Marianne Kearney, Jakarta – East Timor's Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri avoided a leadership challenge this week but it is doubtful his rule will ensure any peace in the world's youngest nation.
Thousands of residents who fled the capital Dili in the wake of the deadly April 28 riots are still taking refuge in churches, Catholic seminaries or their home villages, reportedly too terrified to return until after the government has made peace with the "petitioners" – the nearly 600 sacked soldiers who sparked the riots.
Others say they are waiting out the ongoing congress of the ruling party Fretilin, which saw Mr Jose Luis Guterres, East Timor's ambassador to the United Nations, drop his bid for Mr Alkatiri's position, complaining that a vote by a show of hands – rather than secret ballot – was undemocratic.
I heard a rumour
The threat of further instability prompted Australia to send warships near East Timor waters last week, and Prime Minister John Howard, in his recent visit to the United States, had expressed fears that civil war could break out in Timor.
No one is sure whether the rumours that more than 100 "petitioners" might launch an attack from their base in Aliau, outside Dili, are based on fact or simply show the nervousness of the population.
"People are still in a traumatising situation because there are rumours that some political leaders deploy arms to parts of the population... the rumours create confusion," said Father Martinho da Silva Gusmao from the Catholic Church's peace and justice commission.
The tiny capital of war-shattered East Timor has been awash in rumours of an impending clash ever since the April 28 riots, which saw at least five people killed. Some rumours warned of a fight between the police and the military; others of a struggle within the army. Some even speculated that a coup d'etat was in the works.
Having suffered the brutal 1974 Indonesian invasion and 24 years of occupation – plus the retaliatory violence unleashed after the population voted for independence under a UN plebiscite in 1999 - Dili residents did not want to wait around to see if the rumours were true.
Instead, they voted with their feet. Residents estimate that up to 70,000 of the seaside town's 167,000-strong population had fled. By May 6, Dili was a ghost town.
"We heard from relatives who have someone in police intel (intelligence) that they were told to send their wives and kids out. That's why they panicked," said one Dili resident who did not want to be named.
To talk is to act
As rumours swirled around the capital, many said they believed the whisperings could be part of a political struggle. "In this government there are some people who want to create instability, who want to gain power. They might want to make Mari (Alkatiri) look weak," said Mr da Silva Gusmao.
Another power struggle is taking place between leading freedom fighters, he said. Mr Taur Matan Ruak, the head of the armed forces, has reportedly fallen out with President Xanana Gusmao, the one-time leader of the guerilla forces, over the President's refusal to pursue the issue of human rights abuses by the Indonesian military during their brutal rule.
"Xanana has left behind the friends, the companions that he had during the war for 24 years, by being conciliatory to Indonesia," said Mr da Silva Gusmao.
Mr Xanana and Mr Alkatiri say that East Timor cannot hold the Indonesians accountable for these abuses. This is deeply unpopular among the East Timorese who, unlike Mr Alkatiri, endured more than two decades of military rule. The Prime Minister returned from exile in Angola in 1999.
Others think the rumours could have been fed to the police by interior minister Rogerio Lobato, who is generally viewed as a trouble-maker. He served a five-year jail term in Angola for smuggling diamonds. Mr Alkatiri blamed the unrest on groups trying to oust him, labelling it a "constitutional coup".
Man of the moment
Regardless of whether the unrest was cynically manipulated, the current government has been made to look ineffectual.
The Dili exodus, the mass of rumours and the government's failure to counter them has had the same effect as a bloodless coup. Mr Alkatiri may have remained in control of his party but he faces an uphill battle, observers say.
Mr Alkatiri is not popular in East Timor and has even antagonised many of his former supporters, says Mr da Silva Gusmao. "It seems Mari has no idea how to unite this country, he only creates conflict between one class and another. For years his government has caused disintegration within various groups," he said.
A senior Fretilin member, Mr Vicente Ximenes, said many party members are unhappy with Mr Alkatiri's autocratic manner, and blame him for mishandling the conflict. Others say Mr Alkatiri, a former exile, is out of touch with the majority of citizens.
East and west
The dismissed soldiers initially deserted, complaining that soldiers from East Timor's eastern districts had been favoured above those from the west. Such complaints mirror wider ethnic tensions, say observers.
Mr Alkatiri claims his government is already working with most of the "petitioners", the local term for the sacked soldiers. But analysts say the unrest has exposed deeper problems such as poverty, high unemployment and rifts between easterners and those from western East Timor.
"I think the problem will not end (with Alkatiri being elected), there are problems between East and West, like Indonesia in May 1998 when the Chinese were attacked," said Mr Virgilio Guterres, the head of East Timor's state broadcaster.
Others, referring to figures such as Mr Taur Matan Ruak and even President Xanana Gusmao, say that, with so many different forces either blaming Mr Alkatiri for the conflict, or manipulating it for their own advantage, peace will be difficult.
"The other institutional actors who are extremely powerful are still playing a role. There are so many actors, it (the end of the Fretilin congress) won't put an end to the unrest," said one foreign observer.