New deal sought with Malaysia on migrant workers overseas

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government will propose to the Malaysian government a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) allowing Indonesians deported for working illegally in Malaysia, to reenter that country and work legally after being trained in Indonesia.

Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said here on Wednesday that the MOU would be raised during bilateral talks between President Megawati Soekarnoputri with her Malaysian counterpart Mahathir Mohamad in Bali on Aug. 7 and Aug. 8.

"All deportees will be trained in certain skills before they are sent to that country," the minister said after meeting with the president at the Presidential Palace.

"The idea, we consider, should be set in a new framework of the memorandum of understanding."

He said the new MOU was being drafted by the Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration and was expected to be finalized for Mahathir's arrival.

Mahathir is scheduled to arrive in Bali on Aug. 7, to discuss several issues, including Indonesian workers.

Indonesia and Malaysia have been trapped in the illegal workers issue after dozens of illegal workers from Indonesia rioted in two separate incidents in Malaysia.

The latest riot happened on Jan. 7, this year in the city of Seremban. Dozens of Indonesians were arrested.

Malaysia has since decided to halve its number of migrant and informal workers and is set to impose harsher punishments on illegal workers, including beating them with a cane and imposing jail terms, on Aug. 1.

Currently, there are around 500,000 illegal Indonesian workers in Malaysia. About 25,000 have been deported or have returned home during the three-month amnesty period.

Hassan said that the government has called on Indonesian workers still working illegally in Malaysia to return home to prepare their immigration and identity documents to work in that country.

"We have been informed about the new act and we have been deporting the workers, it is too bad if the workers do not want to use the amnesty period to come home."

He said the government would do nothing to interfere in Malaysia's internal affairs.

The workers, mostly from North Sumatra, Java, Nusa Tenggara were deported to the Indonesian seaports in North Sumatra, Java, Nusa Tenggara and South Sulawesi.

Syahrir Tadjudin, chairman of the local manpower office in Makassar, South Sulawesi, said that Malaysia had deported more than 24,000 illegal immigrants through Nunukan in East Kalimantan since Feb., 2002.

He said more illegal workers were expected to return home in the next seven days before the Malaysian immigration law came into effect.

The number of Indonesians living in Malaysia has reached more than one million and almost 50 percent of them were estimated to be without the valid documents to stay and work in the neighboring country.