Subject: AU: 9000 East Timor refugees 'disappear'
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 12:13:48 -0400
From: "John M. Miller" <fbp@igc.apc.org>The Australian 22 July 99
9000 East Timor refugees 'disappear'
>From SIAN POWELL in Dili
THE humanitarian crisis in East Timor casts a lasting shadow over the coming ballot on
independence.
Among tens of thousands of refugees driven from their villages by anti-independence
militia violence, many may have been moved on, away from the prying eyes of the press and
aid agencies.
One aid worker with a local humanitarian organisation said 9000 refugees who had fled
to Liquica, 40km west of the capital Dili, had disappeared and attempts were being made to
find them.
One possibility was that they had been taken to coffee plantations to harvest the crop.
"For a long time in Liquica there were rumours that people were going to be
moved," another aid worker said.
An Australian religious sister and volunteer aid worker who requested anonymity said
she suspected that refugees were often moved by the militias.
"This is a major hostage crisis," she said of the flight of thousands of East
Timorese.
"They call them internally displaced persons, but they are hostages to the
militias. They have been told that if they vote for independence, they will be
killed."
Refugee camps near the West Timorese border that the sister had visited recently were
found to be empty a few days later by the UN. The refugees did not return to their
villages voluntarily, she said: "They were too frightened."
Even so, many refugees in Dili – which is now home to 11,000 displaced people
– want to go back to their villages to register for the referendum on independence,
scheduled for August 21 or 22. One plan is that convoys of trucks will return hundreds to
their homes in the rural towns of Ainaro and Bobonaro, where they will be registered.
A local aid agency said some refugees did not understand they could register anywhere
so long as they voted in the same place, rather than have to return to their homes.
Although their repatriation is ultimately desirable, the agency questioned whether
returning to burned houses, missing livestock and devastated crops will only further
strain aid resources.
The Australian sister said the recent havoc wrought by the militias had disrupted the
harvest of the first good crop the province has seen in years. "Before this crisis
there was the drought," she said. "These people have been suffering for many
years."
Health problems plague refugees in some areas and medical aid is urgently required.
Tuberculosis, malaria, diarrhoea, scabies and infected sores are exacerbated by poor
nutrition.
When a local aid agency visited a group of 700 refugees near Sare recently, 500 were
found to have malaria.
Although a result of a high-level meetings last week between Indonesian authorities and
the UN mission was that aid agencies would be given access to the refugees, progress has
been halting.
Vehicles seized following the attack on an aid convoy to Liquica on July 4 have either
been confiscated or damaged. Nevertheless, it is understood that another aid convoy is
planned by local aid agencies.
One aid organisation puts the total of refugees in East Timor at nearly 60,000, while
the East Timorese Council for National Resistance, CNRT, estimates the total at more than
44,000.
Aid agencies reported that refugees were still arriving in Dili from the troubled
district of Maliana as well as from the towns of Liquica and Ermera.
"Dili is full of refugees," an aid worker said. "And they will continue
to come until the militias disarm."
The Indonesian Task Force for East Timor yesterday dismissed as a "forgery"
an alleged government document that said it expected fresh violence if Timorese voted for
independence.
The document, released by pro-independence activists on Monday, also said evacuation
plans for pro-integration supporters were being prepared.
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