Timorese youths call for integration

YOGYAKARTA: Some fifty members from East Timorese prointegration groups held a modest ceremony on Tuesday at Yogyakarta's East Timor Students Dormitory to celebrate what they called "the 25th anniversary of East Timor's integration to Indonesia".

Participants of the ceremony, residing in Yogyakarta and its surrounding towns, sang the national anthem Indonesia Raya as they raised the Indonesian red-and-white flag.

Bernardino Mariano Sousa of the prointegration Uni Timor Aswain (UNTAS) led the brief commemoration.

During their ceremony several youths yelled their allegiance to the Republic of Indonesia and pledged to continue the struggle for the return of East Timor.

"The struggle for the return of East Timor is a must, as we can't let our people in East Timor fall into uncertainty under UNTAET's authority," the chief of the prointegration group Forbalott, Arnaldo Basmeri dos Reis Araujo, said, referring to the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor.

Meanwhile, Mariano expressed his belief that most East Timorese refugees would prefer to be registered as Indonesian citizens than living in East Timor in an uncertain economic and political situation.(44)