Misuse of Indonesian passports continues

JAKARTA (JP): Rampant misuse of Indonesian service passports continues to be a large problem, which needs serious and coordinated attention from all state ministries.

In the last year, over 150 people have allegedly improperly obtained a service passport after getting a departmental or state agency recommendation.

The last known case occurred three weeks ago when four Indonesians using service passports were arrested by Japanese authorities in Tokyo for overstaying and illegally working in the country.

The four suspects -- I Nyoman Sukadana, I Gde Armada, Nyoman Yogiasa and Irma Yusfina Savitri -- are still being detained at the Indonesian Embassy in Tokyo.

Indonesian passports come in three forms: green colored passports for regular citizens, blue service passports for those traveling on official state business and black diplomatic passports.

Regular passports are issued by the Immigration Office, while service and diplomatic passports by the foreign ministry.

The issuance of diplomatic passports is subject to extremely strict regulations as they entitle holders to absolute diplomatic immunity.

They are usually limited to high-ranking state officials and members of the diplomatic corps along with their immediate family.

Those who are assigned on state business overseas are entitled, after the recommendation of their respective state institution, to obtain service passports.

However, several cases have highlighted that many departments need to tighten their screening process when recommending applicants to the foreign ministry.

The case involving the four Indonesians in Japan is a glaring example of the misuse of service passports.

"On their service passports it states that they are lecturers from the state-run Mahasaraswati University in Bali and sent by the ministry of national education for research purposes," the foreign ministry's director of consular affairs, Pieter Taruyu Vau, said here on Wednesday.

However, it turns out they left Japan to seek employment.

One of the suspects, Sukadana has admitted he was a farmer in Tegal Cangkring village, Bali, and that he paid Rp 40 million (US$57,14) to a local labor supply office to go to Japan.

Pieter said his directorate had issued service passports to the suspects because it had received letters of recommendation from the ministry of national education and the state secretary's office.

He revealed this was the third case in the last six months that involved the national education ministry.

"We are going to have a coordinating meeting with the police soon," he added.

Pieter said his office had already sent two formal letters about the matter to the national education ministry.

"They have yet to reply," he remarked.

Officials at the education ministry were not available for comment on Wednesday.

Pieter expressed hope that his colleagues in other ministries would pay more attention to the matter, particularly when filtering candidates recommended for service passports.

When asked if the foreign ministry itself could not double check the applicants, Pieter said there were insufficient resources to do so.

"On average we get about 20 applications per day, if we have to call them up one-by-one it would be impossible," he said.

Between April 1998 to March 1999 the foreign ministry issued 7,201 service passports and 950 diplomatic passports. In the period between April to October of last year 5,302 service passports were issued and 900 diplomatic ones.(04)