East Timor's Endless Agony

Abile Mosoco likes to drink coffee while he's fighting. Sip, snipe, sip, snipe. Sometimes the rebel commander reaches for the .22 rifle with telescopic sight that lies next to him as he sits behind a low masonry wall. Sometimes he unslings the Steyr assault rifle from his shoulder and just blasts away. His targets —soldiers of the East Timorese Army, the FDTL—scurry about 200 m below. Every so often a bullet whines overhead, but from his hillside position on the edge of a small plateau near the capital Dili's television tower, Mosoco is a difficult target. "He has killed five or...