Also: AN: Timor Incidents Caused By People's Ignorance About Official Border Lines

Border Area of Indonesia-East Timor to Be Barren

Saturday, 22 October, 2005

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta:Four percent of Indonesia-East Timor border area that is yet to be settled by both governments will left barren.

"This agreement comes as a result of Indonesia-East Timor meeting on October 11," said Indonesian Foreign Affairs Department spokesman Yuri Oktavian Thamrin to reporters on Friday (21/10).

The border areas that are yet to be agreed on are in Manusasi three kilometers long and Noei Besi four kilometers long. The Subina area, 20 kilometers long, is yet to surveyed.

Sometime ago, there was an incident in the unsettled area. According to Thamrin, the incident came as a misperception between the citizens who were confused about the border regions of Indonesia and East Timor.

Following the October 11 meeting, the parties will meet again on November 2 to discuss the border matters, the incident on the border and the next survey program.

The meeting will be held in the framework of the Technical Sub-Committee on Border Demarcation and Regulations under the Joint Border Committee (JBC) that has a mandate to delineate and determine the border demarcations of the two countries.

The Committee meets regularly two-three times a year while the field survey is carried out every two months. The chairman of the technical sub-committee in Indonesia is National Mapping and Survey Coordination Institution, with the related members coupled to such departments as the Foreign Affairs Department, Home Affairs, the Defense Department and the Indonesian Military (TNI) Headquarters (HQ). (Fanny Febiana)

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TIMOR INCIDENTS CAUSED BY PEOPLE'S IGNORANCE ABOUT OFFICIAL BORDER LINES

10/21/2005 09:47:53 PM EDT Antara

Jakarta, Oct 26 (ANTARA) - Indonesia is still meeting difficulties in familiarizing people in East Nustenggara about the official borderlines between Indonesia and Timor Leste, so that various incidents such as illegal crossings continue to happen, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said.

Yuri Thamrin, the spokesman , said Friday not all people in border areas were aware that the two countries have already established up to 96 percent of their borderlines on Timor island.

"So the problem now is how to inform the people on both sides of the border about the offcially established borderlines," he said.

Yuri admitted he had received a report about border incidents involving people from the two countries around Oekusi in East Timor.

In the incident on October 15 people burned some fields and huts and two Timor Leste citizens had been hurt.

He said such an incident had occurred because people were still confused about the official borderlines agreed upon by the two countries.

"It is a fact that some fields so far cultivated by people of one of the two countries are now under the jurisdiction of the other country," he said.

Therefore, incursions or border crossings have often happened such as the ones committed by some Indonesians, he said.

Therefore, he said efforts need to be made to find ways to solve the problem such as providing special facilities for people whose land had been now under the authority of the other country as a result of the establishment of borderlines.

He said according to a report from the Indonesian mission in Timor Leste more concrete efforts were being made to avoid the recurrence of incursion incidents such as joint patrols and increasing coordination between the countries' chiefs of border security.

According to the directorate of political agreements, security and territorial affairs of the ministry of foreign affairs, the recent incidents involving people from the two countries on the border happened on segments not yet surveyed for the determination of borderlines.

The two countries' border security officials met on October 11 and agreed to sterilize the area until surveying had been completed. Based on the agreement, people living in border areas are not allowed to enter the area.

According to the temporary agreement on land border between Indonesia and Timor Leste signed on April 8 this year, there is still a segment in the western sector that had not been surveyed, namely in Subina (to Nah Oben), that was around 20 kilometer long.

Along the area no geographic coordinates had been agreed upon by the two countries.

The two countries' technical teams plan to meet in November to discuss the next survey program.

(THROUGH ASIA PULSE)

21-10 2005

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