Antony Funnell – East Timor's Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, refused my interview request when he landed in Australia last Friday. We had just traveled from Dili on the same plane. His refusal came as little surprise. Even then, people in the East Timorese capital were bracing themselves for the possibility of street protests and violence.
Alkatiri was officially in Australia for business, but his time in Darwin was also an escape from the mounting criticism of his leadership at home. Only hours before, at a ceremony to mark National Day, the down-to-earth and hugely popular President of East Timor, Xanana Gusmao, had launched a scathing attack on the Alkatiri Government for its failure to deliver benefits to ordinary Timorese and for its blatant excesses.
"We are more dependent than ever, living from the power and skills of others," the former guerilla leader said. "It is the sickness that affects many parties and newly independent countries of inefficiency, corruption and political instability, where those who govern live well, and the people live in poverty."
Around Dili it isn't hard to find examples of personal excess among East Timor's leadership group, Mr Gusmao excluded. Just out of town, on the road to Dollar Beach where the foreigners like to spend their weekends, a huge and expensive house has been under construction for the past few months. At first glance it looks like a hotel, but it is in fact the new home of Foreign Minister Jose Ramos-Horta.
In a country suffering from drought, 90 per cent unemployment and the lingering trauma of a brutal Indonesian occupation, Ramos-Horta's grandiose building project stands out like a pimple a symbol that, in the short time since independence, East Timor had indeed begun separating into two nations the Portuguese-speaking elite and the Bahasa Indonesian and Tetum-speaking poor.
The issue of language is an important one in East Timor. English and Indonesian are seen as the languages of trade, but the Alkatiri Government is busy trying to stamp out their usage in favour of a return to Portuguese.
Many are suspicious and accuse Portugal of trying to bribe its way back into a position of influence in its former colony. To outsiders, the Alkatiri Government's preference for Portuguese is surprising indeed, particularly given the fact that virtually all East Timorese under the age of 30 speak Indonesian as their first language.
Few of that generation understand Portuguese and there is still widespread resentment and hatred of Lisbon for its perceived abandonment in the 1970s.
Yet Portuguese, along with Tetum, is the declared national language of East Timor and all schools are forced to teach it. But as with so much else in East Timorese society, the Government's insistence has only led to further dissension and disillusionment.
Even among the very young, resentment of the Dili administration has taken root. In the village of Fahilebo, in the mountainous Liquica district, a teacher proudly shows off his refurbished classroom. The class is doing well for such a poor area; it has books and a blackboard, but what I immediately notice upon entering is that the lessons are being conducted only in Tetum.
"Why are they not learning Portuguese as the Government has directed?" I ask. "Because Portuguese is considered a useless language," comes the reply. "If they can't learn Indonesian or English, they would rather speak Tetum."
Like all developing countries, and East Timor is the world's sixth-poorest, the streets are always full of people. In Dili, and in the countryside, young and old alike have little to do. People don't look downtrodden, but they wear the faces of the disenfranchised and the ignored. After six months of independence they see no real or meaningful improvement in the country's economic condition.
More than 60 per cent of the population continues to live on less than $3 a day. The country's farmers have seen the price for their coffee drop from $2 a kilogram under the Indonesians to 80c under the Alkatiri Government, and they have watched prices for basic essentials in Dili skyrocket because of the influx of cash-rich UN staff. Even among the nation's large international community, for whom conditions are comfortable, there is constant talk of corruption and waste.
There is no money, the Government complains, no money for the legal system, no money for infrastructure, no money for the basics. But everyone knows there is always money for a trip to Lisbon or Madrid, or even Portuguese-speaking Mozambique, if you are among the political elite.
Last week in Dili it was very hard to get an interview with anyone in the Government in a position of seniority. They were all overseas, it seemed. Benevides Correia is the respected president of the East Timorese Lawyers' Association. He is also the director of Liberta a non-government organisation which provides free legal aid. Benevides knows all too well the feelings of injustice among the East Timorese population.
"There is no foreign investment in this country," he says, "in East Timor for the time being, it is very hard to get a job. Particularly the young generation, they are trying to get a job, but where is the enterprise where they can get a job?"
Recently Mr Correia led a month-long strike by the country's legal profession. Although the lawyers have returned to work, like everyone else they have a long list of outstanding grievances the failure of the Government to establish an appeals court, the failure of the Government to properly fund the Public Defender's Office, and the outright refusal of the Government to seek the establishment of an International Crimes Tribunal for fear of angering neighbouring Indonesia.
And, on top of all that, once again the issue of language is never far away.
Even in the courts, the elite's love affair with Portuguese is causing massive problems. There is congestion at all levels as courtroom testimony is routinely translated into four languages Tetum, English, Portuguese and Indonesian. In recent months the Government has also been actively soliciting Portuguese-speaking judges from Angola and Mozambique (two other former colonies of Portugal) ahead of more experienced English-speaking judges. This has not only caused annoyance among lawyers, but concern among international observers that East Timor might be filling its judicial system with people who have very little regard for the operations of the law in a free and fully democratic society.
For $20 at Dili Airport you can buy a Xanana Gusmao T-shirt, complete with a picture of the President's smiling face. Since taking on the largely ceremonial role, Gusmao has, for the most part, kept a low profile.
In the minds of most Timorese he is above the mess of East Timor's political landscape. Whether in future months he will be able to enjoy his semi-retirement is questionable. Still more uncertain will be his ability to bring the nation together and back on a course to stability. East Timorese have been through much worse than the violence of this past week. In 1999 more than 70 per cent of the country's infrastructure was destroyed. By contrast the destruction of recent days has been mild indeed. But what has been permanently damaged has been the new nation's reputation.
"East Timor's a bit of a basket case," said someone at my son's child-care centre in suburban Darwin. "What's the matter with them?" asked someone else. "Why are they destroying what we've given them?" International goodwill and understanding is fleeting indeed.
[Antony Funnell is a Darwin-based freelance journalist and former senior producer of the ABC's Asian satellite TV service ATV News.]