Aid for East Timorese refugees to stop

Aid for East Timorese refugees to stop

Yemris Fointuna, The Jakarta Post, Kupang

Kupang, Nusa Tenggara Timur: The government has said
that, as of December this year, there will be no more
humanitarian aid for around 290,000 East Timorese who opted to
stay in Indonesia and are now living in West Timor, East Nusa
Tenggara province.

This means that, starting next year, the refugees will be
expected to rely on their own resources to survive.

East Nusa Tenggara Provincial spokesman JB. Kosapilawan said
on Wednesday that the government would now start to concentrate
on repatriation and resettlement programs.

He said that the refugees had received humanitarian aid for
two years and that they could be lacking the spirit to survive as
they had been too dependent on the government.

The government's decision came as a blow to the refugees, who
reacted negatively.

"By stopping the aid, the government intends to kill us
refugees gradually. We have nothing that will allow us to live
independently. We don't have any plots of land to till," said
Cornelis Ribeiru, coordinator of refugees in Tuapukan.

Soon after the East Timor referendum sponsored by the United
Nations in 1999, at least 500,000 East Timorese flooded West
Timor. Most of them were poor and brought nothing with them.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
entered West Timor and started to give humanitarian aid to the
refugees. The aid was halted last year following the promulgation
of a United Nations resolution stating that West Timor was not
safe.

Resolution No. 1319, which also ordered the pullout of UNHCR
workers and a halt to humanitarian aid, was issued after the
killing of three UNHCR workers in September 1999.

Since then, the Indonesian government has provided the
refugees with humanitarian aid of Rp 1,500 and 400 grams of rice
per person per day.

"The government, through the state budget and provincial
budget, has spent around Rp 2 trillion on various programs
related to the refugees. The amount includes donations from
various parties," Kosapilawan said.

"Therefore we are now concentrating on the resettlement
programs for those who want to stay and repatriation programs for
those who want to go to East Timor."

The repatriation programs have apparently worked well.

According to records compiled by UNHCR Dili, at least 130,000
people had returned to their hometowns by September 2001.

Meanwhile the resettlement programs, which will be carried out
by the transmigration provincial office, were also promising.

Yoseph Setiohady, the head of the transmigration office, said
that West and East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku and South Kalimantan had
expressed their willingness to accept the refugees.

The government is also providing 5,000 houses for resettled
refugees in the Kupang, Belu, East Sumba, Timor Tengah Utara and
Timor Tengah Selatan regencies. "Some 2,300 of the houses are
ready for use."

In a separate interview, the head of the resettlement and
infrastructure provincial office, Piet Djami Rebo, said that more
houses would be built in Flores. The project would be funded by
grants of Rp 40 billion from the European Union.