DILI, East Timor-
The empty swimming pool at the hotel beckoned and Carola Scharenberg, a bikini-clad tourist from Finland, took a dip. A few miles down the road, rival gangs roamed, arson fires crackled, and soldiers prowled in armored vehicles.
Tourism is a hard sell in East Timor, one of the world's poorest and most unstable countries. The capital, Dili, is a bleak place of abandoned homes, shuttered shops, military patrols, and bands of armed youths eager for a scuffle.
"It seems wrong that I'm spending my days at the pool and these bad things are happening," said Scharenberg, who once worked as a scuba diving instructor in East Timor. Her return on vacation last week coincided with the worst violence since its 1999 break with Indonesia.
East Timor had big hopes for tourism after it became independent in 2002, buoyed by a service industry that catered to thousands of U.N. troops and advisers. Along with coffee plantations and reserves of oil and gas, tourism emerged as a modest boon to the fragile economy.
Adventurous scuba divers came from Australia, drawn by pristine coral reefs. Backpackers and cyclists turned up. Singaporeans came to experience village life, a world away from their spic-and-span metropolis.
But the violence has sapped East Timor's tourist industry of hundreds of thousands of dollars in cancellations for the rest of the year, said Gino Favaro, head of East Timor's tourist association. About 500 people visited each month on tourist visas before the crisis, he said.
Favaro still sees long-term potential, noting past upheaval including Indonesia's invasion of the former Portuguese colony in 1975 and a frenzy of violence in 1999 by the Indonesian military and militias after East Timor voted for self-rule.
"We believe this situation here is just a hiccup in the history of East Timor," said Favaro, an Italian-Australian who runs the waterfront Hotel Dili.
At $25, the cheapest rooms have no phone or television, but do have broadband Internet service–an aid to journalists who have filled the hotel as they cover the unrest.
Business also is booming at other hotels where Australian police and Portuguese officers have set up camp, but the upswing appears temporary.
Dili's fanciest hotel is Hotel Timor, where the immaculate pool and deck chairs seem like a mirage in the dilapidated city.
Last week, 27-year-old Australian Ryan Dixon passed by the hotel on a bicycle as he and a friend set out on a two-week cycling trip through the hills.
"We figure most of the unrest is localized in Dili, and that once we get out of town, it will settle down a bit," said Dixon, a former soldier who visited as a peacekeeper in 1999.
While other cities remain calm, Australian troops are back in Dili to help quell fighting between military factions and gang violence. Also in the mission are troops from New Zealand, Malaysia and Portugal.
One of the city's few nightspots is the open-air Castaway Bar, which offers pizzas and burgers, along with a pool table. It has stayed open, even though one arson fire spread dangerously close during the violence.
"Nobody's even sure if it will stop in the next three months, or if it will stop at all," said Mark Mialszygrosz, the Australian bar owner. Even if the violence subsides, "it's still put the country back a few years, at least."
When Indonesia controlled East Timor, the local government dreamed of attracting tourists curious about the history of conflict. "We can sell the war," Basilio Araujo, an official, said in 1998. The next year, he fled as political fortunes changed.
Today few visit the scenes of East Timor's tumultuous history, such as Dili's Santa Cruz cemetery where soldiers gunned down pro-independence demonstrators in 1991. Goats roam the cemetery across the street where Indonesia's war dead are buried.
On a promontory overlooking the ocean stands a statue of Jesus Christ with arms outstretched. Indonesian dictator Suharto built it, presumably to curry favor with the mostly Roman Catholic population. Portuguese cannons from colonial days remain along the bay, where Australian ships are anchored.
Scharenberg, the Finnish tourist, said she planned to stay for the rest of her vacation but added she might volunteer with an aid group to "work on something else than my tan."
