INDONESIA SPEEDS UP RISKY EVACUATION OF MIGRANT WORKERS FROM SYRIA by Fardah

    Jakarta, Jan 5, 2013 (ANTARA) - As armed conflicts escalate in Syria, the Indonesian government has declared Damascus a dangerous place for its citizens, who primarily are employed as migrant workers, and requested that they leave the country immediately.

         "Syria is a dangerous place. This is the reason we have declared a state of emergency in Damascus. The Indonesian government has ordered Indonesian citizens to leave Syria. The government has requested its citizens to go to Lebanon," said the Chief of Economic, Information and Socio-cultural Functions at the Indonesian embassy in Beirut, Ahmad Syofian, on December 26, 2012.

         The Indonesian foreign affairs ministry announced last December that the government was accelerating the repatriation of its citizens from Syria to Lebanon and, later, to Indonesia due to the deteriorating situation in Syria.

         "The worsening security situation in Syria has made the government act to immediately bring its citizens out of Syria," the ministry's director of information and media, PLE Priatna, said on December 27, 2012.

         According to the ministry, the number of Indonesians being accommodated in the embassy in Damascus has reached more than 600 people, and it is predicted to increase further because of the fighting.    
    Further, the Indonesian NGO, Migrant Care, reports that about 7,000 Indonesian migrant workers remain in Syria.

         The Indonesian government had earlier repatriated at least 633 Indonesian citizens in Syria, via the Damascus-Beirut-Jakarta route.

         Indonesian ambassador to Lebanon Dimas Samodra Rum said he was ready to welcome the arrival of Indonesians from Syria and has prepared space in the embassy to accommodate them. He said the embassy would also, if necessary,  rent an apartment for the evacuees.

         "The embassy resources would be fully exploited to help the process of repatriation in line with the directives. The repatriation has become the priority of the embassy in Beirut," he said.

         Dimas said 156 citizens arrived in Beirut on December 24, while 70 of them were sent home on December 26, and 128 others arrived from Syria on December 28.

         The coordinator for Citizens Repatriation Efforts at the embassy in Beirut, RA. Arief, said the evacuation process in Lebanon has been smooth.  He added that providing food for arriving Indonesians has also been arranged.     
    However, the latest decision by the government to only evacuate Indonesian nationals from Syria after the situation became extremely dangerous has been criticized by Migrant Care officials. 
    Indonesian migrant workers in Syria have not been safe because the government has been too slow in handling evacuation efforts, Wahyu Susilo, a policy analyst for Migrant Care, said in Jakarta on January 4, 2013.

         The fact that the government did not immediately evacuate all workers from Syria when the crisis began, has indicated that the government was very slow in acting, he stated.

         The NGO had earlier urged Garuda Indonesia to help evacuate workers from Syria during the recent hajj pilgrimage, but this call was ignored by authorities, he said.

         Migrant Care also urged the government to immediately evacuate all remaining Indonesian migrant workers from Syria amidst escalating tensions in the conflict-torn country.

         "The government must have the courage to conduct a mass evacuation of its migrant workers from Syria immediately, as the Philippines did. Although it is risky to conduct such a mission now," he urged.

         Since the conflict broke out in Syria, the Indonesian government has set up a team to look after the needs of its citizens and migrant workers living there.

         The Indonesian embassy has also stationed officials in conflict areas, such as Homs, Hama and Daraa, in order to evacuate Indonesian citizens or migrant workers.

         Last year's data from the National Agency for Manpower Placement and Protection (BNP2TKI) showed that there were 11,760 Indonesian migrant workers in Syria, most of whom (11,559) were domestic workers, while the remaining 201 were formal sector workers.

         Many Indonesians, mostly migrant workers, were reportedly still trapped in the violence-ravaged Syrian towns of Homs, Hama, and Allepo.

         "Repatriation is going on. Of around 12,000 Indonesians in Syria, 233 have been repatriated safely to Indonesia this year. About 108 more Indonesians are already gathered at our embassy in Damascus, ready to leave the country as soon as the administration process in Syria is finished," Marty told the press on June 11, 2012.

         Due to the worsening situation in Syria, the Indonesian government stopped sending workers to Syria on August 9, 2011.

         Due to the fighting that is raging between the Syrian government and opposition groups, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono repeatedly expressed his concerns, and called for the deployment of UN peacemaking force to immediately stop the violence and restore peace in the region.

         In order to stop the bloodshed in Syria, President Yudhoyono added, the UN should immediately form a peacekeeping mission composed of defence forces from the five permanent members of the UN Security Council - the US, Russia, France, China and the UK.

         He explained that the main objective of the effort must not be to replace or support President Bashar al Assad`s regime, but to restore peace in Syria. He also delivered this  proposal to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon during a telephone call last year.

         "I believe the situation in Syria is already similar to that of a civil war. So, Indonesia really hopes the UN Security Council could immediately broker a ceasefire," Yudhoyono said, during a press conference on July 19, 2012.

         The Syrian uprising, by those originally calling for modest reforms, began in February 2011. Since then, however, armed conflicts between security forces and opposition groups seeking to topple President Bashar al-Assad have escalated.

         A study commissioned by UN human rights commissioner Navi Pillay collated data from seven different sources and concluded that there had been 59,648 deaths as of November 2012, the BBC reported on January 2, 2013.

         Pillay said the number of deaths has since risen to above 60,000 and described the bloodshed as "truly shocking". ***1***
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