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.