The government took a hard line today against a bid for refugee status by Indonesians from war-torn Aceh province, saying that allowing them in could spark a flood of illegal immigrants.

Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar rejected criticism from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) over the arrest last week of more than 200 Acehnese, including women and children, outside the UN agency's office here.

He charged instead that "it is not right for UNHCR to register the Acehnese as possible refugees when they are not refugees."

Syed Hamid said the police arrested the Acehnese because they did not have valid travel documents and the UNHCR action was tantamount to giving illegals carte blanche to enter Malaysia and then to seek refugee status.

Unwilling host

Malaysia, which is not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees, does not recognise refugees or asylum seekers, he said.

The detainees are being held in the Langkap detention centre in Perak, opposite Aceh across the narrow Malacca Strait, awaiting deportation.

The UNHCR has urged Malaysia to free them and issue them with temporary protection letters.

But Syed Hamid said: "It will create problems. It will encourage people to enter Malaysia. We have been cooperating with Indonesia to ensure there is no overflow to Malaysia."

He pointed out that Malaysia has in the past played unwilling host to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from Indonesia and the Philippines, many of whom were expelled in a crackdown last year.

"If we encourage refugees to come to Malaysia, all the illegals will want to come," he said.

Indonesia launched a massive operation to crush separatist guerrillas of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) on May 19 and says more than 700 rebels have been killed since then.

Human rights activists and other groups have questioned whether the military figures for rebel deaths also include civilians. - AFP