INDONESIA: Aid worker slams refugee 'referendum'

A leading Timorese aid worker has branded as a "sham" an Indonesian canvassing drive which found that 98% of East Timorese refugees confined to camps in West Timor did not want to go home.

Winston Neil Rondo, who works in camps in Kupang, claimed in an interview with the news agency AFP that Indonesian officials and militia leaders had connived to rig the results of the two-day referendum.

"It is a complete sham", Rondo said, claiming that pro-Jakarta militias which control the camps and are keen to discredit East Timor, had intimidated refugees into voting against a return, bribed them with food and money and encouraged groups of non-refugees to enter the ballot.

"There is no democratic process, because there is no free and safe atmosphere, [no] space for refugees to make their decision," he said.

The refugees were among around 250,000 people from East Timor who fled across the West Timor border when militia violence erupted after the territory voted for independence from Indonesia in August 1999.

A provisional result released on June 6 showed that 98.02% of 113,794 East Timor refugees stranded in Indonesia wanted to remain and not return home.

Rondo, general secretary of the Centre for Internally Displaced People's Services, said the results belied evidence he collected in two years in the camps. Given a free choice, almost all of the refugees would choose to return home, he said.

From GLW issue 453