West Timor refugee camps must close: Indonesia

West Timor refugee camps must close: Indonesia

SINGAPORE (Agencies): Indonesian Foreign Minister Alwi Shihab said on Friday deadly militia attacks in East Timor can be stopped by closing down massive refugee camps and his government will ensure this is done.

Alwi said Indonesia was formulating a plan to close camps in West Timor and would call on international agencies, including the United Nations, to help set up a registry for the subsequent repatriation of people wanting to return to East Timor.

"There is a problem with even registration, but now with the determination of the Indonesian government, we should have it done," Alwi said in reply to questions after a speech organized by local think-tank, the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies.

"We will do our utmost to get the registration done, no more militias to detract the plan."

Tension has risen in the border area between East and West Timor.

An upsurge in militia activity and border incursions led to the death of a Nepalese UN peacekeeper on Thursday after a gunfight.

The dead soldier was one of four Nepalese UN troops who were wounded in the skirmish with a group of militia northwest of the city of Suai.

This was the second UN peacekeeper to be killed in a direct fight with militiamen in East Timor. A New Zealander was killed on July 24 while tracking suspected pro-Jakarta militia near the border with Indonesian West Timor.

On Friday, several dozen former members of the Aitarak militia, blamed for much of last year's mayhem in East Timor, taunted staff at the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and threatened to attack, spokesman Ron Redmond said.

"Indonesian soldiers in Atambua were called and the situation was brought under control after several tense hours," he added.

Six staff were trapped for hours as at least 50 machete- wielding militiamen besieged the office of the International Organization for Migration, which is organizing the return of refugees to East Timor, said its spokesman, Jean-Philippe Chauzy.

Alwi said he was deeply concerned with the death, and believed closing the refugee camps would stop the violence.

The UN, which has 9,000 peacekeepers in East Timor, has lost four other lives to either disease or accidents.

More than 200,000 people out of a population of 850,000 fled or were forced to flee East Timor to the western part of the island by army-organized militia protesting at an overwhelming vote in favor of Independence from Indonesia last August.

Many of the people now live in refugee camps in West Timor that are used as cover by militiamen intent on causing havoc in East Timor.

Alwi said he had spoken with his diplomatic counterparts in the region and had won their backing that the way to rid the violence was to clear the refugee camps.

"By closing down the camp, the source of all those problems -- killing, tension could be abated," he said.