wfn.org | Churches Warn of Refugee Crisis in East Timor

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

5-October-1999 
99331 
 
    As Australian Troops Arrive in East Timor, 
    Churches Warn of Refugee Crisis 
 
    by Jeannie Zakharov 
    Ecumenical News International 
 
SYDNEY - East Timorese in the ruined capital of Dili celebrated worshiped 
publically for the first time last week since the beginning of the campaign 
of terror by anti-independence militia as church leaders warned of the 
growing refugee crisis in camps across the border in West Timor. 
 
    At a sports ground in Dili, which serves as home to families whose 
houses were destroyed in the two-week rampage that began after the East 
Timorese voted for independence, a Roman Catholic priest, Mouzen Lopes, led 
about 150 people in prayers.  "You are here in your land to take back from 
the destroyers," he said. 
 
    Despite the arrival Sept. 20 of an Australian-led peace-keeping force 
in Dili, most of East Timor's population of 800,000 is still displaced 
after the militia campaign.  An unknown number of people were killed - 
estimates range from hundreds to 20,000 - in the violence  which began on 
Sept. 4, the day the result of the independence referendum on Aug. 30 was 
revealed to be a four-to-one vote in favor. 
 
    Many thousands of people are still sheltering in the mountains, eking 
out an existence off parched land during the dry season, while an estimated 
200,000 people have been moved by the militia and military to West Timor. 
 
    There the Evangelical Christian Church in Timor is coordinating 
humanitarian care for the refugees and protecting independence leaders, 
according to the Rev. John Barr of its partner church in Australia, the 
Uniting Church. 
 
    Barr, spokesman on Indonesia for the church, the second biggest 
Protestant church in Australia, said, "A network has been established to 
protect remaining East Timorese leaders. Church leaders work under enormous 
life-threatening pressures and are at risk." 
 
    East Timor, a former Portuguese colony, is predominantly Catholic, 
while West Timor, which was colonized by the Dutch along with the rest of 
Indonesia, is mainly Protestant.  Most Indonesians are Muslim. 
 
    Barr told ENI that foreign aid agencies were not able to enter because 
the militia controlled both the camps and the provincial capital of West 
Timor, Kupang. 
 
    Militia fighters were still searching for people suspected of being 
pro-independence, and some were disappearing, presumed killed.  Working 
discreetly, church networks, with the support of the provincial government, 
were distributing some food and aid in the camps, where most people were 
living out in the open.  Presbyterian Disaster Assistance is working 
closely with Church World Service, the relief arm of the National Council 
of Churches, in the relief effort. 
 
    Barr said that while there was no harassment of church members, militia 
members were keeping watch on the Protestant university in Kupang, which 
has provided significant support for the work with refugees, and the houses 
of staff members.  He said the church in West Timor, a province with no 
separatist sentiment and which until now has been peaceful, faced grave 
challenges with the arrival of the militia. 
 
    More reports of atrocities against clergy in East Timor, who appear to 
have been targeted by militia, emerged this week.  Mourners in the town of 
the territory's second city of Baucau reported a massacre of two Roman 
Catholic nuns, five church workers, two students, a driver and an 
Indonesian journalist as recently as Saturday after they had delivered aid 
to refugees. 
 
    The Vatican's missionary news service said last week that 18 
seminarians, who returned to East Timor for the referendum from Malang, on 
East Java where they were studying, had not been heard of since the vote. 
On Sept. 28, the Catholic Church in East Timor identified two nuns, a 
student priest and two church deacons it said had been shot dead by 
soldiers during the Indonesian army's withdrawal from the territory. 
 
    The Indonesian army handed over formal military control to the 
Australian-led United Nations force on Sept. 27, although the peace-keepers 
have so far secured only parts of Dili and Baucau, in the north of the 
territory.  About 1,500 Indonesian troops will remain until November, when 
the Indonesian parliament is scheduled to ratify the referendum result.  As 
they pulled out, troops also burned their barracks and other buildings and 
looted stores, selling food to local people at black-market prices. 
 
    On the day of the formal hand-over the commander of the multinational 
force, Major-General Peter Cosgrove, warned that the operation would be 
protracted.  "The style of violence being used in East Timor is a difficult 
one to stop immediately because of the disguised nature of it, the random 
nature of it," he said in newspaper reports. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  This note sent by Office of News Services, 
  Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
  to the World Faith News list <wfn-news@wfn.org>.
  For additional information about this news story,
  call 502-569-5493 or send e-mail to PCUSA.News@pcusa.org

  On the web:  http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/

  If you have a question about this mailing list, 
  send queries to wfn@wfn.org