Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – A skinny boy in filthy threadbare clothes hangs around my hotel. Ameu, 10, is a good kid, keeping an eye on my room when I am out. He has suffered a great deal; both his mother and father are dead. This morning he was running his finger along the blade of a sharp dagger. I asked him where he got it but he just shrugged. "I will not be killed," he said.
Everybody in East Timor seems to be scared. East Timorese have suspected for days something was terribly wrong. That's when almost everybody except Mr Eurico Guterres' gang members deserted the potholed streets of Dili.
The word is that many people have taken to the mountains, just like tens of thousands of them did in 1975 when Indonesia's troops invaded and started beating and killing people. Others only venture out to buy essential goods from shops that open briefly or not at all. Thousands have taken refuge in school or church grounds.
We haven't seen much this week of Mr Guterres, the commander of one of the biggest militia groups – Aitarak, or Thorn. He presided over the funeral of one of his men, a cousin. A few hours later, Aitarak men wielding machetes were caught on television hacking a man to pieces only metres from the United Nations headquarters in Dili.
The killing of another man, Placido Ximenes, 41, shows how this conflict is rapidly deteriorating into a vicious cycle of violence, perhaps even civil war.
Mr Ximenes was riding his motorcycle along a road through the suburb of Becora, which is a stronghold for independence supporters in Dili. He was pulled off his bike by a group and bashed. Apparently the most vicious attacker was a big-muscled pro-independence supporter known as Rambo.
CNN showed Rambo dragging an unconscious Mr Ximenes along the road as others jumped on him. He was thrown into a taxi and then, according to Aitarak, buried alive in a river bed. The body was unrecognisable when it was recovered.
Unlike the hundreds of other murders committed by Aitarak, the death is not the end of the story. From the white-washed, rambling jail house in Jakarta that he cannot leave, the pro-independence leader, Jose "Xanana" Gusmao, apparently saw the CNN footage and was appalled, even if Mr Ximenes was from the enemy camp.
Mr Gusmao, a former guerrilla leader recognised by almost everybody in this conflict as the strongest force for reconciliation, telephoned Rambo. Within hours the man had surrendered to Indonesian police, obeying the order of his commander even if it meant spending the rest of his life in jail.
Four days after the euphoria of 438,000 eligible people voting on East Timor's future, Dili is rife with rumors. A full-on attack by the militias is imminent, one has it. They want to kill a large number of people so that all the UN people and journalists will go away, goes another. The militias are roaming the streets looking to kill a foreign journalist wearing a red hat, said yet another.
The militias seem to want to terrorise everybody, apparently in revenge for the ballot they believe they have lost. Most of the UN staff members and journalists who stay at my hotel were away yesterday morning when six militiamen brandishing home-made pistols ran into the lobby, screaming threats.
As a few us locked ourselves in my bathroom, they roughed up a Canadian woman eating a late breakfast in the restaurant. They told her and the terrified staff they would be back later to kill a foreign journalist. Only a few of the bravest staff stayed to find out that they didn't.
Mr David Wimhurst is a hardened UN worker, having served as spokesman for the world body's bloody operation in Angola. He is disappointed that foreign journalists are pulling out of East Timor just before the ballot result is known.
"Your presence has been crucial here," he said. "While the UN cannot guarantee your safety, your continued observation of the process is important. I hope as many of you as possible will stay to see it through."
But the words were little comfort. Mr Wimhurst admits the security situation is spiralling out of control. The news outside Dili shows the militia killing and burning.
In the town of Maliana, they rampaged for hours, burning houses and hunting down locally employed UN staff members. Two are dead and five missing. Thirty-three UN staff have taken shelter in a police office. The UN headquarters is deserted. The coffee-growing town of Gleno is now militia territory.
Even the police apparently cowed. Houses in Liquica, where 60 Minutes reporter Richard Carleton provoked militias this week, were burning. A church has been attacked in Becora. The list of trouble spots seems endless.
The militias appear to control all roads from Dili. At roadblocks militias armed with automatic rifles mingle with Indonesian police and soldiers, who kowtow to them.
We try to see what is happening outside Dili but militiamen drag us out of the car 14 kilometres along the road to Hera. We lie that we are French because we know they hate Australian journalists.
As our car reaches a mountain peak five kilometres towards Dili, 20 independence supporters suddenly appear, waving us down. They are carrying swords, bows and arrows and machetes. "If the Aitarak try to come on this road to Dili we will kill them," said one man clutching a large sword. "They have rifles and guns. We don't care. If they come it will be war."
But less than an hour later the ABC's Tim Lester calls from the same spot. "The independence boys have gone and Aitarak are here," he said.