Stories - East Timor/Indonesia

Newsletter Summer 2001 Globalization of Spirit in East Timor
Joan R. Condon, Capacitar International Coordinator

The people of East Timor are victims of violence: the ongoing violence of 25 years of Indonesian dictatorship culminating in rape and murder, and the destruction of more than 80% of the infrastructure after the vote for independence in August, 1999. One fourth of the approximately 800,000 people became refugees. The international response to this travesty brought UN peacekeepers and UN and other international workers to the country. This has created another tragedy. The East Timorese now suffer not only from the trauma of violence, torture and repression, but also the trauma of trying to survive in an economy geared to international pay scales. They must find ways to feed and clothe themselves and their families when prices have escalated beyond their incomes. All this as they deal with the critical issues of reconciliation within their communities, justice for those who took part in the mayhem and the crucial work of building an independent nation.

Capacitar trainer Mary Litell, OSF, and I traveled to East Timor in May and spent three weeks working with the people. Our goal was to find out if Capacitar body-mind-spirit practices would be helpful to the traumatized in East Timor. In the capital, Dili, signs of the massive destruction are still evident - many buildings have only the walls standing, including the Franciscan Sisters' clinic run by members of Mary Litell's congregation. There we gave a weekend workshop, put together by Maria Dias of Clinica Pas, to a group of 32 men and women. Of this group twenty people decided that they wanted to form a Capacitar team to practice together, receive more training and take the trainings into the countryside.

With Sister Alice and Sister Yulita, both Franciscans who volunteered to work in East Timor after the violence, we traveled to three poor communities in the mountains. Sister Alice and Sister Yulita manage a feeding program for children under age five, and we assisted as they served a nutritious porridge and gave each child a hard boiled egg. There were many children with the blond-streaked hair and massive bellies of the malnourished. The mothers and older brothers and sisters also looked thin, hungry and worn. Sister Alice is a nurse and also has a clinic in the capital and one in the mountain community of Dare. We gave a workshop to the clinic staff.

We traveled across the island to the south coast, crossing the mountain range where resistance fighters held out during Indonesian rule, and gave a workshop to Franciscan brothers and priests who work in that area. We also visited the local school, meeting with several teachers. The school was burned and totally destroyed by the militias in 1999. It is being rebuilt by the teachers and students with materials provided by UNICEF. In Dare, in the mountains, we also facilitated a two-day workshop for the candidates at the Sekulur Institute. These candidates dedicate their lives to work and study, spending four months studying, then four months working with the poor in the mountains. This group asked for additional training for candidates at their six other houses of study. In the trainings, as well as in meetings with other organizations, the strong message was that Capacitar is both needed and wanted by people in East Timor. Maria Dias spoke for many when she talked about the necessity for healing in East Timor so that together the East Timorese can build a new nation. Maria said, The country cannot be reconciled and healed unless people first heal themselves. Capacitar enables people to do this.

Reconciliation is a difficult issue for the East Timorese people. Almost 100,000, most of them connected to the militias, remain in refugee camps in West Timor, which is part of Indonesia. We visited the refugee camps with members of the Jesuit Refugee Service. Life is difficult in most of the camps - no schools for the children, no work, and nothing for the young people to do. Many people would like to return to East Timor, but militia leaders pressure people to remain in the camps. Thirty to forty families had signed up with the Indonesian military to return to East Timor but came back a day later to take their names off the list. They know if they return when their leaders don't want them to, there are sympathizers in East Timor who can harm them. As one refugee said, When the leaders say we can go back, we will go back.

It is difficult for the people in the refugee camps and for the survivors in East Timor to deal with the traumas they have suffered. Santos, a young man who served as our translator in one of the workshops, works with an international commission that travels throughout East Timor listening to the stories of victims of the violence. Day after day, week after week he translates these horrors. He told us that everynight he comes home exhausted emotionally and physically. All he does is drink beer and try to sleep. When he translated for us, he did the practices as he translated and found them very helpful. He promised us that he would keep up the practices to help him deal with his own trauma, which included his father's murder by the military, which is made worse by his work.

But there is also hope in East Timor. Pedro was an active member of the resistance during the Indonesian rule. He also ran a guest house where many internationals who worked in solidarity with the people of East Timor stayed. His guest house was one of the first places burned during the violence. Pedro is rebuilding his guest house and says, We will work it out. We lived under Portuguese rule for 300 years and under Indonesia for 25 years. Now, we are at home in our own country. We will work it out.

Capacitar has a role to play in helping the people of East Timor heal and be "at home in their own country." We will be returning in the fall to work with the group at Clinica Pas, the Sekular Institute and with others who have expressed interest in training. In this way Capacitar will be part of a globalization which does not exploit people but creates a spirit of hope, healing and transformation across borders and cultures.

Capacitar in East Timor
Newsletter, Summer 2002

East Timor is the world's newest independent country. A spirit of optimism is in the air even though it is the poorest country in Asia and people know there is much work to do.

An important part of the work is personal and communal healing. The wounds from years of violence, which culminated in the burning and mayhem that followed the vote for independence from Indonesia in August 1999, are still raw. Capacitar is helping in the healing process. Working in collaboration with Maria Dias of PAS (Prontu atu Serbi) and other Capacitar team members, trainers Joan Condon and Mary Litell gave a series of workshops in several districts in late June and early July. Men, women and children, both lay and religious, attended, learned and began to use the practices to help them deal with the trauma in their own lives.

One religious said that she would use the finger holds to help control the fear she always feels when traveling the road where two sisters from her order were murdered in 1999. The workshops also served as mentoring and training for East Timor team members, who replicate the program with other groups.

Newsletter - Spring 2002
Capacitar in East Timor

In collaboration with Maria Dias, the East Timorese founder of Clinica Pas, Capacitar completed the second round of training in late January. Mary Litell facilitated 8 one and two-day workshops. One morning at the workshop in a small fishing village, the mayor who was a participant said, "Stop! Everyone needs this." That evening, he called the whole village together and Mary continued with the workshop on the beach, a generator buzzing to power lights. Thirteen women and two men have formed a Capacitar team and received two intensive days of team training in addition to assisting at other trainings. They have begun translating Capacitar materials into Tetum, the language spoken by most grassroots people in East Timor.

Capacitar in Indonesia
Newsletter, Summer 2002

"Look," writes Father Terry Ponombon from Jakarta."The small seed is growing." The seed was planted during the June 21-23 Jakarta workshop, Capacitar's first in Indonesia. Father Terry of the Pontifical Mission Society organized the workshop. Twenty-four people from various conflict areas particpated: two from each region, one Christian and one Muslim, so that they could have the same experience in trauma healing and go home and work as a team to serve their people.

"It was quite remarkable," said trainer Mary Litell. "The people were wonderful - a real testimony to compassion and fidelity. Most were quite stressed out themselves, some pretty badly traumatized, but all working to help victims of the conflict."

The 'growing seed' to which Father Terry referred is the plan to introduce young people to trauma healing training in a youth camp and to integrate training into programs with youth and families.

Inge, a physical therapist living in Bali who translated for the workshop, is also ready to translate the Capacitar basic manual into Indonesian!

We need to find a way to water this small seed of healing, reconciliation and peace. A grant to support the program was not funded. If you know any sources, please let us know.