Difficult geography helped
Timorese survive colonization and invasion. But now, it’s a roadblock to
growth.
By Edward Cavanough |
The Diplomat
DILI — If there’s one piece of
advice you can’t escape when traveling in Timor-Leste, it is to get out of the
capital and head inland.
For the East Timorese, the
mountains hold a special reverence. While surrounded by bountiful oceans, rich
in both contested resources and plentiful fauna, the East Timorese have
always looked toward the highlands — towards the safety of their clouded, vast
interior — not out to sea.
The mountains have long
provided sanctuary for the Timorese. During the four centuries of Portuguese
rule, the colonists barely explored the hinterland. One local told me that
during their rule, the Portuguese only managed to build several kilometers of
roads.
Their exploration of the island
was so minimal that it was not until the early 20th century, according to Beloved
Land author Gordon Peake, that the Portuguese even charted the entire
island: “Even in the latter half of the 19th century, fewer than 100 colonists
lived beyond the city… for centuries, no one seemed particularly certain even
of where the island ended.”
As the Portuguese held firm on
the coast, Timorese looked down from the hills above, often detached from their
distant occupiers. Once Portugal decolonized, the Indonesians invaded, and the
mountains again provided safe haven.
In addition to the tenacity of
the East Timorese, the 24-year long resistance survived largely because of the
challenges imposed by the terrain Suharto’s men were trying to conquer. The
Timorese resisted from their mountain holdouts, with a rich clandestine network
of dissidents whispering information through the valleys in a way no occupying
force could ever entirely stop.
While a third of East Timor’s
population wouldn’t survive Indonesia’s occupation, in the end Suharto’s war
became unwinnable.
But Timor-Leste’s relationship
with its geography is complicated.
Long an enabler of Timorese
independence, the island’s mountains are now a chief adversary in Dili’s quest
to link the nation.
“The Mountains Saved Us”
In the wicker chairs of Hotel
Timor’s lobby cafe, my host introduced me to Josh — a seasoned political activist
— and two newlyweds, Antonio and his Indonesian wife, Kiki, who’d expatriated
themselves to London but were back celebrating their wedding.
We talked about history and about
the future.
For Josh, his childhood was one
of chaos and tumult in a mountain community.
Like so many middle aged East
Timorese, Josh’s upbringing was defined by conflict. Seemingly fatigued by my
line of questioning about his childhood, he directed me to a blog post, where
he chronicles his vivid, heartbreaking memories:
“One of my extended grandmothers
was blown into pieces by a bomb,” he writes. “A direct hit I think. My family had to gather
the flesh and bones scattered on the ground in order to bury her.”
I asked about life growing up in
the mountains during those harrowing years after the Indonesian invasion.
“The mountains saved us,” Josh
told me, arguing the sanctuary of the hinterland provided cover from the
invaders. “But now, they stand in our way…they make development very
difficult.”
Younger and from the capital,
Antonio bore witness to some of the pivotal moments in the lead up to East
Timor’s independence in 1999. He was on the streets on the day of the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre, when Indonesian militia shot up
to 250 Timorese, and remembers the regular violence in Dili through the decade
leading up to independence.
“I’m heading to Ramelau
tomorrow,” I told them, as we finished our coffees. Antonio, a former UN driver
with an intimate knowledge of the mountain roads, insisted he take me.
The Broken Road to Ramelau
Just 72 kilometers from Dili, I
rationalized that my trip to Ramelau might take the best part of a morning.
After a night in Hatu Builico — the closest town to Ramelau’s summit — I’d
saunter to the top, take in the much-touted views, and head back to the capital
to rest my hiker’s legs as I watched the sun set below the Savu Sea.
I was wrong.
In 2011, a Ministry of Finance and World Bank review identified
that only 20 percent of Timor-Leste’s roads are traversable in two-wheel drive
vehicles. While an additional 54 percent of roads are theoretically passable
without a four-wheel drive, the review conceded that “conditions were so bad
that they were likely to cause damage to these vehicles.”
Antonio and Kiki picked me up
early in a beaten up Toyota Land Cruiser, and filled to the brim with what
appeared to be Antonio’s entire extended family: four squeezed in the back
seat, another six in the tray.
Mt. Ramelau is one of the few
tourist destinations in a country struggling to build its tourism industry.
Timor Leste is not only suffering
a distinct lack of tourist infrastructure — it often lacks any infrastructure
at all. Though roads are being built, the pace of construction is slow. Just
getting to Hatu Builico would be a challenge few day-hikes could rival.
The first hour of the drive out
of Dili was adequate: well-paved, if dangerously driven. But soon the road —
one of the major thoroughfares in the country — gives way to near-unpassable
stretches of feet-deep potholes and mud. Entire sections of road that have
simply collapsed as wet-season storms wreak havoc in the hills.
We ambled up the hillside,
frequently halted in extensive traffic jams, while drivers exited their
vehicles to inspect the obstacles, and strategically plot their path forward.
Toward Maubisse, spatterings of
beautiful, smooth Chinese-built tarmac tease grateful commuters before the next
inevitable bone-rattling section.
Just 20 kilometers from Hatu
Builico, we were told by locals it would be another four to five hours before
Ramelau was in our sights.
Soon, the deep mud became
all-consuming. Truckers gave up, lining the roads waiting for the afternoon sun
to firm up their path just enough to get them moving again.
Motorcyclists waded in their
flip-flops through the mud, dragging their heavy bikes — wheels clogged with
thick earth — along at glacial speeds.
Arriving in Hatu Builico, I noted
the time. It had been 7 hours since Dili.
Then the Storms Came
As I settled in that night in my
empty hotel, so did the wet-season storms. I maintained a stubborn confidence
that the clouds would break, and I’d get have a clear run to Southeast Asia’s
finest vantage points when I was to start climbing the peak at 3 am.
But by then the downpour was only
heavier. Little had changed by sunrise. And instead of climbing to Timor’s
highest peak, I was advised to get out of Hatu Builico as quick as I could: the
single-lane rocky path linking it to the world was bearing the brunt of the
storm, and stretches would soon become impassable.
With Antonio back in Dili
already, I hitched a ride on the back of a local’s motorbike. Over two treacherous
hours, riding through driving rain, past fallen trees and in ten meter
visibility, my rider carefully plotted our path back toward calmer weather.
I’d managed to get down from the
mountain. But I was struck: here, in a country desperate for tourists, its
major attraction is all but inaccessible.
For me, this arduous trip to the
mountains had been exhilarating joy ride. But for the locals, it is a brutal
burden. For a country desperate to improve its economic standing, the lack
of infrastructure and accessibility is a debilitating handbrake on progress.
Could a Gas Windfall Overcome
Timor Leste’s Geographic Disadvantages?
Overcoming Timor-Leste’s
topographical disadvantages requires enormous investment.
Roads are coming, slowly, but
their construction is largely funded by aid, and built by Chinese companies
often employing Chinese labor. Chinese-branded trucks and equipment, alongside
Chinese foremen, were a common sight on the road to Ramelau.
Some argue a gas pipeline to the
south of the nation could provide the economic boost and high-skilled jobs
sorely needed outside of the capital, as well as injecting further capital into
the country to allow it to invest further roads and infrastructure.
Xanana Gusmao, Timor-Leste’s
independence hero and former prime minister, certainly believes so. Leading
negotiations with Australia over shared gas resources, he has insisted that the
resources in the Greater Sunrise gas reserve be piped to southern Timor-Leste
for processing.
His hardline stance has been
popular in election-season Timor-Leste, with Gusmao returning to a hero’s welcome in Dili in the wake of the
negotiations.
However, other observers
are less certain. Some would prefer to see the economy
diversified, and there is some evidence that the value of the gas reserves to
Timor-Leste’s south are overhyped.
Whatever the outcome, it will
take a titanic effort to tame Timor’s unyielding geography.
The mountains have defined
Timor-Leste’s past. For better or worse, they’ll define its future.
*Edward Cavanough is a freelance
writer from Sydney, Australia, and the former Manager of Policy at The McKell
Institute, a leading Australian think-tank. In 2018, he is traveling overland
from Adelaide to London, writing at www.oneroadtolondon.com
Photo’s by Edward Cavanough:
1 - The old bus is the public
transport possible
2 - Highland crags of Timor-Leste
3 - The main street of Maubisse
in Timor-Leste
4 - Two men take
shelter from the pouring rain
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