A question of political birthright

KOTA KINABALU, Sept 3 — On leaving the airport at Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, I got into a conversation with the taxi driver.

“Dari sini (from here),” he said, when I asked where he was from. On further probing, he admitted his Bugis roots but emphasised that he was the second generation in his family to be born in Sabah.

The question of origins has become a sensitive one in the state, not least because of the current crackdown on illegal immigrants led by a Federal Special Task Force. Initiated on Aug 7, Ops Bersepadu had screened 15,686 people and detained 697 by Aug 16.

Compared with the 2002 Ops Nyah II Bersepadu, the last such major exercise, the current campaign is meant to be a more sustained effort, with RM50 million (S$21 million) allocated to it. The operation was announced in June by Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, who chaired the Federal Cabinet Committee on illegal immigrants.

The problem has been a longstanding one in Sabah. The alleged failure of the federal and state governments to resolve it was one of the grievances that led the Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) to threaten to support a motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi in June.

Significantly, SAPP is a component of the Barisan Nasional (BN) ruling coalition. The fact that members of the ruling coalition as well as opposition parties are complaining suggests that this issue crosses party lines.

The United Pasok Momogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (Upko), another BN party, has called for the formation of a Royal Commission of Inquiry to look into the matter. Dr Chong Eng Leong, a Supreme Council member of the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), also a BN component, has quit the party as a result of his differences with the coalition over illegal immigration.

The problem is a tricky one. To begin with, no one knows the exact number of illegal immigrants. The Malaysian government expects to deport between 100,000 and 150,000 people during the current campaign, but Sabah politicians believe the figure should be much higher.

Dr Chong's estimate in 2006 was that there were more than 750,000 illegal immigrants in Sabah. Based on figures from the Indonesian Consulate, Upko vice-president Siringan Gubat suggests that there are 569,000 Indonesians living in Sabah illegally.

Besides Indonesia, the other main source of immigrants is the Philippines. Thousands of Muslim refugees fled the war-torn southern provinces of the Philippines in the 1970s. They were given documents, which allowed them to stay and work in Sabah.

The subsequent influx of Filipinos, however, were economic immigrants rather than political refugees.

Like their Indonesian counterparts, they arrived in Sabah to cari makan, as the saying goes, or to eke out a living.

Most of the Indonesians are Bugis from Sulawesi. They have traditionally been seafarers, and have settled throughout the Indonesian archipelago over the centuries.

Because of Ops Bersepadu, undocumented aliens have mostly disappeared from the vicinity of Kota Kinabalu, where the exercise began. In the nearby Keningau-Tenom districts, only a handful were caught.

The word was that most were hiding in remote villages or in the jungle.

There is no doubt that Sabah is an attractive place to work, whether legally or illegally. One Bugis factory worker said that the highest-paying jobs in his hometown paid at most RM800 a month. In Sabah, he can sometimes earn twice as much.

Sabah's economy needs these immigrants too. They now form the backbone of the labour force in palm oil plantations. In Kota Kinabalu, the Filipinos and Bugis dominate the construction and transport sectors, respectively.

A full-scale expulsion of the illegal immigrants would paralyse the local economy. In view of this, the Federation of Chinese Associations in Sabah has petitioned the state government to grant amnesty to undocumented foreign workers.

But there is a political dimension to the problem as well. Sabahans are concerned that illegal immigrants have been able to use dubious means to get Malaysian identity cards (ICs). Before the 1999 state elections, the PBS produced a list of 49,270 illegal immigrants who had been issued ICs and given the right to vote.

Also, the social impact of such a massive influx of foreigners cannot be ignored. Out of the state population of 3.149 million, almost 800,000 are non-citizens. Although Sabahans have not shown any deep animosity towards the outsiders, signs of unease are discernible. Last year, the Malaysian Human Rights Commission received complaints from villagers in the Sandakan District that illegal immigrants had encroached on their settlement and destroyed their property.

The unease is not merely a reaction to the presence of foreigners. Sabahans do not begrudge them the right to cari makan. Rather, their fear is that the foreigners will usurp their political birthrigh.

-TMI