Sabah’s 400 islands need urgent
attention over security
The
Defence Minister Hishammuddin was speaking after launching the Eastern and
Western Fleet base in conjunction with the Royal Malaysian Navy's 83rd
anniversary held at the Sepanggar Naval Base here, on Thursday 27th
April, 2017.
Also
present was Navy Chief Admiral Tan Sri Tan Sri Ahmad Kamarulzaman Ahmad
Badaruddin, among others.
"The
list of assets we have set in Sabah, what our plans are for the security of
Sabah, all this has nothing to do with politics. We consider Sabah as part of
Malaysia and we will defend every inch of Sabah by any power available to
us," said Hishammuddin, who is also Special Functions Minister.
The Navy chief Admiral Ahmad
said "We will improve in terms of
capabilities, manpower and also assets, but it will be implemented in stages."
"We can see, the existing vessels
we have anchored in front of us, which also directly ensure that we provide the
best response to ensure the safety of Sabah and Sarawak's waters.
"However, the responsibility should be shared by everyone, people
can play a role by being our eyes and ears so that information can be delivered
quickly and accurately," Ahmad said.
I think every Malaysian especially Malaysians/Sabahans in Sabah are very
concerned about the security in Sabah not only in Esszone but the whole of
Sabah especially what we learned from those threatening demographic development
in Sabah for decades in the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants
Sabah (RCI IIS).
It is known Sabah has 400 islands around our coast of various sizes with
the bigger ones of up to 600 acres. The
transient residents of these islands and many hundreds of thousands of “Trojan horses”
within mainland Sabah could really pose grave security hazards to the State for
sometimes already. Some of these islands
could be transit points for the criminals including fishing intruders from the
neighbouring countries.
The level of threats from the transient residents in those island is
unknown at the moment. But search for
some information in websites produced a disturbing important message. Mengalum
Island was in the news spotlight recently this year for a sunken Catamaran with
28 Chinese tourists and 3 crews. A search
for that island came out with a message that Mengalum Island is not a tourist
resort. Also the message dated 8
November, 2014 ** left by a foreign tourist exposed that “We were not allowed to swim in the
ocean due to sting rays and there was not a designated swim area. We were told
it could be dangerous to wander too far down the beach and not to go out of
sight of staff due to the Philippine fishermen living on the other side of the
island.”
It is better to be cautious rather than complacent, and so
I urge the navy and MMEA to ensure if all our islands are safe without dubious
people occupying such islands? Also some
quarters have told me the outlying islands in the west coast of Sabah are
occupied by “outsiders”. Isn’t Gaya
Island so near to KK city also occupied by dubious citizens as squatters houses
may have “mushroomed” again?
Would the prevailing naval assets be adequate to deal with
400 islands in Sabah?
Joshua Y. C Kong, 1 May, 2017
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