Although this sort of thing has really been going on for quite some time but at a lower level, over the last week or so, the area between the airport roundabout and the Timor Lodge Hotel has come under repeated and increased rock fighting activity and worse (ie bow and arrow, slingshot and rama ambon).
At mid-afternoon today, it didn’t look too good in the distance down the road so I guess it was on again. I saw 2 ambulances with sirens blaring heading from that general direction towards the centre of town (perhaps the hospital).
Someone told me it is a bit of gang warfare related to paying back for the death of someone in an earlier conflict. So I guess it may continue for some time if it is going to be a tit-for-tat exchange of rough stuff. One thing the crisis of last year did was upset some of the balance between rival groups/gangs who have existed long before last year’s problems.
The first of the Christmas nativity scenes are commencing construction but I suspect there will be none to be seen down near the roundabout this year.
Thanks for the Google Earth landmarks — I just got into town, and they’re an absolute lifesaver. Consider that I owe you a liquid refreshment of your choice should we ever cross paths…
Hi Squatter, seeing as how you are the resident Timor Google Earth guru, next time you are with hi bandwidth, I would like to ask you to look more closely at the images of the areas in Uatolari-Uatocarbau burned in August 2007. Just follow the coast line past Beassu and then past the large Bebui River and then start scanning the areas further inland.
I think I may be jumping to conclusions, but it appears the images reveal burned villages. I can see a lot of grey formations that would appear to be burned occupied areas. However the only dates I can find for the images from “Digital Globe” which provides the images are from 2005 and 2006.
I don’t want to jump the gun but it would good to get a more expert opinion…
As far as I can tell from the Digital Globe information provided, the latest images for anywhere I have looked are dated December 2006.
In this case, I take the word guru to mean persistent enough to carry a painful task through to the end. However, I think I will pass at trying to analyse what is a burnt village from a satellite photo.