More troops are pouring into East Timor, so apart from the Ozzies, we now have Kiwi, Malaysian and Portuguese troops here and yet more journalists. The biggest story of yesterday was the Ozzy troops setting up a food station in the middle of Dili to hand out free rice. Given the normal abject poverty
of East Timor, where many people go without rice in everyday life, no wonder they got 20,000 people queuing for free food. We watched the BBC World News coverage of the widespread violence throughout Dili. According to the reporter, no place was free of violence or safe in the whole of the city, and the food queue was a mass riot. Ann and I looked at each other, and then around the restaurant we had just walked to, had we missed something and walked there with our eyes shut? What amazed us was that the BBC led with a story on East Timor when the absolute tragedy of the Indonesian earthquake should have warranted priority. The report in The Times was the most sensationalist article I've read so far, it’s infuriating, because now I can see how friends and relatives can be completely misled about the safety of their loved ones by watching and reading this coverage.
I'm not denying that there is a very real problem here, but its not army versus police, its gangs of boys looting and torching who have no problem at all with the Malai (westerners) here. Shots are being fired but mostly in the air for bravado, stones are being throw and cars being torched. In fact, Wayne does not like going into non troubled areas for fear of inciting the scroates to play up to the camera. The difference is with him, he lives here. The death toll is reported at 11 people at the moment, 11 too many, but a small number if you compare it to other incidents like this around the world. Only this morning Wayne got the news that a very good friend of his was killed in Iraq.
Restaurants are bravely soldiering on with very limited menus. Everything is served with rice as potatoes and vegetables are in very scarce supply. Flip used to own the Dili Club on the seafront until it was commandeered by the government to build the Chinese Embassy. So he reopened near an area called Komoro, which has seen much of the fighting. The Dili Club is famous for its quiz nights and pizza. Not that the pizza is the best in town, but he’s the only one that delivers. Having been closed for most of the week, he opened for 2 hours and took $500 in pizza delivery orders, that’s a hell of a lot of pizza.
Ann went to pay her internet bill, the office of which was swarming with press trying to feed their stories. The owner was sitting on his balcony with a pair of binoculars, Ann thought he may be watching the battleships, but no, he was watching a whale in the bay spurting water from its blowhole. Surprisingly enough we haven’t had mass cancellations of tourists for later in the year, I guess divers are made of sterner stuff. I saw the same thing in Egypt after the Sharm bomb, the dive industry wasn’t affected as badly as I thought it would be.
We have a sense of Déjà Vu every evening when we venture two doors down to the Esplanada. Its getting very boring, but you have to get out of the house. The same faces every night, the press and the Embassy staff. According to the Embassy, half the Brits are still here, a hardy bunch. The Australian troops have issued two numbers for people to call if they see trouble in their area; the problem is getting this information to the local people. Many are fleeing their homes with their possessions because they don’t feel safe, but have no idea where to go. Whereas the troops are now encouraging people to return home so normality can be restored. We were watching a beautiful sunset when this double mattress walked past, you could hardly see the guy behind it. One of the press was running around the street taking photographs of a lady heavily laden with her possessions on her head. He then stopped to get a different shot and the lady had to struggle into the road to walk round him. I ripped him off a strip for that.
The government have been in meetings all day, and everyone is awaiting the outcome. There is not a simple solution but hopefully there will be one that sees peace restored in this beautiful country very soon. And I can get back to diving some of the best reefs in the world.
of East Timor, where many people go without rice in everyday life, no wonder they got 20,000 people queuing for free food. We watched the BBC World News coverage of the widespread violence throughout Dili. According to the reporter, no place was free of violence or safe in the whole of the city, and the food queue was a mass riot. Ann and I looked at each other, and then around the restaurant we had just walked to, had we missed something and walked there with our eyes shut? What amazed us was that the BBC led with a story on East Timor when the absolute tragedy of the Indonesian earthquake should have warranted priority. The report in The Times was the most sensationalist article I've read so far, it’s infuriating, because now I can see how friends and relatives can be completely misled about the safety of their loved ones by watching and reading this coverage.I'm not denying that there is a very real problem here, but its not army versus police, its gangs of boys looting and torching who have no problem at all with the Malai (westerners) here. Shots are being fired but mostly in the air for bravado, stones are being throw and cars being torched. In fact, Wayne does not like going into non troubled areas for fear of inciting the scroates to play up to the camera. The difference is with him, he lives here. The death toll is reported at 11 people at the moment, 11 too many, but a small number if you compare it to other incidents like this around the world. Only this morning Wayne got the news that a very good friend of his was killed in Iraq.
Restaurants are bravely soldiering on with very limited menus. Everything is served with rice as potatoes and vegetables are in very scarce supply. Flip used to own the Dili Club on the seafront until it was commandeered by the government to build the Chinese Embassy. So he reopened near an area called Komoro, which has seen much of the fighting. The Dili Club is famous for its quiz nights and pizza. Not that the pizza is the best in town, but he’s the only one that delivers. Having been closed for most of the week, he opened for 2 hours and took $500 in pizza delivery orders, that’s a hell of a lot of pizza.
Ann went to pay her internet bill, the office of which was swarming with press trying to feed their stories. The owner was sitting on his balcony with a pair of binoculars, Ann thought he may be watching the battleships, but no, he was watching a whale in the bay spurting water from its blowhole. Surprisingly enough we haven’t had mass cancellations of tourists for later in the year, I guess divers are made of sterner stuff. I saw the same thing in Egypt after the Sharm bomb, the dive industry wasn’t affected as badly as I thought it would be.
We have a sense of Déjà Vu every evening when we venture two doors down to the Esplanada. Its getting very boring, but you have to get out of the house. The same faces every night, the press and the Embassy staff. According to the Embassy, half the Brits are still here, a hardy bunch. The Australian troops have issued two numbers for people to call if they see trouble in their area; the problem is getting this information to the local people. Many are fleeing their homes with their possessions because they don’t feel safe, but have no idea where to go. Whereas the troops are now encouraging people to return home so normality can be restored. We were watching a beautiful sunset when this double mattress walked past, you could hardly see the guy behind it. One of the press was running around the street taking photographs of a lady heavily laden with her possessions on her head. He then stopped to get a different shot and the lady had to struggle into the road to walk round him. I ripped him off a strip for that.
The government have been in meetings all day, and everyone is awaiting the outcome. There is not a simple solution but hopefully there will be one that sees peace restored in this beautiful country very soon. And I can get back to diving some of the best reefs in the world.
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