Gen. Feisal Tanjung blames ministry for haj chaos
Gen. Feisal Tanjung blames ministry for haj chaos
SURABAYA (JP): Armed Forces Chief Gen. Feisal Tanjung, in his
capacity as leader of this year's haj delegation, blamed the
Ministry of Religious Affairs for the various glitches during the
early phases of this year's operation to send pilgrims to Saudi
Arabia.
"They (the problems) were caused by the ministry's lack of
coordination with relevant institutions such as the Embassy of
Saudi Arabia," Tanjung said when visiting the Sukolilo haj
dormitory yesterday.
Indonesia started sending this year's 195,000 pilgrims on
March 23. Problems immediately occurred; some flights had to be
canceled and others were delayed because a large number of
prospective pilgrims did not have complete documents.
Some officials hinted the problems originated with the Saudi
Arabian embassy's failure to process the visas on schedule. The
embassy, however, argued that it had issued 125,000 visas on
schedule, which should have been enough for the first flights to
proceed smoothly.
The ministry later implicitly withdrew its criticism of the
embassy, declaring it took full responsibility for the hiccups in
the haj operation.
"Those problems shouldn't have happened...if only all parties
involved had established good coordination," Feisal said.
Feisal, who was accompanied by the assistant Armed Forces
(ABRI) chief of social and political affairs Maj. Gen. Suwarno
Adiwijoyo, called on haj officials to learn from the mistakes and
improve their performance in the future.
"Take notes of the mistakes and evaluate them honestly, so
that we won't repeat them," Feisal said. "Everybody needs to
engage in introspection to improve professionalism".
Feisal also said that President Soeharto has instructed that
ABRI be involved in this year's operation so that pilgrims can
have peace of mind and be able to concentrate on their religious
duties.
Military officials have been deployed to help in all stages in
the operation of sending and bringing home the pilgrims.
Feisal also visited the haj embarkation points of Sepinggan in
Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, and at Hasanuddin airport in
Ujungpandang, South Sulawesi. (01)