EAST TIMOR-INDONESIA: Asylum Seekers Still in Limbo

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Sonny Inbaraj

DARWIN, Australia, May 12 1998 (IPS) - For nearly eight months now, the world of Avelino Maria Coelho da Silva and his family has shrunk to within the four walls of the Austrian embassy compound in Indonesia.

Their lives have been in limbo since Sep. 19 last year, when the group of East Timorese sought refuge in the embassy for fear of being detained and tortured by the Indonesian military.

“We will never surrender. If I have to go to prison, I will accept it. This is a sacrifice for our people,” wrote Coelho da Silva in a letter addressed to East Timor activists in Australia recently.

“Why is the Indonesian government so afraid of a referendum for East Timor?” he asked, referring to a call by many East Timorese activists for a vote on self-rule away from Indonesia.

Thus far, the Austrian government has said it will not turn the group over to Indonesian authorities. But pressure is mounting from Jakarta, which says the East Timorese were involved in terrorism.

At present, the embassy strictly restricts the number of people wanting to visit Avelino and his friends, for their own security.

Even journalists are banned from seeing Avelino, his wife Saldanha, and their two children — Didina, 5 and Adel Sea, 6 — together with Nuno Vicente Pereira Saldanha and Custodio de Jesus Belo.

Over the past two years, some 150 East Timorese have sought safe passage to Portugal via foreign embassies in Jakarta.

In previous cases, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has helped arrange passage for East Timorese asylum seekers by liaising between the different parties, usually enabling them to leave for Portugal within a few days.

This is because Lisbon, the former colonial ruler of East Timor, recognises the East Timorese as Portuguese citizens and grants them identity cards and passports.

In the case of the East Timorese holed up in the Austrian embassy grounds, the ICRC has decided not to get embroiled in a diplomatic impasse between Vienna and Jakarta.

In December 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor and annexed it a year later as its 27th province. In the years that ensued, over 200,000 East Timorese have died either from fighting the Indonesians or from disease, hunger and starvation.

The United Nations has refused to recognise Indonesian rule over the territory and still considers Portugal as East Timor’s administrator.

The Indonesian government has come under fire for violations in East Timor that Amnesty International recently reiterated ranges from “extra-judicial executions, arbitrary arrests and detention, ‘disappearances’ and torture and ill-treatment of detainees”.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas and President Suharto’s daughter have urged Austria to hand over the two of the asylum seekers, Avelino and Nuno, for questioning.

On Oct. 22 last year, the Indonesian military said Avelino and Nuno carried out “terrorism, sabotage and murder aimed at creating instability in the country”.

It claimed they are linked with 13 East Timorese arrested on Sep. 13 and 15 last year, following the discovery of homemade bombs in Semarang on Java island and East Timor’s capital, Dili.

In November, Alatas was quoted as saying: “Our stance remains the same. The Indonesian government will keep demanding that the two are handed over to the police for investigation. If the others want to go to Portugal, just go ahead.”

Indonesia would not permit Avelino and Nuno to leave for Portugal, he added.

Activists for East Timor also said the Indonesian authorities also tried to link Nobel laureate Jose Ramos Horta with Avelino and Nuno, by publicising a photo obtained from one of the arrested East Timorese youths showing them together at a conference organised by Oporto University, Portugal.

In order to take the pressure off Avelino and Nuno, jailed East Timor resistance leader Xanana Gusmao wrote to the Austrian embassy in October assuming responsibility for the bomb-making, the activists say.

“Gusmao states that the Timorese have the right to defend themselves from the Indonesian military, which has been armed by countries of the world, and that there was never the intention to use the bombs against civilian targets,” the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ reported in October.

This news led Jakarta to concentrate on Xanana as leader of the East Timor resistance and to try to interrogate him several times, sources in the East Timorese resistance say.

On Nov. 29, ‘Gatra’ magazine reported that Xanana had been interrogated on Nov. 19 in the presence of his lawyer, Luhut Pangaribuan, from the Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association (PBHI).

The magazine reported that “Xanana finally admitted he had knowledge of the bomb-making plan. According to him, the bombs were aimed at helping Falintil (the armed resistance) in its struggle against the Indonesian military.”

Thus far, Austrian ambassador to Indonesia Emil Staffelmayrt has given assurances that “they (East Timorese) will never be handed out” and “the entry of the police (in the embassy) to take them will not be allowed”. But it remains to be seen how long Staffelmayrt manages to hold out.

Meanwhile, the asylum seekers are determined to wait it out. “The most important thing for us is to respect our people’s right for independence, ” Avelino wrote his letter to East Timor campaigners in Australia.

“Our will is to go to Portugal. If this is impossible at this moment, then we will stay in the embassy as long as necessary to find that solution. We are not criminals — we are freedom fighters,” he added.