U.N. Volunteers Provide Haven in E. Timor Hell

“Please, mister, I beg of you, don’t leave us,” an old woman named Marie said, grabbing the hand of Namibia’s ambassador to the United Nations. She sobbed and caught her breath. “If you go, they will kill us. All of us.”

Marie said she didn’t know who this man was, but he was tall and gray-bearded and wore clean clothes, and she was sure that he must be important. Maybe, just maybe, she said, he had the power to help. Was he Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary-general? she asked.

Ambassador Martin Adjaba held Marie’s hand but didn’t know quite what assurances to offer her. He let her cry some more. Finally, he said: “We are here to express our solidarity with you. We are in discussions with the Indonesian government to protect you,” and she replied, “Please, mister, don’t leave us alone.”

Around them, in the U.N.’s besieged compound, the last semi-safe haven here in East Timor’s capital, other refugees pressed close to listen, and to say silent prayers. The clock was ticking. In Dili lately, it is always ticking, counting down to the next moment of terror, the next burst of gunfire, the next sight of wild-eyed militiamen turned loose with machetes and spears and crossbows.

For more than a week, the occupants of the former teachers college that the U.N. took over for its East Timor headquarters--1,000 refugees and a volunteer staff of 100 U.N. workers who refused evacuation, including mission chief Ian Martin--have led a hellish, uncertain existence, as gunmen and soldiers surrounding the compound have toyed with them as a cat does with a mouse.

Indonesian President B. J. Habibie’s announcement Sunday that he would permit an international peace force to restore order in East Timor brought great relief to those in the compound, but U.N. security officers said Dili was still dangerous, and it was unclear how the militias would react.

Sometimes U.N. staffers are allowed out of the compound to collect supplies at the airport or a warehouse near the harbor, sometimes not. On the ridge of the tall, rocky hill behind the compound, barely visible amid the wafting smoke of burning buildings, an armed patrol moves back and forth, but the U.N. staff doesn’t know if it is there to protect or attack. Sometimes deafening bursts of gunfire erupt for hours on end outside the front gate, and sometimes it is so eerily silent that one can hear the music of songbirds.

“I don’t think we’re the target,” Pat Parsons, a U.N. procurement officer from Provo, Utah, said Saturday. “Look at the buildings. You don’t see a single bullet hole. They shoot over us, not at us, so I think this is harassment. They want us out of here.”

Although the U.N. warehouse has been looted and many U.N. vehicles have been hot-wired and stolen, or burned, staffers inside the compound told Adjaba and other members of a high-level U.N. delegation Saturday that they could hold out under existing conditions.

The compound has two wells, ensuring a supply of water, and its own generators. It has adequate food supplies for the staff, though perhaps not for the refugees, who have been organized into work brigades to keep the facility clean. Three toilets are used in shifts and disinfected every other hour.

“We got resupplied the other day with 500 gallons of diesel for the generators, and if necessary, we could hunker down here for quite a while,” said Nick Birnback, an American who is a U.N. spokesman.

Christian Koch, a Chilean representing the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Dili, said the major problem is providing food for the Timorese who have sought refuge in the compound. Most came lugging their own bags of rice, but those supplies are running low, he said.

Like most of the other “hostages,” Koch has not left the compound in days. When he does, he will find a city in ruin, a place transformed by anti-independence militias in the aftermath of East Timor’s U.N.-supervised vote Aug. 30 to secede from Indonesia.

Most buildings and homes--except those occupied by the military and other anti-independence supporters--have been burned. The population has largely fled or been moved out. Two of Dili’s three hotels have been set afire and gutted. Traffic lights blink on deserted streets, and the odor of smoldering ash hangs heavy in the air.

As the crisis has deepened, an emotional bond has formed between the U.N. volunteers and the refugees. At the same time, the relationship between the U.N. and the military-backed militias has grown mutually disdainful, with U.N. personnel referring to the militias with expletives and the militias delighting in intimidating and staring down the international workers.

When the order came last week to abandon the U.N. compound, the 100 staffers still in Dili refused, fearing that their departure would be tantamount to a death sentence for the refugees. The cold beer, clean sheets and personal safety that evacuation offered, they say, was never a temptation.

Why?

Said Jorge Balina, an unarmed Spanish police officer: “Because I have a conscience.”