| Subject: UNHCR
breakthrough in E Timor refugee repatriation: Ogata UNHCR breakthrough in East Timor refugee repatriation: Ogata
GENEVA, Oct 8 (AFP) - The UN High Commissioner for Refugees
(UNHCR) Sadako Ogata said Friday the commission hoped to increase to 1,000 a day the flow
of returning refugees from camps in West Timor to East Timor.
She said the UNHCR in Dili was now ready to receive about
50,000 people.
Ogata told a press conference in Geneva that the UNHCR had
never negotiated with the militas to have access to refugee camps in West Timor.
"The local and national governments provided escorts -
both military and police - to help us go in," she said.
"The fact that we had access to these people, that we
were able to organize returns is a major breakthrough," Ogata said.
"We hope in the next few days to increase the people
who can go back daily to about a thousand."
Ogata also said that "we are moving much more freer
now," but admitted that The commission had to be "cautious on all fronts,"
particularly with respect to the Indonesian army-backed militias that run some of the
camps.
"The problem remains for the people to whom we have no
access or people who are not really free to talk to us ... particularly in the Atambua
area," where refugees are more widely dispersed and where it is harder to circulate
freely.
Ogata said UNHCR personnel would be reinforced in that
area.
She also said that high-level Indonesian army officers had
recognized that "some elements (of the army) have not acted in the best way."
Militias which went on a rampage following an August 30
East Timorese vote favoring independence from Jakarta were reported in some instances to
have been backed by crack Indonesian army units.
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