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.