'Empty Land'? The Politics of Land in Timor-Leste

Abstract

During the land law consultations of 2009, then minister for justice Sra Lucia Lobato frequently referred to the vast quantities of ‘empty land’ that needed to be brought under state control in order to drive investment in Timor-Leste. These statements and comments reflect the predominantly top-down, neoliberal paradigm that the Timor-Leste government has adopted in its Strategic Development Plan 2011–2030 (RDTL 2010). In the government’s view of land, there are vast, ‘empty’ areas of forest, mountain, beach and scrub land that have no owner, and, therefore, can be considered rai estado (state land)—a concept in stark contrast to the importance of land to local communities. This difference in worldviews cuts to the heart of land politics in Timor-Leste and yet is rarely acknowledged by the political elite and other development actors.