'1,500 Timorese children still stranded'

'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."