Govt to stop feeding, housing refugees next month

Govt to stop feeding, housing refugees next month

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government will next month stop providing food and housing
assistance for thousands of displaced people who fled religious,
ethnic and separatist conflicts throughout the country, a senior
welfare minister said here on Tuesday.

Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla said
the government would shut down the refugee camps in early
January, and stop providing refugees with their current daily
allowance of around Rp 3,000 (35 U.S. cents) per day.

He did not gave a precise date.

"The government cannot give assistance to the refugees
indefinitely as it would spark envy among others," he told
journalists meeting with Vice President Hamzah Haz.

"While other people are working hard, they are getting
everything from the government," the minister added.

He said he hoped the move would encourage displaced persons to
live independently.

Citing improved security conditions in some parts of the vast
archipelago, Kalla said the refugees could now return home.

The minister said the central government was committed to
resolving the refugee problem as soon as possible.

Of nearly 1.2 million people forced to become refugees in
2001, only about 100,000 of them are still living in makeshift
camps in various parts of the country, according to the
government.

However, several international aid groups put the number of
refugees in Indonesia at almost one million.

Kalla warned that refugees refusing to leave their camps by
the January deadline would not receive food allowances any more
from the government.

He regretted the fact that many refugees insisted on staying
in the camps merely to obtain their daily allowances as some of
them had already obtained jobs.

A number of conflicts have calmed down around Indonesia since
President Megawati Soekarnoputri came to power last year,
replacing president Abdurrahman Wahid.

The government signed a peace deal on Dec. 9 with the rebel
Free Aceh Movement to end a conflict that has killed around
12,000 people since the 1970s and displaced thousands more. The
deal has reduced, but not stopped, the bloodshed.

Three years of sectarian fighting between Christians and
Muslims in the eastern islands of Maluku and in the Central
Sulawesi town of Poso has largely stopped since peace accords
were signed earlier this year. The conflicts had claimed at least
9,000 lives.

Peace has also returned to Central Kalimantan, which had seen
sporadic bouts of bloody ethnic fighting between indigenous
Dayaks and migrants from Madura island in East Java until last
year. Hundreds of Madurese settlers were killed and thousands of
others fled.

Meanwhile, some 250,000 refugees fled, or were forced to flee,
East Timor after it voted to secede from Indonesia in August
1999. Most of them have since returned home.

About 17,000 families, making a total of 105,227 East Timorese
refugees, are still languishing in camps across East Nusa
Tenggara, according to the government.

The government spent Rp 6.61 billion (US$743,325) on funding
the repatriation of 9,010 East Timorese refugee families between
Nov. 16 last year and Dec. 23, 2002.

Each family received Rp 750,000 (US$84) in food and transport
allowances for those willing to return to East Timor.