Expatriates

When I read the last edition of the Sunday Post on Feb. 15: Expatriates set sail as economy sinks, I felt a strong urge to comment on some of the rather shortsighted statements with regards to the expatriates working in Indonesia, obviously with no other purpose than of bleeding the country dry of its foreign exchange.

When an expatriate is sent by his company to work in Indonesia it is usually because this company is engaged in business in Indonesia. That means, that they want to have a certain amount of control and technical or commercial expertise to safeguard their investment in the country. Yes, believe it or not, these companies invest in Indonesia and not only for their benefit, there a long list of people who benefit as well. There are commissioners, local employees who have a job and a salary, which supports their families and provides for food and education for their children and often enough other relatives.

Expatriates rent houses, sometimes at quite horrendous prices -- in US dollars by the way, they employ household help for whom this provides a way out of poverty and so on and so forth.

Expatriates go to supermarkets, shops, restaurants, hotels, they travel through the country etc., in one word, they spend money that again maintains whole industries.

So to just say "good riddance" when more than 60 percent of the expatriates have left the country is perhaps a bit hasty, to say the least, as it will also involve a lot of Indonesians losing their jobs and slipping on the social ladder again as their government does not provide for them in a sufficient manner.

Having also read Bill Guerin's letter on editing by the Post, I can only confirm his findings as I, too, have had some recent experiences where the printed end result bore no resemblance to what I initially submitted for printing, which made me feel like an idiot, especially as people who know me, could not know that I actually did not contribute the rubbish finally printed in my name.

Written complaints and requests for printing the correct version only resulted in some hardly understandable explanations on my answering machine, which did not help me much with the damage done already.

ROLAND WOEHRLE

Jakarta