Yogie to discuss issue of Maluku repatriation

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Home Affairs Moch. Yogie S.M. will visit the Netherlands next week to discuss the repatriation to Indonesia of thousands of people of Maluku descent living there.

"Many Maluku people, especially those in their old age, want to come home," he said yesterday of the exiled people who left Indonesia some four decades ago during the conflict between the Dutch army with the fledgling republic.

Speaking to reporters after meeting with Vice President Try Sutrisno, Yogie said that, since the launch of the joint Indonesia-Dutch repatriation scheme in 1976, some 321,000 Maluku people have returned home. Most of them have now settled in 15 provinces.

The repatriation program was initially established for Maluku people of Indonesian nationality. In 1981 it was extended to cover those who had chosen Dutch citizenship.

Only 249 people returned to Indonesia between 1976 and August 1991. According to the March edition of the Far Eastern Economic Review, some 200 people were on the waiting list for repatriation in 1991. This year, some 30 Moluccans are scheduled to be repatriated to Indonesia.

Dutch officials have estimated that between 1,500 and 2,500 will eventually return.

Thousands of Maluku people went into exile in the Netherlands following the crushing by the Indonesian government of the secessionist Republik Maluku Selatan (Southern Maluku Republic) movement, which proclaimed independence on April 25, 1950.

Yogie said that during his Dutch visit he would also receive a number of books on regional autonomy published by the University of Leiden.

"We will use the books if their contents are in line with our philosophy," he said. (rms)