Timor-Leste Polls to be Supported by Election Watchdog Volunteers

Dozens of United Nations Volunteers
(UNV) are heading to Timor-Leste to help the fledgling nation's
upcoming local elections. The first batch of the 62 international
volunteers arrived last week, with the next two groups scheduled to
reach Timor-Leste this month. United Nations Volunteers have played a
key support role for all electoral processes in the country, starting
with the Popular Consultation in 1999. For this year's village
polls, the Timor-Leste Government has requested the volunteers'
assistance in areas including field operation, logistics, civic and
voter education, and monitoring.

In his most recent report on the
country, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he is encouraged by the
strides made by the leaders and people of Timor-Leste since violence
shook the small Asian nation in 2006, but warned that the root causes
of that crisis, including poverty and unemployment, still linger.

In late April 2006, fighting –
attributed to differences between eastern and western regions –
erupted when 600 striking soldiers, or one-third of the armed forces,
were fired. Ensuing violence claimed dozens of lives and drove
155,000 people, 15 per cent of the total population, from their
homes. In the more than two years since that crisis, Timor-Leste,
which the UN shepherded to independence in 2002, has "made
remarkable progress in overcoming the most visible reminders of that
year," the he Secretary-General wrote in his latest report on the
UN mission in the country (UNMIT).

The Secretary-General's Special
Representative, Atul Khare, briefed a United States Congressional
delegation, the first-ever to Timor-Leste, on UNMIT's mandate and
activities, as well as on strides made to consolidate stability in
the wake of the 2006 crisis. The bolstering of the relationship
between the two countries "can help deepen the understanding that
democracy in a young nation like Timor-Leste provides the best avenue
for redressing societal grievances, and hence creates the conditions
for better long-term security and development," he said at today's
meeting in the capital, Dili.