East Timor districts start anew by cooperating with NGOs

East Timor districts start anew by cooperating with NGOs

By Ati Nurbaiti

DILI (JP): The rains finally poured in late December, too much
in some areas for a good corn harvest. Emergency operations over
the past year have alleviated fear of widespread starvation as
crops and cattle had been abandoned by farmers who fled the
violence with their families.

In the regions of East Timor, now called districts, some
villagers are banding together to make life easier, and by
working with local and international non-governmental
organizations (NGOs).

Now it is safe to work the fields but farmers would have to
raise at least Rp 1 million each for seeds and fertilizers, and
seek help, which is scarce, to work the fields. Workers in Memo,
Maliana regency used to come from across the mountain in
neighboring Atambua in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara or West
Timor.

Carpenters, weavers, fisherfolk and farmers in Maubara and
Maliana in the western region, which is one of Timor's main rice
producers, are new to their work and unsure where their products
or produce will be marketed.

A Japanese Catholic NGO is helping by buying bamboo furniture
from the carpenters in Maubara. Women are selling their woven
tais on the beach for the occasional passer-by. The Dili-based
human rights group, Hak Foundation, which is helping some of
these NGOs get aid says it is picky about which NGOs it assists.

In Kailoku village in Maliana, farmer Joao Soares says farmers
here are getting worried. "UNTAET promised to lend us a tractor,"
he said, referring to the United Nations Transitional
Administration in East Timor. He said it was time to plow, but
there was no sign of the tractor.

Women in Suai, near the southern coast, and Liquica and Ermera
in the west, sell cloth to traders who peddle the handicraft in
Dili's market -- these traders themselves are waiting for their
coffee crop to bear fruit.

"Coffee is only harvested once a year," said a trader from
Ermera, one of Timor's highland coffee producers.

The price of coffee has dropped to about half the price from
Rp 5,500 per kilogram of coffee beans before the 1999 UN-
sponsored referendum.

Gambling

To enhance farmers' income, Minister of Economic Affairs Mari
Alkatiri says the new elected government should first aim to
break the monopoly of America's cooperative association NCBA,
which formerly cooperated with a company run by Indonesian
military personnel.

Annual yields have not much increased the welfare of the
people. "Even before the harvest, men have raised debts and
thrown away money by gambling," says one Dili resident.

Sociologist George J. Aditjondro, in a book which debunks the
myth of Indonesia's contribution to East Timor, says coffee
growers in the former Indonesian province have instead
contributed billions of rupiah to Indonesia, given the lower
price of coffee here compared to other parts of Indonesia.

Quoting reports, George points out that in 1988, the market
price of coffee in neighboring East Nusa Tenggara was Rp 4,000
per kg, while the state-run cooperative in East Timor paid coffee
growers only Rp 1,200 per kg for Robusta and Rp 1,500 per kg for
Arabica coffee.

A micro credit scheme is key to building the economy, says
leader Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao, but first the banking
infrastructure must be established.

In the meantime, East Timorese hope international NGOs would
help. "We're being very careful, consulting people on what they
need," says an activist of the Japanese Catholic NGO, perhaps
aware of the stigma of NGOs plunking in irrelevant projects.

The East Timorese are also trying their best on their own.
Small fields yield just enough for households, not worth the high
transportation costs needed to sell the produce. In Dili, fields
are also essential for a subsistent supply of vegetables, even if
a family member works at a hotel. Goats and chickens are precious
investments.

Scavenging is another occupation, involving a few hundred
people at the Tibar dump outside Dili, but only aluminum cans are
of value at Rp 3,000 per kg. Children must also pitch in their
share of household work, such as fetching firewood and water. The
town folks say they are seeing more children, who say they are
helping their parents, on the streets. Reports also say many of
the children are orphans of the violence in East Timor.

In Liquica, former civil servant Deflina Lim is now a
restaurant owner. Of Chinese descent, she said was not
entrepreneurial, "but I had to survive."

One cannot afford a cook, she says, as they want salaries of
Rp 1 million per month like the salaries of the lowest paid jobs
at the UN offices, while patrons are limited to international
staffers in the area.

Survival has also driven Maria, a mother of five, to become a
vendor at the Dili market. From her hilltop home in Becora, she
travels to Mercado every morning, with Rp 25,000 to purchase five
small cans of coffee to resold.

She said her husband looked after their children at home and
tended to their nearby field because he was "too embarrassed" to
be seen as a vendor by his friends who might drop by at the
market.

"Besides the children are afraid of him, so they'll do the
chores at home," she said.