PRESIDENT OF REPUBLIC
OFFICE OF PRESIDENT
MESSGE TO THE NATION ON F-FDTL
OFFICE OF PRESIDENT
MESSGE TO THE NATION ON F-FDTL
Palace of Ashes, 23 March 2006
Dear the People of Timor-Lorosa’e,
I know that everyone expects me to say something about the situation, in which we all follow closely, occurring within F-FDTL. Some people say that the Supreme Commander only has the power during the time of threat or the time of war. These people are correct but they are a bit wrong since during the time of peace, and the time of tranquility, as the Supreme Commander I always have a very big power: the power to check the armed force during National holidays such as on 20 May or 28 November at Dili Municipality Stadium, where the Fire Brigades also are in line as the Force and also the Civilian Security which provides the security for the State buildings.
Therefore, I am not going to use my power which I do not really have as a Supreme Commander. Because of this, I am going to speak only as the President of Republic of Timor-Leste. Article 74 of our Constitution states that “The President is the symbol and the guarantor of the unity of State, and the regular functioning of democratic institutions.”
Through this role, as President of Republic I will provide my observations on the problem occurring within F-FDTL so that everyone knows the roots of the problem, whether there is a capacity to resolve such problem since in the newspapers it was reported that everyone only talked about their capacity. Once everyone knows the roots of the problem, then they can come up with his or her thoughts, otherwise some of us will say things baselessly.
Dear Compatriots,
First of all, I would like to explain that the decision taken by the Brigadier-General Taur Matan Ruak on 591 soldiers considered now to be as civilians, was his real competence and it is not the President of Republic who is going to change it. It is indeed true, and I appeal to everyone not to be worried since the President of Republic is not someone who tries to replace other people’s competence, and as the Supreme Commander [of F-FDTL], I really bow to this decision.
However, as the President of Republic I find that the decision taken by the Brigadier-General was a wrong one, and it was not quite just! And as the President of Republic, I should say that my opinion may be more objective than the opinion of a foreign Legal Adviser working at the Council of Ministers, a foreigner to whom the Brigadier-General listened more in making his decisions.
Even so, I wish to inform the five hundred and eleven soldiers who now become the civilians that this is the decision that has been taken, and it means that you are no longer as military men because I have to respect the decisions taken by your Leaders.
Dear Compatriots,
To all people, I would like to inform that the decision taken was wrong since it tended to focus on the military discipline and it did not consider the roots of the problem which existed within F-FDTL.
On 11 January I received a petition signed by some military members of the 1st Battalion in Lospalos, presenting the issue of discrimination of “loromonu-lorosae” (people from the western and eastern part of Timor-Leste) within F-FDTL. In the petition they stated that some Veterans usually said that “it is only the people of the eastern part of Timor-Leste who are the fighters and not of the western part”, and “if they, the veterans of the eastern part [ of Timor-Leste] had not fought for the independence, then the people of western part would not have been recruited for F-FDTL.” With such discrimination, the promotions were only for the soldiers of eastern part [of Timor-Leste, and the discipline was only applied for the soldiers of western part [of Timor-Leste].
I immediately sent a copy of the petition to the Minister of Defense and Commander of Falintil-FDTL in order to request the Leaders to resolve the matter. On 17 January I received the response from the Commander of F-FDTL, Brigadier Taur Matan Ruak saying that since the 1st Battalion had just moved from Lospalos to Baucau, and after they moved, then he would look into the matter.
On 6 February I heard that a large number of soldiers abandoned the barrack, and spreading throughout Dili. On 7 February I received some of them, and requested them all to mark their presence on 8 February in order to control them so that there would be no more problems, and there would not be any chance given to other people, in case making any problem, they could be blamed for it. All of them came to form in line in Caicoli, and they were around more than four hundred people. I requested Minister of Defense, Dr. Roque Rodrigues to go there, and he did come, but Brigadier-General refused to come, then we asked Colonel Lere instead. I also requested two Members of Parliament: Paulo Assis and Gregório Saldanha as members of Superior Council of Defense and Security to come.
I requested the Minister of Defense to carefully look into the problem by mentioning that the issue of ‘loromonu-lorosa’e’ was a political one and it was a problem which had long existed within F-FDTL, therefore there was a need to resolve it carefully. I also said that the matter was also found by the Investigation Commission in 2004, specially the words usually used by the Veteran Officers in addressing the new soldiers, in particular those who are from Western part of Timor-Leste. Minister of Defense told me that he had no courage to talk to or warned the Veterans since he had a complex related to the fact that he never involved in the war, therefore he really respected them. However, the Minister even said that sometimes the foreign Advisers working at F-FDTL who provoked all of these matters.
Colonel responded by saying that he did not believe the Veterans said such words, and he suspected the Political parties that did it, particularly Democratic Party (PD) since Deker becomes a PD member. I told them not to blame anyone with no basic reason, and saying that if more than four hundred soldiers abandoned the barrack, perhaps there was something not quite right within the Institution itself. And it was better to have self- correction and improve it. When we start to blame people with no real reason, it shows that we do not want to or have no desire to resolve the problem by throwing it to other people’s shoulder.
I appealed to the two Leaders to carefully consider in re-accepting these more than four hundred soldiers in order to solve the matter. If they were to be dismissed, the problem within F-FDTL had been resolved, and they did not bring the matter outside.
I asked the Minister of Defense to see that there should not be Veterans or Fighters within F-FDTL since in all State Institutions, there is no, and there should not be Veterans or non Veterans. The fighters should bear in mind that their being Fighters or Heroes only terminated in August 1999, and today they are military members like any other ones. I also asked them to correct such behavior within F-FDTL since the Veterans should think that they were already old, and they would be retired someday. Such behaviors might make the new soldiers ask when exactly the Veterans would be retired, so that F-FDTL would become professional where there was no more such thing like “ I was the one who suffered in the past, I was the one who made the war, I was the one who killed many enemies, and if we had not made the war, you would not have become F-FDTL members”, etc. All organs of State have made a great effort to recognize the Veterans, Fighters or Heroes, therefore the State Institutions should not allow to have another status for the Heroes and the Fighters. Today, if people who work within an Institution, all of them are the servants of the State.
I also told the two Leaders that the issue of discrimination between “loromonu-lorosae” should be considered as a political problem which the State should pay attention to: other matters which were dealing with the promotion or discipline will be tackled by the military Institution even though they were related to the issue of discrimination.
I also requested MP Paulo Assis and MP Gregório Saldanha to be part of the [Investigation ] Commission but the Minster of Defense said it was better for them not be so because it could undermine the competence of Military’s Chief of Staff. Then, I also agreed that the two MPs would just follow the investigation which the Military Chief of Staff was going to carry out. Therefore, it was not me who formed the Commission; I only requested the permission so that the two MPs could follow, observe the investigation which was about to be done.
The whole day I spoke to more than 400 persons, asking them to return to the barrack. In the end they all returned in order to take part in the investigation. After one week, I learned that they went out again. On 22 January I received another petition complaining in stead of looking at the substance of their petition, the Commission formed by the Chief of Staff of F-FDTL asked who organized them to make the petition and abandon the Headquarters. They also mentioned that they received threats.
Based on the information which I received, the petitioners said they wanted to become military members again, and they would respect their commanders, but the Veteran Commanders should correct themselves in order not to discriminate again the people of “Loromonu-Lorosae”, the fighters or non-fighters.
Dear Compatriots,
I asked my Military Adviser to bring the petition to the Minister of Defense and the Brigadier-General who were about to board the plane and departed for China. The Brigadier-General angrily said, “ if they want to fight, then let us fight.” I also heard the same expression such as,” if one thousand people are gone, then another thousand will be in”, the problem considered to be too simple in accordance to the Leaders’ intelligence.
Dear all Compatriots,
Because of Lospalos’s problem, in 2004 I formed one commission, and F-FDTL also established one. The two Commission worked separately but the findings of their reports were similar:
The laws and regulations were not in place yet, the Office of Secretary of State for Defense had been promoted as the Ministry of Defense, and there were still many things lacking such as the Code of Military Discipline, the Law on Military Service, and others.
One, indiscipline started with some of the Commanders. The other one, the promotion was not good, and the treatment of some commanders towards the new soldiers and loromonu.
In the end, these problems were not solved with good will, therefore the problems continued to exist until 2006. So, the roots of the problem was not indiscipline but the mal-treatment carried out by some Veteran Commanders towards some soldiers.
I also told the two Leaders that dismissing these 400 soldiers is an easy thing to do. My concern is as follows: if we do not solve it properly, by just dismissing these people, then the young people from “Loromonu” will not apply for F-FDTL in the new recruitment process. If they are to join F-FDTL, within F-FDTL itself there has been a bad atmosphere being created because the Veteran Commanders, who do not want to correct themselves, will address the Loromonu soldiers to-be with the following expression, “Are you coming here to obey us or to be against as the former ones?”
And all of these matters will transform F-FDTL as military force from the Lorosae only because people, starting from Manatuto up to Oecusse, are all militias, and are the ones who do not know how to make war. And the people will be really concerned that the new recruitment will be based on personal connections, and the worst thing will be that only martial art groups which have joined some political parties, will be recruited.
The roots of the problem was the discrimination, and not the indiscipline. The 591 people [who were dismissed] shows that we are not capable of solving the problems within the Institution, or that we do not want to solve it.
In the past, in all countries the Military just knew how to train and organize themselves to fight in the war. Nowadays, the military will not get involved in politics, but they should know about politics, and they should have political sensibility.
I even cried to the Defense Minister by saying,” Whether the PNTL does good things or not, there is a Minister who is concerned with them. Within our Defense Force, there is also a need to have someone who does so. After returning from China, the problem continued to be unsolved, and I was puzzled by noticing that, for the whole day, in a workshop discussing the quota for women in the upcoming Elections in 2007, the Minister of Defense showed to the Leaders that the question of 500 Military members who left the Headquarter was not a problem, and the question of Loromonu-Lorosae was not a problem either, and they had no any impact at all to our society because there was no impact to their brain.
I was puzzled, when I arrived yesterday at the Airport, there were a lot of Police officers providing security to me, as if the 591 petitioners were about to carry out demonstration against me or assassinate me. I also admired that in my residence in Balibar, there was an additional presence of Police officers, and it seemed as if the fellow 591 [former soldiers] were about to assault me because I dismissed them. Minister of Defense and the Brigadier-General were the ones who should be protected by such security because I did not need it. Sometimes, we try to intimidate the population in order to hide the problems which we do not have the courage to solve intelligently.
To end, I appeal to the petitioners to understand that as the Supreme Commander [of F-FDTL], my mandate is just to check the soldiers on 20 May and 28 November. Therefore, if the Brigadier-General, after following the opinion of the legal adviser of the Council of Ministers, who had declared that you are now civilians, and indeed you are already civilians. The Prime Minister has also said that there would be a new recruitment, so, be calm and find other jobs. F-FDTL will need a long time to become professional because our State has just begun with various sickness and attitudes.
