I want to commend journalists Farrah Naz Karim and Aliza Shah for their brave investigative work on the Wang Kelian death camp. (Source: https://www.nst.com.my/news/exclusive/2017/12/316339/exclusive-secrets-wang-kelian-exposed)
This latest revelation by the NST journalists corroborated with what has been known and highlighted before this, whether by international reports, local NGOs and the opposition, including myself.
The key issue is the involvement of what I called, insiders syndicate, in human trafficking and other immigration violations in Malaysia.
While the police and authorities often expressed surprise at the discoveries of death camps, including as pointed out by the NST exposé, in the case of Wang Kelian, nearby villagers as well as NGOs such as Tenaganita have long known of the existence of such sites.
As early as 2009, a report by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee revealed the involvement of government officials in human trafficking activities in Malaysia. The report alleged “Malaysian government officials” as being involved in the “trafficking and extortion of Burmese and other migrants in Malaysia and from Malaysia into Thailand for personal profit”. The report referred to these government officials as, RELA voluntary corp, immigration and police officers.
In 2015, Deputy Inspector General of Police, Noor Rashid Ibrahim was reported by the media as saying, the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) did not rule out the possibility of “insider” involvement in the intricate network of human trafficking and human smuggling in the Malaysia-Thai border.
NST in 2015 also exposed a report by the Special Branch of the RMP stating 80% of our border guards are “on the take”.
Government’s inaction has allowed the situation to degenerate into this horrible state.
Nothing less than a Royal Commission of Inquiry is sufficient
While Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Home-Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has said that “there will be no closing of the Wang Kelian file” and investigation will go on, nothing short of a Royal Commission of Inquiry is sufficient at this point.
It is not as if there were no investigations before this. On 20 March 2017, the Home Minister when replying to my question in Parliament said that, all 12 policemen detained under anti-trafficking laws in relation to the discovery of the Wang Kelian migrant death camp at the Malaysia-Thai border were released due to lack of strong evidence against them.
While I do not want to jump the gun on these officials, it is clear that such death camp, with almost 200 graves discovered and known to locals in the surrounding areas, cannot exist outside the knowledge of those in authorities. In the end only three foreigners were sentenced in relation to Wang Kelian!
Clearly, insiders in cohort are still roaming free and are still actively committing their outrageous crime. Today, NST report confirmed this point.
We are talking about the compromise of our country’s borders by government and law enforcement officials, hundreds have died and hundreds of thousands more have become victims of human trafficking through Malaysia.
I have called for the total reform of our immigration process and Immigration Department through the creation of such Royal Commission but this has so far fallen on the government’s deaf ears.
If a Royal Commission can be established to investigate forex loses over 25 years ago, surely it is more critical to have a Royal Commission on Immigration, a current and pressing issue on our border security with grave implications on human lives and our Malaysian society.