Timor Leste: Shattered Dreams of Independence
Agnès Dherbeys
In February 2006, Salvador Sista, a primary school teacher and the only person in the village of Alienbata to live in a house with solid walls, told me that life, meaning financial survival, was less difficult at the time of the Indonesian occupation. The sense of bitterness is both staggering and paradoxical, particularly when we think of the price that Timor Leste paid for independence, after four centuries of Portuguese colonial rule and more than two decades under the vice-like grip of the Indonesian army. Efforts made by Timorese living in exile, working through diplomatic channels and supported by the intrepid independence fighters with the Falaintil guerilla forces, finally produced results. At last! And so Timor celebrated independence to widespread joy in 2002, after a transition period under UN forces. On my first trip in early 2006, what I saw and photographed was an impoverished Timor, a Timor that was still totally dependent on international support, a Timor where the lush beauty of the landscape and the hospitality of the people could not hide the disappointment in the wake of independence.
Preview
The country is up against enormous challenges, needing absolutely everything, and most of all skilled labor; everything needs to be built or rebuilt; there is absolutely nothing that does not require attention; roads, hospitals and schools need to be built. The country has to be set on the path of development, by creating jobs, and the private sector of the economy is virtually non-existent. At present, 60% of the population is unemployed and half live on less than one euro per day. A full legal system needs to be devised, and the ardor of a lost generation needs to be revived and channeled in the right direction. Some are too young to remember the beginning of the occupation, and while they were educated in Indonesian schools, they are still unemployed and today they are quite simply lost in a sea of huge 4-wheel drive vehicles belonging to NGOs and the UN. There is so much frustration, so much suspicion, so much poverty. Things were already looking bad well before April 2006; it was as if the chaos was just waiting for a good excuse to burst out. When half the forces with the F-FDTL army left, i.e. the forces from the west of the country known as the “petitioners” and who complain of discrimination, the situation soon degenerated to become what has been termed an “ethnic conflict”. Violence between the police and the army left the country without any real security. And within the first few days of independence, gangs returned in force. In May 2006, I found Timor still in a state of frustration, but also in a state of violence. Ethnic violence had been unknown in the past, but now it was flagrant: hundreds of homes were burnt down, obviously targeting the ethnic background of the owners; in all 37 people were killed and one fifth of the population (155 000) were forced into camps – ethnic conflict had become reality. The situation was so serious that international forces under UN command had to return. The locals were armed with machetes and stones, while Australian, Malaysian and New Zealand soldiers attempted to confiscate automatic weapons that had been left unchecked or had entered the country illegally. The UN police force, UNPOL, comprised of thirty different nationalities, then came back and restored the relative calm required to hold the 2007 parliamentary and presidential elections. Life in the camps became fairly “normal”, and the administration set up a system for registering citizens on the electoral list. The presidential campaign was held in an explosive atmosphere, showing that many wounds were still open in this small country. Supporters painted in the colors of their candidates frantically rushed to pose for cameras. And in the end, the Nobel peace prize laureate, José Ramos-Horta won the majority vote. This result is no doubt symbolic, as was also the case in the 2002 election when his predecessor, the hero of the resistance, Xanana Gusmao, was elected. In April last year, the journalist Solenn Honorine quoted a former member of the Falaintil guerilla forces saying: “Sometimes I think things weren’t too bad under the Indonesian occupation. Yes, it was war, but at least we were fighting together instead of fighting amongst ourselves.” This bitterness was similar to the feelings of frustration which I had heard from Salvador Sista eighteen months earlier. Except that today Timor Leste is not only poor, it is divided, incapable of self-government, and unable to guarantee its own national security.
Agnès Dherbeys
