The Looting of Timor-Leste’s Oil Wealth

In development speak, a “white elephant” is a building project that is extremely expensive but that has little use or practical value.

It would not be a stretch to call Timor-Leste, Southeast Asia’s most democratic nation but also one of its poorest, a graveyard of white elephants. All along Timor-Leste’s southern coast lie the empty shells of multimillion dollar infrastructure projects – new, gleaming, but largely vacant – and the skeletons of those still under construction.

Take Xanana Gusmão International Airport in the coastal town of Suai. The airport, which was completed in 2017, is named for the country’s revered independence leader-turned-politician. At a cost of $70 million, it strikes an impressive figure, a modern glass-and-metal marvel looming above sweltering jungle and corrugated tin shacks.

Enter the building, however, and there is not a single soul. Not at the check-in counter, its spanking-new desktop computers still wrapped in plastic. Not in the main lobby, cavernous and silent as a cathedral. And not at the departure gate, its empty chairs looking out onto a tarmac devoid of planes. The airport receives just one flight per day – an 11-person propeller plane from the capital, Dili – raising the question of how, exactly, the government justified its price tag.