III. THE PLIGHT OF EAST TIMORESE REFUGEES IN WEST TIMOR

The situation for East Timorese in West Timor remains grim, despite the fact that more than 110,000 had returned as of December 3, 1999 and an agreement had been signed on November 22 between Interfet and the Indonesian army to facilitate movement across the border.1 At the end of November many refugees in camps and private homes throughout West Timor continued to be subjected to intimidation, threats, pervasive disinformation apparently aimed at discouraging their return to East Timor, and physical attacks by the same militias that had driven them from their homes in September.

It is not clear how many refugees remain in West Timor or on other Indonesian islands. Local newspapers, quoting figures from the provincial government of East Nusa Tenggara, the province that includes West Timor and the islands of Alor, Flores, and Wetar, said in late October that the number of refugees across the province totaled 271, 545. 2 There is widespread speculation that the numbers have been somewhat inflated for purposes of obtaining more assistance or due to unintended double counting; on the other hand, access to many locations housing refugees remains off limits to aid workers, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says pointedly that given restrictions on access, it has been unable to verify government figures.3

In early December, we received reports that Indonesian military authorities and UNHCR had reached an agreement in principle to separate militias from civilians in the camps, but there were still no concrete measures in place to accomplish this or to ensure safe access for international humanitarian aid organizations to all camps and settlements. Although the level of Indonesian cooperation improved in November and the new government of President Abdurrahman Wahid pledged to clear away remaining obstacles, the new government at times also acted as if the underlying issues were all but solved. President Wahid, in a statement on November 24, suggested that most of the remaining refugees did not wish to return.4 The accounts of aid workers and the testimony of refugees returning from West Timor tells a very different story.

Obstacles to Return

It is important to emphasize at the outset that because access to the camps is limited, information on how many East Timorese are left in West Timor and the conditions under which they live is also limited. Estimates of East Timorese still in West Timor as of this writing ranged from 75,000 to 150,000. Access is limited because international humanitarian aid workers and UNHCR officials have been subjected to repeated intimidation at camps and settlements throughout West Timor, including the major refugee zones in the vicinity of Kupang and along the border with East Timor in the Atambua area. The UNHCR repatriation program began on October 8, but made little progress until November. In November, UNHCR reported several dozen incidents of harassment by militia members in the area of Atambua, West Timor alone.5 Staff members have been physically discouraged from entering camps and have been subject to stone throwing, guns fired into the air as warnings, and crowds gathering to block entrance to the camps.6

As a result of such attacks, a UNHCR staff member asserted in mid-November that the UNHCR was being forced to mount what he called "commando-style snatch-and-run" operations, with UNHCR parking its trucks outside a camp and moving in as quickly as possible to "extract" refugees before militia members were able to organize a response.7 In late November, the problems continued. In a press briefing on November 30, 1999, a UNHCR spokesperson noted: "While there has been some improvement in the security situation, access to the camps remains very limited. West Timor is the only place in the world where UNHCR workers are heavily escorted by police and army troops when they go to the camps."8 The participation of Indonesian military and police in freeing refugees demonstrates some Indonesian government cooperation, but the continued presence of the militias intermingling with civilians in the camps underscores the lack of political will to resolve the underlying problem.

For East Timorese, intimidation is constant. Feared militia leaders are in the camps and operate openly, boasting of plans to return to East Timor and continue fighting. The cases of Lucas Borromeo and Jose Pereira (Zeca) in the Tenubot camp near Atambua are described in detail in Section IV below. One man who had spent time in the refugee camp in Tenubot told Human Rights Watch that every day people were called for a roll call to make sure everyone was in the camp. They were terrorized at night by militia members warning them of the dangers of returning to East Timor. A man who had recently returned from Betun, West Timor said people there were told they would be killed if they went back to East Timor.9 "When the Red and White flies again over East Timor, then you can return," the militia members said. There was militia training every day, using sticks instead of guns.10 Another man said his family, staying in a house in Silawan, Atambua, wanted to leave but was afraid of the militias. When asked to fill out government forms stating their preferred destination, they had said they wanted to stay, even though it was not true.11 The same situation was described by people with family members in Noelbaki and Tuapukan, Kupang, in Lakefehan, Atambua, in Lurasik, Belu, in Haliwen, and in the villages of Matai, Kamanasa, and Bolan, all near Atambua, that are under the control of the Mahidi and Laksaur militias.12

Some of these incidents left a lasting impression. As one UNHCR spokesperson put it: "The moment an East Timorese expresses a desire to leave the camps and go home, their life is in danger."13 Surya Timor, a newspaper published in Kupang, West Timor, reported on October 25 that five unidentified corpses were found by refugees in Naibonat, West Timor. One refugee told the paper that the bodies were not from the camp and must have been brought in as a way of terrorizing those who wished to return to East Timor. The day after the bodies were found, refugees were approached by militias asking "Yesterday, what did you find, did you experience something yesterday?" The same day, Surya Timor, which has a pro-integrationist stance, quoted a commander of the "Kaermetin Merah Putih" wing of the pro-integration Pasukan Pejuang Timor Timur (PPTT) that he had people "inside and out," and that the "task inside is to strengthen the loyalty of members of the struggle and hunt down pro-independence elements, while our task on the outside is to infiltrate people into East Timor."14

Threats against East Timorese who wish to return has been compounded by direct physical action to try to prevent people from going back.

· On October 24, three buses carrying East Timorese to the harbor in Kupang to board a ship for return to Dili were stopped by other East Timorese, apparently militia members. When the refugees warned the driver that those trying to stop the bus were "bad people," the driver tried to continue on, only to have his windshield smashed by the men in question. One woman passenger was slightly injured by broken glass.15

· On the afternoon of November 2, a group of East Timorese who had registered for repatriation with UNHCR through the Catholic parish in Nenuk, West Timor were going to the port in Atapupu under UNHCR auspices to board a ship home. All had been staying in Halilulik, but two of the men, Alberto Faria, fifty, a retired army officer, and Carlito Faria, a schoolteacher, aged twenty-seven, had driven to Nenuk in their own car and left the car with the parish priest in Nenuk. After they had left Nenuk with the UNHCR convoy, a group from the AHI militia, based in Aileu, approached the Nenuk priest and demanded the keys to the car. He refused to hand them over, so the militia members followed the convoy until it was stopped by police for a routine check, not far from the port. This gave the militia men a chance to take Carlito and Alberto away, and they never boarded the ship. The Indonesian police did nothing to stop the militia members, whom an East Timorese staff member working with UNHCR identified as Thomas Mendonca, the head of AHI and former head of the Aileu district council; Angelmus Nascimento, a rajawali (usually meaning informer for military intelligence); Julio Pantai, a member of the pro-integration paramilitary youth group, Gardapaksi; and Geraldo Mendonca, a former subdistrict head in Aileu. The two men they took away were from Bandodato, Aileu subdistrict, Aileu.16

· On November 4, a ten-truck convoy from UNHCR carrying East Timorese leaving Lakafehan, near Atambua, for the harbor in Atapupu so that they could return home was stopped by members of the Besi Merah Putih and Halilintar militias. As the convoy was about to pull away, militia members pulled the driver out of the front truck and started to beat him. Other militia members came around the trucks and shot in the air. Indonesian police came over to protect the driver, and passengers in the convoy could hear the militia commander shouting to his men, "Hide your guns! Hide your guns!" All were using rakitan or homemade weapons. The refugees made it safely to the port, but no effort was made to arrest the militia members involved.17

· On November 8, militia members armed with machetes and spears forced the UNHCR convoy to abort an effort to pick up refugees in a camp near the airport in Atambua, West Timor for transport back to East Timor.18

· On November 17, about thirty militia members attacked a fifteen-truck UNHCR refugee convoy bound for East Timor. A pregnant woman and her husband were reported to have been beaten and hospitalized. A UNHCR staff member said that dozens of Indonesian police stood by during the attack, doing nothing to halt or prevent it. As a result, the UNHCR threatened to suspend repatriation operations unless measures were taken immediately to halt the militia activity.19 Further deterioration of the situation was averted on November 22, when U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke brokered an agreement between Interfet officials and Indonesian military officials in the border town of Mota'ain aimed at facilitating repatriation. The rate did not improve, however, and by early December, UNHCR was reporting still almost daily confrontations with militia.20

In addition to physical intimidation, many refugees reported that militia members purposefully disseminated false information in an effort to discourage returns. Refugees were told that East Timor was still the site of war and chaos, that violence is rampant, that, should they return, they will be attacked by Australian troops committing atrocities, that Timorese women will be raped by soldiers, and that Xanana Gusmao would retaliate against them for leaving East Timor.21 In response, the UNHCR,which has an extensive mass information campaign in place, is seeking to counter the disinformation through a variety of media, but it continues to lack regular access to many camps and settlements and is thus unable to ensure that refugees are receiving accurate news and information.

Many militia members have clearly elected to stay in West Timor, either because they wish to remain in Indonesian territory, because they wish to be part of a pro-integration guerrilla force to fight in East Timor should this be mobilized from bases in West Timor, or because they fear reprisals if they return.22 In addition, however, there are also many East Timorese who may have filled out forms provided by the Department of Social Affairs in Kupang in the weeks after their arrival indicating they wished to stay in West Timor when, in fact, they felt fearful of indicating any other choice. The pervasive intimidation and disinformation spread by militias means that there is reason to question claims that refugees have freely chosen to stay, both in terms of whether that choice was freely made and the conditions in which they live.

Of particular concern in this regard are East Timorese from the enclave of Ambeno/Oecusse now living in camps in the district of North Central Timor (Timor Tengah Utara).23 A local newspaper, Surya Timor, reported on October 23 that as many as 45,588 refugees in that district had "expressed their desire to become permanent residents of East Nusa Tenggara province, according to a spokesman for the refugees, Thom Philip."24 Any such statements by those claiming to speak on behalf of large numbers of refugees must be treated with some skepticism as long as access to these camps remains restricted. North Central Timor district is also the site of a new militia, formed since the August referendum took place. Called Kaermetin Merah Putih, it is led by Jose Mausinho Cardozo and has become part of the integrated militia forces variously called Pasukan Pejuang Integrasi (PPI) or Pasukan Pejuang Timor Timur (PPTT).

For those who have decided to stay, through choice or intimidation, and who do not have the political connections that most militia leaders seem to have, the life they lead may be grim. In late October 1999, Human Rights Watch visited a village called Sumalu, across the bay from Kupang but reachable by road only after a two hour drive. Near the subdistrict offices, some thirty-eight shoddily constructed plywood barracks had been erected by the Ministry of Transmigration for East Timorese who elected to stay in West Timor. The barracks were little better than animal pens, with no floors, no ventilation, and no sanitation. Each barracks was supposedly designed for eight families, although only a single tiny space had been allocated per family, with no walls between family "rooms"; they presumably were to be separated by curtains. Each building was covered with a zinc roof. The overall construction was so flimsy, as one shocked Indonesian visiting the site with us said, "[i]t would take one butt of a goat to knock it down." At the time we visited, no families had yet moved in, but local people expected arrivals within days.

International Standards

According to international standards governing the protection and assistance for refugees, the strictly civilian and humanitarian nature of refugee camps and settlements must be upheld in order to preserve the peaceful character of asylum. These principles are clearly stipulated in various UNHCR Executive Committee (ExCom) Conclusions, including the Conclusion on Safeguarding Asylum, No. 82, (1997), para d (vii), which reiterates "the responsibility of host States, working, where appropriate, with international organizations, to identify and separate any armed or military elements from refugee populations, and to settle refugees in secure locations at a reasonable distance, to the extent possible, from the frontier of the country of origin, with a view to safeguarding the peaceful nature of asylum."25

International standards also stipulate host states' obligation to allow UNHCR and other humanitarian personnel free and unimpeded access to all refugee camps and settlements and to take all necessary measures to investigate and prosecute individuals who endanger the personal security of refugees.26 Provisions governing the return of refugees stipulate that repatriation should be entirely voluntary and based upon the free and informeddecisions of refugees themselves.27 These standards are far from being met in the refugee camps and temporary settlement areas in West Timor.

5 "Timor: Refugees Remain Apprehensive," UNHCR Press Briefing Note, November 23, 1999.

6 "Indonesia: UNHCR Asks Government to Control Militias," Refugees Daily, November 10, 1999.

7 "Timor: `Snatch-and-run Operations," UNHCR Press Briefing Note, November 19, 1999; "Indonesia: UNHCR Forced to Snatch Back East Timorese," Refugees Daily, November 22, 1999.

8 "Timor: Militias' Grip Still Firm in West Timor," UNHCR Press Briefing Note, November 30,1999.

9 Human Rights Watch interview, Sports stadium, Dili, November 5, 1999.

10 Human Rights Watch interview, Don Bosco School, Dili, November 7, 1999. Unconfirmed reports also suggest that boys, lacking structured activities, are sometimes included in militia training.

11 Human Rights Watch interview, Sports stadium, Dili, November 5, 1999.

12 Human Rights Watch interviews, Dili, Nov. 1, Nov. 5, Nov. 7, 1999.

13 "Indonesia: Most East Timorese Returns Blocked," Refugees Daily, November 10, 1999 (quoting UNHCR spokesman Yusuf Hassan).

14 "Pejuang Timtim Siapkan Intelejen Susup Ke Timtim," Surya Timor, October 25, 1999;
"Ditemukan 5 Sosok Mayat Di Naibonat," Surya Timor, October 25, 1999.

15 BBC World Service, "Timor refugees face more trouble, October 25, 1999; Pos Kupang, October 25, 1999 (no headline, from electronic clipping service in Kupang, West Timor.)

16 Human Rights Watch interview, Dili sports stadium, November 3, 1999.

17 Human Rights Watch interview, Dili sports stadium, November 5, 1999.

18 "Militia `stepping up' attacks on refugees," BBC World Service, November 8, 1999.

19 UNHCR Timor Emergency Update, November 18, 1999, http://www.unhcr.ch/refworld; "Indonesia: East Timorese Convoy Attacked," Refugees Daily, November 19, 1999.

20 "Timor Emergency Update," UNHCR Timor Emergency Update, December 2, 1999.

21 Human Rights Watch interviews, Sports stadium, Dili, November 4, 1999.

22 Those fears are justified. As more and more refugees return, some militia members are returning with them. On November 6, Human Rights Watch learned that two suspected militia members had been discovered by returning refugees at the transit center set up at the Don Bosco school in Comoro, Dili. The two men had been beaten severely, then turned over to Interfet.

23 Ambeno/Oecusse is an enclave on the north coast of the western portion of the island of Timor that was part of the original Portuguese colony and has long been a geographical subdivision of East Timor.

24 "45,588 Pengungsi di TTU Ingin Bergabung ke NTT," Surya Timor, October 23, 1999.

25 Other ExCom Conclusions pertaining to the civilian nature of refugee camps echo these standards and include, Conclusion on Military or Armed Attacks on Refugee Camps and Settlements, No. 48, (1987), and Conclusion on Personal Security of Refugees, No. 72 (1993). The Executive Committee (ExCom) is UNHCR's governing body. Since 1975, the committee has passed a series of Conclusions at its annual meetings. The Conclusions are intended to guide states in their treatment of refugees and asylum seekers and in their interpretation of existing international refugee law. While the Conclusions are not legally binding, they do constitute a body of soft international refugee law and ExCom member states are obliged to abide by them. Although Indonesia is neither a state party to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, nor an ExCom member state, it is an observer state and participates actively in ExCom meetings; as such it should respect the international standards stipulated in the Conclusions.

26 Conclusion No. 72 (1993) on Personal Security of Refugees, for example, includes the following points:
(b) Urges States to take all measures necessary to prevent or remove threats to the personal security of refugees and asylum-seekers in border areas and elsewhere, including by affording UNHCR and, as appropriate, other organizations approved by the Governments concerned prompt and unhindered access to them, by situating refugee camps and settlements in secure locations, by ensuring the safety of vulnerable groups, by facilitating the issuance of personal documentation, and by involving the refugee community, both women and men, in the organization and administration of their camps and settlements;
(c) Calls upon States vigorously to investigate violations of the personal security of refugees and asylum-seekers, and where possible to institute criminal prosecution, and where applicable strict disciplinary measures, against all perpetrators of such violations;
(d) Calls upon States, in collaboration with UNHCR and, as appropriate, other organizations approved by the Governments concerned, to provide effective physical protection to asylum-seekers and refugees and to ensure safe access for humanitarian assistance and relief workers, where necessary through the recruitment and training of personnel specifically assigned the task of protecting refugees and securing supply routes for humanitarian assistance."

27 In 1996, UNHCR emphasized that: "[t]he principle of voluntariness is the cornerstone of international protection with respect to the return of refugees." UNHCR, Handbook on Voluntary Repatriation: International Protection (Geneva: UNHCR, 1996), p. 10. The Handbook defines the principle as follows: "Voluntariness means not only the absence of measures which push the refugee to repatriate, but also means that he or she should not be prevented from returning, for example by dissemination of wrong information or false promises of continued assistance...." `Voluntariness' is more than an issue of principle. Repatriation which is voluntary is far more likely to be lasting and sustainable." Ibid. The Handbook goes on to explain the responsibilities of the different parties involved in a voluntary repatriation exercise, including the host country. It states that "The country of asylum should facilitate arrangements and UNHCR's involvement in them, for ensuring that accurate and objective information on conditions in the country of origin is communicated to the refugees." Various ExCom Conclusions also deal with the need for repatriation to be voluntary and based on an informed decision by the refugee. These include, Conclusion No. 18 (1980) on Voluntary Repatriation and Conclusion No. 40 (1985) also on Voluntary Repatriation. Conclusion No. 18 (e), for example, states that the Executive Committee: "Recognized the importance of refugees being provided with the necessary information regarding conditions in their country of origin in order to facilitate their decision to repatriate; recognized further that visits by individual refugees or refugee representatives to their country of origin to inform themselves of the situation there-without such visits automatically involving loss of refugee status-could also be of assistance in this regard.