrilla army a ceremonial role to acknowledge the importance of
its legacy, any decisions on a reserve force that could lead to
rearming the former guerrillas in times of crisis may lead to the
creation of a militia it may not be able to control.
Timorese politics and its security sector institutions remain
held together by a small set of personalities rather than bound by legal
rules. If veterans’ demands for recognition are successfully managed it
will smooth the way for a succession of power to a younger generation
of political leaders to determine the country’s future.
“The state continues to face a difficult challenge in balancing
veterans’ demands for recognition with efforts to promote strong and
independent institutions”, says Jim Della-Giacoma, Crisis Group’s South
East Asia Project Director. “Only with the right balance will a shift in
power be possible from the “Generation of '75” that brought the country
to independence and still holds onto power”.
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