Malaysian government under fire over latest
island kidnapping
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 13 (AFP) -
The Malaysian government came under fire even from traditional supporters Wednesday for
lax security at an eastern resort island after Filipino guerrillas kidnapped three
workers.
The Abu Sayyaf Muslim rebels
seized the three Malaysians from Pandanan off the coast of Sabah state on Sunday, less
than five months after abducting nine Malaysians and 12 foreigners from the nearby island
of Sipadan.
A resort operator and former
top official for Sabah tourism said people felt humiliated and angry over the latest
seizure.
No police were posted on
Pandanan at the time and the kidnappers evaded police patrols in the area to spirit their
captives back to Jolo in the nearby southern Philippines.
"We feel humilated by the
recent kidnapping incident. We urge the government to provide adequate security,"
said Wilfred Lingham, a director of Sipadan Borneo Resort Management Consortium.
Lingham, whose company operates
dive resorts off Sabah's west and east coasts, told AFP the state was pushing to make
tourism a top earner but "the incident will surely hurt the tourism industry
here."
"The security alert by the
US embassy will have a negative impact," added Lingham, a former permanent secretary
to the state tourism ministry.
"We lose the US market,
then the Europeans and then the Japanese will stay away too.
"The millions of dollars
the government spends to promote tourism simply goes down the drain."
Lingham said he felt "very
angry" about the repeat kidnapping.
"The excuse that it is
impossible to protect the long coastline of Sabah is becoming a cliche. This reason to
Sabahans is meaningless.
"We are not asking the
government to patrol the whole length of the coastline. Please look after the islands
which have resorts on them like Sipadan, Mabul and Pandanan and on islands which tourists
visit."
Stationing troops on these
islands would raise confidence and hopefully deter future raids, he said.
The New Straits Times, normally
strongly pro-government, said in an editorial the second kidnapping "shows that the
authorities have yet to galvanise themselves into action."
The newspaper reported Tuesday
that police boats which could have gone to the rescue from a nearby island were stuck in
the mud at low tide.
"This is an unacceptable
excuse and ... shows the possibility of command failure of the worst kind," the
editorial said.
An editorial in The Star said
the incident "does not speak well of our national security despite repeated
assurances from our leaders."
The Star said the abductions
will "destroy our tourism industry, wiping off years of efforts in promoting these
idyllic tropical islands off Sabah as a diving paradise."
Even Deputy Defence Minister
Shafie Apdal was quoted by The Star as saying that security personnel should have been
stationed on every inhabited island off Semporna, the port serving the diving resort
islands.
State chief minister Osu Sukam
was quoted by The Sun as saying that Sabah authorities had agreed on new security measures
just a night before the kidnappers struck a second time.
"However, another
abduction had to happen again so fast ... we did not expect this and we still regard it as
an isolated case," Osu was quoted as saying.
Lim Kit Siang, chairman of the
opposition Democratic Action Party, said "the question crying out for answer" is
why the Sabah state security council took more than 20 weeks after the Sipadan abductions
to agree on new security measures.
Back to Sipadan/Pandanan Hostages News
Back
to This Week's Borneo News |
