Land dispute triggers more violence in Timor-Leste

Tasi Tolu, Dili, East Timor

ETLJB 23 October 2012 - Timor Post reported yesterday on an incident that occurred in the area to the east of Dili known as Tasi Tolu (Three Lakes) in which the community suspects a police officer identified as Jose Valente as the mastermind in a land dispute in the sub-village of Besi Mean in Tasi Tolu.

A spokesperson for the families of the three victims, Cicilia Barbosa, said that the incident occurred last Thursday night (18 October) when two groups attacked each other over the land dispute. Cicilia Barbosa as a represent of the three families' victim said the problem happened on Thursday night when two groups attacked each other because of the land dispute.

"They come to the suburb in a car and fired guns three times and caused panic amongst the people in the suburb of Tasi Tolu.

Meanwhile, Suara Timor Lorosae reported that people were appealing to the government to enact a law on land and property and to implement it soon in order to resolve the chronic problem of land disputes in the country.

"I am calling on the Government, especially the Minister for Justice, to create law for land and property and implement it, then people can have right to live in a place," Marito Soares as a person of the young generation told Suara Timor Lorosae.

The State Secretary for Veterans Affairs, Virgilio Smith, also called on the Government to create law for land and property shortly in order to resolve the dispute land problems.


Author: Warren L. Wright BA LLB

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For further analyses of land problems in East Timor see the following articles published on the East Timor Law Journal:

Community land in East Timor – A New Tragedy of the Commons?

The East Timor Land Law Program: Four Years On – Still No Land Law

Land Policy in East Timor: The Cart Before the Horse

East Timor Land Rights: Restitution Not Possession – A Comment on the Draft Land Law

Communal Land Tenure Systems in East Timor to have no legal status under new draft land law

Ethnicity, Violence & Land and Property Disputes in Timor-Leste
Some Land Tenure Issues in Post-Conflict East Timor
On the occasion of the International Conference on Traditional Dispute Resolution & Traditional Justice in Timor-Leste
A Note on Land Rights in East Timor (Indonesian Government Regulation No 18 of 1991 on the Conversion of Land Rights in East Timor) & the Purported Suspension of Article 5 by Government Regulation No 24 of 1992
UNTAET Land Policy
Some Observations on UNTAET Regulation No 27/2000 on the Temporary Prohibition on Transactions in Land by Indonesian Citizens
Some Observations on the Report on Research Findings & Policy Recommendations for a Legal Framework for Land Dispute Mediation in East Timor
An Overview of East Timor’s Law No 1 of 2003 on the Juridical Regime on Immovable Properties
Report on Research into Adat Land Law in East Timor
UNTAET Guidelines for the Administration of Public & Abandoned Property by District AdministrationsFinding Ways of Resolving Land Problems in East Timor