Tetumglish

Far be it from me to be the language police, but I can’t help but have a disappproving chuckle with the number of English words that have entered into Dili Tetum:

environmentu
artikulu (for article)
manajementu
treinamentu
comitmentu
tenderisasaun
bankrup (from Indonesian?)

Any additions?

The visible

Hitting the ground running on Saturday, there was much more this year that jumped out at me as compared to last year. Changes of the visible kind in Dili are quite numerous.

The number of motorbikes, the “New York” yellow taxis, the growth of the seedlings planted in the sidewalks – now nearly trees, stacks of $12 subsidized rice sacks, the fish vendors with their new tents on Pantai Kelapa, Jardim as a functioning and quite popular park with children playing, young lovers holding hands and people walking around… A large number of Indonesian fishing boats in the harbor, the Port brimming with containers, the absurd Casa Europa on the waterfront, and the new pavement on the Bidau waterfront, as well as the fruit stalls…

Dili is cleaner than I have ever seen it – thanks to loron limpeza? Or due to a functioning sanitation system and the ban on pig and goat roaming? (The pigs are strangely missed – as a friend pointed out, it will be hard to shoot the “Pigs of Dili” Calendar she has been dreaming about.)

It is as though we are beginning to see the lusotropical Dili “utopia” that Doug Kammen recently described come to life. (Although where is the progress on the “Hello Mister” development by Wideform? It seems only the Chinese have been able to construct in the past year.)

The city and surrounds are unexpectedly green for July, which is probably due to late heavy rains. But the green seems symbolic of a budding of the physical space. Is this proof of what Emilia Pires claimed was Timor’s exceptional avoidance of the global financial crisis? Surely it is not all due to government spending on rice, on the urban improvements, on the IDPs, on a universal old-age pension and payments to veterans, but these seem to have had quite immediate effects. The scaling up of the UN missions in the past has had more delayed “trickle down” effects.

I also cannot help but wonder what the impact of the hundreds – thousands? – of Timorese in the UK has had not only of the economy, but on the physical.

Just as the late rains probably have a few worried about the climatic implications for the coming rainy season, I cannot help but feel a little uneasy about “the visible.” But I am going to try and keep a check on my Malai Grinch sentiments and keep seeking out the positive.

It’s going to have to wait

Until at least September. But I will be in Timor a week from now. Hopefully blogging.

June 6, 1959

On this day, 50 years ago, the infamous Viqueque Rebellion began. I believe the acts of rebellion, as I write in my MA thesis, constituted

the unplanned, last gasp of a growing conspiracy discovered by Portuguese authorities in its early stages. Three sets of actors created the conditions for the revolt that started in Viqueque town on June 6, 1959: disgruntled Timorese civil servants; bold elites from Uatolari and Uatocarbau subdistricts; and  self-styled ‘rebels’ from Indonesia. The revolt would not have occurred without the active participation of all three groups, and as such should not be perceived—as it often is—as a spontaneous local event.

From 2002 to last year, I researched, thought about and eventually wrote about the way this event is remembered in East Timor. As this is a blog, I decided to write about this today in a rather personal way. This is not an objective recounting of my findings or my research.

The Rebellion is an event that has suffered a number of official, formal revisions over the past decades. Principally during the Indonesian occupation. As such, it also began to take on new popular meanings in East Timor. In Dili and elsewhere, people are naturally quite dismissive of an event which they perceive either to be folly (cowboiada) or an Indonesian revisionist fantasy.

During my archival work in Lisbon, I stumbled on a number of fascinating tidbits about the Indonesian exiles involved in the Rebellion and Portuguese police paranoia. But what struck me most was the disconnect between the elite conspirators from Uatolari and Uatocarbau and their subjects. Interrogated by Portuguese police, one in particular said he did not know the names of the 30 or so rebels with him, as they were led by their village chiefs.

Existing documentation, and interpretation of events, tells a rather “outside” or elite version of the bloody end of the Rebellion in the eastern Matebian valley. In fact there is no official record of deaths (estimated between 50 and 500), destruction and damage caused by the repression of the Rebellion. Not surprisingly, nothing written subsequently captures local memories and interpretations of events.

So in 2006, I returned to attempt to interview residents to paint a picture of the way the Rebellion is remembered in the knua and villages between Uatocarbau and Baguia. My research was admittedly fraught with challenges and limitations. This is not the kind of thing one does in 10 weeks. Or even 10 months. Nevertheless, from this, I found:

The “Viqueque Rebellion” broke out in a remote area of Portuguese Timor and was ably repressed by a poor, isolated Portuguese Administration with machetes, matchbooks, and the centuries-old divide et impera strategy. That the repression of the rebellion occurred during “modern” times in such an antiquated fashion is a curiosity, but not my main interest. The Rebellion’s relatively recent date and the   continued “isolation” of the involved locations provide a unique opportunity for a study of the “local” memory of extreme colonial-era violence. For those in three subdistricts in southeastern Timor, memories of the violent repression of the rebellion remain surprisingly local – that is, external actors and causes are minimized. The memory of violence sparked by external events appears to have been absorbed into a local logic, in spite of continued external attempts at revisionism for political ends.

The final product, my thesis, has been gathering dust since I defended it around this time last year. Why?

The only Timorese feedback I got – loud and clear – was that this is very sensitive material. Local conflicts, between people whose families still live side by side, are better not portrayed in print, or spoken of. Recountings of extreme violence, I was reminded, can provoke extreme reactions.

I have suffered from an acute mental paralysis, a loss of conviction, a feeling that this is in fact true that some how my work could cause problems for others. I have not been able to discern what in my research indeeds transgresses some invisible ethical line. For this reason I have been very cautious about disseminating my work.

For a number of reasons, including the feeling that I must unload a weight off of my shoulders, on June 12, the 50th anniversary of the end of the repression of the Rebellion, I hope to upload here a summary of my thesis that navigates some of the invisible ethical fault lines.

I feel that June 6th deserves more from me, but I am on the road and quite exhausted. More soon.

Limpeza Geral. Or, sweeping dirt by force

This is a guest post from Wiernie Walshe in Dili. Yes, that is a pseudonym.

Police pull over taxis and force the occupants and driver out at gunpoint. Public transport is forbidden from operating, and as a result school children cannot get to school in time to attend their final day of national exams. It is eerily silent in the main commercial district of town as businesses and banks are not allowed to open. Parts of the city are blocked by the Prime Minister’s 10 car convoy, shadowing him as he walks slowly down the street in his blue nylon tracksuit.

Welcome to Friday morning in Dili, Timor-Leste, where the President has declared every Friday morning is “limpeza geral” (general cleaning), a day when civil servants are forced to sweep dirt and cut branches off trees. Very little rubbish seems to be collected during the cleaning. The litter which is accidentally swept up along with the dirt is left in piles by the side of the street, to blow away into the already clogged drains. Nobody has bothered to organise any rubbish trucks to come and pick it up. And everyone continues to throw their trash on the street as soon as the cleaning is over.

Most civil servants treat Friday “limpeza” as a day off. Those who do turn up for the cleaning are generally seen sitting around by the side of the road, chasing each other around with their brooms. Then, because they are wearing casual clothes and have become sweaty and dirty with sweeping, they have to go home and change, and have a nap, by which time it is too late to come back to work. Friday afternoon in the government offices is almost as deserted as Friday morning. This in a country where 50% of the population is living in absolute poverty, and in urgent need of the services the government is supposed to be providing – infrastructure, education, healthcare and security.

With the forced closures of banks and businesses, Friday “limpeza” also creates havoc for Timor-Leste’s struggling commercial sector. In a country where people are fond of resting, many Timorese stores have very limited opening hours – Monday to Friday from 9am to 12pm and 3pm to 5pm. But now, thanks to the command of the President, even these limited hours have been cut. In the words of one supermarket owner, “Friday limpeza has set the country back fifty years. I am forced to close during three of my most profitable hours of the week”.

Surprisingly, there have been no reports of objections to police strong-armed tactics to enforce what should surely be voluntary participation in “limpeza geral”. Will the police stop at forcing taxis and their occupants out and handing them a broom? Or will they force all private vehicles off the road too, and then force people out of their houses? And if the police can force people off the road, with no legal basis, to engage in vigorous dirt sweeping, then what else will they unlawfully try to force people to do?

Is “limpeza geral” an attempt to encourage civic pride, or is it the first step along a path towards something more sinister?

In memory

The above photo, care of La’o Hamutuk Nug Katjasungkana, is from the former residence of Manuel Carrascalão in the Lecidere neighborhood of Dili, where families of the victims of the April 17, 1999 massacre gathered yesterday to pay respects and demand justice.

The massacre was perpetrated by pro-Indonesia militias with encouragement and support from the Indonesian military. The survivor’s statement boldly says the following

We, survivors and victims families lament yet understand the lack of initiatives of our own leaders in demanding justice and fair trial. As many have forgotten and find it easier to move on choosing to remain silent. Our plea is to not disregard the need for justice.

I stayed there as a researcher, as it is now home to the Fundação Oriente, and I was truly haunted by what happened there in 1999 and Irene Cristalis’ account of the massacre, to be republished next week.

It is simply impossible to forget.

Some say the victims are delusional to continue to ask for justice. But there are more than enough examples to show that it is never too late.

The pool of blood

After much delaying and paralysis, I was able to defend my MA thesis last year on the memory of collective violence from colonial East Timor. I remember trying to think of a way to make sense of the subject matter at hand to my kind friends and colleagues in the room. Most were Portuguese, knew Timor growing up, unlike me. For many, the images of the Santa Cruz massacre were indelibly imprinted on their young consciousness in 1991, so I evoked them:

Hundreds of Timorese, running to the camera, kicking up dust, with looks of absolute panic. In a cemetary, young people fallen, hit by bullets from the rifles of the invisible Indonesian army. One young man in particular bleeding in the arms of another… If you like, I “heard” this image before I saw it.

I remember Amy Goodman, present in Santa Cruz, eyewitness and survivor, telling a spellbound room of young Amnesty International activists about this in 1996. I’m not sure I actually ever watched the footage of Santa Cruz except small clips in John Pilger’s Death of a Nation.

In 1999, I followed the horrifying build-up to the referendum, the last months in Brazil, where one was lucky to find even a printed image of Timor. In 2000, eyewitnesses both foreigners and Timorese shared their experiences with me of Dili and of flight. (I never saw footage of 1999 until much later, when I watched Scenes from Occupation, by Carmela Baranowska.)

The pool of blood grew, but it was still not something visible to me. The years I lived there it grew. In 2006 it grew in new and strange directions.

Now they are digging up bones in Hera, from what appears to be unmarked graves from Santa Cruz. Bones with traces of violence. Silent. Alarmingly white and solid. Alone.

In Liquiça the grave sites have yet to be found.

The pool of blood remains invisible to many but that does not mean we cannot still feel it seeping between our toes.

One reaction is silence, a trembling chin — an inability to speak or to write. Another reaction is a loud and truly righteous pursuit of Justice. Yet another reaction is to attend to the senses. To compensate. Stuff the hungry belly — to seek feeling.

Sometimes these reactions come all in short order, or intermingle and seem paradoxical and hypocritical.

Is it right for me to speak of “us” — of ita?

Return

Upon my return to America, Josephine:
the iced drinks and paper umbrellas, clean
toilets and Los Angeles palm trees moving
like lean women, I was afraid more than
I had been, even of motels so much so
that for months every tire blow-out
was final, every strange car near the house
kept watch and I strained even to remember
things impossible to forget.
— Carolyn Forché, “Return”

This time ten years ago, I was in my second year at university. Designing the weekly paper, enrolled in intensive Portuguese, and living next to this guy (who is now some famous actor).

I was also raising the rabble (well the little rabble possible at an actually quite apathetic institution) with the East Timor Action Network.

Monitoring the situation in Timor over my amazing ethernet connection, from about November 1998, it became clear something sinister was happening in Timor. By February 1999, we were hearing reports of mass displacement in Suai. Then April: Liquiça. Dili. Unspeakable horrors.

By this time I knew in my heart of hearts what was going to happen… Even prior to the May 5th agreement, it seemed from afar that Timor was headed for catastrophe. I spent June in DC working ETAN: lobby days, events on Capitol Hill.

It crossed my mind to put my name down to monitor the referendum. But I knew at age 20 that I was simply not ready for what was going to happen.

The other side of the Globo

Not since the flight of the Portuguese court to Rio in 1807 has Brazil been so important to Timor. Welcome news, this “Carnaval” in Dili, with its mix of Ivete Sangalo and trio elétricos. I even tip my hat to Gil Alves. Would have been fun to join in.

I remember noting the irony of watching a Brazilian novela, dubbed in Indonesian, on satellite television in Maliana in 2003. In fact it was a novela that helped me better my Portuguese as a student in Brazil in 1999.

Dubbed novelas have helped a generation of children learn their first words in Indonesian, across Timor.

I just want to say “parabens” to those who finally realized that Brazil can help Timor learn Portuguese, not through bilaterial aid, but by making its pop culture more accessible. (I will not be baited into talking about language. Portuguese was the choice, then it has to be made to work.)

It has been obvious for the longest time that Timorese children were not going to learn Portuguese from the classroom alone.

Their older brothers and sisters are busy listening to Brazilian country music – caipira, singing words they do not know the meaning of. Anyone who has ridden on a bus in Timor (oops I guess that excludes the people who make the decisions) would know that Chitãozinho & Xororó and Leandro and Leonardo have done more to promote Portuguese in Timor than anybody else. (Recognize this ditty?)

So great news that TVGlobo’s world famous soap operas are going to hit Timorese airwaves and Dili will parade in Carnaval.

And by the way, I also know quite a few Timorese also eager to soak up Brazil’s “social technology” — its dynamic social movements and forms of self-organization — can the embassies who funded Carnaval get behind supporting that too?

The brink

Just a quick post to say “phew.”

For those who would like to relive all of the uncertainty and surreality of last February 11, go back to Wikileaks.

If on the other hand you would like to celebrate Timor’s uncanny ability to come back from “the brink”, I wrote a post about a fight over cigarettes on a bus in 2006 which seems strangely appropriate.

Casus Belo

Odd times. The past is ever present in Timor.

Abílio Araújo suggests the Petroleum Fund is no more than a neocolonial imposition on Timor, based on the assumption that the Timorese are corruptable children who do not know how to take care of themselves. He writes, “the current justification for the creation of the Fund is based on the genetic-cultural propension of oil-producing peoples and countries to generate corrupt leaders that delapitdate the riches of their peoples.” A (dated) colonial critique which is applied with no subtly. His idea: spend Timor out of oil dependency, and fast.

José Belo is on the dock with criminal charges for what must be said is bizarre reportage on corruption by the Minister of Justice herself. The real story is that the project Timorese criminal legal code, where Article 175 will determine defamation, has conveniently not been passed in Parliament. So Belo can be tried with the outdated, repressive Indonesian version. Another relic from past vested with a great deal of power.

And Agiu Pereira published an opinion piece called “The Dreams of Kay Rala Xanana Gusmão“, quoting Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa in the second paragraph. I can’t help but quote this extensively

Two contradictions are hovering in the conscience of Xanana Gusmão. One of them relates to the fact that he breached the promise made to his guerrillas that, after the liberation, he would not hold any position; the other is the conscience of the duty, the duty to serve, the duty not to let go what his guerrilla men achieved, for he saw many of them being killed and giving their lives so as to make their dream come true, a dream that is the dream of an entire people.

His desire to be a mere spectator of a new stage in the struggle for the sovereignty of his people, a stage of building a democratic State based on the rule of law, has not materialised because the national political reality dictates that Xanana must continue to row in this cyclopean boat that carries the hopes of the Timorese children so that they may one day be able to have more adequate living conditions, a happier life than that of their ancestors, a life proper of a modern people and country, in a globalised world.

His promise not to hold a political position was transformed by contemporary reality and converted into “Having Freed the Motherland, Let Us Free the People”.

Xanana continues to be a prisoner, but today he is a prisoner of freedom. The new prison cells are not made of walls and metal, but of his own conscience. The dream is, after all, a train that travels in a political process of the national liberation itself!

This train has neither stations nor does it stop to enable Xanana to step down.

How relevant are trains in Timor? (Maybe Timor Cartoon could do something with this image!)

I’m going to hop on my trusty kuda to take me to Central London.

Meter-long coffin

It is sometimes easy to let the sea of headlines about underdevelopment and poverty wash over you. Just like it is easy to stop seeing the upper respiratory infections and signs of malnutrition in children, as callous and awful as that may sound. These things become almost routine.

This UNICEF data from 2007, about child mortality in Timor brought with it mixed emotions: while progress has been made, still 55 of 1,000 children born in Timor will die before the age of 5. [Correction: 55/1000 is the figure from 2006. In 2007 the latest figure is 97/1000 -- child mortality nearly DOUBLED]

One of the saddest things I ever saw in Timor: a meter-long coffin, maybe 130cm. Covered in a canopy of tais. Candle burning on a table next to it, with five packets of lilin, a crucifix, and two glasses holding bougainvillea flowers.

The deceased was eight years old, died of fever and diarrhea. This child is not even included in child mortality statistics because she is simply not supposed to die — she passed the five years threshold.

I wrote at the time

I could tell from the eyes of one woman, who looked very old for her years, that she was the mother. It is a strange situation to be asked to photograph a child’s wake. I had to ask the assembled crowd to move out of the doorway to allow more daylight to pass in. There was one candle burning and a couple of weavings set up to make a sort of cubicle for the child. I set the shutterspeed to 1/60 second, held my breathed and clicked the shutter. It’s amazing how not awkward this felt. The family wanted a way to remember this child. They had no photo of her alive. I felt as though I should say something, and it came naturally. I am so sad for this child. Simple.

The girl died of a sick stomach and high fever. I asked if there was a health post near, and everybody pointed down the road. Then the fever came fast? I asked. Ambiguous answer. The answer really is, this is just a place where 8 year old children die. Simple.

This is a classic example of how money cannot solve problems. It can help, but it does not solve them.

One wonders sometimes how the same old characters in Timorese politics can be busy writing treatises on the Net, in the daily papers, to blame each other for things that happened even 35 years ago.

What did this eight year old girl know about any of that? What did it matter to whether she lived or died?

I read that staff from the President’s office went to deliver blankets in Letefoho to a grateful population. (This while the President was being feted in Thailand, after spending days in the Philippines talking about brokering peace for Mindanao.)

Perhaps on his return, he, and others, should start attending the funerals of eight year-olds.

Of Nonas, or “Lovers”

Why is it that Angie Pires, still the only person being held in house arrest in relation to the attack on Ramos Horta in February 2008, is a “lover” in the Australian media?

It is not as if they are assigning her some kind of Bonnie-and-Clyde agency. The word is always used to stigmatize, or debase. Think of how gay partners are so often by default “lovers”. How often does the media refer to men as “lovers” of women?

I have already made my opinion of her fate clear.

One could argue that Angie is a post-colonial reincarnation of the figure of the nona. This word came to describe the concubines of European males stationed in Timor and other parts of the Portuguese empire. (In his latest book, Luis Cardoso artfully renders the character of a nona — highly recommend it.)

Osório de Castro pointed out that the use of the word in Timor came from Macau, where nonha was used. Luis Costa in his Portuguese-Tetum dictionary wrote that the word nona was used “only to designate the amante (lover) of the European or Chinese”.

Those who became nonas in Timor were sometimes mestiça, or women who were spurned by husbands or widowed, or simply women who had a curiosity and a knack for picking up European habits. Some colonial memoirs, like Paulo Braga’s (1933) Nos Antípodas, contain rather disturbing racist praises of Timorese nonas over Asian and African ones. He wrote that Timorese nonas were distinguished by their “correct facial features, without the facial excesses of the Asian and African races.”

What is clear, and what Cardoso captures so well, is that nonas were not trusted by either side, the ruling colonial elite nor the Timorese communities in which they lived. They constantly begged clearer defintion of us vs. them.

Taussig argues that in the colonial context, “Identity acquires its satisfying solidity because of the effervesence of the continuously sexualized border, because of the turbulent forces, sexual and spiritual, that the border not so much contains as emits.”

In my research of colonial violence, it is quite revealing the number of major events in Timorese history that when recounted orally seem to have transgressions of (or by) women as the spark. Take for example the story of the assassination of Governor Lacerda, which involved the illegitimate mestiça daughter of a Governor. Or Boaventura’s 1911-12 Rebellion, which is believed to have been caused by the inappropriate interest of a Portuguese military commander in Dom Boaventura’s “lighter skinned” wife (see Luis Cardoso’s The Crossing for the oral history version.) In my interviews on 1959, abuses of power in relation to Timorese women (”the voluptuousness of power”) were repeatedly raised.

When judging the Angie situation, let’s not deny the presence of ghosts of nonas past.

Snapshots

For current images of Timor, I highly recommend the Flickr East Timor Pool, which has an RSS feed. And surprisingly, Operation Astute (AKA the Australian ISF) has a number of quality images from 2008, including the one above taken at this year’s November 28 celebrations.

Another interesting place to look is Panoramio, where photos are geolinked. (Unfortunately, it does not have feeds by location.) If newness is not an issue, and in fact for those needing some historical perspective, a number of Portuguese photographers have added photos from the 1960s and 1970s (see Vitor Neves and Sottomayor).

Land of the rising sunshine

I’ve been intrigued at the activity on Wikileaks by certain well-placed individuals concerned with Timor.

Starting in late June 2008, Timor Leste Wikileaks has seen a spike in leaked documents: 19 sets of leaks in total.

I contacted Wikileaks to ask whether Timor wins the award of “Leaks Per Capita” and they said they could not be certain, but they said Timor was among the top three, the other contenders being the US and Kenya.

After a quick calculation, here are the winners in leaks per million people in 2008

1. Timor 19
2. US* 1.33
3. Kenya 0.58

Timor is well ahead of the country of Daniel Ellsberg and Mark Felt. One wonders who is doing the leaking.

Are we seeing the Leak trump the Rock in Timor? Or are these whistleblowers operating outside of the world of the frustrated ema kiik? (After all, only the well-connected or well-heeled have the resources to be scanning and sending documents over the internet.)

The next question is: does the increasing number of leaks mean more than there is a growing taste for the “whistle” by those interested in Timor? Does it tell us something about rule of law and corruption?

As Charlie Scheiner of La’o Hamutuk admonished on the ETAN mailing list “In a country as dynamic and volatile as this one, [indicators on corruption] should be taken with a lot of salt.”

I would argue that leak trends too must be taken with a massive dose of artesanal salt.

But I cannot help but continue to celebrate Wikileaks in the land of the loro.

Lest I celebrate too much, just a reminder of where leaks and secret sources got Tempo Semanal and editor José Belo: in court.

*projected from a three month period October-December

Indications

It has not been a couple of good weeks for Timor in what relates to reports and opinions from the wise “international community.”

The World Bank’s Poverty Report was circulated in Dili, indicating that poverty has risen since independence, and is particularly bad in the more populated central, mountain districts. (It has yet to be made available officially.)

Then the US decides not to select Timor as a “compact” country of the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a massive fund for bilateral aid created by the Bush administration. (Let me say, as a disclaimer: I have serious doubts about the MCC.) The MCC sets up multi-year “compacts” to pump in massive amounts of money, often for infrastructure programs, based on a country’s performance in governance and poverty reduction. The indicators for governance (called “Ruling Justly”) are taken from the World Bank Institute and the right wing think tank Freedom House.

Leaving out the Freedom House indictators, we can see that Timor dropped in from 07 to 08 in the World Bank Institute’s estimation.

2007

2008

President Ramos Horta lashed out at the World Bank recently, probably in response to these studies. He said that he was tired of “geniuses” and “einsteins” coming and measuring Timor. He said “We are always getting beat up for not implementing programs,” and that “sometimes more money is spent on evaluation than on programs.”

Ramos Horta asked reporters late last month, “And how much do they claim to have put here? Maybe it sums in the hundreds of millions, or I venture to say billions of dollars. Why is it that poverty continues to persist in our country?”

This follows a virulent attack by Xanana’s office against Oxfam Australia for its food security assessment released in October.

Something perhaps both the supercilious donors and Timorese elite should take on board: money cannot buy “development” or rule of law.

The garden of earthly delights

I feel the need to respond to Pedro Rosa Mendes’ critical meditation on Timor’s existence published last week in the Público. To give you an idea, the piece is peppered with subheadings like “The Indonesian occupation was implacable and the Timorese leadership is dismantling with zeal all that was left: dignity”.

One feels in reading his writing, that he is describing episodes, scenes, moments in time — much is repulsive, screaming out from the Timorese landscape. It’s a bit like a large canvas, where different scenes are occuring in different places, but there is unity in the way in which the scenes jar and disturb.

He paints a grim picture [my translation]

The sympathy for the Timorese cause stagnated into an ideal of society and of the individual that is disproven by frustrating daily experience. Ignorance, trauma, misery and neglect, with a sprinkling of the poisons of complacency, paternalism and piety, have made banal behaviors of predation, dishonesty, egotism and bad-faith. Solidarity, generosity and gratitude are in the minority. What is criminal in other places are common rites, in the Timor of today, in offices, businesses, in the market, in traffic and in the home.

The “historic leadership” rules over the impossible country, in passive civil disobedience, that thinks and acts as though everybody owed them everything and as though everything was for the taking, from the Petroleum to investment to international attention. Coveting and social jealousies infect the workplace, the political, social, and even familial spheres. “Here everybody gives orders and nobody obeys,” to cite an old Timorese [man] educated in principles which have since lost their value in the country.

Reaction to Rosa Mendes’ writing was swift from Portugal. It was called “a punch in the gut” to the concerned Portuguese public, whose illusions and romantic ideas Rosa Mendes so forcefully shoots down. Xanana himself even commented on the piece, which was timed for his state visit to Lisbon.

Few of Rosa Mendes’ points are far from my own impression of the state of things. And I have thrown myself headlong into histories of violence in Timor for the past couple of years, so the nightmarish is never far away for me.

And yet, with distance, I’m able to focus on the spontaneously positive parts of the sometimes grotesque landscape. (For example, Veronica Martins’ luminous tais pictured below. Or the NGO Forum’s forceful broadside addressed to the Prime Minister and his coalition called simply “The Law does not only apply to small and poor people“.)

Perhaps I mention Portuguese agronomist, anthropologist, artist, and poet Ruy Cinatti too much here. But he really touched a nerve when he captured a paradoxical feeling of connection-alienation with Timor. When he wrote in devastating verse “The Timorese will only be right/when they kill me” he was not only expressing the profound injustice in colonization. He articulated how a raw encounter between the self and the Other provokes a (sublime?) impulse to self-destruction. It drags us away from comfort and towards dark reaches of our being.

(I would argue this “raw encounter” and its impacts are not necessarily unidirectional, not only coming from an unequal power dynamic between West and Other. It bears asking: how has the intense, “raw encounter” with the malai changed the Timorese?)

It is the collision of Construction and Destruction. On facing panels.

Osan for the old

Pensions. Probably one of the least sexy topics on the face of the earth.

But if we are interested in economic growth, poverty alleviation, and not pushing a cynical double standard, then we need to consider the power of social pensions. (Xanana in his recent interview with Al-Jazeera attacks those in the international community that would have the State buy banks, but would criticize him for social spending. And he is on to something.)

And the model of “development” that the “international community” pushes is one based on work. It implicitly assumes people in poorer economies are lazy and must be made to work. Think about the lexicon: the emphasis on “livelihoods”, “cash for work”, and training programs.

And yet, is there a major OECD nation that did not use a pension system to consolidate the state during the tumultuous 20th century? These systems were in fact based on the notion that each individual citizen has rights, irrespective of his or her ability to work. And just look, even in an country like the US with huge mistrust for ‘big government’, the social security system is essentially untouchable. It is a compact between the people and the state.

While the AMP government is busy being battered for its belief that money can buy the peace, I think it is correct to point out that cash transfers to the oldest and most vulnerable can have a major impact in alleviating poverty propelling Timor.

I am a little worried that Timorese officials have been visiting Brazil for best practice. Brazil has a quite complex system that seems far from what Timor hopes to do, which is transfer about $20/month to older people. Perhaps an example like Lesotho (watch this interesting documentary by Dutch NGO World Granny) would be more appropriate.

Well-designed pension systems take into account all of the social contours and dynamics in a country.

I remember a trip we took to Baguia to deliver rice to an older woman, to find out later that it had been stolen by the neighbors.

It will not be easy for the government to roll out a pension scheme for older Timorese. I hope that the politicians give the Ministry of Social Solidarity the time, space and resources it needs to design something effective.

I fear, given the current political climate, that this will not be the case. And I would hope that FRETILIN also investigate, as opposition, what kind of social pension scheme it would implement if in power.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the Petroleum Fund Law is untouchable, and that Timor should stick to withdrawing what it is allowed by law and nothing more. But a pension scheme is still possible in Timor if it’s possible in Lesotho.

If you need any more convincing about the feasibility or effectiveness of social pensions, take a moment to read Helpage International’s quite digestible materials.

Not so fast

This week’s ruling of the Court of Appeals, rendering the AMP government’s budget unconstitutional, has to be the biggest single decision made by the judiciary since independence.

Three justices, including decision-writing justice Ivo Rosa, ruled that any transfer of more than $391 million (a figure called the Estimated Sustainable Income or ESI) from the Petroleum Fund is not permissible given the context and the letter of the law.

A number of issues are at stake here, but the biggest issue (as even the World Bank sees it) is how East Timor’s national survival will be brokered, with all of the implied difficult present/future trade-offs.

I mentioned the questions around the Budget in late August, shortly after three parties (FRETILIN, PUN and KOTA) came together to file a petition with the courts challenging the constitutionality of the Midterm Budget. For background please consult Lao Hamutuk’s site.

The plaintiffs threw a number of arguments at the Court, which the Court rationalized into four main lines of argument, and only some of them “stuck.” (Excuse my lack of legal knowledge, this is a lay-person’s analysis of 54 page judgment.)

(1) The decision of the Court of Appeals states that it is not the competence of the Court to decide on whether the internal proceedings of Parliament were legal or not.

(2) The Court ruled with the plaintiffs on their second argument, which is that the Economic Stabilization Fund represented in essence a “blank check” to government, which is not allowed in the Constitution. The Court found that in approving the Budget, parliament is not a merely authorizing, but instead, is participating in a political decision which “sets out certain lines of policy” and guarantees certain rights. The Court decided that the Timorese constitution foresees a “discrimination of expenses” and seeks to prevent “secret funds.” It found that the Economic Stabilization Fund ($240 million) was indeed in violation of the spirit of Article 145 (N. 2) of the Constitution.

(3) The Court rejected the argument that the Budget disturbed the balance of powers by allocating the Economic Stabilization Fund to the Executive Branch.

(4) On the last argument of the plaintiffs, the Court found illegal a withdrawal in excess of that set out by the Petroleum Fund Law. The Court ruled that the Petroleum Fund Law has the status of a “reinforced law” — that it in effect outranks the Midterm Budget Law in question.

The AMP coalition has reacted by questioning the legitimacy of a decision made by foreigners (all have Portuguese citizenship, one is also Timorese). This is particularly ironic because Xanana has been one of the greatest advocates of the Portuguese language in Timor, and the orthodoxy of language usage has left the Timorese judiciary dependent on Portuguese judges. AMP has also claimed that all of their spending is legal, until the day that the decision is published in the Diário da República (expected to be November 17).

Xanana and Emília Pires were featured on an Al Jazeera programme defending their budget, Xanana saying that the AMP “had to buy the peace” — the money was for IDPs and to fill people’s bellies in hard times. It’s true that at a certain point in the year, rice prices presented a major challenge to the government.

In some sense, the issue was not so much with the idea of spending more to “buy the peace” but it was the way in which the AMP went about it — no transparency, no debate, no deliberation. That in the end, is what the law requires.

Much is made of the unpredictability of Timorese politics and statecraft. But what about the unpredictable and positive developments in Timorese democracy? Outside people are quick to speak of “crisis” — like BBC, which already concludes “if this row escalates, East Timor could face another political crisis.”

Let’s not jump to the conclusion that this decision renders Timor ungovernable, or that the judiciary has overstepped its bounds. Only a truly participatory democracy will allow for confrontation and contestation. I would be more worried if Timorese democracy were consolidated in a silent and consensual manner, hidden from public view, like a Cambodia or a Mozambique.

In how many post-conflict countries do you have such a vigorous, public negotiation over the people’s resources? I hope this is a precedent, and that this is just the beginning of more real debate about Timor’s future.

Priceless tais

The tais exhibition on display at the Suai Media Space is like fireworks on textile. I highly recommend it. Also fascinating to see how much exchange and influence there is from other neighboring islands. The one featured above is a creation of Veronica Martins of Kamenassa, Suai, now in the collection of Friends of Suai.

Kamenassa was the center of Timor’s greatest rebellion against the Portuguese, in the 1720s.

May and November

Today, phone calls and emails, online chats… All with one profoundly positive message. History does not make us. We make history. I have not felt like this since May 20, 2002. And one Timorese friend made the comparison over email as well

After Timorese independence, the election of Barack Obama is one of the great events of the 21st century. It does not matter what may come to pass afterwards. The great step has already been taken.

There is something very true about this feeling. In fact it is not a release, or a moment to kick back. What it means is, an irreversible historical adjustment has taken place. It’s a restoration that brings with it enormous implications and responsibilities.

I wrote on May 21, 2002

Now I can say, that while living in East Timor for 9 months has only deepened for me the complexity of the words “justice” and “independence,” I can see today as the truly emotional and unforgettable day that it is.

Strangely, these feelings have taken many of us by surprise even though we have been working and building up to this day for nearly seven months.

Postscript: I just watched John McCain’s concession speech. Fascinating how the phrase “we make history” has such a different ring to it when he uses it!

Tetum is a more precise language with its two first person plural pronouns ami and ita.

I’m pretty sure McCain meant ami mak halo istoria (the “exclusive we”). This pronoun refers to the speaker and others but excludes the person addressed. Whereas if Obama were to say it, I think he would be using the “inclusive we” (meaning a more abstract all of us), ita mak halo istoria.

Land, rocks, and fires

Seeing Fernanda Borges speak to an audience a stone’s throw from Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament yesterday, I could not help but feel somewhat numb to the stories of atrocity she brought in a Powerpoint presentation.

How can I explain why? Perhaps a listing helps: getting to know Timorese torture victims at age 18, visiting at age 20 while Dili was still burned out and reeling from scorched earth violence, living and working with Timorese people, spending three months in the pressure cooker of 2006, attending Joni Marques’ trial and seeing him let free just months ago…

I suppose it is these cumulative experiences that cause a certain numbness.

Last night I was more moved by Fernanda’s determination to see the recommendations of the CAVR report debated in Parliament. I was more moved by the notion that DFID (and USAID) should express certain technical and financial aid as reparations. I was most moved by the reminder that while veterans of FALINTIL are getting their due, the unknown sacrifices of women and children do not yet figure into the government’s calculus of compensation.

An article from the Canberra Times today, called “The Forgotten” helps identify this lack of resolution, of justice, of fairness… as seen from a village 40 minutes above Maliana:

“We were happy to support the resistance and [the guerrillas who were] our children and our brothers,” says [Joana Fatima]. “But they have a different life to us now, some of them are big guys. We don’t know whether they remember us or not.

“It doesn’t matter,” she says matter-of-factly. “God is great.

The land here, the rocks, the fires that we used to cook on, they are our witnesses, they saw what we sacrificed.”

The only other proof she has of dedication to the resistance effort is a receipt which she keeps carefully tucked away inside a plastic ID envelope she wears around her neck. She takes out the receipt, issued by the Council of National Resistance in April 1999, which calls on “patriots” from across Timor to give to the war effort. She and her husband each donated about $10, a considerable sum at the time. Not being able to sign, they put their thumbprints on the receipts and someone else has carefully printed their clandestine names Moving On (Lao Ona) and Our Struggle (Ita Nian) under their thumbprints. The former guerrilla who countersigned the receipt is now an MP in the coalition Government in Dili.

Nine

Nine years ago. On the eighth and ninth days of the ninth month. 1999.

The police station massacre in Maliana, East Timor. Please take a moment to remember those who courageously risked their lives to vote, were deceived, corralled in the police station and ruthlessly butchered to death. Those who escaped were hunted down and eliminated and disposed of by Timorese militia, Indonesian police and military.

The photo above by Rusty Stewart is from a ceremony conducted in 2001 at the beach in Batugade, where the bodies were disposed of. The lack of burial for those killed continues as an open wound for Maliana.

One of the Indonesian military officials indicted by the Serious Crimes Tribunal in relation to the Maliana massacre, then Lt Col. Siagian, was recently relieved of duty in West Papua. But as ETAN says, “Indonesia should take the next steps and suspend him from any command and then hand him over for trial for the crimes he committed in East Timor.”

From Geoffrey Robinson’s definitive report

In the hours before the attack, on September 8, dozens of militiamen gathered at the Koramil. There they were divided into four groups and briefed on their mission by TNI and SGI officers. Two of the groups were tasked with forming a security perimeter around the Police station. The other two were assigned to seek out and kill the pro-independence leaders sheltering in the Police station compound. Before departing for the Police station, some of the militias had their faces painted black by SGI soldiers.

The attack began at about 5:30 p.m. Two trucks pulled up in front of the Police station, and three others stopped on a road running along side the compound. The vehicles were filled with soldiers and militiamen, armed with machetes, knives, and swords.

Many of the militiamen were dressed in black and wearing ‘Ninja’ type hoods or Indonesian flags to cover their faces. The TNI soldiers, most of them wearing combat trousers and black t-shirts, were carrying automatic weapons and side arms. When the vehicles stopped, the soldiers and militiamen jumped down, and took up positions in and around the compound. Some TNI soldiers sealed off the main road running in front of the Police station, while others formed a perimeter around the compound.

Meanwhile, dozens of militiamen and TNI soldiers entered the compound from the side entrance and ran into the area where the refugees were gathered. One witness described the initial moments of the attack:

“I saw the militias running in all directions, chasing men and boys to kill them …The refugees were screaming in fear but they could not escape as militias and TNI were all around guarding the place.”

In panic, many refugees ran to the security post at the front entrance of the compound, but Brimob soldiers there told them to return to their tents. Not all did so, but those who did then witnessed the attack unfold.

Among the first victims was a 13-year-old boy, José Barros Soares, who was hacked to death by militiamen while his younger sister looked on. But the violence was not as random as that scene suggested. The attackers were clearly singling out well-known pro-independence figures for execution. The victims included a number of CNRT leaders, as well as a Sub-District Head, two Village Heads, and several civil servants with pro-independence sympathies.

The militias also targeted the families of such figures. According to one report, for example, the militias who killed the young boy, José Barros Soares, told his sister that they were killing him because they could not find his father, a known independence figure. Also singled out were members of the TNI and Police who were considered to be independence sympathizers.

In some instances, the attackers asked for their intended victims by name. In other cases, they appear to have known exactly where in the compound to find them. One witness said that the attackers had a list of names to which they referred as they made their way through the compound.

“I was cooking and suddenly the militias came in cars and people started running from one side to the other. Then when people calmed down they divided into sections and entered the tents seeking people on lists to kill

Among those targeted in this way was the prominent Maliana pro-independence figure Manuel Barros, who had taken refuge at the Police station with his family on September 2. At least four people witnessed his killing, including one man who was just a few feet away when it happened.

According to the testimony of that man, shortly after the attack on the compound began, three militiamen walked straight up to Manuel Barros and began to speak to him in an aggressive manner. First they ordered him to stand, then to sit, and then to extend his hand. As he extended his hand, one of the three militiamen lunged forward and stabbed him in the chest with a knife. Manuel Barros immediately fell to the ground and died soon thereafter. His body was then dragged away by the three militiamen.

Many witnesses have said that they saw the Police Chief, Major Budi Susilo, inside the compound as the killings took place, and several witnesses have testified that they saw Lt. Sutrisno on a motorbike near the Koramil on the evening of September 8. At least one witness claims to have seen both Lt. Col. Siagian and Lt. Sutrisno in the immediate vicinity of the Police station: “When I walked out of the compound” the witness told a journalist “I saw the chief of the Kodim [Siagian] there, with the Intel chief, Lt. Sutrisno. They were waiting for something near the Kijang pick-ups.”

The attack continued until about 9:00 p.m. and the disposal of the bodies began shortly thereafter. As in other cases of mass killing in 1999, the process of disposal was methodical, and supervised by TNI officers, indicating that it had been planned in advance by the authorities. It was also clearly intended to conceal the evidence of a crime.

The electricity to the area was cut, and the corpses were loaded onto two or more trucks under the cover of darkness. According to a man who was ordered to assist in loading the bodies onto the trucks, a TNI officer kept track of the identities and the number of dead.

The trucks were then driven out of town to Batugade, a pro-autonomy stronghold near the Indonesian border. The TNI had made arrangements with local militia leaders Ruben Tavares (João Tavares’ nephew) and Ruben Gonçalves to receive the corpses and dispose of them. According to prosecutors, the militiamen filled large rice sacks with sand and attached them to the bodies. Weighted down by the sand-filled sacks, the bodies were then taken out to sea on fishing boats, and dumped overboard.

The systematic and planned character of the crime at the Maliana Police station is also suggested by further killings of a similar nature that took place in the two days immediately afterward. At least 13 people who managed to flee the attack on the Police station were hunted down and killed with knives and machetes on September 9, at the Mulau lagoon outside Maliana town. One day later, on September 10, two Timorese policemen were killed in a similar fashion, for their suspected pro-independence leanings.

Like the victims at the Maliana Police station, those killed on September 9 and 10 included prominent leaders and alleged supporters of independence. And like them, their bodies were disposed of in an apparent attempt to hide the crime. The remains of two of those killed at Mulau were later found on the beach at Batugade, some 50 kilometers from the scene of their murder.

Laughing not crying

Well, I thought of cutting this down and quoting a part, but well, a rant is a rant. And because some malai newspaper publishers cannot seem to work out how to publish on the internet, I will selflessly sacrifice space for this, Dili Weekly’s August 7 editorial:

It’s been a year since the AMP government stepped into power and what’s new?

Well, El Presidente has done his best to empty the prisons and pardon all and sundry of their sins meanwhile Fearless Leader declared 2008 the year of good governance while giving away lucrative rice contracts, threatening to arrest media and pushing for private gun ownership. All the meanwhile our Chinese neighbors, so much more negative than some here, dubbed 2008 the Year of the Rat.

AMP stands of course for the Majority Party Alliance though some, in a fit childish pique, have taken to maligning our government. AMP is called the “de facto” government by Fretilin, the “de facto” opposition. Spray paint wags have also labeled AMP as “Ahi Mate Permanente (Power’s Always Off) and, Ami Maoria Panleiru (We’re Mostly Fags). They just don’t get it.

This past year has been wackier than most years in recent memory, but I maintain the criticism is unfounded and AMP, El Presidente and Fearless Leader and all horribly misunderstood and maligned by cruel, foreign media who are led by Angie Pires.

Our annual rice crisis, for instance, was not AMP’s fault nor was it even a crisis per se. I grant you, their decision to pay a ton of money to foreign countries to subsidize rice for a few hundred families in the “metropolitan” areas rather than subsidize local rice or corn or cassava or any other of the dozens of starchy staples grown in abundance in Timor might seem bizarre. But when you realize that other countries in the region don’t have a seabed of money right outside their back door and actually depend on the production of goods, then you begin to appreciate Fearless Leader’s push to spread Timor’s wealth around to our less fortunate neighbors is nothing short of saintly.

I think few could argue that security has improved under this government. The 11 Feb. attacks on El Presidente and Fearless Leader was no one’s fault. The decision to let El Presidente wander, unarmed, up from the beach and into a live firefight might seem questionable. But actually the attack gave god the opportunity to consult with El Presidente who is usually a very busy man. According to my sources god was impressed with El Presidente’s humility and concern for humanity and came from the meeting with valuable counsel.

What’s AMP done that’s so wrong? They raised the ire of Fretilin and local students when they pushed for cars for parliamentarians. Fretilin and the students don’t mind that everyone’s favorite former PM, Mari Alkatiri, gets to drive around in his government car, but god forbid anyone actually in government get a car that works.

But Fretilin, the de-facto opposition and the university students, the de-facto leaders of tomorrow, don’t understand the master plan. Lucky for them, I do.

See, in 2006 the police fell apart and that was bad. So, of course, what’s there to do except replace the police altogether. Think about it: UNPol can’t seem to train them (at least, not according UN reports). Now it appears AMP is in favor of public guns and cars for all parliamentarians. Add that up and what do you get? Armed parliamentarians. I feel safer already.

Meanwhile in the same budget the police got nothing: No guns, no cars, nothing. Now, some might argue the police could use cars (in some subdistricts the police haven’t had even a single car in years. In Oecusse the entire district is patrolled by one lousy car), but why waste money on a police force which can’t be trusted?

Well, screw the police—they don’t need cars or guns. Once Lasama has his car and gun, well, I think we’ll all sleep a little more soundly.

And we won’t need jails, either. Say what now, El Presidente?

“Should I continue to … keep in jail an individual Timorese who was working under direction from someone else who is not going to jail?” Ramos-Horta told the Australian Broadcast Corporation.

This was in reference to his decision to pardon Joni Marques, the poor soul who had his mind addled by Indonesian drugs and killed and raped people while under the influence of said drugs. Local legal watchdogs might be alarmed at El Presidente’s logic as presumably this rationale could be applied to 2006, too. Why should anyone be in jail so long as Rogerio Lobato, et al are out of jail? As long as the masterminds are free, everyone else should be too, right?

But really. This is the year of the Rat—er, Reform. Do you really expect El Presidente to simply let the guilty walk free? C’mon, this is the man who advises god.

Yet again I fear very few people can actually see the quiet nuance in El Presidente’s cunning plan. In reality Lobato isn’t free. Rai Los isn’t free either. And anyone else who goes to trial won’t go free either. They’ll go to Indonesia.

El Presidente, still shaken by Alfredo Reinado’s daring daylight saunter out of Becora Prison in 2006 which ultimately led to a confusing attempt to pin the bullet on the president, understands that Timorese prisons aren’t the most secure places on earth.

That’s when El Presidente looked at a map and discovered a whole bunch of penal colonies just west of Timor.

Let’s put things in perspective. Timor is not only on track, but we are speeding headlong into a brick wall future of peace and prosperity. So just relax, kick back and let’s enjoy the ride. Something tells me it’s going to get a lot wilder.

Complexity

I spent most of the week thinking about how somebody — anybody — needed to start mapping relationships around the events of February.

And lo and behold thanks to an anonymous leaker on Wikileaks, we have access to the amazing mapping of relationships that investigators generated. Unfortunately we do not know what the timeframe for this data is.

One thing that immediately becomes apparent is that Alfredo, Salsinha and Paulo Remedios are were all important nodes in this social network. Some names are notorious and expected: Rai-los, Hercules, Angie Pires. Others less so! So much Googling to do, and so little time…

This mapping almost merits a special entry on Visual Complexity, a new favorite site of mine. Perhaps with a little programming help, investigators could visualize this information in an even more dramatic and dynamic fashion.