Daily Travel Photo - Dili, East Timor

Final Thoughts on East Timor

I was only in East Timor for a long weekend and in that time I was only in the capital of Dili. So anything I say should be taken with a grain of salt. I am by no means an expert on the country. However, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to see what the country had gone through. Dili looked like a city which had just been in a nasty bar fight. It is the first and only place I’ve been during my trip so far where I saw the effects of violence first hand.

Background

First, let me provide a bit of background on the country. My guess is that most people either haven’t heard of East Timor, of if they did, it was in passing on a news program. Most of the Indonesia archipelago was colonized by the Dutch via the Dutch East India Company. The only exception to this was the eastern half of the island of Timor (Timur means “East” in Bahasa Indonesian) which was colonized by the Portuguese.

The Dutch and the Portuguese did not go about the business of colonization in the same manner. While traveling through Indonesia, I didn’t see much in the way of obvious Dutch influences. I’m sure there are bits of Dutch which appear in Bahasa Indonesian, but I don’t know enough Bahasa or Dutch to notice it. The Dutch, for all their faults, didn’t go about changing the religion of the Indonesians nor did the country end up speaking Dutch.

The Portuguese, however, managed to convert most of their colony to Catholicism and made Portuguese the official language. Over several hundred years the colonies grew very distinct from each other.

Indonesia gained independence from the Netherlands in 1945, whereas Portugal hung on to its colony. In 1975 they left East Timor (Timor Leste in Portuguese) and unilaterally declared them independent. That didn’t happen.

The Portuguese left in a rush and nine days after declaring them independent, East Timor was invaded by Indonesia.

The US had a role to play in this. Prior to the invasion, Suharto (former leader of Indonesia) told Henry Kissinger and President Ford of his plans and got the OK from the US for the invasion. The US didn’t want a communist government to take root in East Timor. All UN efforts to impose sanctions on Indonesia were blocked by the US. The only country to formally recognize East Timor as part of Indonesia was Australia. (It should be noted that most western nations to some degree or another supported Indonesia. The government of Portugal basically walked way and gave some weak verbal support for East Timor.)

During the next 25 years, the East Timorese fought a guerilla war against the Indonesia’s occupation which an estimated 100,000 Timorese were killed.

In 1999, under UN oversight, the East Timorese held a referendum and voted for independence. When Indonesian troops left the, out of spite, basically destroyed most of the infrastructure of the country. Today, you can still see the gutted out and abandoned buildings in Dili.

Since independence, things haven’t been rosy. As with every revolution, civil strife broke out in 2006 which brought UN Peace keepers back in. As you might remember, on the morning I left Dili there was an assassination attempt on the President and Prime Minister.

Life on the Ground

The moment you hit the ground in East Timor, you can tell this place which is in trouble. Immediately across the street from the airport was a refugee camp. In fact most of the open spaces in Dili seem to have been converted to refugee camps including the main part and the area around one of the churches. They are mostly people from rural areas who fled to Dili after fighting in 2006.

You can’t look down the street in Dili without seeing a UN vehicle. They are mostly 4-wheel drive SUVs with air intake pipes near the roof. Many also have metal mesh around the windows. The presence of Non-Governmental Orgainzations (NGOs) and the UN are everywhere. During the time I was in Dili, I only spoke to a handful of native East Timorese. Most of the people I interacted with were outsiders working in East Timor.

Every so often, the sounds of helicopters would be heard overhead. The UN helicopters were used for even trivial transportation of UN troops. I heard from several people stories of UN personnel using helicopters to take trips which easily could have been done by car.

These operations are done with good intentions, but I can’t help but wonder how locals feel about it. As they are forced to live in tents in the refugee camps, the UN personnel live in gated communities with all the amenities you’d expect in a western country. They travel from place to place in their UN trucks and live in another world along side of the people in Dili. I was the only non-East Timorese I saw walking alone in Dili. Every one else kept in pairs and didn’t seem to have much contact with locals.

The few people I did get to meet were very friendly. Several times while walking around Dili I had people come up to me and shake my hand. They were genuinely surprised that I was an actual tourist, not someone working with an NGO or a reporter. They were also surprised that I was an American. Most of the white people you meet are Australians. (a large part of the peacekeeping force are Australian soldiers. You can tell them apart from the UN because they are much more heavily armed and wear camouflage and armor.)

East Timor is poor. Of that there is no question. I had read statistics about just how poor East Timor was and while I was there I tried to make mental comparisons to the Solomon Islands. I have come to totally disregard economic statistics in evaluating the wealth of a country. Not only are the statistics collected improperly, beyond a certain point they just don’t matter.

I met several people working for NGOs in Dili. I have to confess I have a built in bias against most people who are do-gooders. For the most part, I think well intentioned people who use very blunt methods in trying to do good end up causing much more harm. The most obvious example of this would be giving away free stuff. The thinking goes something like this: people are poor, therefore we should give them stuff. That sounds great, but what often happens is when you give free stuff, the local industry built up around producing that stuff (clothes or food usually) will collapse because they cannot compete with free. Sending bags of rice to starving people sounds great, but the long term impact might be destroying the local rice growing industry. The desire to do and feel good usually trumps the actual good which is done.

I mention this because I was rather heartened to hear from people working in NGOs a recognition of the this problem. Rather than giving food away, they are selling it at a price which still leaves room for local farmers to sell product. I think westerners think that people in third world countries have NO money. There is a world of difference between little money and no money. That difference being having any sort of local economy at all.

I don’t know what, if anything, can be done for the economy of East Timor. The first obvious thing is that there needs to be an end to the fighting. The one good thing that came from the assassination attempt was that the rebel leader was killed. I’m not sure what he was thinking in trying to assassinate the President and PM. The country is occupied by UN and Australian forces. Killing the leaders and sitting behind their desk isn’t going to give you power.

Beyond that, I’m not sure what the future holds for East Timor. If they can become a poor but peaceful country in the next few year, I suppose that would be a step in the right direction. Once the UN leaves I think they will fall off the radar of the NGOs as they all move to the next hot aid area in Africa. My guess is that they will probably develop in unison with Indonesia, as for better or worse, they are the biggest market they have. Supposedly there is oil in the straight of Timor and Dili has sign agreements with Australia for extracting resources. Oil could help the country, or as in many oil producing countries, it could be a curse.

I can’t in good faith recommend East Timor as a destination for most travelers. It isn’t easy to get to and there isn’t much there to see. There are no major attractions despite the existence of a Lonely Planet guide to the country. Tourism would probably be the easiest industry to build up. There is a reasonable amount of English spoken and they use the US Dollar as their currency. If they can reach some sort of lasting peace, I could see some sort of tourism industry developing in about five to ten years.

Daily Photo - East Timor

My Interesting Morning

So, I wake up this morning before dawn to check my email before my flight. I do what I do, grab my bags and get a cab. The cab driver doesn’t really speak English and points towards the government palace, makes a shooting action with his fingers and says “very bad, very bad”.

I get to the airport and there are a bunch of Australian troops there with their guns drawn. I didn’t really put the two together and just sort of sat and waited for the plane to load. There were no maintainace workers, no weather problems and no one seemed late. Nonetheless, the flight was 90 minutes late in taking off.

When we land in Darwin, we are met by some Australian police and they tell us that the President of East Timor was assassinated this morning.

I get to a computer a few minutes ago and find out he wasn’t killed. Him and the Prime Minister were both attacked. Someone mentioned something about a rebel leader who was out in the bush being killed last night, but I have heard no confirmation of that in the news.

I took some video yesterday of a protest or a march or something I saw on the streets of Dili. I have no idea if the two are linked.

Anyway, I’m safely in Darwin, Australia. Going to get something to eat and try to kill 10 hours until I go back to the airport. I’ll be sleeping in an airplane tonight.

Exit, Stage East

I leave Dili for Darwin in a few hours.

While I haven’t spent much time here in East Timor, the experience has been very eye opening. I spent yesterday walking the streets of Dili taking video. I happened upon a demonstration by a local martial arts club (aka gang). Once I get settled in Australia, you will be assaulted with all the photos and lengthy posts I’ve promised to write over the last month.

My flight from Darwin to Melbourne is at Midnight, so I’ll basically have to kill 12 hours in Darwin. I really hope there are lockers where I can store my bag at the airport.

I’ve been really looking forward to Australia. Perhaps almost too much. I’ve been getting lots of advice from Aussies about what to see and do in the country.

I am guessing I’ll be logging on in Darwin at a Starbucks or something. The internet here is VERY slow. I think the whole country is on dial-up. This is probably on a par with the quality of the internet I found in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia.

First Impressions of Timor Leste

East Timor in relation to the rest of the region. Image from Wikipedia.

To begin to explain Timor Leste (East Timor) it is probably necessary to start at the beginning and give some background to the country. It is a place that most people are probably not familiar with and as countries go, it is relatively new.

If you look at a map of this part of the world, what is geographically known as the Malay Archepelego, it is divided up between several countries: The Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, Timor Leste, and Papua New Guinea. All of those countries which exist today have borders as a result of some decision made by European governments hundreds of years ago. What is today the Philippines is the territory which was a former Spanish Colony. Malayisa was several former British Colonies (Malaya, Sarawak and North Borneo), Brunei was a British “protectorate”, Indonesia was the Dutch East Indies, Papua New Guinea was the British half of the island of New Guinea and Timor Leste was Portugals hunk of the area.

The process of independence for these countries all followed different paths. In the case of East Timor, the Portugese left in 1975. They were scheduled to become an independent country, but were invaded by Indonesia, who (under Suharto) believed that all the territory in this area should be Indonesian. They Indonesians did something similar in 1965 when it invaded Dutch New Guinea and annexed it to Indonesia as the province of Irian Jaya.

The United States and Australia supported the Indonesian government at the time to prevent a Chinese supported communist government from taking hold in East Timor.

The invasion didn’t sit well with the East Timorese. The certainly had no say in the matter, and moreover, had very little in common with the rest of Indonesia. Unlike the former Dutch colony, they were primarily Catholic, not Muslim. This set off an independence struggle which lasted until the UN held a referendum. In 2002, East Timor became an independent country and got a seat in the UN.

It is interesting to note what the name of the country means. The island of Timor is a bastardization of Timur which means “east” in both Malay and Indonesian. The province of East Java for example is “Jawa Timur” in Indonesian. The name Timor was given to the island because it is the eastern most of the Sunda Island chain. The name East Timor really means “East East”. Timor Leste is “East Timor” in Portugese.

Of all the places I’ve been on my trip, East Timor has the most recent history of violence. In 2006 violence erupted between factions and the UN was called in again.

On paper, East Timor has one of the lowest per capita GDPs in the world at around $800 per person, per year. The moment you leave the airport, across the street you see a refugee camp run by the UN High Commission on Refugees. It is packed with flimsy tents. I didn’t expect to see or have heard of any refugees in East Timor prior to arriving here.

As you drive into Dili, you also can’t help but notice that 10-20% of all the vehicles are white with UN written on the side. There are also helicopters flying around everywhere. Everyone at the place I’m staying either works for the UN or an NGO.

Of the places I’ve been, East Timor reminds me most of the Solomon Islands. Very poor with peace keepers. In the case of the Solomons, they had RAMSI (Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands) which is mostly Australian and New Zealand troops with some cops from other island nations.

I’m not sure how liked and wanted the UN is here. I haven’t been here a day yet. On one hand, they spend a ton of money and probably do keep violence from springing up. On the other hand, I’m sure a lot of the locals resent a bunch of foreigners running around in nice cars, flying helicopters everywhere and living in gated communities like kings.

Many of the houses you see on the road in from the airport were just cement shells with no roofs. It looked like photos you’d see of a bombed out city after WWII.

The currency in East Timor is the US Dollar, which is surprising, but a good move. Picking a stable currency is a smart move for a small country and avoids the problems with rampant inflation you see in other countries (Indonesia has 10,000 rupiah to the dollar approximately). They might have been better off with the Australian Dollar or the Euro, but even with the recent slide of the dollar, it was probably a smart move.

Going from Bali to East Timor really shows the difference between the cost of living and the difference in currency values. By all measures, Java and Bali are more developed than East Timor, yet things are often cheaper there. I think much of that is explained by the currency (although, prices might be radically different once you get away from Dili. I’m sure foreigners get a charged a premium for somethings.)

I’m only here for three days, so I don’t know how much of the area beyond Dili I’ll be exploring. I think the capital and talking to locals and UN officials will easily fill up my time.