Most foreign visitors to Dili stay in the Hotel Turismo, a low building separated from the sea by a strip of rough parkland where goats and pigs forage under banyan trees.
Guests swelter beneath the coconut palms and sandalwood trees of the garden restaurant, while Indonesian government agents sweat it out in the tiny forecourt, waiting to follow any visitors who venture out into the broad avenues of the East Timor capital.
There are more guests staying in the hotel these days, mainly Catholic Church workers and a sprinkling of tourists and foreign correspondents, but intelligence agents are less in evidence.
The political climate has changed in Dili since the downfall of the Suharto regime in May, and in any event the government spies are needed in Jakarta to help deal with the turmoil there.
Heavily armed Indonesian soldiers continue to occupy fine old colonial buildings on the sea front, including the 1627 garrison with its massive walls and shuttered windows, and military trucks still roar past the Turismo at dead of night.
However, foreigners are followed less frequently, and political activity, long banned, is now allowed. The students who occupied the provincial parliament building this week, taking their lead from their counterparts in Jakarta, succeeded in getting a four-hour dialogue with the governor and military commander in the governor's office.
The students have been especially active since July, travelling all over the rugged mountain terrain of East Timor and along the spectacular coast to conduct dialogues with villagers, to encourage reconciliation and make them politically aware of the historical opportunity presented by the exit of President Suharto.
Political events seem to be moving in their favour. President Habibie has put autonomy on the agenda and released 15 political prisoners. Even more conciliatory forces are waiting in the wings in Jakarta.
Last Friday an important opposition figure, Dr Amien Rais, met the East Timorese pro-independence leader, Mr Xanana Gus mao, inside Jakarta's maximum-security Cipinang prison.
Afterwards Dr Rais announced he would support a referendum, giving the East Timorese the right to choose between independence and continuing ties with Jakarta. Dr Rais is chairman of the new People's Mandate Party which is expected to be one of the frontrunners in democratic elections in June next year.
"If most of the Timorese want to stay within Indonesia then Xanana has said he will accept that, but if most of the people want to separate we have to respect that also," Dr Rais said. The proposal for a referendum is the cornerstone of the political strategy of Mr Gusmao, who controls policy from his prison cell.
The guerrilla leader insists that the 800,000 East Timor people be well prepared to make their political choice. A unique dialogue has now begun aimed at healing the internal wounds from a brief civil war which preceded annexation.
The Nobel Peace laureate, Bishop Carlos Belo, presided over reconciliation meetings in Sept ember. The students, meanwhile, demand that the Indonesian government revoke Law 7/1976 integrating East Timor into Indonesia, withdraw the armed forces within six months, stop arming pro-integration East Timorese and free all political prisoners, especially Mr Gusmao. They also demand UN peacekeeping forces and human rights monitoring.
Despite the relaxation of tension in Dili, activists and church sources insist nothing has changed in the countryside where the Indonesian army has conducted a brutal counter-insurgency campaign for 23 years against dwindling bands of Fretilin pro-independence fighters, who have widespread public support.
On July 28th Indonesia staged a farewell ceremony in Dili to mark the withdrawal of combat troops, promising they would all be gone by the end of August. But military documents purportedly leaked to a pro-independence group showed that 7,938 combat troops remained in East Timor at the end of August as part of a contingent of 17,941 troops, 107 higher than in July.
Lieut Col Made Runa of the military command insists: "We have only 3,000 troops in East Timor in total." The students have had difficulty conducting their dialogues, encountering road blocks and intimidation, said a source in the Justice and Peace Commission in Dili.
They have been harassed, especially by locally-recruited militias containing East Timorese and Javanese settlers. It was interference with a student-led dialogue with people in the south of the territory on October 29th that sparked the recent upsurge of violence around the village of Alas in the south of the island, a six-hour drive from Dili over very difficult roads.
Four undercover Indonesian army soldiers infiltrated the meeting but were identified and handed over to the guerrillas. Three were killed and the fourth set free to tell his commander that it was Fretilin and not the people who had done this, according to a Catholic Church source. However, military retaliation has caused much civilian suffering, with unconfirmed reports of many deaths.
This prompted the Portuguese government, still recognised by the UN as the responsible power for East Timor, to suspend talks with Indonesia in New York over autonomy for the former colony. The students also suspended the dialogues, but resumed this week.