Atambua – The reconciliation meeting among East Timorese on the border between Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province and East Timor continues to reach an agreement on a peaceful life.

"Although East Timor has become a sovereign country, all the East Timorese, both those who once supported independence and integration, have the only wish to live in peace. And the only way to that effect is a reconciliation," an ex-refugee figure, Pedro Sousa, said here Sunday.

Sousa said being aware of a need to live in peace many public and religious figures in East Timor and at refugee camps in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province decided to continue the reconciliation meeting.

The reconciliation meeting did not oblige all ex-East Timorese refugees who are still in Indonesia to return to East Timor but allowed them to choose living in their home land or in Indonesia.

In fact, there are a lot of ex-East Timorese refugees preferred living in Indonesia to returning to their home country (East Timor).

According to Sousa, reconciliation thus has a new meaning as East Timorese are free to choose places where they have to live in peace. "It means that people in East Timor can visit East Nusa Tenggara without consternation of possible threats from their brothers and sisters in the Indonesian province," Sousa said.

Contrariwise, ex-East Timorese refugees can go to East Timor to meet their families in the nascent state without fear of possible arrest and incarceration.

An East Timorese citizen, Felisberto Maia, meanwhile said the people in the newly-born country wanted Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, President Xanana Gusmao and Chairman of the parliament Francisco Guterres to visit their brothers and sisters (ex-East Timorese refugees) in East Nusa Tenggara.

"The expected visits of the East Timorese state and government leaders are not aimed at imposing their wish to oblige all ex-East Timorese refugees to return to their home land but at establishing new relations among them in a friendly and peaceful manner," he said.

If the people in East Timor can set up good relations with Indonesians, especially the people in East Nusa Tenggara, they should also be able to establish peaceful ties with their brothers and sisters living at refugee camps or resettlement areas, he said.

According to Felisberto, a special team on reconciliation in East Timor is now making efforts to continue a reconciliation meeting between the East Timorese government/state officials and the figures as well as ex-East Timorese refugees in East Nusa Tenggara.

Data from East Nusa Tenggara's Belu district office of the Central Bureau of Statistics show that the number of ex-East Timorese refugees still living at emergency camps is recorded at 42,269 people. The number does not include the ex-East Timorese refugees who live in resettlement areas and at houses of local people.

East Timor officially seceded from Indonesia in October 1999 as a consequence of the pro-independence camp's victory in the UN-organized popular consultation held on August 30, 1999. The territory integrated into Indonesia in 1976 but the United Nations never recognized the integration process.