RI to pick up 5,000 workers in S. Arabia
RI to pick up 5,000 workers in S. Arabia
JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia will send Air Force planes to pick up
about 5,000 illegal workers stranded in Saudi Arabia, Antara
reported Saturday.
Air Force Chief of Staff Marshall Sutria Tubagus said Friday
the Air Force had readied five C-130 Hercules planes to
repatriate the Indonesians. "We'll do it very soon," he said, but
did not give any timetable.
Antara reported that Saudi immigration authorities had for the
past two weeks detained 1,000 Indonesians for either overstaying
their visas or lacking documents to stay there.
The workers were netted in a massive operation launched
following a three-month amnesty period which expired recently.
Saudi Arabia aims to flush out more than 100,000 illegal
workers there. A similar number of illegal aliens left the
country during an amnesty period in 1995.
Antara said the workers staged a demonstration almost every
day for the past 15 days in protest of the operation.
Thousands of workers from Indonesia, the world's largest
Moslem nation, are legally employed in Saudi Arabia, mostly as
domestic helpers, nurses and laborers. Many of those who work
illegally have for the past two weeks reportedly sought refuge at
Indonesian representative offices in Jeddah and Riyadh.
About one-third of Saudi Arabia's population of 18 million are
expatriates, with most coming from India. Other expatriates come
from countries like Pakistan, Sudan, Nigeria and Egypt.
The news agency also reported that Saudi Home Affairs Minister
Nayef Ibnu Abdel Aziz said his country would impose firm
sanctions in carrying out the flushing-out operation.
According to Aziz, the punishment given to those found guilty
of overstaying permits was a minimum six-month jail term or a
maximum fine of US$26,000 (100,000 riyals).
A Saudi citizen found guilty of providing protection for
violators of the new regulation would be subject to a fine of
$13,000.
He said that before the regulation was tightly implemented,
workers who did not have complete immigration documents were
given a pardon without punishment.
Attache
Separately, on Friday, Attorney General Singgih said it was
time for Indonesia to place a prosecution attache in Saudi
Arabia, whose task would be to study and handle law violations
committed by Indonesians there.
"My office will be making a proposal to that effect to
appropriate government authorities," Singgih was quoted by Antara
as saying.
Singgih was asked to comment on the recent execution of Soleha
Anam Kadiran, an Indonesian domestic helper convicted of killing
her Saudi employer.
"It was prescribed by the law in Saudi Arabia," Singgih said
while adding that he did not know much about Saudi law.
"Here, when a foreigner breaks the law, his or her embassy is
notified. The case (in Saudi Arabia) appears to be different --
there is no such requirement," he said. "Probably because there
is no prosecution attache (at the Indonesian Embassy)."
Separately, Minister of Justice Oetojo Oesman said that had
better communication existed between the two countries, the
Soleha case would have ended differently.
"The Indonesian Embassy there was reportedly not informed of
the case, so that its effort to help Soleha came too late,"
Oetojo was quoted by Antara as saying. (swe)