Car drives over riverbed/family walk toward camera

01.00.00.00

Lester:  An old man and his family wander along a parched river bed in western East Timor. At 90, Louis Martins is a witness to East Timor's many battles.

00.15

Martins:  For generations here, we've wanted to be independent.  Even today we fight to be independent.

00.26

Lester:  But their fight now is largely with other East Timorese.

00.34

Agripina:  The local militia is backed by Indonesia but they are East Timorese, and they kill the Timorese people.

00.38

Martins with spear

Lester:   Mention the local militia by name, and Louis goes to war.

00.46

Lester:  Against Besi Merah Putih?

00.54

Martins:  Yeah.

Singing in church

01.06

Half built cathedral

Lester:  It's a view that resonates in the shell of this half built cathedral.

01.14

In the south west town of Suai, eighteen hundred refugees are relying on the church to shield them from the militias campaign of terror.

01.22

Suai refugee

Suai refugee:  We came to stay in this church because the evil men of the militia chased us.  They want to kill us... hit us... arrest us...that's why we're scared to stay in our houses - to live with our families.

01.30

Lester:  It's East Timor's largest concentration of refugees. But it's a small fraction of the problem. Across the former Portuguese colony, 50,000 people are simply too terrified to go home. But the vote they expect to change everything is just days away.

01.51

Rally

They can't go home, neither can they ignore the excitement. In a town where whispering you're an independence supporter is a dangerous act, they're yelling it.

Cardoso:  This is an historical event for us,

02.14

02.33

Cardoso

Super:

ANTONIO CARDOSO

CNRT Spokesperson

that they will feel freely and they will talk anything.

Refugee

Refugee:  August 30 is a very good and beautiful day for us because we want freedom... independence. We don't want the alternative.

02.42

Crowd

Crowd:  Viva!... Viva!

02.54

Refugee

Refugee:  What we want today - dead or alive - is independence!

Crowd at rally/Pan to Lester piece to camera

Super:

TIM LESTER

Lester:  The urge among East Timorese to celebrate this chance to vote is no surprise, when you consider their losses in the face of Indonesia's military. More than 200,000 people dead. That's one third of the territory's population at the time when their giant neighbour invaded. Now, as they choose whether Indonesia stays or goes, they're faced with the real threat that many more might die in the process.

02.57

Guys on truck with weapons

Opposite the refugees across East Timor's political divide, there are tens of thousands of men, with weapons.

03.15

Civilian militias, the muscle of the autonomy campaign, to keep East Timor as part of Indonesia. They're accused of murdering scores of independence supporters, and terrorising most of the territory.

Gonsalves:  We're not scared

03.24

03.36

Gonsalves

because East Timor doesn't just belong to pro-independence - pro-autonomy owns East Timor too. If we must shed our blood, we must do it in East Timor.

Lester:  At first, Maliana farmer, Ruben Gonsalves didn't want us filing his men.  This militia commander doesn't trust western journalists, but eventually he let us climb aboard a pro-Indonesia convoy into one of East Timor's notorious militia strongholds.

03.50

Militia cheering

04.06

Truck convoy

Lester:  He says that pipe guns and pistols, machetes and spears, are for self defence, and he doesn't like the term militia. To him, this is more like community policing.

04.14

Gonsalves:  Our group is not a militia.  We are a group that supports peace.

04.28

Gonsalves

If a person does something wrong we will deal with them whether they're pro-independence or pro-autonomy.  That's what we've done until now.

Lester on back of truck

Lester:  It's an unsettling feeling, riding with Ruben's militia men into Maliana. The last time we were here we saw how suddenly the militia can change the mood in this western town.

04.51

Girls singing in church

Singing

05.02

Lester:  There was a morning church service, East Timorese children singing.

05.08

There was a crowd, curious about a supply helicopter opposite the UN base open just the day before.

05.15

Destruction of UN mission

And there was the militia....

05.27

Lester:  ... reminding everyone who rules Maliana.

05.40

Man:  The ordered me not to come and watch

05.51

Man

the arrival of the UN helicopter. The want to force me to join the militia.  They threatened to kill us if we didn't join.

Injured man at mission

Lester:  The attack shook the UN mission in East Timor. For a brief time it looked as though militia thuggery might force the whole operation into retreat.

06.11

In fact, the UN hung on, but it's still a daily battle dealing with the consequences of militia activity.

06.23

Gelasio

Super:

GELASIO DA SILVA

Pastor of Same

Gelasio:  All these troubles start by the - well behind them - the military behind all this group.

06.30

Lester:  Another town, another refugee crisis. In Same, outspoken local priest, Gelasio Da Silva, looks to the UN for help.

06.46

All that stands between the militias and the UN refugees or anyone else, is Indonesian police. And who stands behind the militias? According to Father Gelasia, it's the independence movement's long time enemy, Indonesia's military.

Gelasia

Lester:  The military formed the militia?

07.11

Gelasia:  Oh yes. Yes.

07.14

Lester:  And still supports the militia?

07.17

Gelasia:  Yes, they are, they still support the militia.

Williamson

Super:

SIMON WILLIAMSON

Community Aid Abroad

Williamson:  I think people are dying as a result of this crisis. It's not something that you can easily measure.

07.23

Lester:  Simon Williamson is among those taking convoys of food trucks through militia controlled East Timor to the refugees.

07.27

The Australian aid worker is worried the disruption has already been so great, it could lead to widespread disease and starvation.

07.37

Williamson:   It's certainly worse than I expected. I think the key problem at the moment is that because people haven't been able to plant their crops, get their - there's no rice going in, there's no corn going in - that the mixed harvest won't be there.

07.46

Gelasio

Gelasio:  Since last year people didn't work in the cornfields and rice field. Even now is the hired time for coffee harvest, but some of them, they abandon their coffee plantation and run for their safety, for another place.

08.00

Bus crossing border/Lester to cameras

Lester:  The border between East and West Timor. Some East Timorese will tell you next year they'll need a passport to go across here. They don't now. And hundreds have fled across this border in the last few months alone to escape the fear in the East.

08.30

Refugee family

Lester:  But there's a crucial difference in the caps over the border. Here those we spoke with are running not from militias, but pro-independence forces.

08.51

Leoneto

Leoneto:  We are pro-autonomy. We are scared of pro-independence people because they want to kill us.

09.00

Lester:  Leoneto Dos Santos insists the ballot will decide whether he and his family ever make it back home.

09.10

Leoneto:  If East Timor gets independence, we are pro-integration... we'll be killed by them.

09.17

Tavares

Tavares:  Pro-independence supporters caused the people to run away from their houses.

09.23

Lester:   Joao Tavares doesn't accept the claims that his militias have caused the refugee problem. The head of the pro-autonomy forces says he commands fifty thousand men committed to keeping East Timor's links with Jakarta.

09.35

Cheering

09.48

Tavares:  Why do I say you have won?  Because the fighters who stand in front of me have already won autonomy.  Thanks to all of you.

09.53

Rally members singing

Singing

10.04

Lester:  In the autonomy campaign's theme tune, they sing of Indonesia's red and white flag.

10.13

Singing

10.19

Lester:   Their weapons left on the trucks, the men even join a scramble for Lollies; the Maliana rally has a picnic quality. But there's nothing leisurely about Joao Tavares' forecast for East Timor once the vote is counted. He tells us to expect violence.

10.24

Tavares

Tavares:  Yes, I think it will happen.  It will happen because the Timorese never accept losing.

10.40

Gelasio

Gelasio:  According to all the rumours, if the pro-independence wins maybe some of their heads will be cut off.

10.50

Lester:  Joao Tavares insists he wants peace after the vote, but he won't discuss what he and his forces have planned if they lose the ballot.

11.12

Tavares

Tavares:  Why must I answer that question? I will answer the question if I lose the direct ballot - so you ask me then, and I'll answer.

11.21

Williamson

Williamson:  The only place people will be able to go to is flee across the border to West Timor.

11.30

Lester:  According to aid workers, violence after the vote would turn East Timor's refugee problem into a disaster.

11.37

Williamson:  I mean if there is a real serious deterioration in security, we want to get as much materials and supplies in here before that happens, so people have got something to survive with.

11.44

Lester:   And if it does happen, how bad could this be?

11.52

Williamson:  As bad as you've see anywhere in the world from that point of view. I mean if you can't get in here, and they've got no food and medicine, or the water's cut off, and they're being threatened, and there's no help coming in, that's disaster of the worst kind for these people.

11.55

Lester:  Around Suai's half built cathedral, independence leaders say the local militia has already told them to look out. When the vote's over, they're a target.

12.15

Cardoso

Cardoso:  You will see on the first and second of September, it means that they will attack the people, especially the refugees that right now are living in the residence of Suai Church.

12.24

Guys on bikes

Cheering

12.39

Lester:  In fact, the militia threats and fears of aid workers have barely dented enthusiasm for the vote.

12.45

Cheering

12.51

Lester:   Here, of all places, they're exposed if independence wins, a concentration of known independence supporters, defenceless in a militia controlled town.

12.56

Guitar music

13.07

Lester:  But that fear is no longer enough to dampen excitement as East Timor votes.

13.15

Guitar music

13.23