Report on Citizenship Law: East Timor (Timor-Leste) October 1999, East Timor had ceased to be a ‘territory under Portuguese administration’, so children born in East Timor after that date started to be considered by Portuguese authorities as having been born abroad. They were (and are) nevertheless entitled to Portuguese citizenship by birth if born to a Portuguese parent and provided that the birth is registered at the Portuguese Civil Registry or, alternatively, upon declaration of the wish to be Portuguese [Portuguese Nationality Act, Law no. 37/81, Article 1(1) (c)].74 The coexistence in the same individual of Portuguese and Timorese citizenships is not problematic since both Portugal and Timor-Leste allow dual citizenship. The same cannot be said of Indonesia. When the Indonesian People’s Consultative Assembly recognised East Timor’s separation from the rest of the Republic, on 19 October 1999, it safeguarded the rights of the East Timorese who wished to remain loyal to Indonesia (Jerónimo 2011b: 31), most of whom were in Indonesia as refugees.75 According to the 2003 Indonesian Census, of the circa 30,00076 East Timorese who remained in Indonesia after Timor-Leste’s independence, most opted for Indonesian citizenship, even though the Indonesian government gave them the possibility to retain Timorese citizenship and remain in Indonesia as foreigners with a valid residence permit.77 Indonesian law does not allow dual citizenship and therefore the East Timorese who opted for Indonesian citizenship are deemed by Indonesian authorities to have renounced their Timorese citizenship. However, in the absence of an express act of renunciation before the Timorese authorities, these individuals are entitled to Timorese citizenship by birth in Timor-Leste provided they meet the criteria set in Article 3 (2) or (3) of the Timorese Constitution. There are, nevertheless, reports that the Timorese authorities make a different interpretation of their obligations under the Constitution. According to the International Crisis Group (2011: 10), in 2010, the Timor-Leste Consulate in Kupang (West Timor) stopped issuing temporary travelling papers for those born in East Timor who wished to return to the country ‘with the intention of applying for’ Timorese citizenship unless they could provide a letter of recommendation from the Indonesian Justice Ministry. This seems to suggest that the TimorLeste authorities believe that they can only grant Timorese citizenship to those who are not Indonesian citizens. The reference to an ‘application for Timorese citizenship’ also suggests confusion regarding the entitlement to Timorese citizenship for individuals who meet the constitutional criteria. Furthermore, the requirement imposed by the Timor-Leste Consulate in Kupang worked as a considerable obstacle for Timorese citizens wishing to travel to TimorLeste since they had to pay a 20 USD fee and wait for a period of about six months to get the 74 Interviews conducted by the author with public officials at the Portuguese consular post in Dili indicate that many Timorese continue to exercise their right to Portuguese citizenship by birth and that practically all requests are granted (Jerónimo 2011b: 30). 75 The East Timorese who fled to Indonesia after the popular consultation were treated as refugees by UNHCR even though they held Indonesian citizenship. Their eligibility to be treated as refugees ended in December 2002, when the UNHCR issued a ‘cessation of status’ declaration. Nevertheless, the Indonesian authorities continued, until 2005, to treat them as pengungsi, which can be translated either as ‘internally displaced person’ or as ‘refugee’. In 2005, Indonesia’s central government closed the IDP/refugee camps and put an end to the pengungsi status. The ‘ex-refugees’ begun to be treated as warga baru, i.e. ‘new citizens’. Those who want to return to Timor-Leste have to go through a lengthy administrative process and explicitly give up their right to Indonesian citizenship (International Crisis Group 2011: 3, 6-7, 9; Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre 2010: 1, 3). 76 As pointed out by International Crisis Group (2011: 3), there are no consensual estimates about the size of the remaining population of ‘ex-refugees’. ‘The former East Timorese claim the population is closer to between 110,000 and 200,000, while the Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) provincial administration gave an estimate of just over 100,000 in 2010’. 77 See The International Observatory on Statelessness, Indonesia, available at http://www.nationalityfor all.org/indonesia [09.06.2011]. RSCAS/GLOBALCIT-CR 2017/7 - © 2017 Author 19