Professor Jim Ife is head of the School of Social Work and Social Policy at the University of Western Australia.

Evelyn Balais Serrano is a consultant for the Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development.

At the town of Gleno, the people came early to vote. Many had come from the surrounding villages the previous day, to avoid possible harassment by militia groups on the day of the ballot. By 6 am, half an hour before polling was due to open, there were more than 1,000 people patiently waiting in the dawn light. Their faces showed a quiet determination to play a part in this critical day for the future of their nation.

Inside the polling station it was mild chaos. The local polling staff seemed unsure of what to do, but gradually under the guidance of UNAMET personnel things were sorted out. The polling station opened, a little late, and the people began the historic vote. It was a slow process; for both the polling staff and the voters it was a new experience, and it was clearly going to be a very long day. Many of the people would be there for hours, but the people of East Timor had waited 24 years for this day and they were not going to be put off by a few extra hours of waiting.

Later in the morning, some armed militia arrived at the Gleno polling station. They fired guns into the air, accused UNAMET of bias, threatened the voters and UNAMET staff, and attacked the polling station with stones launched with home-made weapons. A UNAMET staff member from Japan was slightly injured. The people fled in terror and the polling station was closed, while the Indonesian Police stood by and watched, taking no action. Later in the day the polling station reopened, the people returned to vote, and by the end of the day 98% of the 3,500 registered voters had cast their ballots. The threats and intimidation had been real, but the people of Gleno were not going to be intimidated out of their right to vote on the future of their country.

The courage and determination of the people of Gleno was repeated throughout East Timor on the day of the ballot. But the cost was high, and the people of Gleno had to pay dearly for daring to exercise the right to vote. That night and the next day houses of known independence supporters in Gleno and surrounding villages were burned. Militia went on a rampage in a nearby village, forcing people to flee for their lives. The local polling officers received death threats, and had to be escorted to the "relative safety" of Dili in a UN convoy, which was itself held up for some 9 hours the following day by armed militia who seemed determined not to let us go. Since then the situation has got steadily worse in Gleno, with more intimidation and many houses and livelihoods destroyed. Undoubtedly many of the death threats have by this time been carried out, now that the international observers have gone. And Gleno, unfortunately, is typical of the East Timorese experience, rather than the exception.

The strength and courage of the East Timorese people, in the face of continuous and serious harassment and intimidation, served as an inspiration to those of us who were privileged to observe the ballot. It was a magnificent statement of the strength of the human spirit, as the people bravely asserted their commitment to exercise a fundamental human right of democratic self-determination. The subsequent cost to the people has been tragic, and thousands have died. There is no doubt that the people knew the risk. But even so, their determination was clear and strong. It was summed up by a man who told one of our fellow observers: "If they kill me before the ballot, that's a problem — if they kill me after the ballot, no problem"

Our role in East Timor, as official international observers, was technically a neutral one. We were there to observe and report on the fairness of the ballot, and to help determine whether the referendum was "free and fair". As far as we could judge, it was. There was no obvious "bias" on the part of UNAMET, and indeed we found that UNAMET did a remarkable job under very trying circumstances, and deserves high commendation. But in East Timor nobody is neutral. Our role was in reality not only to observe, but also to help make the ballot possible. Our very presence served to moderate the activities of the militia and the pro-autonomy (anti-independence) forces that sought to disrupt the voting. The pro-independence side did not engage in violence, threat or intimidation, while the other side clearly did, and hence our very presence was seen as support for the independence vote, however much we may have tried to maintain a strictly impartial position. The people saw us as allies in their struggle for independence, and in this way the right to a free election became inevitably confused with the right to independence; in practice by supporting one we were also supporting the other. It was thus a very appropriate role for social workers, whose place must be uncompromisingly on the side of the oppressed, in this case the people of East Timor.

We spoke to the leaders of Falantil, the military wing of the resistance movement, in their camp in the mountains. They talked of their goal of peace for their country, and made it very clear that in the event of CNRT (National Council of Timorese Resistance) forming a government in an independent East Timor, they would institute an amnesty for militia members and would embark on a programme of national reconciliation. They cited Nelson Mandela as their model, and saw their leader Xanana Gusmao as their own equivalent of Mandela. They also emphasised the help they would need in the reconstruction of an independent East Timor, after 24 years of Indonesian domination.

We observed many other events, some inspirational, and some tragic:

• the man in tears after his house and all his possessions had been burned by the militia
• the strength and spirit of the people at a large open-air mass the day before the ballot
• a group of 20 frightened men on a mountain road fleeing their burning village in fear for their lives
• the strength and capacity of the unarmed civilian police contingent from many countries
• the contrasting inactivity of the local police
• the discipline and non-violent vision of the Falantil leaders
• the many people who took long and dangerous journeys in order to vote
• the polling booths at the remote village of Aculau, proudly made from bamboo by
• the local people, making the UNAMET cardboard booths redundant
• local polling staff sheltering in a UNAMET compound in fear for their lives the day after the vote
• the stunning beauty of the country, in such stark contrast to the ugly violence taking place there
• militia attacking the transfer of the Gleno ballot boxes to a helicopter, resulting in one box breaking open with ballot papers scattered, but being collected by UNAMET staff anxious that every vote should count
• the empty streets of Dili with people too frightened to venture outside

East Timor is an area of major human rights abuse. It demands a strong response from the international community. Hundreds of thousands of people have died since the Indonesian invasion in 1975, and thousands more since the fateful ballot on 30 August. The intimidation is probably now greater than ever before. Yet the spirit of the people is undimmed. Social work, as a profession committed to human rights, has an obligation to support the East Timorese people in their struggle. This can be done in three main ways:

• Social workers, both individually and as a professional group, must add their voices to those calling for an immediate end to the violence and intimidation. They should support the call for the Indonesian political and military authorities to live up to their clear responsibilities in this regard. They should also join the international demand for some form of international peace-keeping force to be deployed in East Timor to protect the people from further gross violations of human rights.
• In the longer term, social workers have an important role to play in the future reconstruction of an independent East Timor. Public and community services in East Timor are virtually non-existent, and there will be an urgent need for adequate health, education, housing and other social services. Given the lack of resources, and the fact that East Timor is very much a village-based society, this would have to be done using community development principles. Social workers are uniquely placed to assist with this reconstruction of social services in East Timor, and an informal offer of such assistance was conveyed to the Falantil leadership when we met them, and was appreciated. East Timor will need international support long after the current crisis is over, and, in their role as human rights workers, social workers will have much to contribute.
• In the immediate aftermath of the current crisis, there will be a need for appropriate post-traumatic recovery programmes. As in other communities that have experienced mass killings, conventional individualised "post-traumatic counselling" will be completely inadequate given the numbers involved, and may also be culturally inappropriate. Recovery programmes at a community level, where entire communities can be encouraged to work through the effects of trauma, will be the major priority, and there are social workers with the skills and the experience to help the East Timorese people establish such programmes.

After her time in East Timor, Evelyn was able to meet Xanana Gusmao in Jakarta the day before he was released from house arrest. She conveyed to him IFSW's commitment to the cause of the East Timorese people, and our intention to help in the recosntruction process. He was very happy to receive this offer, and asked that his gratitude be extended to IFSW Officers and members for their support.

It was a unique privilege to have been able to visit East Timor as observers at this crucial stage in the history of the East Timorese people, and to represent the social work profession in this process. If social work is indeed to play a major role in significant human rights matters it is essential that we respond to the needs of the people of East Timor, and indeed of other groups experiencing human rights abuses elsewhere in the world, in a strong, practical and professional way.

Since we left, the situation in East Timor has significantly worsened, to a human rights catastrophe. East Timor has become a bloodbath, Dili has been reduced to a burnt-out ruin, and the fate of towns like Gleno, and the surrounding villages, can at this stage only be guessed, though we fear the worst. Like all the UN officials and the other international observers, we feel a deep sense of inadequacy and pain. We helped the people make their momentous decision on the day of the ballot, and have now left them, at their time of greatest need, to face mass killings at a level which can be now described as genocide. Like the rest of the world we feel a sense of both outrage and of powerlessness, as we watch the inadequate response of the Indonesian authorities and the world community. The experience of having been there has led us to feel this even more keenly. We do not know whether the towns and villages we visited are still standing, or whether the people we came to know and respect are still alive. Yet our experience also emphasised the enormous strength, determination and spirit of the East Timorese people, who will continue the struggle for as long as it takes. We cannot fail them now.

Jim Ife Eveleyn Balais Serrano