KUALA LUMPUR, March 20 — Former deputy defence minister Liew Chin Tong has said that he sees nothing wrong with deploying the Malaysian Armed Forces to aid the police in enforcing the Movement Control Order (MCO).
In a statement released this evening, Liew said, “We must mobilise all resources at our disposal and be prepared to step up, scale up and win this war against Covid-19.”
The MCO was announced by Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin on Monday night in a bid to stem the rate of Covid-19 infections in the country. It is to remain in place nationwide until March 31.
Liew, however, stopped short of expressing his full support for Defence Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s announcement today, stressing that since he is no longer part of the government, he is “not privy to the thinking process of the minister, so I don’t wish to speak for the minister nor defend him.”
He urged the government to leverage the armed forces’ full range of capabilities in this time of crisis and ensure that personnel are asked to do more than just conduct patrols.
“It will be really unfortunate if the government or our society at large thinks that what the armed forces could do is just patrolling.
“My key message is that as a government, as a society, and as a nation, especially in time of crisis, we need to know the full range of capabilities residing with our armed forces and deploy them most effectively,” he said.
He went on to suggest, quoting a Malay idiom “Sediakan payung sebelum hujan” (“Prepare an umbrella before it rains”), that the armed forces be asked to prepare a worst-case scenario plan in the event the Covid-19 situation deteriorates in Malaysia.
“The armed forces are almost like a “government within a government” with its medical corps, engineering corps, CBRNe (chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear explosive) unit etc. All assets can be deployed in the event of crisis.
“The primary role of the armed forces is to prepare and to fight war. ‘Military Operations Other Than War’ (MOOTW), such as disaster relief, is the armed forces’ secondary role.
“The armed forces are trained to deal with all sorts of contingencies and provide possible responses, of course, under the guidance and instruction of the civilian authorities,” he said.
Liew then mooted some roles that the armed forces could play should the crisis deepen, such as assisting civilian authorities if there is a need for a more intense version of the MOC; using military hospitals to supplement public hospital capacities; and building temporary structures for emergency use.
Ismail said today that the armed forces will be deployed to support the police in enforcing the MCO.
His announcement came a few hours before the Health Ministry confirmed that Covid-19 cases in the country had surged above 1,000.
People have been told to stay at home and all schools and most businesses have closed, while Malaysians are barred from travelling overseas and foreigners from entering the country.
But some have been ignoring the measures introduced this week, with people still going for walks in parks and eating out.
The police had originally been tasked with enforcing the restrictions, but Ismail said the Armed orces would be brought in from Sunday.
