Timor ba nafatin

The coup from Rogério Lobato
Expresso
Saturday, the 17th of June 2006

The signs that point to Rogério Lobato as the main responsible for the military and humanitarian chaos that East Timor lives since the 28th of April, when a protest of military deserters ended in an armed conflict between military and civilians, resulting in the following weeks in an uncontrollable riot that had the support of policemen and paramilitary groups allegedly faithful to the former Interior Minister [Lobato].

In an attempt to preserve evidence, the international attorneys mandated by the UN have decided to start the criminal investigation already this week, thus anticipating the arrival of a team of policemen designated by the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan.

Since today, the international attorneys have 24-hour security as a preventive measure.
Given the incertitude on the quantity and place of many of the weapons bought in the last years for the police by Rogério Lobato, the magistrates believe they have reasons to fear for his physical integrity.

Besides a group in Liquiçá (33 men armed with AK-33 machine-guns) that last week denounced they had worked under direct orders from the ex-Minister of Interior (having meanwhile elaborated a report with detailed information on their contacts and activities), EXPRESSO found that two other similar groups exist in Maliana and Kotalama, near Ermera.

One of them has 20 men and is lead by a former guerrilla fighter named António Limalima, whereas a team of 16 men coordinated by Commander Joaquim Roque composes the other. Both are armed with AK-33 machine-guns and they use uniforms of the Police Reserve Unit, created in 2004 by the Government to fight militias in rural areas.

The shootings that are still heard at night in those and in other areas of the country lead to believe they [these groups] are still active. These paramilitary, including the Liquiçá group, are part of an allege secret security structure of Fretilin, the party in the Government that two weeks ago elected Lobato for the vice-presidency, after his resignation as Minister of Interior and after suspicions on his less clear behaviour leading the police [were known].

The report of the Liquiçá group, signed by Commander Railos and sent this week to Xanana Gusmão, includes the names of all Fretilin elements with whom they had meetings and transactions of weapons and equipment, besides discriminating the names of those dead and wounded fighting, as well as presenting a series of serial numbers of the weapons they still posses, so that they may be compared with the PNTL (National Police of East Timor) records.

Railos argues that the delivery of weapons to his group was done by the border Police Commander, António da Cruz, having the first 10 AK-33 machine-guns and 6000 bullets arrived to his hands on the 10th of May, around 10 pm, in a meeting held at the Rate Pahlawan cemetery, close to the Liquiçá beach.

It was not possible to contact António da Cruz during this week but by cross-checking the versions from all parts on the confrontations between the 22nd and the 25th of May, the information in the five page report of Commander Railos is consistent. During several days there was a coordinated attack to several military positions of the FDTL (Defence Forces of East Timor), in which rebel groups coming from the mountains took part, lead by Major Alfredo Reinaldo and accompanied by Fast Intervention Unit agents and Police Reserve Unit agents.

Lieutenant Gastão Salsinha, leader of the army deserters (known as petitioners) was one of those who participated in the attack to the FDTL headquarters in Tasitolu, on the 23rd and the 24th, and has admitted to EXPRESSO that Commander Railos and his men were also present there, although he was not able to answer to the question on what were armed petitioner doing there, when they should be unarmed and quartered in Ermera, 40 km from the capital, as he had said before in several interviews.

Too many coincidences
It were precisely the men from the border Police lead by António da Cruz that were controlling who entered and who left in Tasitolu on the 28th of April, next to the FDTL headquarters and to the local (Raikotu) were the armed confrontation between the army, and the petitioners and their supporters took place. The truth is that the demonstrators did not have any fire weapons when they left from the front of the Government Palace, after setting two cars on fire with petrol and throwing stones on the building, but after a few hours, when they got involved in the fighting with the FDTL military in Tasitolu, they already had machine-guns, having been accompanied all the way only by the police. According to Lino Saldanha, Adjunct-Commander of PNTL in the administration area, there had been a month since a group of 80 policemen from the border, coming from Maliana, was in Dili.

On the other hand, it is yet to be justified the fact that there were more than 500 policemen in the city [of Dili] on the 28th of April, but only 85 were detached for the protest in front of the Government Palace, while there was no security reinforce even after the petitioners having invaded the building’s car park and setting fire to two cars. That request for help was done several times to the Minister of Interior by Mari Alkatiri but it had no effect, and he felt obliged to requisite the FDTL intervention.

Ismael Babo, who was coordinating the operations on that day, confessed to EXPRESSO that he received direct orders from Rogério Lobato not to reinforce the guard to the Palace, but in turn to evacuate all the members of the Government and the Parliament to the Police headquarters. Later, after the travel of hundreds of protesters have been accompanied by only 12 policemen, the then Minister of Interior gave another order: to get all the agents out of the place, even noticing that the protesters needed to be disarmed, leaving only a control post at the airport roundabout so that no one could pass on the road but the army.

Since the 28th of April that in many neighbourhoods in the city rumours were spread on a massacre committed by the military, said to have killed more than 60 innocent civilians (only five are confirmed by the Hospital Director in Dili), ordered by Mari Alkatiri. That is what originated the fires and the civil rioting between neighbours, filling the images of international televisions.

The trap
FDTL hierarchies, however, believe they have been pushed into a trap with the purpose of demonising the armed forces, feeding the hate in the people to the core of former Resistance guerrilla fighters. With that the pillar of the recently created and yet fragile democratic estate of East Timor would fall apart, giving place to an internal re-equilibrium of powers.

There is an unanimous opinion in Dili that the current political situation in East Timor is very complex and that there is an intricate web of complicities and silences that may jeopardize the international investigation, although it was publicly reclaimed by every part: the President, the PM, the opposition, the rebels, the police and the military.

It seems there is a notable will on the speeches and attitudes of the PM, Mari Alkatiri, and even of Xanana Gusmão, to make the principle of national reconciliation standing above the principle of justice and that of criminal responsibility. Thus the tolerance of the President towards Major Reinaldo and the other rebels, and the compensation given by Alkatiri to Rogério Lobato, allowing him ascending to vice-President of Fretilin.

The surname Lobato has an enormous weight in the country, being one of the historical clans in the struggle for independence since 1975. Rogério’s brother, Nicolau Lobato, was the first maximum leader of Falintil in the mountains. His death, after 12 hours of fighting with the Indonesians in the last day of 1978, made him the biggest martyr of Timor. Although in exile, Rogério succeed him in the place, but he would end up in disgrace when in the 80s was caught in Angola trafficking diamonds, which lead him to spend two years in jail, being accused even by some Fretilin colleagues of having done it for self purposes.

When he returned to Timor after 25 years abroad, a group of hundreds of former fighters lead by guerrilla fighter L7 saw in him the politician [that would be] able to represent their discontentment for not having been integrated in the recently created country’s armed forces. In the corridors of the Government Palace it is assured that that was the decisive support behind the invitation that Mari Alkatiri addressed to him to occupy the role of Minister of Internal Affairs (later Minister of Interior, already without the estate administration area). L7 was even nominated Lobato’s adviser for security but the two ended up by having a misunderstand in 2003.

Ambitious and temperamental
Rogério Lobato is described in Dili as an ambitious and temperamental man, who likes to control his men and to impose respect with a muscular authority. An episode that occurred in the beginning of this year in front of local television journalists and in front of the Republic’s Attorney General, demonstrates how he is able to act. Accompanying the detention of a group of young troublesome, told them to face against the wall and asked to shut down the cameras for a moment, using that time to say to the detainees: “You either tell me the truth or I break your legs.” A strong personality that together with his sounding surname, seem to make Alkatiri just one of his hostage.

Coup in East Timor lead by ex-Minister
The data recovered by the international investigators point to the ex-Minister Interior of East Timor, Rogério Lobato, as the responsible for a complex Coup d’État that aimed to eliminate the leadership of the Armed Forces. The international attorneys have already seen their security reinforced 24 hours a day, as a preventive measure, once a significant quantity of weapons bought for the police by Rogério Lobato remains in unknown place.

In Liquiçá, a group of 33-armed men with machine-guns admitted to have worked under the orders of the ex-Minister of Interior. A report from that group, signed by Commander Railos and delivered this week to President Xanana includes the names of all Fretilin elements with whom there were meetings and with whom transactions of weapons and equipment were made, besides discriminating of the death and the wounded in fight. Two similar groups will be operating in the interior of East Timor. These paramilitary groups are part of an alleged Fretilin secret security structure, are armed with machine-guns and use uniforms of the Police Reserve Unit.

In an interview to EXPRESSO, the ex-Minister Rogério Lobato admits that if “Fretilin raises itself, nobody will control it”.

“We know every hole of this country”

The ex-Minister of Interior has decided to open the door of his house to EXPRESSO yesterday night, to accuse the Police General-Commander, the President Xanana Gusmão and Priests of the Catholic Church, of being behind the attempt of Coup d’Etat in the country. In between, admits having created the paramilitary group of Commander Railos, checkmating even the PM Mari Alkatiri.

And he even leaves a message: when Fretilin raises it will be all the people that will rise.


EXPRESSO: There are several versions on what happened in Timor. Which is yours?

ROGÉRIO LOBATO: In my (resignation) letter I refer clearly [the existence of] a bi-cephalous command.

E: What do you mean by bi-cephalous?

RL: That the President’s intervention on the petitioners affected the relations with the military.

E: Should Xanana Gusmaão have had another attitude with the military?

RL: He should have been more pondered and not to attack and let down in public. That was not well taken by the people who were with him in the bush for many years. But this problem appeared much earlier. The PNTL (National Police of East Timor) is under the Government’s exclusive tutelage. From a certain point, I realised that many times the Police Commander went to meet at the Republic Presidency without my knowledge. Without even the knowledge of the PM. Naturally that worried me (…). And than there is a protest that ceases to a protest to became an act of organised violence. What is that? It is [a] crime!

E: Were you not accompanying the Police operations to face that protest of the 28th of April?

RL: I was. But the orders I gave were for the Rapid Intervention Unit [UIR] to concentrate at the Government’s Palace.

E: Who did you give those orders to?

RL: I gave them to the General-Commander.

E: And what did he tell you?

RL: He told me yes but than he purely did not fulfil the orders.

E: What kind of relation does the Police General-Commander have with Xanana Gusmão? How does that relation may have jeopardized the Police performance?

RL: That relation ended up making the Police performance inefficient.

E: Do you think that the Police General-Commander was influenced by the President?

RL: I do not want to make the accusation but I know there were contacts that we did not know about.

E: And have you already questioned Xanana Gusmão?

RL: No.

E: Between the 23rd and the 24th there was an attack to Army headquarters in Tasitolu by rebels and policemen, where Commander Railos and his men were present. You are accused of having created that paramilitary group.

RL: Those accusations are undeserved and false. We formed a group of former fighters that know all the hideouts through which the militias came in. They would be trackers that thought the men of our Police Reserve Unit so they could act in a guerrilla situation…

E: Including Commander Railos and his men?

RL: Those men were recruited later. We saw that it was necessary to create a group with experience but then it went completely uncoordinated. They did what they wanted to.

E: How many men form those paramilitary groups?

RL: I believe 15.

E: Commander Railos says he has 30.

RL: It is possible they have added up to 30.

E: And that they belong to Fretilin’s secret security.

RL: No.

E: The PM has already admitted they are from Fretilin…

RL: We recruited them to be trackers…

E: But they are Fretilin militants.

RL: Well, they mayor may not be Fretilin militants. They are former fighters.

E: The PM assumed that he received Commander Railos and two of his assistants in his house on the 8th of May.

RL: Naturally, but always within the frame of integrate them in that force we have.

E: Commander Railos says he received an order from you to hold the petitioners on the 23rd and the 24th of May in Tibar. Is that true?

RL: People in Dili were very worried then. There were the attacks in Tibar and there thousands of people there. That is why I asked them to do whatever they could to prevent those forces to arrive in Dili, so that they would not spread the death. Even because a few days before relatives of mine had been murdered: my sister-in-law and five nephews. That was the effort we have made. It did not work.

E: Many Priests accuse Fretilin, Mari Alkatiri and you of distributing weapons.

RL: One of those priests has contacts with Major Mustapha to introduce weapons in Timor.

E: Who is Major Mustapha?

RL: I think I have said too much. They should not start talking because we know their “straw tails” (in Portuguese “rabos de palha”, to leave the tail uncovered). We do not have secrets. Until now Fretilin has not yet raised. When I asked my resignation from the Government it was because all the batteries were pointed to the PM. It seams that he is the great devil of this country and that the others are all saints. They are not saints. The saint is really him.

E: Do you predict the possibility of a civil war?

RL: A civil war against whom? When Fretilin rises, it will be the whole people. We know all the holes in this country.

E: You have already done a long list of accusations: the President, policemen, the Church…

RL: I would leave the investigation to the journalists.

E: Do you think there is an alliance?

RL: There is no doubt about that.

E: And do you include in that share the Minister Ramos-Horta?
RL: My pal Ramos-Horta…if a Minister criticises the PM himself… I would not like to answer in the same way.