“The Putrajaya Court of Appeal ordered the former director-general of the Immigration Department of Malaysia, Wahid Md Don, to enter his defence on corruption charges he faced in 2010.”

– Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC)

The Wang Kelian mass graves episode is just another shameful but more importantly, it is a worrying data point in the destabilisation of our security apparatus and security of the nation. While some people may use this incident as just another attack against the Umno establishment before moving on to the next controversy, they are missing the point.

The reality is that if ever there is an insurgency of any kind (local or foreign) in this country, we will discover that our compromised security apparatus – that first line of defence – would be inadequate for protecting the citizenry of this country.

Kudos to DAP’s Sim Chee Keong for querying on the investigation of the mass graves – discovered in Wang Kelian, Perlis in May 2015 – and the status of the 12 police officers who were persons of interests in that investigation. The shocking reply by Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi that they were released “because there was no strong evidence to charge them for the offence,” has rightly angered various rights groups here and in the region.

I made the following point in another article – “Add to this, the complicated reality of security apparatus personnel navigating the petty fiefdoms and the allegiances of said fiefdoms to Umno warlords and potentates and the fact that Malaysia is a nexus for human trafficking, with the complicity – well-documented – of the security apparatus. This last part is extremely important because the unsanctioned flow of illicit human cargo is the conduit for Islamic extremists to leave and enter the country.”

Freedom of movement of terrorist cells facilitated by corrupt officials who are most often ignorant of what damage their corruption does, is but one of the problems when the security apparatus breaks down. There are numerous social problems, not to mention economic problems, that come with undocumented or in such cases, unvetted foreign elements coming into this country which ironically also provides foreign intelligence operatives the opportunity to ply the trade under the cover of local governmental incompetence, apathy or corruption.

In nearly every report or investigation by credible professionals on the business of human trafficking worldwide, what has always been highlighted is the connective tissue between corrupt public officials – namely security operatives – working in collusion with human traffickers. This of course goes beyond a few bad apples and where there have been scandals on human trafficking, there has always been evidence of the collusion between the security apparatus of that particular country and traffickers who profit from human misery.

In other words, this is not solely a Malaysian problem. However, the release of these police officers after the scandalous revelations sends a message to corrupt security personnel that their illicit activities will go unsanctioned because of lack of “strong evidence”. It is precisely these types of activities that will contribute to whatever security calamity that will eventually find us. No country goes untouched.

If you think this example is troubling, recall the other big scandal that should have rocked this country but as usual was lost in the endless news cycle of a corruption scandal that seems to be going nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Last year, 15 immigration officers were sacked for sabotaging the passport system to let certain travellers in undetected.

As reported in the BBC, “suspicions were raised after computer systems at Malaysian airports crashed several times a day. The 15 are accused of deliberately taking them offline, allowing people to bypass criminal background checks. Another 65 officers have been redeployed, while a new roster will now monitor immigration points. As many as 100 immigration officials may have been involved in the operation, investigators say. The country’s passport system may have been compromised for the past two years, according to the Malaysian authorities, possibly benefiting people traffickers and militant networks”.

Problem is systemic and food chain is diverse

What does this tell us? It tells us that the problem is systemic and that the food chain is diverse with high-ranking officials either ignorant or complicit in the actions of low-ranking government officials to profit from illegal activities that are detrimental to the security of the nation.

In this case, Zahid claimed that those involved in “sabotaging the myIMMs for financial gains” had been doing it up to two years. This just goes to show you that there is always evidence of government actors willing to screw this country over for financial gain. This happens all over the world, but in Malaysia, it would seem the problem is only addressed if it involves actors that do not have the political connections as say, the kind the security apparatus has.

Peter Chalk of the RAND Corporation speaking to CNN on this issue said – “Malaysia has for the most part been credited with having an effective internal security regime through its Prevention of Terrorism Act, but that this (immigration) incident has changed things. If it is now discovered that this has been compromised through corruption, it could seriously undermine the credibility of the state’s general counter-terrorism capability, particularly in light of recent revelations that members of the armed forces are known to have been co-opted by ISIS ideology.”

As reported in the Guardian, a 2009 US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations report on Burmese migrants who had become victims of extortion and trafficking also included –“there were questions about the ‘level of participation’ of government officials in Malaysia and Thailand.”

These questions of “level of participation” is further amplified when no strong evidence can be found on police personnel in a massive security breach involving death camps, allegations of torture and innumerable reports by eyewitnesses of malnourished migrants wandering the environs of places like Wang Kelian.

Think about this rationally for one minute. Does anyone really think it is possible for these activities to go on without the knowledge of the state’s security apparatus? There are only two possibilities. (1) That the state was in the dark about all these activities which means either they are incompetent or lacking in carrying out their professional obligations, or (2) certain actors were complicit in this security breach and were protected by other personnel higher up the food chain.

Human rights activists for years have been lodging reports and attempting to shine a spotlight on this issue but have come up against the brick wall of police indifference. Sim accurately describes the situation in his piece, ‘The Malaysian immigration question’, where he writes – “Firstly, our immigration policy is driven by the Malaysian Migrant Industrial Complex, a network of Umno-linked immigration contractors raking in hundreds of millions, even billions, doing paper-shifting works for the government.”

While Sim’s proposals in his piece should be considered by anyone interested in addressing this issue, ultimately what Malaysians have to understand is that we cannot keep covering up these graves.

Eventually the lies buried with the dead will come back to haunt us.

S THAYAPARAN is Commander (Rtd) of the Royal Malaysian Navy.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.