Dili prosecutor refuses to question Xanana Gusmao

The Southeast Asian Times / From News Reports:

Fonte: Timor Online / 21 janeiro 2008 / http://timor-online.blogspot.com

Dili, January 18: East Timor's supposedly impartial Prosecutor General Longuinhos Monteiro has refused to investigate mutineer-deserter-and-murder-suspect Alfredo Reinado's allegation that president now-prime-minister Xanana Gusmao was the author of last year's disturbances that took the newly-independent country to the brink of civil war and a multi-national Australian-led military occupation.
Instead, Longuinhos Monteiro - who was quickly able to investigate ultimately false accusations against former prime minister Mari Alkatiri - says he needs advice from Gusmao's cheer-leader and foreign minister during the disturbances - the now president, Jose Ramos-Horta.
Why an independent prosecutor general would need the advice of a nominally ceremonial president is not explained.
The usually vociferous supporters of the Gusmao-Horta axis - the Australian corporate media - have been strangely quiet about the imbroglio although it did get to report the latter's call for his countrymen and women to pray for their former tormenter, General Soeharto, who is dying in Jakarta.
The request for Gusmao to be questioned is made in a letter to the Prosecutor General from Fretilin president
Francisco Guterres 'Lu-Olo' and follows distribution of a CD video throughout East Timor in which Alfredo Reinado makes his accusations against the president-prime minister.
The Southeast Asian Times reported the interview soon after it became public.
Longuinhos Monteiro has been quoted by East Timor's domestic media as saying that his office would not intervene because the contents of the video are too political.
He would also need to know what the president thought about what action should be taken.
Initially, the dubiously-appointed prime minister dodged East Timorese reporters who wanted his response to Alfredo Reinado's applications.

Now he has threatened to arrest them if and when instability re-emerges.
"You have to exercise more responsibility towards the environment of stability or instability. We close our eyes when in the case of small and big things you go and interview Alfredo," he said.
The Commander of the International Stabilisation Forces, Australian Brigadier General, John Hutcheson, said his troops will not be used to capture either Alfredo Reinado or his armed followers.
The Australian-trained mutineer-fugitive was an internal problem, he said.

What Reinado said:
In his speech widely reported inside East Timor but so far ignored by the foreign media, Reinado said Gusmao was behind the army protest movement known as the "petitioners" who deserted en masse in early 2006.
Reinado said: "He (Gusmao) calls us bad people, but it was he who created us, made us to be like this. He is the author of the petition. He was behind all of this. Now as a Prime Minister, he has changed his tune and is washing his hands.
"He has turned against us, those who were ordered and created by him. It was with his support that the petition emerged in the first place, it was his irresponsible speeches to the media that made people fight and kill each other until today and many more things, as he knows.
"I give my testimony as a witness, that Xanana is the main author of this crisis; he cannot lie or deny this. He will try anything and make all sorts of manoeuvres to save himself, but he will not succeed."
Reinado's broadside against Gusmao has been reported by newspapers which circulate mainly in the capital Dili and by Catholic Church radio which can be heard over most of the country.
East Timor's sole television station, the government-owned TVTL controlled by Gusmao supporters, has failed to broadcast footage of the speech though DVD copies are circulating in the capital.
Reinado also warned foreign companies not to invest in East Timor because the crisis remains unresolved.
Reinado is a former military police chief who spent several years in Australia and trained at the Australian Defence Academy in Canberra in 2005.
The following year he led an army mutiny against the Fretilin government of prime minister Mari Alkatiri who had angered Canberra by taking a tougher than expected stance in negotiations over oil and gas.
The mutiny sparked widespread violence, facilitated the dispatch of Australian troops to East Timor and forced the resignation of Alkatiri who was replaced by Jose Ramos Horta, a close ally of Gusmao.
Most Australian media acted as little more than a cheer squad for Gusmao and Horta, echoing Australian Prime Minister John Howard's argument that Alkatiri was to blame for the trouble.

Charges recommended

However a United Nations Independent Special Commission of Inquiry into the crisis recommended that Reinado be prosecuted and he was later charged with rebellion, eight counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder.
Despite the gravity of the alleged offences Reinado received open sympathy and covert support from Gusmao, who as president held the title of army commander in chief.

A correspondent for The Australian newspaper reported seeing a presidential order for Reinado and his fellow mutineers to base themselves in the town of Aileu, 50km southeast of the capital.
Following escalating violence in Dili, Reinado moved deeper into the mountains, establishing a base at the Poussada Hotel near Maubisse.
The Australian reported that operatives of Australia's Special Air Service went to the hotel to watch over Reinado who spent six weeks at the Poussada but moved out without settling his account.

The bill was paid by President Gusmao, hotel staff told The Australian.
Reinado was eventually arrested on July 27 2006 after Portuguese police discovered he and his men had moved back to the capital and were occupying houses across the street from Australian military headquarters.
The gang were jailed awaiting trial but broke out of prison a month later and went back to the mountains.
Despite his fugitive status Reinado remained in close and friendly contact with Australian troops. He was even photographed with a rocket launcher while attending a church-organised "peace seminar" in the presence of Australian soldiers.
Gusmao's Australian wife Kirsty Sword Gusmao came to the defence of the accused- murderer-turned- prison-escapee in an interview with ABC radio on September 6 2006.
"He (Reinado) has been portrayed somewhat incorrectly in the Australian media as being a renegade, a rebel," said the former schoolteacher turned charity queen.
"I think it's important to remember that when he defected from the military police, it was as a protest action against what he saw as terrible violations committed by our armed forces," she said.
Reinado took a step too far for Gusmao and Australia when he seized automatic weapons from police border posts in February last year.
Australian forces tried to recapture Reinado but he escaped from under their noses a second time, on March 4 2007, leaving behind the corpses of five of his supporters.
The stand-off between Reinado and the authorities has since descended into farce. President Horta - supposedly engaged in a "dialogue" with the rebel - has abused the judiciary for wanting to pursue murder charges against Reinado.
The Australian military commander in East Timor, Brigadier John Hutcheson, has been criticised by a judge and the country's main opposition party, Fretilin, for halting the operation to arrest Reinado on Horta's instructions.
The increasingly controversial role of Australian troops recently drew comment from an Australian Catholic priest Father Frank Brennan, a former director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in East Timor.
Brennan wrote: "There is a growing perception among local critics of the Timor government that the Australian troops are the personal troops of the President given their presence without full constitutional mandate and their ready response to Horta's arbitrary command, which showed little respect for the traditional separation of powers between the Executive and the judiciary."
Brennan noted that Fretilin supporters still feel cheated by Ramos Horta's decision to invite Gusmao to form a government, even though Fretilin outpolled Gusmao's party.

PHOTO:
East Timor mutineer-deserter-and-murder-suspect Alfredo Reinado has been often interviewed by the international and domestic media. But that was before named prime minister Xanana Gusmao as the architect of last year's disturbances in the newly-independent country. Now the former president has threatened reporters with arrest if they interview the fugitive.

http://timor-online.blogspot.com/2008/01/dili-prosecutor-refuses-to-question.html