Fear, hope and three days in Dili
From Griffith REVIEW Edition 18: In the Neighbourhood
© Copyright Griffith University & the author.
Written by Jim Chalmers
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When the tiny Airnorth plane landed at Dili airport I knew something about campaigning but little about Timorese politics. Like even the most casual Australian observer, I recognise our neighbourhood is a vastly diverse one. A comfortable friend to the south-east; an arc of unstable and developing nations to the Pacific north; the largest Muslim nation on the doorstep; beyond, the former tiger economies and the world's most populous nations.
I arrived as one of four political staffers and consultants participating alongside Timorese counterparts in a seminar called ‘Keeping Your Campaign on Track', a program organised and funded by ALP International Projects.
Reading the dossiers on the flights didn't prepare us for the ten-minute drive from the airport to the centre of Dili: the filth and heat, the stray pigs, dogs and goats wandering aimlessly alongside slow and battered Mitsubishis, down potholed roads cluttered on the edges by locals selling motorbike fuel in old plastic water bottles. The dossier didn't prepare us for the windowless graffiti-covered homes, the idle young men out the front, or the burned-out roofs over the shells of schools and other buildings. Or for the camp near the airport where the frightened fled a recent crisis and stayed because the food was a bit better and the children that little bit safer.
What Labor politician Wayne Swan wrote of suburban Australian society – that it comprises a patchwork quilt of winners and losers from change – applies equally to the regional neighbourhood. As the region grows in wealth and population, not all share equally. That's why political and economic engagement is so important. The major Australian political parties maintain and promote links with regional counterparts. Seminars are organised to exchange ideas on policy, media and campaign organisation. That's how I found myself landing in East Timor in May 2007 as part of our small delegation of Australian political colleagues guided so ably by well-connected and savvy Timorese friends with an Aussie twang picked up from stints in Melbourne.
East Timor is among our poorest neighbours, and the second youngest nation in the world. AusAID points to life expectancy of fifty-six, an adult literacy rate of 58 per cent, and GDP at just US$367 per person. These are the statistics brought into such stunning relief by frequent trips standing on the back tray as our guides' red ute wound slowly through town each day. If China is the sleeping giant, and Indonesia the bogey man, Timor is the bullied child of Asia. It has copped the worst: a cruel and brutal Indonesian occupation and its repercussions, democratic teething challenges, more recent troubles between the military and the police and partisan backers.
Personal insecurity exacerbates other challenges: illiteracy, poor transport, inadequate communication infrastructure, few resources or proper training. The obstacles in Timorese society are the same as those that challenge its developing politics. A fraught situation made more difficult by violence and misunderstanding in an infant democracy yet to find its rhythm or voice. Hence our seminar about professionalising campaigns.
OUR GROUP COMPRISED BOTH TIMOR WATCHERS and non-experts like me. An experienced Timor observer wouldn't have mistakenly thought the studious-looking man sitting beside him at a political gathering on the first day in town was former Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri. A seasoned Timor-watcher wouldn't be surprised to hear that Alkatiri's local reputation is far more positive than the Australian media suggests.
No expert would ask, as we did in the early hours of our seminar, about the letterboxing of political pamphlets when no letterboxes exist. Nor would those experienced with the conduct of Timorese politics be so shaken by the man who raised his hand and asked us, as political professionals, what we used to deal with constant and unrelenting threats on our lives.
A Timor expert wouldn't have been as disturbed by the street in Dili to which our guides took us to illustrate the story they told of policemen sprinting down the road, stripping off the uniforms that made them targets as they ran. No expert would have been surprised that an infrastructure budget in the hundreds of millions of dollars lay unspent, because to build new structures was to invite almost immediate destruction and vandalism.
Not being an expert, I found all these scenes and stories confronting. I was shocked, saddened and angered; constantly taken aback by what I learned while I was supposed to be teaching local party officials about campaign strategy and organisation on a hot May long weekend.