Macau: A suprising haven for East Timorese refugees

Text and photos by Sari Sartika Natley

MACAU (JP): Casinos, the ruins of St. Paul's Church and triad problems are stories we often hear about in Macau.

Compared with its neighbor Hong Kong, Macau has a slower pace of life. With a population of only half a million, one-twelfth of Hong Kong's, this Portuguese colony is indeed a sleepy enclave.

Narrow streets wind between colonial-era buildings; Catholic churches seem to spring up in every other block. People stroll around lazily. At night, Macau turns into the Oriental Las Vegas, where Hong Kongers flock to gamble their luck.

We rarely hear, however, that Macau is also a hotbed of East Timor political activism.

About 200 East Timorese live here, half of whom are Chinese- East Timorese who settled to set up businesses. A few are political activists, who founded the Macau Timorese Resistance Group (GRMT by its Portuguese initials). Close relatives of some of East Timor's prominent figures study here, including Nobel Peace laureate Jose Ramos Horta's brother-in-law and two children of East Timorese leader Manuel Carrascalao.

The rest of the community, comprising about 60 people, are political refugees, smuggled out of the troubled territory to escape the Indonesian military's heavy hand.

"Once you are stained (in East Timor), you'll disappear someday," remarks Lola, one of the refugees. It is a saying that most of her compatriots would agree to.

Lola, who refuses to disclose her full name, left East Timor two years ago after her son got into trouble with the Indonesian Army. Lola bribed some officials to get herself and her children passports and went to Macau, where a refugee sanctuary exists.

Her neighbor, Nunu Saramento, 36, has a more dramatic story. In 1995, this tall, soft-spoken dark man became a fugitive after the military sniffed his involvement in the underground armed resistance.

Saramento didn't want to be captured a second time after being arrested in 1988 and ruthlessly tortured.

It was more than enough for Saramento. He was a fugitive for a year before he finally obtained contacts in the refugee escape network.

GRMT's two prominent figures are Father Fransisco Maria Fernandes, a renowned Catholic priest in Macau, and Manuel Tilman, a high-profile lawyer.

Tilman was born in East Timor and educated and trained in Lisbon. In 1990, he left Lisbon for Macau to help the East Timorese struggle. Since then he and Fernandes have established an underground escape route that runs from East Timor to Jakarta or Denpasar and on to Macau.

Fake

The process often involves bribing officials along the way. The handlers also use fake passports to get the refugees through Indonesia's immigration blacklist.

"Most of them are young people, who have problems with the police," said Tilman, 51. Some come by themselves. Others bring along their spouses, children or other relatives. Since 1990 GRMT has received 600 refugees.

The number of refugees a month depends on the political situation in East Timor. The pleas for help were especially enormous after the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, which not only resulted in deaths of dozens of people but also prompted a crackdown on the resistance groups.

Macau is not the only place where East Timorese refugees head. Portugal and Australia are other favorite destinations. Australia harbors 20,000 East Timorese, while Portugal is home to 4,000.

Of the rest of the diaspora, about 1,000 are scattered across the United States, Canada, England, South Africa and Mozambique (also an ex-Portuguese colony). In comparison, there are 850,000 people living in East Timor, and 30,000 elsewhere in Indonesia.

However, what makes Macau special is its relative proximity to Indonesia, the tidy activists' network and, more importantly, the support of the Macanese colonial government.

Macau Governor Gen. Vasco Rocha Vieira has allocated a 10- story building in downtown to shelter the refugees complete with running water and electricity. Every person is entitled to 1,000 patacas ($129) pocket money a month.

"Not much, but it is enough to get by day by day," Lola says. In Macau, they can work or study, financed by the Macanese government. None of these facilities exist anywhere else.

"I always tell the refugees: 'Behave yourself'," says Fernandes, himself an East Timorese.

Fransisco, 61, has experienced living in refugee camps.

In 1975, with the 3,000 refugees he brought out of East Timor after the Indonesian landing, Fransisco was evacuated to Portugal.

"We lived in army camps, with thousands other of refugees from Africa," he recalled. "There was no heating, no hot water."

Handover

There is a sense of urgency and worry among the refugees. The clock is ticking. On Dec. 20, 1999, the colony will be returned to China.

That means no more government subsidies as well as no more refugees in Macau. After this year, GRMT has decided not to take in any more refugees. Instead, it will focus on finding places for the refugees to go.

What will happen if they don't have anywhere to go by the handover time? "They will be transported to Portugal," says Fernandes.

The younger refugees cannot hide their restlessness. The 24- year-old J. L. Sarmento says: "I haven't really done anything during these two years."

He dropped out of college, he cannot speak Cantonese -- Macau's lingua franca -- either. So, it is hard for him to get a job, he says. He is now waiting to go to Portugal. But, even then, "their program is not clear," Sarmento says.

Indeed, boredom is often the cause of disputes in the dormitory, which are dominated by young people. In such situations Fernandes acts as peacemaker. Rosa Kong, Nunu Saramento's wife, explains the situation: "We have to understand. They come from a war zone. They are stressed. They are hot. And they are far from family and friends."

Such hardships, however, are minimal compared with the terror they experienced at home. Says Lola: "We may be refugees, but we are free."

There are also success stories in Macau. One of them is Malibere's. His life is a story of stubbornness and strong determination. He was put on the military's blacklist because of his involvement in East Timor's underground movement. He arrived in Macau in 1993, almost penniless. However, by pushing himself, Malibere, 36, rose from someone living in limbo to become an executive at Macau Telecom.

In Macau, the 200 East Timorese have a strong sense of community. Long-time Chinese residents, political refugees and activists sometimes hold their own gatherings. Last month, for example, they held a special mass led by Fernandes to remember the St. Cruz massacre.

The nonpolitically active residents "sometimes come to the center, donate food and medicine. They also talk with the refugees to give comfort," says Malibere.

Although safe from intimidation, the refugees still dream of going back to East Timor. "If we get independence, I will go back to Dili," says Malibere. Next year, even if the refugees are gone, that doesn't mean GRMT's task is accomplished. "People like me, Father Fernandes and others will stay behind," promises Tilman.