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Displacement, Kinship and Return in a Timorese Village

Displacement, Kinship and Return in a Timorese Village. Dr Pyone Myat Thu SSGM Program Australian National University 29 November 2013. 4 September 1999: Results announced 78.5% Timorese voted for national independence

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Displacement, Kinship and Return in a Timorese Village

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  1. Displacement, Kinship and Return in a Timorese Village Dr PyoneMyat Thu SSGM Program Australian National University 29 November 2013

  2. 4 September 1999: Results announced 78.5% Timorese voted for national independence • 25 October 1999: Indonesian administration of Timor-Leste officially ended • Over 250,000 Timorese were displaced into West Timor (NTT, Indonesia) • Refugees concentrated in Atambua and Kupang • 20 May 2002: Timor-Leste achieved formal independence • 22 December 2002: UN declaration of cessation to refugee status • 2005: Indonesian government ended refugee (pengunsi) status and new citizens

  3. Displacement ‘ I did not know where we were heading. Cuba? Portugal? We did not bring anything. We just went.’ ‘we resided opposite the Tuapukan Church. Everyday we could see the dead being carried past. Maybe 5 persons each day.’ ‘We ate kombiliin the forest. We didn’t carry any food since we had already finished our harvested rice’

  4. Return ‘I returned because this is my land. My birthplace. My parents are growing older. So I must return because my brother won’t’ ‘Our livelihoods were the same in Naibonat. But over there we were not living on our land. We are free now living on our land’ ‘Over there you must grow your own food. Over here, you must grow your own food. It’s the same’

  5. Cross-border Mobility ‘I went across in 2009 through the back streets (jalan tikus). We went to talk about marriage between our brother and a female from Manatuto, but she also lived in NTT’ ‘I came back to Caicua in 2008 to attend aifunan (death anniversary ceremony). My cousins didn’t want me to return. So I stayed. My mother and brothers are still there’ ‘the landowners don’t mind. They actually warn us, “walk quickly otherwise the military will catch you!” ’

  6. Reconciliation ‘We will embrace them. We will receive them with two hands’ ‘I said to them your land, your birth-place is (East)Timor’ ‘We always ask them, “you have land, garden, trees, why don’t you come back?” Timor is on its feet now.’

  7. Conclusion • Timorese communities are still rebuilding livelihoods and social life a decade after 1999 conflict • NGOs and local kin networks are filling the space where there is lack of state assistance • Small-scale, individual and household level movement back to origin villages, legal and illegal means.

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