Penang DAP supports the proposal for a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) on human trafficking and urges the federal government to work with the states to resolve the unfolding humanitarian crisis.

It has been almost a month since the Rohingya humanitarian crisis began following the Thai government’s anti-trafficking crackdown that caused thousands of migrants to be abandoned by smugglers and left stranded on boats off the coast of Thailand and Malaysia.

Two weeks following the landing of a boatload of 1,158 Rohingya refugees in Langkawi, the full extent of the crisis began to unravel when the inspector-general of police admitted the discovery of 28 abandoned human trafficking camps and 139 mass graves in northern Malaysia, specifically Padang Besar and Wang Kelian, Perlis. According to the home minister, many of these camps may have been operating for five years.

The fact that so many camps and graves have been found within our own borders reveals a serious security problem that needs to be addressed. How have our borders become so porous? Worse, the fact that these camps existed for years undoubtedly means that collusion has been happening between the traffickers and our local enforcement agencies.

The arrest of 12 police officers in relation to the mass graves in Perlis has confirmed what has been highlighted numerous times by NGOs and even the 2009 Senate US Foreign Relations Committee Report - the existence of a network of ‘insiders’ within the Malaysian government and enforcement agencies that has facilitated the trafficking of migrants.

It is time to bust this appalling syndicate once and for all. Therefore, DAP Penang wishes to support the proposal for a royal commission of inquiry to investigate thoroughly and independently, the trafficking camps as well as mass graves found in Perlis.

 

In addition, we would also like to urge the federal government to work with state governments, especially in northern Malaysia, to deal with this matter. This cooperation must be a formal arrangement that includes the Federal and State Governments, law enforcement agencies and even international institutions such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) where possible.

 

Such cooperation should reflect the sincerity of the federal government to resolve this issue, instead of merely throwing ‘challenges’ via the media as was done by Home Minister Zahid Hamidi, who dared the Penang state government to prove its human rights credentials by sheltering the Rohingya and Bangladeshi refugees.

50,000 Rohingya in Penang

 

More importantly, we should also not forget the fact that there are close to 200,000 refugees currently living in our country, with an estimated 50,000 Rohingya in Penang itself. There needs to be a systematic solution to this problem, as they are currently effectively ‘underground’, having been denied basic rights to healthcare, education, security and employment.

They may be invisible, but the social and economic impact of such a large population of undocumented migrants cannot be underestimated. Penang has already witnessed first-hand how groups of foreigners were able to gang up to commit gruesome murders involving other Myanmar citizens last year.

 

There is now an opportunity to bring a swift and effective end to the problem of human trafficking through our borders, so long as the federal government proves its commitment by firstly establishing an RCI, and secondly by extending a hand of cooperation to state governments and international agencies.

Unless the federal government acts in the most transparent and systematic way possible, this crisis will only further worsen Malaysia’s international reputation.