CANBERRA—East Timor asked Australia on Tuesday for inclusion in a guest worker scheme for Pacific islanders, warning the "seeds of insurrection" would flourish without work for the fledgling nation's jobless hordes.
Steve Bracks, a senior adviser to East Timor Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao, and a former Australian state premier, said unemployment was topping 60 percent among East Timor youth and a resurgence of the May 2006 ethnic and gang violence was possible.
"That crisis was largely caused by young people not seeing progress in the country," Bracks told Australian radio.
"The seeds of insurrection will be there in the future if we don't provide work and education and training opportunities for the young people of Timor Leste," he said, adding Gusmao had already privately approached Australia's government on the idea.
The centre-left Labor government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will soon announce a guest worker scheme for up to 5,000 seasonal workers from small Pacific nations as a China-driven resource export boom drives Australia's jobless rate to 33-year lows.
The scheme, to be signed off soon by senior ministers, will see 5,000 Pacific workers take jobs each year as seasonal farm and hospitality workers, with Australian workers having deserted lower-paying jobs to cash-in on the lucrative mining boom.
Australia's official commodities forecaster this week predicted exports next year would soar by 40 percent to $202 billion on the back of demand from energy-hungry China, but big mining companies complain they are unable to find enough workers.
Australian farm groups have said they need an extra 22,000 unskilled seasonal workers for the horticultural sector, and about 80,000 more skilled workers to maximise production as the country emerges from prolonged drought.
Unemployment rates of above 15 percent are common in the Pacific, although Fiji's military government has been excluded from the Australian scheme under sanctions imposed in the wake of a 2006 coup. New Zealand already employs Pacific guest workers.
Bracks said East Timor's $320-million economy had much in common with Pacific neighbours like Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, both large recipients of Australia aid.
"Getting people to work, getting people an education, getting skills is the best defence against further uprising in Timor Leste," he said.
Asia's youngest country, East Timor, has been unable to achieve stability since a hard-won independence from Indonesia in 2002.
The East Timor army tore apart along regional lines in 2006, when about 600 soldiers were sacked, triggering factional violence that killed 37 people and drove 150,000 from their homes.
Australia has around 750 soldiers in East Timor as part of a 2,500-strong contingent of foreign troops and police helping local security forces maintain stability.
($1=A$1.05)
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