`People asked why we did not accept fate. But we

had one thing they did not know about. We trusted God. This was a victory of faith.'
Benedict Rogers on the contribution of Bishop Carlos Belo, who has just retired through ill-health, to the independence of East Timor
fter East Timor finally became an independent nation in May this year, ending centuries of foreign occupation, it disappeared from the world media agenda.
While no one underestimated the challenges the halfisland faced as the world's newest and Asia's poorest nation, the expectation was for the country to put its violent past behind it and get on with the task of nationbuilding.
The events of the past few weeks have shattered that hope. First came the news that the country's spiritual leader and Nobel Laureate Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo was resigning due to ill-health. Then came the worst riots since the violence surrounding the referendum on independence in 1999. In just a few weeks the fledgling nation has once again been plunged into turbulence.
East Timor is no stranger to bloodshed. In 1975, after the Portuguese withdrew from the colony, Indonesia launched a brutal invasion. Over the course of their 24year occupation, over 200,000 — a quarter of the population — died.
After the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesia's new President, BJ Habibie, agreed to hold a referendum on East Timor's future. In August 1999, despite huge intimidation from the Indonesian military and their militia proxies, over 90 per cent of those entitled to vote turned out, and 78.5 per cent opted for independence. Indonesia's response was to unleash an orgy of violence resulting in the destruction of 80 per cent of the buildings in Dili and the deaths of over 1,000 people. More than 200,000 people were displaced. Among the targets of the militia was Bishop Belo. In the week before the vote, a flier was circulated in Dili warning the bishop that "for will soon be covered in the colour of your own blood".
Bishop Belo's resignation is then, in some respects, no surprise. In a statement announcing his departure he said he was "suffering from both physical and mental fatigue that will require a long period of recuperation". Although he did not say so explicitly, the likely cause is the stress he has been through since becoming the Apostolic Administrator of Dili in 1983.
From the very beginning, Bishop Belo's life was not easy once he replaced Dom Martinho da Costa Lopes as head of the Catholic Church in East Timor at the age of just 35. He was viewed by many as a compromise candidate who would be more conciliatory to Indonesian rule than his predecessor. For this reason some priests boycotted his installation. But Bishop Belo, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996, soon proved that he could not remain silent. In 1989, at great personal risk, he wrote a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General, calling for a referendum on East Timor's future, and making uttering chilling warning: "We are dying as a people and a nation". It was 10 years before his request was answered.
According to Bishop Hilton Deakin, an Australian Catholic leader and long-term East Timor activist, that letter to the United Nations was the making of Bishop Belo. "It put him on a different level", he believes. "After a great deal of cold shouldering and rejection even from church bodies, people began to listen to him in different ways".
The turning point for Bishop Belo, said Bishop Deakin, was a visit to an area of the country that had just experienced a dreadful massacre at the hands of the Indonesians. "When he went there, there were no villages where there had been villages, there were no people where there had been hundreds of people," Bishop Deakin said. "He suddenly started walking up a hill and saw a foot sticking out of the ground. He saw pieces of people strewn around. He became quite ill. While he wanted to concede as much goodwill as he could to the Indonesians, this was when it changed".
Under Bishop Belo, the Church's contribution to East Timor's struggle grew. He became one of the three internationally recognised leaders of his country, along with guerrilla leader Xanana Gusmdo and diplomatic representative Jose Ramos Horta. Bishop Deakin believes Bishop Belo's leadership has been "extraordinarily significant" to the cause of justice. "All the years I have seen him his door was always open to people who had problems", said Bishop Deakin. Under Indonesian rule, the use of Portuguese and the native language, Tetun, were banned in schools and work places. East Timorese were required to speak Bahasa Indonesia. But one of Bishop Belo's most important contributions to the struggle was his decision to hold all Masses in Tetun, rather than Bahasa Indonesia. "That preserved a cultural place for the things the Indonesians wanted to destroy — they had banned it in the schools and everywhere else. He said they will not ban it in the churches," said Bishop Deakin.
The event in the post-referendum violence in 1999 which finally shook the international community into action was the attack on Bishop Belo's house. Hundreds of people had sought refuge in the grounds of his home. Just outside the gates militia roared around on motorbikes and in trucks, terrorising the neighbourhood. For several days there was a stand-off. Then on September 6th, two days after the referendum result, the militia went in and began their slaughter. They set the house alight.
Bishop Belo faced an awful choice — to stay with his people and be killed, or flee and tell the world what was happening. He chose the latter course, with reluctance. When Bishop Belo reached Darwin, Bishop Deakin telephoned him. "Bishop Belo was basically pushed out of East Timor", Bishop Deakin recalls. "He was advised to go because he was a danger to anybody who was found to be in his company: they were out to get him. It was traumatic", he adds. But while devastated, Bishop Belo was not destroyed. "He had got to Darwin, and I rang him there. I thought I was going to ring a broken man but I didn't —he wasn't broken. He was shattered but he still had it in him".
Last week East Timor experienced yet more violence as student protesters clashed with police and United Nations peacekeepers. They set fire to an Australian-owned supermarket, Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri's residence and a mosque, and attacked the Parliament building. Although the riots were blamed on the high rate of unemployment, poverty and lack of opportunities for young Timorese, Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta said he suspected former proIndonesian militia to have been behind the unrest. "There are elements behind the events, among the demonstrators, that are supposedly linked to ex-militia groups, who have tried to take advantage of the situation to cause disturbances", he said.
The violence highlighted the importance of reconciliation in the process of building an independent, democratic East Timor. In this, the Catholic. Church has a crucial role to play. Individual priests and nuns who were active during the struggle for independence are well-placed to be a calming influence on the situation now.
Father Jovito Araujo, vicechairman of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation, for example, recognises the need for justice and reconciliation to go hand in hand. "Some people say forget the past, but it is something which sounds beautiful but is not easy to do", he said. The Church must help the victims to forgive their attackers. "If we talk about reconciliation, it is a theological expression, it is the language of the Church", said Father Jovito. "The whole pastoral care of the Church is about reconciliation — how to live in peace, live in harmony, how to bring them to a better way to understand the Christian faith".
Sinter Maria Lourdes,
a 40-year-old pioneering nun, is another person who could help to prevent further unrest. Founder of the Secular Institute of Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Sister Lourdes is East Timor's Mother Teresa. These days, she is focused on helping build the new nation. Her emphasis is not only on helping the poor, it is on equipping people to be independent. Throughout many of East Timor's villages, she and her members teach people handicrafts, agriculture, nutrition and primary healthcare, as well as praying, singing and talking with them.
Last year Sister Lourdes made a visit to the refugee camps in Indonesian West Timor, to encourage the East Timorese refugees to return home. But the camps were still controlled by the militia, who remained violent and intimidating. Each day she would hold meetings with groups of refugees to tell them about the situation in East Timor, and militiamen would ride into the but on their motorbikes and sit right in front of her, revving their engines, in an effort to frighten her away. But Sister Lourdes is not someone easily scared. Instead, she met their challenge with love. "Will you come home?", she said directly to the militia. "Will you come home to the Father's house?" At that point, she recalls, many of these militia broke down in tears and repented. Some converted,and joined in her efforts to encourage the refugees to return home.
At midnight on May 20th, as the flag was raised and the fireworks were filling the night sky, Father Fransisco Maria Fernandes, the first Timorese to be exiled from his country in 1975, was asked whether he believed he would ever live to see an independent East Timor. With a big smile, he said: "Yes I did. All around the world throughout the 24 years of our resistance, many people told me we were fighting a losing battle and that we had no hope. People asked why we did not accept fate and give up. But we had one thing they did not know about.
"We trusted God. This was a victory of faith". East Timor will require more victories of faith in the future to overcome the social, economic and political challenges it faces as an independent nation.
Benedict Rogers is a freelance journalist. He has visited East Timor five times and is writing a book about the East Timorese independence struggle, called Against the Odds.