Susilo sees off first group of pilgrims to Saudi Arabia

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta, Surabaya

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono officially sent off on Sunday the first group of Indonesian haj pilgrims to Mecca, Saudi Arabia from Soekarno Hatta International Airport, marking the start of the annual tradition.

A total of 204,578 people, divided into 480 batches, have been registered to go on the haj pilgrimage from the country during the 2005 haj season, compared to 205,000 people last year.

The pilgrims will depart from nine embarkation points -- Jakarta, Bandung, Surakarta, Surabaya, Medan and Makassar. The last group will leave for Mecca on Dec. 25 from Batam.

This year's pilgrimage will likely still by haunted by the stampede tragedy in Mina, near Mecca, that resulted in the deaths of 52 Indonesians earlier this year.

However, the government here has assured people that it would provide better service for the pilgrims, and better attention and supervision so that last year's incident would not happen again.

Minister of Religious Affairs Maftuh Basyuni, who was also present at the sending-off ceremony, said no officials from the Ministry were allowed to go, unlike most previous years.

"We prevented them because we feared their presence would make them unable to pay equal attention to the pilgrims," Maftuh said as quoted by Antara as saying.

With the decision, he said the haj officials should be able to focus more on the pilgrims.

He appointed former Minister of Religious Affairs Tolchah Hasan as the amirul haj or haj leader, assisted by two expert staff members from the Ministry and one secretary from the Presidential staff.

By reducing the number of officials from the Ministry, the government now has extra funds to provide two free meals each day during their stay in Medina.

"Since it is important to have enough strength to pray in Medina, we provide two meals a day at no cost," Maftuh said.

The head of one of the haj pilgrimage recruitment agencies in Jakarta, Sueb Sholeh said he was delighted that the government decided to cut the seats for government officials.

"It's better if they allocate the money for extra food, instead of giving several seats to some obscure government officials," he said.

According to Sueb, this year's haj season is supposed to have a better system, but there has been no significant change compared to the previous years.

Meanwhile in Surabaya, around 450 pilgrims departing from the Juanda International Airport were seen off by East Java Governor Imam Utomo.

Like previous haj seasons, the government has chartered planes from national flag-carrier Garuda Indonesia and from Saudi Arabian Airlines to carry the pilgrims to and from Mecca.

These first groups are scheduled to arrive back in Indonesia on Jan. 27, 2005 while the last group will arrive on Feb. 23, 2005.