5 November The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) today expressed alarm as militiamen in West Timor continued to harass its staff and intimidate people wanting to return to East Timor.
UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said at a press briefing in Geneva that the intimidation was happening on an almost daily basis.
The UN agency has expressed concern to Indonesian officials in West Timor's capital, Kupang, and in Jakarta, Mr. Janowski said. Although UNHCR staff had received support from police and military authorities on the ground, unless an effort was made to separate the militias from the camps and stop them from intimidating refugees, the repatriation effort would be very difficult, he stressed.
Today, militiamen stoned a convoy of six trucks which was to pick up some 120 refugees wanting to go back to Dili in East Timor from a camp at Atambua, the main town in the Belu district along the West Timor border. The windshield of one truck was smashed and glass splinters injured a UNHCR local staff.
Despite the incident, UNHCR staff transported 1,150 refugees aboard two ferries chartered by the International Organization for Migration to Dili. Today's returnees were the largest group to return from the West Timor border port of Atapupu, 20 kilometers north of Atambua.
Meanwhile, Ian Martin, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Acting Special Representative in East Timor, briefed reporters in Dili today on the activities of three experts from the UN Commission on Human Rights.
He said that Asma Jahangir, the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions, who was already in East Timor, would be joined tomorrow by Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, and Nigel Rodley, the Special Rapporteur on Torture.
Mr. Martin said that the UN civilian police were in close discussions with INTERFET, the Australian-led international force, about assuming the lead role in relation to law and order. Although the UN did not yet have enough civilian police on the ground to take on that responsibility, it was close to having the first officers in all districts.
