SABAH: POROUS BORDERS; PROBLEMS WITH FOREIGNERS; UNHAPPY UMNO COALITION PARTNER

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KUALA LUMPUR 001948

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR EAP/MTS, DS/ATA AND DS/IP/ITA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/12/2016
TAGS: PHUM PREL PGOV PINR KDEM KISL SMIG ASEC MY
SUBJECT: SABAH: POROUS BORDERS; PROBLEMS WITH FOREIGNERS; UNHAPPY UMNO COALITION PARTNER

REF: A. KUALA LUMPUR 1862

B. KUALA LUMPUR 1935

Classified By: Political Section Chief Mark D. Clark for reasons 1.4 (b
, d).

Summary
--------------


1. (C) The police, political leaders, a human rights official
in the East Malaysia state of Sabah recently expressed their
concerns to us about rising crime and the security impact
from the high number of foreigners - both legal and illegal -
residing in the state. Sabah's Acting Police Commissioner
said illegal migrants and other foreigners committed three
out of four violent crimes in the state, but he did not
address terrorist threats or transnational crime syndicates.
On other issues, a Sabah state minister from Prime Minister
Abdullah Badawi's political party, UMNO, criticized the PM's
intellectual capacity and said the PM's inner circle gives
him "bad advice." The minister predicted the UMNO national
assembly in November would be "a timid affair." One of the
16 commissioners from Malaysia's government-funded national
human rights commission (Suhakam) told us the government
views Suhakam as "a pest." Seconding other comments from the
Suhakam commissioner about the large influx of foreigners
into Sabah, two state assemblymen expressed trepidation about
the state's security situation. The pending U.S. Border
Control Assessment Initiative (ref A) will assist our efforts
to better understand the security ramifications of Sabah's
porous borders and identify ways the U.S. can assist. End
Summary.

Police Face Challenges from Criminals - And Parliament
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2. (C) Sabah's Acting Police Commissioner, Mohd Bakri Zinin,
told us on October 4 that "illegal migrants and other
foreigners" account for about three-fourths of violent crimes
committed in the state. He said almost all the crime was
locally based and that transnational crime syndicates were
"not much of a problem" in Sabah. Zinin notably did not
address the issue of terrorists either located in or
transiting Sabah. When asked about the potential for human
trafficking into the Malaysian federal territory island of
Labuan, near Sabah's western coast, Zinin stated flatly,
"There is no trafficking problem in Labuan. Those women are
all volunteers who claim to be victims when caught." (Note:
Septel addresses prostitution on Labuan. End Note.)


3. (C) Zinin criticized a recently enacted amendment to the
criminal procedure code that eliminated prosecutors' usage of
police-obtained confessions in trying criminal defendants.
Confessions are now only admissible if done in front of a
magistrate. Zinin said the amendment "will hurt our ability
to get convictions." He stated, "As a result, we'll likely
make greater use of (Malaysia's four preventative detention
laws),even though we know this will bring criticism from
Suhakam and the NGOs." (Note: The laws he referenced are the
Internal Security Act, Restricted Residence Act, Dangerous
Drugs Act, and Emergency Ordinance. They allow the police
and the internal security ministry to jointly incarcerate
individuals for extended periods without trial, in cases
where police lack sufficient evidence to obtain a criminal
conviction. From our local sources, we believe 700 - 1,000
Malaysians suspected of criminal activity are currently
jailed under the Emergency Ordinance alone. End Note.)

UMNO Minister Swipes at Prime Minister Abdullah...
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4. (C) While making unsolicited comments about Prime Minister
Abdullah Badawi's public image and job performance, Sabah's
Minister of Youth and Sports, Masidi Manjun, told us,
"Abdullah is not an intellectual and is a bit slow in his
thinking." He said the PM is "getting bad advice from his
inner circle" regarding both the content and "scripted
shouting" of some of his latest speeches to his ethnic Malay
political base. Manjun, who formally headed Sabah's primary
government-funded think tank (the Institute of Development
Studies),told us of a private comment made by former PM
Mahathir during a recent trip to Japan. Mahathir reportedly
told a senior Japanese politician, "Japan is the home of the
rising sun, and Malaysia is home to the rising son-in-law."
This was a reference to PM Abdullah's son-in-law Khairy
Jamaluddin, who serves as the deputy president of UMNO Youth.
With Mahathir's recent failure to be elected as an UMNO
delegate at the party's national assembly in November, Manjun
predicted the assembly will be "a timid affair," with no
major pronouncements or surprises.

...And Foreigners in His State
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5. (C) Manjun complained that Sabah was "flooded with
foreigners." He singled out Filipino Muslims from Mindanao
as "especially troublesome." He said, "They are not as
devout as us." He told us the state's Filipinos were "using
our social services and not integrating into society," and
that "vagrancy and violence" were rampant within Sabah's
Filipino community. He called Sabah's maritime and land
borders "very porous" and expressed concern that Sabah's
foreign residents were starting to become politically active.
He acknowledged, however, the economic importance of Sabah's
foreign population. With regard to Sabah's large number of
illegal foreign workers, estimated to total over 750,000,
Manjun said, "We need them here, or our economy would
collapse."

Fallout from UMNO-Fueled Population Boom in Sabah
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6. (C) UMNO's main Sabah-based partner party, PBS, remains
publicly indignant about UMNO grants of citizenship and
related voting rights during the 1990s to over 600,000
foreigners (predominantly Muslims from Indonesia and
Mindanao),in return for those individuals' votes in Sabah's
state assembly elections. Two PBS state assemblymen, Ching
Eng Leong and Samson Chin Chee Tsu, told us on October 4 that
former PM Mahathir began the initiative prior to the 1994
state assembly election, in order to ensure UMNO's political
takeover of Sabah. UMNO's control was further solidified
during the 1999 state election, as UMNO granted more
foreigners citizenship and voting rights under what came to
be known as "Project Mahathir." According to Samson, PBS
switched from its opposition party status in 2000 and allied
itself with UMNO. Ching said, "UMNO had completely taken
over by that time. They paid off our party leaders and
several assemblymen in cash, and threatened to freeze our
constituencies out of federal and state funding if we didn't
join them." Since 2000, the state assembly has remained 100
percent controlled by the UMNO-led coalition; opposition
parties in Sabah have no elected representatives.


7. (C) Suhakam recently researched the allegations
surrounding Project Mahathir and concurred with PBS'
findings. According to Suhakam, Sabah's legal resident
population increased 362 percent to 2.6 million from 1970 to
2000, compared to a population increase of only 135 percent
over the same time period in the neighboring state of
Sarawak. This substantial increase in Sabah's legal
residents excludes an influx of over 750,000 foreigners
holding invalid identity cards and visas - or no documents at
all - according to Suhakam. According to Samson, a
UK-educated lawyer whose electoral district encompasses Tawau
on the east coast near the Indonesian border, Filipinos and
Indonesians outnumber Malaysians 3 to 1 along Sabah's east
coast from Sandakan to Tawau. He said, "The security
situation in the area is not good." He also claimed that
corruption in Tawau is rampant among police and immigration
officers. He said it had "tripled over the last 30 years."
He and his wife recently refused to attend an event that
gathered public and private sector leaders on the resort
island of Mabul, off the east coast of Sabah, as he feared an
attack on the gathering by Mindanao-based Muslim extremists.
The event took place without incident.

Government Ignores Suhakam
--------------


8. (C) With regard to the plight of Malaysia's largely
impoverished rural indigenous persons in Borneo, Suhakam's
Vice Chairman and resident Commissioner in Sabah, Simon
Sipaun, echoed the sentiments expressed to us by his fellow
Suhakam commissioner in Sarawak (ref B). He said he spends
most of his time on indigenous persons' issues and lamented
the government's lack of support for Suhakam. He said,
"We're viewed as a pest." Sipuan told us that prisons in the
state are "50 percent to 75 percent overcrowded" and that
about three-fourths of all prisoners are illegal migrants and
other foreigners. He described conditions in the state's
three illegal migrant detention centers as "overcrowded and
generally poor." Sipuan felt the large number of Filipinos
on the state's east coast represented a potential security
threat "if they decide to become more politically active, or
if parts of Mindanao become more autonomous."

Comment
--------------


9. (C) Among all Malaysian states, Sabah faces uniquely
severe border control and related security pressures.
Filipinos and Indonesians move easily - and often illegally -
between Sabah and their respective home countries. UMNO
leaders in Sabah and Kuala Lumpur will likely continue to
remain silent with regard to the deleterious effects of
Project Mahathir, as this initiative achieved its primary
goal (UMNO political dominance) many years ago; they consider
it "old news." In any case, a significant reduction in
Sabah's foreign-born population could only be reversed in the
near term through an UMNO-led effort to round up and deport
the very workers that drive Sabah's natural resource-based
economy. While Malaysia periodically launches campaigns to
expel illegal workers, even PBS' leaders concede this is
highly unlikely to be carried out to the point of seriously
harming the state's economy. The U.S. Border Control
Assessment Initiative (BCAI) focused on the Sulu and Sulawesi
sea areas of Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines will
enhance our understanding of the security challenges facing
Sabah and ways we can assist. We currently are working to
obtain GOM approval for the Sabah field portion.

SHEAR