The last time I saw Sebastiao Guterres in Dili was in the weeks before the August 30th vote on independence. Then, as always, he was smiling and cheerful, ever ready to help visiting journalists and aid workers.
Yesterday the 26-year-old English-language graduate from East Timor was close to tears as he described in a refugee centre in Darwin how last week his aunt and her five children perished in a fire in their home set by pro-Jakarta militias.
His uncle, too, was shot in a car in Dili after coming down from the hills to find rice for refugees in the mountain. He knew his uncle was dead because he got a message from his father saying not to go and look for him.
Sebastiao had been employed by the UN Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) and was evacuated earlier this week to avoid the fate of almost a dozen UN workers known to have been slain by the militias. He is now helping Australian aid agencies run the refugee camp outside Darwin for the hundreds of East Timorese airlifted from Dili on Tuesday after a terrifying week huddled in the besieged UNAMET compound.
Incredibly, two alleged members of the militias which terrorised them and a suspected East Timor soldier in the Indonesian army and his family of 10 were identified among the refugees. A nun recognised the two militiamen on one of the Australian Air Force Hercules aircraft as it came in to land on Tuesday afternoon.
Police took the two away for special assessment by immigration authorities, and separated the family of 10 for their own safety, said a police officer, Ms Jane Munday, who believed the father was a former military employee rather than an Indonesian soldier.
Many refugees feared they were spies sent to gather information on them, but Sebastiao, despite all that had happened, was prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt. "We are Timorese and they are Timorese and they should be given a chance to change, as long as they are willing to work with us," he said.
"I got to tell you," he added, "in the militia not all are bad. Many see now what terrible things they have done. There is no need for us to get revenge on them. I blame those who ordered this."
The 1,480 refugees are being housed in rows of army tents with 18 cots each in the Kalymnos stadium outside Darwin.
At lunchtime yesterday the refugees lined up 20-deep for ample meals of rice and chicken. They all wore ID numbers, and had harrowing experiences to relate, like 62-year-old Marie Leonora da Silva (No 1,308), who said she had spent eight days in the compound in Dili after her home was burned and had lost everything. Her nephew was stabbed in the neck with a bayonet and she did not know if he was dead.
David Shanks adds: Militia leaders Joao Tavares da Silva and Eurico Guterres are systematically searching refugees camps in West Timor - in Kupang and at Atambua - for independence supporters, said Dr Peter Carey, the Oxford historian, last night. He said that he had been talking by satellite phone to a western journalist in the mountain area there, who told him "so many are dying of starvation".