Dili, March 24, 2025 (Média Democracia) – Civil Society NGO AJAR asked the Government to improve domestic politics before joining ASEAN.
In an interview with the representative of Timor-Leste Civil Society, Inocensio de Jesus Xavier said that Civil Society as an NGO which is a critical and strategic partner of the government from the law that gives power to civil society is Law number 5/2005 which considers civil society as a partner of the state, if the state considers civil society as a strategic partner of the government then the state cannot submit to ASEAN.
“The reason why civil society is asking the government not to immediately admit Timor-Leste to ASEAN is because the first reason we are talking about we have not yet made a readjustment to our legal framework, the second reason is our national politics are still not running properly, now we see on the border we still do not have good or clear politics, we have had many plans but we still have not seen the political security modality is still not running properly still vulnerable, another thing is we look at the infrastructure and also human resources, we look at human resources we are talking in formal and informal aspects, for formal aspects we are talking at the state level and also the level of institutional capacity of government. In each ministry has included these pillars that come from ASEAN or not. Looking at the level of ordinary employees in ministries and also institutions whether they know about ASEAN or not, second we look at the financial capacity nationally, because we entered ASEAN as a competitive modality not an opportunity but a competitive modality of human resources.” Said the representative of Civil Society, Inocensio de Jesus Xavier
He continued, seeing this infrastructure can also be seen from the development sectors running in this country such as health, education, roads, clean water and other sectors. This development has been running or not, what is clear is that Timor-Leste is almost entering ASEAN, but the sectors mentioned earlier need to be fixed.
“Civil Society does not think of disagreeing with Timor-Leste entering ASEAN, but Civil Society asks us to prepare ourselves to become members of ASEAN, before becoming members of ASEAN we must see ASEAN as an opportunity or challenge, because what Civil Society asks the government is to first fix domestic capacity, also fix the existing pillars, if all of that is implemented then when the time comes we will project a few years into the future before we can become members of ASEAN.” He added.
He informed that Civil Society noted that the government wanted Timor-Leste to become a member of ASEAN soon, but did not know that the development had not gone as it should. It is clear that geographically Timor-Leste is in the Southeast Asia region but the development process mentioned earlier is still not right for Timor-Leste to become a member of ASEAN, therefore as a civil society we continue to ask the government to resolve domestic problems in this country so that it can join ASEAN.
Reported by : Domingas
Picture by : Domingas