Refugees start use violence, terror to survive

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.