At the time, it seemed unbelievable that the unrest which began in April had continued for so long. And so last year, we were waiting for, hoping for, a resolution to the problems which had erupted in a matter of weeks and surely, therefore, could be contained in a few months. We waited for law and order to be re-established in the bairos (suburbs) of the capital Dili, for the refugees to go home, for peace, for normality to return.
Now, ten months on, I don’t think anyone is waiting for a single resolution. It feels as though Timor has entered a new phase of its post-independence history and the instability, the lawlessness, the dirty politicking and manipulation will continue until a new order, a new rule has been established to replace the vacuum left when the state imploded.
So if April, May and June of last year were funu (war) and krize (crisis), then July to the present has been situasaun, a situation, a state of daily unrest. The worst of the arson, the looting, the gunbattles from the height of the crisis have been contained, while low-level conflicts continue with almost monotonous regularity.
Groups of boys from rival gangs pick fights with each other and for a few days or a week, Bairo Pite or Bebonuk or Ai-mutin is off bounds. Women and children pack up and leave and the boys are left to sort things out among themselves. They brawl in the streets, or on makeshift soccer fields with steel stakes, homemade arrows, slingshots, machetes, swords, Molotov cocktails, pipebombs, tyre braces.
Sometimes they have guns, sometimes grenades. They lay into each other and they stone people’s houses and then burn them. They brawl to settle old scores, or because they are from rival martial arts groups, or because their bosses are aligned to different politicians, different interests. Or they brawl because they can – because they have no money, no jobs, no studies to think about, no future to plan for – and when they are brawling, they feel that there is something at stake. They are trying to win some small victory for themselves, their group, their friends, their area.
Portuguese national guardsmen, Malaysian and Australian cops, Kiwi, Australian and Bangladeshi soldiers patrol the streets. Choppers buzz over trouble spots. People avoid going out at night. And tens of thousands of Timorese are still refugees in their