Tuesday, 7th September, 1999

by John Filiatreau

DILI, East Timor - One sunny morning in April, Leonito da Costa was walking to Gethsemane Church in Liquica (East Timor) with his daughters - Julinia, 9, and Pasquala, 5. Julinia was carrying her 1-year-old sister, Abelina.

Some say it is a farmer's misfortune to have only daughters, but da Costa wasn't complaining. He was by nature a joyful man, and had been greatly blessed. His life on this small island was everything he had wanted it to be.

Da Costa's body was small - he weighed barely 125 pounds, and his lightness of heart was such that he sometimes seemed to walk on air - but he had a surprising capacity for work. When he smiled at one of his daughters, he looked much younger than his 35 years.

He had, in the nearby village of Potubo, the village of his parents, a house with wooden walls and a tin roof and tile floors, a home that he had built with his own hands.

He had a loving wife of 10 years, Leonarda, who helped run a small business in the front room, selling "necessities" to their neighbours.

He was pastor ("evangelist") of a village church, Bethel Christian, which had a growing membership of 185 people in 48 families.

He was one of the leaders of a busy farming collective that then had 25 goats, a milk cow, two fattening calves and ripening crops of vegetables and cassava.

Then came a great sorrow.

Without warning a large stone struck da Costa on the side of the head. He was stunned, and confused. Then a rifle butt smashed into the back of his neck, and he closed his deep brown eyes.

While he was knocked out, anti-independence militiamen armed with axes and machetes attacked a chaotic crowd of hundreds of refugees, including large numbers of women and children, that the "guerrillas" had herded into the yard of the Catholic church in Liquica, where most of the residents are Catholic. (The Catholic church is generally regarded as pro-independence. Ironically, Protestant churches like da Costa's are usually considered pro-autonomy.) Da Costa contends that only "about five people" in the whole crowd were politically active.

He thinks it a blessing that he was not conscious to witness the slaughter of at least 60 people in that killing field. The actual toll may have been much higher, for many residents of the Liquica district "disappeared" that day, never to be seen again. The surviving villagers believe many bodies probably were taken out to sea and dumped. It troubles da Costa that these victims weren't given proper Christian burials.

He says the slaughtering force was led by fighters of the Besi-Mera Putih (BMP), reputed to be the most brutal and merciless of the anti-independence militias. Behind the BMP marched a group of Indonesian soldiers. These civilian and uniformed killers waded fiercely into the cowering crowd, slashing indiscriminately, until dozens of people were fallen and bleeding and begging for their lives.

Mercifully, da Costa did not have to witness this pitiful scene. He regained consciousness many hours later, and found that he was in a police station, one of about 20 people sheltered there. For three days, he did not know what had become of his children. (They had survived and found their way to their mother, who had been waiting in Gethsemane church.) Early one morning, a group of soldiers came into the jail "to kill all the rest," da Costa says, but a police officer who happened also to be an elder in his church came to his rescue, muscling him away from the marauders. He and three others were the only survivors of those 20 refugees; the other 16 disappeared.

Eventually officials of the Synod of the Council of Churches of East Timor (GKTT) arranged for da Costa to be taken to the relative safety of Dili.

While he was stranded in the police station, militiamen went to his village and burned his home, Bethel Church and all other houses to the ground; stole or killed all the livestock; and destroyed the crops. Da Costa's wife and daughters escaped with the clothes on their backs.

Today there is no more Potubo. The (Indonesian) government won't permit the family to move back to the area and start rebuilding.

Now da Costa's wife and children, his two brothers' families, his parents and his wife's parents all live as refugees in a tent city in the bush, while he lives as a refugee in hiding in the capital. He hasn't seen his wife or children or others of his family since April, but he has learned that they are alive, and relatively safe.

He says he is very happy today because he "has died and has experienced the resurrection." He says his faith is very strong.

When he imagines the future, he says, he thinks about rebuilding his house and reuniting his family and recreating his village and reconstructing his church and organising a farming cooperative as successful as the one he has lost - dreams, in short, of getting his old life back. But he says he can't allow himself to think it too much because he knows it's a long shot as long as the political situation in East Timor remains volatile.

Da Costa says he has counted more than 300 people - in just the area of his village and within the reach of his congregation - who have died by murder, starvation and disease related to the continuing violence in East Timor. He says he writes their names in a book so that they will not be forgotten.

Da Costa works now as a caretaker around the Synod office. He continues to draw his clergyman's salary of 50,000 rupiah per month - a little more than $6.50. Each month he keeps 30,000 rupiah to meet his living expenses and sends 20,000 to Leonarda, for whom his heart aches every day.