Manila sends team to Malaysia to probe deport

Manila sends team to Malaysia to probe deport

Reuters Manila

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said on Saturday she is sending an official mission to Malaysia, amid public outrage over reports authorities there mistreated deported Filipino workers and their families.

Arroyo said Monday's mission was part of an "understanding" reached with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad to ease tension between the two countries following media reports workers had fallen ill and infants had died in detention camps.

She said she talked with Mahathir by telephone on Friday.

"We came to an understanding on how best to ease the situation affecting our countrymen in Sabah," Arroyo said in a statement. "I'm sending an official mission to Kuala Lumpur on Monday to thresh out the details."

Foreign Affairs undersecretary Lauro Baja Junior said later the mission will jointly investigate with Malaysian authorities allegations of human rights violations against illegal Filipino migrants in Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo island.

He said in a radio interview a six-member Manila team would also probe the cause of the deaths of some Filipino children in Sabah.

The Malaysian government said it would take "appropriate action" if could be proved that Malaysian authorities were responsible for the deaths, Baja said.

Mahathir on Friday invited the Philippines to send officials to investigate the alleged deaths. "I'm trying to resolve this thing in a rational way, so if they say we are ill-treating the Filipinos, let them come and see," he told a news conference.

Kuala Lumpur's crackdown of an estimated 600,000 undocumented workers has enraged politicians and activists in the Philippines and Indonesia in recent days.

Activists torched pictures of Mahathir and burned the Malaysian flag in Manila on Thursday after reports said several infants had died of malnutrition and dehydration while in detention camps in Sabah or on the way home.

A Philippine newspaper reported 13 infants had died, but Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said only three of the children had died during the crackdown.

Arroyo urged the public to be calm over the issue.

"I understand the emotions generated among our people because of children having died in detention centers, the canings that are happening and other controversial events that are being covered profusely in the media," she said.

"There are also those who are trying to exploit the situation to serve their selfish ends, to erode our relations with Malaysia or to pursue political or terroristic ends inimical to the common interests of both nations.

In Indonesia, local relief workers said on Saturday nearly 50???? illegal Indonesian workers and their children have died from illness in refugee camps in the past month after they fled Malaysia.

They said the situation was a national disaster for 40,000 workers stranded in camps and around the town of Nunukan, near the Sabah border, as more workers streamed in each day to avoid tough new Malaysian labor laws.

Malaysia's government gave illegal immigrants, the majority of them Indonesians, until August 1 to leave or face penalties of six months in jail and up to six strokes of the cane.

Arroyo said suggestions by some legislators that the Philippines revive its claim on Sabah "must be firmly delinked from the issue of deportees".

"We should not taint our actions with grandstanding or diplomatic adventurism. This is not the way to resolve bilateral problems between long-standing friends," she said.