East Timor's media striving anew amid many obstacles

East Timor's media striving anew amid many obstacles

By Ati Nurbaiti

JAKARTA (JP): You need to meet your relatives who are in
Indonesia, and from where you are in East Timor the village has
no telephone, let alone wartel (communications kiosk) or e-mail
facilities. Don't worry, just contact the local radio station --
meaning coming in person to meet broadcasters -- and request them
to convey arrangements on where and when to meet.

As in Korea, family reunions are a special feature in the
media, most notably at radio stations, the broadcasts of which
reach Kupang in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara (NTT).

Like other media, there are quite a few radio stations, but
most are concentrated in Dili while the outer regions are where
communications facilities are most lacking.

Radio Timor Kamanek, run by the Catholic Church, has the
widest coverage across the largely mountainous terrain, its
transmission power made possible by the support of a number of
organizations. The Indonesia state radio and news agency were
obvious targets in September 1999 destruction, aimed at leaving
nothing to those considered traitors of the prointegration cause.

Radio reception is still scratchy even only a mile or two from
radio stations. In Maliana, in the western sector, residents of
the Balibo hill town said they, instead, get more news about Aceh
from Indonesian channels.

In East Timor's enclave of Oecussi in Indonesia's neighboring
NTT, the only media is the Tolas weekly magazine, and a
"reporting center" of the United Nations Transitional Authority
in East Timor giving out some basic information.

Important news sources are, therefore, visitors or returning
inhabitants coming by ship, which serves the Dili-Oecussi route
only once a week.

The eastern extreme of Los Palos is lucky enough to have seen
the set up of a small community radio; so has Bobonaro, capital
of Maliana.

Initially aided by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO), which also helped start postwar radio
setups in Cambodia, radio journalists/managers now seek aid from
various donors.

The community radios are not seeking professionals. UNESCO's
Tarja Virtanen said that journalists working for community radios
are, as a rule, volunteers; the meaning of "community radios" is
that this is media for and by community members, not
professionals, she said.

In fact, fully paid professionals are only found in two media
organizations, the Timor Pos and the Suara Timor Lorosae, the
rest are still employed on a contract basis.

Some journalists question the objectivity of their colleagues
who are also working part time at non-government organizations.

At Radio Communidade Maliana (Maliana community radio)
journalists, a little shy about the "too simple equipment", wrap
up broadcasting at 9 p.m. Because electricity supply is only for
a few hours in the evening, broadcasting hours are only from 6
p.m. to 9 p.m.

After work hours, a visitor is grabbed for an interview one
evening even as the manager/journalist is drawing up a proposal
for the next three months, by hand.

Neither typewriters nor computers are in sight at the small
studio up the hills. In a month or so, the above journalist and
part-time teacher, Joao Correia, and his colleagues will be busy
again drawing up an accountability report for the donor -- and
another proposal to keep Radio Communidade on air.

Nearby is Radio UNTAET, which, to the distress of journalists
here, now occupies the former studio of the community station.

Training offers are cropping up for journalists, mainly
following the first congress of the Association of Journalists of
Timor Lorosae (AJTL) in January. One reporter went to Jakarta for
radio-technical skills, others have already had a few months of
journalism training in Australia and in Indonesia.

Language is still a main problem, with readers and journalists
themselves grappling over how to treat the local language Tetum
as a written language, while much of the spoken language is mixed
with Portuguese.

Portuguese has been declared the official language but leader
Jose Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmao himself may have realized this is
awkward for the new generation of Indonesian-schooled Timorese,
who only understand Indonesian and Tetum.

Xanana addressed the above congress in Tetum while another
longtime leading figure, Mario Viegas Carrascalao, spoke at
length in Portuguese, all lost on the audience.

The media is published and broadcast in English, Portuguese,
Indonesian and Tetum, while small-scale, local media only use
Tetum.

Said judge Cirilo Jose Cristduao with an ironic smile, "Bahasa
Indonesia is our most precious heritage."

Apart from language problems, the press here still need to
flush out habits of reporting under Indonesian restrictions
leading to jargon and self-censorship.

Power problem

However, publishers here are more worried about being able to
appear at all. For about a week in mid-January, the Timor Pos
daily and a few other publications were a no-show because the
single printing machine catering to a number of publications had
broken down.

The other daily, Suara Timor Loro Sae, has its own printing
machine but electricity is unreliable and journalists miss
deadlines by hours.

Timor Pos may be getting its own printing machine -- aid from
Newspapers Ltd in Queensland, owned by media giant Rupert Murdoch
-- which has sparked controversy among journalists.

"You guys will end up owning nothing at Timor Pos," a
journalist warned his colleague.

Timor Pos chief editor Aderito Hugo da Costa insisted that
there had not been any gesture from Murdoch to buy shares in the
newspaper. Journalists at the paper were also adamant in
maintaining editorial independence and said they were still
working out terms of cooperation.

Capital ownership was one of the concerns of the AJTL
congress.

The "aid" from Murdoch is read as the beginnings of big
capital intrusion into Timor Pos, leading to a further divide in
the already existing camps of "professionals" and "activists" in
the press community here, a division which surfaced in the last
years of Indonesian rule.

With the downfall of then president Soeharto, the underground
media of the independence movement mainly involving students got
a boost; while in East Timor, Suara Timor Timur daily was the
only print media.

All these journalists now work together, albeit with some
tension, as indicated during AJTL's leadership election, in which
candidates were asked to define "professionalism".

Hugo da Costa, one of the candidates, said professionalism in
the press was that which did not mix with "politics", an obvious
reference to the activists.

While candidate Virgilio Gueterres, a former student activist
and magazine journalist, appealed that the only differentiation
in the media should be print, radio and television. Gueterres was
finally elected chairman.

Apart from the dilemmas of capital ownership, the question of
a neutral press is another issue among journalists here -- given
that "professionals" were subject to so much intimidation from
Indonesian government and military officers, proindependence and
prointegration people for trying to be balanced.

"There's no way the media here can be neutral," one editor
said. "They have to take sides" with the people in the rebuilding
of East Timor, she said.

The editor was referring to the difficulties posed by the
restricted, Indonesian official version of reporting on East
Timor, presented as professional journalism on the basic
standards of objectivity.

Then there is the problem of so many new recruits with no
journalistic experience, leading to, for instance, sensational
stories on AIDS brought in by foreigners -- actually similar to
the products of "professionals" in Indonesia.

"Our only main experience," said radio journalist Carmen, "is
what we went through together with the people." Almost all the
journalists were among families and friends hiding in and outside
East Timor, avoiding the rampage of September 1999.