The trembling of the undersized man crouching in the back of the Toyota jeep, and the way he ducked when a motorcycle or car whizzed by, illuminated the terror felt by him and thousands of refugees living around Liquica, in the west of East Timor. We had picked him up along the roadside near the seaside town, where dozens of displaced people were massacred by pro-Indonesian militias in March.
Hundreds live in the Catholic church compound but it was impossible to talk to them there. A nun tending to their needs told us that spies would report our presence and that the refugees we contacted there risked beatings later from pro-Indonesian militias.
With great courage the man, a subsistence farmer with five small children whom we met outside the town, had agreed to tell the two visiting reporters of his experiences since the mass intimidation of the pro-independence population in his area began in January. He had been forced to flee his coffee-growing mountain village of Vatoboro and seek refuge in Liquica, he said.
As we drove by dozens of burnedout huts - the results of a militia "cleansing" operation which had eliminated the hamlet of Futubao - he told us that they were constantly hungry and the children were often sick. Many had died. Most evenings they were required to go to the militia base in Liquica for political indoctrination. "They tell us you should choose autonomy or we'll kill you," he said.
The plight of internal refugees makes United Nations officials wonder if it is possible to have a free referendum when the population of the former Portuguese colony is asked to choose between autonomy or independence on August 8th. Church sources say up to 36,000 East Timorese have been forced out of their homes and that 2,900 are living in appalling conditions in western Liquica.
The UN mission chief, Mr Ian Martin, a former head of Amnesty International and adviser to the UN Human Rights Commissioner, Mrs Mary Robinson, must make a recommendation to the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, by next Tuesday on whether the necessary security conditions exist for popular consultations to go forward as envisaged by the UN agreement with Indonesia and Portugal.
The refugee crisis is "one of the most serious aspects of the present situation", Mr Martin said in an interview in Dili. "In order for the registration (of voters) to take place, these people will have to be able to return to their homes, or if recent events have left them without homes to return to, at least there have to be satisfactory arrangements to address their humanitarian needs and also to make sure we have access to them." There was a long way to go in a short period of time if there was to be a positive assessment, and he added: "There's no question of the United Nations proceeding in conditions that don't create security for those voting."
The UN mission chief also said that he had seen documents "which indicate that public funds are being allocated for a pro-autonomy campaign", which is expressly forbidden under the UN agreement. The documents, signed this month by the East Timor Governor, Mr Abilio Soares, are believed to authorise district heads to use the equivalent of £3.5 million allocated for the East Timor social safety net programme to promote the pro-autonomy campaign, and another £1 million to support Pam Swarakasa, the civil defence force headed by pro-Jakarta militia leaders involved in intimidating and killing pro-independence supporters.
Under the UN timetable campaigning is not supposed to begin until July 20th, Mr Martin said, "but one of our concerns is that there is already a very active pro-autonomy campaign going on around the country which clearly has a great deal of official sponsorship and involvement."
The government is supposed to stay strictly neutral. But last week a senior UN official came across a pro-integration rally in the mountain village of Sarmara organised by government officials and attended by police and army personnel and 30 members of the "Darah Integrasi" militia.
"On our first field trips around the country we found there are parts, particularly but not exclusively in the west, where there is still a climate of fear and intimidation," Mr Martin said. "That has to change very rapidly if the political consultation is to go ahead on schedule."
The pro-independence side under the umbrella organisation known as CNRT had not even been able to open an office yet, as its leaders were in hiding from the militias, he said.
The man on the roadside in Liquica had a more immediate concern. He has coffee plants at his hillside farm in Vatoboro and now is harvest time. "But I can't go back to the village," he said. "If I do they will kill me."