Suchergebnisse

The Timorese citizen and the United Nations Mission in Timor-Leste (UNMIT) representative quoted above had attended and were describing the same land law consultation meeting held in Los Palos in July 2009. The disparity in their observations (later cited in a Rede ba Rai press release) highlights one of the key problems surrounding land policy development processes in Timor-Leste. Development practitioners largely see the process of consultation as a beneficial but technical process, an element of policy creation to be carried out where time and resources allow. Citizens and participants in consultation meetings on the other hand see these processes as highly political and in the case of the Los Palos land law consultation of 2009, largely disempowering

During the land law consultations of 2009, then minister for justice Sra Lucia Lobato frequently referred to the vast quantities of 'empty land' that needed to be brought under state control in order to drive investment in Timor-Leste. These statements and comments reflect the predominantly top-down, neoliberal paradigm that the Timor-Leste government has adopted in its Strategic Development Plan 2011–2030 (RDTL 2010). In the government's view of land, there are vast, 'empty' areas of forest, mountain, beach and scrub land that have no owner, and, therefore, can be considered rai estado (state land)—a concept in stark contrast to the importance of land to local communities. This difference in worldviews cuts to the heart of land politics in Timor-Leste and yet is rarely acknowledged by the political elite and other development actors.

During the land law consultations of 2009, then minister for justice Sra Lucia Lobato frequently referred to the vast quantities of 'empty land' that needed to be brought under state control in order to drive investment in Timor-Leste. These statements and comments reflect the predominantly top-down, neoliberal paradigm that the Timor-Leste government has adopted in its Strategic Development Plan 2011–2030 (RDTL 2010). In the government's view of land, there are vast, 'empty' areas of forest, mountain, beach and scrub land that have no owner, and, therefore, can be considered rai estado (state land)—a concept in stark contrast to the importance of land to local communities. This difference in worldviews cuts to the heart of land politics in Timor-Leste and yet is rarely acknowledged by the political elite and other development actors.