Nelson Graves, Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia has locked hands with Indonesia to deport thousands of immigrants, dismissing pleas to protect Acehnese asylum-seekers and opting instead for regional stability.
Malaysia's hardline stance over 14 Indonesians seeking protection at the U.N. refugee agency in Kuala Lumpur underscored its determination to press ahead with a deportation programme that critics say turns a blind eye to human rights.
Malaysia said on Tuesday that the Indonesians, who drove a lorry through the closed gate of the U.N. refugee agency's compound in the capital, were considered illegal immigrants who were to be deported.
"Our position is very clear," Foreign Ministry under-secretary for Southeast Asia and South Pacific Mohd Arshad Hussain told Reuters by telephone. "We don't recognise the Acehnese as having any grounds for seeking political asylum."
The 14 Indonesians broke into the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) compound on Monday to avoid being sent back to Aceh on Indonesia's Sumatra island, where a separatist revolt peaked in the early 1990s.
They said they feared persecution if repatriated.
Human rights advocates have appealed to the government to refrain from deporting Acehnese while authorities assess their asylum claims.
The opposition Democratic Action Party Socialist Youth (DAPSY) said "the government should make allowance for humanitarian concerns for some Acehnese illegal immigrants who face certain death from Indonesian authorities if they return to Indonesia."
International human rights groups expressed concern about the possible torture of more than 500 Indonesians, expelled from Malaysia last week, because of their possible links to separatist groups.
"We are concerned about refoulement (refusal of asylum) by Malaysia and torture during interrogation by Indonesian authorities," Sidney Jones, Asia director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said.
London-based Amnesty International said it was concerned the Achenese who arrived on Sumatra on Saturday were reportedly detained at a military detention camp without access to local human rights lawyers.
Malaysia, hit hard by the regional economic crisis, has brushed aside the appeals. "These Indonesians are like the others," a senior Foreign Ministry official said. "They came to Malaysia for jobs and now we must send them home."
Deputy Home Minister Tajol Rosli Ghazali, who has been in the front lines of the government's attempts to cope with the thousands of illegal immigrants who have come to Malaysia seeking a better life, was blunt.
"We don't differentiate among Indonesian illegal immigrants," he said on Tuesday. "They are all the same."
Amnesty International said that in the past, Kuala Lumpur has granted several hundred Acehnese special leave to remain in Malaysia without giving them refugee status. But in late 1996, it told them that they could be repatriated.
"We had been planning to send these Acehnese back before," the senior Foreign Ministry official said. "Now with our detention camps full, we have to send the Indonesians back. We can't be setting up camps everywhere."
The opposition DAPSY party disagreed.
"Malaysia has said that we should not be involved in the internal affairs of another country. However, it cannot use such reasoning to justify sending refugees who face the possibility of being killed because of their political beliefs or fight for Acehnese independence," it said.
But Tajol stressed Malaysia's desire to keep relations with Indonesia on track.
"We also don't want Malaysia to become the base for rebel groups from the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia. We want to maintain good relations with our neighbours," he said.
"If our people are acting like that in Indonesia, how would we feel? So we have to consider the feeling of the Indonesian government too."
Malaysian Foreign Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his Indonesian counterpart, Ali Alatas, reiterated their countries' shared desire to proceed with the deportations after they met in London on Tuesday ahead of the Asia-Europe Meeting.
"We do not wish to burden a country like Malaysia, a close brotherly nation, a member of ASEAN," the official Bernama news agency quoted Alatas as saying. He was referring to the nine-nation Association of South East Asian Nations.
"Malaysia already has problems of its own. Why further burden Malaysia?"