RIGHTS-MALAYSIA: Cloud Treatment of Indonesians

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

P. Pravasi

KUALA LUMPUR, May 10 1998 (IPS) - During a confinment of more than one month, no vistors ever came to see the patient in bed number 21, of ward two at the Kuala Lumpur general hospital.

This was not because Nasir, an Indonesian injured during the Mar. 26 riot at a detention camp for illegal immigrants, did not want to see anyone, but because he was under police custody.

Nasir, from Indonesia’s Aceh province, was one among thousands of detainees at the Semenyih camp who tried to flee when fighting broke out that day. But he did not make it.

Nasir took a bullet just below the rib cage and was severely beaten by anti-riot police, he told a foreign journalist who interviewed him in hospital. Nasir had surgical scars on his abdomen, his leg was bandaged and his wrists were handcuffed to the bed post.

When this reporter visited him on Apr. 29, policemen appeared in a few minutes and issued a severe warning to stay away from the patient. He was moved out after speaking to a foreign journalist who reported the interview on May 2, according to other patients in the ward. Nurses said Nair was discharged that day as he was fit to leave the hospital, and his whereabouts are unknown.

“If the government has nothing to hide, why did they prohibit us from talking to him?” asked Elizabeth Wong, coordinator for SUARAM, a human rights organisation based in Petaling Jaya, just outside the capital Kuala Lumpur.

Cases like Nasir’s have been spurring criticism of the Malaysia’s treatment of supposed illegal immigrants, most of them from Indonesia, whom it has been busy rounding up and deporting in recent months. In recent weeks, news reports and accounts by returning Indonesians, Indonesian officials and non-government organisations have told of deportees and apprehended immigrants beaten by police or suffering other forms of punishment and abuse.

British newsper reports published in late April alleged that illegal immigrants held in Malaysian detention camps had been “poisoned” to ensure they do not resist deportation.

Mahathir attributed the reports to “ill will”. This week, he said of the British media: “They want to frustrate Malaysia in any way they can.” Allegations of ill treatment during detention and deporation were made with “bad intentions”, said Malaysia’s deputy director of internal security, Mohamad Yusof Said.

The situation is complicated by the fact that many among the Indonesians deported in March were from Aceh in northern Indonesia, where a separatist movement has been raging for years. Many Acehnese fled east to neighbouring Malaysia earlier in the decade and some were in the detention camps for illegal immigrants where rioting broke out in March, and have since been sent back to Aceh as Kuala Lumpur considers them economic migrants.

More than 500 Acehnese were deported on boats on Mar. 26, even as human rights groups said they would be persecuted at home. “Therefore, they deserve refugee status,” Wong said.

The riots, which erupted as inmates found out about their imminent deportation, had provoked concern not just from local activists but from United Nations agencies. Immediately after the violence, Mahathir said the riots were “quite unexpected”, but that security forces acted in self-defence. “In an attempt to resist deportation, the immigrants attacked first and caused the death of a policeman,” he said.

But a witness, who is in hiding, said that while anti-riot police used teargas, batons and shields to beat up the immigrants to try to restore order, detainees countered with their bare hands.

After the Indonesians docked at Krueng Geukeuh harbor, Lhokseumawe on Mar. 27, Indonesian officials and medical personnel were quoted as saying they were shocked at the state of some deportees, who were bruised, had wounds or were clad in torn clothes. A number reportedly had to be brought to hospital on ambulances.

A hospital source in Aceh said that 12 returnees had died subsequently, though this could not be independently verified. One Indonesian doctor was quoted in news reports as saying he had to amputate the legs of two wounded Acehnese.

Human rights workers fear that those deported have been detained in the Ranchung camp in Aceh, which they say is known as the most notorious military interrogation centre run by the Indonesian army’s Special Forces Command (Kopassus). But Indonesian officials say the returning Indonesians were brought to Ranchung to rest and recuperate. Media reports say most have since been sent to skills training before going on home, except for some who have reportedly been linked by the military to the Free Aceh separatist movement.

Believing that many of the deported Achehnese have a valid claim to refugee status, Human Rights Watch has called on the Malaysian government to cease deportation of Acehnese migrants until the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has access to all immigration detention camps.

“We have, despite constant effort with authorities in this respect, never been granted permission to visit the camps,” said Gottfried Koefner, Head of the Liaison Office of UNHCR here.

The UNHCR is currently housing 12 Acehnese – escapees from the Lenggeng detention camp during the Mar. 26 riot – who forced their way into its compound on Mar. 30 to seek asylum.

In early April, some 35 Acehnese also sought asylum in the French, Swiss and American embassies here. The first two had the Malaysian police remove the Acehnese, while the U.S. is waiting for the UNHCR to verify information that they would face persecution if sent home.

Human Rights Watch has expressed concern over the refoulement exercise carried out by Malaysia, which is not party to the 1951 Convention or the 1967 Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees.

“But the principle of non-refoulement of refugees, which is contained in numerous other international agreements, is considered to be a principle of customary international law, by which, all states including Malaysia are also bound,” said Koefner.

Despite international concern about charges of harsh treatment of migrants, Malaysia is pressing ahead with deportation at a time when its economy is hard pressed to provide jobs for locals. “Malaysia will never resort to actions that are inhumane,” Mahathir assured.

For its part, Indonesia seems leery of openly protesting to Malaysia over the allegations of ill treatment, wary of souring ties. Instead, it is preparing for the return of thousands more who went to Malaysia to flee poverty at home.