Displaced people to be resettled in March

JAKARTA (JP): The government will start relocating displaced people to new transmigration areas in March 2000, State Minister of Transmigration and Population Al Hilal Hamdi said on Wednesday.

Al Hilal told a media conference at his office that the resettlement areas would host 33,131 families who fled their violence-hit homeland. The number of people joining the resettlement program was being calculated, he said.

"The construction project of the new transmigration areas is now underway and is expected to be completed by March next year," Al Hilal said.

The resettlement areas are situated in West Kalimantan, Southeast Sulawesi, South Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara, Aceh, Maluku and on Madura Island off East Java.

Apart from houses, the families will be provided with fields as well as farming equipment and materials. For the first year after their resettlement, the migrants will have their basic necessities secured, according to Al Hilal.

"The government subsidy for each family member for the first year has been set at Rp 20 million (US$2,700)," Hilal said.

He said the refugees hailed from West Kalimantan, East Timor, Aceh and Maluku. Half of the displaced people targeted in the resettlement program came from East Timor, which saw a massive exodus after people in the territory voted for independence in the Aug. 30 self-determination ballot.

The resettlement program will be conducted by the People's Mobility and Population Administering Board (BAKMP), an institution to be inaugurated next week, according to Al Hilal.

President Abdurrahman Wahid has approved the establishment of the new board to carry out operational matters dealing with transmigration after the ministry of transmigration was reduced to a non-portfolio ministerial office.

"The board will employ most of the 17,000 former transmigration ministry's employees because my office will only retain 500 employees," Hilal said.

Al Hilal's office recorded 88,800 displaced families made up of about 422,000 people as of late November, almost half of them came from violence-ravaged East Timor.

"Not all of the East Timorese are willing to join the resettlement program," Al Hilal said.

The United Nations Commissioner for Refugees announced on Tuesday that some 117,000 out of 260,000 East Timor refugees had returned home.

Minister of Home Affairs Surjadi Soedirdja told the House of Representatives Commission II for home affairs on Tuesday that nearly 640,000 refugees were still living in refugee camps across the country as of mid-November.

Al Hilal also suggested that some 32,000 hectares of surviving peatland be maintained for some 15,600 migrants who had cultivated it. The former government of Soeharto initiated a 1.2 million hectares peatland project in 1997, which turned out to be a failure. (04)