the age : 23 february 2003

RECONSTRUCTING EAST TIMOR

East Timor is a city cemetery.

To drive through Dili is to drive through a ruin, with streets lined with empty silent blocks of scarred building tissue.

As we enter the city from the airport, the air is oppressive with military helicopters, soldiers are armed heavily   (they even jog with their weapons), army vehicles roll over the roads   - while   the locals simply hang onto a scrap of roofing iron, a plastic shade cloth or sit in the humid sun.

Australia's nearest neighbor is   burnt out absolutely.   Their   buildings are black and unliveable, trucks, buses and cars are lying useless by the roads, edible crops   are struggling for life, roads are cracked by military vehicles and the destruction is despotic.

The half-island ( which is geographically shared with Indonesia's West Timor) has   a tiny population of around 650,000 people - and   a   further 120,000-odd are either dead or missing from last year's war.

This is a Fourth World nation. There is little shelter, not much food (the buffalo and many crops were killed   last year), no indigenous government, no national language, no local currency, no bank, one petrol station, no sewerage systems, no supermarkets, no TV, no landline telephones, little radio, no postage system, no university, no tax, no safe water, no shops - and most schools are closed.

Malaria is common, as is Dengey fever, polio, TB,   malnutrition, dirt, mosquitoes, bad food and water.

The people have been murdered, raped, dispossessed, hurt, and OWNED - first by the Portuguese and then by the Indonesians,   for hundreds of years -   and now the UnitedNations circus is in town.

The UN consists of an administrative secretariat (UNTAET) , which will operate for about two years   under   'pillars' of service. According to the UN , their stated objective is:   "....to lay the foundations for sustainable institutions in an independent East Timor; and design an agenda for sustainable economic and social development. (The UN)   will oversee work in five divisions: judicial affairs; civilian police; economic, financial and development affairs; public services; and electoral operations."

UNTAET manages the day-to-day operations of government -   sanitation, healthcare, law and order,   sewerage systems, water , banking,   roads and electricity. It operates from the largest colonial building in town, it drives smart airconditioned Land Rovers (donated by Rover Japan) , and its international personnel   live predominantly opposite headquarters - in Hotel     Olympia - which is a large Russian container ship posing as a hotel and   moored in Dili harbor ($US200 per night).

Olympia has many rooms, toilets, water, food,   restaurants and   bars, air conditioning and just about everything that Dili lacks. Unfortunately, its steel gangway sits   on top of an historic gun emplacement, rudely, and even worse, not long ago it had ropes wrapped around a couple of beautiful   fig trees which, for the locals,   symbolise   the   spiritual   gateway to Dili. (Two older women of Dili walked around and around these trees until the ropes were released. Magic trees were never intended to be jetty pylons for a floating hotel.)

Such is independence in a nation undergoing such enormous transformation.

Despite this, East Timorese people are beautiful, optimistic, friendly, collectively generous and very proud.

September last year they voted 80% for independence. They died for it,   and left their houses for the hills so the killing would cease -   returning to the city so they could vote. While they were away, the Indonesian militia torched their buildings, room by room, with Molotov cocktails and plain old petrol and matches.

Dili burned in ten days.

Nevertheless, the East Timorese people   walk to Sunday mass with straight backs -   women on high polished heels, girls with clean pink frocks and boys wear starched and ironed shirts, the men in suits -     all in   their best Sunday costume , with immaculate smiles and confident minds - scarred but proud. The rest of the week they scam a living from the crops, eat plants picked on the side of streets, search in old gardens for sustenance and sell   petrol (Benzin) which is really a mixture   of kerosene, petrol and anything else going. They scrounge, and sometimes the children beg, and sometimes the children die.

To understand the resilience of these people, we need to fathom their myths and dreams.   East Timor is very Catholic - and practices also animism   (which means they believe in the spirit of their place and the soul of their land). Vice President   Ramos Horta explains it this way: " Many hundreds of years ago, a boy rescued a stranded   crocodile,   and they went together travelling around the world until they landed in the Timor Sea. The crocodile settled and   became solid, as it appears on the map - and that is my country   -   where the spine of the animal is the ridge of the mountains, and the legs are connected to the sea."

The   indigenous government   has President   Xanana Gusmao, Vice President Jose Ramos Horta, and a cabinet, but no power yet, ( the UN leaves in about two years). Both are enlightened leaders , they are   determined, careful, generous, spiritual and resourceful.

There are dreams here.

Xanana Gusmao speaks of his vision, " The people will stay where they are, in   the hills and mountains of   our country, where their families are,   where their villages are, where their   memories are."   He is an elegant figure, who uses his hands and fingers in symbiotic movement   with   his conversation,   " We will stay with our land, we will not live in   big cities, we exist for our families and our   kin, our clans and our 'sucos' (collection of villages)".

Not long ago this man was hiding in the hills and valleys of East Timor, protected by the people he loves and who love him, avoiding the Indonesian Army which was programmed to kill him.

Of that period, Jose Ramos Horta tells a legendary story :   "Xanana was hiding in the hillswith a group of disciples who had to   avoid the Indonesian army.   They had no choice, they had to pass close   by the soldiers , but knew they would be seen and killed.   Xananaturned and spoke to the spirits of the land - to the trees, the sky, the earth - and said it was their decision whether he lives or dies. If he and his people must fight so hard , wait so long and lose so much , it was the land's decision. His group then walked into the trap, and as they did, a thick cloud covered them, and they travelled   through   unnoticed and escaped".

This is a place of extremes.

Just last Sunday a priest was being farewelled north of Dili, where the village Chief gavea speech celebrating the priest's many years of selfless mission. The Chief was halfway through his speech when he collapsed in   a malaria coma. While celebrations for the priest continued,   the Chief was looked after and it appears he died   before sunrise.

A group of architect students is rebuilding a museum using palm leaf thatching and bamboo screens -   they own   no drawing boards, no pencils, no pens, no paper - no ink. Theywill work another six weeks and then return to the streets, to wait.

The future for East Timor is forecast by their leaders. Jose Ramos Horta describes a system where , " The family unit and their villages form the focus of life.   Many villages   assemble to govern themselves, they   resolve disputes and protect each other. These groups are scattered over the hills and in the valleys of East Timor. We trust these people to look after our country".

Only Dili (150,000) and Bakau (110,000) have populations which approach an urban scale, and both leaders wish to reduce those populations because they believe the traditional village community is the true and lasting social unit, and that cities and towns deny people the freedom of a collective wealth.

Extremes are relentless:

-East of Dili is located a hill overlooking the city harbor, on top of which is built a giant Christ statue, up a steep rise of stairs which represent the stations of the cross. (It is the third biggest Christ statue in the world,   after Rio de Janeiro and another in Cuba.) Oddly, it was supplied by the Indonesians, and even stranger, when President Suharto opened it he apparentlly did so via a helicopter flyover -   no landing, no connection, no speech.   It cost a fortune, and the people starved.

-Australian laborers reputedly work for $US300 a day , then fly back to Darwin for the night, if they stay overnight in Dili they earn $US400 a day. The Timorese work for just $AUS8 a day.

-Japan   donated 20,000 transistor radios to East Timor, without batteries. But the radio coverage doesn't even reach over the mountains and valleys of the island. Australia's   ACTU plans to help launch a radio service - Voice Of Hope - which will operate using mobile relays,   before they build permanent stations.

-Anyone aged over 25 years will speak Portuguese (Indonesia invaded   in 1975, after Portugal had ruled for 400 years) . Younger people only speak Indonesian Bahasa , some speak English and all talk their own dialect - and there are 32   local languages. A national language has not yet been agreed upon.

-There are few cafes or restaurants in Dili. One which works is 'Burnt House',which is operatedÊby a gentle beauty, whose   Portuguese breeding is obvious and whose Auntie owned the house which was torched by the militia. It is now simply roofed and the walls show all the "distress" of those copy-cat cafes in New York and Melbourne.

-The currency will most likely be the US   dollar because that is the way East Timor can gain military protection and financial aid. It could have been the Australian dollar, the Portuguese Euro or the Indonesian Rupiah.

-There is no national bank, yet the younger population would create one. Meanwhile, $US500 million of gifted international aid sits in a trust account controlled by the UN.

-Brazil   donated millions of drugs to counter Yellow Fever, for which   their President got great press in his country, but there is no such sickness in East Timor.

-Most schools will not open until October this year. In the few that are operating, teachers are advised to tell stories all day (the students start at 6 AM) because there is no chalk,     no blackboard, no books, no chairs or tables, no music, no paper and no pencils.

-Part of East Timor is located in West Timor (ie. Indonesia). It is called the "enclave" and has a long, unsafe border with its neighbor. In earlier   times, the Portuguese played there, it was their summer holiday venue. Now it is a lonely separated piece of somewhere else, a relic of history.

The island is exquisite.

Its steep mountains are unlike other Pacific and Asian countries, they are deep   green, covered with grasses, and trees are scattered over them like the olive tree hills of Greece. A soft grey cloud settles over them most days. Valleys are cavernous, protecting the inhabitants, and roads criss-cross the island,   not in a rigorous graphic pattern, rather by following the topography and attesting to the land forms.

Still, the people selflessly clutch to life under rude shelters, in muddy swamps, under blue plastic tarpaulins and in emergency shacks, along with their few chicken, pigs and children. They have no money, no job, no education. According to Jose Ramos Horta, " The   people have decided to live for their children's future. They will not seek help for themselves, they have fought and won freedom, and that freedom is passed onto the next generation".

There are threats. The mosquito will kill as many as did the militia, breeding via brackish water, in clumps of bananas brought from the hills to the cities (they breed in the water of the stems), and in the disused water wells of the villages (which the militia blew up on their way out).

Threats also that the lack of progress by their elected government (the UN is in power) will stall the people's confidence in their freedom.   Threats that the elected representatives, the CNRT, will implode due to factional disagreement and lack of a real role in government. Threats that returning East Timorese will recognise what is afoot, and leave again. Threats that the people will seek refugee status in the larger towns rather than   return to their villages, hence overloading the cities and causing an urban explosion.

Fears that a Hyatt Hotel or a Club Med will stuff up this eco-sensitive environment.

East Timorese people walk all over their island -   they hang off the side of faltering buses too - but most of all they walk. They trek across the mountains and hills of the country they love, along the roads of their cities, into the valleys and under the trees,   and   they walk with a resilience that is remarkable.   They walked   to hear the Pope speak (which seems an eternity ago) and they walked   to vote. They walk to go to mass, to look for food, to share in their government and to celebrate their freedom.   Mostly,   they walk within East Timor so they can   take care of the place which they love.

These people have paid an outrageous price for the right to stand upright   and walk - and they are paying for it still.

 

Norman Day

Dili. 2000