Grief and homely suprises meet fleeing Indonesians

Grief and homely suprises meet fleeing Indonesians

SINGAPORE (Agencies): Singaporeans have been opening their homes to families fleeing riot-torn Indonesia, offering free or reduced rent for unused rooms and apartments.

"I am very tired but we have to work harder to let these Indonesians know where they can turn for help," Justin Ong, owner of The Rental Specialist property agency in Singapore, told the Straits Times newspaper.

Since Saturday, Ong's business has drafted volunteers to help Indonesian families -- mostly ethnic Chinese -- find cheap or free housing in the city-state, the newspaper said.

And Singapore's Hotel Grand Central has halved its room rates to S$130 (US$81.25) per night for Indonesians.

Singaporean businessman Vincent Tay called Ong's agency to offer his new six-room public housing flat at no charge to any family who might need it, as he had not yet moved from his old apartment.

Tay said he did so because he had been touched by the generosity of an Indonesian man, who gave Tay a batik shirt during a recent visit to the republic.

But Singapore's Housing Development Board (HDB) said Tay and other owners were not allowed to rent or lend their government flats unless the owners themselves also lived there.

Ong wrote to the HDB asking for a one-month waiver of the rule but the board insisted its policy stood.

Still, Ong is pressing ahead to help find rooms for Indonesians who need them.

At least 50 Singaporeans have offered Indonesian families free or reduced rentals on their properties, the Straits Times said.

In Darwin, Australia, an ethnic Chinese woman who fled Indonesia with more than US$100,000 in cash was fined yesterday for not declaring the money on arrival in Australia.

Agustina Lumanta, 21, a textile factory manager from Bandung, West Java, failed to declare cash valued at almost $105,000 when she arrived at Darwin airport Tuesday, the Darwin Magistrates Court was told.

She pleaded guilty to one charge of failing to declare foreign currency with a value of more than $6,200 when entering Australia.

Lumanta's lawyer, Janet Taylor, told the court Lumanta was fleeing the "small war that is erupting in her country".

Magistrate Daynor Trigg said he accepted the situation in Indonesia was "quite distressing" and that Lumanta's fears were "not totally unfounded". He convicted Lumanta and fined her $310.

Lumanta brought cash because bank closures in Indonesia had made it impossible to transfer money electronically to her brother, a student in Melbourne, Associated Press reported.

In Washington, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said Tuesday she was sending teams to Southeast Asia to prepare for any future flow of refugees out of Indonesia.

"We are sending out our emergency preparedness relief teams to survey what kinds of preparations are necessary in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore," commissioner Sadako Ogata said during a National Press Club lunch.

She did not elaborate but a UNHCR spokeswoman in Washington, Paz Cohen, described the move as "contingency planning".

Before the lunch, Ogata voiced concern for Indonesia's ethnic Chinese population if the country's upheaval deepened.

Memories

"You always think about '65, and that is frightening memories," she told Reuters in an interview. "We hope it won't be like that. But I mean we do think of '65 immediately."

Ogata, the United Nations official responsible for the welfare of refugees worldwide, said her office had not yet detected any signs of an exodus from Indonesia.

But she said neighboring Malaysia, Singapore and Australia were "nervous" about a possible outflow if conditions worsen.

"We're certainly watching," she said in the interview. "I think if the turmoil continues and if there's any targeting of the Chinese population, there may be some outflow."

Ogata, who is based in Geneva, was on a week-long visit to the United States for talks with the Clinton administration and lawmakers on worldwide refugee issues.

Malaysia has beefed up security along its border with Indonesia to prevent any spillover from social unrest there and to check any influx of illegal migrants, reports said yesterday.

Defense Minister Syed Hamid Albar said military intelligence was closely monitoring the unrest in Indonesia as a precautionary measure.

"At certain points along the border we have heightened security ... we have to ensure their troubles do not spill over to our side," he was quoted as saying by the Sun newspaper.

Syed Hamid declined to say where security had been tightened, but the New Straits Times daily quoted sources as saying the alert order had been issued to security forces now patrolling the Straits of Malacca.

The narrow straits separates peninsula Malaysia from the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. Illegal Indonesian migrant workers usually slip into Malaysia by speedboat from Sumatra.

The daily said the marine patrols, which were introduced to nab illegal Indonesian migrants trying to sneak in, stretched from northern Langkawi island to southern Johore state.

Special attention has been given to areas identified as favorite landing spots of illegal migrants. More than half of Malaysia's two million legal and illegal foreign workers are Indonesian.

Malaysia has voiced its concern over last week's widespread rioting and has advised Malaysians to refrain from traveling to Indonesia while the unrest continues.

Despite the intensified security along its border, the paper also reported that Malaysia has allowed 100 foreigners fleeing riots in Indonesia to enter the country without visas.

The foreigners, mostly from India, Pakistan and Africa, could remain temporarily in Malaysia until they are able return to their respective countries, Deputy Home Minister Tajol Rosli Ghazali said.

"We are extending our assistance to enable them to return to their countries. We hope they would not take advantage of our generosity," the New Straits Times quoted him as saying.

"We are not making this a precedent but they were allowed into the country on humanitarian grounds ... we could not let them sleep at the airport."

Tajol said his ministry was also monitoring citizens from other Southeast Asian and Commonwealth countries who fled Indonesia, as they were only allowed to stay on a one-month social visit pass.