Children suffer in East Timor conflicts

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.