DATE=10/10/2000
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
NUMBER=5-47137
TITLE=EAST TIMOR / RETURNING REFUGEES
DATELINE=MALIANA, EAST TIMOR
BYLINE=ALISHA RYU
VOICED AT=
CONTENT=
INTRO: Life for East Timorese refugees may start to get easier now, more than a year after they fled the violence-soaked vote for independence from Indonesia. The Indonesian government, under intense international pressure, is promising to disband anti-independence militias intimidating the refugees in West Timor camps and to help all the refugees return home within the year. The displaced are beginning to feel that conditions are safe enough to go back to the world's youngest country and an uncertain future. V-O-A's Alisha Ryu traveled to the border town of Maliana in East Timor to meet one family who took advantage of the opportunity to return home.
TEXT:
/// OPEN FOR SOUND OF CRYING EST. AND FADE UNDER ///
The sound of weeping has been a familiar sound in Maliana. Nearly every family and every home in this small hamlet of 700-people bear the physical and mental scars of the torching, looting, and killing that accompanied East Timor's resounding vote for independence from Indonesian rule on August 30, 1999.
But today, the tears of the Olivera family have turned from sorrow to joy as 22 family members have found their way home after a year-long struggle as displaced refugees in West Timor.
/// OPEN FOR SOBBING EST. AND FADE UNDER ///
Daniel Olivera remembers the day he fled Maliana with his parents, wife, and children.
/// OLIVERA ACT IN TETUM EST. AND FADE UNDER ///
He says the violence began on September 2nd - about two-days after the votes had been counted. He heard gunshots ringing through the streets of Maliana and saw houses going up in flames.
Six-days later, machete-wielding men violently opposed to East Timor independence hacked to death 18 pro-independence voters near a local police station. Two of the dead were Mr. Olivera's relatives.
He says he heard that violence was engulfing numerous other towns and villages throughout East Timor. Militias aided by sections of the Indonesian military had sacked and burned much of the capital, Dili, and left it in smoldering ruins.
In Maliana, Mr. Olivera's family was deeply frightened. But some members refused to leave. Mr. Olivera felt it was too dangerous to stay. He took his immediate family to Atambua just across the border in West Timor. Thanks to his position as a high-ranking local civil servant, he says he had enough money to stay in a private home there.
But thousands of others from the area ended up in a squalid refugee camp where ruthless armed militias who fled to West Timor to avoid international peacekeepers - made daily threats against them.
Refugees crossing back into East Timor have been reluctant to give journalists details about the threats they have received. But a U-N relief worker, Amela Mujavic (pronounced moo-ya'-vich), says most of the 120-thousand people still living in some 200 camps spread out across West Timor have endured relentless harassment by militias bent on preventing East Timorese refugees from returning home.
/// MUJAVIC ACT ///
We know there has been a lot of intimidation by the militias. The refugees have been threatened and told stories like if you go back, they will rape your wives. They will eat your children. ... They have really had a well organized campaign of frightening people.
/// END ACT ///
Because of its relatively large size, the camp in Atambua was a special target of the militias. But refugees now trickling back into East Timor say it is getting easier to leave some of the camps, including the one in Atambua.
Some militias unwilling to hand over their weapons to the Indonesian government have moved out of the camps and are hiding in the hills. One notorious militia leader, Eurico Guterres, is under arrest in Jakarta. And New Zealand peacekeepers killed another well-known militia leader Saturday during a brief gun battle.
To leave the camps, refugees now have to simply fill out a request form with the Indonesian army and register their names. The army, then, informs the U-N-H-C-R so that they can be picked up at the border and resettled in East Timor.
But it is clear, even without the threat of militias - not everyone will be able to return immediately. Refugees who have returned say they were forced to pay an exit fee to the Indonesian army, ranging from one-dollar to six-dollars per person. Australian peacekeepers who patrol the border area say they have seen what looked like an exchange of money between refugees and senior Indonesian army officials just before the refugees were allowed to cross the border into East Timor.
/// SECOND OLIVERA ACT IN TETUM EST. AND FADE UNDER ///
Daniel Olivera says he knows he is lucky. He was able to afford his family's escape from Atambua. Upon returning, Mr. Olivera learned that U-N peacekeepers have secured the border from militia infiltrators and Maliana is a sleepy, quiet town once again.
After one long agonizing year of fear and bloodshed, he says his family is ready to restart their lives. But with most of East Timor destroyed and in need of enormous physical and economic aid, uncertainty hangs over every returning refugee as to how quickly they can once again become productive citizens. (SIGNED)
NEB/HK/AR/JO/RAE
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