RI urges KL to reject Acehnese asylum seekers
RI urges KL to reject Acehnese asylum seekers
Agence France-Presse, Jakarta/Kuala Lumpur
Indonesia's top security minister on Monday urged Malaysia to reject asylum seekers from Indonesia's conflict-hit Aceh province.
As Indonesia's "close friend" Malaysia had shown a very clear stance in supporting Indonesia's territorial integrity, Coordinating Minister for Political and Security Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said.
"This means they are not supporting the armed separatist movement in Aceh," the minister told reporters at the State Palace.
Bambang said he hoped President Megawati Soekarnoputri would raise the issue with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad during her visit to the Malaysian town of Kuching on Thursday.
A total of 232 Acehnese, including women and children, were detained last Tuesday as they tried to seek asylum outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Kuala Lumpur.
Out of the 232, a total of 120 of them had agreed to go home, said Ishak Mohamed, immigration director in northern Perak state.
Investigations showed that the 120 migrants were not involved with the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebel group.
In Kuala Lumpur, foreign minister Syed Hamid Albar on Monday rejected the UNHCR's criticism over the arrest, saying that "it is not right for UNHCR to register the Acehnese as possible refugees when they are not refugees."
Syed Hamid said the police arrested the Acehnese because they did not have valid travel documents and the UNHCR action was tantamount to giving illegals carte blanche to enter Malaysia and then to seek refugee status.
Malaysia, which is not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees, does not recognize refugees or asylum seekers, he said.
The detainees are being held in the Langkap detention center in northern Perak state, opposite Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) across the narrow Malacca Strait, awaiting deportation.
The UNHCR has urged Malaysia to free them and issue them with temporary protection letters.
But Syed Hamid said: "It will create problems. It will encourage people to enter Malaysia. We have been cooperating with Indonesia to ensure there is no overflow to Malaysia."
He pointed out that Malaysia has in the past played unwilling host to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from Indonesia and the Philippines, many of whom were expelled in a crackdown last year.
"If we encourage refugees to come to Malaysia, all the illegals will want to come," he said.
Indonesia launched a massive operation to crush GAM separatist guerrillas on May 19 and says more than 700 rebels have been killed since then. It says 13 police and 45 soldiers have died.
Violence continues to take place in the province as the military offensive against GAM approaches its 100th day.
Soldiers had killed a total of 10 rebels since Saturday, said military spokesman Col. Ahmad Yani Basuki.
Human rights activists and other groups have questioned whether the military figures for rebel deaths also include civilians.
An estimated 30,000 troops and 10,000 police are battling the GAM, originally estimated as having 5,000 members.
The rebel movement has been fighting for the independence of the northern energy-rich NAD province on Sumatra island since 1976.