(AFP) The Indonesian government has sent two officials here to try to help solve the problem of rioting Indonesian workers, Manpower Minister Jacob Nuwa Wea said today.

"One is a director from the manpower ministry and the other is a former labor attache there," Nuwa Wea told journalists in Jakarta after a cabinet meeting, adding that they left on Monday.

The Indonesian government, he said, would provide an adequate legal defence for any Indonesian worker facing legal action. He also urged Malaysia not to act indiscriminately against Indonesian workers there, saying that not all were law-breakers.

"If I may suggest, if need be to repatriate them, only those guilty should be repatriated and not all," Nuwa Wea said.

Nuwa Wea reiterated that the Indonesian government had apologised to the Malaysian government and would closely screen would-be overseas workers in future.

Top security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the government would "review and improve the policy of sending workers abroad, including the process of selection".

Diplomatic channels

He said he believed only a small group was involved and Jakarta was trying through diplomatic channels to dissuade the Malaysian government from expanding the issue to cover all Indonesian workers.

Some 400 Indonesians staged the protest at a textile factory in Negeri Sembilan on Jan 17 after police tried to detain 16 of their co-workers for drug abuse.

A total of 125 Indonesian textile workers have been arrested after the riot in which police vehicles were overturned and officers stoned.

Negeri Sembilan state police chief Mohamed Yunos Othman has said they face deportation.

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has said the government would review recruitment of foreign workers and give priority to those from countries other than Indonesia.

Malaysia is home to some 700,000 foreign workers, mainly from Indonesia, as well as hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.

Just three days after the riot, about 70 Indonesian construction workers armed with machetes went on the rampage and damaged food stalls run by fellow Indonesians at Cyberjaya.

In December more than 2,000 illegal immigrants, including 1,560 Indonesians, rioted at a detention centre and torched a section of their quarters to escape deportation.