East Timorese refugees: no end of trauma
By Jon Land
More than 200,000 East Timorese refugees are still languishing in militia-controlled camps across West Timor. United Nations personnel and representatives of human rights groups continue to be denied access to large numbers of refugees and are repeatedly threatened by militia gangs when they attempt to contact refugees.
The little information coming from the camps indicates that the militia gangs are still operating with impunity and in collaboration with the Indonesian military.
The rate of repatriation of refugees has slowed. Most of the camps around Kupang are now empty, these being run mainly by religious or community organisations.
The vast bulk of refugees are now located in camps around the towns of Atambua and Kefamenanu in the interior of West Timor, where the militia gangs are most active.
Following a local agreement between Interfet and Indonesian military officers, there has been a temporary increase in the flow of refugees across the border near the town of Maliana in East Timor, though refugees crossing there still face the threat of militia attack.
Officials from the UN High Commission for Refugees are resorting to "raids" on camps in West Timor to gather groups of refugees and secure their return to East Timor. The workers of the UNHRC are repeatedly told the same story by the refugees: the refugees are offered the choice of staying in West Timor, being resettled elsewhere in Indonesia or being disappeared. Some are offered the choice of returning, but must hand over all their belongings to do so.
The November 9 British Guardian quoted police chief Lieutenant Colonel Mohammad Nasir as saying: "They [the militias] are very well armed, with many automatic weapons ... If we tried to arrest them all they would just start terrorising the local community as well. We have no choice but to take a softly softly approach."
A large number of East Timorese remain unaccounted for. The whereabouts of at least 80,000 are unknown, and it is feared that many of these have been killed or forcibly moved to other parts of Indonesia.
Fretilin spokesperson Harold Moucho told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly: "The situation with the missing people is very concerning. Eighty thousand people is a lot of people — it is not an easy number of people to be hidden away, unless they have disappeared. We are pressing all authorities to try to locate these people.
"It would be a great tragedy if they are not located and have in fact been killed by the militias and the Indonesian armed forces", Moucho said. "It is very difficult to find the words to express how we feel about the disappearance of all these people. It would be devastating if these people are not found."
Australian restrictions
It is not just in West Timor that East Timorese refugees are being treated unjustly. East Timorese allowed into Australia by the Howard government under special visa arrangements (like those applied to the Kosovar refugees) are being "urged" to return before their visas are up for renewal, even though most are not in a physical or mental state to do so.
A wide range of restrictions has been placed on the refugees as well — on their movement outside the camps, who they can see within the camps and even what they can wear. (Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly has been informed by an East Timorese source that refugees in the Puckapunyal camp were prevented from wearing the flag of the Democratic Republic of East Timor or other emblems considered "political".)
The Howard government is also blocking members of the International Commission of Jurists from gathering evidence from refugees in the camps on atrocities committed by the Indonesian military and the militia gangs.
Speaking at a book launch in Sydney on November 7, John Dowd, head of the Australian section of the ICJ, said: "Your government and mine has issued a directive that the Australian section of the International Commission of Jurists are not permitted to go into the camps. In Puckapunyal in Victoria, we have to take them out 10 kilometres away to a centre so they can give evidence."
Referring to the directive, Dowd said, "The government doesn't even have the guts to issue a piece of paper"; officials at the camp "read it out to the refugees, so we wouldn't know what pressure has been placed on a people who are obviously wanting to go back".
Dowd explained that just prior to a recent visit by an ICJ team, the refugees were offered inducements like 50 kilos of rice for a 10-member family, two blankets each and a tarpaulin and told, "There is a plane available now — we don't know when the next one will go".
"It is despicable that the Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs is doing this to a people already traumatised", Dowd said.
Moucho, who meets regularly with East Timorese refugees at the East Hills camp in Sydney, confirms that there is pressure on the refugees to return early to East Timor.
"I have heard of pressure and 'information' given to the refugees in some of the camps urging them to return. I know that people are asking the Timorese if they want to go back to East Timor within the next two to three weeks.
"It is very difficult to comprehend, that the Australian government could think that they could force refugees to decide that they should return now to East Timor", added Moucho.
"Most of the refugees here are women and children, people who are sick, people who are extremely traumatised", Moucho told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly. "At the present time they do not have anything to go back to. They really don't need their suffering to be intensified by worrying about being sent back to East Timor tomorrow or the next day or in the next two weeks."
Moucho also said that the three-month temporary visas should be extended. "The refugees need to rebuild their own lives, and it would be very difficult for these people to go back right now to nothing. I appeal to the Australian public to put more pressure on the government."
Asylum seekers
The Howard government is due to announce its new policy on the 1650 East Timorese asylum seekers, whom it has been attempting to have deported since coming to power in 1996, continuing the process established by the previous Labor government. The counsel for the minister for immigration, Philip Ruddock, sought an adjournment in the Federal Court on October 12 of a test case because Ruddock was "reconsidering" his position on the asylum seekers.
"After all that they have gone through, it is absolutely disgusting the way the Howard government is treating the East Timorese refugees and asylum seekers", Max Lane, national chairperson of Action in Solidarity with Indonesia and East Timor, told Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly.
"These people should all be able to choose to stay in Australia for as long as they wish and be offered permanent or temporary resident status. They should be provided special training and education programs and financial assistance to restart their lives, whether it be here or back in East Timor", he added.
Lane commented that restrictions on East Timorese travelling between East Timor and Australia should be lifted. "At the moment it is next to impossible for East Timorese to do this, while UN staff, NGO workers and others can move freely between East Timor and Australia. East Timorese must be allowed to do likewise. They could travel under conditions like those applied to New Zealanders."
(A rally in support of the East Timorese asylum seekers will be held in Melbourne at 1pm on Saturday, November 20, outside the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Casselden Place, corner of Spring and Lonsdale Streets. Contact the Sanctuary Network in Melbourne on (03)9481 6414.)