Grasping at peace in East Timor

East Timor hopes for a stable future for its young

By Catherine Napier

Almost a year after East Timor voted for independence, it was the Indonesian signs that struck me on a visit to what is left of the capital Dili.

Signs for Indonesian government departments in front of gutted Indonesian buildings.

Then in the countryside, more absurdly, Indonesian military barracks with aggressive murals of soldiers and the seven principles of the army - all perfectly preserved.

Hundreds were killed in last year's violence

You would have thought it was all too much - given the history between the two sides. The savage invasion and bombing, the napalming and the killing, the starvation and disease - a quarter of a century of hated occupation.

But the people of East Timor are nothing if not resilient. And history has taught them how to focus on what is important. Now they have got Indonesia out, they want justice, not revenge. So when I asked about the signs the reply was just a shrug: "It doesn't matter - they've already gone."

More than 100,000 have gone - the soldiers and the bureaucrats and a lot of businessmen with them. There is one sad group left in a mosque with a United Nations police guard. They cannot go back to their houses. They have been taken by the homeless, and the owners fear they will be attacked.

In limbo

East Timorese now number perhaps 750,000 - a small country by any standard. And with up to a sixth of the population in squalid camps across the border, it is still hostage to the militias.

And despite their liberation they are still waiting for their freedom - in limbo while the international community restores basic services and runs repairs. People traumatised anew by last year's violence and disruption must continue to be patient until elections are held next year and there is a firm date for independence.

One former prisoner told me about a room where fellow inmates wrote on the walls in their own blood

Indonesia the oppressor has gone, but in its place is now another mysterious beast - a UN administration which in the eyes of many ordinary people has failed to live up to expectations.

On both sides the strain is showing. East Timor is starting from scratch and very little has been repaired. The UN has never attempted to run an entire country before - certainly not one where the previous occupants had burnt the chairs.

Bureaucracy in New York has slowed up the arrival of funds and the jobless and weary Timorese have been left wondering what all the well paid foreigners in town are doing on their behalf.

In a slightly surreal way, first world amenities have sprung up in the husks of burnt out buildings. A whole district is a disaster then up pops a street smart café with stripped wood floors and little tables. You can buy cappuccino in Dili at Western prices and if you are stuck for somewhere to stay, there is always a container with its air-conditioned compartments at US $80 a night.

$5 more and that is the monthly starting salary in the new Timorese civil service.

Battle of wills

In Indonesian times the civil service was a big employer, even if the Timorese were rarely allowed to rise in it. Now it is a third of the size - and a lot of former civil servants are wondering about the future.

I met one who had been obliged to do almost the unthinkable. His house had been burned down by the militia and he had been forced to move his family into an abandoned interrogation centre.

The country is planning independence celebrations

Here soldiers attempted to break the will of the underground resistance. One former prisoner told me about a room where fellow inmates wrote on the walls in their own blood. He himself was hung up in this room for 24 hours.

When I went there I saw it. Ten foot square and like a dungeon. Next to it a small child slept under a mosquito net. The civil servant said he banished thoughts of horror. This was somewhere the Timorese had fought for their country's freedom. Besides he had no choice.

The Timorese elite have been chafing at the bit. Four of them now sit in a mixed cabinet with UN ministers. And the headquarters of the resistance leadership is humming with anticipation.

I went and waited outside the office of Jose Ramos Horta, a Nobel peace prize winner who spent years battering at the door of world opinion on East Timor's behalf. As I waited I watched engineers unpack computers and string clumps of bright blue cables up between the trees.

Tacked up on a wall next to the Salado del Presidente were two jaunty sombreros, one in pink and one in green. Perhaps they were made for the tourists Indonesia once hoped would come. Perhaps they were gifts from other Wild West revolutionaries.

But they seemed to symbolise one thing now within East Timor's grasp - real hope for the future and with it peace at last.