Nations plan to evacuate workers ahead of Iraq war
Nations plan to evacuate workers ahead of Iraq war
Daniel Lovering, Associated Press, Bangkok
Asian nations have drawn up plans to evacuate thousands of their citizens from the Middle East as time runs out on a deadline for Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to seek exile or face war.
Laborers, many from poor Asian countries, are employed mainly as construction workers and domestic helpers in the Middle East, sending home billions of dollars and making major contributions to the economies of their native countries.
But U.S. President George W. Bush's ultimatum giving Saddam and his sons until 0100 GMT Thursday (8:00 a.m. Jakarta time) to leave Iraq or face an attack puts many of those workers at risk, prompting Asian governments to set up evacuation centers and advise their nationals to seek safe haven.
India plans to pull out more than 50,000 of its expatriates from Iraq's neighbor, Kuwait, where U.S.-led forces are poised to launch an assault that could threaten the workers' safety. An estimated 3.5 million Indians work in the Gulf region.
Bush's ultimatum was also a signal for the Philippine government to "trigger the relocation of those who need to be relocated," presidential spokesman Ignacio Bunye said Tuesday.
Manila has laid out contingency plans for its 1.4 million workers in the Gulf and set up an evacuation center in Kuwait, where 60,000 Filipinos work. Additional relocation centers have been set up across the border in Saudi Arabia, and two C-130 military transport planes have been put on standby.
Reflecting the importance of money remitted by Philippine workers in the region, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo traveled to Kuwait last month to seek assurances that Filipinos in the Middle East won't lose their jobs if they have to evacuate.
Remittances from 7.2 million Filipino overseas workers - about 10 percent of the population - account for more than US$6 billion a year, a major contribution to the economy.
Indonesia, meanwhile, plans to evacuate its 35,000 workers in the Middle East "to other countries considered safer in the Middle East," a spokesman for Indonesia's Manpower and Transmigration Ministry office said Wednesday on the condition of anonymity.
Indonesia has workers in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan.
Thailand has urged 1,237 Thais in Kuwait to return home as soon as possible and advised workers and students in other Middle Eastern countries to evacuate or move to safe areas.
The country's national airline said on Wednesday it planned to evacuate about 130 workers, and at least one Thai newspaper has published routes showing Thai workers how to get out of Iraq, Israel and Kuwait.
Thailand said it was also prepared to evacuate about 2,000 of its nationals working in Israeli cities considered at risk to safer areas in the south of the country. There are another 24,000 Thai laborers in the Israeli countryside.
Nepal, meanwhile, has banned its guest workers from traveling to Gulf states and is working on evacuating thousands of Nepalese from Kuwait. An estimated 15,000 of the 200,000 Nepalese workers in the Gulf region are employed in Kuwait.