Sajakkini

Salbiah Ahmad

It was the right thing to do, to put off the end of amnesty for undocumented migrants on Dec 31 last year after the Dec 26 tsunami tragedy.

Thus it seemed odd that Najib Razak tagged the initial postponement to a specific request from the Indonesian government. He was acceding to that request to “show that we sympathise with the calamity the Indonesian people and government face.”

Surely nobody would question Malaysia for that decision. Malaysia herself suffered casualties and devastation in her northern states. It would have appeared more gracious as the right thing to do without prompting from any quarter. Najib’s approach implies that, if not for the request, Malaysia has no qualms whatsoever to arrest, detain and punish the “illegals”.

Najib’s sympathy for the people and government of Indonesia (and other tsunami-hit countries in the region) however has run dry after barely a month. He postponed the end of amnesty on Dec 30. On Jan 22, he announced the end of amnesty on Feb 1.

SALBIAH AHMAD is a lawyer and an independent researcher. MALAYA! as the name for this column was inspired by the meaning of ‘Malaya’ in Tagalog which means freedom. The events at the end of 1998 in KL offer a new inspiration. MALAYA! takes o­n the process of reclaiming the many facets of independence.

In earlier reports, Malaysia would deploy more than half a million police, immigration officers and ‘neighbourhood security groups’ to track and detain the estimated 1.2 million undocumented migrants who are mainly from Indonesia and the Philippines.

Volunteer groups would be armed with batons and handcuffs while officers would carry a pistol. This is considered an “ominous” move by human rights and humanitarian groups. Volunteers would receive minimal training by enforcement officers, which included the national registration department officials, and receive cash rewards for each migrant arrested.

Fear of vigilantism is not unfounded. There are other legitimate public concerns. We had a tragic incident recently where an unlicensed video-seller was critically injured by a trigger-happy enforcement officer. A near tsunami-like wave of disaster might just await us come Feb 1.

Protection letters torn

We have no information of the nature of training given to the half a million enforcers unleashed on Feb 1. Groups working on forced migration and refugee concerns have documented the inability of enforcement officers including police to comprehend and respect the papers of migrant workers and protection letters for refugees issued by the UNHCR.

There are documented incidents where UNHCR protection letters were torn by police, refugees arrested and charged under immigration laws. “Illegals” face jail sentences of up to five years and whipping under Malaysia’s immigration law.

Abdullah Badawi appears to have a more humanitarian sense of what’s to be done. On Jan 7, he told BBC in Jakarta that he spoke to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, “that if it became necessary for us to delay some more, then we will do that.”

In that interview, Pak Lah also said that, “Our priority is that we would like President Susilo and his government to concentrate on rehabilitating Aceh and the Acehnese. There has to be a lot of things done.” A day earlier, Pak Lah at the Asean Leaders’ meeting on Jan 6 assured Susilo that Malaysia is ready to play a major role in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the tsunami-hit countries.

The dead in Aceh is currently estimated between 140,000 to 170,000 and relief efforts alone, not including rehabilitation and reconstruction may stretch until March.

Malaysia has official problems in recognizing Acehnese as refugees. In her last official visit to Kuala Lumpur before she lost the presidency, Megawati Sukarno Puteri claimed that Acehnese are not refugees but economic migrants.

For the record, Aceh has seen some 30 years of military operations. The Indonesian military (TNI) which terrorized Timor Leste before its independence was sent off to Aceh. Martial law which was imposed in 2003 morphed into “civil emergency” rule in 2004. The TNI continues to gun down “separatists” of the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka. We have no reliable reports of civilian casualties of this continuing military operation in post-tsunami Aceh.

End militarization

In the aftermath of the tsunami, President Susilo has been hard-pressed by aid workers, human rights and humanitarian groups both locally and abroad to stop the military operations and end militarization of Aceh.

Thus on the one hand, we put a humanitarian face to tsunami-hit Aceh and on the other, we are sending Indonesian migrants, a good proportion of whom are Acehnese asylum seekers and refugees, packing or face our incarceration and whipping laws as “illegals”.

One speculates if the UN decision to choose Singapore over Malaysia as the regional coordination centre for UN efforts of post-tsunami reconstruction, has anything to do with our state of affairs, including our policy on forced migration and refugee concerns.

But the question is, do we have a policy on forced migration/displacement and refugee concerns? Criminalising “illegals” is not a policy. Refugee concerns and asylum are not mere immigration issues.

Malaysia has always been at the crossroads of migration. More than 800 years ago, migrants from China and as far as the Moghul-Turkish (Pax-Turcica) empire as well as the archipelago have come to our shores as emissaries of their great empires, as merchants, seafarers, mercenaries, refugees and settlers.

The most famous refugee was Parameswara. He found a safe haven in Singa-pura (he renamed it from Temasek) of Johor-Riau Lingga before settling in Melaka in 1403. He married a princess from Pasai, Sumatra and took on the name Megat Iskandar Shah.

The journal of the Royal Malaysian Asiatic Society for example, has myriad accounts of migration and political intrigues of the ‘nations’ of Bugis, Aceh, Siak and several others on our shores since time immemorial.If the truth and history be acknowledged, we are in fact, a nation of migrants with perhaps the exception of the orang asli and orang asal.

Informed policy needed

The more honest and humanitarian thing to do - the right thing, is perhaps not the end of amnesty or an extension thereof and ding-donging between an end and an extension.

We need an informed policy on forced migration and displacement. Migration in our past history is of course different from migration today. Third world countries have hosted 80 per cent of the world’s refugee population.

The absence of comprehensive international, regional and sub-regional arrangements to ensure that states and the local population do not become overburdened by migration and refugee emergencies, has exacerbated the problem.

Whether we like it or not, the dilemma is addressed only by the elaboration of effective policies that promote effective migration management, while ensuring respect for the basic human rights of non- citizens.

Malaysia has taken an important first step in the case of Burmese Rohingyas. We can develop the principles from this experience to build a comprehensive national non-differential treatment of all those who are forcibly displaced.

I see no reason why Malaysia should not score a first in initiating a regional response to these concerns.

Migrant workers: Do the right thing