Aid From China Builds an Ally in East Timor

DILI, East Timor — It looks like a pleasant place to conduct affairs of state: a broad, palm-fringed compound by the side of the sea with reflecting pools, a rock garden and fluttering flags.

Skip to next paragraph It is the future Foreign Ministry of East Timor, as depicted on a large billboard at the gate of a construction site, and it is a gift from the Chinese government.

Together with a new presidential palace that is also being built by the Chinese, it will be one of the most impressive buildings in this low-rise capital.

The projects are the most visible sign of a growing Chinese presence in this threadbare little country with few natural resources and only marginal geographical advantages to tempt a great power.

“The Chinese government thinks that as good partners, good neighbors and good friends of Timor-Leste, we are obliged to give a helping hand,” said the Chinese ambassador, Su Jian, in an interview, using the country’s official name.

China’s friendly stance is part of a broad diplomatic and economic policy throughout the region to which some people give the gentle description “soft power.” Most analysts say East Timor seems to be of interest less as a prize in its own right than as a natural extension of China’s energetic courtship of its neighbors in Southeast Asia.

On the hunt for natural resources and working to create a friendly neighborhood as it develops its own economy, China for the past decade has been creating a web of bilateral and multilateral partnerships that bind its neighbors to it.

It plays down any self-interest as it increases trade and aid throughout Southeast Asia.

“In a region where there is a historic fear of China, they are promoting the idea that China is a friendly partner,” said Joshua Kurlantzick, the author of a new book called “Charm Offensive: How China’s Soft Power Is Transforming the World.”

“And they do see these countries as far more strategic than the United States does, and so they are willing to spend resources on them,” he said.

In the longer term, some analysts say, China may want to create its own sphere of influence, elbowing aside the United States in the region. Washington’s preoccupation today with wars and terrorist threats has left inviting openings for China’s advances in Southeast Asia.

“They have been expanding their influence and building their links to governments in a very careful, sophisticated way,” said Daljit Singh, a regional policy analyst with the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

“They are aware that in the past there was a good deal of suspicion of China,” Mr. Singh said, “and their soft approach is designed to appease, to increase their footprint and their influence through trade agreements, free trade offers, strategic partnerships.”

China is the leading trading partner and investor in Myanmar (formerly Burma) and Cambodia, where it wields considerable political influence. It recently stepped directly into America’s sphere of influence with giant projects in the Philippines, including an aqueduct and major highways. It is an increasing presence in Thailand and Indonesia.

East Timor, in its very small way, is part of this picture as China cultivates relationships with the poorer nations of Asia and the Pacific.

It is a former Portuguese colony of just one million people that broke away in 1999 from 24 years of Indonesian occupation and has been struggling to stand on its own feet ever since. A large portion of the country is unemployed, about 20,000 are in need of food aid and 100,000 were displaced from their homes by a wave of violence last year.

China was the first nation to recognize the country when it became an independent state in 2002.

“The leaders of Timor-Leste regard China like an elder brother and a most reliable friend,” Mr. Su, the Chinese ambassador, said.

Last year, the total import and export volume between the countries was only $13.6 million, according to the ambassador.

But China is building barracks and providing uniforms for the country’s small military, bringing in medical teams and police officers, training civil servants and farmers, and inviting students and official delegations to Beijing.

“China’s experience is very rich in helping small and developing countries in Africa,” said Mr. Su, who has served in four previous Portuguese-speaking postings, including Angola and Guinea-Bissau.

“The Chinese government knows exactly what these countries need and also can provide them with very pragmatic skills and technology,” he said. “It is very suitable to development of these small countries.”

East Timor does have an oil field, and its location on the sea lanes between Indonesia and Australia could be of interest. The oil is in the Timor Gap, where East Timor and Australia have worked out a formula for sharing revenues.

East Timor’s oil money is being held in a government fund for the future to avoid the economic disruptions such a windfall can cause, particularly in a country with few institutions or trained people able to put it to good use.

Mr. Su said that the Chinese oil giant PetroChina had been given a contract to conduct an onshore seismic survey and that China might become involved in offshore oil field development.

Beyond this, China’s emerging presence in a country whose dominant players at the moment are Portugal and Australia has caused speculation among local analysts and in the regional press.

The ambassador displayed amusement at the idea that China could have larger ambitions in this area.

“I once talked with Timorese friends about many articles and stories that try to give China strategic interests in Timor-Leste,” Mr. Su said. “When my Timorese friends notice these groundless exaggerations, my Timorese friends all laugh at that.”  Kadalak001

EAST TIMOR TODAY

DILI, East Timor — The rumble of a generator and the whir of ceiling fans muffled the quiet words of a judge as he questioned a witness in a murder trial here one recent hot, still afternoon.

But even if they could have heard him, most of the people sprinkled through the little courtroom, including the defendant and the witnesses, could not have understood what he was saying.

The judge was speaking in Portuguese, the newly designated language of the courts, the schools and the government — a language that most people in East Timor cannot speak.

The most widely spoken languages in this former Portuguese colony are Tetum, the dominant local language, and Indonesian, the language of East Timor’s giant neighbor.

For a quarter of a century, Portuguese had been a dying tongue, spoken only by an older generation. It was banned after Indonesia annexed the territory in 1975 and imposed its own language.

In a disorienting reverse, a new Constitution re-imposed Portuguese after East Timor became independent in 2002. The marginalized became mainstream again, and the mainstream was marginalized.

Linguistic convenience was sacrificed to politics and sentiment. In a nation that had never governed itself and had few cultural symbols to unite it, this language of resistance to the Indonesian occupiers was an emblem — particularly to the older generation — of freedom and national identity.

The choice has brought a tangle of complications, disenfranchising a generation of Indonesian speakers and introducing a new language barrier among the country’s many other problems.

Along with a struggle to provide health care, education, government services, jobs and even food for its people, East Timor is now on a crash course to learn its own official language, importing scores of teachers from Portugal to help.

“I have finished two levels of Portuguese, but I still don’t speak it well, just basic Portuguese,” said Zacharias da Costa, 36, a lecturer in conflict management at the National University of East Timor.

Within five years, according to the government’s plan, he will be required to teach all his courses in Portuguese, a language that is hardly heard on the campus here.

A bulletin board at the entrance to the campus carries 14 notices from teachers. Eight are written in Tetum, four in Indonesian and two in English. None are in Portuguese.

For all its awkwardness, East Timor’s experience is not uncommon, said Robert B. Kaplan, a senior co-editor of the journal Current Issues in Language Planning.

The imposition of new national languages happens when countries are colonized and it happens when they decolonize, he said. Sometimes, as in East Timor, it happens a second time when they decolonize again.

East Timor’s language problems are those of many countries that decree a language shift, complicating the daily business of the nation and cutting off its people from their history and literature, which has been written in what may well become an alien language.

In Azerbaijan, for example, a former Soviet republic that is now fully independent, a simple change in alphabet, from Cyrillic to Roman, has created a new class of illiterates.

East Timor’s courts are among the hardest-hit institutions. Translations back and forth among Portuguese, Tetum and Indonesian produce a game of telephone in which outside monitors say testimony is often distorted.

During a just-completed parliamentary election, news conferences were held in four languages, sometimes producing somewhat different versions of the news.

At The Timor Post, an English-language newspaper, reporters said they could not read government news releases in Portuguese, so they ignored them.

The reported number of Portuguese speakers in East Timor varies widely, perhaps because of different standards of fluency and perhaps because of the effects of the current language-training programs.

The United Nations reported in 2002 that only 5 percent of the population of 800,000 spoke Portuguese. In the 2004 census, 36 percent said they had “a capability in Portuguese,” said Kerry Taylor-Leech, a linguist at Griffith University in Australia who has written about the languages of East Timor. “Since the 1990s, you’ll see that a language shift has taken place,” she said. “The changes from what I see are taking place quite rapidly.”

According to the census, 85 percent claim a capability in Tetum, 58 percent in Indonesian and 21 percent in English.

The new Constitution establishes Portuguese and Tetum as the country’s two official languages, but Tetum is seen as thin and undeveloped, and most of the nation’s official business is conducted in Portuguese.

“This is a political decision and I have to implement it, like it or not,” said Judge Maria Pereira, a Dili District Court judge who has taken crash courses and now writes her decisions in what she calls fairly good Portuguese. “I have no choice. As a judge I have to implement the law.”

Some young Indonesian speakers, who had at first opposed the use of Portuguese, now say they embrace it as a means of enriching and developing Tetum. Already as much as 80 percent of Tetum is made up of Portuguese loan words or Portuguese-influenced words, Ms. Taylor-Leech said, although she said speaking Portuguese was unlikely to increase this number.

Another approach comes from President José Ramos-Jorta, one of the authors of the Portuguese-language law. “We have to rethink our language policies,” he said in a telephone interview.

As a first step, he said, English and Indonesian should be added to Portuguese and Tetum as official languages. “I see no problem with a nation having four official languages.”

But his plan does not end there, suggesting that questions of language could preoccupy his country for years to come.

Once they have become accustomed to their four official languages, he said, “We can give the people the option to choose two of them as compulsory languages.” Kadalak0001

inan kosok-oan di’ak iha Timor-Leste

IV Governu Konstitusionál aumenta orsamentu Ministériu Saúde nian, kompara ho governu ida uluk. Ba tinan ida ne’e (2010) fó osan dolar tokon 50. “Ho Governu ida ne’e ami la hetan ona difikuldade iha orsamentu” dehan Madalena Hanjan, hodi hatutan katak alende osan ida ne’e iha mós fundu kombinadu hirak husi Austrália, Estadus Unidus, Fundu Globál no Banku Mundiál, ba área saúde nia, iha Timor-Leste.

Hamenus problema kona-ba orsamentu nho rekursu umanu ne’ebé iha esperiénsia iha materiál saúde inan kosok-oan, no tanba mós kampaña sensibilizasaun, mak Timor Leste besik hetan ninia meta iha 2010 tuir determina husi MDG – Millenium Development Goal – (Objetivu Dezenvolvimentu Miléniu nian) – ba tinan 2015 bainhira koalia kona-ba atu hamenus ema mate. Molok tinan 2003 taxa ema mate hetan to’o porsentu 8 iha tinan ida. Tuir dadu hirak hetan husi Sistema SISCa, taxa ida ne’e tun ho média ida bo’ot.

Ba redusaun ida ne’e hetan mós kontribuisaun iha haruka ema moras ba iha Indonézia, Singapura no Austrália. Iha tinan rua ikus ema moras nain 450 mak transfere ba halo tratamentu iha país hirak ne’e. Rezultadu hosi ema hirak hetan isin di’ak fali hosi kazu hirak ne’e hamutuk pursentu 95%.

Taxa fertilidade (inan isin-rua) mós la’o ba oin ho forma ida pozitivu: husi 7,8 iha familia ida, oras ne’e hetan ona valór 5,7.

“Uma-kain sira hahú manan ábitu di’ak kona-ba saúde no sira hahú fó liu atensaun ba saúde iha uma laran tomak. No ami sente kontente ho ida ne’e: la’os de’it k’nua sira, maibé mós Governu”, dehan tan Vice-Ministra Saúde.

Radio Australia Today Editorial

East Timor has bad news for Julia

It only took a couple of days for Julia’s Gillard’s big asylum seeker fix to turn into a headache. The new PM was hoping to have the asylum seeker issue sorted by the end of this week, with the centrepiece announced two days ago. It was for Australia to set up, in partnership with other countries in the region, a processing centre in East Timor.

The trouble was that she had not told the East Timor government about it, having just held preliminary discussions with the country’s president, Jose Ramos-Horta.

Today we spoke to a senior East Timor official who said he was speaking for many in the party in saying the processing centre was wrong for his country at this time.

Dionisio Babo Soares is the Secretary General of the East Timor prime minister’s party, Partido CNRT. He is known as a reasonable man who doesn’t shoot off or grandstand. He is also a man with a close ear to the ground in East Timor.

I spoke to him today and he told me that the talks between the two countries will continue, but that at the end of the day the centre probably won’t happen. He said the timing was not right. He said East Timor hasn’t got the infrastructure, and is a country that is still recovering for the periodic violence that damaged the country, before and after independence.

Even when I put to him that Australia and its partners would pay for the centre, which would provide some of that much-needed infratructure and jobs, he still said the time wasn’t right, and the centre was not a good solution for East Timor.

If a person of such authority in East Timor’s ruling party can be so firm on the issue, (and following on from similar criticism from the country’s Deputy Prime Minister), you would have to think that Julia Gillard is really up against it to get the concept through, even if the discussions are continuing.

Julia Gillard may have expected opposition from the East Timor government. Perhaps that is why she choose to broach the idea with the President Ramos-Horta rather than prime minister Xanana Gusmao. But one thing she definitiely did not expect was the rapid criticism of the concept, a criticism that is embarrassing her badly just as she was hoping to put the asylum seeker issue to bed to give her time to deal with climate change before she calls the election in the next few weeks.

Whether East Timor approves the centre or not, Julia Gillard is learning that domestic and political timetables are just that, domestic and political. Independent neighbouring countries feel no need to follow your timelines, no matter how much you wish it. And this is especially true when dealing with a country like East Timor, which has just come out of a nasty fight for its life, and will not be pushed into anything that it doesn’t want. Kadalak press

I love You Timor Leste

Nothing more beautiful than you my Timor Leste, Screaming and crying that you are going through is an Infinite abyss it. This heart broken when I saw you struggling with the power of darkness...............Timor Loro sa’e you are my strength which is like a beautiful angel. I need you so.....

Nothing is more precious than a beautiful smile from you, I love you, I'm your son, my mother Gave birth to me in your stomach, I do not want to see you complain................

I want to see.... you laugh against the power of darkness is increasingly widened its wings, I'm On your side against anyone who wants to destroy you in the eyes of my heart, No matter Friend or opponent provided that on the right path.

I would not be afraid of anyone who is blocking your path to glory in the future ............ Oh......Timor leste you are my soul mates, there was no point in my life if I lodged with a wolf-Headed man.

The beauty of life will I get if I were in your party, at this point I retarded but my love is in front of you, Dancing,  In the corner of your heart, Like a candle that shines there is a time to light no matter when Going out.

Hidden in your lap of immense miracle that no unmatched, Where your children and grandchildren will Be shouting to the world that, East Timor is a fertile country cities, with big hearts as virtuous and Peaceful country.

In you, Buried thousands of souls fighters who loves you to surrender all his life so that you can Smile and for their children and grandchildren to experience the eternal freedom. our love to You will never go away, love to you nothing is more precious than freedom.

Go a head East Timor ......
Long live TIMOR LESTE

Carinton salazar Gonzaga Freitas

77 Cases of HIV / AIDS In East Timor

from 2005 until 2010 the population of Timor Leste who suffer from HIV / AIDS reached 77 people and 16 people have died, Among which there are two children die at the age of carry.

on the other hand VCT chairman HNGV (Timor Leste National Hospital), Maria de Fatima Ximenes do Rego among people with HIV / AIDS there are already married and some are derived from the youth.

of all cases have been found comes from VCT HNGV and also from non Govermental organizations working in the humanitarian field.
total patients found there are still patients who are still actively running intensive care and also there have been vague because it does not receive clear and accurate description of the hospital.

drugs used by people with HIV / AIDS in Timor Leste is profilatif and futritutif these drugs obtained from the Institutional SAMES. These drugs are not for healing HIV / AIDS but only to kill some viruses that can cause dry and thin until death.

relating to HIV / AIDS health minister Dr. Nelson Martins, MD, MHM, PhD says in its intervention to combat the virus HIV / AIDS in Timor Leste government through the ministry of health has had strategy which can be used as the best advice that is.
 government through the ministry of health in collaboration with associate doctor to further strengthen East Timor VISITIL program for people with HIV / AIDS can join the program.

the umpteenth cases there is stout case of the mother.
therefore the health ministry has recommended to the mother who suffered from HIV / AIDS with the help of medicines for children in the womb are not infected with HIV / AIDS.

HIV / AIDS is the most deadly diseases including tuberculosis.
diseases such as HIV / AIDS found in many Timor Leste in 1999 after peace mission troops arrived. But after the government of Timor Leste stand alone initiate cooperation with the development partnership to control the disease.
Dr. Martins also said that at this time in Timor Leste has a laboratory to control the disease of HIV / AIDS on purpose. There is also a doctor of timor leste specialist dealing with HIV / AIDS. MS01

MDG Six in Timor-Leste

Goal Six: Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria & Other Diseases

Target 1: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS
Scorecard for Timor-Leste: Insufficient data/information
Target 2: Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the incidence of malaria and other major diseases
Scorecard for Timor-Leste: Insufficient data/information
Timor-Leste is currently experiencing a low level HIV epidemic. Prevalence was less than one per cent in both the 2004 and 2007 studies conducted by WHO. There is also evidence of a low level epidemic in that the total number of HIV case detections so far in the country is less than two hundred. Health workers and community workers in Dili have noted that there are a few women widowed by AIDS and children orphaned by AIDS. Mother to child transmission of the virus has also been noted and children have died of HIV disease. These findings indicate that HIV has been present in the country for up to ten years. However, low HIV prevalence at present does not indicate that there is low HIV vulnerability. There are clear indications that Timor-Leste has many of the factors that increase vulnerability to HIV. Poverty and limited opportunities for income from employment, especially for women, push people into high-risk behaviour. This includes both commercial sex and transactional sex. Low levels of literacy make social mobilization and HIV prevention education more challenging. Although it has other impacts on the epidemic, gender inequality increases both the supply and demand for commercial sex. Timorese women are driven to sex work by poverty and Timorese men have disposable income to purchase sex. Timor-Leste is reported to have extremely high levels of gender based violence. Sexual violence and gender-based violence undermine women’s ability to negotiated safe sex. There are anecdotal reports that trafficking of women into exploitative sexual situations occurs within Timor-Leste. There have also been unconfirmed reports of women trafficked to and from the country.
Prevalence of malaria in the country as well as the number of deaths associated with the disease was 10.7% in 2007. Urban dwellers are better equipped to prevent malaria than their rural counterparts where there is high risk of malaria incidence. Nevertheless, the proportion of people sleeping in insecticide-treated bed nets is still a matter of concern. Only about one fifth of urban population use treated mosquito nets. This situation had not improved much since 2001. Unless new malaria treatment strategies are effective and the population is fully covered, the target of 45% by 2010 and 60% in 2015 could be difficult to achieve.
Global Tuberculosis Control as the provider of such indicator estimated an increasing trend during 2005-2006. The prevalence rate was 713 cases per 100,000 people in 2005 and increased to 789 cases in 2006. Reports also indicate the number of deaths associated with tuberculosis up to 88 per 100,000 people in 2005 and hiked up to 98 cases in 2006. The government has targeted that this figure should be reduced to 874 in 2010 and, further, decreased to 644 in 2015. Aside from number of cases detected, decreasing trend was occurred in the proportion cured cases as well.
Timor-Leste has 56 reported cases of HIV/AIDS. The Government of Timor-Leste has adopted international procedures on HIV/AIDS such as international precautions, PEP, Mother to child transmission, GIPA etc. Given its global mandate of mainstreaming HIV/AIDS in development work, UNDP Timor-Leste has supported setting up of the National AIDS Commission (NAC) in 2006 and continues to assist strengthening NAC secretariat. NAC is composed of 22 members including National NGOs, National Parliament, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Social Solidarity, Faith Based Organizations, clinical services, National Hospital, UNTG and CCM.
Malaria: Timor Leste developed a comprehensive response to reduce the burden of malaria through mobilizing resources, development and implementation of effective strategies. Malaria diagnosis and treatment has been improved and ITN distributed targeted for children under 5 and pregnant women in very high risk areas. Timor Leste is moving towards a wide scale and comprehensive malaria control programme to reduce the morbidity and mortality of malaria. The support of funding from GFATM (Global Fund for AIDS, Malaria and TB) will enable Ministry of Health to further enhance and accelerate the implementation of HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB programme in Timor Leste.
Tuberculosis: Timor-Leste has adopted the DOTS strategy for the control of TB in line with the global recommendations. Presently, the entire population of the country in the 13 districts have access to DOTS services. Sputum microscopy services are provided through a network of laboratories in the 18 DOTS centers. Treatment services have been integrated within the general health system and decentralized to Community Health Centers and other peripheral health facilities. The National TB Programme has been consistently achieving treatment success rates of about 80% among new sputum positive cases. The case detection rates based on earlier estimates of incidence of TB estimates have been low compared to the global targets. However, the proportion of case detection will be closer to the global targets following the revision of estimates of incidence of NSP cases by international experts and agencies. To mitigate constraints in implementation of TB control activities the NTP is mobilizing additional resources through Global Fund and other partners.
HIV/AIDS: The prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Timor-Leste is presently low. However, presence of risk factors like high levels of STIs, low community awareness, social dislocation and rapid social change have the potential to rapidly change the scenario. HIV has been accorded priority in the Health Sector Strategic Plan 2008 – 2012 developed by the Ministry of Health. The National HIV/AIDS and STI Strategic Plan for 2006 – 2010 focuses on prevention and education; voluntary counseling and testing; multi-sectoral response; and clinical services. The National Programme has initiated interventions on community awareness generation, role out of VCT services, targeted interventions among the most at risk groups in collaboration with civil society partners and STI services with fund support from Global Fund. KADALAK0003