SEATOU’s Campaign of Demolition and Confiscation: A Brutal Assault on Timorese Livelihoods in the Name of “Order”

In a forceful crackdown throughout 2024, the IX Government, through SEATOU (Secretary of State for Toponymy and Urban Organization Affairs), has unleashed an aggressive campaign to eradicate informal urban settlements and silence unlicensed vendors. Cloaked under the guise of public order and urban beautification, SEATOU’s actions have sparked outrage and fiercely divided the Timorese people. The campaign escalated to violent extremes on October 23, when SEATOU and PNTL officers clashed with street vendors in Kampung Baru, leading to chaotic brawls and the discharge of a firearm, reportedly injuring a vendor. This incident, along with SEATOU’s unrelenting crackdown, has prompted Communities to urgently assess the government’s actions, which they warn may destabilize the nation and threaten human rights.

Since its inception, SEATOU’s campaign has ignited fierce public debate. Proponents justify the government’s forceful tactics as a means of purging streets and public spaces of “nuisances”—unauthorized structures and vendors who, they argue, obstruct traffic, litter public spaces, and degrade public hygiene. Some supporters defend the violent enforcement as necessary to control what they describe as a “stubborn” population, implying that only force can compel compliance.

However, a significant portion of the population vehemently opposes SEATOU’s ruthless methods. While informal vendors and settlers may technically operate outside legal boundaries, critics argue that SEATOU’s approach is a severe overreach, one that tramples human rights and fosters discord within the community. For many, the sight of government forces physically assaulting and forcibly evicting struggling citizens exposes an authoritarian disregard for the people’s plight. The crackdown raises urgent questions: What kind of society relies on brutal force to maintain order, and at what cost?

Moreover, SEATOU’s campaign exposes a deep, long-standing failure of governance in Timor-Leste. For years, leaders have neglected the core issues driving informality, failing to invest in human resources, infrastructure, and economic diversification. Instead, political elites prioritize power games and lucrative projects that serve a select few, leaving the majority of the population without meaningful opportunities. With SEATOU’s campaign, the government’s solution to poverty and informal livelihoods is not support, but suppression.

SEATOU’s actions underscore a glaring hypocrisy within Timor-Leste’s leadership. While ordinary citizens are subject to ruthless evictions, demolitions, and the destruction of their meager belongings, political and economic elites continue to operate with near-total impunity. Dangerous driving, hazardous waste disposal, substandard building practices, and noise pollution plague communities, yet no forceful action is taken to address these. Instead, the government’s “law and order” is selectively enforced against the most vulnerable, as elites escapes any repercussions for far graver violations.

Communities argue that “crimes” such an informal settlement and street vending are not true threats to society but rather symptoms of a weak economy and systemic inequities. Criminalizing the poor, who often resort to informal activities out of sheer necessity, is both counterproductive and inhumane. Only by strengthening the formal sector and ensuring fair enforcement of the law across all levels can Timor-Leste begin to address informality’s root causes. Attempts to forcefully eradicate informality while the government itself remains entangled in informal practices merely reveal the campaign’s hypocrisy and futility.

SEATOU’s recent efforts to sanitize urban areas ahead of the Pope’s visit reflect a concern with image over substance. This is not the first time; a similar purge occurred before the 2016 CPLP conference in Dili, when informal vendors were forcibly removed to create a facade of order. Despite these displays, street vendors return, underscoring the pointlessness of a superficial approach that fails to tackle the real social and economic issues that drive informality.

Communities firmly believe that violence and oppression will only push the nation toward further unrest. Chasing vendors from streets, seizing goods, and demolishing homes will not resolve the deeply rooted poverty that drives people into informal livelihoods; it only fuels resentment and anger. Communities call on the government to abandon this punitive approach, advocating instead for a humane strategy that addresses the real causes of urban disorder and informality. A nation that terrorizes its poorest citizens under the guise of “public order” risks alienating its people and sowing seeds of division that may prove disastrous.

In the end, if Timor-Leste is to advance toward a stable and modern society, it must confront these structural issues with compassion, not coercion. Violence will only breed discontent and division, threatening to engulf the country in even greater turmoil.

Media Laloran Tasi Mane

24 Outubro, 2024