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Posted on 09/14/2001 1:01:12 PM PDT by super175

Macau reacted with shock and indignation to this week's barbaric acts of terrorism against the United States, with Chief Executive Edmund Ho Hau-wah sending a letter of condolence to US President George W. Bush expressing sorrow and solidarity on behalf of the people of the enclave.

Virtually the entire population closely followed Hong Kong and international television coverage of the attacks. In a rare change in its editorial policies, Macau's eight Chinese-language dailies - which customarily reserve their front pages for local news - instead published extensive news and photo reports on the attacks for two consecutive days.

Wednesday's front page of the Portuguese-language daily Hoje Macau ran a picture of one of the hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Centre, with the English words "Apocalypse Now" superimposed.

The attacks completely overshadowed the first week of Macau's already-lacklustre campaign for its first post-handover direct legislative polls, which take place a week from tomorrow.

Preliminary reports indicate no one from Macau was injured or killed in the attacks in New York and Washington. Several dozen people from Macau live in the two cities. To a much lesser extent, Macau had its own painful experience with terrorism when it was hit by a string of gangland killings, arson attacks and fire-bombings in the 1990s.

Many Macau residents expressed their feelings about the attacks on the US in chat rooms and e-mail chain messages to friends and strangers, some offering prayers. Luis Ortet, who runs Macau's only astrology Web site, Astrodomus, reported an increase of visitors to his site, as people perhaps looked for another meaning from the tragedy.

Macau residents also discussed the events in the context of Washington's controversial foreign-policy goals. A widely held view is that Washington has partly itself to blame for Tuesday's dreadful events, because of a perceived one-sided stance on the Middle East conflict and the perception that the US is an imperialist country that constantly bullies developing countries, including China. Many in Macau, which takes great pride in its racial harmony, regard the US as an extremely nationalist country riddled with racism.

Beijing's semi-official mouthpiece, the Chinese-language Macau Daily News, editorialised on Thursday that the attacks were connected with American hegemonism, saying the US "uses its strength to bully the weak". The editorial also insisted that Washington's "power politics" had created a breeding ground for terrorism. The daily, which has a market share of about 80 per cent in Macau's domestic Chinese-newspaper market, also accused Mr Bush of pursuing a "cowboy-style" foreign policy, maintaining that the current US President was "worse than his predecessor".

The US is of paramount importance to Macau's economy. Some 45 per cent of its merchandise in terms of export value, including most of its garments, is taken up by the US market. Macau's legal tender, the pataca, is indirectly pegged to the US greenback through its link to the Hong Kong dollar.

Although the US Government has praised post-handover Macau's human-rights record, it has been at loggerheads with the local business community and authorities over alleged intellectual-property-rights violations and illegal transshipments.

Irrespective of what one might think of Washington's foreign policy, the estimated 580 US citizens in Macau, many of them ethnic Chinese, deserve the local community's solidarity and sympathy.

Harald Bruning (buttje@macau.ctm.net) is the Post's Macau correspondent.

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