Like many in East Timor, Major Alfredo Reinado, who died attacking the house of President Jose Ramos Horta on 11 February, had a history of violence that was doomed to be repeated. The effects of torture and trauma as a child, combined with a personality that grew ever more desirous of notoriety, propelled him to increasingly dangerous acts.
Post-traumatic stress syndrome affects one third of the population of East Timor — someone in every family — and half have witnessed acts of serious violence. It does not affect everybody in the same way, and some survive as empathetic and generous people capable of forgiveness. However, not everyone has this capacity. Reinado is an example of this.
Born in 1966 Reinado and his family followed the resistance army southward in the wake of the Indonesian invasion of Dili in 1975. He became separated from his mother and was forced to travel with strangers, witnessing death and murder along the way. Made to work as a porter by an Indonesian sergeant he was treated cruelly and witnessed rape and execution. When the sergeant left Timor he hid Reinado in a box and transported him by ship to Sulawesi.
When he was 18 Reinado escaped, and lived on his wits. He finally made it back to East Timor and worked with the resistance.
In July 1995 Reinado escaped again, captaining a fishing boat to Australia with 18 other Timorese. He created a media stir and was seen as a hero by many. With his wife and children, Reinado stayed in Perth, for the next four years working in the masculine environment of the Western Australian shipyards.
Returning to East Timor after the 1999 referendum he was given a position commanding two patrol-boats of F-FDTL, the new army of East Timor, but was dismissed for his cowboy-style management. After some time back at HQ he was appointed Commander of the Military Police.
By 2006 the national reconstruction of East Timor was shattered by bitter internal conflict that rested on a bed of endemic poverty and disillusionment. Thirty-seven people were killed and more than 100,000 internally displaced. Poor, uneducated, disenfranchised gangs of young men filled the vacuum with chaotic violence, looting and burning.
These boys had witnessed the terrible violence of 1999 as 10 to 15-year-olds. On the other hand most of the male leadership involved in the political machinations have been part of a brutal