Vale Brother Hanafi Rustandi

Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Paddy Crum­lin and Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary of MUNZ Joe Fleet­wood sadly report that friend and com­rade of the MUA, MUNZ and the ITF and long term lead­er of the Indone­sian Sea­farers Uni­on and ITF Asia Pacific chair Hanafi Rus­tandi has passed away sud­denly in Tokyo where the ITF Dock­ers and Sea­farers nego­ti­at­ing team is meet­ing with Inter­na­tion­al shipown­ers to final­ize the IBF inter­na­tion­al agree­ment. 

Broth­er Hanafi was found by MUNZ Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Joe Fleet­wood who was in the next room at the hotel and he and com­rade Crum­lin were in attend­ance for the attempt to revive him over the next hour.

Hanafi was a reg­u­lar attendee of the MUA Nation­al Coun­cil, Quad­ren­ni­al Con­fer­ence of mem­bers and Branch Con­fer­ences par­tic­u­larly in West­ern Aus­tralia along with attend­ance at MUNZ exec­ut­ives and con­fer­ences.

He was a fierce sup­port­er of Aus­trali­an and NZ Sea­farers right to work and in par­tic­u­lar inter­vened on a num­ber of occa­sions to ensure off­shore ves­sels work­ing out of Indone­sia in Aus­trali­an waters were manned by Aus­trali­an crews. He firmly rejec­ted any attempt by off­shore oper­at­ors to replace Aus­trali­an crews with his or any oth­er nations sea­farers. He worked closely with Com­rade Fleet­wood and MUNZ in fight­ing the wage slavery in the inter­na­tion­al fish­ing industry, par­tic­u­larly in NZ.

A long time uni­on offi­cial, his shout of Fight from the Front was well known around the world. He was well recog­niz­able every­where in his MUA T‑shirt mak­ing that call dur­ing the Your Rights at Work  cam­paign against the Howard gov­ern­ment.

The Nation­al Sec­ret­ary and Pres­id­ent of the ITF, togeth­er with MUNZ Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Joe Fleet­wood and ITF Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Steve Cot­ton have exten­ded their, the uni­ons and ITF officers staff and affil­i­ates deep­est sym­path­ies to his wife and fam­ily and the officers staff and mem­bers of the KPI as well as his many broth­ers and sis­ters world wide, par­tic­u­larly in the ITF.

Vale Broth­er Hanafi, small in stature and giant at heart. Sea­farer, trade uni­on­ist, labor lead­er and internationalist.Much loved. Man of humour, deep faith and fam­ily. Now at rest after Fight­ing from the Front to his last.