Access to Land and Livelihoods in Post-conflict Timor-Leste

Abstract

East Timor gained formal independence in 2002. Its extended history of internal displacement through colonial territorialisation strategies and conflict has produced an array of contesting land claims, informal land use and occupation, and socio-political conflict. Correspondingly, the Timor-Leste (or East Timor) government has looked to formal land registration and titling to resolve historical and contemporary tensions over land. The proposed national land laws concentrate on land ownership, which overlooks the social relations at work to shape local land access and livelihoods. A case study of a rural village, Mulia, forcibly resettled during the Indonesian occupation, demonstrates how settlers negotiate access to customary land for livelihoods despite ongoing land conflicts with the customary landowners. Settlers have continually adapted to broader economic and political constraints to create diverse and multi-local livelihoods, and established a moral economy between themselves, landowners and the local spirit realm. This paper argues that formal land titles are unlikely to resolve the ambiguities and complexities of diverse forms of access to and ownership of land.

Keywords:

• Displacement
• resettlement
• access
• land
• livelihood
• post-conflict
• Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Notes

1. The 2006 social crisis began within the national military with a group of disaffected officers known as ‘the petitioners'. Violence later erupted between elements of the national military and national police, which caused a breakdown in law and order that was eventually met with international intervention. ‘Regional’ and colonial-era ‘ethnic’ identities were politically manipulated, causing entrenched historical divisions to resurface and overlap with more contemporary grievances.

2. The draft Land Law is intended to apply for an interim period to resolve contesting land ownership. In March 2012, the then President of Timor-Leste Jose Ramos Horta rejected three land laws on the grounds that they will not benefit all Timorese citizens. The three laws of concern were the Expropriation Law, the Special Regime Law and the Financial Property Fund Law. These laws will be revised and debated again in the National Parliament before promulgation by the President.

3. The draft Transitional Land Law must be read in relation to the rights enshrined in the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste. Section 54 of the Constitution stipulates that only East Timorese citizens have the right to private ownership of land. The Constitution lays out additional principles that safeguard land rights, gender equality and citizenship rights. A land claims registration program (Ita Nia Rai) is carried out simultaneously to the introduction of the Land Law.