Indonesia regrets rioting at immigrant detention camps

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia expressed regret yesterday over the death of at least nine people, including eight Indonesian illegal immigrants, at a riot in a Malaysian detention camp, but did not blame the Malaysian government and pledged continued cooperation with them.

Foreign Minister Ali Alatas said Indonesia was concerned and expressed condolences to the families of all those killed.

"We shall continue to cooperate closely with Malaysia... We won't burden Malaysia in this case," Alatas told journalists after meeting with President Soeharto at his residence on Jl. Cendana, Central Jakarta.

Violent riots occurred at four detention camps -- Semenyih camp in Selangor, Machap Umbo camp in Malacca, Juru camp in Penang, and Lenggeng camp in Negeri Sembilan -- when police launched simultaneous operations to deport over 500 illegal immigrants from the Indonesian province of Aceh.

Nine people lost their lives during the incidents, including one Malaysian policeman.

Alatas was quick to point out that those who were being deported are illegal migrants who had been in detention for a long time.

Reports from Malaysia say most of them were supporters of an Acehnese separatist movement.

According to Alatas, 545 of them left the Malaysian port of Lumut on Thursday aboard an Indonesian naval ship bound for Aceh.

Alatas emphasized that their repatriation had been planned for a long time.

He repeatedly underlined Indonesia's continued willingness to cooperate with the Malaysian government on the issue of illegal immigrants.

Aftermath

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad pledged yesterday to continue deporting illegal immigrants despite the incident.

"They attacked first and caused the death of a policeman," the official Bernama news agency quoted him as saying. "However, the incident will not affect our decision to send them back."

Malaysian Police chief Rahim Noor said the operation had to be implemented to prevent overcrowding at detention camps and that it had the full cooperation of the Indonesian government.

He said that 700 more Indonesians were dispatched for home from Port Klang yesterday. The current wave of deportations will continue today.

But human rights groups said the deaths of immigrants raised concerns about the safety of the thousands of remaining immigrants in Malaysia and called for an investigation.

"The deaths of eight Indonesians in a repatriation operation in the early hours of this morning raise serious questions about the (deportation) process," London-based Amnesty International said in a statement late on Thursday.

Amnesty said it was concerned "about the level of force used by the Malaysian authorities" and urged a full probe and checks by independent sources at the camps.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has also expressed concern at the deaths.

"UNHCR is deeply concerned about the deaths in detention camps in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia," spokesman Kris Janowski was quoted by Reuters as saying at a news briefing in Geneva.

Janowski said UNHCR had sent a letter to Malaysian authorities on Thursday expressing concern.

"Our concern stems from the fact that there may be asylum- seekers from northwest Sumatra in the group," Janowski said.

But Malaysian Foreign Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi denied the immigrants were refugees and said they had come looking for work, Bernama reported.

Indonesian officials have also flatly rejected the claim that they are political refugees, arguing that they are illegal immigrants who left their country to seek better living conditions.

About 800,000 of two million foreign workers in Malaysia are working illegally. The majority are Indonesian. (prb)