First Letter from Timor-Leste - 2 March 2009
For those of you who are not Asian Globe-trotters,
Timor-Leste (TL) (or East Timor) is the eastern half of an island – not far
from southern Australia --
which used to be ruled by Portugal.
West Timor was and remains part of Indonesia. In 1975, when the
Portuguese left, TL taken over with brutal force by Indonesia and, when the Timorese
voted for independence in 1999, they had to go through another baptism of fire
(the Indonesians looted what they could and burned what they couldn’t take
away). The UN has been present in Timor since 1999, currently as UNMIT (the UN
Transitional Mission in Timor), the mandate of
which was just extended by the Security Council until February 2010.
The island is beautiful, as are the people who live
here. Though I have been here for just a
month and have only been to a few places outside of Dili (the capital) – to
Metinaro and Manatuto and, just last week to Suai (in Covalima district, the
most western corner of the country, bordering Indonesia) -- I have been taking
photos non-stop. After Afghanistan, seen
only through the plate glass window of the armored jeep, it is exhilarating to
be able to walk on a beach, on a street, in a market, and shoot pictures of
people who smile, of children who laugh. So, if you go to my photo albums on
Facebook, you can have a glimmer of the beauty of this place.
The vegetation is lush. There are these enormous ancient
trees whose roots are above the ground, with jungle-creepers hanging from its
branches, much as I visualize Tolkien’s “ents”. You can imagine monkeys
swinging from them – there are monkeys here, though I have only seen a few and
those, sadly, in captivity. Bougainvillia – in splashes of fushia and pinks –
covers walls and tall trees. The mountains, at this time of year – the rainy
season – are emerald green, while the ocean is brilliant aquamarine and the
beach sand is white, and scattered with shells and coral (white and red) washed
up with the tide. Of course, in Dili, the ocean also washes up the garbage that
the ships dump into the port and much will need to be done before this is
transformed for eco-tourism. Though I am told that Timor
has some of the best diving in the world. (Diving I will have to take up in my
next life, although I may try to snorkel.)
In some ways, the Dili beachfront reminds me much of Tel Avis’s beaches
in the 1960s where I used to walk. There were few people on the beaches then
and you would get lots of tar on your bare feet, as the water lapped your
ankles. Here, there are older women
wearing sarongs, each with their own corner of the beach, picking up shells,
washed up coral and the sea-rounded pebbles, grading them by size and type, and
then filling white sacking bags on the side of the road to sell – about $5.00
for a large bag, which both Timorese and “malees” (foreigners) buy for their
gardens. No matter how often I walk the beach front between my hotel-apartment
and Hotel Timor and beyond, to the lighthouse, there is something to
photograph. Yesterday, there were young naked boys climbing the ladder of an
old ship hulk that sits off shore. I also wandered into a small sculpture
garden being created as a joint project between Timorese, Brazilian and Angolan
artists – with vibrantly colored small sculptures, and a walkway of pebbles
from the beach. And I had my first green coconut on the beach – the liquid
sweet and cool (not at all like coconut milk from a can) – and the flesh, when
they split the coconut afterwards with a panga, soft and pulpy -- you scoop it
out with a spoon which the sellers carve from coconut husks.
But, one must not be blinded by the beauty. Timor is one of
the poorest countries in Asia. Half of the
children are chronically malnourished. Despite the heavy rain-falls, many
people do not have access to potable water and proper sanitation is
non-existent in much of the countryside. This is a very Catholic country – the
Portuguese legacy – where abortion is illegal and where the average family has
8.5 children. So, the need for a continually expanding educational and health
facilities is enormous, and it is not just a question of more schools and
clinics but of also the quality of the education and health care offered. One
of the biggest challenges in Timor is not money – at least not at present, Timor has a good money reserve from small off-shore oil
production – but capacity, the ability to spend the money, to implement
programs.
There is in Timor Leste a large UNPO (UN Police) force which
has been training the PNTL (National Police) and has been in charge of policing
for the past few years; and UNPO is currently preparing to handover authority
to PNTL. But we had a glimmer of just
how ready the PNTL is for taking over last week, when I was in Suai. Some
villagers, digging in a rice field, came across a very large unexploded bomb
(UXO) – about 100 kg (never learned if it was from WW2 or 1975) – and they
wisely called the local police to deal with it.
So, the police officers loaded the UXO – which was not deactivated --
into their jeep and drove it 50 kilometers over dirt and potholed roads to
downtown Suai where they deposited it proudly in the main police HQ of the
district. That happened to be situated next to the UN compound, the helicopter
landing field, and a school. We first heard about this via an SMS to our mobile
phone which said that all travel to Suai was suspended for the moment and that
we should evacuate the center of Suai.
(Luckily, we were at the Dragon Hotel on the other side of town at the time.)
One would have thought that part of the training of PNTL would have been in
Standard Operating Procedures (SPO) for dealing with UXOs. A “bomb squad” from the
GNR (Portuguese police or military) from Dili had to fly in to blow the device
up. Oddly, they didn’t come in until a day later (Friday, not Thursday) and it
was rumored that the one day delay was because the Portuguese wanted to go to a
rather good party Thursday night at Motions Bar in Dili, their regular hangout.
But that may be considered defamation, so should not be repeated.
Timor is definitely an “plum”
assignment – and my work is/should be fine. I am here to help the Human Rights
and Transitional Justice Sector roll-out the “Protection Cluster”, a
coordination mechanism to deal with humanitarian emergencies. The plan is for
me to be here for 9-12 months, which would be wonderful. There is even a house
I could move into next month – as opposed to the hotel apartment I am currently
living in. But then, nothing is ever as
simple as it seems. I have run into a bureaucratic problem with the
administration of the mission, which has refused to give me access to the tools
I need to do my job – i.e., to Lotus Notes (the computer system that the UNMIT
uses here - hence I continue to use g-mail), a permit to drive a UN vehicle, a
phone, a PIN cod. The initial block way made by someone we call a “P2-D2” (P2
being the lowest professional grade in the mission, D2 being the highest) – and
now people have dug their heels in and refuse to listen to logic. And, unless
they are persuaded to change their position – that is, some big gun (possibly
from New York or Geneva) needs to say, do it -- it is possible that Procap may pull me out of
Timor Leste.
So, this may be my first and last letter from Timor, I don’t know. Though I hope not. I will keep you
in the loop. As always, I love hearing from you – so drop a note if time
permits.
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