Habibie promises release of Dita

Habibie promises release of Dita

JAKARTA (JP): Minister of Manpower Fahmi Idris said Wednesday
he has appealed for the release of all detained labor activists
and that President B.J. Habibie has promised the release of at
least one of them, Dita Indah Sari.

Fahmi said he had sent letters in the past few months to
Habibie, Minister of Defense and Security/Armed Forces (ABRI)
Commander Gen. Wiranto, Minister of Justice Muladi, Attorney
General Andi Mohammad Ghalib and Coordinating Minister for
Political and Security Affairs Feisal Tanjung, to request that
labor activists imprisoned across the country be released.

One of them is Dita, who is serving a jail sentence in
Tangerang Penitentiary for leading a labor strike in 1996. She
was arrested in Surabaya with her colleague, Coen Husein Pontoh
of the Center for Indonesian Workers' Struggle which she chairs.

Fahmi made the statement at a media conference during a
seminar held by the International Labor Organization (ILO) on ILO
standards and conventions which ends Thursday.

He was describing part of "various steps in democratization in
labor." The request for the release of the activists was
important to the realization of democracy and freedom of speech,
he said. "In a cabinet meeting which I cannot identify, President
Habibie promised the release of Dita Indah Sari."

He said he could not give details of the identities of the
prisoners but only said that apart from Dita there were seven or
eight other activists, all incarcerated outside Jakarta.

Fahmi further said the ministry has estimated some 20 million
are now without jobs. "This is a preliminary estimate, and I hope
things get better," he said.

ILO announced earlier this year its estimates that full
unemployment would reach 6.7 million by mid-1998.

The Assistant Director-General for ILO activities in Asia and
the Pacific, Mitsuko Horiuchi lauded the government for this
year's ratification of the ILO Convention no. 87 on Freedom of
Association.

Jakarta ILO director Iftikhar Ahmed said he hoped the talks
would facilitate the ratification of three of seven ILO
Conventions: the convention concerning Forced or Compulsory
Labor, the Minimum Age Convention and the Convention on
Discrimination regarding employment and occupation. The minimum
age for workers in developing countries is 14, according to the
convention.

ILO senior specialist in international labor standards and
labor law, Alan J. Boulton, noted there were 1.6 million working
children aged 10 to 14 according to 1997 statistics here, a
figure which he said would have likely increased with the crisis.
(edt/anr)