Word: timorous
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Twenty-year-old Rosina Olaloco was killed when grenades exploded at the Maubusa market in East Timor, a stone's throw from Indonesian West Timor. At this cross-border bazaar, children wheel through the bustle like sparrows as veterans of the pro-Indonesian militia that razed the country two years ago mingle with farmers, stallholders and smugglers. Rosina was not the only victim of the May 29 attack; in their rage over a gambling debt, former members of the Dangi Dadaras Merah Putih militia killed four other people and wounded more than...
...Despite the presence of United Nations peacekeepers in East Timor, menace and misery lurk just across the border. East Timorese refugees?mainly former militiamen and Indonesian soldiers and their families?yearn to return from their squalid camps in West Timor. But Indonesian authorities are already unable to cope with the crisis, and the pressure on East Timor will grow when the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees quits the island in December. Although the militias have disbanded, a small core of hard-liners, scattered from West Timor to Jakarta, still harbor dreams of vengeance. "There are problems for years ahead," says...
...people herded from East Timor after its people voted for independence two years ago, about 80,000 are left in West Timorese camps. "They live in atrocious conditions," says Sarmento. Human waste fouls the sites; houses are a sad patchwork of scraps. Medicine ran out long ago. At Tuabukan, near the West Timorese capital of Kupang, and at Metomauk, 3.5 km from the border, refugees in mismatched Indonesian army uniforms farm locals' land. But patience is fraying. "Last year we had land," says Zeraldo Mendoza at Labur camp, near the border town of Atambua. "But it was taken back...
...refugees want to leave, but many fear arrest in East Timor. Disinformation flourishes. According to church workers in camps around Betun, refugees are spreading rumors that Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri has met with militia leaders to discuss reintegrating East Timor. Former militia commander Joanico Cezario admits refugees are used to shore up a "bargaining position." In early April the flow of returning refugees stalled after automatic-weapons fire hit border posts manned by Fijian and Australian peacekeepers, and grenade attacks were reported in three East Timorese villages. "Militias still have the power and the influence," says Father Edi Mulyono...
...militias' reach extends beyond the camps. In Dili's giddy bustle, ragged storekeepers in plywood shanties offer cheap Indonesian cigarettes smuggled in from West Timor, often with militia help. Lieut. Peter Ireland, who commands a U.N. reconnaissance platoon, says his teams spy on border markets. In West Timor, pro-integrationists have interests in shops, gambling, construction, and mechanical repairs. Behind the imposing Atambua compound of former militia commander-in-chief Jo?o Tavares, cheering punters bet avidly on cockfights...