Nunukan to get high powered belated visits

Nunukan to get high powered belated visits

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

In a delayed response to an impending crisis, Vice President
Hamzah Haz and an entourage of four ministers are to visit the
thousands of migrant workers languishing in camps in the border
town of Nunukan, East Kalimantan, on Wednesday; the first high
level visit since the exodus that has claimed 32 lives began late
July.

The visit comes amid criticism the government is doing too
little too late to help the stranded workers, many of whom
suffering from various health problems.

Chairman of the country's largest Muslim organization,
Nahdlatul Ulama's (NU) Hasyim Muzadi and other prominent figures
plan their own visits next week while the Navy sent its warship
KRI Tanjung Kambani on Tuesday to serve as a floating hospital.

Navy Chief of Staff Adm. Bernard Kent Sondakh said its
floating hospital Tanjung Kambani would arrive in Nunukan within
two days. The ship comes equipped with 1,500 beds and medical
staff from the Army and the Ministry of Health, he added.

Accompanying Hamzah will be Minister of Home Affairs Hari
Sabarno, Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi, Minister of Manpower
and Transmigration Jacob Nuwa Wea and State Minister of Social
Affairs Bachtiar Chamsyah. Four legislators plan to join as well.

Hamzah will stay in Nunukan for two hours where he is to meet
the workers and "have a dialog with them".

NU chairman Hasyim said he and members of the country's second
largest Muslim organization Muhammadiyah, and the Indonesian
Communion of Churches and others plan to visit Nunukan on Sept.
11.

"We want to analyze the problems based on the situation on the
ground," Hasyim was quoted by Antara without elaborating.

Nunukan drew nationwide attention after it became home to some
40,000 workers who fled Malaysia to avoid its crackdown on
illegal workers with the passing of a July 31 deadline.

Workers are living in cramped makeshift camps where the lack
of clean water, food and proper sanitation have led to the deaths
of 32 workers since the end of July and 67 since May.

Immigration officials in Nunukan said they were expecting
60,000 to 80,000 more workers this month.

At least 20 recruitment agencies and an immigration official
are stationed on the island to speed up the process.

The local immigration office has added more staff and
computers to issue as many as 5,000 passports a day from 700 on
normal days.

But as more workers come in, aid relief organizations have
warned of further deaths due to the poor conditions in the camps.

Aid is on its way to Nunukan, but legislator Posma Tobing, who
chairs the House of Representatives Commission VII handling labor
affairs, said the aid should have been sent in early August.

Posma urged the government to relocate some of the workers to
nearby regions to ease the load on Nunukan.

The island is both the exit and entry point for workers coming
from Malaysia's side of Borneo in Sabah and those wishing to
return once they obtain work permits.

Nunukan facilitates the departure of workers from the eastern
part of Indonesia. Other arrival points in Sumatra and Kalimantan
serve mainly Sumatra and Java.

However many of the deported workers have remained in Nunukan,
hoping to return to Malaysia, just as thousands of others from
East Java and Sulawesi continue to flow in to depart for the same
destination.

Some 700,000 Indonesians were working in Malaysia, more than
half of which are believed to be working without the necessary
permits.

Critics have said that preparations for their return were too
slow, blaming the government for its ineptitude in responding to
problems at the grass roots.

President Megawati Soekarnoputri left for a two-week overseas
trip just days after pictures of Philippine President Gloria
Macapagal Arroyo helping Filipino deportees off a ship, appeared
in several local papers.

Relates stories on Pages 2,7