| Subject: SMH: Report
from Waimori, E Timor: Discipline, dog and diarrhoea Sydney Morning Herald Saturday, October 2, 1999
Discipline, dog and diarrhoea
After years of hardship the Falintil guerillas are going
home. JOANNA JOLLY reports from Waimori, East Timor.
The man in the Winnie the Pooh T-shirt with a gun orders us
to wait at the hilltop. His commander is angry with a group of fellow fighters who have
turned up in a stolen TNI truck.
"We did not know what to expect when we saw the
truck," he says, even though the fighters have stuck a piece of paper on the
windscreen bearing the words "Falintil commander".
This is the first checkpoint on the way to the cantonment
camp of Waimori in the central mountains of East Timor.
Here, 30 kilometres up a dry river bed in a mountain gorge,
Falintil fighters are waiting for orders to give up their 24-year resistance war and
return to the destroyed towns and cities of East Timor.
But chief Falintil commander Taur Matan Ruak says his men
will not leave the mountain until safety is assured.
"As long as the TNI [Indonesian Army] are still in
East Timor, Falintil will remain in the mountains. We have not set a date to leave our
cantonment," he says.
Since July, the 1,500-strong East Timorese guerilla force
has been confined to four cantonment areas in the mountains of East Timor as part of a
disarmament agreement made with the United Nations and pro-Indonesian militias.
The militias reneged on the agreement almost immediately.
Staged shows of weapons surrender preceded brutal militia attacks. But Falintil troops
have kept their promise, honouring orders by exiled leader Xanana Gusmao. Since July, they
say, they have fought only in self-defence.
Commander Falur Rate Laek says: "It makes me feel mad.
I feel so sick and sad, but I must obey my commander." The frustration felt by many
fighters extends to Interfet, which they believe has been too cautious in securing the
territory.
But frustration is kept in check. Discipline has remained
the trademark of this guerilla army which has resisted Indonesia since its 1975 invasion.
There is little to do in this camp of dusty earth and
bamboo huts with roofs made from palm fronds, but the fighters wait patiently.
Routines are constructed around military training and work.
Men build and repair huts, women cook and clean.
Sophisticated technology, satellite dishes and television
sets transported to the camp in a six-hour trek up the river bed mean Falintil is not
completely cut off from the rest of the world.
But life is not easy. Until a specialised team of
Australian soldiers arrived last week to set up a clinic, there were only out-of-date
drugs and traditional medicines to treat the many cases of malaria, dysentery and
diarrhoea among the refugees.
Food is a problem. At the end of Timor's long dry season,
the denuded earth cannot support any crops. Two months ago fighters were forced to eat
dogs. Now they dine on charred monkey flesh and buffalo intestines, served with small
portions of rice.
American ration packs have been dropped, stamped "A
Gift from the People of the United States". But refugees have become sick with
diarrhoea because they are unaccustomed to preservatives in the ready-made meals of rice
and beans, peanut butter and strawberry jam.
Commander Adrianono da Camero explains how he gives
"morality lessons" to homesick fighters.
"I must tell them about politics and discipline. I
give them advice about the aims of our struggle. Dead or alive, we are for
independence".
As TNI began withdrawing from the area around the camp,
Falintil fighters left the safety of Waimori to rescue locals before they were forcibly
removed to West Timor by the TNI. In the nearby village of Laleia, Indonesian policemen
surrendered their weapons to Falintil without a fight. Further west in the town of
Manatuto, the situation was more dangerous as fighters came under heavy shelling from
departing TNI soldiers.
By the time they reached the town the buildings had been
destroyed and the population gone. Only a group of 16 militia hiding from the TNI was
left. Now they are held in a bamboo hut guarded by seven armed men.
Falintil commanders say they are keeping the men for
interrogation before handing them to Interfet. They want an international court of justice
to try men like these and Indonesian police and soldiers responsible for the killing,
looting and destruction.
Commander Taur Matan Ruak says: "We must bring the TNI
to court. The militia can stay in East Timor if they want to. We know who has committed
crime and we want this to be investigated."
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