Eric Wright, Dili – The former colonial power of East Timor, Portugal, is creeping back through an open door, more than 25 years after fleeing ignominiously from the mainland. The Timorese, in dire need of cash and assistance to build their new country, are willing to accept the Portuguese gifts. While the United Nations and World Bank crawl towards the point where they can begin major reconstruction, the Portuguese have offered hundreds of people and aid worth millions of dollars.

The recent visit of Portugal's president, Jorge Sampaio, served to highlight the hold which the Iberians continue to exercise over the furthest-flung part of their former empire.

The streets of Dili were lined with welcoming rows of palm leaves planted in banana stumps for Sampaio's arrival on Saturday 12 February; and the Timorese staff of the United Nations deserted their offices en masse to witness Sampaio's speech at the governor's palace, soon to be occupied by the UN's Transitional Administration in East Timor. Sampaio later attended an evening mass given by Bishop Belo, who shared the 1996 Nobel peace prize with Jose Ramos-Horta, East Timor's foreign minister in exile during the Indonesian occupation.

Sampaio's visit was preceded by a charm offensive which resulted in the announcement on Friday 10 February by Xanana Gusmao that Portuguese should be the official language of East Timor. This decision has not yet been endorsed by other Timorese leaders, or by the UN administration which officially runs the territory.

Many Timorese, especially the younger generation which has grown up learning Bahasa Indonesian at school and absorbing the Indonesian idea of history, do not fully accept the Portuguese or their president. "Teaching Portuguese is crazy," says Joao Ximenes, playing volley-ball on the beach on Sunday. "It's like we are walking backwards."

Although more than 130,000 people have returned from West Timor and other parts, there are still about 100,000 people in more than 100 camps scattered throughout the western part of the island, and an unknown number dispersed to other parts of Indonesia.

The issue of which language East Timor will use has become the most explosive national question since the decision in January that the US dollar would become the official currency. However, the currency decision was taken by the full National Consultative Council, the UN-Timorese body which is supposed to agree on all such matters of national policy, whereas Xanana's announcement on the eve of Sampaio's visit effectively short-circuited the territory's highest decision-making agency. The NCC brings together different factions of the CNRT, or National Council for Timorese Resistance, a political umbrella which has covered the different East Timorese factions since 1997, and UNTAET, the UN Transitional Administration in East Timor, established in October last year and expected to run the territory for at least two years.

Sergio de Mello, the head of the UN administration and the chair of the NCC, dodged the question of which language should be the official tongue of East Timor, claiming that as a Portuguese-speaker himself, he could not comment objectively on the issue.

Although many words of Tetum, the main language of East Timor, are descended from Portuguese, less than 10% of Timorese speak Portuguese with confidence. This compares with more than half who are fluent in Bahasa Indonesian. Young Timorese, especially, are more familiar with Bahasa. The UN estimates that more than 80% of Timorese under the age of 25 speak Bahasa.

The distribution of Portuguese text-books to primary schools in Dili has upset teachers, most of whom do not understand Portuguese to any useful degree. "We have 11 teachers," commented Mario Soares, the head-master of Primary School 10 in Dili, who had been given the books. "Only four of them understand Portuguese, and not very well. How can we teach from these books when we can't read them?"

However, Bahasa is not politically acceptable to many of the Timorese who spent 24 years resisting the Indonesians, despite attempts to relabel the language Bahasa Malaiu, or Malay.

At the moment, teachers use whatever language they feel most comfortable with, and which they think their students understand. In schools which have received the Portuguese text-books, the system of primary education has been cut back from six years to four years. East Timor already has gaping holes in the upper levels of its education system, since most teachers at secondary and higher levels were Indonesian or loyal to the Indonesian administration, and a growing problem with youth gangs. Eliminating two years from primary school, the only level of education which is currently functioning across the country, is not likely to improve the situation. "Four years of schooling is not enough," said Pawan Kucita, who is in charge of UNICEF's education programme in East Timor. "If you go to school for four years, you can forget everything you learned after a couple of years out of school. You lose your literacy."

The efforts of the Portuguese and the national CNRT, mostly expatriates who have recently returned to East Timor, to impose a language unwanted by the mass of the populace, has also undermined the efforts of UNTAET and other agencies trying to re-establish the education system in East Timor. UNTAET has ordered Indonesian textbooks to cover the rest of the school year.

"The Portuguese have not been cooperating with any of the other groups involved in education," one UN staff member complained. "They never show up at our weekly meetings. We didn't even know these text-books had been distributed until we went to a school and found the teachers wondering what to do with them."

The Portuguese aim to overcome the language handicap by bringing in several hundred people to conduct intensive language classes for teachers. They have even offered to send staff to conduct trauma counselling for children, ignoring the fact that almost none of the traumatised children in East Timor can communicate in Portuguese.