Expatriate's contribution

Commenting on Mr. Coelho's letter (The Jakarta Post, May 29, 1996 edition), we have actually had expatriates come to our country for 300 years (two centuries earlier than your country). We called them Penjajah, or colonialists. Unlike what the immigrants did in your country, these "expatriates" contributed nothing but slavery, illiteracy, poverty, ignorance, and physical and mental abuse.

You can still see some of these "contributions" today. You must know that there are provinces in our country which were released from colonialism only 15 or 20 years ago. It has cost us billions of rupiah and a very big effort to develop the provinces and lift living standards. Yet, these "expatriates" are still fussy about it all because they think they contributed many good things to the people in the provinces during their 400-year occupation.

Talking about today's expatriates in my country, we don't need expatriates coming here only to produce footballers. Even a young man from the village can produce that. It did not take any expatriate to produce our world No.1 badminton players. I know there are many great expatriates here who have greatly contributed to this country. But for those who are just escaping from their country's recession, please try to contribute as well as you can.

SILVYA GILL

Jakarta