One-way ticket to scaffold

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