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.