Government to review visa-on-arrival policy
Government to review visa-on-arrival policy
Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government is considering scrapping visas-on-arrival for
nationals of several countries including Japan, Australia and
South Korea after the countries refused to accord similar
treatment to Indonesian citizens.
Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yusril Ihza Mahendra said
on Tuesday that the government would cancel the visa facility for
U.S. citizens after the U.S. issued what he called a
discriminatory immigration ruling against Indonesians living
there.
"We must take firm action against countries that treat us
unfairly, so we are reviewing the visa-on-arrival facility for
those countries," Yusril said on Tuesday.
Yusril claimed that his move had gained strong support from
tourism businesspeople.
"I hope there will be no more resistance from the tourism
sector as this issue concerns our dignity as a nation," Yusril
told reporters on the sidelines of a national meeting on
immigration affairs.
Up until the deadly Bali bombing on Oct. 12, Australians and
Japanese made up the bulk of foreign tourists visiting the
country.
The government, according to Yusril, had considered
introducing a fee for visas-on-arrival or requiring foreigners to
apply for visas at Indonesian missions in their respective
country.
Yusril said the government was thinking of canceling the visa-
on-arrival for American tourists on the grounds that U.S.
immigration requirements for Indonesians were arduous and the
country had recently taken discriminatory measures against
Indonesian staying in the U.S.
"We should no longer be kindhearted to countries that treat us
arbitrarily. We must take stern actions against those countries,"
Yusril said.
The United States included Indonesia last week on a list of
countries whose males aged 16 and older must report to their
local immigration office as part of its antiterrorism measures.
The move drew strong protest from Indonesian officials who
considered the policy discriminatory.
A spokesman for the Directorate General of Immigration at the
Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, Ade A. Dahlan, said the
draft of a presidential decree reviewing the visa-on-arrival
policy was already in the hands of President Megawati
Soekarnoputri, awaiting her approval.
The visa-on-arrival system, under which foreign tourists are
allowed to stay in the country for 60 days, was first introduced
in 1983 in a bid to attract more foreign tourists.
In September 2002, the Directorate General of Immigration
announced a plan to reduce the number of countries whose citizens
are entitled to a visa upon arrival but until now a decision had
not been made. The citizens of 48 countries are entitled to visas
on arrival.
Businessmen, particularly those in the tourism sector,
criticized the initial plan, saying it would only hurt tourism,
which has been crippled by security problems.
Meanwhile, the director of the Association of the Indonesian
Travel and Tour Agencies (ASITA), Meity Robot, urged the
government to be selective in scrapping the visa-on-arrival
facility.
"At this difficult time after the terrorist attacks (in Bali),
we do really need leniency in attracting foreign tourists, not
make it difficulty for them to visit the country," she told the
Jakarta Post Tuesday.
She warned that Indonesia might not be able to compete with
Malaysia and Thailand in luring foreign visitors if it revoked
the visa-on arrival policy.
"It's not a problem for us if the government removes the visa-
on-arrival policy for the U.S. and Australia as their governments
have been very unfriendly to us," she said.
But she objected to the plan to disentitle Japanese and South
Koreans from the facility, saying that the two were important
markets for Indonesia's tourism and it would certainly hurt local
tourism should the plan be realized.
"We have just carried out road shows to South Korea and Japan
to convince their citizens to visit Indonesia. If the government
goes ahead with its plans our efforts will be useless," she said.