trouble in timor again

watching from the sidelines is horribly painful. to watch Timor slide back once again into chaos has been like observing a piece of bean curd slide slowly down a slanted plate, inching downwards, slowed only by its wetness, and then suddenly last night, that piece of curd gained momentum and hit the bottom with impact, shattering into million pieces of useless fluffy curd... sigh.... what's worse is when you're in the next room seeing all this and can't open the door to go in to put your hand out to save the fate of the curd... last night, the gunshots rang out once again, not just in Same where a fierce battle is said to have occurred to bring in Alfredo, but also in several neighbourhoods in Dili. Friends tell me it was like April 2006 again.. with gunfire puncturing the night from 11pm till 5am Sunday... once again, Dili was dead town apparently from what i hear... everyone's lying low, and of course the rumour circuit must be working overtime with so little access to good information. OZ media say 4 have been killed but who knows. i just know that it's hard to be sitting in my comfortable first world room when my friends are in Timor. How horrid all this is. Makes you realise that hey, it's nearly been a year since April 28.... once again it was during the Lenten and Easter period when the tensions ran high. in fact, if this year's elections do proceed, it would be the Monday after Easter Sunday. May 25th last year, Black Thursday (my own name for it), was Ascension of the Lord. Oh dear.. oh dear...