Riches in the ruins (Part 2)

In the town's busy Mercado, traders once more get their grain and dry goods from the "Chinese store" but there are other big …

In the town's busy Mercado, traders once more get their grain and dry goods from the "Chinese store" but there are other big changes here. Once dominated by Indonesian immigrants, the maze of stalls are now run by East Timorese selling everything they can produce: coffee beans, eggs, pineapples, garlic, sweet potatoes, shallots, manioc, beans, carrots, peppers, tomatoes, coconut oil, corn cobs, cucumbers, carrots and several indigenous roots and spices, as well as un-hung beef and pork, and cigarettes and beer. Inflation is the big enemy of the people who come to buy. "The prices keep going up, I can't buy enough for my family," said Francisca Nunes, mother of eight children (one missing), as she bargained for brown rice. "People have no money," complained Marcelino Gutteres, as he chopped a pig's head.

At the back of the market I found a clothing stall run by Indonesians in white headgear, who were among the 200 Muslims who hid in Dili's Mosque as other Indonesians fled. They belong to East Timor's small "Arab" community whose ancestors came long ago from Surabaya and Makassar. "We did not flee because that would have meant living under a bridge in Indonesia," said Abdul Rauf. "I like it here. I don't belong anywhere else." The East Timorese listening smiled approvingly, though many recall that the Arabs supported the tiny pro-Indonesian party, Apodeti, before the 1975 invasion.

In another corner of the market I found a huddle of locals playing Kuru Kuru, a game where tiny sums are wagered on the roll of three giant dice.

Like everyone else in the Mercado they were using Indonesian Rupiah, though Australian and US dollars are extensively circulated by the foreign community. The Portuguese Banco Nacional Ultramarino, once the only financial institution in colonial East Timor, has re-opened a branch in the centre of town and is intent on re-introducing the Portuguese escudo. The manager, Joao Goncalves, arrived by chartered helicopter from Darwin some weeks ago carrying several suitcases packed with freshly minted banknotes, while a container with six metric tonnes of Portuguese coins came by sea. This week the UN decided the US dollar should be the official interim currency, which may settle the argument.

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The Portuguese are back in East Timor in some strength. They are supplying 700 soldiers to the UN force and a large share of reconstruction aid.

The Portuguese language is being reintroduced in schools, as I found when I visited Aileu in the mountains south of Dili. I hitched a ride there with GOAL, which is supplying wood to villages set deep in eucalyptus forests where many dwellings of timber bamboo and palm leaves were burned to the ground. Aileu has become the headquarters of the armed liberation force, Falintil, whose leaders use Portuguese. "In the school they are teaching English and Portuguese now," said Sister Teresa from Colorado, one of a small community of Maryknoll Sisters. "They have many people here who can speak and teach Portuguese." The language question is, however, as complex as the currencies. Most young people speak the Indonesian they learned at school and aspire to English. "Speak in English," a young man shouted at Xanana Gusmao when he addressed a New Year celebration in Portuguese in Dili. There are, in fact, more than 30 distinct ethno-linguistic groups in East Timor, with Tetum recognised as a lingua franca, but competing with Mambai, Kemac and Makassae. English, as the language of the UN, is making the greatest strides.

Aileu is tranquil, with none of the social tensions of Dili, and people said they were happy to be free, though they have nothing. In school children sit on the floor because they have no benches, though they have some paper and pencils from UNICEF "School in a box" kits. Marcos Exposto, a CNRT leader with a huge mop of frizzy hair, said that they could not understand why Aileu was not getting enough food. "The people think we are hiding it," he complained. Deliveries from the World Food Programme had stopped that day because of a strike in the capital, and other supplies are erratic. An Australian-Chinese, Paula Cheung from the Northern Territories Chinese East Timor Association, turned up in Aileu when I was there with a truck containing three palettes of rice sacks. "I've brought food for poor people and I'm trying to find a village which the NGOs haven't reached," she said. A bemused Falintil commander, Lere Anan Timur, directed her to the CNRT.

A veteran Falintil fighter, Lere Timur is able to relax for the first time in a quarter of a century. His men occasionally patrol Aileu with their M16 rifles, but mostly they have nothing to do. They just wait, without any visible means of support, but with their discipline intact, hoping that Falintil will become the professional force of an independent nation when UNTAET's work is done. Not for this army yet the spoils of war, or the delights of Dili.