RI does not object to UNHCR asylum plan for Acehnese

RI does not object to UNHCR asylum plan for Acehnese

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia will not object the decision by the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to arrange
political asylum for 22 Acehnese who are seeking refuge at the
United States embassy and UN compound in the Malaysian capital of
Kuala Lumpur.

"Indonesia in principle treats the 22 Acehnese people as
illegal workers and it depends on the Malaysian government and
UNHCR on how to treat them," Gaffar Fadyl, spokesman for the
Indonesian Foreign Affairs Ministry, said here yesterday.

Gaffar made the statement in reaction to the UNHCR's recent
decision to treat them as asylum seekers and to seek third
countries which were ready to give them asylum.

AP reported from Kuala Lumpur yesterday that the UN would
arrange political asylum for the 22 Indonesians who took refuge
in the United States embassy and UN compound here to escape
deportation.

"We have interviewed all 22 of them, we have investigated, and
we have concluded that they are refugees and in need of
international protection," Hege Rudd of the UNHCR said.

The UNHCR had not decided where the refugees would be given
asylum, Rudd said, adding that they could be sent to different
countries.

"The UNHCR is in close communication with the Malaysian
government to see what the next step will be for these refugees,"
she said.

The UN was asked to intervene after the Indonesians refused to
leave the U.S. embassy in downtown Kuala Lumpur, saying that they
would be tortured and possibly killed by the Indonesian military
if they were deported.

The refugees are all from Aceh, on the northern tip of
Sumatra, where an armed separatist movement has been active since
the 1970s.

Fleeing a police crackdown on illegal migrants, 14 Indonesians
rammed a truck through the gates of the UNHCR compound on March
30.

Eleven days later, eight more Acehnese hoisted themselves over
the walls of the U.S. embassy and sought political asylum.

The UNHCR would try to resettle the 22 men by seeking legal
protection, and in certain cases, citizenship, from governments
who agreed to allow them in, the official said.

But the fate of two dozen other Indonesians who scrambled over
the walls of the Swiss, French and Brunei embassies on April 9
hangs in balance.

Unlike the U.S. and the UN, these embassies handed the illegal
immigrants over to Malaysian police, who took them to a detention
camp.

"The UNHCR has not been able to see them," said Rudd.

Malaysia says the Acehnese are economic migrants, not
political refugees, and hence should be deported like all other
foreigners found working without valid permits.

Malaysia has already deported 30,000 Indonesians this year in
an attempt to secure jobs for its own people as its economy heads
into recession.

Prior to the Southeast Asian economic crisis, hundreds of
thousands of foreign workers were welcomed in Malaysia and
provided much of the work force in the booming property sector.
Of the 8 million labor force in the property sector, 3 million
were migrant workers, half of them Indonesian. (rms)