Why East Timor Has Declared War on Ninjas

[The Straight Story]

Why East Timor Has Declared War on Ninjas


For most, the presence of an outfit of ninjas conjures scenes of Japanese comic book assassins or, perhaps, of mutant turtles dwelling in a sewer. But in East Timor, ninjas have become a national security threat. The impoverished country, perched on the fringes of the Indonesian archipelago, is in the grips of a six-month campaign aimed at curbing "ninja" activities - a euphemism, ostensibly, for clandestine, anti-government militancy. Earlier this year, Longuinhos Monteiro, East Timor's police chief, donned commando fatigues and personally led an operation into the country's western marches. He sent out a warning via the press: "Any ninjas who want to take us on, your final stop will be Santa Cruz cemetery ."

To understand the way of the East Timor ninja, one has to look at the nation itself. After becoming formally independent in 2002, East Timor remains very much a fledgling - even experimental - state with a pack of international institutions and NGOs propping up a government that has limited capabilities of its own. The police chief's ninja-fighting bravado was spurred by the mysterious murders of a teenage girl in December and an infant child in January. But, critics say, his campaign masks the misdeeds and brutality of the country's own police, who are slowly taking back control from a force of international peackeepers. Moreover, the threat of "ninjas" resonates deep in the psyche of a nation still traumatized and torn by years of occupation and civil strife. "This idea of a masked man, of a covert agent that's difficult to identify - a kind of ghost - haunts this place," says Silas Everett, country director for East Timor at the Asia Foundation. (See pictures of Timor's turmoil.)

The term "ninja" in East Timor doesn't quite evoke a real band of fighters, but a hidden, sometimes imaginary menace stalking the country. It came into parlance in the 1990s, when shadowy militias backed by the Indonesian army targeted East Timorese independence activists. Villages were terrorized and countless people kidnapped and killed in the dark by men garbed in black. It's estimated that over 100,000 East Timorese lost their lives during Indonesia's 24-year-long occupation of the former Portuguese colony. (The country's current population is a little over one million.) The fear of the death squads played into ancient archipelago lore of a lurking, shapeless apparition that snatches babies and horses in the dead of the night. In a country where forms of witchcraft and sorcery are still widely practiced, the new, real danger of the ninja acquired mystical properties. It's still not uncommon, say researchers, for East Timorese to leave a glass of water outside their door, a knife bobbing within, to ward off the nocturnal ninja.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100422/wl_time/08599198321700

[sakabatou]

1. I'll tell Team 7 to avoid East Timor

[Downtown Hound]

2. Democracy and freedom are in danger! Sounds like a job for: