Boatpeople have to go home: Feisal

JAKARTA (JP): Armed Forces Commander Gen. Feisal Tanjung reiterated yesterday that the 4,000 Indochinese boat people currently living on Galang Island in Riau will have to go home.

"The time will come when they have to leave," he was quoted by Antara as saying yesterday. "If they refuse, we'll make them."

The government has set June 30 as the deadline to clear the island, just before July 1, when the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees deadline to end its financial assistance is due.

The UNHCR supports the care and maintenance of the boat people and covers other costs related to their repatriation such as flights and pocket money.

Feisal was responding to questions about the various efforts the Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees may take to avoid repatriation. Some refugees have reportedly tried drastic measures like attempting suicide to protest their planned repatriation.

Feisal said that the same repatriation approach is being taken by Malaysia, the Philippines and Hong Kong.

"We are launching a massive operation to send the refugees home," he said. "However, we'll still have to wait for the approval of the Vietnamese and Cambodian governments before they can actually be sent home."

Responding to questions about the possibility of "inhumane treatment" of refugees by the authorities during forced repatriation, Feisal sidestepped the issue by saying that "allowing those people to stay on Galang for 20 years is already very humane".

"We have been working intensively to facilitate the repatriation by communicating with the two countries' embassies and foreign affairs ministries," Feisal said.

"As to whether we may have to miss the deadline yet again, we'll discuss that with the Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry and the United Nations agency," he said.

"The Indonesian government doesn't want this problem to become a burden in the future," he said.

There are currently 11,000 Indochinese boat people throughout East Asia who failed to qualify for refugee status, and lost the opportunity to be resettled in industrialized countries. Indonesia, along with other Asian recipient countries, had earlier hoped that the remaining boat people from Vietnam and Cambodia would return to their respective homes under voluntary repatriation programs.

Only 17 of the 4,400 boat people on Indonesia's Galang island, just south of Singapore, have been accorded refugee status and the rest will have to return to Vietnam.

Over the past 20 years, the island has been a temporary home to about 248,000 boat people.

Indonesia wants to vacate the island to develop it as part of the Balerang bonded zone area which would cover Batam, Rempang and Galang islands. (swe)