Don't shoot the messengers<\/p>\n
President Megawati Soekarnoputri, who was widely criticized
\nlast week for her administration's poor handling of Indonesian
\nworkers deported from Malaysia, is now trying to shift the blame:
\non the press. Speaking to the Indonesian community in
\nJohannesburg on the last day of her visit to South Africa,
\nMegawati was reported on Friday to have said that the press has
\nblown the problem of the returning workers out of proportion.<\/p>\n
Insisting that her administration has done everything in its
\npower to assist the workers, she targeted her attack on the
\nnumber of deaths in makeshift shelters in Nunukan in East
\nKalimantan. She said that officially, the death toll was 33, not
\nthe 60-plus figure that has been widely reported in the press.<\/p>\n
President Megawati has every right to defend her record and to
\ncounter criticisms. But shooting the messenger, a new and
\nunfortunate pastime she has acquired of late, is not only
\nunhelpful for her image, it is certainly not helping the plight
\nof the workers either.<\/p>\n
If anything, the media's greatest shortcoming in reporting the
\nplight of these deported workers is that we have not exposed it
\nproportionally within the scope of the disaster, and early enough
\nto prompt a timely and proper government action that could have
\nsaved precious lives.<\/p>\n
This is a problem that should have been anticipated as far
\nback as February when the Malaysian government first gave notice
\nto all foreigners who were working illegally there of an
\nimpending tough immigration law and a crackdown after July 31.
\nInstead, the government seems to have done very little -- if
\nanything at all -- to prepare for the safe return or at the very
\nleast ease the passage home of these Indonesian illegal workers,
\nwhose numbers are believed to number in the hundreds of
\nthousands.<\/p>\n
The media only started providing serious coverage at the end
\nof July as the deadline neared. But the problem began in May,
\nwhen some of these workers began to stream back through Nunukan,
\nand when casualties were already in evidence, but never reported.<\/p>\n
This explains the discrepancy between the official and
\nunofficial death toll figures for Nunukan that President Megawati
\nquibbles about. The 60-plus figure includes those who died in
\nMay; the official 30-plus figure only included the deaths
\nbeginning in late July. By disputing the death toll, when real
\npeople, mostly children, are still dying because help was not
\nforthcoming, the government has highlighted its lack of
\nsensitivity to the problem.<\/p>\n
The media and Megawati's critics may have made too much of a
\ndirect comparison in contrasting Megawati with Philippine
\nPresident Gloria Arroyo in handling the problem. Arroyo
\npersonally went to greet the Philippine workers deported from
\nMalaysia last week; Megawati decided to go ahead with her lengthy
\noverseas trip. Admittedly, this contrasting approach was simply
\ntoo resistible to ignore.<\/p>\n
The press's greatest failure is not in blowing the problem out
\nof proportion, but in failing to raise the alarm bells early
\nenough that would have prevented this problem from turning into
\nthe national tragedy that it is today. But once this problem was
\ngiven extensive press coverage, the government's response should
\nhave been to mend its ways and to show that it truly cares for
\nthese workers. Instead, all it's been doing is to try to find
\nscapegoats. And Megawati is aiming her gun at the press.<\/p>\n
The President may still not get the message about the tragedy
\nof the Indonesian workers that is still evolving in Nunukan, but
\nit would be dead wrong for her to blame the press. After all, we
\nare only the messengers, whose job it is sometimes to deliver the
\nbad news.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/dont-shoot-the-messengers-1447893297",
"image": ""
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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