|
|
ASIA
APRIL 26, 1999 VOL. 153 NO. 16
|
By week's end, a measure of calm--if not yet order--had returned to the province. But many East Timorese dismissed it as merely the lull before another storm. Thousands of villagers continue to flee their homes in anticipation of more violence, adding a refugee crisis to Habibie's many woes. Their urban cousins aren't feeling particularly secure, either. Even as the President was talking peace in Jakarta, 500 defiant militiamen rallied in a show of strength outside Government House in Dili, East Timor's capital. They then withdrew to strongholds outside the city, but their mood remained belligerent. Aitarak leader Eurico Guterres demanded that all civil servants in favor of self-rule resign and hand over their cars and homes to his forces. He called on "ordinary people" to help "completely eradicate the pro-independence terrorists." Not surprisingly, Dili residents live in fear. "This is the most dangerous place in the world," says Francisco Martinez, a primary school teacher.
Foreigners, who have also been harassed by the militias, are taking no chances. Dili's Komoro airport last week had a last-days-of-Saigon feel about it as the only three commercial flights were jammed by American and Australian aid workers, journalists, Dili's few foreign businessmen and Italian and Filipino Catholic nuns. "We were told we were going to get our heads chopped off," says Gino Favaro, an Italian-Australian hotelier, after he fled by boat to Kupang in neighboring West Timor. Only last August Favaro had won a costly 23-year legal battle with the Indonesian military over the property his parents fled days before the 1975 invasion. Last week, Favaro was headed for Australia's Darwin, wondering whether he would ever see his hotel again.
East Timor's "Father Teresa," Iowa-born volunteer physician Dan Murphy, has also received death threats, but the doughty medic is staying put. "This place has descended into a living hell for these unfortunate people," says Murphy, who tends to many victims of violence from a rudimentary and overcrowded clinic in Dili. "I worked in Mozambique during bad times, but I have never seen this degree of unprovoked brutality."
Few have any doubt about who's to blame for the violence. "Nothing in this place happens without ABRI's hand in it," says Favaro. Observes Murphy: "Habibie and [armed forces chief] Wiranto are probably sincere in what they say, but whatever happens in Jakarta means nothing here. This is a private fiefdom."
PAGE 1 | 2 | 3
|
|
This edition's table of contents | TIME Asia home
| |
LATEST
HEADLINES:
|
Click Here for the latest regional analysis from TIME Asia
|
|
