Got only 4 hours sleep last night. I wouldn’t be the only one pretty tired around here. Nervous energy being consumed in large quantities by everyone.

This morning from first light, has been marked by the sound of propellor-driven aircraft, presumably Hercules C130s as the press have reported. There is either a lot of them or a lot of circling going on.

One notices this as as the only normal air traffic is the regular AirNorth flights to Darwin and Merpati flights to Bali. So I assume it is all Australian and perhaps one Malaysian aircraft.

The UN released details of the casualties from an encounter between FDTL soldiers and the police after army soldiers attacked the police headquarters :

“As the unarmed police were being escorted out, army soldiers opened fire on them killing nine and wounding 27 others, including two UN police advisers,” Dujarric said.

This is just after the UN police attached to the local police had brokered a deal to lay down weapons and leave the building. Now, where I come from the army don’t usually gun down unarmed police. If anyone needed an excuse for foreign intervention, this sort of thing could be it.

But so far, the foreign press are missing out on the general lawlessness. I believe the casualty count from smaller scale conflict involving neither army, police or rebels will turn out to be a lot higher than this.

The katana (ie machete) has been given a good workout all over Dili over the last 36 hours. The general fear level is probably the highest it has been, only tempered by being more accustomed to it after a few weeks.

No matter how this all started, the problem is more than a dispute between a rebel army group. Not only is there a fractured army, but also a fractured police, ethnic disputes related to the east/west (lorosae/loromonu) divide and uncontrollable gangs of young men all mixed together.

The local TV news last night and this morning restricted coverage to reporting that the Australians had arrived and that the President had taken control of the military. No word on the conflicts during the day. The Portuguese TV had a quite long coverage and apart from showing a clip of the Portuguese Prime Minister promising 120 personnel, also had Prime Minister Alkatiri disagreeing with the President for not seeking parliamentary approval for the foreign intervention. You don’t need to be Einstein to work out their are also problems in governance.

The weather is absolutely magnificent and it belies the conflict that is taking place. There are people down the seafront, foreigners on their morning walk and an Australian frigate doing a continuous loop along a 5 to 10km stretch of water off Dili.

I have not heard a single word indicating that trouble has been anywhere else but Dili and its surroundings.

I do hope the Australian news has not spent too much time applauding the very effective arrival of the first OZ contingent who arrived at dusk. Even if the OZ embassy is now surrounded by well-trained armed soldiers with night goggles etc., the rest of Dili appears not to have changed an awful lot.

I believe fighting is still going on and there is a lot of general lawlessness. I came across a guy who has fled his home because there were (in his words) people everywhere around his home, machete-ing each other. This was around 7:30pm. I hear the occasional gunfire in the distance and there has been the odd one much closer.

The euphoria before dark has evaporated fairly quickly.

The power is still on (in my part of town) and the phone lines and mobile phone network still work (and the internet).

I slept OK last night but tonight feels tenser than ever, particularly without the benefit of armed soldiers with night goggles outside.

Pathetic facade of humour now lifted. OZ Hercules arrived 4:30pm – everyone in town seemed to know. At 4:50pm, an OZ frigate came steaming in from the east past Christo Rei statue (a smaller version of the large Rio de Janeiro Jesus statue).

A local told me (how do they know these things so fast ?) so I rushed down to the seaside and watched as it approached. People slowly moved out to the waterfront, the cars appeared again, faces were happy. I must admit I choked a bit as not an hour earlier, I was applying some serious skidmarks to my underwear. The powers of stress and subsequent release.

The sense of euphoria was amazing. I walked down to the Motael church where hundreds had been camped out and noted that if you stand at the front steps and look out to sea, you see the Christ Rei statue in the distance and at one point, an Australian frigate (?) steaming in.

Full points for a superb Hollywood entrance for maximum effect. The ship steamed in and did a sweep down to the west and looped back for a sweep to the east before preparing to make the entrance into the narrow navigation channel to take pride of place as the only vessel parked at the dock.

I left before that as it was starting to get dark and also it was raining and I was drenched and still with a 1 km walk home. I’ll try to take the flash picture tomorrow morning.

Now back to pre-euphoria. Again the locals seemed to know this quite quickly but things really went to custard around lunchtime. Some of the loyal military and some of the police were involved in a battle with each other.

Possibly around the same time, something close to anarchy must have been going on in parts of town with civilians (neither military, police or rebels) all having a good old fashioned stoush but using knives and machetes.

More houses have been burned, more lives ruined. What a shambles.

I will leave it until tomorrow to see what the casualty count will be from today but it may not be pretty. No doubt the usual foreign press will be on to this by the morning with more details.

And why “euphoria part one” ? For many Timorese, the decision still has to be made where to stay tonight. One would imagine it will take the foreign military force 24 hours to get into real shape. It is raining real hard now. The conditions at some of the catholic refuges must be fairly dire by now with no food, water and sanitation services. And we are still talking well over 15,000 displaced people in Dili alone.

Euphoria part two could be a return to a house burnt to the ground, looted or smashed to bits. Or in the case of one friend of mine, her landlady’s parents were both killed overnight.

Euphoria part three might be a long haul while the country gets itself back into shape from an infrastructure, security and political point of view. Isn’t that why many expats were here in the first place ?

It just has to be gin and tonic time !!

Just try being here when you don’t really know what is going on and someone tells you there has been a major incident near the FDTL headquarters.

I am sure some gun reporter will be there but I hope not.

Yet, an acquaintance dropped by to say the conference he was attending, had been halted because of trouble, so he dropped in.

I have always hated door slammers but never more so than right now. I nearly hit the roof.

PS I am hiding genuine fear behind a pathetic facade of humour so bear with me.

I have taken my government’s advice and stayed in today. Both the OZ and NZ governments have instructed all non-essential public servants and families to leave and I know one departure flight was scheduled for 2pm.

I met up with some volunteers prior to their departure on that flight and the info they provided convinced me today was no day to be going anywhere without cast-iron underwear. Not 5 minutes after they left, I was told there was trouble between there and the airport.

I believe gunfire is now creeping into the city proper. I do not know if it is the so-called “rebels” or the street gangs are causing all the trouble.

I am revising my little departure bag but hope like hell I never have to use it. Maybe some of the reporters holed up in some of the central city hotels can fill in on this. It is the tensest I have been but the main problem is I don’t know what is going on.

Anyone interested at all would know by now that President Xanana Gusmao has requested foreign assistance from Australia, New Zealand, Portugal and Malaysia. OZ and NZ have said yes, but I am not sure everyone knows exactly the make-up of this force and what they intend to do. They may be here tomorrow.

I would guess their first task would be to secure the perimeters of Dili and ensure free movement to and from the airport. The airport is at the western edge of Dili and is separated from the troublesome Tasi Tolu area by 2 or 3 kms. The road is blockaded on the Tasi Tolu side of the airport roundabout.

The “rebels” seem to have made it clear that their target is the government and the infrastructure of Dili. I sure hope the water supply works, power stations (two diesel generator plants) and telecomms antennae are well protected tonight.

The Leader supermarket was closed this afternoon. It is about 2kms closer into the centre of Dili but slightly exposed from the south up what is known as Delta road. This is the first time I have heard of it being closed although it had pulled back its 9pm closing time to 7:30 pm and further to 5:30pm this week.

It has rained on and off this afternoon and at 9pm, it is raining quite steadily as it did yesterday. It would be pretty uncomfortable up in the hills and one would imagine disheartening for soldiers on both sides.

I think the formal government media announcement indicated one of the problems likely to be faced by a longer conflict – the fear of a loss of discipline and a need for decisive leadership at many levels in the military and police, when the pressure is on. One should also not forget that in this conflict, there are probably relatives shooting at each other and people who personally know their opponents well.

If the foreign press have not made it clear, the “rebels” do not have access to artillery, planes, copters or the like. The do have modern automatic guns and some grenade launchers but I don’t think they have much more than that. In fact, the loyal government forces probably have little more than that themselves. So there is little likelihood of any longer-range strikes on Dili (ie me) unless the rebels actually do make successful forays into central Dili.

But the “rebels” will have animal cunning and huge experience in handling a long conflict from moving bases in the hills and forests.

I guess the foreign military strategists will study the circumstances that led to the conflict losing control yesterday. Are we dealing with crazy people or did someone make an awful strategic mistake thus crossing a point of no return ?

It is really difficult trying to get a handle on what is really going on here and why.

The local press seem to have relatively easy access to the rebel groups. So the TV news gets regular feedback from the rebel groups and the government activities. However, I am not sure this represents the definitive view of the entire situation.

Now, there are foreign English-speaking reporters doing their bit to find out what is going on. However, the Portuguese media (eg LUSA) probably have a better handle on things than these guys.

The foreign embassies do their bit as they have responsibilities to their citizens, but you tend to only get formal information from them via travel warnings. Other information tends to be passed informally but with an emphasis on only reporting known facts.

A large part of the information flow comes in the form of rumour. The informal network that exists amongst Timorese is astounding. News travels fast, courtesy of mobile phones and texting. I think I have been spared a lot of the more outlandish rumours, but it is rumour that seems to spook the Timorese more than anything else.

After a couple of weeks, rumour has tended to settle a bit. I think many people are so tired of responding to rumour and going through another domestic upheaval when the rumour does not eventuate. I know some are consciously trying not to spread something they heard just in case it spooks someone else and is incorrect.

But it has made it very difficult to know just what is exactly going on. The natural tendency for foreigners I know is to compare notes on what they have seen or heard (usually via staff at their workplace). If a pattern appears, then one tends to go with it.

Personally, I like to make the distinction between rumour and speculation. I prefer to think rumour refers to reporting on historic events and speculation refers to the future. The accuracy rate of rumour (ie historic) has been a lot higher than of speculation (ie future events) and if you only knew which bits to throw away, amongst what is left is a reasonable interpretation of the facts.

So I try to ask a friend what she is hearing on her grapevine but can’t get through to her because when rumours are running hot, the mobile phone network comes to a halt. Rumour has it that the phone company is controlling access to slow the spread of rumour but that is one rumour I will happily throw away.

Over the weekend, there were the odd reports of minor trouble (in the Becora and Comorro areas) but none indicating (to me anyway) that things were on the edge.

It seems to have changed yesterday. The foreign press have already reported on yesterday’s issues fairly promptly. I have already heard reports from different sources which certainly confirm these press reports.

On Monday night, Major Alfredo Reinado (the “rebel” military police commander) was on TV and he seemed to be giving a form of ultimatum to the government – something along the lines of “do something to resolve the grievances of the sacked military by the end of the week or action will follow”.

I believe the Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta took steps to speak to the sacked soldiers in Ermera but it appears things must have gone wrong somewhere.

Last night’s TV news reported 2 dead and 8 wounded from fighting yesterday between Major Reinado’s group and the Timorese army (FDTL). Automatic gunfire and grenades are known to have been used and I understand that the roads to the west and east of Dili were blocked for some hours.

It could not have been comfortable for anyone out there yesterday as it had been bucketing rain on and off all day. (And revealing the numerous holes in our ceiling at home.)

Yesterday, I cycled through town during the day yesterday without a problem, but last night, the streets were pretty well deserted again.

Just to summarise some key points :

In general, I don’t do politics for fear of being accused of taking sides and simply that I do not have close day-to-day contact with this stuff.

But one of my relatives asked me to fill them in on what has happened at the congress. As far as I know, it went like this :

I don’t think anyone believes this vote count truly represents the balance between Mr.Alkatiri supporters and others.

During the Saturday afternoon, there was a fleet of Alkitiri supporters driving around town – about 200 vehicles. It was like a proper election but at the end of the day, this was just an internal party election for its leader.

Saturday was also Independence Day. Apart from a concert outside the main government buildings (Palacio do Governu), I saw no other events. The day was much quieter than it has been over the last few days.

By the end of the week, we should know if the passing of both the Fretilin congress and Independence Day (without any trouble) will encourage the return of the many thousands who have left Dili.