No rush of expats out of the country: Officials

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Immigration officials said on Tuesday that there had been no significant increase in the number of expatriates leaving the country, even though flag carrier Garuda Indonesia's office in Surabaya, East Java, said it had made a great number of reservations for open date tickets.

The director general of immigration at the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights, Iman Santoso, said that the number of foreigners leaving the country due to the rising incidence of demonstrations and threats against foreigners after the U.S.-led attacks on Afghanistan was not significant enough to indicate a rush.

"I don't have accurate data on the foreigners leaving the country, but there is no jump in the number. It's just as usual," he told journalists on the sidelines of an impromptu visit by legislators to the Soekarno-Hatta international airport.

Should there be an exodus, he said, his staff at the airports would be prepared, while staff at the East Jakarta immigration office would be deployed to the Halim Perdanakusuma airbase if necessary.

Many protesters from hardline groups have staged nation-wide rallies against the U.S. and its allies, threatening to launch "sweeps" against expatriates in retaliation for the attacks in Afghanistan.

Garuda's sales and marketing manager in Surabaya, Nicodemos, said on Tuesday that his office had received telephone calls from foreign companies and U.S. diplomats over the last few days asking for schedules for flights leaving the country.

"They are asking whether there are still available seats with many others reserving open date tickets," he said as quoted by Antara.

Nicodemos added that, so far, Garuda flights plying the Surabaya-Singapore route were still carrying their normal passenger loads of between 50 percent and 60 percent capacity.

Supporting Iman's remarks, head of the operational division at Surabaya's Juanda airport, Hari Utomo, told Antara on Tuesday that the number of flights was normal and that there was no exodus of expatriates.

Many travel bureaus in Surabaya also said that they were still offering domestic tours and overseas travel packages, and that there were no long queues of foreigners seeking overseas travel bookings.

Separately in Pekanbaru, Riau, the military district commander Darmawi Chaidir said his force had prepared a contingency plan to evacuate Americans and other foreigners should "sweeping" take place.

Commenting on reports that Indonesian jihad forces had left for Afghanistan, Iman said that immigration points in the country had not received any requests for destinations in either Afghanistan or Pakistan.