Home 
KOTA KINABALU -- The massive drive to flush out illegal immigrants from the Sabah state will be done humanely in accordance with basic human rights, Chief Minister Musa Aman said Monday.
Musa said Malaysia will not use force in the arrest, detention and repatriation of illegal immigrants, mostly Indonesians and Filipinos.
"We will avoid the use of force unless a situation warrants it," he told reporters after chairing the state Security Council meeting here even as he said authorities would be firm in enforcing the law.
Malaysian authorities estimate some 130,000 illegals are in eastern Sabah state on Borneo. The state's politicians insist the real figure is several times higher and that foreigners outnumber Malaysians in some provinces.
Philippine Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos has said there are at least 200,000 undocumented Filipino workers in Malaysia.
The Philippines-Malaysia Working Group on Migrant Workers at the end of two days of biannual talks late last month agreed to ensure humane treatment of deportees.
Under the agreement, Malaysia will step up efforts to regularize the status of eligible Filipino immigrants, while children of illegal immigrants will be turned over to the care of appropriate authorities instead of being arrested.
Only medically fit deportees would be forced to travel, the working group said in a statement.
The joint working group was created in 2005 after complaints of alleged abuses suffered by Filipino deportees during Malaysia's 2003 crackdown on illegal migrants sparked the Philippines to file two diplomatic protests, one over the alleged rape of a detained 12-year Filipino girl by Malaysian police.
Describing the operations as being of "national interest," Musa said that everyone must support the government's efforts and not give the foreign media any opportunity to cast a "negative light" on the operation to resolve Sabah's long-standing problem.
He said that a temporary immigration detention center has been set up at the army's Camp Paradise in Kota Belud and illegal immigrants will be deported immediately after they obtain their travel documents from their embassies.
The illegal immigrants would not be charged for immigration offenses but deported while those who have employers would be given a chance to obtain the necessary documents to legalize their stay, Musa said.
He said the Philippines government has also given its word that it would assist in taking back its citizens.
In June, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak announced a massive drive to deport foreigners without travel or identification documents from Sabah, which borders both the Philippines and Indonesia.
Since then thousands of Filipino migrants have been deported. Some have complained that male deportees were sometimes caned during the 30-hour boat ride to Zamboanga.
Amnesty International Malaysia has urged Kuala Lumpur to revise its plan amid concerns it may lead to human rights violations.
The immigrants include a large number of refugees who fled the conflict-ridden Mindanao region in the southern Philippines and stateless people and migrants who have lived in Sabah for more than a decade, Amnesty said.
In 2002, Amnesty said reports indicated that mass deportations of undocumented migrants led to deaths of children due to dehydration and disease in Sabah's detention centers.
A Philippine claim for sovereignty over Sabah has laid dormant for decades. Muguntan Vanar, The Star-ANN; The Associated Press
