Things might be looking up for Australia’s fledgling neighbour, East Timor. International aid agencies are helping people to put the past behind them and, given the country’s tumultuous history, that is no small feat.
“I have a story,” she says quietly. Aged 33, Dirse Desilva Soares’ future looks bright – she is currently completing a teaching practicum in Perth – but the story she tells is one of destruction and death.
From the tiny village of Laklubar in the mountainous interior of East Timor, Dirse’s story of ongoing violence is typical in this tiny Catholic country located less than 700km from Darwin.
Invaded by Indonesia in 1975 and occupied until an Australian-led UN peacekeeping mission brought peace in 1999, up to 200,000 people died at the hands of Indonesian soldiers and local militias, around a third of the population.
Dirse’s shy smile and softly-spoken broken English belies the tragedy of her tale.
“In Timor Leste [the Portuguese pronunciation of East Timor], many villages destroyed. Many fires. Many people killed.”
In the lead-up to the 1999 referendum, resident Indonesians wanted the Timorese people to vote for autonomy under Indonesian rule, Dirse says, announcing their intention to wreak havoc if the vote was for independence.
“If you vote for independence, you all will die”, Dirse says, referring to the Indonesians living in her village. “They say they will kill all, destroy all.”
But the Timorese people ignored the threats and voted overwhelmingly for independence. The Indonesians delivered on their threat, destroying 70 per cent of the country’s infrastructure and killing many Timorese in a final burst of rage.
Dirse was only 21 when the post-referendum violence took place.
“It was very, very bad”, she says, though her village was comparatively lucky, spared much of the destruction owing to the presence of an Indonesian military outpost in the village; “but many other villages were burned,” she says.
Hundreds were killed during this period and over 200,000 fled to neighbouring West Timor, with the last of the refugees only returning home in 2000.
Even before that, at the tender age of 11, Dirse experienced the trauma of war firsthand when militias regularly came and raided her village in the middle of the night for food and supplies.
“When evening come, don’t feel safe sleeping at home, because afraid for the Fretilin [the anti-Indonesian, socialist militia], they come and steal.” One night in particular will always stick in Dirse’s mind.
“They [Fretilin] came very close to our house, we get up and go out to sleep in the jungle.”
“But my Mum and Dad forgot me! I was still asleep in the house!”
Dirse’s father returned to find her still asleep, taking her from harm’s way.
It is taking years for East Timor to recover from the decades of destruction that occurred under Indonesian rule. Around 41 per cent of the population still live below the poverty line and several parts of the country still required food aid from the international community as late as 2007.
Although East Timor’s financial situation is improving with the profits from its oil and gas resources, the industry has created very few jobs for Timorese people and most remain in subsistence farming.
But the international community has not ignored the plight of East Timor, with Catholic aid agencies in particular providing invaluable services and training.
Dirse has just completed a course at the teaching college run by the Marist Brothers, the only training facility for teachers in the entire country.
Located in Baucau, a pretty city of 50,000 located three hours east of the capital Dili, the college offers three-year courses and produces around 40 to 45 new graduates per year to serve in the country’s fledgling education system.
Until recently, many children from rural areas could only access education up until year seven.
Most families can now access school up to year ten as well as some pre-primary facilities, while towns and cities offer up to year twelve.
The teachers are trained to teach in Tetum [tay-tum], East Timor’s most common local language, as well as Portuguese, which is the country’s official language.
Dirse’s reasons for her career choice are simple: “I want to be a teacher because Timor Leste is [a] new country, and also there are not many primary teachers, so I want to become a teacher to help the kids.”
While Dirse is hoping to be assigned to teach primary classes in the district of Manatutu between Dili and Baucau, she is currently enjoying three months in Perth where she is learning English and doing a practicum at Calista Primary School.
Dirse was also lucky enough to have been involved with another Catholic charity called Centro Treino Integral e Desenvolvimento (CTID) [Centre for Integral Training and Development] operated by the Canossian Sisters.
The charity was established in 2000 in honour of Mother Erminia Cazzaniga FdCC and Mother Celeste Carvalho FdCC who were killed by Indonesians in the Massacre of Lautem in the far east of the country in 1999.
Based in Baucau, the CTID is run to empower women of all ages to earn their own income stream, independent of their husbands and fathers for the first time, as well as providing community development services.
CTID volunteers travel to small villages and support women by teaching them small business skills and providing English lessons to help them sell their handicrafts.
Among other initiatives, women make soap by hand, tamarind candies and virgin coconut oil, which can be used as a body lotion, for cooking and as a medicine.
The women also create textiles using a traditional East Timorese style of hand-weaving called tais, using techniques passed down from generation to generation.
An important part of East Timorese culture, the tais are very colourful and a popular purchase among locals and international visitors, as bags or clothes.
CTID also provide micro credit to graduates to enable women to buy essentials to start small businesses, such as sewing machines and cooking utensils.
Practical training is also provided through a hotel and restaurant management course to help staff the country’s small but growing tourism sector.
As well as choosing to specialise in either food production, house keeping or bar and restaurant work, students are also taught accounting and computer skills, English and Portuguese.
The ten-month unit is also open to men, as are other community courses such as those on ecological awareness and environmental protection.
CTID is also at the forefront of peace education, attempting to overcome the feelings of hatred and animosity that are still strong for many in this country, with violent clashes occurring as recently as 2006 between political factions from the East and West.
As war leads to structures of violence and hatred, peace education is vital to stopping the self-perpetuating cycles of conflict.
As the students come from all over East Timor, the provision of shared accommodation has been invaluable in breaking down barriers born of geography, as friendships quickly build.
But scripture is also a powerful tool for bringing peace.
Students frequently study the First Epistle to the Corinthians, as well as discussing the meaning of “love thy enemy”.
One of the CTID volunteers, and the host of Dirse while she is staying in Perth, is Alison Dyall, who has done ongoing stints in East Timor since 2001.
She notes that one of the priorities of CTID is “giving the young women an alternative to farming”, as previously “there was nothing for the young women”.
“We’re really looking at teaching the young women skills so they can then produce saleable goods in order to generate an income stream for themselves, their families and their villages.”
Alison, who has volunteered in East Timor so many times she’s lost count, is open about her faith’s role in why she originally made the decision to go.
“It was a call of God that was laid on me fairly heavily, this was my call, my mission.
“We live in such a blessed country and other people are so needy. And East Timor is so close!
“I also thought the Australian government had treated the East Timorese really shabbily, and I wanted to get involved and make amends, in a very small way”.
Dirse smiles while Alison tells her stories. It is clear she thinks Alison’s efforts have been worthwhile.