False alarm over Atauro (2)

By Dino Patti Djalal

This is the second of two articles on the alleged starvation in Atauro islet in East Timor province.

DILI (JP): The population of Atauro is dispersed among 6 main villages, 4 of which are located on the coast. Food shortage is more obvious in Makadade, a village located up in the hills, which has a history of crop failures.

The economy is managed by a cooperative -- the "Pescadora" -- which stocks and distributes basic commodities, including cooking oil and spices. The cooperative is located in the seaside village of Vila, but it has three outlets throughout the island to assist in the distribution of commodities.

The tour around Atauro and my conversations with officials and the people there produced some surprises. I was surprised, for example, to learn that the small island of Atauro has Rp 10 billion (about $10 million) in its coffer, a large sum for a community of 7,000 people who lead a simple lifestyle.

This money is meant for a variety of development purposes (including infrastructure), but portions of it can be used for the provision of food.

I also learned that Atauro has filed to be included in a coral reef protection program, a multimillion dollar international scheme currently being worked out by the National Development Planning Board. This would ensure the preservation of its marine ecosystem, and, by extension, the island's food stock. It would also lead to more jobs and a higher income for the population.

Another surprise was that the villagers have now managed to plant fast-yielding crops, using a new kind of corn seed. This new crop can be harvested in about 45 days from the day of seed planting.

I saw scores of this fast-yielding corn acreage, and some of these were already being harvested. The villagers continue to plant the regular corn seed (which takes 4 to 5 months to grow), because it has a longer life span.

Yet, for the time being the fast-yielding crop makes for a convenient substitute to the regular corn crop.

This largely explains why some of the food supply donated from Dili remains in storage. The social department has donated eight tons of rice, and the regency of Dili 12 tons. While some villagers have received this, others have managed to rely on their own crop.

At the present rate, the food supply from Dili should last for months, but if this runs out Domingos Soares assured me that the stock in Dili is more than adequate. And if Dili runs out ? "Its extremely unlikely, but if it does happen, there are plenty of stocks from Jakarta."

I also saw that some of the goat population in Atauro have a skin disease, which makes them inedible. Village chief Fernando Soares confirmed this, and told me that there is a local medicine to heal the goats, although this may take some time. "What will you eat then, besides rice or corn?" I asked a villager. "Out there is the blue sea, my friend," he teased me with a justifiably patronizing tone, "we may be short on goats or chickens, but fish, never."

I told another of news from abroad that the people in Atauro were forced to eating "mango seed" and "boiled leaves" due to a lack of food. His reply was that, rain or no rain, these have always been part of the local diet in Atauro.

My last stop in Atauro was a local puskesmas (health center) in Vila. I figured that the clinic would be the best place to verify evidence of malnutrition in the patients.

Agustina Da Costa, the local nurse who runs the clinic, informed me that in the past few months she had not noticed any unusual health cases relating to starvation or malnutrition.

On average, the clinic receives about 15 to 20 patients per day, usually dealing with common sickness and occasional malaria.

Agustina also keeps records of the weight of her patients, which is most of the population of Atauro, and found that it remains largely steady.

In short, viewed from above and on the ground, I saw no visual, physical or psychological evidence of "mass starvation", and nor did I see any possibility that this would be the case in Atauro. There is a case of food shortage (which is usual for the island), but given the above factors this situation is a very long shot from "mass starvation" or "famine".

I did not see any "starving children" or schools being "closed down early". I did not see the way of life in Atauro being altered or differing fundamentally from any typical village in eastern Indonesia. There was certainly no sickness, let alone death, blamed on starvation. By all account, what I saw betrays the apocalyptic image loudly propagated by Horta from Australia.

Horta's "cry wolf" tactic is not his first and certainly will not be his last. Ramos Horta's propaganda revolves around the constant attempt to internationalize the East Timor issue in the most sensational way, to project an image of crisis and inability on behalf of the Indonesian government to deal with it -- a task which he performs by flashing his badge as a Nobel laureate.

The larger issue, however, is not how Horta's sensationalism impacts on the Indonesian government, but how it continues to ruin the atmosphere between him and the pro-integration East Timorese.

The UN Secretary General hoped to improve this by holding the All Inclusive Intra-East Timorese Dialogue (AIETD) in Austria over the past 3 years.

However, Horta's insatiable craving for the international spotlight is seen in East Timor as a callous act of political vanity, which reinforces the belief that Horta is more interested in media hype and NGO support than in reconciliation and the restoration of confidence with his East Timorese counterparts.

One East Timorese accountant in Dili, Domingos Policarpo, commented: "Horta claims to the international world that he represents the East Timorese, but he spends all his time knocking down his own people."

This view was echoed by people in Atauro who felt cross that Horta was using them as a political commodity.

All in all, however, I must admit that I have to thank Horta, for without his false alarm I would not have found myself basking in the sun on the pristine white beaches of Atauro.

But in earnest I pity those well-meaning tax payers in western countries who donated their hard-earned money to give aid to a fictional "mass starvation" in East Timor.

Modern day propaganda, my university professor once told me, is not about being truthful or untruthful, or being right or wrong.

It is about packaging your viewpoint and marketing it to a targeted audience in the most believable way possible.

Something Horta knows only too well.

The writer is a member of the executive boards of the Indonesian Council on World Affairs (ICWA) and of Pusat Studi Kawasan Asia Tenggara. The views expressed here are strictly personal.