Crisis

11/2/2008

Timor is in crisis. Attempted assassination of the president and the prime minister in the capital Dili this morning.
At least three dead, several wounded. Prime minister has been evacuated to Darwin with bullet wounds. Curfew declared in the late afternoon, we're expecting state of emergency soon.

I found out en route to Dili.
Vehicles being turned away by a new military checkpoint just outside the city. Tension rising among the dozen passengers stuffed into the back of the minivan with me. Ominous snippets filtering to us from shouted warnings of drivers heading the other way: gunfights in the streets, dozens killed, mobs and looting. The women start crying.
Word of violence rapidly puts Timorese on edge - they've been through this too many times. The last outbreak in 2006 saw running gunbattles between the police and mutinous soldiers in Dili's streets, turning into inter-ethnic violence leaving 40 dead and 150,000 in refugee camps.
Our minivan turned back.

Home now.
No electricity, so no TV. The surviving cellphones only do incoming. The radio plays patriotic anthems, punctuated by a grating appeal to 'remain calm'.
Passports, cash and laptops sit in our backpacks, should we need to evacuate (to where?). Yudha gets the golf club, I sleep with the machete. I tell myself that we are fairly safe in Vatunau - agitation rarely reaches this far out into the sticks.

But we legitimately worry for the dozen or so missionaries and friends in Dili.
We worry for Timor. We know maddeningly little about the state of the nation right now, beyond the end of our street. We're sitting on a tinderbox, we don't know if the fuse is alight.
The uncertainty is bewildering.