Inverted flags, illegal migrants: how Malaysia-Indonesia ties took a turn for the worse

With promises of higher wages and easy work, an agent lured Abu Bakar, 36, and his wife from their village on the island of Madura, off the coast of East Java. The agent delivered them, without a work visa, to a fruit processing factory just minutes from Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, and took their passports. That was four years ago.

After paying for rent, food and cigarettes – Bakar’s only indulgence – he and his wife, Puniyati, 33, who washes clothes for a few hours a day, are left with about 500 ringgit (HK$915) each month. That is roughly what Bakar would have earned on Madura. Most of what is left he sends home to his son. But because he and his wife have no proof they are entitled to be in Malaysia, they are easy pickings for thugs and even uniformed police.

Bakar says he has been detained and beaten for money, which he pays to avoid further trouble. The abuse has taken a toll. Bakar says all he and his wife want is to go home.

“I have nothing left here. Only surrender,” Bakar says. “I want to go home but I can’t afford it.”

Relations between Indonesia and Malaysia can be fraught at the best of times. When hosting the recently concluded Southeast Asian Games, Malaysian officials inverted the red and white of Indonesia’s flag on a pamphlet distributed at the opening ceremony. Social media lit up with #ShameOnYouMalaysia and #GanyangMalaysia, a reference to the hostility between the countries during the Sukarno era of the early 1960s.

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The flow of migrant workers has become a sore point in relations, and that wound risks reopening after Malaysia rounded up thousands of undocumented workers last month. Activists claim a new round of deportations is imminent.