KUALA LUMPUR, May 10 — A Sabah lawmaker today proposed that the state government form a ministry with broad powers to specifically deal with the state’s porous maritime borders, especially after the recent spate of abductions in the territory.
Suggesting for it to be named the Ministry of Homeland Security, Immigration and Registration, Bingkor assemblyman Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan said it is time for the state to be given full control of security after Putrajaya’s repeated failures.
“This homeland security should take charge of Sabah immigration, Sabah national registration, state police and labour including foreign workers,” he said in a statement.
Kitingan’s call comes at a time when the state’s East Sabah Security command, or Esscom, is struggling to deal with a recent string of incursions, with the latest being two separate kidnappings of Chinese nationals and a high-seas robbery by pirates.
The Star Sabah chairman, who has been a staunch proponent of greater state autonomy, argued that the “ad-hoc” solutions following each reported intrusion were only reactionary and did not deal with the root cause of the issue — which he claimed had everything to do with illegal immigrants and the so-called “Project IC”.
Kitingan claimed that Project IC — allegedly orchestrated by former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed to artificially raise Bumiputera Muslim numbers in Sabah by granting citizenship to illegal immigrants — provided an opening for criminal elements to establish strong intelligence networks for their cross border operations.
Kitingan also alleged that today’s pirates and kidnappers operating out of the south Philipppines are the by-product of what he described as misguided support by Malaysia for Muslim separatist rebels seeking to establish an autonomous Muslim state separate from the Catholic-majority ruling class in the North.
“Now, would-be-kidnappers, who may well be ‘Malaysians’ operating within our borders, can easily collaborate with their countrymen outside our borders. They are familiar with our borders and the loopholes in our security system.
“They probably have better intelligence than our own security. Does our intelligence know who their next targets are?” he said.
Esscom has come under heavy criticism of late, with state lawmakers from both side of the divide demanding that it be scrapped for failing to keep the state’s waters safe.
The Kota Kinabalu Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry also called for Esscom to be disbanded and replaced, saying the continued security breach by armed militants at Sabah’s borders will deal a huge blow to the state’s economy.
On Tuesday, five armed raiders abducted Zailin Yang, 34, a Chinese manager of a fish farm near a coastal town at Pulau Baik, Lahad Datu and fired at Malaysian security forces before successfully escaping into Philippine waters.
On April 2, gunmen believed to be Filipino militants descended on a resort in Semporna and abducted two women, 29-year-old Chinese tourist Gao Hua Yuan and 40-year-old Filipino resort employee Marcy Dayawan.
The two remain hostages. The kidnappers have made ransom demands for Gao.
Esscom was established following the invasion of Sulu militants in Lahad Datu last year.
The unit is responsible to keep tabs on the 1,400km of the eastern coast of Sabah ranging from Kudat to Tawau.
Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim has repeatedly defended Esscom’s performance, saying the recent tourist abductions there were a “transnational crime” and not “intrusions”.
