Unlike camps with families, East Timor refugees do not return to their homeland to choose Indonesia: I prefer NTT, it is better than Bumi Lorosae – All Pages

Gridhot.ID – The 1999 independence referendum caused the people of Timor Leste to split into riots.

People divided into groups in favor of independence and integration, that is, those who wanted to be separated and those who wanted to remain in the Republic of Indonesia.

Pro-integration militias were suspected of starting the riots which then spread throughout Timor Leste and focused on Dili.

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This situation gave rise to refugees who sought refuge outside of Timor Leste, including Indonesia.

After the unrest in Timor Leste was successfully suppressed, many of the refugees were reluctant to return to their homeland.

Fear of threats from pro-independence groups haunts those who have different options.

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The freedom and tranquility of life they felt during their refuge in Indonesia made them choose to stay in RI territory even though they had to be separated from their families.

Like the story of a refugee named Muhajir Hornai Bello, quoted from Pos kupang (9/2/2019).

Muhajir had to separate from his family who chose to separate from Indonesia and become Timor Leste, which was an independent country.

Communication was cut off between him and his family, who decided to remain in Timor Leste.

Only a few years after the independence of Timor Leste, he and his family communicated again.

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“Many still live in Timor Leste, including their brothers, brothers, sisters, brothers, many are still there.”

“Communication was broken for almost 5 years,” he said.

He said how the different elections separated them, although there was no meaningful debate between them.

“We didn’t have time to make a fuss about what it means, but that means we had differences of opinion,” Muhajir continued.

Muhajir admitted that now Muhajir from Timor Leste has nothing to miss apart from his extended family.

However, there was something that had become an obstacle to his heart, namely the question of the property status of the land and where they lived.

In fact, he and his fellow refugees have been in Indonesia for two decades.

“Our state is not clear, the state of the earth is not clear. That is a problem for those of us who still live in refugee camps.”

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“Our destiny has been 20 years, how is it that we continue to live in refugee camps? The state of the earth is not clear either, this is what we always think about,” he said.

Muhajir himself has been living in Noelbaki Village, Central Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) or West Timor, with part of his family.

For 20 years, Muhajir has never come out of exile. He and his family live in a house with a corrugated iron roof in Noelbaki.

In that village, he lives with 3,000 other people who fled Timor Leste after the 1999 referendum.

“I was in Timor Leste in the Viqueque district,” he said.

“I moved with my family and fled to Indonesia. Including father, mother, wife, children, they all came,” this former farmer told ABC.

The father of four still remembers exactly how he first came to Noelbaki.

“(I am) sad because we are separated from our family, which means that we are still sad for about 3-4 months,” he said.

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“In the first year we came here there were no activities, because he thought he would go back to East Timor (Timor Leste) again, so there was no activity, just wait for humanitarian assistance.”

Muhajir doesn’t really earn a living or do activities like a person starting a new life.

“There were no activities like gardening, planting vegetables or anything else because I wanted to go home,” he said.

Muhajir also recounted how he got to Kupang.

He said they boarded a TNI ship and joined other refugees from various districts.

“About a thousand more people were on the boat. They were all people from various pro-integration districts who fled together, there were 3 TNI warships (that were used to evacuate) as far as I remember,” he said.

Muhajir was lucky because he got a simple house where he only lived with his family.

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Meanwhile, other refugees were forced to share a house with one or even 6 other families, despite the fact that the size of the makeshift house was not large.

“A house is 4×4, 4×6 in size, but we all work on our own,” he said.

However, in the refugee camps, they still have to fight on their own to make ends meet.

“The government only provided initial assistance for 99, after humanitarian aid was gone, now we build our own houses,” the man who now works on this farm admitted to ABC.

Also, at the beginning of their arrival in Noelbaki, conditions for the refugees were much busier, recalls Muhajir.

“There used to be many, there were 7000 heads of household living in Noelbaki, now there are only 412 households (or almost 3000 people)”,

“That was because there were already those who participated in the repatriation back to Timor Leste, some participated in the transmigration to Sulawesi, some moved to other areas of the NTT,” he said.

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Compared to her homeland, she feels that her life is much better in the land of refugees.

“Yes, personally, I prefer NTT. Now it is better than in Timor Leste.”

“In fact, my relatives who are in East Timor take their rice from Kupang and take it there. They have bad rice there, so take it here.”

“I have a younger brother here several times, every time I come home, I always bring about 100-200 kg of rice to Timor Leste,” he said.

Muhajir refused to return to his hometown. He refused to recall the nightmare during the pre-referendum.

According to him, there he could not move freely, even just to work or farm.

“If we are farmers here, we can work in agriculture, because it is safe for us to work.”

“In the past, we wanted to cultivate far from the town, we were afraid, traumatized, terrified, threatened by groups that wanted independence,” he said.

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However, he and the refugees still hope that their land ownership situation is clear, so that they can live in peace.

He hopes that the Indonesian government will pay more attention to the fate of the East Timor refugees.

Especially the younger generation, so that they are free from unemployment, unlike most of the older refugees who stay in Noelbaki.

This article was published on Intisari Online with the title: “The outpouring of the hearts of East Timor refugees: Desiring to be separated from their families to choose Indonesia, but so far their status is unclear.

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