Acehnese refugees face uncertain future

Apriadi Gunawan, The Jakarta Post, Medan

The government is still in the dark over the future of 48,404 Acehnese refugees being sheltered in regencies in North Sumatra.

The North Sumatra provincial administration has offered the refugees various options, including a production-sharing arrangement under state plantation companies, enrolling in the transmigration program and working abroad under programs arranged by the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration.

"The refugees, whose numbers are increasing each day, have rejected all the offers except the transmigration program. They are prepared to be resettled through the transmigration program anywhere in the country except Aceh," Sofyan Nasution, the head of the North Sumatra provincial social affairs agency," told The Jakarta Post in Medan on Tuesday.

He further said that under the transmigration program, the refugees, who mostly migrated from Java, would be given three hectares of land per family in the resettlement areas. "So what they want is to get the same plot of land they left behind after they were forced to leave Aceh," Sofyan said.

The refugees left the restive province to avoid the armed conflict between the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian Military (TNI) when police were sent to quell separatism and restore security there.

Sofyan said that, so far, none of the provinces contacted were wanting to accept the refugees. "None of them are willing to provide resettlement areas for the Acehnese refugees."

Citing an example, he said that regency administrations in North Sumatra were reluctant to accept the refugees who they called "outsiders".

Camps in Langkat regency, the closest region of North Sumatra to its strife-torn neighbor, are sheltering 37,768 refugees. Most come from the East Aceh, West Aceh and North Aceh regencies, which are reported as having the most rampant armed conflicts. Most refugees flocked to the regency between September 1999 and June 2001.

The provincial administration has distributed a total amount of Rp 8.8 billion (US$880,000) in aid for daily meals and 2.341 tons of rice for the refugees during the same period. The administration's assistance has not included donations from locals.