Army to supervise Indonesian labor export
JAKARTA (JP): The Armed Forces says it will deploy personnel to bring order to the labor export industry because illegal Indonesian workers in Malaysia have sparked immigration disputes between the two countries.
Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. A. Wahab Mokodongan said yesterday that in response to President Soeharto's recent call for better discipline in the industry, officials of the Agency for the Coordination of Support for the Development of National Stability would oversee all stages of labor exporting.
He said the decision was made at a recent meeting of the agency.
"Many Indonesian workers enter Malaysia through illegal channels and work in the neighboring country without proper documents," Wahab said.
"They have got our country into a dispute with Malaysia," he said.
Mokodongan's announcement came on the heels of reports about illegal Indonesian workers being deported from Malaysia.
Indonesian navy vessel KRI Tanjung Oisina arrived in Surabaya's Tanjung Perak port Tuesday carrying 1,605 illegal workers from Johor Baru, Malaysia.
A total of 792 workers from Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan and East Nusa Tenggara disembarked at the port. From Surabaya, they were sent to their respective hometowns by bus, train or ship.
The ship, under the command of Navy Lieutenant Col. Suryono, continued on to Lombok and West Nusa Tenggara to return the last of the workers.
Suryono said Oisina would return to Jakarta when it had dropped off the last of its passengers.
Antara reported that one of the workers died of a heart attack about four hours after the vessel set sail from Malaysia.
Unscrupulous
Last week, Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief told President Soeharto that he had discovered, in a recent trip to Malaysia, that Indonesian workers were being illegally and unscrupulously sent to Malaysia.
Malaysia, with 21 million people, is a lucrative job market because its Gross National Product is not less than US$3,500.
Latief said labor brokers lured young people to work in Malaysia with promises of big salaries.
He said 1.4 million of the 2.5 million foreign workers in the country came from Indonesia. In addition, there are about one million illegal, mostly unskilled, workers.
A 1996 labor report said that there were about 11,000 problematic Indonesian "workers" in Malaysia, while the Malaysian government says the number is closer to 600,000.
President Soeharto has ordered the Armed Forces to back up the provincial authorities crackdown on unscrupulous labor racketeers.
The President also instructed Latief to accelerate the repatriation of illegal workers detained at Malaysian immigration centers.
Tuesday's repatriation was the third operation of its kind. The first batch of 1,020 illegal workers were sent home before the May 29 general election.
Another 1,529 workers were sent home shortly afterward.
Wahab again called for tighter supervision of the screening processes before granting exit permits to job seekers.
Wahab said the agency's role would be primarily to enforce discipline and regulations.
The government had earlier attempted to solicit the agency's help in collecting television fees.
This sparked debate about the "wide-range" nature of the agency, which replaced the much-feared Kopkamtib in September 1988.
The agency, for instance, helped the General Elections Committee screen prospective legislative candidates from the three political parties -- Golkar, the United Development Party and the Indonesian Democratic Party.
The agency's provincial chapters and municipal branches launched an operation against criminals and transportation touts during Idul Fitri Moslem holiday and the Chinese new year.
It is also involved in operations to put a stop to the student brawls which have been rampant in Jakarta for a decade. (imn)