Timor watch: "We were always asking why...": but are
things improving?
DILI: 5th July 2006 -- An alert listener/reader has
forwarded the transcript of the briefest of interviews aired on the ABC
(Australia's) 'AM' program. The interview was conducted in Dili
by the ABC Foreign Affairs reporter, Peter Cave. The context was
the announcement by the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer,
that Australia has given an extra $4 million in food aid to East Timor,
enabling the 150,000 (estimated) internally displaced persons to be fed
over the next two weeks.
Peter Cave turns to Bro. Adriano de Jesus, who has
been coordinating the efforts at Don Bosco Comoro. Bro Adriano
has just this to say: "We were always asking why... we see, we think
that now the situation is
quite good and how come you are leaving your house? And they mostly
they have the same reason - that they are more scared now than before,
because there are groups coming at night time or even daytime to their
house and forcing them to leave their house".
So while the overall situation has calmed to a large
extent, the indications are there that this is a longer term problem
with some fundamental issues as yet unresolved. As part of the
same interview, the head of the World Food Program, Tarek Elguindi, has
this to say: "The situation is bad. You have to consider that even
before the crisis
the malnutrition rate is high. It's a chronic malnutrition. The poverty
rate is quite high. It's equal to one of the worst countries in
Africa". Even the commander of Australian military forces in
Timor, Brigadier Mick Slater, who has overseen a degree of general
control around Dili, says that it "is not simply a matter of saying:
'It's all safe. Head home'. Many of them don't have homes to go to. We
are working a plan with the United Nations so that we can relocate
refugees from the camps, by community groups, back into suburbs within
the city. So what we'll do is identify the suburb that is most
likely to be successful quickly. We will put an increased security
force in there to make sure they know it's safe. We'll get the
non-government organisations to provide the humanitarian assistance
that they need within the community to draw them back into the
community".
We can understand, then, that we should not forget
the work of our Salesian Brothers and Sisters in East Timor, even if
the recent circumstances have slipped from the front pages of most of
the world's dailies.
___________________
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