‘Blatant challenge’ to Malaysia’s security – MATTA

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KOTA KINABALU: The Malaysian Association of Tour Travel Agents (MATTA) for inbound tourism, Tan Kok Liang, said the latest shooting incident at a diving resort in Mabul was a “blatant challenge” to Malaysia’s security.

“I urge the government to take firm measures to upgrade security. Of course such bold intrusions and the blatant challenge to our security will hurt especially diving-related tourism business,” he told AFP yesterday.

Tourism is a major source of foreign exchange income for Malaysia — and Sabah state in particular — and the industry is a leading sector for employment.

Expressing his condolences to the security forces, Tan said there had already been a 10 percent drop in tourist arrivals in the second quarter compared with the first three months of the year.

Sabah receives about 3.5 million tourist arrivals annually, including those from China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe.

The kidnapping of the policeman is the fourth incident of its kind in Sabah since April.

In June a 32-year-old Malaysian fish breeder and his Filipino worker were seized by Filipino gunmen from their farm. They have not yet been freed.

In May a Chinese fish farm manager was abducted from his farm, while in April a female Chinese tourist and a Filipino resort worker were abducted. All three have been released.

STAR Sabah chief Datuk Dr Jeffrey Kitingan said the attack at Mabul Water Bungalows Resort seemed to indicate that Sabah is becoming even more insecure since the establishment of the Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCom) and its latest restructuring.

He said the security incidents in Sabah, including the Tanduo intrusion, kidnappings, robberies, the presence of militants on Sabah’s shores showed a common denominator and connection to having a Malaysian ID or MyKad.

“That is why it makes it so difficult to safeguard Sabah’s borders because many of them are already within our borders,” he said.

Besides the ordinary illegal immigrants on the streets, Jeffrey claimed that there are also a huge number of ‘inland foreigners’ numbering some 900,000 (or 27.7% of Sabah’s population) with various documents who are being “kept” and neglected without addressing their socio-cultural and socio-economic and educational needs except, perhaps, during election time.

Penampang member of parliament Darell Leiking said the incident is a slap to the face of the Barisan Nasional leaders who have been full of praises for ESSCom which was revamped just a few days ago.

“One thing for sure is that hundreds of thousands of Sabahans will now be questioning the effectiveness of ESSCom 2 and the BN State Government’s commitment to overcome the terrorism threat emanating from our neighboring country,” he said.

Leiking added if the BN State leaders have really wanted to work together with the opposition leaders to solve the security problems in the state, then they would have set up a special State’s Security Committee long time ago which includes the State’s opposition leaders and non-governmental organisations to discuss and formulate the best solutions.