Pakatan MPs want the government to return to the long-standing foreign policy principle of neutrality, to say 'no' to the gunboat diplomacy practised by the US and to stop allowing or inviting warships to visit local ports.

“It was our foreign policy since the 70s, when we declared South-East Asia as the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (Zopfan).

parliament 161008 kamaruddin jaafar “We don’t want to be the tool to any foreign power,” PAS’ Tumpat MP Kamaruddin Jaafar ( left ) told reporters at a press conference in the Parliament lobby today.

Kamaruddin cautioned the government that by allowing US warships to visit Malaysia, it would be made to appear as if we were in bed with the now latent US military aggression and risk being labelled a “conduit” and “base of operations” for US hegemony.

He further lamented that a motion he submitted to Dewan Rakyat speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia to discuss the matter was rejected.

The speaker had said that the matter was not urgent and not an appropriate to be discussed during the budget debates.

Presence of such ships here a 'paradox'

Kamaruddin named several US carriers and warships that have made Malaysia its port of call, such as the USS George Washington, which dropped anchor in Klang Port as well as two other guided missile cruisers and other ships that have visited there or the Malaysian naval base at Sipanggar Bay.

Many of these ships, he pointed out, are not only nuclear powered but are guided missile cruisers and destroyers armed with nuclear-capable weaponry.

Most of the latest US Navy ships flagged as guided-missile destroyers and cruisers class variants, are armed with the long range all-weather Tomahawk cruise missiles, with several shipborne variants capable of being armed with W80 or W84 nuclear warheads.

Sungai Petani MP Johari Abdul chimed in that the presence of such nuclear powered arms may make Malaysia seem a party to the US war machine's aggressive posture, and presents a "paradox" for allowing warships to ply Malaysian waters when claiming to be a zone of peace, freedom and neutrality.

NONE PKR Batu MP Tian Chua ( right ), who was also at the press conference, added that other than the perception problems of hosting such deadly warships there are also environmental concerns, quoting the standard operating procedures of nuclear-armed and powered warships while visiting harbours.

The procedures, he said, mention specifically that when nuclear-powered or armed ships are in harbours, precautions must be taken due to the possibility of leaks and radioactive contamination, though the report did mention that such possibility may be slight.

"We want to know what precautions our government has taken," he said.

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