Malaysia steps up campaign against illegal immigrants
Malaysia steps up campaign against illegal immigrants
Agencies, Kuala Lumpur/Nusa Dua, Bali
Malaysian police rounded up 3,705 people, mostly from
neighboring Indonesia and the Philippines, as it stepped up its
campaign to throw out illegal immigrants, police said on
Thursday.
The arrests were made in Sabah state on Borneo, the giant
forested island Indonesia shares with Malaysia and Brunei, and
are part of a nationwide sweep.
More than 700 squatter homes were demolished in the operation,
which was also aimed at unearthing suspected militants hiding out
in northern Borneo, police said.
Thousands of immigrants fled their homes in eastern Malaysia
to escape a massive operation aimed at deporting them and rooting
out any armed militants hiding among them.
"They are cornered," Hamdan Mohamad, police chief in Kota
Kinabalu, Sabah's capital, told The Associated Press. "We will
track them down, as this operation will continue indefinitely."
Police have screened 6,102 immigrants since the operation
began on Tuesday and 1,245 found to be illegals have been
detained, said senior police officer Mohamad Reduan Abdullah.
"This crackdown will be a continuing process until we achieve
our target of zero illegal immigrants," he told AFP from the
state capital Kota Kinabalu.
Some 4,000 personnel from police, immigration and other
government agencies are involved in the drive to rid Sabah --
which is near to the southern Philippines -- of an estimated
600,000 illegal immigrants.
The crackdown coincided with a landmark people smuggling
conference which opened in Indonesia on Wednesday.
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, who attended the
conference, appeared unfazed by Indonesian President Megawati
Soekarnoputri's complaint there that some countries were taking
unilateral action to send economic refugees to Indonesia.
"I think she is entitled to (say) what she wants to say.
Countries cannot act unilaterally. For instance, if we want to
remove people from here, we have to inform the Indonesians," Syed
Hamid told reporters on his return to Kuala Lumpur on Thursday.
Syed Hamid said his country has about one million illegal
immigrants, or 5 percent of the population.
"It is a burden on our social, economic and political
(systems)," he told reporters on the sidelines of an
international conference on people-smuggling on Indonesia's Bali
island.
Malaysia, with a population of 23 million people, has nagging
fears of being overrun by people fleeing the poverty and violence
besetting its more populous neighbors.
The country has around two million foreign workers, of whom
most are Indonesia, and more than half are illegal.
Malaysia depends on foreigners to work in factories,
plantations and construction sites, and as domestic servants.
But increased unemployment and rising crime persuaded the
government to crackdown on illegal immigrants, and Indonesians
have borne the brunt.
Malaysia last month said it would kick out hundreds of
thousands of illegals and whip any who tried to evade
deportation.
Philippine envoy to Malaysia Jose Brillantes was quoted by the
Star newspaper on Thursday as saying that Manila would speed up
the documentation for Filipinos facing deportation.
The newspaper said the authorities had also seized unspecified
"dangerous weapons" in a raid on a Filipino settlement near the
coastal town of Lahad Datu.
Meanwhile, Malaysia said on Thursday it was reviewing its
policy of granting visa-free entry to some countries after
people-smugglers took advantage of the policy to route their
Australia-bound human cargo through the country.
Indonesian and Australian officials have repeatedly identified
Malaysia as a transit point for Australia-bound Middle Eastern
asylum-seekers.
They cross the Malacca Strait by small boat to Indonesia,
where they are placed on larger boats for frequently perilous
voyages to Australia.