While I procrastinate, here’s an extra post on Timor-Leste. Even more bloggers are discussing the need to help in nation-building and the power struggles that were created after 1999, so maybe a consensus is developing that the root of the problem is poor handling of just about everything since independence. One blog even ponders whether the Timorese would have been better off sticking with the Indonesians, though I think the answer is ‘no’.

There’s also quite a bit of flak being thrown at the UN, particularly from over America way, because of their involvement in getting several Timorese police officers killed (see yesterday’s rather gruesome West Australian cover). Although I’m generally a UN supporter, the last person I spoke to who’d been to Dili did agree that the UN didn’t seem to be achieving much.

Over in Kiwi-land, debate centres on just what their troops are doing in Timor. My guess is the Clark government wanted to answer the Timorese call for help, which went out to Australia and NZ because we’re the local ‘Westerners’, as it were. By contrast, check out this view from the Philippines which reckons that country isn’t taking enough interest in the situation.

Also, more blogging from the streets of Dili can be found at Tumbleweed, Lookingglass View, and Dili-Dallying.