East Timorese to lose refugee status by end of 2002

East Timorese to lose refugee status by end of 2002

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The Indonesian government has again extended the deadline for the
repatriation of East Timorese refugees living in squalid camps in
West Timor.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Hassan Wirayuda said Friday the
refugees would lose their refugee status by Dec. 31, 2002 -- the
third such deadline.

Briefing the press after accompanying President Megawati
Soekarnoputri to a meeting with United Nations Mission in East
Timor (UNMISET) chief Kamalesh Sharma, Hassan said East Timorese
refugees had to decide before the deadline whether they wanted to
stay in Indonesia or return to East Timor.

"The UN has also decided that by Dec. 31 the refugee status of
East Timorese in West Timor will be withdrawn," Hassan said.

According to East Nusa Tenggara Governor Piet A. Tallo, 50,000
East Timorese refugees were still living in makeshift camps in
Atambua and Kupang regencies, even though the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) earlier put the figure at
35,000 people.

As many as 250,000 East Timorese fled to West Timor in
September 1999 after thousands of military-backed militia members
went on a bloody rampage to protest the results of a United
Nations-organized referendum in which East Timorese
overwhelmingly voted to break away from Indonesia.

The rampage claimed the lives of an estimated 1000 people and
destroyed almost 80 percent of the infrastructure in the former
Portuguese colony.

Minister Hassan also said Friday that beginning Sept. 1
Indonesia would no longer be involved in the repatriation of East
Timorese refugees, leaving UNHCR as the only agency responsible
for their return to East Timor.

Hassan stressed that the two dates were needed to force the
refugees to decide whether to stay in Indonesia or to return to
East Timor.

"We have agreed that we are going to settle all East Timor
refugees by the end of the year," the minister said.

In the meeting with President Megawati, Sharma urged both
Indonesia and East Timor to immediately resolve lingering
problems between the two countries.

Sharma said the Indonesia-East Timor joint commission should
immediately solve the issues through discussion.

"We understand that the Indonesian government is now waiting
for a response from the East Timor government as they are yet to
appoint representatives to the commission," Sharma said.

Hassan said the joint commission would hold its first meeting
either in September or October.

Meanwhile, Antara reported from Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara
that some 250 East Timorese refugees were leaving for Dili on
Friday, and another 2,000 people were scheduled to return in
early August.

It is still uncertain, however, if makeshift refugee camps in
West Timor would be really closed down by December 2002.

The government had made several deadlines before but extended
them as the refugees have failed to make up their minds as to
whether to stay in Indonesia or to return to their ancestral
land.

Last year, the government announced that the camps would be
closed in January 2002, but delayed the closure till June. Now,
it has set the deadline at Dec. 31.

Hassan also revealed that the government and UN had set up a
US$6 million trust fund to give one-time payments to former
Indonesian civil servants, security officers and police
personnel.

However the amount was still far away from the US$22 million
needed to pay pension funds to thousands of former Indonesian
civil servants.

"UNMISET will further try to persuade donor agencies to
increase the contribution," Hassan said.