May 13, 2008 (Latin Radical) -- Estanislau Da Silva was a prime minister of Timor Leste (East Timor) when Fretilin was the party in government. Before that, he was the minister for agriculture. He was in Australia this week to attend the launching of a book by a Timorese man, Naldo Rei, who grew up in Indonesian-occupied Timor Leste, as a committed supporter of the Fretilin-led resistance movement.

Da Silva spoke to 2NimFM and Latin Radical at a very opportune time. The Australian mainstream media is playing down the commitment of the second largest (social democrat) political party to run with Fretilin as a renovated government coalition in next year's elections. But it looks like the beginning of the end of Xanana Gusmao's hastily cobbled-together AMP coalition, designed to keep Fretilin out of power after last year's election, when Fretilin won the largest share of the vote, but was denied the opportunity to try to form a government by presidential intervention.

Da Silva does not dwell on this. He moves on and is at his most eloquent and passionate (as a former minister for agriculture) when he speaks about the Fretilin party's commitment to resist the pressures of corporate agribusiness, and a commitment to develop, as far as possible, self-sufficiency in basic food products by enabling small farmers. The current government appears to be more interested in encouraging corporate agribusiness investment. Da Silva says Fretilin is committed to resisting corporate pressures to use Timor's precious land to grow biofuels -- the main factor in a looming global shortage of basic food products. Important, when even corporations like Nestle are saying that there is no such thing as a global food shortage -- it is the diversion of food crops to produce biofuels that is causing the rise in food prices.

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