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Timor and Indonesia to establish commission on missing children

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Paulina Quintao – The Timor-Leste government through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (MNEC) and the Indonesian Government intend to establish a commission to look into the issue of missing or separated children from 1975 until 1999 while Timor-Leste was under Indonesian occupation.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jose Luis Guterres, said this is a joint initiative by both governments.

He said the commission will include representatives of both governments as well as representatives from civil society and the Red Cross Timor-Leste, working together to collect the data and indentify the children's whereabouts.

"I can tell you the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia is also available to support us localizing [the children]," said Minister Guterres after opening a public debate on forcible and non-volunteer missing people organized by the Human Rights Hak Association at MNEc Hall in Pantai Kelapa, Dili, in late 2013.

Minister Guterres said also many of the separated children want to meet their biological parents.

Meanwhile human rights activist, Jose Luis Oliveira, said the children disappeared during the struggle for independent, so the State has an obligation to look for them.

He added many children went missing during the Indonesian occupation because the military recruited them to work for them, taking them when they pulled out from the country in 1999 and many have not returned until today.

"We will look for the missing people but we will not force them to return. They have every right to meet their real parents though."

Victim Victor da Costa, taken to Indonesia by the Indonesian Military when he was four years old, said his interest in finding his biological family and where he comes from started after he met some Timorese students engaged in a university organization in Indonesia.

He arrived in Timor-Leste in 2004 and met some activists from Hak Association who supported him get information about his family. He ended up discovering his family in Laga, Baucau District, but was taken aback after discovering his family had assumed he was dead and marked a grave in their cemetery with his name.

"We have been separated [from our families] for a long time so it is hard on us psychologically. It is not easy that first encounter and we need time to adapt to a new family."

Victor said he is very happy to live in Timor-Leste now because there is still a lot of work to be done to help others who are still separated from their families.

According to a report of the Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation (CAVR) approximately 4.500 children were separated from their biological families during the 24 year struggle for independence in Timor-Leste.