The last weeks...

July 10th, 2007

The elections are over!!! They went well and the results are final. No one was able to achieve a clear majority, which will mean several of the parties will try to form an alliance to give them majority. The remainder of our time here in East Timor will be the delivery of a civic education program to explain to the voters what the new parliament will look like and how it will work. My plans are now that I will be leaving East Timor on July 31st! While I am very excited to be returning home, I have had a lot of fun as well as learning a lot during my time in East Timor.

Some of the highlights really happened in the last two months with my move to the Covalima district. Two weeks prior to the election we had extreme rainfall. The flash flooding that occurred over 3 days destroyed 5 bridges, completely cutting Suai from the rest of East Timor. These were not small bridges but large ones built by the Indonesians. After a few days it may have been possible to cross the rivers on foot, if it hadn’t been for the Crocs swimming in the river. The rains flooded many homes and the crocs were actually able to swim to the houses and were stealing small animals like goats and chickens at night.

This certainly made Election Day a lot more exciting but with lots of air support, all the materials were delivered and retrieved on time. Some of the other highlights were seeing a 6.5 meter python, seeing a lot of very large crocs, many good barbeques at the Australian Special Forces camp, and loads of great weather!

The UNMIT mission here is not completely winding down. UNPOL will remain and integrate with the National Police Force to assist the government with training. A small team of electoral will also remain to continue working with the nationals with final wrap up of the election as well as numerous others working in areas of judicial system and human rights monitoring.

But for me, I am looking forward to getting home and enjoying some Island Summer!! See you all soon!

June 15th, 2007

Hi Everyone!
Well, I have been in Cova Lima now for a few weeks and it is starting to feel a bit like home! My accommodations are nicer than Maliana, for example I have hot water in my room and air conditioning which works all night, a television (with two channels both from Indonesia and both in Bahasa), and a very good restaurant in the hotel. The barracks are quite a bit nicer than Maliana as well; in fact there is a full time UN doctor and nurse located on the base. The terrain is less mountainous than Bobanaro district but more like a jungle. Even in the dry season it rains more in this region, so there is a lot more vegetation and things are still very green. The Parliamentary election campaign is now well underway. There are 14 parties competing for a total of 65 seats. With my move to Cova Lima I have also moved to CNE, which is the election monitoring and certification body. So my job is to attend as many of the rallies as possible, speak with people at the rallies, market, and so on, and prepare reports on the political atmosphere and report any violations of the political code of conduct. I am really enjoying working with CNE and will keep me very busy over the next few weeks!!

Update

May 28th, 2007

Hello everyone!!

I have just returned to East Timor from a week off in Bali. It was extra special because Fabienne was able to join me there for a week. It certainly is a special place!! We spent the week touring the Island, snorkeling, swimming, eating some nice food, and of course just relaxing. One of the highlights of the trip was our visit to Besakih, the Mother Temple, the largest in Bali cosisting of 22 temples over 3 km located about 1000 meters on Mount Agung. What made the visit extra special was that our tour guide had taken the traditional clothes worn by the Balinese to our hotel in the morning and we were then allowed to actually enter the temples. The tour guide brought his wife and son, so both Fabienne and I had the opportunity to participate in the ceremonies with them. It was a chance to really experience Bali not just as a tourist but as part of their family! The weather was fantastic and we enjoyed the swimming almost as much as we enjoyed eating fish grilled for us on the beach. The service is really incredible and the hotel was beautiful! Oh well, then the week was over and now it is back to East Timor!! In the next few days I will be moving from STAE in Maliana to CNE in Cova Lima. CNE is the monitoring body that certifies the election results. It is more similar to my role in Haiti as an election monitor. I had requested the change early in May and was excited to hear that I was able to move. In fact I am replacing another Canadian in Cova Lima who was leaving the mission early. I hope that future opportunities will be more in the area of monitoring so I am happy to be able to have the experience from both in this mission!

Thats about it for now! I will update everyone once I am settled in Cova Lima!!

Hot Springs

Trip to Hot Springs

Last weekend, I had a chance to visit the hot springs in Bobanaro. A group of us from electoral and some of our language assistants took our lunch and spent the day enjoying the view. There was a hotel at the hot springs during Portuguese times but all that remains is an old building and a pool that collapsed a few years back. The water was very hot. It was fun to imagine how magnificent it must have been 50 years ago!

Finally Some Pictures

Hello Everyone!!

Sorry it has taken me so long to get this Blog up and running. The network service in the district is very slow and now with an additional 6 team members, everyone wants to check their emails, leaving little time for me to work on my Blog. This weekend was quiet here in Maliana. Last night the UN POL had a karaoke night and I managed to belt out a few tunes. Actually I managed to slaughter " Hotel California" but I did manage to hit the right notes for " When You Say Nothing At All"! For lunch today, the Pakistani commander invited a couple of us down for lunch. It was great and I have made some wonderful friends at their compound. They are in a separate compound and their unit is totally supported by their own country. They have brought every thing with them and the UN only provides them with food and fuel. They have their own mechanics, electricians, plumbers, cooks, and even barber! They have even offered me a Punjabi, which I am really excited about and can't wait to wear it at home. I had mentioned in my earlier post that they were acting as our security team in Bobanaro and I was very impressed at the level of professionalism and the conduct they displayed.

This is the District Office where the National STAE for the Bobanaro district is located. The picture was taken on the morning before election day, just before they were loaded into 30 different vehicles for the six sub-districts.

The picture from the top was on election day. East Timor has quite a few mountains. The highest is about 2950 metres.

Election Day

April 10th, 2007

Election Day is over! In my sub-district of Bobanaro things went great! It was extremely hectic over the last week. It all started last Monday with the packing of the election materials. Up to the night before we delivered the election materials, April 8th, the Technical Secretariat of Election Administration (STAE) was adding materials to the list to be sent. This meant we could not seal the boxes right up to the point when we put the boxes on the truck in our convoy. I had to oversee the packing of all the boxes in our district, Bobanaro, which then are sent to the six sub-districts, Atabe, Balibo, Maliana, Lolotoe, Cailaco, and Bobanaro. The largest of these sub-districts is Bobanaro which was my area of responsibility, which has about 19,000 voters divided among 18 Sucos or villages.

The national staff that I was to supervise packing the election material was great! With 18 of them, you have to really stay sharp if you are to catch any mistakes. If they missed some non-sensitive materials that could be handled at the polling station but if sensitive materials were missed, that could be disastrous at that polling station. They were all eager to help, so much so that when the packing of materials began they were throwing things in so quickly you were never to sure if they put two of some items in and none of others. In the end it was great, with 136 boxes to pack they only missed one non-sensitive item (a roll of toilet paper that is used to wipe off excess ink after they dip their finger) , which was discovered in our quality control line.

On the morning of the 8th I set out to my sub-district with my convoy of 10 vehicles. This was after a lot of confusion getting all the polling center supervisors and national police (PNTL) and election materials packed. UNPOL provided three vehicles, Electoral provided three vehicles, and STAE provided four vehicles. We left Maliana and were only 3 km from base before the first STAE vehicle broke down. It was a mini bus full of PNTL officers and polling center supervisors. We relocated them in the back of two pick ups and were off again. We made it to the sub-district capital Bobanaro (Yes, the district is Bobanaro, the sub-district is Bobanaro, and the capital of the sub-district is also Bobanaro!) around noon and we still had a long day ahead of us to deliver all the materials. The distances are not so great but the road conditions are terrible. For example, the furthest Suco or village I have is Lour, which is only 40 km from the sub-district capital but takes about 2.5 hours to get there. Once in the sub-district capital the vehicle to Lour also broke down. They had sent a replacement vehicle for the mini bus that broke down on the way, but the time it arrived it too had also broke down. I had to have the Lour delivery team wait till 5 before another replacement would show up and it is not safe to travel back in the dark, so the UNPOL escort had to camp overnight in Lour. The rest of us divided into two groups and began delivering the materials to the other Sucos. Things went well from this point on with the exception of two flat tires on my UNPOL escort vehicle! By 7 pm we had everything delivered and I was on my home for an early morning on Election Day.

The polling centers opened at 7 a.m. and I wanted to check on two polling centers by 6 a.m. The materials had to be stored in the PNTL office in Bobanaro as the voting centers had no place secured to store the materials overnight. Some of the polling centers are old schools or town halls which had been destroyed in previous years and by any standards not suitable for this sort of activities but the Timorese don’t seem to mind. They are in most cases missing parts of the roof, no windows and even parts of the walls have been destroyed. Almost all polling centers were opened on time. The polling center in the sub district was guarded by 20 heavily armed Pakistani Military. I was discussing with the commander that they should remain 25 meters from the polling center as this was a rule established by STAE. Of course they can enter the center in the event of trouble but imagine my surprise when he asked me what level of force was he authorized to use in the event of trouble! I am not sure why he expected me to know and I wouldn’t have any idea how to answer that. I just told him that we all would have to use our common sense and hope that there was no trouble. Things remained very calm and the voters came all day in steady stream. By 10:00 am I had decided to check on some other polling centers and when I arrived in Ilat-laun at 11 am, they had only 7 ballots left of 950 with about 300 people waiting to vote. Ilat-laun is probably one of the nicest villages in the entire district. About 100 people were doing this traditional dance and the singing was amazing! The village is located on the side of a mountain with a terrific view with many of the straw thatched roofs. Because of its location and altitude the temperature is cooler and a relief from the normal 32 to 34 degree temperatures. I didn’t have much time to enjoy the view though. In most of the sub-district there are no radios or cell communications to contact the STAE office and have them send more ballots to me. So I had to drive back to the sub-district office to get communications. Within an hour I had more ballots from Maliana and was on my way back to Ilat-laun to deliver the ballots. On the way to Ilat-laun, I met the UNPOL who told me that in Carabau a number of voters were trying to use a voter card with no serial numbers. After I dropped off the ballots I was off to Carabau to find out that they had let them vote anyway. Every voter had to dip their index finger in ink which lasts for about 2 weeks. This ink was ordered especially for this election with the highest concentration of silver nitrate used. The idea for this was that if there was a problem with security in a polling station, and then those people could have a chance to vote one week later in the same location and the ink would prevent those that did vote from voting again.

After Carabau, I went to Leber where I viewed the closing of the polling center, gathered up the materials, and after collecting materials at two more polling centers, headed back to Bobanaro where all the groups in my convoy were to meet up before coming back to Maliana. I was the first group to get back to Bobanaro and the plan was that the first back would collect the three polling centers in Bobanaro. The first two were collected without incidence. At the third polling center while we leaving, the UNPOL vehicle fell into a hole and got stuck. This was a Land Cruiser which holds 12 people and was needed badly. We had to transport 28 polling center presiding officers and polling center supervisors.
At about 9 pm, the last of the convoy had gathered and I was able to have another UNPOL pull the stuck Land Cruiser out. After getting all the presiding officers and supervisors a seat in a vehicle, we headed back to Maliana. It is still unclear if there will be a runoff and it will take another place but we have heard that parliamentary elections will be in late June