FAREWELL: Ramli and his wife given the sending-off after the farewell parade at Semenggo Camp yesterday.
KUCHING: Out-going commander of Third Infantry Brigade Brigadier General Datuk Mohd Ramli Jaafar yesterday assured that security along the 500-km Sarawak/Kalimantan border was under control.
He, however, cautioned that although the border is now free from security threats like those posed by the communist insurgency and Indonesian confrontation in the old days, security personnel still have to be on the guard against new threats such as
trans-border movements and smuggling which require new measures to counter.
“The problems we are facing today are mostly the common trans-border crime activities such as smuggling of goods and illegal border crossings but through our close cooperation with other enforcement agencies, including the Immigration, Customs and police we managed to put the situation well under control,” he said.
He believed that the situation could be further improved with the establishment of more Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) stations, particularly at the common entry points along the border. Ramli told reporters this at a media conference after handing over duty to the Third Infantry Brigade acting commander Lt Col Mohd Fadzuri Masudoky.
Fadzuri, who is the commanding officer (CO) of 11th Royal Malay Regiment (RMR) based in Semenggo Camp here, will be standing in pending the arrival of a new brigade commander, Brig Gen designate Col Hasaqaya Abdullah sometime in the first week of next month.
Ramli, who took over the post 16 months ago, would be leaving for China to take his Masters in Security and Strategic Studies at the National Defence University, Beijing for about a year starting this coming Sept 1.
Earlier, he received salutes during his farewell parade involving 21 officers and 320 other personnel from the rank and file led by the CO of 13th RMR Lt Col Zawawi Adam.
At the occasion, he also officially handed over duty to his acting successor in the presence of the General Officer in-Command (GOC) of First Division Army Headquarters Maj Gen Datuk Mohd Zaki Mokhtar.