URGENT ACTION
CGI DONOR CONFERENCE FOR INDONESIA MUST BE POSTPONED
Join the International Campaign
Make Two Calls This Week!
The Consultative Group on Indonesia (CGI) meeting, an annual international donors conference convened by the World Bank, is scheduled for October 17-18 in Tokyo. Last month, World Bank president James Wolfensohn wrote Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid linking funding from international donors to Indonesia's control of militias in West Timor. Wolfensohn wrote, "I look forward to being able to report to donors at next month's Consultative Group meeting that the violence has ended, that the United Nations has been able to resume its humanitarian activities and that those who want to return home to East Timor are now being allowed to do so in safety." But nothing has changed! (see more background below)
Following last year's post-referendum violence, threats to funding for Indonesia made by international financial institutions and donor countries were crucial in forcing the Indonesian military and militia withdrawal from East Timor. The same actions are now warranted to stop militias still supported by the Indonesian military. The CGI meeting must be postponed!!
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
* Call or fax Secretary of Treasury Lawrence Summers, 202-622-5300, fax: 202-622-0073, email: Larry.Summers@do.treas.gov
* Call or fax World Bank President James Wolfensohn, 202-477-1234, fax: 202-522-0355, email: feedback@worldbank.org
* If you have time, also call or fax Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, 202-647-5291, fax: 202-647-6434, E-mail: secretary@state.gov
Tell them, the CGI meeting should be postponed until:
* The government of Indonesia verifiably disarms and disbands militias in West Timor, arrests militia leaders, and allows them to be brought to trial.
* Security is credibly guaranteed for all international and local humanitarian workers, and they are granted safe, unimpeded access to all refugees.
* An internationally-supervised refugee registration is underway, allowing refugees to choose to repatriate or resettle without fear of intimidation.
* An independent fact-finding team with international representatives has been dispatched to West Timor to investigate the murder of UNHCR staff and East and West Timorese civilians on September 6.
* Indonesia has allowed a proposed UN Security Council delegation visit to verify Indonesia's compliance with Security Council Resolution 1319 (see below for explanation).
Bilateral and multilateral donors to Indonesia which make up the CGI, including the U.S., Japan, the European Union, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank, plan to meet in Tokyo on October 17-18, to discuss aid for Indonesia. They are going forward despite the abysmal failure of Indonesia to rein in militias controlling refugee camps in West Timor.
Indonesia's most recent promise to disarm militias in West Timor has proven to be, in the words of the UN's Special Representative for the Secretary General Sergio Vieira de Mello, "pathetic." Indonesian security forces have yet to crack down on militias controlling camps in West Timor. While many homemade weapons have been collected by Indonesian security forces in West Timor, few modern weapons have been confiscated or voluntarily returned. Since the killings of three UN High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) workers, including an American citizen, international humanitarian organizations have evacuated from West Timor. Few have returned. With virtually no international monitoring presence in the camps, militias are believed to have an even tighter reign over the refugees, taking roll call every night in some camps. Supplies of food and medicine are running low; an even greater humanitarian disaster looms, with the threat of starvation and an impending rainy season.
Over 100,000 East Timorese refugees remain in West Timor, many held as virtual hostages to armed militias who control their movements. With no international monitoring presence in West Timor, medical and food supplies are said to be running dangerously low, and the rainy season is about to begin. An even greater crisis is looming.
Following the September 6 militia rampage in Atambua, West Timor, that left 3 UNHCR workers and at least 11 East and West Timorese civilians dead, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1319 on September 8. The resolution calls for "immediate and effective action" to resolve the crisis in West Timor. The Indonesian government has refused to cooperate with a proposed UN Security Council delegation to investigate compliance with Resolution 1319.
East Timorese leaders, the International Federation for East Timor and Human Rights Watch are among the organizations calling for a postponement of the CGI.
See http://www.etan.org/ifet for additional background and more information.
Please let us know the results of your contacts.
Contact:
John M. Miller, (718)596-7668, john@etan.org
or
Karen Orenstein, ETAN's Washington office, 202-544-6911, karen@etan.org.
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