Relocate or go home, Horta tells refugees

Relocate or go home, Horta tells refugees

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Jose Ramos Horta has called on East Timor refugees now residing
in West Timor to either go home or accept the Indonesian
government's offer to be relocated to other provinces.

"If they opted to stay in Indonesia they have to accept the
Indonesian government's plan to relocate them, or else they will
have to return to East Timor," the Minister for Foreign Affairs
and Cooperation of the Second Transitional Government of East
Timor was quoted as saying by Antara in Nusa Dua, Bali.

Horta was speaking in the sidelines of tripartite talks on
border crossers between Indonesia, Australia and the United
Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET).

The Indonesian government offered the East Timorese the
opportunity to join its relocation plan last year but it had
received a cold response.

The East Timorese people's patience has worn thin, Horta said,
for their compatriots in West Timor to come home.

Horta and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs put the number of
East Timor refugees in West Timor at between 60,000 and 80,000.
The West Timor regional government, however, put it at 128,000.

Most of the refugees left East Timor after the August 1999
referendum that eventually led to the separation of the province
from Indonesia. About 250,000 people were believed to have fled
East Timor at that time.

"More than a year ago, we all criticized the Indonesian
government for what we perceived as their reluctance to let the
refugees go home," Horta said adding that despite the many
opportunities and incentives given to them, they still refuse to
go home.

The government ceased its relief support -- 400 grams of rice
and Rp 500 per person per day -- to East Timor refugees last
month. It was the same support the government provided to 1.3
million other refugees throughout the country who were displaced
due to communal conflicts in a number of regions.

The government also offered Rp 500,000 last December for every
East Timorese family who was willing to go home.

Director of International Organizations at the Indonesian
foreign ministry, Marty Natalegawa, told The Jakarta Post in Nusa
Dua on Tuesday that efforts to lessen the burden of the
Indonesian government in supporting the 60,000 East Timor
refugees was not only made by Indonesia but also Australia and
East Timor.

What we need is both immediate and long-term help.

"The fact that the refugees are now in need of food only
attests to the need for lasting solutions," he said.

Separately, Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer
announced on Tuesday that the Australian government would provide
A$8.5 million to help Indonesia support its refugees through
various UN agencies and non-governmental organizations.

Australia will also contribute A$6.6 million to assist
Indonesia and the United Nations to find lasting solutions for
East Timor refugees.

About 200,000 refugees have returned to East Timor since 1999.
Some said they were still waiting for their pension payments from
the Indonesian government. Others said they were concerned about
their security when they go home to East Timor. UN refugee staff
said last month that economic factors, not security concerns,
were behind their reluctance to go home.

Horta said he fully supported the Indonesian government's plan
to close the refugee centers for the East Timorese.

He said he believed there had been a manipulation of relief
support by certain refugees.

There were those who had gone home and then returned to West
Timor up to three times to take advantage of the relief support,"
he said.