A year after the referendum in which East Timor voted for independence, the first national congress of the CNRT, the East Timor resistance movement, is being held in the capital, Dili, to plan nation-building.
The venue is a basketball gymnasium, cooled by 40 ceiling fans, that survived last year's militia onslaught. Speakers are shown on large monitors, and experts use pinpoint laser beams to highlight digitalised maps on screens.
The deliberations are reported in Portuguese, Indonesian, English and the local language, Tetum, in the Voice of Free East Timor newspaper. Coffee, ginger cake and biscuits are provided in an annexe where a group entertains delegates with such numbers as Stay By Me, Diana.
Most of the players in the East Timor drama of recent years are here, mingling and gossiping in a free-wheeling debate on the sort of country they will create when the UN leaves. Xanana Gusmao and Jose Ramos Horta stroll around giving interviews inside security boxes provided by four Brazilian policemen.
Resistance fighters from Falintil, on the run until a year ago, mingle with diplomats, activists and foreign journalists. Watching the joyful reunions it is easy to overlook the suffering still felt. One of the big themes of the congress is the need for reconciliation, but there is anger that the Indonesian parliament voted recently to grant amnesty to army officers.
This is felt particularly by people like Manuel Carascalo, the grey-bearded senior CNRT figure whose son was murdered by pro-Indonesian militia on a day of terror in Dili in April 1999 witnessed by the then minister for foreign affairs, Mr David Andrews.
"There has to be justice, so we have to try the leaders who didn't do the killing themselves but gave the orders and their consent," he said. Mr Carascalo named Maj Gen Kiki Syahnakri, who "didn't do anything when he saw my son being killed", and Indonesian military commander Tono Suratman, "supposedly a good Catholic", who when he pleaded for help to save his son replied: "It's your problem."
The real criminals were not those who killed. "They were like guard dogs following commands, often drugged and unaware of what they were doing," he said.
Another important theme is the future economy of the tropical half-island. Many delegates are unhappy with the current dual economy, with thousands of well-paid, tax-exempt foreign nationals living a comfortable life compared to the struggling locals.
Near the basketball gymnasium is a new Australian supermarket called Hello, Mister, a name which ridicules the greeting called out by East Timorese kids to foreign men. The Darwin-level prices also mock the indigenous economy. It is one of a number of Australian ventures which have given Dili the feel of an Australian outback town.
The streets are clogged with vehicles bearing Northern Territories registrations, many rented out by Thrifty Car Hire from Darwin. Among the ruins businesses have sprung up with names like Fletcher's Builders, Hazel Bros Plumbing, Rooney Shipping and Trading, and Stanley Norman Home Furnishing.
Incongruously, the store signs coexist with Indonesian notices and monuments which have not been defaced, including a memorial to Gen Suharto outside the telephone building.
Pavement cafes with coloured awnings and potted plants and names like RNR and Bob's have opened in front of destroyed buildings. In some cases they have brought the worst of globalisation: in the Australian-owned Hotel Dili, right on the beach where fresh fish is sold daily, the fish dish, costing the equivalent of £10, is frozen cod from an Australian factory. Telstra of Australia has opened an Internet room charging £2 for 15 minutes, which excludes most locals. Many see the Australian business people as carpetbaggers.
"They are providing for UN people who are used to Western standards, and inevitably that money is going back to Australia," the Irish activist Tom Hyland, working in Dili as a special adviser to non-governmental organisations, said. "Some Timorese have to work for less than the price of a can of soda a day."
Horta also feels it is "scandalous" that the UN is so insensitive about the economy, but he believes the influx of foreign businesses is inevitable and pointed out that many restaurants and small businesses had been opened by Timorese, and that the UN money has "trickled down".
The market, too, has expanded into the streets, where young men operate a thriving money-changing business, dealing in US and Australian dollars, Portuguese escudos and - still the popular currency - Indonesian rupiah.
"How do you resolve it?" he said. "By not allowing foreign businesses to come, close off East Timor from the rest of the world? That would be stupid. So we have to live with it."
One aspect of the Australian presence did rankle with him, however. "A stupid Australian bank comes here once a week, like Al Capone, to collect the money and take it back to Australia," he said. "They come like Al Capone, or Bonnie and Clyde, wearing sunglasses and leaving with money bags in both hands."