Nightlife in Dili bustling after independence

Nightlife in Dili bustling after independence

Pandaya, The Jakarta Post, Dili

It is 9 p.m. in Dili. Cafes and restaurants that have
mushroomed along the streets in the heart of the city, where the
beach-view presidential palace stands, are packed with hundreds
of expatriates hanging around late into the night.

Internet cafes owned by Australia's Telstra which has been
given an exclusive contract by the UN Transitional Administration
of East Timor (UNTAET) for mobile and fixed line services, have
sprung up over the past couple of years. These places, too, are a
favorite meeting place.

Don't ask if you can go to a discotheque, or other night
entertainment spots peculiar to a metropolitan city. You may have
to wait for another year or two when the capitalists are
convinced it is safe and profitable to invest in such facilities.

The bustling nightlife in the capital, Dili, has become
something of a novelty for the townsfolk. Women and men walk in
the street at night, joking and laughing all the way.

Welcome to independent East Timor.

"During the Indonesian troops occupation, the city was dead
quiet after dusk," said Mathias, a taxi driver in his late 20s,
who still cruises the streets well after midnight.

"In the Indonesian colonial times, people would be risking
their lives if they dared to venture out on the streets after 7
p.m. Soldiers would stop them, ask them questions they could not
answer and they would be tortured," he said.

For the East Timorese people, the freedom from fear of
military harassment has become the most celebrated part of the
just-proclaimed independence.

Now Dili is alive 24-hours a day. Safe and breezy.

Shops open until 9 p.m. and traditional markets until dusk.

UN vehicles of all sizes, from motorcycles and vans to heavy
trucks, rumble in the streets. They are conspicuous for their
large "UN" lettering. In fact the omnipresent vehicles and the
staff's hectic activity makes Dili look like a UN city.

In the past, it was the military trucks carrying fiery-looking
soldiers patrolling the streets of Dili that dominated the scene.

"Gone are those dreadful days," proclaimed Antonio Soares, a
college student who used to take part in anti-Indonesia
demonstrations on his campus.

The thrill of taking to the streets and getting chased by
security officers was an experience that he swore would never
forget.

After the territory became independent on May 20, the Timorese
have been pondering the past and see beyond with a clearer mind.

Unlike all those stereotypes that the media have helped
create, the East Timorese people are quite forgiving and
pragmatic.

Asked if the independence has changed his perception about
Indonesians, Mathias the taxi driver quickly replied, "It's only
people in the military who are evil. The common (Indonesian)
people are good, friendly. I befriended many of them."

Emilia de Andrade, a teacher at Santo Yosef elementary school
tearfully remembered her Indonesian fellow teachers who had to
leave for good after the fateful 1999 referendum.

She said not only did she miss her Indonesian friends that she
described as "incomparably loving and warm" but also all the
public services that the Indonesian government rendered,
particularly in the education sector.

"We are happy we are an independent state at last. And despite
all the violence against East Timor, Indonesia had done a lot for
our good. Unlike Portugal who colonized us for 450 years,
Indonesia built us schools, roads ... everything."

The bustling life in Dili has been largely thanks to the
presence of the UN forces there since 1999 when the world body
sent in peacekeeping troops and established UNTAET.

Now that UNTAET has transferred power to the East Timor
government, it is beginning to pull its staff out of the
territory. It will reduce its staff from 850 to 300 and the
peacekeeping troops from 8,000 to 5,000.

After then, will East Timor and Dili be quiet again? Many are
afraid the departure of the free-spending international staff and
their families will leave Dili broke and cheerless.

But not Yuliana, a woman in her 30s who lost her fledging
video game and gambling business in the 1999 riot. Now, she works
as a waitress at a hotel which has just been rebuilt. (The hotel
was burnt to the ground during the riot.)

"UNTAET leaving? No problem. There are many NGOs with foreign
staff that need our service," she said.

Yuliana plans to rebuild her big house near the Kamoro airport
as a guest house. Although she is cash-strapped at the moment,
her business spirits are high.

"I am looking for a partner to start a massage parlor," she
said. "Do you happen to know people interested in becoming
masseurs?"