No more assistance for East Timorese 'refugees': Govt
No more assistance for East Timorese 'refugees': Govt
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Those East Timorese living in camps in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT)
whose refugee status ended on Dec. 31 have automatically become
Indonesian citizens, a senior government official has said.
The director of the Bureau of Refugee Rescue and Protection at
the National Coordinating Agency for Disaster Management and
Refugee Rescue (Bakornas PBP), Bakri Beck, said Thursday that all
assistance previously accorded to them would be stopped.
"They must start applying for either resettlement or
transmigration programs run by the government.
"Once they agree to participate in one of the programs, they
will receive new assistance from the government," Bakri told The
Jakarta Post on Thursday.
According to Bakri, the new aid scheme includes housing,
farmland, financial assistance, and a supply of essential goods
for six to nine months, as well as support facilities like
education and health centers.
"With the new assistance scheme, we hope they can survive on
their own harvests after nine months," he said.
As many as 250,000 East Timorese fled, or were forced to flee,
to Indonesia's West Timor in 1999 after Indonesian military-
backed militias went on bloody rampages triggered by the
humiliating defeat of the pro-integration camp in a United
Nations-organized referendum.
The violence killed hundreds of civilians, mostly independence
supporters, and destroyed almost 80 percent of the infrastructure
in the former Portuguese colony, which achieved full independence
on May 20, 2002.
A total of 18 military and police personnel, and militiamen
were brought to court for the violence, but 12 of them have been
acquitted so far.
Most refugees have returned to East Timor, but some 10,000
families, amounting to 28,000 people, are still living in squalid
refugee camps in West Timor. Most of these were members of the
military or police, and former militiamen, as well as their
families.
The government has prepared a number of resettlement sites for
them in East Sumba, West Sumba and Ngada regencies, all in NTT
province; while South Kalimantan and Central Kalimantan have
agreed to provide transmigration areas.
The "refugees" have welcomed the move, but demanded that the
government provide support facilities like schools and health
centers at the resettlement sites.
Bakri, however, said that not all resettlement sites would
have support facilities as such facilities might be already
available in the surrounding villages.
He called on the East Timorese choosing to stay in Indonesia
to apply for inclusion in either a resettlement or transmigration
program.
In Atambua, NTT, local authorities said that they planned to
relocate at least 1,000 East Timorese families in 2003.
"We are still finalizing the proposal to be submitted to the
Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration," the head of the local
manpower and transmigration office, Embang Bela, was quoted by
Antara as saying.
Meanwhile, Kupang Military District commander Lt. Col. Pieter
Lobo said Thursday that the government should begin preparing
proper homes for the East Timorese in resettlement locations.
"Many resettlement areas have been established, but most of
the houses are not worth living in. This has made the East
Timorese refugees reluctant to move there," Pieter claimed.
He said, for example, that the houses in resettlement sites in
West Sumba and several locations in NTT did not have WCs, clean
water or agricultural land available.