The U.N.'s Almeida said a number of proposals for setting up and operating a printing press were under consideration. He said a building that had served as the Indonesian government's printing press was found to have three offset machines, which can be put to use after repairs. The building, however, is in the middle of what became a camp for the Australian-led U.N. military force that was dispatched in September to quell the violence that flared after the referendum. For operations to resume, the equipment would have to be moved to a civilian area. Burned hulks of charred vehicles rest in a heap where they have been taken in a dump outside town.
Gasoline is sold by the liter along the roadside in plastic containers.
The main roads also are lined by sullen young men standing and staring, most of them without work. No leaders tell them what to do, even if there were means to reach them. Jos Alexandre Xanana Gusmao, a former guerrilla leader who has become the hero and potential of the independence movement, and Jos Ramos-Horta, who won a Nobel Prize in 1996 for his efforts to highlight human rights abuses in East Timor, have traveled widely in Asia but have resisted playing a role in East Timorese government. Gusmao has said he did not want to become president, and Ramos-Horta said in December that he planned to become a journalist in 2001. Communications facilities are virtually nonexistent.