THE giant hulk of St Joseph Church of Aimutin, stands half-built on the outskirts of Dili – in many ways it is like Timor-Leste (East Timor) itself – still under construction.
One day it will hold 1200 worshippers – proof that the Catholic faith is alive and well in this young, Southest Asian nation, that celebrates 21 years of indenpendence, this month.
For now, work on St Joseph Church is at a standstill. Government money that helped start construction in 2015 is used up and nobody can say for sure when work will ever finish.
Nilton Araujo, 24, is amongst the huge congregation at St Joseph’s, meeting for Mass in a makeshift hall at the rear of the church building site and spilling out into the open air.
“I hope Timor-Leste’s children can get good education, good health and enough food each day,” Mr Araujo said about life in Timor-Leste today, 21 years after independence.
Amongst the young nation’s 1.3 million people, most were born since independence, and 97 per cent are Catholic.
From a poor farming family near Ainaro, and with four brothers and three sisters, he now has a satisfying job at the Dili Port, and is looking to get married.
Timor’s young generation is optimistic. They did not witness Indonesia’s brutal, 24-year rule, even though the ripple effect of intergenerational trauma still runs deep in East Timor.
Mr Araujo was born in 1999, the same year that the United Nations held a referendum that returned a 78.5 percent vote in favour of separating from Indonesia.
He was just three when Timor finally gained independence in 2002, and he has benefited from the international aid and support that has flowed in since.
Mr Araujo gained a vocational scholarship and spent two years in Beijing studying as an electrical and mechanical technician.
“And now I hope many can study abroad – that is my dream,” he said.
Two decades ago, Indonesia’s “scorched-earth” retreat from Timor shocked the world. It also stunted Timor’s progress.
About 1500 people were killed, and more than 300,000 people were displaced, mainly to neighbouring West Timor.
More than 80 percent of houses and buildings were destroyed and left in ruins.
An international force led by Australia (INTERFET) intervened to restore security.
After a period of direct UN governance, Timor-Leste finally became an independent state on May 20, 2002, with neighbouring Australia one of several regional countries committed to supporting the new nation’s independence, sovereignty and economic sustainability.
Now, 21 years on Timor-Leste is still striving to build and rebuild, even with an estimated $US15 billion in aid money and funds from petroleum revenue that has been spent.
Though the nation is rich in mineral resources, it remains dirt poor.
Access to clean water, basic sanitation and health services, quality education, and sufficient nutrition for children and pregnant mothers are severely lacking, especially in rural areas.
Half of all Timorese children have stunting from malnutrition.
Unemployment has rapidly increased.
Many infrastructure projects have been poorly constructed and have short lifespans.
Petty corruption persists.
Politics
Mr Araujo said his younger generation had “grown weary” of Timor-Leste’s ageing independence leaders who still hold sway.
Now in their mid to late seventies, this old guard includes Nobel Peace prize laureate, President Jose Ramos Horta; guerilla freedom fighter, former president and prime minister Xanana Gusmao; and former prime minister, Mari Alkatiri.
Gusmao and Alkatiri head Timor Leste’s major parties CNRT and FRETILIN respectively, with both vying to win the country’s fifth parliamentary election on May 21.
“I respect these old leaders and the way they fought for our country, but its time to let go,” Mr Araujo said, adding that he preferred the younger, Democratic Party leader Mariano Sabino Lopes (born in 1975), also known as Assanami, as a potential prime minister.
Young, educated women are also finding a voice to question Timor Leste’s ageing, male leadership.
The parliament is now made up of about 40 per cent women. Berta Antonieta Tilman Pereira, a researcher on gender emancipation and economic development in Timor-Leste, said women have always played a strong, yet unrecognised role in society.
“During the time of the Indonesian occupation, women were planting, preparing and smuggling food to the mountains to feed the resistance fighters in hiding at great personal risk,” she said.
“Women showed great courage in the long struggle for national independence, they were empowered and their contributions were welcomed.
“Without the revolutionary acts of Timorese women during the independence struggle, the outcome may have been very different.
“While women at present remain just as strong, they are forced to continue to fight for their political and economic liberation and have to struggle against those patriarchal, colonial, and traditional forces that continually seek to disenfranchise them.”
China influence
Twenty-one years after independence, Timor-Leste is starting to play a strategic regional role.
There are signs of a growing Chinese influence everywhere across the capital Dili.
Imported goods from China have become a staple.
Recently, China won dozens of contracts for major building and road construction projects.
Beijing helped construct the presidential palace and the headquarters of the ministries of defence and foreign affairs.
Cooperation between the two Asian nations has increased significantly since Beijing undertook its Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
Last year President Ramos Horta warned his nation would seek Chinese support if Australia and gas developer Woodside Energy fail to back a gas pipeline between the resource-rich Timor Sea and Timor Leste’s southern shore, rather than Australia’s northernmost city, Darwin.
These ties between Timor-Leste and China raise concerns for Australia as it watches a shifting security environment across the Asia Pacific.
Timor-Leste lies just over 600 km from Darwin, a strategic hub and also home to a major military base.
As concerns grow over the possibility of a conflict in Taiwan, Timor-Leste finds itself increasingly part of the tug of war for regional influence between China and the West.
