| Subject: Anger
over lack of jobs turns violent in East Timor
Sydney Morning Herald Monday, December 6,
1999
Jobs anger turns to violence
HERALD CORRESPONDENT MARK DODD in Dili
Growing frustration over poor employment
opportunities in devastated East Timor has boiled over into violence in at
least one town, where armed peacekeepers were deployed last week and a
Portuguese aid agency threatened to withdraw its services.
The return from squalid
militia-controlled camps in West Timor of tens of thousands of East
Timorese has led to unrealistic expectations of jobs arising from the
United Nations relief operation.
Serious security problems last week at
the hospital in Los Palos, an impoverished town in the new nation's east,
has broad implications across the territory.
When Indonesian administration
effectively stopped in East Timor last October, the staff of Los Palos
hospital agreed to continue working, despite having received no salary
since August.
A Portuguese charity, Medicos do Mundo
(MDMP), stepped in to help. It offered to pay staff an incentive of 20
days to be paid in rice and 10 days in rupiah. This amounted to 50
kilograms of rice per staff member and between 200-300,000 rupiah for 10
days' work.
The offer was met with overwhelming
support. The hospital, which in October had employed only 20 local staff,
nurses and one doctor, suddenly found it was employing 73 local staff in a
hospital with only 47 beds.
Describing the situation as ''a
completely unsustainable and inefficient level of staff'', MDMP said the
hospital's director and sub-director had ''no authority over their
staff''.
Discipline was also a problem and
hospital management non-existent, the agency said.
The agency called a meeting last week and
issued an ultimatum - either reduce staffing to a reasonable level for
people to receive the recommended UN salary scale, or divide the budget
among existing staff and supplement the difference with food aid from the
UN.
''The director and sub-director of the
hospital did not feel they had the authority to make such a decision, as
there are a number of young students who did not work at the hospital
prior to the recent (militia) violence and who are intimidating the
remainder of the staff,'' MDMP said in an urgent report dated December 1.
At another meeting on November 30, former
staff members rejected the offer and said reduced salary scales were
unacceptable. The student group demanded to be paid by the Portuguese at a
level comparable with their medical colleagues in Dili - a demand MDMP
rejected as unaffordable.
According to the agency the students then
intimidated regular staff into refusing to accept the cash incentive for
10 days' work undertaken in November.
Matters came to a head last Wednesday
when stones were thrown at the hospital director's house and a student
entered the hospital and threatened nursing staff with a machete.
The attacker was taken into custody and
the hospital given an Interfet guard, according to the MDMP co-ordinator,
Ms Emma Warwick. ''However, if the current situation is not resolved MDMP
cannot continue to work under a security threat,'' she said.
The United Nations Transitional
Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) is yet to devise an effective
strategy for creating jobs, and East Timorese are learning the hard way
that independence brings with it an end to Indonesian-style job subsidies.
The prospect of a job in the Public
Service is regarded as providing secure employment.
But an ambitious World Bank-funded plan
aims for the establishment of a leaner state sector that will employ about
12,000 people compared to 28,000 during Indonesian rule.
Other ominous signs of potential unrest
among East Timorese were seen last Wednesday at a meeting of the Dili
Civil Committee convened to register names for a skills database.
Many East Timorese mistakenly believed
the meeting was a direct employment offer and more than 100 showed up
expecting work.
One UN official admitted that a more
effective food and shelter distribution by UN and aid agencies could in
the short-term alleviate concerns.
Closer co-operation with East Timor's
biggest political party, the National Council of Timorese Resistance, was
also essential.
''We have to make sure that people are
getting fed and are getting adequate shelter. At least then their
immediate needs are being taken care of,'' the UN official added.
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