Asia Times: Refugees still in peril as militia terror continues



	September 23, 1999	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Refugees still in peril as militia terror continues
By Sonny Inbaraj

DARWIN, Australia - United Nations troops may be consolidating their control in and around the East Timorese capital of Dili, but the refugee crisis in West Timor as well as the threat of militia activity are far from over.

Amid reports of continued harassment of pro-independence people in refugee camps and the discovery of the body of a foreign journalist, the head of the UN troops, Australia's Maj Gen Peter Cosgrove, said the territory is not yet safe. ''The militia has attempted to step up some activity,'' Cosgrove, head of the International Force for East Timor (Interfet) said on Wednesday.

The renewed militia activity has been prompted by the return to Dili of many refugees seeking to rebuild their lives, Cosgrove said.

On Wednesday, hungry East Timorese stormed warehouses containing rice and sugar. And the body of a man, believed to be Dutch journalist Sander Thoenes of the London-based Financial Times, was found with head wounds in Becora, a Dili suburb. News reports quoted Thoenes' East Timorese motorcycle driver as saying they were shot at by men clad in Indonesian army uniforms.

Pro-Jakarta groups in East Timor, including the armed militias who burned Dili, say they have not given up the struggle for the territory. Their chilling message reached Jakarta by television and through the state Antara news agency as the first heavily-armed international troops landed in relays at Dili's Comoro airport from Darwin in northern Australia.

Leaders of four main militia groups met inside the East Timorese border, in Balibo, to form what they said was a new coalition to defend what they called ''our territory'' and liberate East Timor from ''neocolonialism and the grip of new colonialists''. The head of the new pro-Jakarta coalition, Domingos Soares, said the National Struggle Front (FPB) was a union of ''the necessary components to defend integration (with Indonesia)''.

Soares said the front rejected the results of the August 30 referendum, in which 78.5 percent of East Timorese voted for independence, because the UN mission which organized it had manipulated the outcome.

Joao Tavares, commander of the 13 militias which caused havoc across East Timor before the ballot and joined the Indonesian Army in the destructive rampage of the past three weeks, said his forces would not attack Interfet. ''We only want to defend our ground,'' he said, meaning the western half of the territory where the militias are threatening to wage a guerrilla war against the UN forces if they are ''harassed''.

Signs that the militias are not giving up are also of concern because many control refugee camps holding East Timorese in West Timor. Human rights groups fear these refugees may be moved out for good. Tens of thousands of East Timorese pushed into West Timor by army-backed militias could be ''transmigrated'' to other parts of Indonesia within weeks, making it impossible for them to return home, the New York-based Human Rights Watch has warned.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadao Ogata, in a report published this week, said there were about 100,000 displaced East Timorese in Indonesian-controlled West Timor and on the islands of Flores and Alor. Some 55,000 East Timorese, according to the report, are located at a makeshift camp in Atambua, in West Timor, and 22,000 in West Timor's capital, Kupang. Indonesian government sources also report that 20,000 displaced people are on the East Timor side of the border, attempting to flee to the western part of the island.

According to aid workers, the refugees are settled in appalling conditions in several militia-controlled camps, where pro-independence activists are being terrorized. Ending a three-day visit to Indonesia on Tuesday, Ogata said: ''We still receive reports on arriving militias intimidating the people there.''

Human Rights Watch said: ''The displaced will undoubtedly be asked (by the Indonesian government) to choose between staying in appallingly overcrowded camps controlled by militias or being moved to another island. The Indonesian government is arguing that inadequate facilities in West Timor for over 200,000 East Timorese makes resettlement to Irian Jaya, the Moluccas and other islands the only realistic option.''

Jamie Isbister of the National Council of Churches in Australia who recently returned from West Timor said Kupang may soon see riots due to mounting tension between local residents and the pro-Jakarta militias, whose abuse behavior they resent. ''The militia - Aitarak and Besi Merah Putih - have been built up by the Indonesian military to believe they are beyond the law and their actions, in line with that, have continued since they crossed the border from East Timor,'' he said. ''Armed thugs wander around Kupang, drive stolen United Nations vehicles or ride on the back of Indonesian military trucks.''

(Inter Press Service)

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©1999 Asia Times Online Co., Ltd.