Australia wants refugees freed from W. Timorese camps

Australia wants refugees freed from W. Timorese camps

SYDNEY, Australia (AFP): Australia will push for the return of
East Timorese refugees held against their will in West Timor at
UN-led talks in Jakarta on Friday, Foreign Minister Alexander
Downer said on Wednesday.

Australian officials will attend the talks at which Jakarta is
expected to decide if it will withdraw aid to the tens of
thousands of refugees still living in West Timor after fleeing
militia violence in East Timor last September.

He said a reasonably large percentage would want to stay in
Indonesia rather than be part of an independent East Timor.

"But some of them will want to go back and there are a number
of reasons why they haven't all gone back yet and one of them is
that there has been ongoing harassment by militia," he said.

Downer said the refugees still needed assistance and Canberra
believed those who wanted to return to East Timor should not be
prevented from doing so by pro-Indonesian militia still active in
the refugee camps.

"We obviously don't want to let the refugees who are still in
West Timor -- and there are perhaps around 100,000 of them there
-- end up in the situation where they're plunged into total
poverty," he told reporters here.

"It is not entirely clear what path the Indonesians are
following. They have in place a policy which is to phase out aid
to the refugees in West Timor by the end of this month, but they
haven't made any final decisions on that."

Downer said Australian representatives would take part in
Friday's Jakarta-based meeting organized by the UN Office for the
Coordination Of Humanitarian Affairs.

They would be joined by representatives from several other
countries and various aid agencies.

"I don't want to see there be no aid for the refugees in West
Timor, there must be continuing support for these people," he
said. "How aid is going to be managed to those people is
something that is being discussed this week."

Further discussions would follow the meeting, he said.
A member of the UN inquiry into Human Rights Violations in East
Timor meantime warned that the world was in danger of forgetting
about bringing to justice those who committed the atrocities.

German parliamentarian Sabine Leutheusser also criticized the
United Nations for failing to set up an international human
rights tribunal for East Timor as had been recommended by the
inquiry.

"At this moment, three months after we submitted our report to
the United Nations, we've got no answer and I think something
must have happened there," she told ABC radio.

"I think that the Indonesian government will not allow very
deep investigations concerning these serious violations on human
rights which happened in the last year in East Timor before and
after the referendum on Aug. 30."