Over the past decade, multilateral and bilateral agencies have periodically
registered concern over acute outbreaks of collective violence in Dili, the
capital of Timor-Leste. But the experience of urban violence in Dili is not
restricted to the recent independence period. Rather, the incidence of conflict
can be situated on a historical continuum spanning generations. Earlier
manifestations of urban violence generated important consequences in
relation to the social and physical morphology of the city and its periphery.
In Dili, as in many ‘fragile cities’ around the world, the past is present. A
thorough understanding of the city’s historical development is critical to
identifying the risks shaping the onset, duration, and severity of urban
violence and strategies to contain and reduce it.
This study finds that the town and, more recently, the city of Dili was seized
by paroxysms of collective violence on several occasions over the past six
decades: in 1942, 1975, 1980, 1991, 1999, 2002, 2006, and 2007. Each
episode of acute violence was succeeded by extended periods of low-level
tensions, punctuated by spikes of collective violence, then returning to
lower rates, as experienced earlier. This pattern of urban violence was
routinely accompanied by escalations in homicide rates (including revenge
killings), severe and widespread trauma, the degradation of infrastructure,
forced and opportunistic migration, land grabs and disputes, and a widespread
sense of social injustice and impunity. What is more, each outbreak
of collective urban violence contributed to the progressive militarization of
Timorese society, as communities and ‘violence entrepreneurs’ prepared to
defend themselves for the future.
Crucially, an understanding of the subtle causes, duration, and dynamics of
urban violence in Dili requires looking not only to history but also well beyond
the city to the country’s hinterland. Indeed, the origins and character of urban
violence are influenced by political, economic, and social dynamics that are
both external and internal to the geographic and administrative boundaries
that define the city. It is the ‘interaction’ of these external and internal dynamics
that informs and shapes the nature of violence in the country’s urban spaces.
As is well known to most analysts of Timor-Leste, communities residing in
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Dili experience a close physical, emotive, and historical relationship with the
mountains and outlying districts.
In a way, what is considered an ‘urban’ manifestation of violence is often
fundamentally connected to grievances in rural areas, and vice versa. Dili
can and should be understood as an ‘urban village’—a set of interconnected
and clustered villages that represents extensions of rural communities in an
urbanized setting. In this context, residents from one side of the country
often live cheek by jowl with villagers from other areas. Those who aim to
intervene to prevent and reduce urban violence must be cognizant of this
geospatial interaction.
Drawing on a randomized household survey, focus group interviews, and an
extensive literature review undertaken between June and December 2009,
this study considers the structural and proximate factors shaping urban
violence in Dili. These include the presence of informal security actors, erstwhile
internally displaced persons (IDPs), permanent and seasonal population
movements, land and property disputes, and persistent and glaring socioeconomic
inequalities. The report also focuses on the objective symptoms
of urban violence, including (the comparatively low) homicide rates, the
relatively high rates of robbery, the high prevalence of sexual and domestic
violence, the relationship between alcohol consumption and the onset of
violence, the seemingly ambiguous and distrustful attitudes towards formal
security providers, and the interconnections between systemic unemployment
and protracted violence. In terms of subjective experiences of urban
violence, the study finds that most residents describe their neighbourhoods
as generally free from violence, their communities as safer than surrounding
communities, the security of their neighbourhoods as adequate, and their
neighbours as willing to look out for one another. The tendency towards
increased transience and anonymity, owing in part to an exploding population
and urbanization, may threaten these social networks of reciprocity.
The study finds that urban violence in Dili can often shift from collective to
interpersonal forms in dramatic fashion. Owing to the weak state of crime
and health surveillance and the fact that most minor incidents are dealt with
through customary means, if at all, it is difficult for international and domestic
authorities to anticipate the onset of acute forms of urban violence. While
recognizing a comparatively low incidence of overall violent victimization in
Dili since 2007, the study observes that muscular coercive and security-led
interventions seeking to deter urban violence are more commonly pursued
by the government than informal, voluntary approaches that seek to prevent
and reduce victimization in the long term. A C
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tudy of
Dili,
Timor-Le s
te 12 In the context of wider debates on urban violence in fragile states, it is worth
mentioning that the Timor-Leste experience may be atypical. Since 2006, for
example, the country has developed a petroleum fund valued at roughly
USD 5 billion in total and projected to be worth many times this amount in
the coming decade (BPA, 2009). This has allowed the Timorese government
to boost public spending by 400–550 per cent in the past 36 months. As a
result, the propensity for urban violence may have decreased, as groups and
individuals have become rent-seekers in leveraging support from the public
authorities. While this shifting relationship may not address many of the
fundamental risk factors shaping urban violence, it has, in the words of
leading government members, including the prime minister, facilitated the
‘buying of peace’ in the country. This study concludes with a descriptive
overview of various attempts to contain and regulate gang violence and
promote more predictable and transparent property rights regimes