Susy Katipana, mother of E. Timor's refugees

KUPANG, East Nusa Tenggara (JP): Among East Timor refugees, the name "Mama Susy" is well known. Susy Katipana is the director of the Womintra Foundation, or Women in Transition, a non- governmental organization promoting community and health development in East Nusa Tenggara, or West Timor.

She has been working with the East Timorese refugees since the first day they poured into West Timor in early September 1999, fleeing the violence that flared up in the territory following the August referendum for self-determination in East Timor.

Many have charged her of politicking and taking sides with the pro-Indonesia refugees. She shrugs off the criticism: "There are so many people involved, so many hidden agendas, and very few actions of good will."

"Never before have I seen so many people die like I did as soon as they arrived here," she said.

"They could be pro-autonomy or pro-independence -- we cannot interfere with that," she added.

Immediately after the refugees started to stream in, her office began to organize nine local non government organizations to distribute food and supplies such as milk, kerosene stoves and blankets.

With aid from the German organization GTZ Indonesia, five 24- hour emergency clinics were opened, staffed by nine doctors and 32 paramedics. They provided free primary health care to refugees in several camp sites.

After many hours of talking and listening to refugees, the uncertainty of life in the camps began to disturb Susy; the term "emergency" soon assumed a feeling of permanency.

Questions began to interrupt her sleep: "The children should be at school -- and what will happen to those mothers, how will they feed the children when there is no more aid coming in? What's next?"

Womintra then established temporary schools, later known as "tent schools" because they were held in tents, for the children, and also set up income generating training programs for the adults.

The schools were indeed temporary as they stopped operating after a while. But the second scheme is thriving, involving up to 100 groups of refugees as of today.

The income generating activities and other community development programs in several districts of West Timor, such as the provision of electricity, water supply and sanitation facilities, have proved effective. Children are now encouraged to join public schools and funds are sought for the school fees.

In a recent email she said, "What we do is not of much help. There are thousands who cannot afford the luxury of regular elementary and secondary schools." Their parents cannot afford the fees, books, shoes and uniforms.

Refugees do not only need food. "Education is the only unlimited source of survival," says Susy, a graduate of the Teachers' Training Institute in Bandung, majoring in community development.

Children and adults are also exposed to health hazards.

"Some of the lucky ones can afford wooden huts, but these are not enough to protect them from dampness in this rainy season," she said.

In at least 12 camps in the Belu district, the site of a Womintra mobile clinic, she was relieved to find the women in a somewhat better condition and the children thriving.

Following the closure of several Womintra clinics following the killing of three UN workers last September, health workers continue to provide services from their mobile clinics.

Some 3,200 refugees have reportedly returned to East Timor following the September incident, but there still remains some 129,000 refugees in squalid uncertainty.

"Mothers set out one plate of rice for two or three children," Susy wrote. "How long will they have to live like this?"

Twenty years ago Susy organized humanitarian activities for CARE International, during the 1981-1982 eruption of Mount Galunggung in West Java. She was also among the social workers when a severe earthquake hit eastern Flores in 1992.

But the East Timorese refugees are unique to her with the new status of the former province bewildering them.

"Being among them most of the time, I know most of the refugees do not intend to return to East Timor. Although some of them I know had much better homes and a better life back there, they choose to stay in Indonesia."

"You can see how proud they are to have the Merah Putih (the Indonesian red and white flag) waving above their ramshackle tents," she added.

In the refugee camps even the poorest looking tent has a bright, clean Indonesian flag waving on top of it. The flag, they said, was the reason why they preferred to stay.

"I jokingly suggested that they take it home folded up and keep it to be admired once in a while," Susy said.

"Some of the refugee leaders retorted that for them, the Merah Putih is not to be kept hidden but to be flown courageously in front of their homes."

"Since they cannot do that in East Timor, they do not want to go back." People are willing to return "only if their leaders return," she said.

Many of the men and women saying they are on the pro Indonesia side have expressed fear and anxiety of coming home. The men, among them militias, are associated with those accused of "heinous crimes"; legal experts say that given the difficulty in proving who ordered such crimes it is likely that only the East Timorese carrying out the orders will be punished -- regardless of what Susy describes as "strong feelings" towards Indonesia and loyalty to their leaders.

What is important for Susy and other volunteers is the cooperation of refugees if they are to be helped. The precondition, Susy says, is that social workers must realize that many refugees are part of a "solid group" formed at the start of the 1975 political conflict in East Timor.

"Only this way can we talk, discuss matters with them and run our programs," she said.