'1,500 Timorese children still stranded'
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta/Kupang
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Friday that 1,500 East Timorese children, placed in orphanages across Indonesia in 1999, had not yet been reunited with their parents in newly independent East Timor.
UNHCR spokeswomen in Jakarta Kemala Angraeni Ahwil said that parents had requested their children be returned, but finding them after they had been sent away to orphanages was no easy feat.
She said the UNHCR knew of 1,501 cases of unreturned children. Foundations that placed the children in orphanages were reluctant to surrender them, Kemala said.
UNHCR documents, parent-signed letters, and video footage of the parents were often not enough to convince the foundations or the orphanages, she said.
"They don't understand and don't believe us," she told The Jakarta Post.
Nevertheless, the UNHCR had managed to help reunite a total of 1,179 East Timorese children placed in orphanages across Indonesia with their parents.
Those children were handed over by their parents in refugee camps in West Timor to foundations who promised to take care of the children. The foundation then placed the children in various orphanages.
Over 200,000 East Timorese fled the violence that engulfed the former Indonesian province following a 1999 UN-backed ballot, in which the East Timorese overwhelmingly voted for independence.
Kemala said that parents who had returned to East Timor and some who were still in Kupang had asked the UNHCR to help find their children.
"They are scattered among many orphanages, so we're keeping our eyes and ears open," Kemala said.
Earlier, the Java-based Hati (heart) Foundation had come under fire on charges of obstructing efforts to return children to East Timor.
The international non-governmental organization, Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Indonesia, said it was unable to repatriate 150 children because of objections from the Hati Foundation.
But chief of the Hati Foundation Octavio Soares argued he was responsible only to the parents who had entrusted their children to the foundation.
"Some (foundations) claim that because parents gave them the children, they want the parents to pick them up," Kemala added.
She said the UNHCR would need the help of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to discuss the matter with the foundations.
According to her, past cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been helpful in getting them to understand the UNHCR's job. "I fear there is prejudice against the UN and the suspicion that we're meddling with Indonesia's internal affairs."