Malaysia’s border problems

Around that time federal authorities, against protests from Perlis state, closed the Wang Kelian-Wang Prachan cross border market which draws thousands of local tourists each week to take shop on the Thai side without the need to show documentation. Wang Kelian has gone from once-bustling to a ghost town with a great cost on local Perlis tourism.

Squatters are also encroaching the Wang Kelian State Forest, cutting virgin forest for small-scale farming. Border patrol and forestry department personnel have tended to leave them alone rather than enforce the park’s integrity due to political patronage.

Padang and Sadao CIQ Complexes often experience traffic jams due to the rapidly increasing volume at these border crossings. Immigration computers often fail, requiring officers to manually process transit documents. Extended observation by Asia Sentinel found that only about one in 10 vehicles go through formal immigration controls, unless there is a departmental blitz.

There is a huge amount of duplication of border security responsibilities. The police General Operations Force (GOF) and the Border Security Agency (AKsem) overlap. Also operating in the area are the army, customs and the Ministry of Domestic Trade. Rather than being complementary, these agencies don’t cooperate, and even compete. The AKsem commander for Perlis Syed Basri Syed Ali recently complained to a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Wang Kelian transit camps that his agency needs permission to access the immediate border areas.

The border fence between Padang Besar and Dannok in Kedah was put up by a company linked to former Perlis Chief Minister Shahidan Kassim in the late 1990s and is now in poor repair. It has been sporadically patched from the Malaysian side. Last year Malaysian army personnel accompanied by surveyors from the Department of Survey and Mapping Malaysia (JUPEM) who traveled to the Thai side found that the fence is inside Malaysian territory by 5-15 meters, ceding 50-odd ha. of Malaysian territory to Thailand. Unresolved discussions have ensued.

The Malaysian-Thai border in Perak mostly winds its way through mountainous virgin jungle that is a natural habitat for both elephants and tigers. The Perak government has issued secret permits for well-connected companies to log the area and plant oil palm. The remoteness and clandestine nature of awarding logging permits has kept the issue out of the media.

In Kelantan, most of the Malaysian-Thai border is delineated by the narrow Golok River, traditionally a connection between communities north and south. Many Thais illegally cross in the morning to work in Malaysia and return home in the afternoons. Malaysians illegally travel across to go shopping. Rice and cigarettes are smuggled to Malaysia and flour, diesel, petrol and cooking oil are smuggled unheeded back to Thailand.

Sungei Golok is also a transit point for the narcotics trade. Malay insurgents involved in the Thai deep south insurgency also use the Malaysian side to evade Thai authorities. A survey last year found that at least 135 illegal jetties adjoin houses along the river, openly used for human trafficking staging points.

East Malaysia

The logging of rainforests in Sabah and Sarawak along the Brunei and Indonesian borders to make way for palm oil production has made international news and there are current campaigns against this. Last year Indonesian troops encroached into Sarawak and held a number of Malaysians captive in a remote part of the Sarawak-Kalimantan border. That border is the major transit point into the country for illegal migrants, with as many as 60,000 illegal immigrants into Sabah receiving identity cards, known as MyKads, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in the past has welcomed the border-crossings, saying illegal immigrants long resident in Malaysia should not be barred from citizenship. Opposition critics denounced the practice, charging they supplied illegal voters to the United Malays National Organization and tip the ethnic balance in Sabah and Sarawak, which traditionally have been home to sea tribes who mostly converted to Christianity or retained animist beliefs.

There are regular kidnappings in the Sulu Sea region by both pirates and Abu Sayyaf. Piracy and trespassing fishing boats are a major problem in the East Sabah region. There have been criticisms of ESSCom, the agency set up to deal with border problems in the region and some local politicians argue that a massive reorganization of border protection resources is urgently required.

Perhaps one of the most distressing issues in Eastern Sabah is the plight of the stateless Bajau Laut people. They are not entitled to citizenship under current Malaysian laws, thus have no legal rights and consequently are bullied and kept under curfew by Malaysian authorities.

In the South China Sea itself, Malaysian authorities have to deal with a military build-up in a region that is very quickly becoming one of the most militarily contested in the world. Other urgent issues are cost overruns and technical problems of building the Pan Borneo Expressway, and causeway congestion on the Malaysia-Singapore border.

Mahathir Mohamed is well aware Malaysia’s borders are porous, a massive national security problem, and should be made a defense priority. Law enforcement on the Malaysian-Thai border is crucial to the country’s international reputation on human trafficking. A massive reorganization of border protection agencies is needed. Many things along the border are happening outside the law and Malaysia must decide whether the resources of the nation are for an elite few or whether its agencies will properly apply the rule of law.