Local Governance in Timor-Leste - Secretaria de Estado da Arte e ...

xefe suku explained that the cost of a bad relationship between the xefe suku and xefealdeia is simply not worth it. As the xefe suku of Uai Laha in Venilale explained:The xefe aldeia is elected by the people but some of them only follow their privateinterests… Some bring issues from the people to us; some never bring the interests ofthe people to us. They kind of close the way to the people... We as xefe suku alwaysmake them do programs for the people, but when we don't follow what they wantthey can close the way and we cannot do anything.However, following interviews with xefe aldeia and other community members, adifferent perspective emerged, where they argued that the xefe suku also workedaccording to his own interests, without adequately involving them in decisionmaking,and without transparency. As one community member stated:Xefe suku as head of village, they are literate, they feel that they have power, they feelthat they are the leaders. But xefe aldeia are illiterate and feel they don't have power,they feel like the office boy. They're told to 'Go there and tell your people that we areworking down there today'… It needs to be remembered as well that any projectcoming into the village involves two or three aldeia rather than just one. So in thatcase they need more coordination and the person who has more power is the xefesuku rather than the xefe aldeia.These conflicts were a consistent theme throughout many suku and point to thestructural problem of sharing power in a segmented suku where the xefe suku wieldsmost economic power, but the xefe aldeia wields social power within their familygroups and together with the xefe uma kain is the key local leader for mostcommunity members. Shepherd's investigation into development projects in Timoresevillages made a similar point, in which he argues that community participation is"best viewed as emergent, contested, fractured, and negotiated rather than stable orgiven [and where] its parameters are conditioned by distributions in authority andnotions of equity" (2009: 318).These fracture lines and points of contestation are not random, and are most evidentbetween different aldeia. In comparing the relative experiences of Ainaro, wherethere are very few external resources entering the suku, and Fatulia, where the xefe164