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Time to pray, and run the militia gauntlet

Source
Sydney Morning Herald - September 10, 1999

Lindsay Murdoch, Dili – Pat Burgess wipes away the tears. He doesn't want to make the life-or-death decision. The Australian political officer working for the United Nations has just been told that staff and their dependants, including Timorese, are evacuating from the besieged UN compound in Dili.

But everybody inside knows that if we leave behind 1,500 refugees who have crammed with us into the compound the young men among them would be accused of being pro-independence and probably killed.

Burgess, like many other UN staff, hates the decision to evacuate that was made on the other side of the world in New York. But he has no choice. "Tell the young men to run," he tells his interpreter, wiping away more tears.

Burgess knows very well the lies that Indonesia's military and police officers have told the UN for months. Promises that the Indonesian armed forces and police would not harm the refugees mean nothing. Asked what he thinks will happen to the women and children, he says: "They will probably rape the women."

Families sit around candles and pray for a long time. Some weep. They talk in whispers. These are intimate moments we do not want to disturb. Only the gunshots and distant explosions break the near silence.

But as the night wears on we step over babies and children sleeping on concrete and distribute our remaining food. It is only a few cans of corned beef and some packets of noodles but we are on our way to Darwin, away from the gunshots, the explosions, the orchestrated terror. Or so we think.

The men run in the early hours as smoke continues to rise into the air from dozens of fires across the largely deserted town. So too do many of the young women, particularly the pretty ones. For 24 years Indonesian soldiers in East Timor have violated the women, for their selfish pleasure, with impunity.

As they run, fresh gunfire erupts. Short, sharp volleys. Soon some of the men return exhausted after trying to climb the hill that rises almost vertically from the back of the compound. They report that the Indonesian troops who are supposed to be protecting us from attack fired over their heads, forcing them to return.

But soon others try other routes and find ways past the troops. With the fittest leading the way, others follow, including mothers carrying babies, cooking utensils and their few possessions.

As they shuffle into the darkness many of us are deeply concerned, justifying our helplessness by thinking that the East Timorese have shown remarkable resilience during decades of immense suffering. We can only hope their instincts will keep them alive.

When dawn breaks the compound appears strangely bigger, with spaces free of masses of humanity. I won't reveal how many of the refugees are left because it is better to keep the killers and rapists guessing.

We don't know whether to be relieved because we don't know if the refugees made it to the mountains outside Dili, where we hope they will not starve until they can return safely to the town or outside help arrives.

At 1.30am yesterday Ian Martin, head of the UN mission in East Timor, succumbs to pressure from his staff to delay our evacuation for 24 hours. This may have saved the life of 70-year-old Anne Forbes of Ballarat. We were still here when she reached the compound yesterday.

The Sister of Mercy who came to East Timor to teach English under the wing of the Catholic relief agency Caritas trembles as she tells her disturbing story. Since August 1 she has been staying at an orphanage at Dare, a village in the mountains above Dili. She has seen Dili ablaze, heard the constant gunshots, and heard the fears of the hundreds who fled to Dare.

"On Monday or Tuesday morning, I can't remember exactly, we watched two boats go out from Dili," she says. "We thought they were heading out to West Timor but they only went out a distance and then came straight back. We fear they were dropping bodies."

Sister Anne was staying with the remarkable Sister Lourdes, who runs an orphanage in Dare. A 10-year-old girl arrived a couple of days ago in the mountains from the town of Liquica, 40 kilometres west of Dili. She told of seeing her brother with a machete stuck in his chest and bodies piled high. Sister Anne cries as she continues. "Another little girl, she's only five, recites how she saw three men shot in her parents' garden."

Sister Anne says she cannot imagine how many people are dead. "There's a real frenzy out there. A nephew of one of our Timorese sisters was killed with another man near UNAMET [the UN compound]. The militia hammered nails into his head and cut off his flesh. They told other people they were going to eat the flesh but I doubt they did that."

Sister Anne says it was one of the toughest decisions of her life to leave the orphanage. But with food short she felt guilty every time she sat down to eat.

When she drove into Dili's deserted streets yesterday morning with a German priest, Father Albert Garim, they stopped their car outside a Jesuit's house, where militia looters had loaded furniture, two refrigerators and two motorcycles onto their truck.

"Father Garim told them to get the hell out of there," Sister Anne says. "But you know the funny thing is that they were greatly embarrassed and knelt down and kissed his hand and rosary beads.

"You see these people are East Timorese and Catholics. Up in the hills the people are spending hours praying that they end all this and see that they are all Timorese in their hearts." Police took Father Garim away. His whereabouts are unknown.

Sister Anne's handbag was rifled as a military officer told her in broken English: "You are probably doing good work in East Timor. But it is hurting some people." Sister Anne was near exhaustion when she reached the UN compound. "How can teaching a little bit of English hurt anybody?" she asks.

She expects to be evacuated with the rest of us this morning but she will leave East Timor with great reluctance. As half a dozen dirty but broadly smiling children rush her in the compound and kiss her hand, she weeps.

"I think about the future of these children," she says. "What is so special about Indonesia that nobody will directly call them the liars, thugs and mongrels that they are? Why can't the world help?"

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