Despite a high level of general uneasiness yesterday, I slept well.

The dead quiet continues. The exodus out of Dili continues. There are police around town but obviously public confidence has evaporated despite no hint of any organised violence in recent days.

President Xanana Gusmao made an appearance on TV today and appealed for calm and asked people to return to their homes. After an unexplainably long absence from public view, Prime Minister Alkatiri also appeared next to him. It will need someone more proficient than me to analyse just what was said and what it all meant.

The Dili town water supply stopped this morning and one suspects that due to staff leaving town, there is a shortage of people left to maintain equipment. Government offices were closed during the morning.

The mobile phone network is pretty much unusable due to overload but SMS messages seem to eventually get through.

It appears that the number of “refugees” at the catholic retreats has increased again, but there are clear indications these places have become transit stations for travel to other parts of the country. The foreign diplomatic and aid communities have pretty much taken up the task of looking after Timorese in these refuges.

I have seen the terror that seems to overcome some people. With images still clearly etched in memories from 6 years ago, I have heard locals talk about “we stay together, we die together”. Yet, from where I stand/sit, I can’t see who or what is going to cause this sort of a problem. Sure, public confidence has hit rock-bottom, but I don’t see anyone with the muscle or need to indulge in more violence. Well, I hope so.

This morning, there were warnings of likely trouble today but from where, no-one seems to know. And nothing happened.

As the day wore on, it was clear the streets were steadily thinning of people. I know of a Timorese guy who went home from work yesterday and found his village on the outskirts of town virtually deserted. His family called him from Liquica, about 30kms to the west. The village had freaked – he still doesn’t know exactly why.

There appears to be fewer taxis and a number are driving around with cracked windscreens. Street vendors have all but disappeared. Large scale absenteeism from work continues.

I know this sounds wacko, but the feeling in my water is that 20 to 30% of Dili’s population has left town, or at least left home.

Word has it that a number of senior people in the civil and military administration have moved their families out of Dili. This is not sending a tremendously encouraging signal.

On the brighter side, I have been enormously impressed by the work of the catholic church through the seminaries etc. There are a number of highly intelligent, well organised and disciplined priests who are real doers and have got stuck into reparation work for those who have lost houses or a place to stay.

All in all, everything has gone exceptionally quiet. After dark, it is as quiet as I have ever heard. Its like everyone is just waiting for something to happen, but no-one can think of exactly what it might be.

Firstly, the foreign media appear to have caught up with things now.

Tuesday was the first normal workday since the major trouble started at noon Friday. Most things seemed normal except people numbers were down and about 1 in 3 of all shops were still closed.

I re-commenced my evening bicycle ride down to the Cristo Rei statue and back. It seems half the expat community had done the same and I stopped about 4 times to chew the fat with friends and acquaintances. Everyone has their own little take on things that are happening around them.

For instance, there has been a bit of a run on stocking up fuel used by cars and power generators. Many expats live in accommodation that either runs off generators or at least, has them as backup when the Dili grid fails (which is frequent). Wholesale prices rose 10 to 20% on diesel. Some had run out over the weekend and could not get supplies.

Most told me that a lot of local staff from wherever they happened to live or work had not showed up for work.

The foreign press have caught up with things at the Don Bosco Seminary where Father Adriano has estimated 10,000 were there on Sunday night. Numbers have reduced but many are not returning to their Dili homes but are heading for other provincial towns.

Australia’s ABC has confirmed 6 dead but the local talk is that this figure will rise. I can confirm that the number of houses destroyed at Tasi Tolu is between 20 and 25, not 100 as has appeared in the press.

=============

It appears that the destruction at Tasi Tolu village occured a bit like this. :

The point is that initially this conflict did not seem to involve the petitioners/protestors.

===================

Dili is the only real urban centre in Timor-Leste and attracts a huge number of people from around the country who are seeking fame and fortune. So, in a Timorese sense, it is a melting pot of many different racial groups from around the country. Many people are either from somewhere else or at least, the family roots are somewhere else.

So at the first sign of trouble, the usual reaction is to seek refuge at one’s family base. For many, this is outside of Dili.

This morning (Wednesday) it seemed clear that there was a slow and steady movement out of Dili. Local people are very nervous. The rumour mill is extraordinary. No-one knows what is going to happen next. The government don’t seem to be doing much except try to encourage people to go back home and stay calm. At this stage, no-one is believing this.

This would explain the lower number of people around the place and the closed shops.

The military withdrew from Dili on Sunday afternoon and there has been no sign of any trouble since. People say there has been the odd scuffle. Having seen the destroyed Taibesi market (and regretting not having been there before), trouble was always expected at the Comorro market. I have been told that the Comorro traders banded together and have successfully resisted attempts to burn them down as well.

I believe that one senior military commander appeared on local TV and said that the military response to violence would be violence. Apparently, this has gone over like a ton of bricks. I can’t understand why !

Yesterday, when I saw Tasi Tolu, I saw destroyed houses but no people. My reaction was a bit of a blank.

This afternoon, we went to the Taibesi market and something went “klunk”. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. Taibesi market is an area of about 200 metres by 200 metres – full of small market stalls. The vast majority of stalls are made of galvanised iron sheeting held up by wooden poles. The whole lot was a pile of burnt-out iron sheets.

I was astounded. There were about 5 or so vendors (of 205) selling what was left of their stock. One bottle of drink, 2 packs of cigarettes and 5 packets of 5-minute noodles … 10 sachets of home-made crushed chili (10 cents a bag) … a pile of woven grass baskets (50 cents and $1 depending on size) … and a guy sitting down staring out into space obviously completely shell-shocked.

I was warned prior to arriving in TL that there were still a number of people completely traumatised by events of 5 or so years ago. To have to go through it all again is probably going to push a few people over the edge. I stood at the edge today and it is not good.

I also heard just why Tasi Tolu was so vacant yesterday. Most of the residents had headed for the hills – literally. Purely and simply scared of being wasted. If what I have heard today is true, things may be worse than I imagined.

A phone call tonight re. tonight’s dinner engagement also revealed that more trouble is expected tonight. This follows trouble today at the Comorro market and in the Stadium area. We will just have to wait and see if the promised guerilla action will take place.

It has been much quieter today and something closer to normality (for a Sunday) seemed to return after lunch. Micro-buses and taxis returned to the roads in limited numbers.

Again, there is no problem moving around. The police/military roadblocks to the west of town were removed this afternoon.

The semi-official position for most of the day was that it was OK to move around but to avoid the Comorro market and Tasi Tolu areas on the western side of town. I have heard nothing with respect to problems on the eastern side since that area had trouble on Friday night.

I could add little today until we took another drive in the afternoon. We drove to have a look at the Don Bosco Technical School which is south of the airport and roughly in between the Comorro and Tasi Tolu areas. The school is a boarding school run by the Salesian Brothers and is a rambling campus of buildings. It is hard to estimate the number of people seeking refuge there, but I will have a go and say definitely more than 2,000. Someone else thought more than 5,000 and even up to 10,000. It is hard to tell and made even harder as some people go out for the day but return to stay at night.

One of the brothers thought the numbers were roughly similar to the previous night but the general demeanour was much happier than the night before when gunfire could probably be heard. Most came with no food or water but the World Food Program, the government and some of the embassies have taken immediate steps to assist in this regard.

Some of the churches around town have also a number of locals taking refuge and a figure of over 1,000 was quoted by the foreign media for the main cathedral.

Further out, we saw around 20 destroyed houses at Tasi Tolu and evidence of a number of burnt-out tyre barriers on the road. The heavy smoke reported was most likely from the burning tyres. The official reports have said 100 houses were destroyed. Given we did not leave the main road, I will go along with that.

There is no doubt there are 4 main factors which contributed to the current situation :

(1) public protests by sacked soldiers who had been seeking better conditions in a primarily labour dispute
(2) the high number of unemployed and disenchanted youth who saw an opportunity to have a bit of a rumble
(3) another group opposed to the government who saw the opportunity to piggyback on the protests
(4) the opportunity by others to get stuck into the east-west ethnic issue and settle some scores

Its a bit of a mixed bag with different groups laying blame in slightly different directions.

One of the things that has made the reporting so variable is the extent of rumours.

At the moment, it is said that the protesters have headed for the hills and that the military were given orders to chase them. Others say this is not the case. But I am prepared to go with the view that most of the violence was not caused by the sacked soldiers but by disaffected youth and others with an east-west ethnic chip on the shoulder.

As for casualties, I only know of the 2 dead and 21 injured from 2 nights ago. Some say more than 10 by now but others say this is not true. It is hard to know really.

The mainstream press have been a bit slow getting onto this but Eric Campbell from Australia’s ABC seems to have got pretty close to the mark in a short space of time. I expect that he will get access to more accurate info than me, but so he should – he gets paid to do it. I am but an inquisitive observer.

Just a quick one. I understand first hand that there are more than 5,000 scared Timorese at the Don Bosco Technical College seeking refuge.

I have heard from an acquaintance scheduled to fly out that the airport is now open again and the AirNorth flight from Darwin will arrive shortly (ie should have arrived and left by now). Another said the City Cafe is now open.

For the locals, much of the feedback has come back through local TV and radio. However, I am told that it is customary for the local media to be in holding pattern over the weekend, with very little new news coming on-stream until Monday, which as it is the Timorese Labour Day holiday on Monday, may mean Tuesday.

I understand that until today, the military and police were sympathetic to reaching a satisfactory solution with the protestors as the “sacked military” guys were once part of them. I also understand that this kid gloves approach is to cease today which may explain the retreat of trouble to the outskirts of Dili.

There is little doubt that “unemployed youth” took advantage of the whole situation and may well have contributed to the destruction of property. I have already heard enough from various quarters to suggest that there is also score settling with respect to the east/west divide thing.

It feels like things are loosening up around town. One can move freely but the continuing absence of mini-buses and open shops seems to indicate a continuing nervousness. I have also heard that there are a considerable number of people seeking refuge at the Don Bosco Centre (Salesian Brothers) in Comorro near the airport. The usual water supply and sanitation issues are a problem.

Although the Lita supermarket is closed, the CoolStore supermarket is open. Food supplies may be an issue for those who were not prepared for this sort of thing so this open supermarket is a good thing. I believe the Landmark supermarket is also open.

Sunset awaits.

It was a pretty quiet night here, but an acquaintance who was meant to be flying out this morning found that all flights are cancelled and the airport is closed. But more importantly, machine gun fire was heard in the vicinity.

We did a drive around central Dili this morning and the streets are very quiet, all the barricades have been removed and there are no restrictions to movement. No shops were open, but the Cafe Brasilia did have its doors open.

Cafe Brasilia is about 200 metres from the Palacio do Governu where three burnt-out vehicles sit outside the front of the Palacio plus another 6 vehicles with all windows smashed. The windows on the eastern and western ends of the Palacio were broken, but there appeared no damage to ones on the front of the building. The eastern and western ends are in close proximity to side streets, while the front is more easily defended. The broken windows were clearly made of shatter-proof glass as they are all heavily cracked but have remained intact. Other buildings out the back have had windows broken.

As for other parts of town, the Taibesse market area was very quiet and 99% of all shops were closed wherever we looked. There were about 30 vehicles parked outside the front of the US Embassy, full of families and a selection of personal possessions. Most of them appear to be the extended families of Timorese who work at the embassy.

Other reports suggest that there was frequent gunfire in the Comorro area overnight but the real hotspot appears to be the Tasi Tolu (three lakes) area a few kms further west of Comorro.

It is expected that the casualty count will increase when information trickles back from the Tasi Tolu area. Word from locals suggests that they expect an intensification of trouble today but who knows.

The usual press outlets have already reported 2 dead and 21 injured. We received a phone call from a Timorese in the current hot area Comorro. People are scared and people have seen smoke rising from the general area.

Lets just say we have bunkered down for the moment.

Nevertheless, I did get through to one of my acquaintances briefly before the line dropped out and she was collecting take-aways to take back to an office farewell party.

There has been absolutely no trouble where I live and I guess there are many who haven’t heard much and just carry one.

An important thing to note is that mobile phones are absolutely useless in these circumstances when everyone is trying to use them to found things out. The network just can not cope.

And earlier reports of weapons taken from a nearby military camp have proven to be incorrect. (Of course, there may be weapons obtained from somewhere else.)

Another acquaintance had his motorbike knocked over while he was having lunch but the bikes either side of his were torched. And he also came out when the police were using tear gas.

It is deathly quiet out there

As I said last time, better not to move. Its OK where I am.

A friend dropped around to say that things in the area surrounding his workplace have heated up and he received reports which suggested that weapons have gone missing from a nearby military camp to the east of Dili. He also reported gunfire between the military and the police in the Comorro area, a suburb in the west of Dili. (Note : the OZ Embassy is in this area.)

From a separate source, we have been told that things in the Comorro area have heated up and that locals are extremely worried. The reports suggest that many have already sought refuge at the US Embassy which is located in the same general area.

There is no doubt that tensions are high and people are expecting trouble tonight and tomorrow.

To put this all in perspective, the trouble areas are a moving target and if you are not in one of them, you probably do not know what is going on. However, the local communications are such that news travels fast and perhaps not accurately. The mobile phone network has become completely clogged up and it is difficult to contact people to find out if (a) they are OK and (b) if anything is happening in their general area.

The bicycle shall remain parked where it is for the forseeable future.