Gusmao welcomes Timorese refugees returning from RI

Gusmao welcomes Timorese refugees returning from RI

SALELE, East Timor (Agencies): In a gesture of reconciliation,
East Timor's independence hero Xanana Gusmao welcomed home the
families of former pro-Jakarta militiamen on Friday as mass
refugee returns resumed across the border with Indonesian West
Timor.

Gusmao predicted that the homecoming, the largest since the
beginning of year, would be the first of many over the next few
months.

"It is a very important step for the future," said Gusmao
said. "This event is a practical way to show to refugees what
they can do to live together with other East Timorese and develop
our country," he said.

With chickens and pigs in tow the East Timorese refugees
returned home on Friday, two years after fleeing their homeland
when it erupted into violence during the 1999 independence
ballot.

Gusmao waited for the returnees at the end of the Metamasin
bridge, near East Timor's southern border town of Salele, and
hugged them as they arrived.

Seeing them off from the other side was Indonesian military
commander for West Timor, Maj. Gen. Willem da Costa.

Some 961 refugees attached to members of the pro-Jakarta
Mahidi militia were registered to return home Friday, the head of
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in East
Timor, Bernard Kerblatt, told AFP from East Timor's capital Dili.

By late afternoon 450 refugees had crossed the border and more
were still streaming across the bridge, said UNHCR official Iain
Hall. Kerblatt said the operation could continue till Saturday.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM), providing
trucks to take the refugees to their home villages in Suai and
Ainaro districts, said the return was the largest since March
2000.

"Another 312 refugees crossed the border at Batugade on
Wednesday, suggesting that a long awaited upturn in refugee
returns from West Timor may be under way," an IOM statement said.

The Mahidi leader, Cancio Lopes de Carvalho, said before the
repatriation that he had allowed his people to leave the squalid
camps in West Timor and go home.

Around 250,000 East Timorese either fled or were forced into
West Timor by militiamen and Indonesian soldiers after the 1999
ballot that ended decades of rule by Jakarta.

At least 50,000, many of whom are being held as virtual
prisoners by the militia who fled with them, remain.

Friday's return was the result of months of negotiations
between the UN administration in East Timor and militia leaders.

Cancio Lopez da Carvalho and his brother Nemecio - former
commanders of the "Live or Die for Integration" militia -
accompanied the refugees across the border, but returned to
Indonesia after meeting with Gusmao.

"Xanana and all of the East Timorese people are ready to
receive us, so I am not afraid to come back," said Cancio Lopez
da Carvalho.

Gusmao, who is almost certain to become the territory's first
president when the temporary U.N. administration pulls out next
year, has said he supports amnesties for militiamen who admit to
their role in the 1999 violence.