Maluku refugees to be returned home

M. Azis Tunny and Andi Hajramurni, The Jakarta Post, Ambon/Makassar

The Maluku administration will next month repatriate around 1,000 families, comprising 5,102 people, currently taking refuge in several camps across the province to their homes in neighboring North Maluku, said officials.

They said initially, the refugees were to have been sent home in August, but their repatriation was delayed until December for reasons of security and logistics.

Rahman Soumena, who heads the refugee center in the Maluku capital of Ambon, said the refugees would be repatriated aboard ships in two stages.

In the first stage, 458 families are to depart from Ternate Port, while the remaining 542 would depart from Tobelo Port.

AR Uluputty, head of the provincial social affairs office, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that the local administration would disburse Rp 2 billion (US$235,294) to help the refugees cover daily needs during their journey back to their hometowns.

Each family of five are slated to receive Rp 500,000.

"The repatriation fund is part of a Rp 176 billion financial aid package, allotted to the refugees by the government from the 2003 state budget. Around 89 percent of the fund has been disbursed to the Maluku administration," Uluputty said in Ambon.

Apart from the allowance, the Maluku administration has also allocated resettlement funds for refugees whose homes had been burned down during the three years of sectarian violence since 1999.

"Soon after the refugees arrive at their hometowns in North Maluku, the provincial government will give them money to rebuild their houses. Each family will get Rp 7.5 million," he said.

Those refugees from Ternate, Tobelo and Galela islands would be the first to receive the resettlement aid, as the villages on those islands were worst hit by the Muslim-Christian clashes.

Arnold Debeteru, coordinator of the refugee center in North Maluku, said the resettlement program would arrange Muslim and Christian families to live in a mixed community in a single village, not segregated as was the case in the past.

"This would be a good opportunity for them to accelerate the reconciliation process after the conflicts," he said.

Some 6,000 people were killed in the three-year conflict and as many as 350,000 others were forced to flee. To date, more than 39,000 families, or 202,000 refugees, remained stranded in refugee camps across the Maluku islands.

The fighting ended after Muslim and Christian leaders signed a peace deal, brokered by the government, in February 2002.

This September, the central government lifted the civil emergency status for Maluku. The state of emergency in North Maluku province was annulled in May.

However, many troops remained in some parts of Maluku to deter renewed fighting.

Police in the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar deployed on Wednesday a Mobile Brigade unit to Ambon to relieve those who had been on duty there for over six months.

"Since the central government lifted the civilian emergency in the province, the security situation has normalized. But the province still needs security forces to maintain the peace," South Sulawesi Police chief Insp. Gen. Jusuf Manggabarani said.

Over 9,800 military and police personnel were deployed to quell the Maluku sectarian conflict. Security forces have gradually been withdrawn following the lifting of the state of emergency.