E. Timorese threaten to boycott 2004 polls

E. Timorese threaten to boycott 2004 polls

Yemris Fointuna, The Jakarta Post, Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara

At least 5,700 East Timorese who have chosen to stay in Indonesia
threatened on Tuesday to snub the 2004 general election to
protest the government's failure to heed their demand for
compensation.

Representatives of the former East Timorese refugees told a
media conference here that since 1999 they had demanded the
government compensate them for the assets they left behind in the
former Indonesian province after the violence that followed the
independence vote.

"We refuse to participate in the 2004 election unless the
government pays compensation for our assets," coordinator of East
Timorese claimants I.M. Ndoen said as he read the group's joint
statement.

Ndoen valued the assets at about Rp 1 trillion (US$111.1
million), a sum that could increase, as some 5,000 claimants and
their families had not registered their assets previously.

"We have written to the House of Representatives 12 times and
the House forwarded the letters to the government, but the latter
appears not to have responded," Ndoen said.

"Perhaps the central government is ignoring our potential
impact in the upcoming election. But with some of our family
members becoming eligible to vote in two years' time, there will
be over 10,000 of us."

Some 30 people, mostly women, accompanied Ndoen during the
conference. They represent some 20,000 East Timorese natives and
former East Timor residents.

Separately, East Timor Hope (HATI) foundation denied
allegations that it had traded East Timorese children from the
refugee camps in East Nusa Tenggara.

Secretary-general of the foundation Octavio A.J.O. Soares
clarified reports that it had sold East Timorese child refugees
overseas and had received donations from foreign institutions and
the government to send 169 child refugees to schools in Java.

"All the children were voluntarily surrendered by their
families and we funded them to study in Java. They were placed in
orphanages or dormitories," he told a media conference.

Octavio said that the HATI foundation had used its own money
to pay the tuition fees and living costs of the children.

Of 169 children, many are still in Java; only eight have been
sent home to East Timor by the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) to follow their parents and 10 were returned
to East Nusa Tenggara, he added.

Octavio's statement was supported by 45 parents, whose
children's education was funded by the foundation.

The allegation over trading in East Timorese child refugees
emerged when a refugee service asked the local army to provide a
security guarantee for some 10 children who returned from Java to
East Nusa Tenggara.