Joint border guard posts to be moved

Joint border guard posts to be moved

KUALA LUMPUR (Antara): Indonesia and Malaysia will move the locations of their joint border guard posts in Borneo to spots where according to their present security interests close surveillance is more needed, reports here said.

Malaysian Army Commander Gen. Md Hashim Hussein was reported saying in Kuching, the joint border guard posts needed to be moved because ever since the communist menace in Malaysia had ceased, their role had changed.

"We must follow every new development, and accordingly, we will soon determine the posts' new locations," he said after launching a joint Indonesian-Malaysian military exercise dubbed Kekar Malindo 2000 at Penrissen, Kuching, Sarawak on Tuesday.

He said there were now two joint security posts on the border between the Eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak and Indonesia's West Kalimantan province, namely at Biawak and Lubok Antu. The two posts would bemoved to yet undetermined new locations, he said.

The Kekar Malindo 2000 joint exercise which would last until Aug. 5 involves 237 military men, 147 from Malaysia and the rest from Indonesia.

Hashim said the two countries had been holding joint exercises annually for the past 27 years with the main purpose of keeping up good coordination between their military forces.

Indonesian Deputy Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Endrea Tono Sutarto, meanwhile, said the exercise would strengthen military relations between the two countries.