More on the new RI visa policy

To revoke or to apply the new tourist visa policy? What I want to impress upon all these visa policymakers holding the highest immigration and governmental positions who believe that they have been discriminated against on false grounds by the United States' and Australia's policies is this. The people who suffer the most discrimination and harassment are the foreigners married to an Indonesian citizen trying to make a living in Indonesia.

If you want to apply the same tourist visa policy to us, be logical, once and for all, and apply the same kind of other immigration policies that Belgium -- and certainly many other developed countries -- apply to the foreigners married to a their citizens (regardless of gender). These people are all allowed to work in the open in any place without a work permit.

These foreigners are given, at village level, a 5-year stay permit within three months for 15 euros (about Rp 130,000) and they don't have to leave the country to renew a visa. They can then choose to become a Belgian citizen after three years of residence in Belgium.

These foreigners in Belgium -- and certainly in the U.S. and in Australia -- are treated with much more fairness, with far less expense than the situation in Indonesia.

And please keep in mind that, by asking all tourists to pay US$45 to enter your country for only 30 days, you will definitely affect your own tourism industry. It is just irrational, because if a lot of Belgians visit Indonesia as tourists, not all of them are short-stay rich people, most of them would have been long- stay backpackers.

Also, not many Indonesians visit Europe as tourists except the ones visiting their relatives married to a Belgian citizen (and we -- the Belgian relatives -- pay most often everything for them who cannot afford).

YVAN MAGAIN, Tubize, Belgium