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A Hong Kong arms seizure causes a messy fall-out in Malaysia

THE HONG KONG CUSTOMS officials on Tuesday, 04 May 2004, seized a shipment of 2,800 "second-hand" machine guns, 25,000 unloaded magazines and other accessories enough to equip a military division, its largest ever seizure. Hong Kong allows transit of weapons but they must be declared and licenced, suggesting that this shipment from Port Klang to Oakland, California, were not. The Malaysian home and defence ministries, with the police and armed forces chiefs, went into a tailspin, and in their explanations raised the doubt that these "antique" weapons were not for a museum in California but for those it should not be sold to. The Malaysian armed forces chief, Gen. Tan Sri Zahadi Zainuddin, told the New Straits Times yesterday (05 May 2004) said the weapons did not belong to its security forces, not the police nor the armed forces. He was so confident of this that he awaited a report from Hong Kong's Interpol representative. In other words, he is sure that this was a sinistral attempt to besmirch Malaysia's good and fair name. He did not know the name of the ship, where it was registered or even if it was in transit. The Inspector-General of Police, Dato' Seri Mohamed Bakri Omar concurred.

It turns out the two chiefs told a right royal fib aka a pack of lies. The Hong Kong seizure caught the Malaysians flatfooted. Why should it if all is above board? The unravelling started immediately. The Royal Malaysia Police's CID director, Dato' Musa Hassan, now confirms the machine guns were from the police armoury, bought half-a-century ago, and sold to a California firm which would sell them to collectors as antique weapons. Who authorised the sale? He does not say. Did the home and internal security ministries approve it? He does not say. Did the cabinet? He does not say. It is possible that the machine guns could have been ordered sold as the police upgraded its gunnery. But there is a problem. The consignment has enough guns to equip an army division. The guns are not antique. A machine gun first used in the Boer War at the turn of the 20th century was captured in Afghanistan in the 1990s. It had seen action in every major war in Europe, the Middle East and Africa before it landed in Afghanistan warlord's armoury. More important, how could the police sell off an armoury of a division without a corresponding purchase to replace it. Was this done? We have no record. Who authorised it? We do not know.

Dato' Musa proves his case by throwing the onus on a company called Global Forecasting Sdn Bhd whose managing director, Lt. Col. Che Halim Che Hussein, confuses it further. The police disposed off the weapons in 2002 to be sold as collectors' items and antiques as they were "over 24 years old". If this is so, how did the IGP not know of it? How could the armed forces chief not know of it? The Home Ministry then approved the sale of not machine guns but "light arms, like 9mm pistols and ammunition and magazine". He had had exported two shiploads so far without mishap, and he cannot understand why the third was. Lt. Col. Che Halim does not explain if the 2,800 machine guns and assorted ammunition magazines and other accessories were part of the shipment. If it were not, as he implies, why is Malaysia so nervous and frightened that it is caught. Clearly, there is more to it than meets the eye. Since this sale involves national security, why was there no co-ordination between the home and defence ministries, whose ministers, lest you forget, is one Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, and who by coincidence is also Prime Minister and deputy Prime Minister. How is it they did not know of it? And if they did, why they did not stop the sale?

Malaysia is caught in its own machinations. With good reason. In the 1970s, Malaysia was a transhipment point when Libya transferred weapons and cash to the Moros in southern Mindanao. They were invariably transhipped on 17 December every year in the 1970s, a week before Christmas, so that the arms could arrive in Mindanao with little fuss and official intrusion. Tun Abdul Razak, Malaysia's second prime minister, tacitly supported it, and the conduit was the Sabah chief minister of the day, Tun Datu Mustapha bin Datu Harun. News of this was well kept under wraps, but the discovery of a US$1 million Citibank draft from its Hong Kong branch to Tun Mustapha, raised more questions than answers. The money was widely believed then to be of Libyan origin, and it caused the same confusion in Kuala Lumpur in the 1970s as now. At the time, a Belgian television journalist went to Mindanao and shot some good footage of the Mindanao rebels in action, including shooting down of a Philippine Air Force fighter plane. I did the English voice-over for it, and we travelled to Tripoli in 1976 and to Europe two years ago to market it. NBC TV bought it, and aired a five-minute segment on its regular news programme.

What surprised me then was how widespread this view in Europe of Libya's involvement in Mindanao, with Malaysia in the centre. But the ties soured and began with the death of a Libyan agent under Special Branch interrogation. Libya would not admit the man was its citizen, insisted the Libyan passport he carried was a fake. Malaysia took to going on its own to help Muslim groups fighting for independence, and distanced itself from Libya and other countries prepared to help. The rogue elements of those programme still continue to work independently, but this continued doubt of Malaysia's involvement in Muslim irredentist groups overseas refuse to go away, especially when Tun Mahathir Mohamed was Prime Minister. Many of those accused in the war on terror met frequently in Malaysia, several established religious schools, especially several of those accused in the Bali bombings. Malaysians during the Kosovo crisis sent several plane loads of weapons for the Kosovo rebels, using South American charter planes and weapons bought from such places as Lebanon, and transhipped through Karachi. It is in the light of Malaysia's past actions that raises doubts of its latest caper in Hong Kong.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com