Putrajaya starts investigating confused initial response to disappearance of flight MH370

The Malaysian Insider

April 11, 2014

The government has begun investigating civil aviation and military authorities to determine why opportunities to identify and track Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 were missed in the chaotic hours after it vanished, two officials said.

The preliminary internal enquiries come as tensions mount between civilian and military authorities over who bears most responsibility for the initial confusion and any mistakes that led to a week-long search in the wrong ocean.

“What happened at that time is being investigated and I can’t say any more than that because it involves the military and the government,” a senior government official told Reuters.

In an interview with Reuters last weekend, Malaysia Airlines chief executive Ahmad Jauhari Yahya said internal enquiries were under way, although he declined to give details.

A government spokesman did not respond to Reuters questions over whether an investigation had been launched. The senior government source said it was aimed at getting a detailed picture of the initial response.

It was unclear which government department was in charge or whether a formal probe had been opened.

Malaysia’s opposition coalition has demanded a parliamentary inquiry into what happened on the ground in those first few hours. Government officials have said any formal inquiry should not begin until the flight’s black box recorders are found.

The Boeing 777 was carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew when it disappeared on March 8. Malaysia says it believes the plane crashed into the southern Indian Ocean after being deliberately diverted from its Kuala Lumpur-to-Beijing route.

A search effort is taking place well out to sea off the Australian city of Perth to try to locate any wreckage as well as the recorders which may provide answers to what happened onboard.

Mechanical problem assumed

Interviews with the senior government source and four other civilian and military officials show that air traffic controllers and military officials assumed the plane had turned back to an airport in Malaysia because of mechanical trouble when it disappeared off civilian radar screens at 1.21am local time.

That assumption took hold despite no distress call or other communication coming from the cockpit, which could have been a clue that the plane had been hijacked or deliberately diverted.

The five sources together gave Reuters the most detailed account yet of events in the hour after the plane vanished. All declined to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue and because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

“The initial assumption was that the aircraft could have diverted due to mechanical issues or, in the worst case scenario, crashed,” said a senior Malaysian civilian source. “That is what we were working on.”

Officials at Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation, which oversees air traffic controllers, the Defence Ministry and the air force directed requests for comment to the prime minister’s office, which did not respond.

One senior military official said air traffic control had informed the military at around 2am that a plane was missing. The standard operating procedure was to do so within 15 minutes, he said. Another military source said the notification was slow in coming, but did not give a time.

    One of the Reuters sources said military officials in particular were concerned they could lose their jobs.

Civil aviation officials told Reuters their response was in line with guidelines, but they did not give a specific time for when the military was informed.

Once alerted, military radar picked up an unidentified plane heading west across peninsular Malaysia, the senior military official said. The air force has said a plane that could have been MH370 was last plotted on military radar at 2.15am, 320km northwest of the west coast state of Penang.

Plane tracked in real time?

Top military officials have publicly said Malaysia’s US and Russian-made fighter jets stationed at air force bases in Penang and the east coast state of Kuantan were not scrambled to intercept the plane because it was not viewed as “hostile”.

“When we were alerted, we got our boys to check the military radar. We noticed that there was an unmarked plane flying back but (we) could not confirm (its identity),” said the senior military source. “Based on the information we had from ATC (Air Traffic Control) and DCA (Department of Civil Aviation), we did not send up any jets because it was possibly mechanical problems and the plane might have been going back to Penang.”

The military has not publicly acknowledged it tracked the plane in real time as it crossed back over the peninsula.

While fighter jets would not have had enough fuel to track a Boeing 777 for long and darkness would have complicated the operation, they could have spotted MH370 flying across peninsular Malaysia and possibly beyond, aviation experts said.

That could have enabled Malaysia to get a better fix on where it was headed and thus possibly ruled out the need to search off its east coast in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, around where MH370 was last seen on civilian radar.

Fighter pilots should be able to scramble within minutes, aviation experts said, although the time can vary widely from country to country. In Europe and North America, radar experts said controllers were trained to coordinate across civil and military lines and across borders.

They said military jets would have been scrambled, as they were from a Greek air force base in 2005 when a Helios Airways jet with 121 people on board lost contact over the Aegean Sea after suffering a decompression that knocked out the pilots.

Two F-16 jets could see the captain’s seat empty and the first officer slumped over the controls. The plane crashed in Greece after running out of fuel.

“This raises questions of coordination between military and civil controllers,” former pilot Hugh Dibley, a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, said of Malaysia’s response.

Bureaucratic delays

Another contentious issue has been whether the military was slow in passing on its radar data that showed an unidentified plane had re-crossed the Malay peninsula.

Two civilian aviation officials said military bureaucracy delayed the sharing of this information, although they gave no precise timeframe for when it was handed over.

“The armed forces knew much earlier that the aircraft could have turned back. That is why the search was expanded to include the Strait of Malacca within a day or two,” said a second senior civilian source, who was familiar with the initial search, referring to the narrow stretch of water between Indonesia and Malaysia, on the western side of the peninsula.

“But the military did not confirm this until much later due to resistance from senior officers, and the government needed to step in. We wasted our time in the South China Sea.”

Government sources have said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had to force the military to turn over its raw radar data to investigators during the first week after the flight’s disappearance.

Military officials have said they did not want to risk causing confusion by sharing the data before it had been verified, adding this was why Air Force chief Rodzali Daud went to the air base in Penang on March 9, where the plane’s final radar plot was recorded.

On the same day, Rodzali said the search was being expanded to the west coast, although Reuters has not been able to determine if that meant the data was being shared with other Malaysian officials.

On March 12, four days after Flight MH370 disappeared, Rodzali told reporters there was still no confirmation the unidentified plane had been Flight MH370, but added Malaysia was sharing the radar data with international civilian and military authorities, including those from the United States.

Authorities called off the search in the South China Sea on March 15 after Razak said satellite data showed the plane could have taken a course anywhere from central Asia to the southern Indian Ocean.

Fears of losing jobs

A sixth source, a senior official in the civil aviation sector, said the plane’s disappearance had exposed bureaucratic dysfunction in Malaysia, which has rarely been subject to such international demands for transparency.

“There was never the need for these silos to speak to one another. It’s not because of ill intent, it’s just the way the system was set up,” the official said.

The accounts given to Reuters reveal growing tensions between civilian officials, the military and Malaysia Airlines over whether more could have been done in those initial hours.

One of the Reuters sources said military officials in particular were concerned they could lose their jobs.

Tensions have also emerged between the government and state-controlled Malaysia Airlines.

Defence Minister and acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, said in an interview with China’s CCTV that the airline would have to “answer” for its mistakes in dealing with the relatives of the some 150 Chinese passengers on board.

In his interview with Reuters, Malaysia Airlines chief Ahmad Jauhari played down talk of tension, saying there were “slight differences of opinion.” – Reuters, April 11, 2014.

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Call on Najib to convene emergency meeting of Parliament  before May to set up Parliamentary Select Committee on MH 370 in view of the plethora of committees which Parliament had never been informed

The 37th day of the missing MH 370 tragedy has become darker today with another 24 hours of “silence” in the southern Indian Ocean, five days after the “most promising lead” in the search for the missing Boeing 777 plane as the Perth-based Joint Agency Co-ordination Centre (JACC) announced that “there have been no confirmed acoustic detections over the past 24 hours”.

In Malaysia, confusion and contradictions continue to be very rife causing more grief and anguish to the families of the 239 passengers and crew, whether it be the  conflicting reports about whether the RMAF had scrambled aircrafts after the missing MH370 in the early hours of March 8 or whether Flight MH370 co-pilot Fariq Ab Hamid had purportedly made a call on board the plane near Penang after it mysteriously cut off communications with tower controllers.

There were surprise announcements like the one from the Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein that Malaysia was sending two representatives from the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) to  be included in Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC) which is coordinating the search and recovery effort for Flight MH370 in the Indian Ocean.

Why only sending two Malaysian representatives to join the JACC after the SAR operation had shifted to the southern Indian Ocean based in Perth for nearly three weeks?

Does this mean that Malaysia was never represented at all in the higher councils of the search operation based in Perth for nearly three weeks?

Another surprise is the disclosure of a plethora of investigation committees, which neither Parliament nor the country had been  properly informed.

In denying that Malaysia was a month late in setting up three ministerial committees to handle the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 crisis, Hishammuddin said the committees were merely aimed at coordinating activities related to MH370 but key bodies were already in place since the aircraft went missing on March 8.

He said experts group had been set up in the early part like  the AAIB (Air Accidents Investigation Branch) from the UK, the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) from the US, the CACC (Civil Aviation Administration of China) from China, BEA (Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses) from France, as well as Inmarsat.

Hishammuddin said: “So I don’t understand what they (critics) are trying to get at. The ministerial committees that were set up is to coordinate whatever we are doing, simple as that.”

I do not understand what Hishammuddin is trying to say, except that the government had set up various experts groups which neither Parliament nor the public whether in families of 239 passengers and crew on board, concerned people in Malaysia or internationally knew anything about, as Hishammuddin seems to have taken the position that all inquiries should wait and be held in abeyance until the discovery of the aircraft’s black box.

What are these “key bodies” which had been established and operational into various aspects of the MH 370 disaster?

From today’s media, we learn for the first time that the Malaysian government has set up a Multi-Economic Impact Committee to minimise the backlash  of the MH 3780 tragedy to the country’s tourism, trade and investments links with China.

The other reason for the establishment of the committee is the kidnapping of a China tourist in Sabah.

The committee to monitor immediate and long-term reactions as a result of the MH 370 tragedy and the Semporna kidnapping, comprise  representatives from the ministries of finance, international trade and industry and tourism, would also formulate strategies to protect Malaysia’s close ties with China.

All these dribs and drabs of information are most unsatisfactory and among the causes of the crisis of trust and confidence in the government’s crisis management of the MH 370 tragedy.

I call on the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to summon an emergency meeting of Parliament before May to set up an opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on MH 370 with a comprehensive terms of reference which will go a long way to allay the widespreade unhappiness over the government’s handling of the MH 370 tragedy, felt not only by the families of the 239 passengers and crew, Malaysians but also the international community.

The Malaysian government must send a clear and unmistakable message that it is prepared for a full-scale investigations into all aspects of the MH 370 disaster and has nothing to hide – not only accepting the principle that Hishammuddin should not be involved in the investigation phase of the MH 370 tragedy but to support an opposition-headed Parliamentary Select Committee on MH 370 tragedy which will initiate global inter-parliamentary co-operation and investigations into the MH 370 tragedy which is not only a national but an international disaster.

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Concerns remain but Chinese tourists say still fond of Malaysia

By Ho Kit Yen

The Malay Mail Online

April 13, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 — The disappearance of flight MH370 and kidnappings near Semporna, Sabah, have not discouraged Chinese tourists from visiting Malaysia.

Sichuan native Xiao Huan, 25, who arrived here on April 4, admitted she had initially wanted to cancel her trip here because of the MH370 incident. She had booked the trip in December last year.

“I was worried about boarding the flight. I didn’t cancel in the end because we had paid for it,” said Xiao.

Xiao admitted Malaysia Airlines (MAS) could have handled the plane’s disappearance better in the early stages.

“There seemed to be so much confusion when the news broke. I heard the flight landed in Nanning, China, initially. But that was found to be untrue,” she said.

Her husband, Li Xin, 25, said Chinese nationals just want to know what happened to the flight.

“We can only know what happened when the multinational search and rescue teams find the black box,” he said.

The couple’s friend, Xu Lin, said there were too many rumours circulating on Chinese social media sites.

“Web users are expressing their thoughts and speculating on MH370. This is not helping because they are stirring up the anger of others,” the 24-year-old said.

“The rumours and speculations are making us uncomfortable,” she said.

Another of the couple’s friend, Chen Xi, added: “We understand what the victims’ families are going through. It was the same grief as what the Sichuan people experienced in the 2008 earthquake.”

However, Li, Xiao, Xu and Chen pointed out that they are fond of Malaysia, and wish to come back if they had the chance.

“I love Penang and other islands in Malaysia. I would recommend them to my friends and family. In Sichuan, we don’t have such views,” said Li.

Another tourist, Zhou Ping, 53, said the flight’s disappearance was an unfortunate event.

“No one could have seen that coming. All countries are doing their best to recover the plane. I don’t think MAS should be held responsible for the incident. No one could have foreseen it,” he said.

Ping said he had been to Malaysia twice for work before and this time, brought his wife and daughter for a vacation in Langkawi.

Retiree Zhou Chang Ming, 60, who is visiting Malaysia for the first time, was worried about the security in the country.

“Fake passport-holders can board planes and intruders can come by sea to take hostages for money. Security needs to be improved so that tourists like us feel safe,” he said.

Having said that, Zhou said he would still recommend Malaysia to family and friends as a holiday destination.

“I love the helpful people. The country is also clean,” he said.

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MH370 and the black box of the mind

Josh Cohen

The Guardian

12 April 2014

Psychoanalyst Josh Cohen on the flight recorder as a potent image of our helpless relationship to the world and to ourselves

Occasionally, perhaps when you feel most inured to the traumatic images that assail us daily on the TV screen or in the papers, you see something that tears you out of your glassy indifference. That, at least, was the effect on me of the pictures of the families of the flight MH370 passengers, eyes knitted in prayer, mouths flung open in rage.

Imagine howling. The phrase, spoken by Claudio in Measure for Measure, came to mind as my eyes fell on their faces and shut tightly, as though reflexively shamed by the indecency of looking at them. But why, when we stare with such casual composure at all manner of grief and suffering, should these images induce such particular and intense aversion?

“Imagine howling”: the phrase is the culmination of Claudio’s febrile vision of death, with its “fiery floods” and “thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice”. But the speech is describing less his impending death, than the current torment of trying, and not being able to imagine it: “Ay, but to die, and go we know not where.” In other words, it is the living who suffer the torments of death, the irremediable ignorance of not knowing where we will be going.

It is this ignorance that makes the plight of the MH370 families so unbearable to contemplate. The confirmed knowledge that a loved one is dead enables the bereaved to begin what Freud called the work of mourning: the slow and painful acknowledgment that the person lost has been removed irrevocably from our world. We cannot know where they have gone, but we can at least know they are not here and that they won’t be coming back.

The families of the Malaysian Airlines flight have, at time of writing, no such grim consolation.
 Until wreckage is found, their relatives seem suspended between life and death, even long after the last scrap of hope has been abandoned. Claudio’s vision seems to describe more the plight of the families than of the passengers. Hence the slogan emblazoned on the banners carried in protest to Kuala Lumpur by the relatives of the Chinese passengers: “You must return the relatives of MH370, no strings attached.” We can bear even the worst knowledge, the banner seems to imply, but we cannot bear what Claudio calls “worse than worst”.

No wonder then that in the midst of this terrifying uncertainty, the families’ and the world’s attention comes to be focused on the whereabouts of the so‑called “black box” containing the cockpit voice and flight-data recorders.

As is well known, the black box is, in fact, bright orange. But here symbolism trumps fact. The box is black whatever colour it happens to be, because it is a repository of obscure mysteries, as well as of their solution. The knowledge it contains is so desperately sought, not because it can return the lost passengers, but because it can rescue them and their families from the horror of we know not where, from the unrelieved darkness of nowhere.

In a brilliant and little-known essay of 1913, “The Theme of the Three Caskets”, Freud shows just how venerable the symbolism of the black box is, finding some version of it running through the history of folk and fairytales. It is also a recurring motif in (who else?) Shakespeare. Bassanio opens the lead casket that wins Portia’s heart. Lear calls on his third daughter to speak only to be told “Nothing” – Cordelia is another kind of leaden box, refusing the treacherous “golden” eloquence of her sisters. The black box, Freud suggests, is a container of the opaque, silent mysteries of love and death, of the enigmas of life itself. It represents both our helplessness in the face of forces beyond our understanding, and our desperate wish to bring them under our control and alleviate the pain of not knowing. In this sense, it is an eloquent emblem of our time, of the enforced ignorance that is our condition.

Perhaps this claim seems counterintuitive or just downright wrong in an age characterised by the ceaseless progress of scientific and technical knowledge. And yet ignorance is in so many ways a corollary of this accumulating knowledge. Our increasingly intricate understanding of the infinitesimal neural networks that form the brain, for example, far from bringing our inner lives under our command, shows us how very little we can do so. “The conscious you,” writes neuroscientist David Eagleman in his tellingly titled Incognito, “the you that flickers to life when you wake up in the morning – is the smallest bit of what’s transpiring in your brain.”

The conscious ego, Freud suggested a century before Eagleman, is only a tiny pocket of coherence in the psyche, helplessly buffeted by the conflicting demands of the voracious id and the unforgiving superego.

These images of the conscious self’s ignorance of what is happening below its surface mirrors the pervasive sense of dispossession so many of us feel as we are carried along the unnavigable networks of contemporary life. Our economic security is mortgaged to financial institutions and instruments whose complexity overwhelms our attempts to understand them, and which are liable, as recent years have so explosively shown, to turn us into hapless victims of their unravelling. Our private data disappears into virtual networks, to be sold and bought by corporate and state agencies without our knowledge or consent. The more inexorably science and technology advance, the more the self seems to regress to its original, infantile state of helpless incomprehension.

The black box is a potently concentrated image of this helpless relationship to the world and to ourselves. We are at the mercy of what it says and does, yet we have almost no understanding of its internal workings, and no means of influencing or modifying it.

It may be that our culture of surveillance – by which I mean not only the persecutory monitoring of the totalitarian state envisioned by Orwell, but the more tacitly imposed, pseudo-benign mutual monitoring of social media culture, as well as tabloid media intrusion – can only be understood in relation to this feeling of helplessness.

For the likes of Paul McMullan, the tabloid journalist who told the Leveson inquiry that “privacy is for paedos”, every closed room, and every life lived inside it, is an invitation to break into them with a telephoto lens or a hacking device. And perhaps the willing surrender of our own private lives to the eyes of Facebook “friends”, Twitter followers and webcams can be read as a more tacit protest against the black boxes of the self and the world, a fantasy of making ourselves and everyone around us fully transparent. “SECRETS ARE LIES / SHARING IS CARING / PRIVACY IS THEFT” run the slogans of the corporate behemoth imagined in Dave Eggers’s recent satirical novel, The Circle. Flood the world with light, and the darkness will be magically eliminated.

The suffering of the MH370 families reminds us of the very real terrors ignorance can induce in us. And yet if the darkness of the self induces feelings of helplessness and dispossession, psychoanalysis reminds us that it is also the basis of our creativity. Without the black box of the unconscious, we would have nothing – neither terrors nor pleasures – to imagine.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 13 April 2014, 12:59 am and is filed under
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Missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370: Black box has fallen silent, admits Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott

Tomas Jivanda

The Independent

13 April 2014

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is warning that the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight is likely to be long after pings believed to be from locator beacons on the all-important black boxes fell silent, meaning the batteries have most probably died.

The last of four strong signals coming from 4,500 meters (15,000 feet) below the surface were heard on the 8 April. The batteries on the black boxes, which record flight data including conversations from the cockpit, only last a month, meaning the window has passed.

The pings already captured have however allowed the search area to be narrowed down to a 500-square-mile patch of the seabed – about the size of Los Angeles. Once officials are confident no more sounds will be heard, and the search area can be narrowed no further, a robotic submersible will be sent down to slowly scour for wreckage across the vast area.

The Bluefin 21 submersible will take six times longer to cover the same area as the ping locator, and will need about six weeks to two months to canvass the current underwater zone.

“No one should underestimate the difficulties of the task still ahead of us,” Mr Abbott said in Beijing on Saturday, the last day of his China trip.

“There’s still a lot more work to be done and I don’t want anyone to think that we are certain of success, or that success, should it come, is going to happen in the next week or even month. There’s a lot of difficulty and a lot of uncertainty left in this,” he added.

Mr Abbott had met with Chinese President Xi Jinping a day earlier to brief him on the search for the plane, which was carrying 239 people – most of them Chinese – when it disappeared on 8 March en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

After analyzing satellite data, officials believe the plane flew off course for an unknown reason and went down in the southern Indian Ocean off Australia’s west coast.

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Missing plane MH370: Abbott says signal ‘rapidly fading’

BBC News

12 April 2014

Signals in remote seas thought to be from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 are “rapidly fading” and finding the jet will be a “massive, massive task”, Australia’s PM says.

Tony Abbott said he was confident “pings” detected by search teams were from the aircraft’s black boxes.

But no new signals have been confirmed in the search area since Tuesday.

“No one should underestimate the difficulties of the task still ahead of us,” Mr Abbott warned.

Correspondents say Mr Abbott appeared to be couching his comments from Friday, in which he said he was “very confident” that signals heard by an Australian search ship were from the missing Boeing 777.

Speaking during a visit to China, Australia’s leader said teams were hoping to track further signals in a section of the southern Indian Ocean before shifting the search operation to the seabed.

“Trying to locate anything 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) beneath the surface of the ocean, about a 1,000km (620 miles) from land is a massive, massive task,” he said.

“Given that the signal from the black box is rapidly fading, what we are now doing is trying to get as many detections as we can so that we can narrow the search area down to as small an area as possible.”

Mr Abbott said a submersible drone would be sent to conduct a sonar search of the seabed once search teams were confident with the area identified – but he refused to say when that might be.

After analysing satellite data, officials believe the plane with 239 people aboard flew off course for an unknown reason and went down in the southern Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia.

Those leading the search fear that time is running out because the batteries that power the pings from the black box only last about a month, and that window has already passed.

Two sounds heard a week ago by the Australian ship Ocean Shield, towing the ping locator, were determined to be consistent with the signals emitted from the black boxes. Two more pings were detected in the same general area on Tuesday.

On Thursday an Australian aircraft picked up an audio signal in the same area as the four previous detections but officials now believe it is unlikely to be related to the black boxes.

The underwater search zone is currently a 1,300 sq km (500 miles) patch of the seabed, about the size of Los Angeles.

The submersible drone, Bluefin 21, takes six times longer to cover the same area as the ping locator and it would take about six weeks to two months for it to search the current zone.

Complicating matters is the depth of the seabed in that area. The signals are emanating from 4,500m (15,000 ft) below the surface, which is the deepest the Bluefin can dive. The search coordination centre said it was considering options in case a deeper-diving sub was needed.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 was flying from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on 8 March when it lost contact with air traffic controllers and vanished from radar.

Of the 239 people on board, 153 were Chinese. Many relatives have been angered by what they perceive to be the Malaysian authorities’ early misguided response to the flight’s disappearance.

The plane disappeared over the South China Sea, between Malaysia and Vietnam, but it was a week before the search was widened based on evidence taken from radar and satellite tracking.

Officials are still no clearer as to why the plane strayed so far off course.

The backgrounds of both passengers and crew have been scrutinised as officials consider hijacking, sabotage, pilot action or mechanical failure as possible causes.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 13 April 2014, 11:06 pm and is filed under
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Now Putrajaya wants longer jail sentence for Anwar

V. Anbalagan

The Malaysian Insider

April 13, 2014

Putrajaya looks to have turned the screws further on Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim after prosecutors filed a cross-appeal to enhance the five-year jail term against the opposition leader who was found guilty of sodomy last month.

His lawyer Karpal Singh said further Anwar’s appeal against the conviction and sentence appeared to be expedited for hearing in the Federal Court as the court registry had already sent him part of the appeal records.

“After going through the records, I found that the prosecution has appealed to enhance Anwar’s jail term,” Karpal told The Malaysian Insider.

This comes almost two weeks after Putrajaya had also cross-appealed against a lighter sentence imposed on Karpal who was found guilty of sedition.

On March 11, Karpal was fined RM4,000 but the prosecution filed a cross-appeal, urging the Court of Appeal to impose a stiffer penalty.

In Anwar’s case, a three-man Court of Appeal bench sentenced the PKR de facto leader to five year’s jail after allowing Putrajaya’s appeal to set aside the High Court decision which had acquitted him.

Anwar, who is the Permatang Pauh MP, risks losing his parliamentary seat and could see his political career coming to a premature end should the apex court uphold the Court of Appeal ruling.

Under the Federal Constitution, an elected representative is disqualified from office if fined more than RM2,000 or jailed for a term exceeding one year.

The sodomy punishment under Section 377B of the Penal Code carries a jail term of up to 20 years and the offender shall also liable to whipping.

“In filing the cross-appeal, I believe the prosecution wants the Federal Court to impose a jail term beyond five years. Whipping Anwar is out of question because he is 66 years old,” Karpal said.

Anwar was found guilty of sodomising his aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, at an upscale condominium in Bukit Damansara on June 26, 2008.

Trial judge Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah ruled on January 9, 2012, that he doubted the integrity of samples taken for DNA testing from Saiful as the samples could have been compromised before they reached the chemistry department for analysis.

However, the three-man Court of Appeal bench, led by justice Balia Yusof Wahi, in their oral decision said Zabidin had erred in his findings as the samples were not compromised.

The appellate court ruling, four days before the nomination day for the Kajang by-election, scuttled Anwar’s hopes of becoming the Selangor menteri besar. Anwar was PKR’s candidate for the by-election.

Karpal said in usual circumstances, the Court of Appeal would supply an appellant the entire appeal records which included the grounds of judgment.

He said the appellant would then file the petition of appeal which included grounds for appeal, within 10 days after the records were supplied.

Under the chief justice’s practice direction, the Court of Appeal has to prepare its grounds of judgment within eight weeks after an appellant filed his notice of appeal.

Anwar, who is on RM10,000 bail, filed his notice of appeal on March 10.

“In Anwar’s case, all other records were supplied to use but minus the grounds of judgment. The court was super efficient in this case. I hope they will be equally efficient in all other civil and criminal cases,” said Karpal who is also Bukit Gelugor MP.

Karpal himself risk facing a custodial sentence and losing his parliamentary seat after Putrajaya cross-appealed against a lighter sentence imposed on him by the High Court which found him guilty of sedition.

The 73-year-old wheelchair-bound lawyer said the Court of Appeal could impose the maximum RM5,000 fine or sentence him to jail which could be up to three years. – April 13, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 13 April 2014, 8:08 am and is filed under
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Three things we learned from: the Seremban child abduction

By Justin Ong

The Malay Mail Online

April 13, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 — On Wednesday, S. Deepa’s joy of winning custody of her two children from estranged husband Izwan Abdullah, a Muslim convert, just days earlier turned to terror when he abducted their son from her Seremban home.

But that terror must have been eclipsed by the shock of learning that the police cannot — or will not? — do anything as the man was granted custody of the children by a shariah court last year.

At first glance, the matter had appeared less tangled than the convoluted custody battles that usually accompany child conversion cases, but it soon transpired that such matters inexorably become complicated when religion is involved.

Here are the three things we have learned from the case so far.

1. Unilateral child conversions are still happening despite Cabinet ban.

In 2009, the Cabinet announced a prohibition against the unilateral conversion of children to Islam by either parent, to prevent further cases where custody battles are locked in a legal limbo that sits in the void between the civil and shariah court systems.

Then de facto law minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz said the Cabinet had decided that children must be raised according to a couple’s shared faith at the time of marriage, to prevent religion from being turned into a tool in later custody battles.

While the letter of the law in this case is clear, the application is anything but: Izwan converted both his son and daughter to Islam on his own in 2013, nearly four years after the Cabinet expressly forbade this.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar’s pronouncement that authorities will not pursue Izwan for taking his son despite the High Court ruling granting custody to the mother is a troubling development in the already complicated subject.

This suggests the Muslim spouse has the ability to forcibly take custody of his children notwithstanding a civil court order, and to do so without repercussion.

With non-Muslims already having no standing before the shariah court that only recognises followers of Islam, to have an ostensibly non-religious enforcement agency yield so readily to the Islamic legal system despite what even Minister Nazri calls clear-cut kidnapping is a dangerous precedent for the entire country.

2. No resolution until the Federal Court fulfils its duty

Malaysia operates parallel legal systems with civil law that applies universally and shariah law that is restricted to Muslims.

In theory, the two systems are distinct and separate. In practice, however, the lines are often blurred, and more so in joint cases when some parties are Muslim and others are not.

Deepa’s case is a clear instance of where the overlap occurs, and with no proper resolution. Which is the superior and which is the subordinate legal system?

In 2010, Malaysia’s apex court was granted the opportunity to provide clarity on the issue.

Then, the Federal Court heard the inter-religious custody battle between Shamala Sathiyaseelan, a Hindu mother, and her Muslim ex-husband for the right to their two children.

Among others, it was asked to decide which — the civil court or the Shariah court — prevailed when conflicting orders were made with regards to the custody of children.

But rather than providing a much-needed answer, the country’s highest court chose the easy way out by not deciding at all. It abdicated its duty to rule on law and chose to entertain the triviality of Shamala’s self-enforced exile from the country.

Until the Federal Court one day gets another chance to revisit the issue, Deepa’s will unlikely be the last in the litany of such cases.

3. More worrying as hudud creeps nearer

Kelantan is again attempting to enforce the Kelantan Syariah Criminal Code Enactment II 1993 that would allow it to roll out hudud law in the state.

In attempts to assuage non-Muslim apprehension over the Islamic penal code that permits for punishments such as amputation, flogging and death by stoning, the system’s proponents insist that it will not extend beyond adherents of Islam.

Given the palpable extension of shariah law into the lives of non-Muslims, however, such assurances are empty platitudes at best and disingenuous consolation at worst.

It is unclear whether Kelantan’s endeavours will ever be successful, but it is unthinkable that the country could do with another intricate criminal system when the civil-shariah quagmire is as intractable as it is now.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 13 April 2014, 8:17 am and is filed under
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Where’s the debris, asks aviation expert as search for MH370 enters 36th day

The Malaysian Insider

April 12, 2014

As searchers scour the Indian Ocean west of Australia for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, an aviation expert told CNN today there should be debris on top of the water.

Jim Tilmon, a former American Airlines pilot and aviation analyst, told CNN that the chances of not having debris on top of the water were remote.

“The amount of flotsam left behind in the crash would most likely vary based on how MH370 hit the water,” Tilmon told CNN.

Since MH370 disappeared on March 8 shortly after departing from Kuala Lumpur, all the possible debris spotted from the air by satellites have turned out not to be from the aircraft.

“It is extremely unlikely that the Boeing 777-200 would have slipped beneath the waves intact,” Tilmon said.

“If it had broken up, then pieces of the aircraft are likely to have been cast adrift on the surface.”

More than a month after MH370 disappeared with 12 crew members and 227 passengers, searchers are still trying to locate the aircraft.

Searchers have been attempting in the past week to home in on the pings which they hope are from MH370’s black box.

As search operations enter the 36th day, there has been no confirmed sighting of the aircraft’s wreckage among the rubbish swept up in the Indian Ocean currents.

“An in-flight break-up would have scattered wreckage over a wide area,” Tilmon told CNN.

“If the aircraft hit the water at a steep angle and at high speed, it would likely have taken much of its frame and contents down into the deep with it.”

That was the case when an Alaska Airline aircraft plunged into the Pacific Ocean off California in 2000, killing all 88 on board.

“It is not like striking your hand into the water, it is more akin to slamming your car into a brick wall.”

He told CNN that was the more likely result of that kind of situation, where there were bound to be a lot of debris.

A less steep angle, even an attempt at a controlled descent, might be more forgiving to the frame of the 60m jetliner.

But when the pilots of a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines flight made an emergency landing in in the Indian Ocean off Africa in 1996, the Boeing 767 still broke apart when it hit the water, killing 125 of the 175 people on board.

Tilmon said it must be remembered that water was like concrete, if an aircraft struck water hard enough, its integrity would be destroyed.

“So you can have pieces which are going to be there and an aircraft will have items which can float,” Tilmon said.

However, the depth of the Indian Ocean where MH370 is believed to have disappeared poses another challenge to searchers.

The pressure of 4,500m is a depth at which the crushing weight of water is the equivalent of one person carrying 50 jumbo jets.

The analogy was supplied by the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Guardian reported today.

CNN reported the most successful water landing in recent history was the so-called “Miracle on the Hudson” in 2009, when the crew of a crippled US Airways flight landed safely on the river off Manhattan after losing both engines.

The Airbus A320 remained intact, and all 155 passengers and crew made it safely off the aircraft.

But the Hudson is “pretty relaxed by comparison” to the remote Indian Ocean, “where you have swells of 10, 12, 16 feet,” Tilmon said.

“It’s pretty difficult to make that kind of landing on water.” – April 12, 2014.

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Hishammuddin should stop his “cat-and-mouse” game on whether there would be Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 as such vacillation further erodes trust and confidence even among Malaysians in government handling of MH370 disaster as highlighted by latest opinion poll

The Acting Transport Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein should stop his “cat-and-mouse” game of “yes, no, yes, no” on whether there would be Parliamentary Select Committee on the MH370 disaster as such vacillation further erodes trust and confidence even among Malaysians in the government handling of the MH370 disaster as highlighted by the latest opinion poll.

In an opinion poll commissioned by The Malaysian Insider and conducted by Merdeka Center in  the last week of last month from March 24 to 30, 54% of the 1,092 respondents from all the parliamentary seats in Peninsular Malaysia  polled believed Putrajaya was not transparent in releasing information about Flight MH370 which vanished 38 days ago on March 8.

In response to the question whether they thought Putrajaya had been truthful or had been hiding anything about MH370, 54% of respondents felt Malaysia had been hiding information, 26% said the government had been truthful while 20% were unsure.

Chinese respondents were almost unanimous in giving the thumbs down to the BN federal government while the slight majority of Indian and Malay respondents, too, believed Putrajaya had been hiding information.

This time, respondents from both rural and urban areas were united in believing that Putrajaya has been less than forthcoming with information about MH370.

This second opinion poll shows that the  level of trust and confidence even among Malaysians in government  transparency and competence in the handling of the MHJ 370 disaster have progressively  worsened since the beginning of the tragedy, as in a similar opinion survey in the first two weeks of the tragedy from March 8 to 20, 50% of Malaysians were unhappy with Putrajaya’s handling of the crisis. In other words, an increase from 50% unhappy with the government’s handling of the crisis in the first two weeks to 54 per cent in the third week.

The survey for the first two-weeks of the MH 370 disaster revealed that only 43% were satisfied with the way Putrajaya was dealing with the issue, which has fallen further to 26 per cent in the third week.

The survey in the first two weeks of the MH 370 disaster was done on 1,005 respondents – 60% Malay, 31% Chinese and 9% Indians.

Although the approval towards Putrajaya’s handling of MH 370 varies distinctly according to racial lines, the trust and  confidence quotient among different race groups in the government’s handling have all  worsened in the third week.

In the first two weeks of the disaster, the majority of Chinese and Indian respondents were dissatisfied, at 74% and 59% respectively. Only 18% of Chinese and 36% of Indian polled said they were satisfied.

But 63% of Malay respondents expressed satisfaction with the handling compared with 30% who said they were not.

By the third week, however, Chinese respondents were almost unanimous in giving the thumbs down to the BN federal government while the slight majority of Indian and Malay respondents, too, believed Putrajaya had been hiding information.

The continued fall in trust and confidence, among all racial groups in Malaysia, in the government’s handling of the MH 370 disaster is because of the endless drips and drabs of information being doled out; ever-lengthening list of clarifications, confusions and contradictions; frequent  twists and turns and “flip-flops” and the vast  “black holes” in information in the past 38 days of the MH370 disaster which not  only aggravate the pain and anguish, but are most  nerve-wracking for the families of the 239 passengers and crew on board, Malaysian and international well-wishers and completely confidence-sapping  as well.

This is best illustrated by the five confusions, twists and turns and flip-flops in the past week, viz:

1.	Did the RMAF scrambled planes to intercept MH370 in the early hours of March 8

CNN stood by its report on  Thursday night (April 10) that the  Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) had scrambled its search aircraft on the morning of the missing Malaysian Airlines Boeing 737 at around 8 am, but did not inform authorities until three days later despite the  denial by the Defence Minister, Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein and the RMAF chief Rodzali Daud.

The RMAF denial lacks credibility as up to now, RMAF has not been able to come out with a coherent and credible account of what it had done in the initial hours to forestall or minimize the MH370 disaster.

2.	No sense of guilt or remorse that Deputy Defence Minister had plunged Malaysian government and country into a greater international crisis of confidence with irresponsible and rubbishy statement in Parliament

On Thursday, the Speaker, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia, absolved the Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Bakri of “misleading” Parliament when the latter told Parliament on March 26 that RMAF did not attempt to intercept MH370 when it was detected on military radar off the Straits of Malacca on March 8 as the RMAF had “assumed” that the plane was ordered to turn back by flight traffic controllers.

The next day,  Rahim explained that his statement in Parliament was erroneous as he had personally made such an assumption.

There was no sense of guilt or remorse that the Deputy Defence Minister had plunged the Malaysian government and nation into a greater  international crisis of confidence with such irresponsible and rubbishy pronouncement.

3.	Co-pilot had made a telephone call when it was flying low near Penang?

Saturday (April 12) front-page headline report by UMNO newspaper New Straits Times that MH370 co-pilot Fariq Abdul Rahman had made a call from his mobile phone as the plane flew low near Penang, before it went missing.

Although Hishammuddin and the Communications and Multimedia Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek who “checked with relevant parties” subsequently refuted the veracity of the New Straits Times report, the government’s handling of the MH 370 suffered another major blow, especially as NST is a UMNO-owned publication.

What’s worse, the NST report of a “mid-flight phone call” has given new life to various conspiracy theories, including the hijack theory which claims that Flight MH370 is in Afghanistan and that the 239 passengers and crew are all alive.

Is the Malaysian government giving credence to such conspiracy theories with the NST  front-page report of the co-pilot’s “mid-flight phone call”?

4.	UMNO mouthpiece Utusan Malaysia’s CIA conspiracy theory on MH370

Equally reprehensible as NST’s co-pilot “mid-flight phone call” story was Mingguan Malaysia’s endorsement of the conspiracy theory about US CIA involvement in MH 370’s disappearance in a bid to sour relations between Malaysia and China. (April 6).

What is shocking is that Hishammuddin, as the Malaysian supremo of the MH 370 SAR operation, took more than a week to refute the Utusan Malaysia as he made the denial only yesterday (April 13) after I had stressed at a media conference on Friday that he must either confirm or deny the Utusan write-up about CIA involvement in the disappearance of MH370.

Both New Straits Times and Utusan became overnight “celebrities” being  the most quoted in the  international media, but their media “notoriety” was achieved at the expense of further blows in the prolonged international crisis of confidence at the Malaysian handling of the MH370 disaster.

5.	Hishammuddin’s “cat-and-mouse” game on RCI and PSC on MH 370

Yesterday, The Malaysian Insider in its report “Steam gathers for RCI as search for MH370 black boxes narrows” quoted Hishammuddin as saying after visiting the preparations for a defence exhibition at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur that Putrajay is close to setting up a Royal Commission of  Inquiry (RCI) on MH 370.

Reason? The increasingly positive signs that MH 370 “black  boxes” will be found.

But all reports point to the contrary, as it is six days since the last strong ping from possibly MH 370’s black boxes have been detected, and all indications are that their battery power had expired and search for the black boxes will have to proceed  despite the ping silence.

Hishammuddin has taken the position that the decision whether to set up a RCI or a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on MH 370 will only be made after the “black boxes” are retrieved.

This is a most unreasonable and unacceptable position – as does this mean that the government will oppose any independent, full-scale and comprehensive inquiry into the MH 370 disaster if the black boxes are not recovered?

Hishammuddin should stop his “cat-and-mouse” game on whether there would be a Parliamentary Select Committee on MH370 as such vacillation further erodes trust and confidence even among Malaysians in government handling of MH370 disaster as highlighted by latest opinion poll.

This is why I am calling on the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak to convene an emergency Parliament before May to establish a Parliamentary Select Committee on MH 370 disaster, where Hishammuddin as the supremo of the MH 370 SAR mission, should play no role in the MH 370 investigation process.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 14 April 2014, 12:11 pm and is filed under
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More than 50% Malaysians feel Putrajaya hiding information on MH370, poll shows

by Lee Shi-Ian

The Malaysian Insider

April 14, 2014

More than half of Malaysians polled last month believe that the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government has been hiding information about flight MH370’s disappearance, according to a new survey by The Malaysian Insider.

Out of the 1,029 respondents polled in The Malaysian Insider survey carried out by the Merdeka Center, 54% said Putrajaya was not transparent in releasing information about flight MH370 which vanished on March 8.

In response to the question whether they thought Putrajaya had been truthful or had been hiding anything about MH370, 54% of respondents felt Malaysia had been hiding information, 26% said the government had been truthful while 20% were unsure.

Ever since the Malaysia Airlines jetliner disappeared on March 8, this allegation has been made on numerous occasions by Chinese relatives of the 227 passengers on board the Boeing 777-200ER (9M-MRO) jetliner.

And more than five weeks after the plane disappeared, it appears that Malaysians are also inclined to believe that Putrajaya has not been forthcoming with information about the flight.

Once again, Chinese respondents were almost unanimous in giving the thumbs down to the BN federal government.

The poll figures showed that the slight majority of Indian and Malay respondents, too, believed Putrajaya had been hiding information.

This time, respondents from both rural and urban areas were united in believing that Putrajaya has been less than forthcoming with information about MH370.

Respondents were selected through random stratified sampling methods along the lines of ethnicity, gender and age, and covered all the federal seats in the peninsula.

The survey was carried out from March 24 to 30 with the selection of respondents proportional to the population in each parliamentary constituency.

On the performance of Malaysian ministers in the MH370 crisis, 21% of the respondents said they were very dissatisfied while 19% were very satisfied.

Despite the criticism Putrajaya has faced from local and international quarters since the MH370 crisis, 51% of respondents said they were confident about the government.

However, 45% of respondents said they were not confident about Putrajaya post-MH370 crisis.

The respondents were asked whether the performance of Putrajaya in handling the MH370 crisis has made them more/less confident about the government.

Within days of MH370’s disappearance, China’s Foreign Ministry had urged Malaysia to speed up its investigations and provide more accurate information.

However, China’s criticism of Malaysia’s investigation into MH370 also unleashed an ugly bout of nationalism.

Anger at Malaysia’s handling of the investigation erupted on Chinese social media, and even on the streets with demonstrations outside the Malaysian embassy in Beijing.

The state-run Xinhua News Agency complained of an “unforgivable” lack of capacity, effort or transparency on the part of Putrajaya.

The adjective “Malaysian” became a popular byword for irresponsibility and unreliability; Malaysian singers of Chinese descent were abused online.

After Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced that MH370 ended its flight in the southern Indian Ocean, family members and relatives in Beijing snapped.

Grief-stricken and angry over what they called two weeks of “lies and misleading information” after MH370 disappeared, family members marched to the Malaysian embassy.

They carried placards bearing the words “Malaysia Airlines, you owe us an explanation”, “Corrupt Malaysian government” and “Mom, please come home”.

Another bone of contention has been a CNN report on Thursday quoting an unnamed senior Malaysian government official as saying that the air force had scrambled search at 8am on March 8 soon after MH370 was reported missing.

Both acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and the Royal Malaysian Air Force chief have denied the report. However, CNN said it was standing by the report. – April 14, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 14 April 2014, 7:29 am and is filed under
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Steam gathers for RCI as search for MH370 black boxes narrows

By Syed Jaymal Zahiid

The Malay Mail Online

April 13, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 — Putrajaya is close to setting up a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 after increasingly positive signs that the plane’s “black boxes” will be found, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein said today.

The acting transport minister also added that an international panel to determine on who has jurisdiction to extract data from the plane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders was gaining similar momentum.

“We are getting closer to the issue… we have been quite busy getting the ministerial committees, expert panels and getting the royal commission set up.

“That will be announced in the near future,” Hishammuddin, who is also defence minister, told a press conference after visiting the preparations for a defence exhibition at the Putra World Trade Centre here.

Today’s remark was the most direct indication on Putrajaya’s expected choice to investigate the mystery of the plane that disappeared on March 8 with 239 on board, with calls for both a RCI and a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to probe the matter.

The acting transport minister had said on March 25 that he was not in the position to decide on the choice of the formal investigation into the case of MH370.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim previously said Putrajaya will establish one of the two formal investigative bodies only when the black box is recovered.

Yesterday Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott said he was “very confident” that signals from the black box had been detected.

The Australian-led search for the Boeing 777, which disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, is racing to gather as many signals as possible to determine an exact resting place before a submersible is sent down to find wreckage.

The Joint Agency coordination Centre (JACC) said yesterday that the remote search area where the plane was believed to have gone down some was still shrinking.

This followed revelation that the Australian navy vessel Ocean Shield had picked up four signals linked to aircraft black boxes, with the first two analysed as being consistent with those from aircraft flight recorders.

The beacons on the plane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders have a normal battery lifespan of around 30 days.

Hishammuddin revealed today that Attorney General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail is currently in the United Kingdom to meet with relevant agencies to discuss legal matters pertaining to data extraction from Flight MH370’s black box.

“The AG is in the UK right now to discuss exactly tab . The ICAO and the experts involved identifying based on international law and domestic law as to have the custody over the black box,” he said, referring to the initials of the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

But the acting transport minister said further details will only be revealed when the data recorders are recovered.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 14 April 2014, 6:37 am and is filed under
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Four-men PR fact-finding parliamentary visit to Semporna to find out whether ESSCOM is “toothless tiger” or  “white elephant” and whether it should be closed down as being utterly ineffective

Together with the DAP Sabah Chairman and MP for Kota Kinabalu, Jimmy Wong Sze Phing, DAP Sabah Deputy Chairman and MP for Sandakan  Stephen Wong Tien Fatt and the PKR MP for Lumut, First Admiral Mohamad Imran bin Abdul Hamid, I am visiting Semporna today for a fact-finding visit to ascertain what could be done by the Malaysian government to ensure greater ESSCOM effectiveness and greater security for Eastern Sabah.

This is the direct result of the month-long parliamentary meeting which ended last Thursday which had put the national spotlight on the effectiveness of ESSCOM and the security of Eastern Sabah.

In the last week of Parliament, the DAP MP for Sandakan Stephen Wong created parliamentary history when he succeeded in adjourning parliamentary proceedings to have a debate on a matter of “urgent, definite public importance” to highlight the ineffectiveness of Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOM) and its failure to be the guardian of security in Eastern Sabah following the second abduction of a tourist from China on April 2 – the second  abduction in five months and  less than 24 hours after the first anniversary celebrations of ESSCOM.

I had described the first ESSCOM anniversary celebrations on April 1 as an “April Fool’s joke” to the people of Sabah and Malaysia, as the ESSCOM Director-General Datuk Mohamad Mentek had boasted that ESSCOM had “succeeded in stopping the attempts by foreigners to enter Sabah illegally to commit criminal acts like the kidnapping of Taiwanese tourists in Pulau Pom-Pom on 15 November 2013”, but in less than 24 hours, there was a second abduction of a tourist from China and a hotel employee of Singamata Reef Resort in Semporna at about 10.30 pm on April 2!

Parliamentarians, whether from Pakatan Rakyat or Barisan Nasional, do not want ESSCOM to be an expensive April Fool’s Joke, costing over RM300 million to be  a mere “toothless tiger” or worse a “white elephant” which could play no meaningful or effective role to ensure the security and safety of Eastern Sabah.

In the urgent parliamentary debate in Parliament on the failures of ESSCOM to ensure security and safety of Eastern Sabah, not only Pakatan Rakyat MPs like Stephen Wong and Jimmy Wong, who spoke up for a total revamp of ESSCOM, Barisan Nasional MPs like the MP for Kalabakan Datuk Seri Panglima Abdul Ghapur bin Salleh even endorsed the call for the closure of ESSCOM.

It is no exaggeration to say that Stephen Wong’s emergency debate on ESSCOM brought out  the best of Sabah MPs in Parliament in the 50-year history of Sabah in Malaysia, for the voice of the people of Sabah were fully united in the highest legislature of the country.

But the last meeting of Parliament also saw the worst of Sabah MPs in Parliament, which I will mention in a short while.

The four-men PR parliamentary fact-finding visit to Semporna today will focus on whether ESSCOM is a “toothless tiger” or  a “white elephant” and whether it should be closed down as making no contribution to the security of Eastern Sabah.

Just before the first anniversary of ESSCOM, Mohamad was very effusive about the success in combining the roles of the four components in the Eastern Sabah Security Zone (ESSZONE) – Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM), Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM), Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (APMM) and public agencies – but the ESSCOM Corporate Communications head, Newmond Tibin, had said after the Semporna abduction on April 2 that ESSCOM was “powerless”  to act with regard to the abductions as it has “no authority to command, direct or order any action”.

In reply to a supplementary question in Parliament last Thursday, the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim said that the question whether ESSCOM director-general will be given executive powers and not just co-ordinating responsibilities is a matter which had to be decided by the Cabinet.

If ESSCOM is going to be responsible for the security, not just intrusion like the Lahad Datu incident but also criminal activities by foreigners entering Sabah like abductions, then the  ESSCOM director-general must be vested with executive powers and not just co-ordinating powers, acting like a Super-Postman among the four ESSCOM components in ESSZONE.

On the last day of Parliament last Thursday, I had called on the Cabinet to vest the ESSCOM director-general with executive powers and not just co-ordinating responsibilities among the Police, Army, Maritime and public agencies in ESSZONE.

Is this a feasible and best solution to the woes of ESSCOM?

This is an answer I am looking for during my visit to Semporna today.

I said just now that the latest month-long meeting of Parliament had brought out the best and the worst of Sabah MPs in the Malaysian Parliament.

I have spoken about the best. What is the worst from Sabah?

Undoubtedly the dishonour goes to the MP for Kudat , Abdul Rahim Bakri, who as Deputy Defence Minister committed the grave parliamentary sin of misleading Parliament when he said in the Dewan Rakyat on March 26 that RMAF did not attempt to intercept MH370 when it was detected on military radar off the Straits of Malacca on March 8 as the RMAF had “assumed” that the plane was ordered to turn back by flight traffic controllers.

Abdul Rahim committed this parliamentary sin when he was pressed by the PKR MP for Lumut to explain the RMAF’s reaction or lack of reaction when the MH370 was spotted on the military radar – completely off-course from its flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Although Rahim issued a statement the next day outside Parliament that he was erroneous in what he said in Parliament as he had personally made such an assumption, which was not that of  RMAF, and was subsequently “cleared” by the Speaker Tan Sri Pandikar Amin of not trying to confuse Parliament, Rahim failed to turn up in Parliament for the subsequent two weeks to demonstrate genuine apology and remorse for his disgraceful parliamentary conduct.

There is actually a common reason why Abdul Rahim dare not turn up in Parliament in the last two weeks to apologise for his parliamentary sin and the reneging by the Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein to give a briefing to Pakatan Rakyat MPs on the MH 370 disaster  – the sheer inability of the RMAF to give a coherent and credible account of what it did in the initial hours of the missing MH370 to prevent or minimise the MH370 disaster!

One of  the pet subjects of Hishammuddin, who is also Defence Minister, is the need for Malaysia to upgrade the defence system to strengthen the national security in the future – claiming that this is the most important lesson from the MH370 disaster.

I am keeping an open mind on the question as to whether Malaysia needs to spend more money  to acquire  more sophisticated assets as a result of the MH 370 disaster.

However, before Hishammuddin or the military chiefs begin to lobby for more military assets and greater military expenditures, they should first of all present a coherent and credible account of what the RMAF had done in the initial hours and days of the MH370 disaster.

Imran, as former First Admiral of Royal Malaysian Navy, believes that there is nothing wrong with our military radar capability but something very wrong with our military leadership and personnel.

Hishammuddin must be able to prove Imran wrong  before he goes around talking about the need to upgrade the military system in the country.

(Media Conference Statement in Tawau on Monday, 15th April 2014 at 8 am)

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Kit Siang, Pakatan trio to probe into effectiveness of Sabah maritime force

The Malaysian Insider

– April 15, 2014

Four opposition MPs are on a mission to find out if the Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom) is nothing but a white elephant, following the kidnapping of two foreign women from the Singamata Reef resort off Semporna on April 2.

It comes on the heels of a series of kidnappings from the eastern side of the state – which is a top tourist draw – even after the RM300 million security unit was set up last year following the Lahad Datu intrusion.

In November last year, Taiwanese Chang An Wei Chang was abducted in a raid at the Pom Pom island resort in Semporna, while Taiwanese businessman Li Min Hsu, 57, was killed, when gunmen opened fire during the attack.

Chang was released in December, 36 days after she was kidnapped, after negotiations with the kidnappers.

DAP national adviser Lim Kit Siang and three other opposition MPs – Jimmy Wong (DAP – Kota Kinabalu), Stephen Wong (DAP – Sandakan) and retired First Admiral Mohamad Imran bin Abdul Hamid (PKR – Lumut) – are on a mission to find out what Putrajaya can do to ensure Esccom operates more effectively.

Lim said that this was necessary given Esscom’s failure to be the guardian of security in Eastern Sabah, following the second abduction of a tourist from China on April 2 – the second incident in five months after the kidnapping in Pom Pom island where a tourist was murdered.

The opposition at a recently concluded session in Parliament dubbed Esscom an “April Fool’s joke” on its first anniversary, over its inability to secure the Sabah borders from kidnappings, after a raid by 235 Filipino militants in the Lahad Datu incident last year, and called for it to be dissolved.

Their call was echoed by BN MP for Kalabakan, Datuk Seri Abdul Ghapur Salleh, who also hit out at Esscom’s ineffectiveness.

Lim said in a statement today that Esscom director-general Datuk Mohamad Mentek, in conjunction with the maritime force’s first anniversary on April 1, had boasted that Esscom had “succeeded” in stopping the attempts by foreigners to enter Sabah illegally to commit criminal acts like the kidnapping of Taiwanese tourists in Pulau Pom-Pom on 15 November last year.

“But in less than 24 hours, there was a second abduction of a tourist from China and a Filipino hotel employee off a resort in Semporna at about 10.30 pm on April 2,” he added.

Mohamad subsequently defended the role of Esscom, calling on critics not jump to conclusions when “they did not understand the situation”.

He also said that his role was not to give instructions directly to the police or armed forces, saying the relevant directors within Esscom dealt with the enforcement agencies.

Lim said that following the April 2 kidnapping, the corporate communications head at Esscom clarified that the security unit was powerless to act as it had no authority to command or order any action.

Lim added that Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim said in Parliament that the issue of whether the Esscom DG will be given executive powers or not had to be a Cabinet decision.

“If Esscom is going to be responsible for the security, not just for intrusion like the Lahad Datu incident but also criminal activities by foreigners entering Sabah, the DG  must be vested with executive powers and not just co-ordinating powers, acting like a Super-Postman among the various Esscom components,” he said.

Lim said that the feasibility of this idea was the answer he was looking for in his visit to Semporna with his three PR colleagues.

He added that while the last Parliament meeting brought out the best in Sabah MPs from BN who also voiced their concern over the recent spate of kidnappings on Sabah, it also brought out the worst among them.

For example, when deputy defence minister Abdul Rahim Bakri (BN – Kudat) misled Parliament by saying that RMAF did not attempt to intercept the missing MH370 when it was detected on military radar on the morning of March 8.

The deputy defence minister also said that he had assumed that the plane was ordered to turn back by flight traffic controllers.

Lim said that although Rahim issued a statement the next day clarifying that he had personally made the assumption, he failed to turn up in Parliament the following two weeks to show he was genuinely sorry for his parliamentary conduct.

The DAP adviser also called on Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein to prove wrong the contention of  former Royal Malaysian Navy first admiral Mohamad Imran who said  that while all was well with the country’s military radar capability, the same cannot be said about the country’s military leadership and personnel.

Lim said that Hishamuddin must first prove Imran wrong before he thinks about upgrading the military system in the country.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 15 April 2014, 1:59 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia Airlines Flight 370: Search for Missing Jet Enters New Phase

By Rachel Pannett and Ross Kelly

Wall Street Journal

April 14, 2014

Authorities Deploy Underwater Vehicle to Examine Sea Floor; Six Days Since Last Pings Detected

SYDNEY—An unmanned submersible began searching the Indian Ocean seabed for wreckage from 3786.KU in Your Value Your Change Short position Flight 370 on Monday, as authorities gave up on fleeting hope of detecting any new signals from the missing jet’s black-box flight recorders.

Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, who is leading the multinational search, said a series of “ping” signals detected last week by a U.S. Navy black box detector remains the most promising lead in the search for the plane, which disappeared en route to Beijing from Kuala Lumpur on March 8.

But as the search entered its 38th day—more than a week beyond the estimated battery life of the black boxes’ emergency locator beacons, and six days after the last signal was detected—it makes sense to turn to the underwater Bluefin-21 vehicle, the former chief of Australia’s defense forces said.

“Aircraft wreckage needs to be visually identified before we can say with certainty that this is the final resting place of Flight 370,” he said. “I would caution you against raising hopes that the deployment of the autonomous underwater vehicle will result in the detection of the aircraft wreckage—it may not. However, this is the best lead we have and it must be pursued vigorously.”

He added that the search of an unmapped area of the sea floor—estimated to be as much as 3 miles (4,800 meters) deep in places and possibly covered in silt—would be a “slow and painstaking process.” The Bluefin-21, provided by the U.S. Navy, was launched late Monday afternoon local time, according to the U.S. Seventh Fleet. It added that scanning the entire search area is expected to take between six weeks and two months.

The only other development in the past 24 hours was the discovery of an oil slick in an area where the Australian navy vessel Ocean Shield has been towing the U.S. black box detector since April 4. Air Chief Marshal Houston said authorities would analyze a sample of the oil, which he said wasn’t likely to have come from ships involved in the search.

Retired Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston, leading the multinational search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, said Monday that the time had come to send a vehicle to map the sea floor. Associated Press

“At the moment this is really all we’ve got,” he said. “We’ve got no visual objects; the only thing we have left at this stage is the four transmissions and an oil slick in the same vicinity. We will investigate those to their conclusion.”

Investigators believe Flight 370 ran out of fuel and crashed into the ocean after vanishing from civilian radar as responsibility for communicating with the plane was being handed from Malaysian ground control to Vietnam. It was carrying 239 passengers and crew.

Charitha Pattiaratchi, an oceanographer at the University of Western Australia, said the oil slick is likely to turn out to be another false lead in a search that has so far yielded no hard evidence of the missing jet. Not only was the plane thought to have run out of fuel before it crashed, but the search area was recently buffeted by a major storm that would have churned up the sea surface.

“If there was oil, or small amounts of hydraulic fluid, it wouldn’t last long. It would evaporate and form into small pieces and sink,” he said.

Authorities have narrowed the search zone for the unmanned submersible to an area of about 500 square miles (1,300 square kilometers), based on a series of signals detected last week they think came from the flight recorders. That is still vast, given that the Bluefin-21 moves at walking pace. Air Chief Marshal Houston said it would first attempt to scan an area of up to 15 square miles, focusing on where authorities believe the plane went down.

“Each of these operations is going to be different, but if you take a look at Air France 447, [the black box] was just a couple of miles away and it took two years to find,” said U.S. Navy Capt. Mark Matthews, who is coordinating the underwater search from Perth, referring to an Airbus A330 that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean in 2009. “We’ve got more uncertainty in this case, and if we found it on day one I’d be shocked.”

Indeed, in the Air France crash, hundreds of pieces of floating debris were found within days.

A week ago, after Ocean Shield picked up the first of a series of electronic signals—the longest lasting more than two hours—officials appeared confident of a breakthrough. Australia’s Prime Minister Tony Abbott said Friday he was “very confident” the signals came from the plane’s black boxes. Until now, though, authorities had delayed the switch to the submersible because of its limited range.

A handout image released by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority on Sunday shows the current planned search area in the Indian Ocean. European Pressphoto Agency

The Bluefin-21 can be programmed to conduct a specific search mission of about 20 hours, using side-scan sonar to pick out unique features on the ocean floor. Once hauled back on board, its data are downloaded and analyzed over a four-hour period. Authorities say the Bluefin-21 can produce a high-definition, three-dimensional map of the seabed. If the data show an anomaly on the seabed, the Bluefin-21 would have its sonar equipment replaced with a high-grade underwater camera. The submersible can accommodate only one of the two systems at a time.

Further complicating the search is uncertainly about conditions on the seabed. Authorities expect to encounter a blanket of silt, which may be covering part or all of the plane debris, and possibly strong currents. Still, they are relying heavily on calculated guesswork: Expectations of silt are based on a seabed survey many years ago of an area more than 60 miles away from the current search zone.

“This is an area new to man,” Air Chief Marshal Houston said Monday.

An air and sea search for debris continued Monday, with up to 12 aircraft and 15 ships scouring a stretch of ocean northwest of the Western Australian city of Perth. Air Chief Marshal Houston said that within three days search crews will complete the search for floating material in an area where investigators believe the plane went down. After that, he said that portion of the operation may be called off.

“The chances of any floating material being recovered have greatly diminished,” he said. Military aircraft have been flying daily sorties from Western Australia since March 18, after satellite data suggested the plane may have deviated sharply from its original course. At its peak, eight nations including the U.S., China and the U.K. were involved in the air and sea search of the southern Indian Ocean.

Malaysian authorities are stepping up preparations for a future phase of the investigation: consulting with international legal experts over which country would get custody of the black boxes if they are retrieved. Precedent in airline crashes would give the country overseeing the investigation—in this case, Malaysia—authority to determine how the black boxes are recovered and analyzed. Kuala Lumpur has delegated large parts of the search and investigation to countries and agencies with greater technical resources, and it is expected to designate foreign experts to download data from the devices.

—David Winning in Sydney and Lucy Craymer in Perth contributed to this article.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 15 April 2014, 10:22 pm and is filed under
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Mini-sub to dive again after aborting first MH370 search

By Greg Wood

AFP

 15th April 2014

Perth (Australia) (AFP) – A mini-sub hunting missing Flight MH370 was set to sweep the Indian Ocean seabed again Tuesday after cutting short its first mission, as Malaysia vowed to reveal any ‘black box’ data found.

The unmanned submarine equipped with sonar gear was deployed Monday night from the Australian ship Ocean Shield, which has spearheaded the hunt for the Boeing 777 that vanished on March 8 with 239 people aboard.

But the dive by the Bluefin-21 detected nothing of interest before it automatically aborted the mission after breaching its maximum operating depth, the US Navy said in a statement.

The Australian agency coordinating the search said the Bluefin-21 “exceeded its operating depth limit of 4,500 metres (15,000 feet) and its built-in safety feature returned it to the surface”.

The unmanned Autonomous Underwater Vehicle was undamaged and set for a second sonar sweep during the day, weather permitting, officials said.

US Navy Captain Mark Matthews said the vehicle had exceeded programmed operational limits and automatically resurfaced.

“In this case the vehicle’s programmed to fly 30 metres over the floor of the ocean to get a good mapping of what’s beneath,” he told CNN from Perth.

“It went to 4,500 metres and once it hit that max depth, it said ‘This is deeper than I’m programmed to be’, so it aborted the mission.”

Officials said the crew would now refine the task to cope with the depth encountered.

“To account for inconsistencies with the sea floor, the search profile is being adjusted to extend the sonar search for as long as possible,” the US Navy statement said.

Australia’s Joint Agency Coordination Centre chief Angus Houston announced Monday officials would end three weeks of listening for signals from the plane’s black boxes and launch the submarine operation.

The mini-sub would conduct a sonar survey of the silty ocean floor for 16 hours at a time in hopes of finding some wreckage from the Malaysia Airlines flight which vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The US navy estimated it would take the Bluefin-21 from six weeks to two months to scan the entire search area, which has been deduced using satellite data and the detection of electronic pulses linked to black box recorders which were last heard a week ago.

Houston has described the detections as the best lead in the hunt for the plane, and added Monday that an oil slick had also been sighted in the search area.

It would take several days to test a sample of the oil ashore, but Houston said he did not think it was from one of the many ships involved in the hunt.

The cause of the plane’s disappearance, after being diverted hundreds of miles off course, remains a mystery. No debris has been found despite an enormous search involving ships and planes from several nations.

It is 39 days since the plane vanished, presumably crashing into the southern Indian Ocean, and the batteries powering the black box tracker beacons had a life of only around 30 days.

Ocean Shield detected four signals linked to the black boxes, but the last ping came on Tuesday last week and officials suspect the batteries are now dead.

Houston has stressed the enormous difficulties of working at great depths in such a remote location and cautioned about the difficulties of finding the black boxes.

If they are ever found, Malaysia’s Transport Minister pledged Tuesday to make public any data recovered, as the government battles widespread criticism over the transparency of its investigation.

“It’s about finding the truth. And when we… find out the truth, definitely we have to reveal what’s in the black box,” Hishammuddin Hussein told reporters.

“So there is no question of it not being released.”

The Malaysian government has been tight-lipped about its ongoing investigation into the disappearance of the jet, adding to the anger and frustration of relatives.

It has come under fire for a seemingly chaotic initial response, while the scarcity of official information on MH370 has prompted questions over its transparency.

Hishammuddin said at the weekend that Malaysia’s attorney general had been sent abroad to confer with the International Civil Aviation Organisation and determine which country would have custody of the black box, if it is ever found.

But he shrugged off the importance of the custody issue on Tuesday.

“I don’t think it’s important who gets custody as far as I’m concerned,” he told reporters.

Malaysian authorities insist they are hiding nothing but need to be cautious on commenting on ongoing investigations.

Hishammuddin also said an “international investigation team” that Malaysia plans to set up to probe MH370’s disappearance would be transparent and operate in accordance with international standards.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 15 April 2014, 10:41 pm and is filed under
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The meltdown of Malaysian institutions

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

April 15, 2014

There was a time when Malaysia was known for its institutions – a civil service that facilitated rapid development from an agrarian economy to an industrialised one, a judiciary that was held in high esteem of the Commonwealth, and a military that defeated a communist insurgency.

Today, more than 50 years as a nation spanning from Perlis to Sabah, we see ineptitude and incompetency, a complete meltdown of Malaysian institutions.

The Attorney-General now farms out cases to an Umno lawyer; the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) leads an organisation which does not act when a High Court rules; the Department of Civil Aviation (DCA) suffers a credibility deficit; and the air force has not covered itself with any glory.

So who do Malaysians turn to in time of need?

Not any of the above, it appears. Sad but true.

The saga of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared with 239 people on board on March 8, has confirmed what Malaysians have suspected for a long time. That there is not much meritocracy and thinking going on in the civil service.

The authorities, from the minister downwards, have yet to explain what happened in the crucial hours after MH370 was found missing. A CNN and BBC television report yesterday showed Defence Minister and Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein avoiding the question.

Can the civil aviation sector trust the DCA to do the right thing immediately after a flight vanishes from the radar screens? Why wasn’t the air force told that a jet was missing? Why wasn’t plane maker Boeing told immediately? Why didn’t the air traffic control respond to their Vietnamese counterparts when told that there was no contact with the Boeing 777-200ER that was on its way to Beijing?

Why the silence?

The Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) also has to explain how it defends the country’s airspace throughout the day. Yes, we have brave men and women in uniform keeping watch but a mysterious blip on the radar moving east to west was left unmolested.

Not even hailed by radio, let alone scrambling jets to check on the blip. Or even to ask the DCA and air traffic control if they were also seeing the blip.

Does the RMAF have fighter jets on standby? How many can fly these days apart from those used for parades, air shows and F1 races?

The IGP has decided to play marriage counsellor to a divorced couple rather than enforce the law after the ex-husband forcibly took away his son from the ex-wife’s legal custody.

Does the IGP or anyone else in the police force know the law and the offence that was committed, or do they assume there is a conflict in the civil and Shariah law that they cannot take any action?

Can anyone cite religion and get away with a crime? How can people trust the police to enforce the law passed by lawmakers elected by the people?

Where is the Attorney-General in all of this? Is it more important for him to go to London to figure out who will have custody of the MH370 black box, once found, rather than stay back in the country and decide on whether to prosecute or take action against a man for abducting his child from his ex-wife’s legal custody?

Or just outsource some jobs to an Umno lawyer – from defending the Registrar of Societies (RoS) in a judicial review brought by the  DAP to prosecuting opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in his sodomy appeal.

Is the Attorney-General’s decision to outsource some work a tacit confirmation and acknowledgment that there is no talent left in the A-G Chambers to do the work?

And is there any talent also left in the civil service, police force and military?

Malaysia’s civil service was the envy of many – from working on poverty eradication and affirmative action policies to industrialisation and a respected judiciary and prosecution.

They did more with fewer resources and lesser people then. But they had quality talent back then.

These days, Malaysia just has bad jokes passing off as the civil service, police force, military and the public prosecutor. This is the meltdown of institutions that had shaped the country from its formative years to the Asian tiger that it once was.

It might take a generation to possibly set things right with these institutions.

Or is that just a hope that is fading as fast as the chance of hearing another ping in the southern Indian Ocean? – April 15, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 15 April 2014, 7:50 am and is filed under
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Western reporters outshine Chinese counterparts on MH370

By Li Xinran | April 15, 2014

Shanghai Daily

THE mysterious disappearance and search for Malaysia Airlines MH370 have dominated headlines, broadcast news and the internet since the huge aircraft vanished six weeks ago.

Coverage by domestic and international journalists has been intense, but too much reporting by Chinese mainland outlets did not demonstrate the depth and initiative of the reports by their foreign counterparts. Surely, they are capable of investigating and producing “scoops.”

But major stories about the flight, its pings, possible course and intriguing theories about the disappearance have been picked up and translated from CNN, the BBC, The AP, Reuters, AFP and other sources.

These overseas media went to great lengths to interview pilots, aviation, safety, satellite, meteorology, and oceanography experts, and many others.

It cannot be denied that Chinese media dispatched their journalists to the frontline immediately after the flight went missing. Shanghai-based Dragon TV and Oriental Morning Post sent their reporters to Malaysia and Vietnam respectively to trace the incident from the very beginning.

But many Chinese reporters naturally covered the press conferences and appear to focus most of their energy on the families of the Chinese passengers on board and their anger over insufficient information.

Some journalists from the Asia-Pacific region expressed their deep concern over this situation at a recent seminar in Shanghai held by The Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership. They cited the pervasive influence of American and European news agencies, satellite TV channels and newspapers, even in the Asia-Pacific region.

Yuan Wenyi, a Dragon TV frontline reporter, sent back background from Kuala Lumpur many times in the past 30 days, but her viewers were mainly in Shanghai. She was not widely recognized, much less widely quoted.

When China Central Television’s International Channel reported the latest update of the missing flight on Saturday, it quoted CNN, the BBC, Reuters and The AP for background and analysis.

It may take a while to find the missing flight and the victims, but I wish our reporters would contribute more “scoops” and breaking news based on their own investigations.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 15 April 2014, 5:49 am and is filed under
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Government’s denial syndrome in both MH370 disaster and ESSCOM crisis are biggest stumbling blocks in  efforts to restore national and international confidence in the security and good governance in Malaysia

The government’s denial syndrome in both the MH370 disaster and ESSCOM crisis are the biggest stumbling blocks in efforts to restore national and international confidence in the security and good governance in Malaysia.

The Malaysiakini interview by the former Sabah Police Commissioner from 2002 to 2004, Ramli Yusuff describing the Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOM) as “ridiculous” because of the duplication of  the chain of command in ESSZONE is serious food for thought and basis for immediate decision by the Cabinet.

The ESSCOM director-general Datuk Mohamad Mentek’s boast during the first anniversary celebrations of ESSCOM on April 1 about the ESSCOM’s twin successes in combining the  role of the four components in Eastern Sabah Security Zone (ESSZONE) – Malaysian Armed Forces (ATM), Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM), Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (APMM) and public agencies – and to stop abductions of foreign tourists have proved to be most premature following another abduction in five months  and less than 24 hours of the ESSCOM’s first anniversary celebrations.

Recounting from his experiences as Sabah Police Commissioner about a decade ago, Ramli advocates that ESSCOM should be headed by the state police chief to avoid duplication of the chain of command and to ensure a better grip on security operational matters.

Ramli said it is ridiculous to have ESSCOM which creates a conflicting chain of command, and wants ESSCOM to be headed by the police or army, but he prefers the police because this is an internal security matter.

As ex-Sabah police commissioner, Ramli thinks that Mohamad Mentek is not suitable to be the ESSCOM director-general as he is from the Immigration Department and “doesn’t know operational matters”.

Ramli’s comment on the recent kidnapping of two women from a resort off Semporna warrants serious attention.

Ramli said if the police were in charge, no time would have been wasted and  “no ‘pushing (bertolak-tolak)’ between ESSCOM and the police to figure out whose jurisdiction the kidnap fell under”.

Ramli said when he was police chief, there were no incursions or kidnappings because coordination was tight among all enforcement agencies, including the army.

As police chief, Ramli said, he would advise the chief minister on security issues and coordinate everything with the navy, air force, army, volunteer corps (Rela), and Immigration and Customs departments.

Ramli said the army and police shared their assets throughout Sabah, and compared notes on intelligence which he insisted is the most crucial aspect of security operations.

Special attention was also given to tourist areas where more personnel were deployed at outposts and for patrols.

Ramli said “It doesn’t matter (how long the border is). If it happens in your district you have to know”, adding that ground intelligence should be water tight in “red zones”.

Based on his experience, Ramli said “there is no way” such kidnappings and incursions can take place because the state and security personnel have already identified these “red zones”.

Malaysiakini quoted Ramli as saying:

“So I cannot understand why Esscom cannot (handle) this… These are the areas we used to take care of before and we beefed up (security) in all these areas.

“If only the police and army can sit down and work together again, it will be very good. We worked based on information on the ground.

“Now I believe they have many platoons… There is no reason for such things to happen.”

The government’s denial syndrome on the Eastern Sabah security problem is its refusal to end the overlapping and duplication of command in ESSZONE despite the creation of ESSCOM and the expenditure of over RM300 million.

The statement by the Acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein yesterday refusing to address whether Malaysia had handled the initial stages of MH370’s disappearance poorly on the ground that the government wanted to “move forward” is another example of the serious denial syndrome afflicting the government.

With the MH 370 disaster entering its 40th day of tragedy and mystery, as there is still no conclusive proof  of its whereabouts, Hishammuddin should realise that the priority can no more be solely on finding the aircraft but must be expanded to include finding answers to the thousand-and-one questions about the handling of the disaster, in particular what happened in the initial hours of the disappearance of the MH 370 Boeing 777 aircraft.

It is both facetious and fallacious for Hishammuddin to berate critics for “looking so far back at a time when we are already looking forward”, for it is impossible to “look forward” without a proper grasp of what happened 40 days ago in the initial hours of the MH 370 tragedy on March 8.

It is not a matter of apportioning blame for the MH370 disaster, but there cannot be a full closure for the families and loved ones of the 239 passengers and crew onboard the Boeing 777 (or even for Malaysians and the world) without a full and no-holds-barred investigation into what happened in the initial hours and days of the MH 370 disaster.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 16 April 2014, 7:39 am and is filed under
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