austraLasia 1603
Timor watch: "We were always asking why...": but are things improving?
DILI: 5th July 2006 -- An alert listener/reader has forwarded the transcript of the briefest of interviews aired on the ABC (Australia's) 'AM' program. The interview was conducted in Dili by the ABC Foreign Affairs reporter, Peter Cave. The context was the announcement by the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, that Australia has given an extra $4 million in food aid to East Timor, enabling the 150,000 (estimated) internally displaced persons to be fed over the next two weeks.
Peter Cave turns to Bro. Adriano de Jesus, who has been coordinating the efforts at Don Bosco Comoro. Bro Adriano has just this to say: "We were always asking why... we see, we think that now the situation is quite good and how come you are leaving your house? And they mostly they have the same reason - that they are more scared now than before, because there are groups coming at night time or even daytime to their house and forcing them to leave their house".
So while the overall situation has calmed to a large extent, the indications are there that this is a longer term problem with some fundamental issues as yet unresolved. As part of the same interview, the head of the World Food Program, Tarek Elguindi, has this to say: "The situation is bad. You have to consider that even before the crisis the malnutrition rate is high. It's a chronic malnutrition. The poverty rate is quite high. It's equal to one of the worst countries in Africa". Even the commander of Australian military forces in Timor, Brigadier Mick Slater, who has overseen a degree of general control around Dili, says that it "is not simply a matter of saying: 'It's all safe. Head home'. Many of them don't have homes to go to. We are working a plan with the United Nations so that we can relocate refugees from the camps, by community groups, back into suburbs within the city. So what we'll do is identify the suburb that is most likely to be successful quickly. We will put an increased security force in there to make sure they know it's safe. We'll get the non-government organisations to provide the humanitarian assistance that they need within the community to draw them back into the community".
We can understand, then, that we should not forget the work of our Salesian Brothers and Sisters in East Timor, even if the recent circumstances have slipped from the front pages of most of the world's dailies.
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AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Try out BoscoWiki to be interactive. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world.
Timor watch: "We were always asking why...": but are things improving?
DILI: 5th July 2006 -- An alert listener/reader has forwarded the transcript of the briefest of interviews aired on the ABC (Australia's) 'AM' program. The interview was conducted in Dili by the ABC Foreign Affairs reporter, Peter Cave. The context was the announcement by the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, that Australia has given an extra $4 million in food aid to East Timor, enabling the 150,000 (estimated) internally displaced persons to be fed over the next two weeks.
Peter Cave turns to Bro. Adriano de Jesus, who has been coordinating the efforts at Don Bosco Comoro. Bro Adriano has just this to say: "We were always asking why... we see, we think that now the situation is quite good and how come you are leaving your house? And they mostly they have the same reason - that they are more scared now than before, because there are groups coming at night time or even daytime to their house and forcing them to leave their house".
So while the overall situation has calmed to a large extent, the indications are there that this is a longer term problem with some fundamental issues as yet unresolved. As part of the same interview, the head of the World Food Program, Tarek Elguindi, has this to say: "The situation is bad. You have to consider that even before the crisis the malnutrition rate is high. It's a chronic malnutrition. The poverty rate is quite high. It's equal to one of the worst countries in Africa". Even the commander of Australian military forces in Timor, Brigadier Mick Slater, who has overseen a degree of general control around Dili, says that it "is not simply a matter of saying: 'It's all safe. Head home'. Many of them don't have homes to go to. We are working a plan with the United Nations so that we can relocate refugees from the camps, by community groups, back into suburbs within the city. So what we'll do is identify the suburb that is most likely to be successful quickly. We will put an increased security force in there to make sure they know it's safe. We'll get the non-government organisations to provide the humanitarian assistance that they need within the community to draw them back into the community".
We can understand, then, that we should not forget the work of our Salesian Brothers and Sisters in East Timor, even if the recent circumstances have slipped from the front pages of most of the world's dailies.
___________________
AustraLasia is an email service for the Salesian Family of Asia Pacific. It also functions as an agency for ANS based in Rome. For queries please contact admin@bosconet.aust.com Try out BoscoWiki to be interactive. For RSS feeds, subscribe to www.bosconet.aust.com/RSS/rssala.xm A separate service entirely is called F/OSSERVATORE to help us keep abreast of trends in the digital world.
