
Issue No 102		13 July 2001

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East Timor

A Dirty Little War

In this extract from his new book, John Martinkus recounts the scenes in Dili immediately following the independence ballot.

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There would have been more than 200 journalists in the ballroom at the Mahkota. UN staff, observers�foreign and Indonesian�diplomats and a number of East Timorese made up the rest of the crowd. Banks of television cameras and lights and photographers crowded the front of the room. Ian Martin took his place at the table and quickly began to read the announcement.

'The Secretary-General is currently making the following statement to the Security Council on the result of the vote in East Timor,' he said, and then, after praising the courage and determination of the East Timorese people who had participated in the ballot under difficult circumstances, he read the result: 94,388 in favour and 344,580 against the proposed special autonomy. The people of East Timor have thus rejected the proposed special autonomy and expressed their wish to be in their wish to be in the process of transition towards independence.'

Martin went on to tell the crowd that 'the coming days will require patience and calm from the people of East Timor' to prepare for a period of peace and prosperity. He called on the government of Indonesia to ensure a successful culmination towards the process by carrying out its responsibility to maintain law and order in the territory, and then promised the East Timorese that the United Nations would not fail them in 'guiding East Timor in its transition to independence'.

That was it, the East Timorese had voted 78 per cent in favour of independence. We had all expected an independence win, and there it was. Indonesian television cameras were pointed directly at the crowd of journalists who were standing and watching the announcement. Everyone was at pains to register no emotion at the announcement, although many of us, especially those of us who had been in East Timor for a long time and seen the consequences of Indonesian rule, had hoped for this outcome. Everywhere, people had blank expressions of impartiality�looking at the floor, at their notebooks, but not at each other. The East Timorese who were present mostly worked for the UN and did the same. There was no outpouring of emotion, just a businesslike efficiency as everybody remained in place until Martin had finished his address.

Karen Polgaze was there filing for AAP and suddenly I had nothing to do. Outside, people were milling around. Those reporters who had to file were on their phones, and the few Timorese there didn't seem comfortable about showing their joy at the announcement with so many Indonesian officials and police present. Across the road at the harbour, people were already queuing to board Indonesians ships that had arrived to take people to Kupang.

I got a ride down to Bishop Belo's house. In the garden there were already about 1,000 people taking shelter behind the wire fence. A young girl came over to talk to us by the fence. 'The Bishop doesn't want us to show how happy we are because of our safety, but I am so happy, but we cannot go anywhere, we cannot show our happiness too much,' she said, and then moved quickly away.

Behind her I could see the Bishop waving at some other people to move away from the fence. He didn't want any problems and refused to speak to us.

We went across town to the house of Leandro Isaac in Lahane on the other side of town at the base of the hills to where people were fleeing. The streets were deserted; there was only the occasional fast-moving vehicle. There was nobody on foot. Leandro's door was open and I walked in to be greeted by his wife, in tears. She hugged me and told me he was out the back of the house, all the while telling me she was so happy with the result. But she whispered it, as though afraid to say out loud that the independence vote had won.

Joao Alves and Leandro Isaac were loading their car, preparing to leave. Leandro was going to the Mahkota to make one last comment to the journalists. Alves was hurrying us along. They knew that at any moment the backlash would begin�and as the two public CNRT leaders in Dili, they were prime targets for the militia.

'East Timor is already a winner,' said Leandro grandly, barely able to contain himself. 'They have decided for themselves. Today is the end. Today the East Timorese people stand equal with the other countries of the world.'

Alves was hurrying Leandro along and turned to me. 'What are you doing, anyway? We are going to the mountains, and we are advising all our people to go to Dare,' he said.

I hadn't even thought about leaving. I asked him how he felt about the result.

'Of course, it is a victory for us,' he said, still loading the car, 'but we have to get through the day alive.'

We followed Leandro back to the Mahkota. Something strange was happening there, and the police were urging people to stay indoors. Barricades were being put up near the port and now the TNI as well as the police were around. I left on my motor scooter with English journalist Joanna Jolly and headed to the Resende as usual, for something to eat. But as I sat down to eat at the table by the window, I could see the militia, now armed, moving up and down the street outside. The waiter asked us nervously what was happening. We told him: independence 78 per cent. He crossed himself, brought our food, and told us to eat quickly.

There was no-one else in the dining room. All life in Dili seemed to have stopped. The reception area was empty, as was the street outside except for the occasional militia member on a motorbike. It was the same waiter I had talked to months earlier when the militia first made the death threats against Australians. He had laughed then, but now he said we had to go and we had to be careful.

Outside, there were two people waiting with bags. One was the waiter from the Hotel Dili, who was from Kupang and worked for Gino Favarro. Gino had just left, boarding one of the Indonesian boats in the harbour bound for Kupang. Gino was married to the niece of Yunus Yosfiah, the Information Minister. He had told me that he would know when to go�when he got the word from Yunus, he would pull the plus and be out of there. The hotel wasn't worth his life, he had said. Now he had gone and the West Timorese waiter had no idea what to do.

Similarly, the sole Australian tourist who had been staying at the Hotel Dili had no real idea of what was going on. He had told me he had come to Dili for the diving. I told him to leave at the first opportunity.

Joanna and I rode extremely fast back to the Tourismo. Now I was scared. The militia were gathering in the street outside their headquarters and they were wandering all through the now deserted Hotel Dili. It was too nerve-racking on the bike; I kept feeling like a bullet was about to hit us at any moment. The militia were just watching us go past and I started going way too fast out of fear that they would just start shooting.

Karen was back at the hotel and we took the car to the airport. All along the road to Comoro, which was also the main road west out of East Timor, people were packing vehicles, queuing for fuel and driving west. Occasional shots sounded out but nobody even looked up from what they were doing. It was not their problem anymore, they just had to get out.

At the airport, Indonesian military personnel were loading a C-130 Hercules. The families of soldiers, laden with possessions, were being walked up the ramp. I stood there watching with Helio, who was also flying out; there was still one regular commercial flight to Bali, and he was on it. So too, it turned out, was Eurico Guterres�he sauntered into the waiting lounge and we journalists crowded around. He ended up conducting interviews using the previous CNRT spokesman, Helio, as a translator. He said he was just going to Bali and would be back the following day. We joked that he was just going to personally get his orders for the destruction of Dili from his commander, General Adam Damiri (whom he had once told me was the only authority he recognised). Eurico heard us and glared.

A Dirty Little War is published by Random House

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Issue 102 contents

Interview: Jolly Green Giant
Senator Bob Brown on the upcoming federal poll, balances of power and what the Greens can teach the trade union movement.

Workplace: Call Centre Takeover
Theresa Davison brings us this real-life story from the coal face of the call centre industry.

E-Change: 1.2 Community � The Ultimate Network
Peter Lewis and Michael Gadiel look at the potential for network technologies to reconnect communities.

International: Child's Play
Union Aid Abroad-APHEDA has recently entered a new alliance with the Child Labour Schools Company to support a project for child labourers in India.

History: Flowers to the Rebels Faded
With the departure of our own Wobbly, a look at the development of the Wobblies in Australia and their view of Labor politicians and the work ethic seems timely.

East Timor: A Dirty Little War
In this extract from his new book, John Martinkus recounts the scenes in Dili immediately following the independence ballot.

Satire: Telstra Share Failure Ends City-Bush Divide: Everybody Screwed Equally
Communications Minister Richard Alston today claimed that the government had fulfilled its promise to ensure that the bush was not disproportionately disadvantaged by Telstra's privatisation.

Review: Cheesy Management
Currently climbing Australian best-seller lists is the 'life-changing' motivational book 'Who Moved My Cheese?' Rowan Cahill has a nibble but doesn't like the taste.

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