Devi Asmarani, Atambua – Weapons are valued treasures in this border town that has 63,000 East Timorese refugees, and there is always an interested buyer – the Indonesian military.
The reluctant sellers are former pro-Jakarta militiamen, who have been using their guns to intimidate fellow East Timorese from returning home and to make a living by robbing locals.
Last September, as part of its approach to disarming militia groups all over West Timor, the TNI, or the Indonesian military, started the weapon "buy-back" scheme, whereby militiamen are encouraged to surrender their weapons for some financial incentive.
A grenade fetches about 500,000 rupiah (S$80). Rifles get varying amounts - up to 2 million rupiah for an M-16. "We are not really buying from them. We just compensate them for something like maintenance cost," said West Timor military commander Colonel Budi Heryanto.
Despite the attractive financial rewards, the buy-back scheme is yet to yield great results. It accounts for only 10 per cent of the 492 militia weapons seized by the TNI in West Timor since September. Most militiamen are loathe to give up their guns.
Said TNI spokesman Air Rear Marshall Graito Usodo: "Weapons are the pro-integration fighters" bargaining position. If they give them up, they become nobody." However, the real reason may be financial.
Weapons are perfect tools to intimidate East Timorese at campsites into staying on. It is in the militias' interests to sustain the number of refugees, because humanitarian aid to their sites are channeled through them as camp leaders.
Others use the weapons for criminal activities, like robbing and extorting the people. Locals tell stories of how these men would flaunt their rifles and have grenades slung over their necks to bully shopkeepers and walk out of stores with free goods.
The Belu regency police jail is now overcrowded with refugees arrested for committing various crimes, and the local police are having a hard time trying to keep the militias in check. Police chief Nender Yani had to ship his family back to Java after receiving a series of threats for arresting the militiamen.
Many of them are also reluctant to give up their weapons because they have little hope of returning to their homeland, where they are unlikely to be welcomed. Said former militiaman Eigidio Sarmento from Baucau, East Timor: "I miss home, but I don't know what security situation will await me there, so I'd rather stay here."
His hopelessness and frustration are shared by many of the East Timorese refugees. Said Mr Filomeno de Jesus Hornay, the secretary-general of East Timorese refugee organisation, Untas: "They feel that the concern of Indonesia now is only how to get them out of West Timor."