Repatriation of East Timor refugees observed

JAKARTA (JP): Visiting British Deputy Foreign Minister John Battle called on the government here on Monday to speed up the repatriation of some 130,000 East Timorese refugees in West Timor to the former Indonesian province.

"The pace needs to be stepped up," Battle told a small group of journalists at the residence of British Ambassador to Jakarta, Richard Gozney, in Central Jakarta.

He said the process of repatriating the refugees to East Timor should be accelerated due to the fast-approaching rainy season.

"I just think that that is not a way for people to live ... people need to be able to go home ... and the preconditions for that is no intimidation, no violence and (the militias) have to pull out and disarm," he added.

The statement came as Coordinating Minister for Political, Social and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said earlier in the day that the police have collected somewhere between 41 and 91 percent of weapons held by pro-integration militiamen in West Timor.

Jakarta has been under international pressure to disarm the militias after the killing of three UN relief workers by militia mobs in the West Timorese border town of Atambua on Sept. 6.

The disarmament and disbandment of the militia was a key demand, and both the World Bank and the United States had warned Indonesia that it risked jeopardizing foreign financial assistance if it failed to comply.

Indonesia has invited a delegation from the Security Council to West Timor on Nov. 13 to assess the implementation of its demands.

The government had said earlier that it would re-register the refugees in early November.

The re-registration process would enable the refugees "to choose freely whether to return back to East Timor or stay in Indonesia," Susilo was quoted by AFP said.

Those who choose to stay would be placed in resettlement programs in either West Timor, Sumba island or Wetar island, off the northeastern tip of East Timor.

Last year's violence in East Timor forced some 250,000 people to flee into West Timor in the wake of the territory's overwhelming vote to split from Indonesia in the UN-held autonomy ballot on Aug. 30.

The militias also fled to West Timor following the deployment of international peacekeeping forces in East Timor in September. (byg)