Tue, Oct 19, 1999 page1

• Dili residents return to a charred, forlorn city

  AFTER THE VIOLENCE A Taipei Times reporter, in the first of a series, takes a look at the devastation wrought on East Timor's capital after the Aug. 30 vote for independence

  • By Andrew Perrin / STAFF REPORTER
  • • 
    • 
    • 

  The cathedral is all that remains. Without a flicker of reason, or guilt, pro-Indonesia militia ran roughshod through this town, and instead of burning or looting the cathedral that stands sentinel in the center of Dili, they left it untouched, unscathed, and moved elsewhere to continue their destructive work.

  But the cathedral is an aberration. Not one home in this once sleepy seaside port survived the mayhem that followed the Aug. 30 ballot on independence. And not just the homes -- churches, convents, schoolhouses, hospitals, and the beautiful, but ramshackle Portuguese guesthouses that used to overlook the city from the bone-dry mountains have been destroyed. Even the Indonesian armed forces base lies in ruins.

  On street after street, and in suburb after suburb, there is nothing but burnt-out, blackened concrete shells.

  

  An Australian-manned Armored Personel Carrier motors down a street past East Timorese residents as refugees continue their return to Dili yesterday. Such vehicles can be heard rumbling throughout the city 24 hours a day as they patrol the streets of the capital.

  PHOTO: REUTERS

  "The more I see, the more I realize this was not the work of some crazed militia, as the Indonesians would have the world believe," said Kevin Baker, an Australian doctor who evacuated East Timor when the trouble began and recently returned.

  "What happened here was not chaos, but a systematic, planned operation by the Indonesian military to teach this country and other provinces who may want to do the same a lesson about abandoning it," he said. "It would have taken thousands of men to do such damage in such a short time, not a few hundred like the militia."

  Both the international and local witnesses to the destruction that raged in September testify to the involvement of Indonesian (TNI) forces in the destruction.

  A Dutch radio journalist, one of only three to stay in Dili after the UN evacuated its staff from the compound, said she watched from the top of her hotel building as TNI forces marched from one home to the next. "The explosions just kept coming one after the other," she said. "They were blasting the homes with incendiary grenades from rocket launchers."

  Now the shooting, killing and destruction has stopped, and the people who fled the trouble six weeks ago have returned to pick up the pieces.

  After surviving 300 years of benign, but oppressive Portuguese colonial rule, and then having lived through 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation, the resilience that the Timorese are renowned for is in doubt.

  "This was not 1975," said Joao Bererer, 56, who witnessed the landing of Indonesian forces 24 years ago and again watched last month when the army destroyed Dili. "This was much worse. In 1975, the soldiers did not burn. This time they burned, they killed, they took everything they could and they loaded it onto boats to take back to Java."

  Joao and his family now live in a shantytown that has sprung up on the seafront of Dili harbor. Like thousands of others in Dili, they now have to make due with no possessions, no clean water, little food and just the clothes they wear to protect them from the burning heat and afternoon downpours typical in Dili at this time of year.

  The only things that are functional in Dili now belong to the forces from the West. The city, and much of the territory, is firmly under the control of the multinational Interfet forces, and the militia and the Indonesian armed forces are fast disappearing.

  The streets are all busy with traffic, but nearly all of it consists of patrolling Interfet tanks and armored personnel carriers, or the brand-new four-wheel drives typical of UN missions and international aid agencies.

  Thousands of heavily armed Interfet soldiers on the streets, and in parked buses at every street corner, reinforce the sense of security.

  Yet despite the sheer size of the international effort and the solid work they are doing, doubts still linger for the future of this tiny half-island nation. It is apparent that pro-integration graffiti can be washed off the walls and houses eventually rebuilt, but whether the Timorese can recover from the horror that followed the ballot remains to be seen.

  Thousands of people now roam the streets as if in a permanent daze, as though they are unable to come to terms with the events of the past few months. Children scramble in the dust, while adults sit in the shade of trees saying little, wondering what to do next. And in what is in effect a lawless state, looting and theft are on the rise.

  Among many Timorese there is no talk of the future, just an uncertain present and a bleak past.

  "It is a difficult task we face to get everyone to begin rebuilding not just their homes but their lives," said Anna DiLello, a program supervisor for the UN World Food Program, who came to East Timor from Kosovo. "In Kosovo, the rebuilding started straight away, but here the people sit around doing nothing, waiting for their families to return [from refugee camps in West Timor]. It makes our job very difficult. The nation is in a state of shock."

  Baker said that the only way forward for the East Timorese is the immediate creation of an international war crimes tribunal.

  He said that if some of the people responsible for the killings could be brought to a trial, it would provide the Timorese a platform to purge themselves of their stories and hopefully move on.

  If a war crimes tribunal is convened -- and the UN's dithering on the issue suggests it is unlikely to happen for some time -- it is apparent that it may come too late for some.

  Joao Sarmento, 23, a much-respected student independence leader who last year preached the message of reconciliation with pro-Indonesian sympathizers should the territory become independent, has now changed his mind. After surviving a brutal attack from militia in which his skull was fractured from a machete blade, and later learning that two members of his family had been killed following the ballot, the time for forgiveness has passed, he said.

  "The good in us is in the past," he said. "It has all changed now. It is very difficult to be good now."
• Most Popular

  • 1

    Chinese carrier group entered Japanese waters

  • 2

    Magnitude 6.4 earthquake hits Hualien County

  • 3

    Think tank hosts war games in Taipei

  • 4

    Students rescued from Cambodia

  • 5

    Home sales agent tops average wage list of TWSE