Children suffer in East Timor conflicts

By Jupriadi

UJUNGPANDANG, South Sulawesi (JP): Ishak is only four months old, but he already shoulders a heavy burden from the political conflict in his birthplace, Tanah Lorosae, better known as East Timor.

As Indonesia's youngest province is rocked with more turbulence and the conflicting prointegration and proindependence factions are embroiled in mutual terror, residents, be they native East Timorese or migrants, can no longer enjoy a peaceful life.

Ishak no longer has a mother. His mother, Mariam, died after delivering him among the prointegrationists in Kaewati village, Osuka district, Viuqueque regency.

"Mariam was greatly depressed before and when she gave birth to Ishak because everybody here was terrorized by the proindependence group and was getting ready to flee our village," said Siti Aminah, Ishak's foster mother.

Ishak was taken to Ujungpandang, the capital of South Sulawesi, at the height of armed clashes between prointegration and proindependence groups.

"We prefer to flee to Ujungpandang because of the terror and violence we have been subjected to by the proindepedence faction," YM Tanetti, the head of the group of East Timorese making their exodus to South Sulawesi, told The Jakarta Post.

Tanetti and members of the exodus group hailing from three regencies of Liquica, Viuqueque and Los Palos, left East Timor in early June.

"Besides the terror, we also have qualms about the fate of East Timor after the direct balloting (slated for later in August 1999)," he added.

"Whatever the outcome is of the direct balloting held by UNAMET, we believe this will never solve the problem. Besides, we know that UNAMET is not neutral," he added, in reference to the United Nations Mission in East Timor which is organizing the self-determination vote.

Now cute Ishak lives under the care of his foster mother in an accommodation center for Muslim refugees from East Timor at Alauddin Mosque on Jl. Racing Center here. Along with 23 other under-five-year-olds, Ishak has to go on living in the absence of parental love. His father, Sulaeman, earns a living in Maros district, some 30 km to the south of here.

"In Ujungpandang, he cannot find a job, so he has to take a job anywhere in order to be able to earn some money. He sees Ishak once a week," Siti Aminah said.

Ishak represents a gloomy picture of how the political feud in East Timor has reached its most critical stage, especially in the run-up to the direct ballot by which East Timorese will decide whether to remain part of Indonesia with wide-ranging autonomy or become an independent state.

Of 100 refugees sheltered at the Alauddin Mosque, two-thirds are under five years old or are school-age children.

Just like a war camp, the children lead a miserable life. They are undernourished and do not have enough area to play in. They are compelled to live under the shadow of gloominess. Understandably, many of them have become sulky.

As for school-age children, many do not attend school anymore and prefer to earn a living outside the refugee center. Some do go to schools which are owned by local orphanages but are ill- equipped.

"I go to school at an orphanage but the facilities are much poorer than those I had back in East Timor," said one of the young refugees.

M. Darwis, a sociologist at Hasanuddin University here told the Post that being refugees would have a deep traumatic impact on the children.

Although the government provides help with food, clothing and money, it does not automatically mean these children would have any bright prospects, he said.

Worse yet, the refugee children left their homeland along with their parents under great fear and intimidation. "The memory that these children have of violence is practically indelible. Unless these children are properly taken care of, their trauma will stay with them all their lives," he said.

He said traumatic experiences would develop into offensive or defensive behavior. If these children become offensive later, they will be revengeful and rude. On the other hand, if they develop a defensive behavior, they will remain sulky and refuse to relate to outsiders.

Darwis gave as an example the plight of Palestinian children. Childhood trauma lived with them until they grew up, when they took up the resistance movement and inflicted more trauma to themselves and others.

As a result, each generation never recovered from their childhood trauma. "The fate of the Palestinian children serves as a good lesson for us all," Darwis said.

So, he went on, donors and regional administrations should not only think of how to fulfill the refugees' material needs but, more than that, how to deal with the refugee children.

"There must be psychological therapy for these children, or otherwise, whatever the outcome of the upcoming direct balloting may be, new problems will continue to crop up. This has to do with the revengeful feelings of East Timorese children," he added.

Ishak is only one of the unfortunate children. Dark pages in the history of children's lives in Bosnia, Palestine, Kosovo, Lebanon and elsewhere under the sun show that children always fall victim to the clashes of adults. The sad lives of refugee children in Aceh, Buton, Southeast Sulawesi and Ujungpandang have taught us how the future of these children has been lost because of adult conflicts.