KOTA KINABALU: The Government should place citizens’ wellbeing first when drawing up security policies especially in dealing with threats from Abu Sayyaf militants.
Upko, through its Exco Youth Education and Policy Bureau, believes that it is high time that the Government take a firm stand when dealing with these threats including allowing for a shoot-on-sight measure.
“Yes, we have to take into account humanitarian factors but with the current turmoil in the southern Philippines, how are we to differentiate between friend and foe?” said its bureau chief Petrus Mojuntin (pix) here on Thursday.
He said this in response to a statement by state Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun on why no such action was taken by Malaysian security forces to combat threats from southern Philippines.
“The threat of militants from the southern Philippines fleeing to Sabah is very real and as Masidi said, kidnapping for ransom has become a fast-profit making business and almost the entire place there is involved in such acts,” Petrus said.
He added that with the recent arrest of 10 people believed to be involved in such activities, it showed there was a possibility of the militants having their people in Sabah, feeding them information so that the militants can carry out their criminal activities easily.
“Some of them may come here because they want to avoid the clashes there but before any assault by the Philippines Armed Forces, they too were getting some shares in the profits made by ransoms paid for the release of hostages who were earlier kidnapped by militant groups,” he claimed.
Petrus said the authorities, including the National Security Council, should come up with an effective and efficient mechanism to prevent such incidents from recurring.
“The Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom) has been created to safeguard the east coast. But when we take a reality check, kidnappings still happen,” he said.
“We are not pointing any fingers here but Sabahans do not want to live in constant fear of threats anymore,” he said, adding that such fear, which may grow among visitors too, would dampen the state’s economy as they might not come to Sabah for holidays.
Petrus said this could slow down the state’s tourism industry, resulting in loss of income for many tourism industry players.
He said the whole purpose of an elected government was to serve and protect the people.
“We cannot let another one of our citizens die in the hands of terrorists,” he added.-thestar
