Parents and other concerned Malaysians have been expressing their anger and misgivings over the past couple of years about the NS programme after the numerous unnecessary deaths occurring related to participation in the programme. All these concerns have fallen on deaf ears. Excuses after excuses were given. Inquiries after inquiries were promised. But have we heard anything about the outcome of these inquiries? Have we seen any improvement in the management of the NS camps?

No! Instead we have now received the sad news that another NS trainee, Too Hui Min has died on May 7, 2008. According to the camp staff, this occurred after she complained of constipation for three days. Are we to believe the camp staff?

The deputy prime minister now do not even bother to make any statement about this death although the NS programme falls under his Defence Ministry. And where is Lee Lam Thye who wept over the death of a trainee last year? A NS Training Council member promised that another internal investigation would be conducted.

Meanwhile, the NS Training Department director-general was quoted as saying that the training programme will not be scrapped ‘just because of one or two deaths’. This is another callous comment similar to what the former Health Minister said last year that reports on the deaths of the trainees have been overblown and ‘the rate of death (of the trainees) is in fact much smaller than that in the general population’!

These comments are certainly no consolation to the parents who have lost their loved ones because of the NS programme. We have said it again and again. Not a single death due to the NS programme should be tolerated. The director-general of the NS Training Department and all others responsible for the implementation of the NS programme, regardless of their positions, must be held morally and even legally accountable for their negligenceover these deaths.

They are negligent for not heeding the calls for review and suspension of the NS programmes following NS-related deaths occurring in the past. They are negligent for not publicly releasing the inquiries they have made which should have exposed any shortcomings in the management of the camps.

They are negligent for not taking appropriate actions and making improvements in the programme which would ensure that another death would not occur again. Mind you, according to the notice for an emergency motion in Parliament tabled by an MP, this is the third death in less than two months.

In April, Afiz Zuhairi Ahmat Rozali a trainee in the Sentosa Chenderiang Camp died after having a fever. Another trainee, Balammah died on March 21, 2008. She complained of severe chest pains after she returned from NS training on March 11. Family members suspect that she must have suffered internal injuries during the NS training which eventually led to her death.

We have had enough. No more excuses. No more inquiries. The ill-conceived NSprogramme must be suspended immediately.