Resettlement money increased for displaced East Timorese

Beverley Wang

Last Updated: Tue, 6 Oct 2009 22:43:00 +1100

An aid organisation says a substantial increase in resettlement money to East Timorese displaced by fighting in 2006, is encouraging people to move out of temporary housing.

Fighting three years ago forced more than 150,000 East Timorese from their homes and hundreds of displaced families still live in temporary housing managed by humanitarian organisations.

A 2007 progress report on Internally Displaced Persons(IDP) returns criticised the East Timor government's reintegration strategy citing a lack of housing and security as the main problems.

But East Timor's government has recently made moves to encourage the remaining families to leave transitional housing by increasing the country's housing resettlement payouts.

Depending on the damage to their homes, remaining families are receiving $500 to $4,500 in recovery money. Those who previously did not have homes will receive $1,500.

'Support working'

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), an aid organisation that manages some of East Timor's temporary housing, says the increased support is working.

The director of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) in East Timor, Alfredo Zamudio says it's likely they'll be able to close one of the transitional housing sites soon.

"People were worried about where to go and so when the government offered them better alternatives, more support to find by themselves an alternative housing, at this moment many families are accepting this offer and they are moving out of the transitional sites," he said.

Another aid organisation, the International Office for Migration, has been helping displaced people resettle.

Improved security

Director for the International Office for Migration (IOM) in East Timor, Luis Vieira says improved security in East Timor is also persuading families, previously reluctant to leave transitional housing, to move on.

"The political environment and the security environment in this country has changed dramatically since 2007. There's a general feeling I think of stability and people have reacted to that," he said.

"That's not to say that there are not challenges that need to be addressed. That's just to say that people perceive the environment to be such that it enabled them to be begin the process of return and reintegration."

East Timor's Ministry of Social Solidarity says it hopes to finish paying out the money by December 2009.

The NRC's agreement to manage the transitional housing sites ends at the end of October.

Mr Zamudio says if families remain after that, it's up to the government to decide what to do.

"Families will need to make a decision where they accept this offer or they will request additional assistance from all the partners who are working on the government with this," he said.

"We are stressing for the moment that these have to be voluntary and people should not be evicted from their transitional housing site at this moment until now this dialogue is positive and the government is following a line of dialogue with the IDP which is good."

But even if East Timorese families can find a permanent place the stay, the return to normalcy is far from guaranteed.

Mr Zamudio says some families are still very much affected by the violence in 2006.

"There are also families which are very vulnerable, some of their family members were killed during the violence, some of them witnessed terrifying incidents, those families also will require assistance on long time to recover completely recover from the psychological damage of those events."

Radio Australia tried repeatedly to contact East Timor Secretary of State for Social Solidarity, Jacinto Rigoberto Gomes, to talk about the Internally Displaced Persons housing, but was unsuccessful.