Red Cross to help East Timorese asylum seekers
JAKARTA (JP): The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) joined in negotiations yesterday to prepare to send five East Timorese asylum seekers to Portugal.
Coordinating Minister for Political Affairs and Security Soesilo Soedarman confirmed that the ICRC representative office here will assist the passage out for the Timorese youths, who have been holed up at the British embassy since Monday.
"Let them go abroad," Soesilo said, as quoted by Antara.
He added that the five are not on any of the police's "wanted lists" and therefore there was no reason for the government to try to prevent them from leaving.
The five men are Joaquim Alim, 24, Nelson Turquel, 22, Egas Soares, 25, Antonio Sequira, 24 and T.J. Timoteo, 23. They walked into the British embassy on Monday and then asked for asylum.
On Tuesday the Portuguese government formally offered to accept the five East Timorese and London accepted the offer.
British Embassy Second Secretary John Virgoe told reporters yesterday that the five East Timorese had "gladly" accepted the offer to go to Portugal.
"You can't meet them," Virgoe told reporters. "They are in fine condition. Now we're arranging for their departure."
The head of the ICRC mission in Jakarta, Henri Fournier, visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday to discuss the preparations.
The five men could be on their way to Portugal by the end of the week, Fournier said, adding that it would take between 24 and 48 hours to organize their departures. "We are working on the possibility that these people will be out of here by the end of the week," he told Reuters.
"I've been officially approached by the British government to help solve this small crisis at the embassy and the British contact with me has been welcomed by the Indonesian authorities," he said. "There has been confirmation by the authorities that there is no intention to prevent it from being done," he added.
Denial
Officials in Jakarta and the East Timor capital Dili denied categorically the claims of the asylum seekers that they had been persecuted by the authorities for engaging in "clandestine" activities.
East Timor Police Chief Col. Andreas Sugianto was quoted by Antara as saying yesterday that the five men did indeed take part in the anti-government demonstration in Dili in November 1991.
But none of them were arrested, let alone put on the wanted list, Andreas said, adding that the five men were known to be unemployed.
The police chief also said that the five men took part in the rioting that saw the torching of the Comoro market early this month. He added, however, that police had already arrested the seven main culprits in the arson attack.
Andreas said that the five asylum seekers were probably haunted by the fear that they, too, would be arrested, as their seven colleagues had been.
The chief of the East Timor military command, Col. Mahidin Simbolon, said that because the five men are not on the wanted list, there is no point in stopping them from leaving.
If they wanted to return to East Timor they would be treated like all other citizens, Simbolon told Antara.
The incident is the third time since July 1993 that East Timorese have sought asylum through an embassy in Jakarta. Last November, 29 youths scaled the U.S. embassy fence during a visit by President Bill Clinton, diverting attention from a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders. (03/emb)