Saudi Arabia asked to open new consulates

Saudi Arabia asked to open new consulates

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia has suggested that Saudi Arabia open
consulate general offices in several regions to ease the
embassy's burden of processing documents for the annual haj.

Ahmad Gozali, the director general of Islamic and haj affairs
of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, pointed out that most of
the problems that occurred during the sending of the hundreds of
thousands of pilgrims to Mecca were caused by a lack of visas.

In order to prevent such problems from happening again, Saudi
Arabia could open consulates in Indonesia's five haj embarkation
points: Ujungpandang in South Sulawesi, Medan in North Sumatra,
Surabaya in East Java, Balikpapan in East Kalimantan and Jakarta.

The suggestion will be conveyed in a meeting between the
ministry's senior officials with Saudi Arabian Ambassador
Abdullah Abdul Rahman Alim tomorrow.

The meeting will cover, among other things, the question of
visa processing. "The visas are too great a burden for the
embassy," he said.

He pointed out that more Indonesians go on pilgrimage every
year. In 1993, 123,000 Moslems went to the Holy Land, followed in
1994 by 158,533 people and 196,000 last year. This year, a total
of 194,000 Moslems are scheduled to go.

The number of people going on umrah, a minor pilgrimage which
can be performed at other times of the year, will also steadily
increase, Ahmad said. This year alone, the Saudi Arabian embassy
processed more than 50,000 visas for this minor pilgrimage.

The load could be eased by delegating the visa processing to
consulate general offices, Ahmad said.

Meanwhile, reports about chaos in the departures of the
prospective pilgrims continued to surface yesterday. The ministry
confirmed that out of the 42 flights leaving from the five
embarkation points, 1,000 seats were left vacant.

Officials at the airports tried to deal with the problem by
scrambling the schedule of flights. Those who are supposed to
leave earlier but don't have visas yet were replaced by
prospective pilgrims from later flights who already have all of
the necessary documents.

Hundreds of would-be pilgrims in Balikpapan, including those
with complete documents, were affected by the changes.

Minister of Religious Affairs Tarmizi Taher refused to comment
about the chaotic operation. "I'm not the minister of haj. I'm
the minister of religious affairs. Go and ask the director
general," he told reporters yesterday.(01)