East Timorese refugees in West Timor
The East Timorese refugees in West Timor are East Timorese who came to the Indonesian part of West Timor as a result of the crisis in East Timor in 1999 in the context of the independence referendum and the subsequent withdrawal of the Indonesians from the East Timor they occupied .
background
East Timor was occupied by Indonesia from 1975 to 1999. On August 30, 1999, the United Nations organized a referendum in which the people of East Timor clearly opted for an independent state. Indonesian security forces and pro-Indonesian militias (Wanra) covered the country again with a wave of violence with up to 3000 deaths, 75% of the infrastructure was destroyed. The inhabitants were driven out or evacuated by the Indonesians and deported to West Timor. The International Armed Forces East Timor (INTERFET) ensured peace and order again from September and the Indonesians withdrew, together with East Timorese supporters who now feared acts of revenge. Three quarters of the population were on the run. Around 280,000 East Timorese were forcibly deported from Indonesia to West Timor or had sought refuge there. Many of these East Timorese remained in the refugee camps even after the Indonesians left. It was the former supporters of the annexation to Indonesia and those who had committed crimes against their neighbors during the unrest. They feared reprisals if they returned to their home villages.
East Timor tried with the help of the Reception, Truth and Reconciliation Commission of East Timor CAVR (which addressed the refugees directly on their behalf with the designation “Reception”). This helped reconciliation between returnees and their neighbors. They even organized “come and see” visits by refugee delegations back home. There were only isolated acts of revenge and vigilante justice. However, the control of the refugee camps by armed former members of the Wanra and their leaders was problematic. They used horror scenarios to warn of alleged dangers in their homeland and tried to exert political pressure through the refugees. Initially, aid workers were only able to enter the camps to a limited extent under the protection of the Indonesian police. On September 6, 2000, three UNHCR employees from Croatia , Ethiopia and Puerto Rico were brutally murdered in a camp near Atambua and some of the bodies were burned. The trigger for the violence was the unsolved murder of militia leader Olivio Mendosa Muruk . At his funeral with 3,000 mourners, there were attacks on United Nations employees. They then withdrew their employees and the UN Security Council demanded that Indonesia disarm and disband the militias. Instead, the Indonesian government stopped supporting the refugees, whereupon they tried to support themselves with retail trade, agriculture and petty crime. This in turn led to conflicts with the local population. The militias also used the refugee camps as bases for operations in East Timor. In December 2002, two villages in the east were attacked by militias who had crossed the border. Only over time was it possible to weaken the militia’s influence.
Numerous refugees still live in West Timor today. In 2005, the Indonesian provincial authorities counted 104,436 refugees (40,453 in Belu Governorate , 11,176 in North Central Timor and 11,360 in Kupang ). They come primarily from the East Timorese communities of Lautém , Dili , Baucau , Viqueque , Aileu and Manatuto . They come from different ethnic groups and speak different mother tongues than the native West Timorese. Most of the refugees live in poverty. Several tens of thousands lived here in barracks in 2010. Aid funds largely disappeared in the bureaucracy.
The former militiamen organized themselves in the Timor Aswain University (UNTAS). The former militia leader Eurico Guterres has been chairman since 2010 . He was convicted of crimes during the East Timor crisis but was released early. Its spokesperson is Hukman Reni . Other leading members of UNTAS are Domingos Maria das Dores Soares , Basilio Dias Araújo and Filomeno de Jesus Hornay , the Secretary General of UNTAS.
literature
- Andrey Damaledo: Divided Loyalties: Displacement, belonging and citizenship among East Timorese in West Timor , ANU press, 2018, limited preview in Google Book search.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Monika Schlicher: East Timor faces its past , missio-hilft.de , accessed on January 28, 2019.
- ↑ ABCnews, September 6, 2000, 3 UN Workers Dead in West Timor Rampage
- ↑ Bataviase, December 22, 2009, 12 residents arrested after Kupang clash
- ↑ The Jakarta Post, January 30, 2010, Govt to hand over more houses for former East Timor refugees ( Memento of the original from January 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ UCAnews: East Timorese exiles trapped in poverty , February 6, 2018 , accessed February 8, 2018.
- ↑ Bataviase, December 22, 2009, 12 residents arrested after Kupang clash
- ↑ Antara News: Eurico Guterres to meet Timorese in Manokwari , April 13, 2011
- ↑ Michaela Müller and Monika Schlicher: Political parties and groupings in East Timor , Indonesia Information No. 1 2002 (East Timor), Watch Indonesia!
