Possible exodus from RI worries region

Possible exodus from RI worries region

SYDNEY (Reuters): Fears are growing among Indonesia's neighbors of mass migrations as the sprawling archipelago's economic and political problems continue to mount.

Malaysian coastal patrols have been stepped up in anticipation of illegal immigrants trying to flee Indonesia's turmoil.

In Australia, private migration agents have reported a 60 percent increase in inquiries from Indonesia, mainly from Chinese businessmen, seeking residency in Australia.

Indonesia is suffering its worst economic crisis in decades after a 70 percent slide in the rupiah currency since last July. A million people are forecast to lose their jobs in 1998.

But analysts told Reuters that a collapse of the Indonesian economy would not necessarily spark a wave of refugees seeking permanent migration, as experienced during the 1970s and 1980s with the Vietnamese boatpeople.

"Indonesia has had serious economic crises before and it has never resulted in boatpeople," said Gerry van Klinken, author of the magazine Inside Indonesia and a lecturer at Sydney University's School of Asian Studies.

Staffan Bodemar, the Jakarta representative of the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR, said that a more likely scenario would be an exodus of Indonesians to seek work in neighboring countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines.

"Indonesia has not had a tradition of permanent migration or flights out of the country. Most migration is temporary, labor migration," he said.

The Political & Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) has raised Singapore's January risk rating to 3.16 from 2.96 in December, citing the prospects of "a population exodus" from Indonesia of unskilled laborers to Singapore as a result of the plunging rupiah, soaring inflation, riots and severe food shortages.

The PERC assessment covers such factors as domestic political risk, social disorder, systemic risks and external risks from political and economic developments.

"This is something which will not be welcomed in Malaysia or Singapore, but it is something the Malaysians and Singaporeans will find very difficult to prevent," said the Singapore-based consultancy's Bruce Gale.

Most analysts paint scenarios based on whether Indonesia's unrest remains driven by purely economic concerns, or sparks a more serious political backlash against the government.

Recent riots have seen Chinese shopkeepers -- who control much of Indonesia's commerce -- targeted , but analysts say these small merchants are unlikely to flee.

"The small Chinese shopkeepers have already weathered the first wave of the storm... but I do not believe we will have a wave of Indo-Chinese boatpeople," said George Aditjondro, an exiled Indonesian academic based in Australia.

The Australian Refugee Council says that, even if these shopkeepers fled, they would be unlikely to gain refugee status as they would find it difficult to prove systematic persecution.

Analysts believe that protesters will realize that Chinese shopkeepers are not responsible, and more importantly cannot solve, their economic woes, and they will turn their attentions on the government and those associated with it.

Middle-class Chinese who have prospered under Soeharto's patronage may then seek to leave Indonesia. Many already have offshore residences in countries like Australia or Canada.

"I have had a 60 percent increase in inquiries from Indonesia in the past three months," said migration agent Peter Love of Australia's Immigration Services Centre.

"Most are Chinese business people but it has also stirred up interest in non-Chinese. It's a little bit of insurance."

The Australian Embassy in Jakarta has reported 132 business migration approvals for December for Indonesians, compared with 30 to 40 in previous months.

Another scenario sees Southeast Asian nations expelling thousands of foreign workers, exacerbating unemployment, and risking increased unrest, in their countries of origin.