<nettime> some thoughts on east-timor

[Sam.de.Silva@bbs.thing.net (sam@media.com.au)]

Hi, Below are some more thoughts about East Timor ... They are my own
thoughts - formed after spending about 4 weeks in Dili and reading the
recent Bulletin article! I am in ET  gathering content for a potential
website which will hopefully document some of the positive stories in the
country ...

Feedback is always welcome!!!   Adios, Sam.

----------------------
12Jan2000

"No, we don't want to become like that", was the response given by an East
Timorese evacuated to Darwin during September 1999, after I suggested to
him that East Timor could become another Bali. 

In the current edition of Bulletin magazine (Jan 18, 2000),  the article
'Invasion of the booty snatchers' describes Martin Kingham of the
Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) of having given
Xanana and Jose Ramos Horta "gifts including Range Rovers and computer
equipment" (p26). He is apparently one of the first in line to become
tourism god of East Timor. The Bulletin quotes his desire to help turn East
Timor into "the next Bali..there will be tremendous possibilities in terms
of investment returns in the near future in tourism". Kingham goes on to
say that resorts can be established cheaply and quickly, creating local
employment. So it looks like many East Timorese will soon be making beds
and cleaning bathrooms - or will the resorts employ cheaper Indonesian
workers?

Tourism of course will be a major part of East Timor's future - but
hopefully, time and thought will be put in to its development.  We should
all be concerned by Kingham's "cheaply and quickly" strategies. Hopefully,
Xanana will have the wisdom to develop the tourist industry slowly.
Hopefully, the ugly side of tourism won't enter his country - the pimps,
drug pushers and pedophiles will be kept away in already established
tourist locations in South East Asia. 

Two of my East Timorese friends say that culture in Bali is still very
strong and that tourism has not caused too many problems for the people. Is
the culture in East Timor strong? Now it is, they say, but in the future,
we will have to wait and see. They also say the East Timorese people need
houses, need looking after first. Tourism has to be planned - but it should
be developed only after the needs of the people have been met. 

I wonder if the CFMEU has been buying UNTAET new Range Rovers too. After
all UNTAET is the proper administrator in East Timor, not Xanana and Ramos
Horta.

Sometimes, one has to wonder if UNTAET actually realises who they are
working for. Are they supposed to advise the people - or are the people
supposed to advise them? There are some good international staff at the UN
who are genuinely concerned for the people. Hopefully, they will be able to
influence their colleagues to mix with the East Timorese and remind them
there is a whole population that needs listening to. But the UN has
constructed the National Consultative Council (NCC), a board of 15
appointed members chaired by Sergio - the head of UNTAET. The NCC will be
consulted before decisions are made by UNTAET, and will no doubt be blamed
when things go wrong.

The UN is being taken to court. The unprecedented action is claiming that
the international body was complicit in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
This must be encouraging to the many East Timorese UNAMET staff who have
yet to be paid for work they did prior to Septemember 1999. The UN's excuse
is that employment records of local staff were destroyed by the militia.
International staff didn't have that problem because their records were
kept safe in New York. 

The East Timorese media is just establishing itself. Next week, one
media-group might publish a photocopied A4 newsletter. The local
journalists are the new Falintil - though many of them probably wouldn't
like to be called that! Their job is a huge one. Currently, there is no
printing press - and many of the journalists don't have the tools needed to
enable them to do their job well. But they will no doubt manage to proceed,
in the same way they proceeded during the occupation days. 

It is hoped the journalists will begin to attend the regular press
conferences, and ask the UN authorities the questions that are relevant to
the people of East Timor. Currently, the press conferences are dominated by
 the international media and they don't seem too interested in domestic
issues. And the thirty-second attention span is just not long enough to
understand the complexities of the new East Timor. After all, a few months
ago, the world was told that East Timor had been saved from the evil
empire. Unfortunately, a hundred new empire builders have replaced the
Indonesian regime - and their activity is far more difficult to define and
critique. 



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