Repatriation of children to E. Timor meets resistance
Repatriation of children to E. Timor meets resistance
Yemris Fointuna, The Jakarta Post, Kupang
An international non-governmental organization (NGO) has
complained that pro-Indonesia East Timorese are obstructing its
attempts to reunite East Timorese children in orphanages in Java
with their parents in East Timor.
The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Indonesia, which deals with
East Timorese refugees, said Java-based Hati (heart) Foundation
had neglected around 150 East Timorese children it took from
their parents in refugee camps in Betun, Atambua and Kupang, East
Nusa Tenggara.
The foundation had promised to send the children to school
until they got jobs in Java.
All their parents had signed agreements with the foundation to
care for their children.
The foundation, JSR Indonesia said, had distributed those
children to a number of orphanages.
However, when the orphanages wanted to return the children to
their parents who had returned home to the newly-independent East
Timor with the help of JSR Indonesia, the Hati Foundation
obstructed the moves.
Worse still, executives of Hati Foundation even intimidated
the children and the orphanages, JSR Indonesia said.
Hati Foundation chief Octavio Soares refuted the claims,
saying that he had obtained the parents' consent and his
foundation had never done anything illegal.
"I'm only responsible to the parents who have trusted their
children to my care," he told AFP.
JSR Indonesia then asked the Indonesian Military for help.
JSR Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara site coordinator Navita
Kristi Astuti wrote to Kupang military district chief Lt. Col.
Wilmar Aritonang, with a copy sent to Wirasakti (East Nusa
Tenggara) Military commander Lt. Col. Muswarno Moesanip, asking
the latter's help to repatriate the children to East Timor.
Speaking to The Jakarta Post on Wednesday, Moesanip said he
was ready to back up plans by JRS Indonesia and the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to reunite the
children with their parents in East Timor.
Moesanip also warned the Hati Foundation to cooperate with the
authorities, to stop intimidating East Timorese refugees and to
"cooperate" in sending them home.
"If the report is true, the foundation has become a trade
mafia for refugee children.
"The Indonesian Military will continue to help make the
reunification process of East Timorese children with their
parents a success," he said.
UNHCR said last week that it would send 16 Timorese children
to their parents in East Timor. Those children were taken from
various orphanages in South Kalimantan, Central Java and East
Nusa Tenggara provinces. None of them came from the Hati
Foundation.