 My name is Marie Hebert. I work on the Southeast Asia program here at CSIS. So, I'd like to welcome all of you here, especially for this special occasion when we have His Excellency Jose Ramos Horta, who all of I think everybody in the room knows, but I'll introduce very briefly in December last year. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that he was appointing Mr. Ramos Horta to become his special representative and head of the UN Integrated Peacekeeping Office in Guinea-Bissau. Mr. Ramos Horta is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, and that was in response to his decades of work for East Timor's independence and peace and political stability and economic development. He served as president of Timor-Leste from 2007 to 2012 before that he served as prime minister and before that as foreign minister. So, he's had a lot of key posts. He hasn't been finance minister yet, I guess, but I'm just kidding. So, it's a delight, Your Excellency, to welcome you to CSIS. He's gonna speak for about 25, 30 minutes or so, and then we're gonna open it up for Q&A. Thank you. Please. It's a great pleasure to be here again in CSIS in Washington. I'm on a different official capacity, but unavoidably, I will talk a bit about experiences in Asia in dealing with peacemaking, and then I obviously will do my duty, update you on my new responsibilities in Guinea-Bissau. In September of last year, in Bangkok, soon after I left office myself, former deputy prime minister, foreign minister of Thailand, Dr. Surakirt, former vice president of Indonesia, Yusuf Kala, former foreign minister of Indonesia, Hassan Uryayuda, former deputy prime minister, foreign minister of Singapore, Jayakumar, great eminent international law professor, former speaker of the US, of the Philippine Congress, Jose de Venetio, former prime minister of Pakistan, Dr. Aziz, former prime minister of Malaysia, Badawi, and many others from Asia region. We gather following months of different discussions in Timor-Leste and elsewhere to set up an organization called Asian Peace and Reconciliation Council. If you look at, do a review of literature throughout Asia, you don't find a single organization, civic base that deals with second track diplomacy, offering ideas, solutions to conflicts in Asia, particularly one with former leaders, with regional and international authority and expertise and influence, because some of the former leaders, like Yusuf Kala, still carry enormous influence in his own country. He's actually now a busy spearheading a group dealing with Rohingya problem in Myanmar. We set up the group in answering to many of us question where are Asian leaders in living up to our collective responsibility in addressing the many challenges that the Asia region face. We hear optimistic assertions about the rising Asia. Yes, obviously Asia has been rising from 50 years, 40 years ago of extreme poverty in China and elsewhere to where today you can say the largest concentration maybe of liquidity is in Asia. The largest concentration probably of wealth is in Asia but Asia also is home to the largest, the percentage of poor people in the world, 60% of the world poor are in Asia. 40%, 50% of the world population is in Asia, but 60% of the world poor are in Asia. But Asia is also the most nuclearized region of the world, not in terms of quantity of nuclear weapons, but in terms of countries possessing nuclear weapons. And many in Asia think that there are shortcuts to superpower status. Why bother going through the route of United States? You first develop education, infrastructure, strong economy, then a strong army, and then maybe nuclear weapons. In Asia there are some who think there are shortcuts to superpower status. You don't have to resolve issues of extreme poverty, lack of access to clean water, lack of access to education, go straight shortcut by having nuclear weapons. That's the case of Pakistan, the case of India, but worse than that is the case of North Korea. So that is and unlike in Europe where you have two nuclear powers, UK and France, they don't point nuclear weapons at each other, they used to point them at Soviet Union, now no longer Soviet Union exists, so they don't know where to point it, so it's frozen somewhere. And the Latin Americans, they had wisdom not to go for the nuclear armed race. Africa also the same, but in Asia, many people seem to love nuclear weapons because it assures superpower status without having to resolve other fundamental problems. You have India, nuclear weapons pointing at their cousins, brothers and sisters from Pakistan and vice versa. And of course India's nuclear weapons pointing at China. Chinese nuclear weapons pointing at India and at the United States. North Korea with nuclear weapons pointing at everybody. And at South Korea, at Japan, at the United States as you have read and et cetera. Probably the only country not pointing nuclear weapons at is China. Then there are other almost intractable, insurmountable border disputes. Almost every country in Asia has border disputes that led to wars in the past. And today one of the issues that my organization, our organization, Asian peace records dealing with is the South China Sea disputes. We had a recent trip to Beijing. I wasn't part of it because it was impossible to reconcile my commitments in West Africa and having to rush to Beijing for that meeting. Although the Chinese side, my colleagues, insisted that I be part of it. And the Chinese side welcome our idea which we have to sell to everybody else. The claimant states in the South China Sea dispute on rather than trying to address the issue of the maritime boundary claims and counter claims, focus on joint development in the area. And that's where the Chinese side prefer. Next June, we will be going to the Philippines to discuss with the Philippines. For that particular meeting, I probably will go because of my personal relations with the Philippines but also because it coincided with my holidays. I now no longer criticize UN holidays. In the past, I noticed they have so many holidays and now I totally support it because they come very handy. So in June, I plan my holidays to go back to my country but also to join the meetings in the Philippines. The other issue that I was the one who raised in that meeting that we must pay attention to is Afghanistan post 2014, post US NATO withdrawal. Because I also often said and castigate my brothers and sisters in Asia. People always too ready to criticize Americans, less Europeans for whatever things that go wrong in Afghanistan. But no one else is trying to do anything to diffuse the problems in Afghanistan. Asian commitment to Afghanistan is very limited. If you do body counting in terms of number of troops from Asian countries there or development assistance or peacemaking initiatives, extremely minute when you look at the size of economies of Asia and so on. And US and NATO will live and the problem will not have been solved because of, we know the complexity, intractability of the challenges in Afghanistan. But Asian leaders have to accept the responsibility and try to do something about it. Maybe where the Soviets fail, NATO and America might fail, we don't know yet what will be outcome in 2014. Maybe diplomacy, Asian diplomacy will succeed. We will see. What is important is that we must do something about it. And when our group was in Beijing, I wasn't there, I said, the Chinese said, please do something about Afghanistan. And these are only some of the challenges that Asia face. In about three years ago when Prime Minister Hatoyama, when Hatoyama was Prime Minister, I was still president, I had a state visit to Japan and had two hours with him. And very, very fruitful conversation followed an initiative that I took with the then president of Maldives, Nashid, who is no longer president. Hatoyama is no longer Prime Minister. To persuade Asian leaders to take up an initiative on climate change and sustainable development. After the failures of Copenhagen, I was the only head of state who didn't bother going to Copenhagen because I knew there would be no reaching agreement. And Copenhagen was very expensive city. I didn't want there to go just to spend money. And the center was right, complete failure. The other two following meetings in Mexico and Durban, the same. And sitting with Nashid, I said, no, we must ask the two smallest countries in Asia, we must encourage leaders in Asia to have an Asian initiative on climate change and sustainable development. Enough of pointing fingers at the Americans and Europeans for pollution, for environmental degradation over the past 100 years. Because Asians itself, by the sheer pressure on the land because of its population, has responsibilities. We all extract something from nature. Just the survival of a human being in Asia because of the population pressure that brings us responsibilities, apart from the industrialization of India and China and everybody else. And there is no point continuing engaging in the blame game. Today, Asia is different from what it was 50 years ago. It has resources, manpower, know-how, scientists, and it has liquidity. So why not an Asian road map, an Asian vision on climate change and sustainable development? Mobilize something like a hundred billion dollars spread over 10 years, focus on three planting, putting back the trees, the hundreds of millions of trees that we took from the land, cleaning up the lakes, the rivers, the seas, restock the fish that been depleted by Asians by the voracious appetites for seafood in Hong Kong, Shanghai, restaurants, and in Japan. And I advise Japanese friends, why for a few years don't you all become vegetarians and stop killing dolphins? And whales, the Japanese didn't appreciate that advice. And well, Hatoyama, I told Hatoyama, because you recall he was elected around the same time as Barack Obama. And in Japan, he enjoyed talking about how similar they are, about same age. And I told him, you have a unique opportunity to change, to effect changes. Particularly in your relationship, Japan's relationship with Korea and China. You people have to get over World War II. And that is a two-way street, or three-way street. Meaning the Japanese have to take additional steps to pacify the Chinese who have the legitimate grievances and the vice versa. The Japanese, the Chinese side also have to stop. Every time there is some political, economic, trade disagreement with Japan, they bring up World War II. And Hatoyama said, I have instructed my staff to really look and see how we can dynamize relations with China and Korea. But in Japan, prime ministers don't last more than one year. Hatoyama lasted even less. So by the time, you know, and I continued the rounds, you know, in Singapore with Prime Minister Lee, with President Sussil, and in the meantime, few of the leaders I talked to were ousted. I was with Kevin Rudd in Australia. Australia never had a coup in 200 years of history. Well, I met with Kevin Rudd, he was Prime Minister, and he was the darling of the climate change fight. He became a star in the Bali conference. I was there on a state visit. I was having, he knew I liked port, in Portuguese port wine, so he invited me to his official residence one evening to meet and have a port. I noticed he was always on the phone and the people around was on the phone. There was some tension in the air. Well, somewhere else in the town, they were back stabbing him. And the next day, he hosted an official lunch for me in the parliament. By afternoon, he was overthrown in a bloodless coup. Yeah, you know, you're familiar with that. So, well, it looked like everyone I talked to. The last casualty was nashid of Maldives. That's why Barack Obama doesn't want to see me. Because he knows, I met him briefly in New York twice, four years ago, three years ago. And he knows of my record in causing. Someone suggested, why don't you go to North Korea? So, I wanted with you just to introduce you the Asian Peace and Reconciliation Council. We are a new organization, started in September, with some exceptional, talented, gifted people. Professor Jayakumar, you know, foreign man of Singapore for many years, eminent international law professor. He's the one in charge of our task force dealing with South China. And I'm the one in charge of the task force on Burma. But I'm not very active at the moment because of my new responsibilities. And we look for partnerships with experts for one of the, however, Professor Paul Kennedy is one of our advisors. And we look for a technical partnership with ThinkTanks because we do not wish to have to reinvent the wheel if we need research on a particular area. There are so many expert bodies that can do that. So having said that, I turn now to Yenebisao because I agree, talk only for half hour. To, in October, but first let me say, in August, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was in my country. I was no longer president at the time. And I told the Secretary General, please pay attention to the problem of the Rohingya in Myanmar, Burma. And I told him, normally, traditionally, the Secretary General has to consult with parties involved, countries, government, before he appoints a special envoy or a special representative. And I said, well, in the case of Myanmar, you don't have it to consult anyone because the Myanmar authorities do not recognize Rohingya as a people there. And the Bangladesh side is uncomfortable about it. So you could go ahead and point, I don't know whether he has done that. I don't think there is a special advisor to the Secretary General for Myanmar. He's not a special representative, title is Special Advisor. And then around October, November, I was approached whether I would be interested to be a special presenter of the Secretary General in Guinea-Bissau. I accepted with some hesitation. The hesitation had to do with the Asian Peace and Reconciliation Council. Some of my colleagues, like Dr. Surakiyot, initially he said, please don't, we are just starting, we need you here. But later, they all congratulated and relented. And why I accepted the challenge, similar challenges that we face in Timor-Leste, in nation building, peace building, healing wounds, rebuilding a country, building the state institutions. Guinea-Bissau is a typical case of all failures of political leadership. International disengagement, lack of international interest because it is not a country that is strategically vital to anyone except of some importance to its neighbors like Senegal, Guinea, Gambia, and so on. But primarily, the problem originates with a failure of leadership and that, hence, the international community does not engage in a sustained manner to push the leadership. Situation deteriorated over the years through mismanagement, through neglect. Poverty is widespread, state institutions are failing, justice system failed. So next comes an army that is unhappy. An army that is manipulated by political elites. Political elites that through normal elections wouldn't win a seat in the parliament. So what you do, you talk to the military, poison them, manipulate them about those who are in power, make promise to them, and the military stage a coup. And the new government still has not resolved the problems of the country or the problems of the military. I was familiar with Guinea-Bissau before. I was there in 2003, 2004, when I was 40 minutes of my country. The community of Portuguese-speaking countries, CPLP asked me to go there, so I went. And familiar with how things deteriorated over the years. But a bit like Somalia or about Mali, in the sense stretching the comparison, but why Somalia and Mali are what they are today through lack of international engagement. Early warnings about problems, ignore gloss over by the government in the capitals. Governments are fragile, weak resources unable to make the presence of the state felt in the far corners of the country. The far corners of the country are left to all kinds of illicit activities and groups. Kofi Annan, in a recent conversation with him, he said, I don't want the same to happen to Guinea-Bissau. I want about Somalia, I want about to Halif 20 years ago. But media and government react to earthquakes and to civil wars. When you have a simmering tensions, conflict, that is not a problem. How you describe that on a three minute or one minute TV news, you know, make no sense. How you write a story or convince the editors of the New York Times to send someone to talk about simmering tensions in a country. No, you, the story is when there's an earthquake like in Haiti or in Iran or Sichuan or when you have a major wars and conflict. So preventive diplomacy that could help the international community having safe lives, thousands of lives and save cost, enormous cost, are only a jargon in the international community. The UN has been advocating preventive diplomacy at least from the time of Boutrus Boutrus Gali when he put more emphasis on that. And yet, if you look at the way resources are allocated at the United Nations, first, it is the very member states, the powers that be with resources are the ones that for the past 20 years have been emasculating the United Nations organization. Less and less resources to the UN. In the sometimes I have to say, you know, I hope my remarks to the Security Council next week will not be censored. If they will not be censored, I will say this the following. I'm often amazed why a young fellow out of Harvard without experience, a MBA, goes to Wall Street, play few tricks and get millions of dollars package and if he mismanages his portfolio, he leaves even with a bonus. CEOs of banks, of insurance companies, get millions and millions of dollars. The price of the United States, I'm not divulging any secret because the salaries are public, who holds nuclear, you know, the bottom nuclear weapons, he makes something like $400,000 a year. Okay, you can see it, you know, he has the White House and you can even rent it because Bill Clinton used to rent the Secretary of the UN who has to manage relations of 192 countries and conflicts all over the world. He gets a miserable $300,000. Yes, he has also a free house which, you know, he has not rented to anyone and but then you have this incompetent manager CEOs who have bankrupted banks, insurance companies here and in England causing havoc all over the world. They make millions of dollars, it's scandalous and then governments who time and again tell the UN to cut off money to reduce, some don't even pay their bills to the UN system but they quickly find billions of dollars to rescue banks in the United States, in Greece, in Portugal, in Spain, in Ireland, everywhere in their little Cyprus. Billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars and yet we are told again and again over the years there is no money for ODA. I was told in New York, I was there sitting there on the onset of the financial crisis. I was still president in the General Assembly. I heard every European leader one after another pledging that ODA will not fall casualty to the economic financial crisis. Everybody has cut off aid to developing countries have cut off aid to the UN. And then you have a United Nations, particularly the Department of Political Affairs, a prime body that deals with preventive diplomacy has to count every penny to remain relevant when in fact if DPA, the Department of Political Affairs were to be allocated much, much more resources to hire experts, to outsource to expert bodies, to be deployed timely to places like in Abyssal a few years ago, it could have resolved the problem already by then or anywhere around the world. Yes, it would have prevented Mali from occurring. It would have saved the UN billions, the international community billions of dollars, it would have saved lives. Well, Guinea-Bissau is a prime example of the failures of the international community. Fortunately, Guinea-Bissau is also very particular people. And a few, two weeks ago, I spent almost a whole morning, well, whole morning plus part of the afternoon with one of the top politicians there, former president. He was ousted in a coup when actually, when I was sent there 2003, 2004, was to prevent the coup from happening. And but having spent time there and talking with him, I knew the coup was inevitable. And everybody applauded that he was ousted because it's quite eccentric. And in his time of lucidity in the course of the day, you know, it's really fascinating to listen to him. He said he was a Catholic before, then converted to Islam. He said because he was upset with the bishop, the Catholic bishop kept talking about human rights, he was upset, he converted to Islam. He said now no one hassles me anymore. And he's Balanta, ethnically speaking. Guinea-Bissau has many ethnic groups. And while I listened to him, talking with him, and I really am amazed at how that multi-ethnic country, multicultural, multi-religion, betrayed many times by the politicians, failed by the intellectual community, they never engaged in war among themselves. Unlike in so many other countries, when the lower and order breakdown, everybody go looting and killing. Looting happened in Manhattan. I was there in the first blackout in 1977. And in Manhattan, it lasted several days. I was in my 33 or 34 building. I said, well, probably it will come back in few minutes. Well, the next day, it didn't come back. Two days later, it didn't come back. I was stuck in the apartment. Finally, I decided to come down. Then I read the news how the city was been looted in people who drive off cars, they go to car stand. And that happened in Louisiana, New Orleans, and it happened in UK. You recall a few years ago. It happened in Paris a few years ago. I was in the middle of it in Paris and was stuck in those demonstrations. Actually, near Jardin du Luxembourg, near Sorbonne. Guinea-Bissau never was looting of government buildings, shops, no ethnic killing, religious killing. And I thought, God, these people are the ones who teach us in my own country how this is possible. So that is an extraordinary positive feature of that society. You have three societies there. One, these people I refer to. You have the politicians and you have the military. Disconnected from each other. Connected only when the military do a coup. Then there are sanctions and affect the common people. Well, the good news is after weeks of work by all of us, particularly by ECOWAS, the West African community, African Union, the CPLP, all of us working together with the local authorities, they have come out just now with a roadmap that we have insisted on to bring about, do elections end of this year, an inclusive government, and I have insisted my clear message to them. They probably, they have heard me ad nauseam. Do not do the same of the past. Winner takes all. Because some of the nefarious influences of the West is that you have elections and after elections, the majority rule. Even in the West, it's not everybody's happy to be in opposition. I don't know of anyone in the United States or anywhere in Europe, in Australia, who's happy to be in opposition. But in some countries, you are respected. You have a status. In many of our developing countries, if you are in opposition, you're a second-class citizen. So everybody wants to be in power because power means accumulating of fortune quickly. Guinea-Bissau, everybody wants to be in government. One day, joking with some of the Guinea-Bissau politician, I have a simple solution. We make here a government where everybody in this country is a minister and everybody is an MP. Problem solving. It's only 1.6 million people, so why not every adult become a minister or an MP? So I told them, please, the next elections have to be all winners, no losers. Meaning, whoever becomes in the first place must invite the second party, the third party, to join in a government of national salvation, unity. Easier said than done. You require a strong leader, charismatic, smart, pragmatic, flexible, who knows how to handle this kind of coalition or unity governments. The challenge the country face are enormous. I have said maybe in a dramatic fashion, they are on the edge of the state, ceasing to exist. A state in the conventional definition of it ceased to almost exist. So now we have a road map, but then second will be the challenge of the international community and I end here. The international community, I will be telling the Security Council and others cannot also do things as usual like in the past in regard to Guinea-Bissau and many other countries. They push for elections. Elections are held, everybody declared, preferable if you have President Jimmy Carter going there as well, to certify, everybody declared mission accomplished. And then the government and others are left on their own. The international community has to reengage Guinea-Bissau to help rebuild the state. The state institutions have to be rebuilt, one by one. Foreign says the IMF should send two, three, or more officials to manage the Ministry of Finance, the Central Bank, the Ministry of Justice. So meaning the UN has to have a similar experience that it was did successfully in Timor-Leste. I don't refer to 99 to 2002 because that was different status. Timor-Leste was a non-self-governing territory. The UN had full executive legislative authority in Timor-Leste from 99 to May 22, 2002. But even after that, from 2002 till many years later, we had a lot of international experts across the board, even in my own office, in the president's office, or when I was Prime Minister, I had a lot of international advisors. And that's the only way, you know, much while we respect people's pride, why we respected our own pride, you know, I always said to our people, I really don't care, this is a globalized world. We are all human beings. Ideally, there should be no borders. If I have no human resource to help me manage the country, I'm very happy to have Australians, Americans, Indonesians, Japanese helping us. We are all human beings. But some people have these false notions of pride that misplaced. When I was Prime Minister, I was managing the country in very critical circumstances. Some of the MPs asked, questioned me about the presence of Australian troops, New Zealand, and I said, and I said, my first responsibility as Prime Minister of this country is to provide safety, tranquility to the people. If I cannot do it with our own forces, I have to ask international help. And the country accepted. And that's what I'm trying to also educate the Saurgenians to accept the concept, the notion that 40 years after independence in 2014, after the election, they will have to bring back the international community. Will it come back? Well, that's a whole different question. European Union is very sensitive, educated about it. I presume they will, wholeheartedly support. We can find non-traditional donor help like Qatar, China, I know China is not a great name to pronounce in Washington these days, but as a potential partner ally of Guinea-Bissau or any country, but China has liquidity, it has its own interests. And actually China and a few other countries like Qatar, Saudi Arabia, they should be contributing, or India, much more to the UN treasure. You know, there has to be, I'm afraid I have to disagree with some of the countries like China that resist reviewing the way that the contribution is assessed because as it is, it goes back 50 years, it serve their interests. With the US, pain is proportionately more, followed I think by Japan, when Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Kuwait, India should be paying much more to compensate for the loss of our own. So we will be looking for donor assistance to help rebuilding Guinea-Bissau. That's my comments today, I thank you, and very happy to answer questions. Your Excellency, thank you very much for, first of all, for your introduction to the Asia Peace and Reconciliation Council and description of the efforts that the council is working on and then description of your current work with Guinea-Bissau. We're open now for questions. Maybe I could start on, you said you were responsible for Burma-Myanmar in your council. You described the Rohingya problem which former Vice President Yosef Kala was working on, which is obviously a very critical problem, the violence and the dislocation of the Rohingya. But in recent months, actually the last month or so, we've seen communal violence break out in outside of Rakhine State. You had it happen just south of Mandalay about a month ago and you had it happen Tuesday just north of Yangon where communal violence broke out between Buddhists and Muslims. And so I guess one challenge I'm throwing out there is working on Rakhine State is good, but Myanmar, Burma as it's moving toward democracy and as it's trying to hopefully get the military out of politics, it faces some real serious challenges in building a new political system and maintaining peace and security without the military running everything. And I'm just, I guess my challenge is whether you, your council has talked about whether there might be other areas in which you could provide advice and counsel to the new government in Napida. The Rohingya problem was just one problem that we discuss, but actually our chairman, Dr. Surakiyet with the delegation did go to Myanmar recently. Because in our membership you have some leaders with tremendous expertise in state building, in reform of public administration. Like Dr. Aziz from Pakistan, he was the only prime minister that served full term in office few years ago or our many Singaporean colleagues. So we offered not only like second track diplomacy, helping mediation, but actually our group able to mobilize resources, expertise to help reform, for instance, the banking finance system in Myanmar. So that was the fact finding group that went there. I think it was in January they went there. So we'll be working, I've been to Myanmar before. The first time ever I went to Myanmar was clandestinely illegally in 94. To do, I enter through God, Northern Thailand, the border and went to Manitoba to do conduct human rights diplomacy training to NLD people. Then as I left back to Thailand, I was declared persona non grat in Thailand for other reason. Then I went in 2005, 2005 as foreign minister to establish diplomatic relations with Myanmar. My delegation was only two or three small people and a tiny delegation. I met with 30 generals. It was intimidating, you know. And one, the Tansui, the top, he said, welcome to Myanmar for the first time officially. And they smiled at each other because they knew I had been and I was blacklisted before. And I always believe in message to the international community and not message to Sochi because who am I to advise her. But what she's doing now is what I always thought would be inevitable. No democratic transition, no democratic regime in Myanmar will survive six months if you don't develop a careful partnership with the military. For long, long time, you have to do that. And she's doing the right thing. Sometimes maybe she's criticized for over doing it, maybe in some comments. But look at Indonesia, you know. The remarkable transformation of Indonesia from 99, 2002 today. When 10 years ago, you know, I said countless times, Indonesia will change on their own time, their own clock. Justice will come, but when the Indonesian society is ready, the military will be gradually out of power and today is really a remarkable transformation. I said the same in my own country, you know, when people were talking about justice, just I said, well, sometimes, you know, when we fight for human rights, when we fight for democracy, that's I tell our people. You know, we fight because of our convictions, our beliefs. We fight with our heart, but we also had to fight with brains. You know, when you have to take a step forward, when to wait, when to take a step aside, you don't go into obstacles blindly, just because you believe the other side of the obstacle there's something you want to achieve. Well, that's our philosophy in my country. Today we have a fabulous relationship with Indonesia. Indonesia is our number one advocate for membership in ASEAN. When I was in Davos in January, I went to a reception hosted by the Indonesian Minus of Trade. You know, he didn't even know I was there, but I heard there was an Indonesian reception and I told my colleagues, I said, listen, let's go because they always have a great food. And so we went there and they did have a great food, but the Minus of Trade immediately invited me on the podium stage. I was there as honor guest and everybody there was surprised, you know. Indonesia, Timor-Leste. Well, I have told the Japanese friends, Chinese, Korean, look at how Timor-Leste and Indonesia have come along in such short period of time. It means leadership. So, Lynn, can I just ask if people ask questions to introduce themselves briefly? Thank you. Lynn? It's a gigantic institution. Problems have been there for decades, so it's very, it's a mind-boggling exercise to think about reform of the Myanmar security forces. But one approach would be that someone would encourage them and the country, you know, that I always argue that best place to help Myanmar is Indonesia. I discussed this years ago with President SBY, Cecil Bambangu with Yonu. I said, you must do more on Burma. And I talked to Ban Ki-moon about picking a former Indonesian military, you know, one who people know is good, also politician, to talk to the military in Myanmar. Because Indonesia's experience, because first Indonesia has no borders with Myanmar and that's good. Because when you have borders with a country, sometimes, you know, often it's not terribly, you are not terribly neutral or well-perceived. So Indonesia, because Indonesia had similar problems with Myanmar in the past. Not as bad, but similar. And they have been able, under the current President himself, Cecil Bambu, began the reform, modernization of the Indonesian Armed Forces without threatening the interests of the Armed Forces. That's a good message for Myanmar. But the process has to come out within the Myanmar Armed Forces. You have to find ways so that they are the ones who initiate the process, they own it. In my own country, when we transitioned from guerrilla to modern army, it was our leaders in the army that began to develop the concept Vision 2020, our transformation from guerrilla to regular army. We then invited foreign advice, we have quite a few. In Guinea-Bissau, I'm telling the same to the military there. You, from winning your army, you come up with your vision, what you want for the army, for the country. And then we get you foreign advisors. So if you make, feel them that, because anything in general, officer, they know they have to modernize, they have to adapt the army to the new realities in Myanmar in the region. And I think it's possible, but it take long time. Not only the army, but the police. The problem with the violence in Myanmar, the presence of the military, I don't know, whether some in the military were actually the ones behind the scene instigating the violence. Sometimes they instigate because they're also xenophobic, anti-Muslim, or sometimes they do instigate violence to be relevant. In the past, there were accusations against Indonesia way back in the beginning of the reformacy in Indonesia. There are communal violence in Ambon, in Kalimantan, people wondering whether some in security force were not involved. Because when, because some in the military, they think they are relevant in periods of wars and conflicts and tensions. In times of peace, they lose relevance. So, and the same is said about Pakistan, the way some in the Pakistani army, intelligence. So we have to, it is not a black and white issue and it will take, it will, unfortunately, there'll be a lot more suffering, violence in Myanmar before anyone can do anything about it. The military, the government are ultra patriotic, proud. Of all the people in Southeast Asia I have dealt with, the most proud, you know, about foreign involvement is the Burmese. You know, people don't, in our case in Timur, my case personally, you know, anyone is welcome to help. Whether you are from Martian, you are from the United States, welcome to help. But in some countries is, you know, they prefer to have let people die and so that you don't lose the pride, you know. Like look at Ethiopia under Selassie, Emperor Selassie, why he was overthrown, that a huge famine which his government denied for many years until the military were tired of it and overthrown him. And so it's difficult to provide any answer to that. Exceptional good relations with Portugal, like we do have exceptional good relations with Indonesia or with Australia. In that regard, and Portugal was in the forefront of our diplomatic battle for 24 years. So, and Portugal became one of the largest proportion of per capita-wise partners to Timor-Leste. So we continue to have very good relations with Portugal, like we do with all other Portuguese-speaking countries. But Timor-Leste is Southeast Asia, geographically speaking, and we applied few years ago to join ASEAN, the process is underway, very actively supported by Indonesia. We even have Indonesian top diplomats for several years working in our foreign ministry, advising us. The Indonesian diplomats are totally frustrated because we are so slow, and the Timor-Leste always, we do things last minute. If you tell, as I always tell my compatriots, let's plan 2014 to do this and that they wonder why the hell he's talking already about 2014, we are only 2012. So the notion of our planning is not part of our culture. So the Indonesian, one of the senior Indonesian ambassadors who came to advise us, is totally frustrated. But we are working, we have now a Secretary of State for ASEAN integration, the Prime Minister, Shanan Guzmán, leading also directly. We hope that by 2014, we can join before they entering into effect of the ASEAN community. And before, Susilio Bambanguidion lives office, his last term in office, because he has been our main advocate. And it would be great symbolic that he, under his presidency still that Timor-Leste joined. Portuguese remain one of the two official languages. Tatum is the official language, but also Portuguese. And we have two working languages. Bahá's Indonesia, which spoken by 36% of the people. And English, much less. I don't trust much our statistics, but it's quite high at the moment. You know, many people, particularly in the capital, learning English. So it will remain like that for a while. And some argue that it was silly on our part to choose Portuguese as official. Like I have to say, I don't mention his name, a good friend here in Washington, in the U.S. Senate, senator, lovely man, the most decent person you can find in the Capitol Hill. I don't mention his name because a bit embarrassing. Great man, good friend. One day he invited me here in Washington. He mobilized everybody to come to have a coffee with me. Even Joe Biden was there when he was senator. And the third candidate. And he said, Jose, you know we love you in this house. Every time you ask us, these and that, we always help. But that idea of having Portuguese as official language is the silliest thing I have heard from you. And he said, if you chose English, it would be more or less to jumpstart into the 21st century. Well, at the time, Liberia was front page every day in the U.S. And I told him, I have to be careful not to say his name, I said, are you saying that your former calling Liberia is already in 21st century? Well, English is important, but it is not the open doors to all our, you know, to paradise. I can mention any number of countries in Asia, in Africa that have English as first language, since independence and they are not exactly 21st century. And I can mention some in Africa that have Portuguese and doing very well, without oil, without gas, Cape Verde. Cape Verde is one of the best run country in Africa or in the world. No oil, no gas, they have only stones, rocks, and now tourism, and Portuguese speaking. I can mention others, Costa Rica. No army, no oil, very affluent and speak Spanish, not English, so because some really think that English would resolve all humanity's problems. No, it is not, it helps tremendously with access to science, to technology, and so on, but Timuris are incredible polyglots. You don't find that Timuris who doesn't speak at least three, four languages. They pick up Spanish easily. We have a Timuris who went to study in Cuba, medicine, they all came back already, and it's amazing how they learn in two, three months. Very fluent, I speak Spanish, and when I converse with them, amazing. And I ask, how long have you been studying? One month, two months, three months. We have students working in Korea, they speak in Korean language, one even did a PhD in Korean language. We have hundreds in China, in different degrees, speaking fluent Japanese, and we had few went to Japan to the Japanese Navy Academy. I felt so sorry for those four guys. I said, God, you survive a Japanese school, a Japanese Navy Academy? I would be impressed, and they did, and they did very well in the Japanese Navy Academy somewhere in the south. Very strict. So we don't have problems with that. Only Americans, Australians who only speak one language are confused with that. Why do they speak so many languages? Your Excellency, thank you very much for coming here to CSIS today. I think all of us enjoyed your perspective, your perceptions, your experience, and so we want to wish you all the best in your new posting, and we hope we can welcome you back here in a few years for another discussion. Thank you very much. Please join me in thanking you. Thank you.