They too are Children of the Country

KOMPAS/KORNELIS KEWA AMA

Refugee children in Oebelo village, Kupang regency, East Nusa Tenggara, do not attend early childhood education and basic education because the school is too far from their homes, and their parents do not have the means to pay for transportation.

Twenty years is not a short time, especially if the two decades are spent in uncertainty about the future of one’s family.

A lack of certainty and struggling with poverty is the harsh reality faced by no fewer than 358 ex-East Timorese families who choose to remain Indonesian citizens. They number about a thousand people who, according to a Kompas report from last week, still live in the Tuapukan Camp in East Kupang district, Kupang regency, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) (Kompas, 24-26/2/2020).

By 2005, the government had stripped the refugee status from most of them.

Other refugee camps for former residents of East Timor, then the 27th province of the Republic of Indonesia and now called Timor-Leste, are found in Kupang city and in the regencies of Belu, Malacca, North Central Timor and South Central Timor. According to 2005 data from the NTT Disaster Mitigation and Refugee Management Unit, there were 104,436 refugees from East Timor after the 1999 independence referendum. By 2005, the government had stripped the refugee status from most of them.

A number of ex-East Timorese residents have moved to Java, Sulawesi and other regions of Indonesia, seeking to start a new life. There are no reports about the condition of ex-East Timorese residents outside the refugee camps. Like those in the refugee camps, they also lost their property and have left behind family members.

KOMPAS/FRANSISKUS PATI HERIN

The child of an East Timorese refugee family eats a plate of plain rice on Friday (14/2/2020) at a former refugee camp in Oebelo village, Kupang regency, East Nusa Tenggara. Many East Timorese refugees live below the poverty line and cannot meet their children\'s nutritional needs.

In the referendum on Aug. 30, 1999, 94,388 people (21.5 percent) of East Timor\'s population voted for their region to remain part of Indonesia, while 78.5 percent (344,580 people) chose independence. East Timor officially became an independent country on May 20, 2002. Residents who chose to become Indonesian citizens began leaving East Timor in 1999.

According to reports by this daily, the fate of ex-East Timorese residents in the refugee camps remains miserable after more than 20 years. They are poor, jobless and landless. Aid from the government and other institutions has been stopped. Local residents are helping the ex-East Timorese by giving them jobs or allowing them to cultivate their land. Some of the ex-East Timorese have left the refugee camps to make a living in other areas.

They have a right to social security that enables full self-development as dignified human beings. Moreover, some of them are children.

A hut leans precariously on Saturday (15/2/2020) at a former refugee camp in Tuapukan village, East Kupang district, Kupang regency, East Nusa Tenggara. The camp, about 30 kilometers from the provincial capital of Kupang, has continued to be occupied by East Timorese refugees since 4 Sept. 1999, even after their refugee status was lifted.The condition of the ex-East Timorese who suffer miserably reminds us of a film directed by Riri Reza entitled Atambua 39 Degrees Celsius. Ronaldo Bautista, who loves Indonesia, is separated from his wife Apolonia, who chose Timor-Leste. At one point, Ronaldo, accompanied by his son Joao, realizes that the state should not be able to separate families from their homeland. Children of the country need the attention and love of their country. Not pain.