Stateless Chinese take advantage of amnesty
JAKARTA (JP): Almost 1,000 stateless Chinese in three West Jakarta's districts have applied for citizenship since the start of an amnesty aimed at settling the status of residents who are without documentation.
The drive, which started a week ago, focuses specifically on the Chinese population who are without any formal citizenship. Current estimates put their number in the city at well over 25,000.
In Tamansari district, for example, some 500 of an estimated 5,000 stateless Chinese have registered for the citizenship documents as of yesterday.
In Tambora, where an estimated 5,500 Chinese are living without papers, 380 have already applied for citizenship at the district office.
In Grogol Petamburan, where there are believed to be nearly 1,000 unregistered, about 100 have applied for their papers.
Officials in the three district offices said yesterday they expected to see more Chinese applying in the upcoming weeks. The documentation amnesty will remain open until October.
Eddy Sukirman, head of West Jakarta Social and Politic Affairs office, said last week that of the recorded 27,500 in the city who do not have citizenship, almost half of them live in the mayoralty of West Jakarta.
After being registered, each person who qualifies can apply for Indonesian citizenship, while the rest will be given documents to confirm their foreign citizenship.
However, naturalization is still a long way off once the application for citizenship is approved. To be naturalized, each person has to obtain more than a dozen documents, including a birth certificate, a document certifying loyalty to the nation and good conduct papers.
Several Chinese without documentation in the Tamansari and Grogol Petamburan districts were interviewed by The Jakarta Post. They said they had wanted to apply for citizenship for a long time. However, they said that they were unable to do so because, in the past, they would have had to pay more than Rp 1 million just to apply for citizenship.
T.M. Pardede, head of the assimilation agency at the Directorate General of Social and Politic Affairs of the Ministry of Home Affairs, said last week that registration was free of charge.
Pardede asked the stateless Chinese who have already registered to tell two friends each about the registration.
The ongoing registration covers all stateless Chinese, including those who have lived here for one generation but have not yet been naturalized, as well as those classified as "post - PP 10/1959."
The PP 10/1959 is a government regulation issued in 1959, requiring all ethnic Chinese to choose either Chinese or Indonesian citizenship.
The people of Chinese descent who are considered stateless are those who do not have either Chinese or Indonesian citizenship. The suspension of diplomatic ties between the People's Republic of China and Indonesia, in the wake of the 1965 aborted communist coup, made it impossible for Chinese residents to apply for Chinese citizenship. However, ties with China were restored in 1990. (11)