Caritas Australia assesses East Timor turmoil

Social justice news
June 2006

Americans still oppose stem cell research that destroys human embryos
Bush praises Catholic Charities’ work in helping immigrants
Caritas Australia assesses East Timor turmoil
Catholic agency says more must be done to fight AIDS
Catholic Relief Services responds to Indonesian earthquake
Help has not reached most devastated area after Java quake
Holy Land: UN and NGOs increase aid appeal
Small arms for the poor
U.S. bishops say public service TV still needs federal mandate
U.S. peace delegation returns from Iran

Caritas Australia assesses East Timor turmoil
Vatican City—On behalf of the Caritas Confederation, Caritas Australia is leading a team charged with assessing the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Dili, East Timor, where more than a month of violent upheaval has left dozens dead and has forced 100,000 people to flee their homes. Food supplies are running low.

Most international non-governmental organizations, including Caritas Australia, earlier had to evacuate international staff as clashes in the capital escalated, with rival gangs burning shops and homes, throwing rocks at each other, and looting anything and everything they could. The gangs are facing off with machetes, knives and slingshots.

Violence has diminished somewhat since the arrival of some 2000 Australian troops sent at the request of the East Timorese government. Smaller forces of New Zealanders and Malaysians have also arrived, and a contingent of Portuguese special forces is expected to help to bring tensions under control. Australian police have also been arriving.

The current crisis was unleashed when the government sacked some 600 of the 1400 troops employed in the national army in March, following demonstrations over pay and working conditions staged throughout February. Many soldiers coming from clans in the country’s west, called Loromonu, claimed to have been discriminated against by clans from the east, called Lorosae, within the military hierarchy.

The soldiers who were fired staged more protests in April, which ended in violence and several deaths.

An estimated 100,000 people have had to flee their homes, many of them taking refuge in some 50 temporary camps in and around Dili, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Many of the displaced are also sheltering in local Catholic institutions, including the Don Bosco Seminary in Comoro and two Cannosian convents in Comoro and Balide. About 3000 people are located at the airport, which has been secured by international forces.

Caritas Australia has so far been providing water, food and non-food emergency items, including bedding, hygiene kits, clothing, and baby food, to the displaced people being housed by the Catholic Church.

With security conditions permitting, Caritas Australia, Trocaire (Ireland), Catholic Relief Services (USA), Caritas New Zealand and Caritas Dili will analyze the strengths of the Caritas confederation on site in order to target areas where relief efforts can be most effective.

Since long-term development goals will be impossible to realize with the gaping rift between the eastern and western clans of East Timor, Caritas will also be exploring ways in which it can bring about peace and reconciliation among the estranged population.

East Timor was recognized as a separate state from Indonesia in 2002, after a 1999 vote for independence that triggered a last spate of bloody violence after years of conflict.

Back to page top