AT A TIME Timor-Leste has just emerged from socio-political turmoil that threatened its fledgling democratic institutions, a Davao-based advocacy and solidarity organization will co-anchor a four-day solidarity and democracy mission to the world’s youngest nation. The mission is set on 27 – 30 August 2006.
AT A TIME Timor-Leste has just emerged from socio-political turmoil that threatened its fledgling democratic institutions, a Davao-based advocacy and solidarity organization will co-anchor a four-day solidarity and democracy mission to the world’s youngest nation. The mission is set on 27 – 30 August 2006.
The Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID) will co-anchor the mission with local partner organizations in Timor-Leste together with the three regional and international civil society networks who are into solidarity work, conflict prevention, and democracy protection and sustenance.
It can be remembered that violence erupted in Dili, the sea-side capital of Timor-Leste, two months after some 600 soldiers mostly from the Western part of the country were sacked last March of this year after they deserted their barracks in protest over the alleged discrimination and over-zealous surveillance of soldiers coming from the the Western part of the country.
Observers considered the recent violence as the worst in Timor-Leste since its break from Indonesia in 1999, when revenge-thirsty Indon militias went on a rampage, killing nearly 1,500 people. The country became fully independent in 2002 after two years of U.N. administration, but remains one of the world’s poorest.
Conscious of the arduous tasks of nation-building and the process of democratization for Timor-Leste, the mission aims to determine possible avenues for supporting a partnership of civil society, the Timor-Leste government, and the UN in preventing an escalation of conflict in the country and ascertain the capacity building needs of civil society groups as active players in the process; submit proposals and recommendations to the Timor Leste government, civil society organizations, the church, the UN and the other parties essential to the resolution of the conflict; and formalize mechanisms with groups, key actors and organizations for sustained networking and partnership.
To achieve these aims, the mission will meet key government, political, church, grassroots, UN, and civil society personalities in Timor-Leste.
The networks involved in this mission are the World Forum for Democratization in Asia (WFDA), Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC), and Asia Pacific Solidarity Coalition (APSOC).
WFDA is a network of democrats in Asia composed of parliamentarians, activists, development workers and donors whose mission is to promote democracy and hasten the creation of fully democratized societies in Asia. Network steering committee members are the Alliance for Reform and Democracy in Asia (ARDA); Initiatives for International Dialogue (IID); Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (ALTSEAN); Forum Asia Democracy (FAD) and the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy.
WFDA is the Asian counterpart of the World Movement for Democracy (WMD) and the Non-Governmental Process of the Community of Democracies (CD).
GPPAC is global network cum movement composed of 18 regions that aims to develop and institutionalize mechanisms of partnership for conflict prevention among the UN, governments and civil society. It is a response to a call of the UN Secretary General for civil society to initiate such a process and determine its role in complementing existing official and institutional mechanisms at the multilateral and national levels. During its inaugural conference at the UN headquarters in New York in July 2005, His Excellency Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao was the only Head of State who personally attended and committed to the ideals and principles of GPPAC. Meanwhile, the GPPAC- Timor Leste, anchored by the K’dadalak Sulimutuk Institute (KSI), an NGO led by Antero Benedito da Silva has initiated a community and popular security program which they hope to mainstream.
APSOC is an outgrowth of the Asia-Pacific Coalition for East Timor (APCET) committed to solidarity for the peoples in the region in the myriad issues and concerns confronting them and common struggles.
Early this month, IID conducted an exploratory visit to determine the feasibility of conducting the mission. IID is the convener and secretariat of APSOC, the regional initiator for Southeast Asia of GPPAC, and a Steering Committee member of WFDA.
According to Gus Miclat, the Executive Director of IID who led the exploratory visit, Timor-Leste’s President Xanana Gusmao welcomes the planned solidarity and democracy mission as part of the government’s initiative to coordinate the efforts of the civil society, the government, and the church for a national dialogue process.
Other government officials led by the newly-installed Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta and officials of the United Nations Office in Timor-Leste (UNOTIL) also share the same optimism on the said solidarity mission, Miclat added.
Miclat also expects that IID would be able to share with East Timorese partners the body of lessons learned from its peace-building and conflict prevention work in Mindanao. IID is the secretariat of Mindanao Peoples’ Caucus (MPC), the first civil society organization being granted an observer status in the on-going peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
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