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.