Red Cross to help East Timorese asylum seekers

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)