Homes bulldozed in Timor-Leste ahead of Pope visit

Speaking to the BBC, a government minister said that residents were made aware of plans to clear the area in September 2023.

“It is time for the state to take back its property,” said Germano Santa Brites Dias, Secretary of State for Toponymy and Urban Organisation.

“Last year, we spoke heart-to-heart with the community and now they must leave and go back to their villages,” he added.

An estimated 700,000 people are expected to attend Pope Francis’ open-air mass in Tasitolu, where an area of 23 hectares – equivalent to about 40 football pitches – is being prepared.

Aside from the government’s controversial plans to evict residents, critics have also questioned the decision to spend such large amounts of money on the visit – including $1m on a brand new altar for Pope Francis.

According to the UN, nearly half of the population of Timor Leste currently lives below the national poverty line.

“The annual budget to increase food production in the country is only about $4.7m,” said Mariano Fereira, a researcher at the Timor-Leste Institute for Development Monitoring and Analysis, speaking to UCA News.

“All this spending can hardly do any good to the availability of food,” he added.

Next month will mark the first papal trip to Timor-Leste since Pope John Paul II visited in 1989, when the country was still under Indonesian occupation.

Timor-Leste, formerly known as East Timor, has a population of 1.3m – the vast majority of whom identify as Catholic.

When Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese colony in 1975, only around 20% of East Timorese people were Catholic. That figure now stands at 97%.

Enthusiasm for the pontiff’s upcoming visit is huge, but the Pope is being urged by campaigners to address a recent abuse scandal that tarnished the Church in the country.

In 2022, the Vatican acknowledged that the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Timorese independence hero Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo had sexually abused young boys.

A Vatican spokesman said the church had been aware of the case in 2019 and had imposed disciplinary measures in 2020, including restrictions on Belo’s movements and a ban on voluntary contact with minors.

It is unclear whether Pope Francis will apologise for the scandal, meet with victims or even whether Bishop Belo will appear alongside him in Dili.