Refugees start use violence, terror to survive

Yemris Fointuna, The Jakarta Post, Kupang

Thousands of East Timorese refugees have begun to use violence and terror against local villagers in a bid to survive in East Nusa Tenggara province following the halt of their food assistance early last month.

Cases of theft, extortion, blackmail and other crimes are also rampant at villages surrounding the refugee camps in the province's capital of Kupang, with local residents complaining of intimidation by the East Timorese.

"Our residents have begun to feel insecure. Every day at least one of us loses a cow, a chicken, a goat, a television or other property," Yakob Dethan, secretary of Tuapukan village, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

"Local residents are often terrorized, intimidated and blackmailed by refugees. We have asked police to provide security protection, but until now there has been no response," Benyamin Dethan, head of Noelbaki village, added separately.

Tuapukan, Noelbaki and the village of Naibonat have for three years housed about 20,000 East Timorese refugees still stuck in Kupang regency.

Around 108,000 others are accommodated at different refugee camps in North Central Timor, South Central Timor and Atambua, on the border with East Timor.

About 250,000 fled the carnage by militias in East Timor after it voted to break away from Indonesia in August 1999. Most of them have returned to their homeland, which will officially become an independent state in May, 2002.

The cash-strapped government stopped the supply of food assistance to the total 128,000 refugees currently housed across East Nusa Tenggara, offering them the choice either of staying within Indonesia or returning home to East Timor.

Many of them have admitted to running out of food, last provided by the Indonesian government in December, and are now facing starvation. Some have begun to eat cassava in place of rice, others eat rice or porridge, but only twice a day, and said they would likely have nothing to eat in the coming weeks.

Elita Patipelohi, a priest at the Masehi church, based in Tuapukan, aired a similar complaint of high levels of crime in her village over recent weeks.

"As a church leader, every Sunday I have been asked by at least seven members to pray for them because they have lost their animals or other belongings," she told The Post.

"I often witness car drivers being extorted and blackmailed or robbed by groups of refugees."

She said many residents did not dare to fight with them because the robbers were usually armed with machetes, firearms, handguns or other sharp weapons.

"Our region is now increasingly vulnerable to violence by refugees. With the scarcity of food as their motivation, they do what they want," said Nikolaus Ria Hepa, a resident in Noelbaki.

Both Tuapukan and Naibonat are home to only 6,583 people, comprising 1,633 families, while the number of refugees there is more than 18,000, or 2,513 families.

In Noelbaki, which is around 1.7 hectares (ha) in area, about 2,000 refugees control 8,000 square meters, or almost half of the village.

Yakob added that as the refugees were moved to Tuapukan in 1999, local residents have controlled only 10 percent of the 10- ha village, while the rest of the land has been used to accommodate refugee camps.

Villagers have lodged a protest to the local security authorities, demanding that their land, where camps were built, be returned to them by forcing the refugees to leave the areas.

Meanwhile, the East Nusa Tenggara administration denied that disturbances have taken place at or surrounding the refugees over the last two months, despite the cessation of food assistance.

"There has been no upheaval that has harmed the amenity of local people, and life in the camps is OK," spokesman for the local government Johanis Bastian said on Tuesday in Kupang.