DARWIN: Cracks in the fagade of Asia’s poorest and the world’s youngest nation, East Timor, are emerging in the wake of rioting, which many say highlight the fragility of the country’s economy and democracy.
Both residents and foreign residents of East Timor are counting the costs of the riots that broke out on Dec 4 in the capital Dili.
Students had been protesting the arrest of one of their colleagues for alleged gang violence a day earlier. Police opened fire on a demonstration, killing two people and sparking a rampage in which several shops and hotels were looted and burned.
The rioting was the most serious since East Timor became independent on May 20, and was symptomatic of deeply rooted problems fuelled by poverty and high unemployment, nearly 50 per cent or even more by some estimates, in this aid-dependent country of 800,000 people.
“East Timor’s main problem is its large poorly educated and under-employed youth,” said Fedelas Magalhaes, an East Timorese student activist and NGO worker in Maliana district.
Added Magalhaes: “Six months after independence, they are still idle and see wealth being accumulated by the political elites and foreigners. Hence they become easy prey for political agitators who do not find it hard to turn that discontent into violence. This is what happened in Dili.”
A clear target of anger was Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, a Lusophile who sat out East Timor’s 25-year Indonesian occupation in Portuguese-speaking Mozambique. Alkatari lost his house to arsonists and so did two of his relatives.
The Australian-owned Hello Mister, the first Western-style supermarket set up in the early days of the UN transitional administration of East Timor, across the street from the centre of the protest, was gutted. Directly in front of Hello Mister, the Hotel Resende was also torched and looted.
According to Magalhaes, adding to the disenfranchisement of the youth was the government’s decision to make Portuguese — East Timor is a former Portuguese colony — the official language of East Timor instead of developing the indigenous Tetun.
Tetun is spoken by at least 90 per cent of the population and many of the young also speak Indonesian.
“This is an insult to young people desperately wanting to work. Most of them have been educated in the Indonesian system and Bahasa Indonesia is the their first language. To ask them, now, to be fluent in Portuguese in order to get a job is just asking for trouble,” added Magalhaes.
“Tetun should be prioritised and a second language, either Portuguese or English, developed later. But most young people feel that Portuguese is forced down their throats,” he pointed out.
In August 1999, the East Timorese voted to split from Indonesia in a UN-sponsored ballot. But after the announcement of the results, the territory witnessed an orgy of violence by machete-wielding militiamen with Indonesian military backing.
The United Nations, which ran East Timor after the ballot, estimates that more than 1,000 people were killed in the violence.
East Timor became independent seven months ago, but the sweet elixir of independence has not been matched by anything approaching economic security or even the hope of it for ordinary East Timorese.
“Independence sounds great to us in the West, but it doesn’t mean much in Dili if you can’t put food on the table,” said Catholic charity worker Sister Michelle Reid, who has been in the East Timorese capital for two years working for the Samaritans.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service.