Harassment in immigration

Harassment in immigration

I refer to the letter Mixed marriages from Mr. Gulliver
published in The Jakarta Post on Feb. 3, 2001.

Mr. Gulliver, please understand that racism is a human concept
and mankind is only human. Having made that point, there is
discrimination and harassment in Indonesian immigration laws not
because Indonesians do not like Westerners. I am going to be much
more practical, or terre-a-terre. It is because Indonesians like
to think that we (Westerners) are rich. Usually the majority of
expats are men. So, we are the ones who have to go through the
most difficult procedures to obtain legal immigration documents.

The vast majority of expats are actually able to get a work
permit though what they do in Indonesia could be done by an
Indonesian. In these cases, by law, you should never be able to
get a work permit. So, one might ask, how could these expats get
their temporary stay permit (Kitas)? Well, they just pay off
whoever must be paid off to get their work permit. But this is
the way it works in many other ministries for all Indonesian
people.

I hope the next minister of justice will address this
immigration issue in a proper way. A way which is not clearly
established to bring wealth to the civil servants who have a
license to "kill" any time. That is the reality of today in
immigration offices, not only for expats, but also for Indonesian
migrant workers or tourists wishing to process their documents.
So, Mr. Gulliver keep in mind that Indonesians and also foreign
women - though less than foreign men - have to suffer immigration
rules and rulers.

And since this kind of process exists in the overall
Indonesian administration, our problem is to be put in an overall
(rotten) context. As long as practices such as corruption,
collusion and nepotism are not erased from Indonesia we will all
have to suffer from discrimination, procedural harassment, etc.

To the ministers now in charge of Indonesia's destiny, all we
-- Indonesian citizens and expats -- need is less discrimination
and harassment from ministry procedures and officials. We simply
ask for more humanity.

YVAN MAGAIN

Tubize, Belgium