Jose Ramos-Horta

The second one, the joint Truth and Friendship Commission, which we started now with Indonesia, that is the one that has been criticized; its terms of reference call for providing amnesty for those who cooperate in telling the truth. It does not lead to prosecution.

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The East Timorese government does not believe that we should consider compensation for the victims because there are tens of thousands of people who were, in one way or another, affected by the violence either directly or indirectly.

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We have already significant sums of money in our petroleum fund, a fund created by law that includes all the revenues received from the Timor Sea, and invests in conservative, safe, long-term investment portfolios - right now in US Treasury Bonds.

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It would be a mind-boggling endeavor to try to identify each individual who claims to have been a survivor of victimization during this period of 24 years.

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We do have some assistance from the World Bank but not from the IMF. We are not borrowing yet, but we are considering, in the future, borrowing from the Kuwait Fund to support our infrastructure development.

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Such a structure would also raise a number of problems: first of all, which Timorese to pay compensation to? It would open a can of worms in terms of who was really a victim and who was not.

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Quotes by Jose Ramos-Horta