One-way ticket to scaffold
Minister of Manpower Bomer Pasaribu's statement (The Jakarta Post, June 20, 2000) that "... the government did all it could to save the life of Indonesian maid Warni ..." who was recently "secretly" beheaded in Saudi Arabia, raises some questions and begs for some comments.
First, the unfortunate maid was sentenced to death three years ago; why did it take the ministry so long to make the verdict known to the Indonesian people? Public pressure from Indonesia might have saved her from the death sentence like it spared the life of the Indonesian maid Nasiroh who was sentenced to death in 1994 but freed in 1997. Nasiroh revealed that at that time 16 other Indonesians were facing death sentences in Saudi Arabia. When then Minister of Manpower Abdul Latief was confronted with her disclosure he replied: "If you want to know the truth, ask God. We don't know."
Second, keeping in mind Abdul Latief's remarkably cynical answer, the question must be asked whether Warni did really get proper legal protection and assistance three years ago. Did she have a defense lawyer who could plead for possible self-defense when the maid killed her employer's wife in a quarrel? Did she have a credible interpreter in court, as we can assume that the maid and the judge couldn't communicate in each other's language? I doubt it.
Third, it seems that the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh as well as the Ministry of Manpower in Jakarta prefer -- for whatever reason -- to keep silent about the number of those unlucky prisoners who are awaiting execution. Why don't the responsible institutions consider the possibility that some of those convicts might be innocent, because putting the blame on a poorly educated and often simple-minded Indonesian maid is all too easy?
President Abdurrahman Wahid stated recently that "... Jakarta remained committed to an independent foreign policy and was unwilling to prostrate to the West..." (the Post, June 17, 2000). The President is right, Indonesia should not prostrate to any country in the world. But why do Indonesian authorities make an exception in the cases of Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates? I wonder whether those countries would dare to execute citizens from the United States or Europe, even if the charge was murder.
Another question is, why are there no protests from the students who demonstrate for and against each and everything these days, for example by burning national flags of other countries if they think it to be in the "interest" of Indonesia (an action which I consider as one of the most stupid responses to a political quarrel). My guess is that those students might think that the unfortunate women are "only" maids, and therefore there is no need to get excited.
Indonesian women are worldwide liked and respected for their extraordinary gentle and friendly nature; they do not tend to turn violent, let alone kill. Therefore the question arises of what went wrong with those Indonesian girls and women working in Arabian countries who all of a sudden turned into "murderers". I have only one answer: Those Indonesian maids killed in self- defense. One should imagine, a maid working in a foreign country far away from her home and family, not knowing the language, being simple-minded and poorly educated, experiencing torture, rape and other humiliating mistreatment from her employers over a long period of time. Believing that they cannot expect any help from their embassy or from the respective recruitment agencies, they sink into a nameless despair and kill their tormentor in the naive hope that they can escape their unbearable fate. The maid Warni was probably one of those cases. Was she guilty of first- degree murder? Maybe she was not. Was she guilty at all? She is dead now, so we will never know for sure.
MRS. HILDE MAY
Jakarta