UN pulls foreign staff out of West Timor border town
UN pulls foreign staff out of West Timor border town
JAKARTA (Agencies): Two UN agencies pulled most of their foreign staff out of the East Nusa Tenggara border town of Atambua on Saturday, a day after pro-Jakarta militia encircled and threatened their offices, UN officials said.
The officials, speaking from the East Nusa Tenggara capital of Kupang, said the police and the military were negotiating with the militia in Atambua, and that no incident was reported on Saturday.
"At 5:30 this morning our sole expatriate staffer started for Kupang. We advised him to join the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) cars coming down (to Kupang)," International Organization for Migration (IOM) representative Jose Remigio told AFP by phone.
The UNHCR office in Kupang confirmed most of its foreign staff had left Atambua, but declined to call it an evacuation.
"I would say we redeployed the staff ... this was after some threatened demonstration by the Aitarak" militia, Adelmo Risi, a UNHCR representative, said.
"They are scheduled to be here (Kupang) today and tomorrow. When there are security problems, it is better to prevent them."
He declined to disclose the number of staff relocated.
Neither Risi nor Remigio gave details of the events at their offices in Atambua on Friday.
UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond said in Geneva the militia "taunted staff members and threatened to attack the premises.
"Indonesian soldiers were called and the situation was brought under control after several tense hours".
IOM spokesman Jean-Philippe Chauzy said in Geneva on Friday their Atambua office was "under siege today by at least 50 machete-wielding Aitarak militia.
"Six staff remained trapped inside the building for several hours before the Indonesian Army intervened to disperse the crowd".
Aitarak was involved in attacks in East Timor last year.
Meanwhile, the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in East Timor has demanded that Indonesia arrest and disarm militia leaders responsible for an attack in which a Nepalese soldier was killed and four others wounded.
Speaking to reporters late on Friday after returning from the western border area, Sergio Vieira de Mello told reporters the Indonesian government needed to do more than offer vague statements to close down the refugee camps.
"Closing down the camps is a fairly vague concept. Once you close them down, what do you do with the refugees? Do you throw them into the sea? Do you force them across the border?"
Jakarta is under mounting international pressure to curb the prointegration gangs who are believed to operate from the year- old refugee camps in East Nusa Tenggara.
On Friday, Indonesian foreign minister Alwi Shihab said his government was drawing up plans to close the refugee camps, which have been home to 100,000 East Timorese who have lived there since fleeing their homeland last year.
Up to a quarter of East Timor's 800,000 population were forced out of the impoverished territory in the violent aftermath of a ballot on self-determination.
"Closing the camps I don't think is a solution. The solution is what we've been requesting from the Indonesian government since October last year, which is to identify -- which is not difficult -- disarm and detain those extremist elements who are operating from within the camps," de Mello said.
"That's what needs to be done and as long as that doesn't happen, then I'm afraid refugees will not come back and our people will continue to die."
De Mello heads the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET), which includes an 8,000-strong peacekeeping force drawn from 32 countries of which Australia is the biggest contributor.
Two UN soldiers have been killed in as many weeks after clashes with pro-Indonesia militiamen, and senior UN military commanders are warning of an upsurge of violence this month.
The focus is on two anniversaries -- Indonesia's independence day on Aug. 17 and on Aug. 30 which will mark one year since the majority of East Timorese voted to quit Jakarta rule.