Four Timorese families 'repatriated' to Lisbon
Four Timorese families 'repatriated' to Lisbon
JAKARTA (JP): While dozens of East Timorese have resorted to scaling embassy walls to attain political asylum in Portugal, 29 more left with little fanfare on Wednesday under a joint repatriation program between Indonesia and Portugal.
The four families have taken advantage of a 15-year-old program which allows former East Timorese employees of the Portuguese colonial administration to return to Portugal.
The Indonesian foreign ministry's director of information Ghaffar Fadyl, and the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Indonesia, Henry Fournier, separately confirmed to The Jakarta Post that the group, made up of elderly and young Timorese, left on Wednesday night.
"This is part of the repatriation program," Ghaffar said.
Both men said that the program was set up for former East Timorese, and their dependents, who worked as civil servants in East Timor during the Portuguese colonial period. Under the program they are entitled to passage to Portugal and Portuguese citizenship.
East Timor was a Portuguese colony until it became part of Indonesia in 1976.
The United Nations still recognizes Lisbon as the administrating power there.
A government official told the Post that 205 families comprised of 1,127 persons have departed under the program since it was established in 1981.
He said there are now only about 20 families, or about 100 persons, still waiting to depart.
"They will leave in stages," the foreign ministry official said, adding that the program is expected to be completed this April.
The repatriation is being organized by the Indonesian Red Cross with the help of International Red Cross, which assisted with the travel documents.
The orderly departure of the 29 on Wednesday is in stark comparison to the 23 young East Timorese who forced their way into four Jakarta embassies in January to demand asylum. They eventually won passage to Portugal.
The Indonesian foreign ministry has always maintained that East Timorese are free to leave whenever they want, without having to force their way into embassies. (mds)