JP/9/Yemris

JP/9/Yemris

Yemris Fointuna
The Jakarta Post
Kupang

In handling the remaining 290,000 East Timorese refugees in
East Nusa Tenggara, the provincial government will give priority
to those who want to go back to their homeland.

J.B. Kosapilawan, spokesman for the provincial government,
said local authorities would again make an inventory of East
Timorese refugees who wanted to go home, to help deal with the
refugee issue immediately.

"The government will give priority to the repatriation
program, instead of the resettlement program, and those who have
chosen to go back to their homeland will be given priority in
solving the problem and we will persuade them to join the
repatriation program," he said here on Friday.

He added the policy was in line with the central government's
instruction to give priority to refugees who had chosen to go
back to East Timor.

Asked what the government would do if the refugees decided to
stay in Indonesia, Kosapilawan said the government would ask them
to join in the resettlement program both inside and outside the
province.

Yoseph Setyohadi, chief of the local manpower and
transmigration ministry office, conceded the government had
slowed the resettlement program in the hope that a majority of
refugees would follow the lead of those who had already decided
to return to their homeland.

"The resettlement program will be offered to refugees should
they decline to join the repatriation program," he said.

Meanwhile, most refugees criticized the government's policy,
which they said would prolong their suffering. According to them,
they should be given an equal opportunity to either return home
or accept the resettlement program.

"The government should be committed to its previous policy
that those who have chosen to stay in Indonesia will be resettled
to other areas in the country while those who have chosen to go
back to East Timor will be repatriated," Abel de Jesus, a refugee
from the East Timor regency of Ainaro, said.

Simon Salmona, a refugee from Bobonaro currently living in a
refugee camp in Tuapukan, said the government should resettle
those who had decided to stay in Indonesia, in light of the
upcoming rainy season.

"Numerous contagious diseases will flare in the refugee camps
during the upcoming rainy season unless the government takes the
initiative to resettle the refugees," he said.