East Timor's new incentives to rebuild homes
Updated
Severe food shortages in East Timor have forced the government to increase its efforts to shift thousands of people still living in makeshift camps since the violence two years ago. So, it's offering other incentives to rebuild the thousands of homes destroyed in 2006 and encourage the owners to return home.
Presenter: Anne Barker
Speakers: Jacinto Gomes, East Timor's secretary of state for social assistance; Pedro de Sousa Xavier, East Timor's former director of land and property.
BARKER: About 60,000 people still live in IDP camps in Dili, or camps for internally displaced people.
Most were victims of the violence and arson that swept the capital two years ago, when 8,000 homes were destroyed or damaged. Once a month they stand in line to receive a small ration of rice and oil.
But a few weeks ago the ration was halved, and now the lead agency, the World Food Programme, has cut its rations altogether.
GOMES: So, this month we facing these difficulties, but we use the disaster money that present in the transition budget.
BARKER: Jacinto Gomes is East Timor's Secretary of State for Social Assistance. He says the Government has had to step in to fill the gap, but can't afford to feed so many people indefinitely
Instead, the Government is offering incentives to move people out of the camps, in the form of a lump sum to help rebuild their homes
GOMES: Around 2,000 houses totally destroyed. It means that if they can't go into their house immediately, but need to build a new house.
BARKER: In recent months more than 400 families have agreed to take the money and go home. Depending on the damage, families can get up to $US 4,500 providing they can prove they're the rightful owners.
Since December, four IDP camps have closed, and one of the most troublesome camps inside the grounds of Dili's main hospital is tipped to empty next week.
GOMES: From 600 families, only a few of them that are unable to return because they don't have a house.
BARKER: But the refugee problem is far from simple and not so easily resolved. Of the nearly 8,000 families still living in camps, many were only renting, meaning it's the owners who get the money and have the right of entry
Many others were occupying houses owned by Indonesians in the days before independence, and with no formal register of land title it's no easy task to decide who owns what.
The Government's former director of land and property is Pedro de Sousa Xavier.
DE SOUSA XAVIER: This is the problem, you know, some people was occupied in '99 and after crisis in 2006 some people come back again and occupy this property.
BARKER: What about houses where there is no record?
DE SOUSA XAVIER: We must identify, talk to the neighbours. We don't have any records in this country, but we have people understand, and the neighbours understand who lives here before I think, this information will help us to make a decision you know.
