The recent theft of jet fighter engines has again raised the concern in Malaysia of whether the smuggling of military weapons from military base has connection with the illicit international arms sale syndicates. This problematic area has long existed in the international community.
There are many dark and sensitive operations in this area not known to outsiders. In fact, as early as in the 60's and 70's certain Malaysians have already been marked by the international media for their involvement in regional illegal arms smuggling rackets.
Training Moro Guerillas
When Malaysia was established in 1963, the Philippines did not want to recognize the formation of Malaysia. The Philippines authority claimed that Sabah was part of the territory of the Philippines. Far Eastern Economic Review and Asian Studies have come out with reports in 1974 and in 1975 respectively and said that for this territorial dispute, Malaysia and the Philippines have gone through ten years of "underground war." During that period, the Philippines authority began to train Moro guerillas as subversive element to enter Sabah in order to seize opportunity to take over Sabah. Similar, in 1969, the Malaysian authority has also trained closed to 90 Moro people in Pangkor Island (West Malaysia) and in Sabah to fight against the subversive elements of the Philippines Government in Sabah.
Evidence and Accusation
The reports provided by the above two publications further alleged that beginning 1972 the Malaysian naval vessels had delivered 200,000 rounds of ammunition and 5.407 firearms to the southern Philippines. The last record of Malaysian government has used naval vessels to transport ammunition to southern Philippines was dated 31 December 1973.
Meanwhile, news from the Philippines alleged that on 3 June 1972 the Philippines Government intercepted a postal letter indicating that a high ranking Malaysian officer in Sabah then had provided support to fund separatists in the southern Philippines.
During that period the Philippine Foreign Minister had summoned the Malaysian Ambassador to the Philippines and queried and matter. However, Malaysian Ambassador has denied Malaysia's support for the military rebels in the southern Philippines and challenged that if the Philippines had any evidence about its accusation, it should announced it publicly. Meanwhile, the Malaysian Government also questioned the Sabah senior official about his involvement in the southern Philippines separatist affairs. The Sabah officer has the accusation. This Sabah officer left the government service in 1975. Subsequently in 1976, the Philippines Government signed the "Tripoli Peace Agreement" with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) active in southern Philippines. The Malaysian Government also stopped its alleged support for the militants in southern Philippines.
In any case, after few decades of insurgency by military rebels in the southern Philippines, the Sulawesi Sea close to the southern Philippines islands is still regarded as an illegal arms smuggling haven to international weapon smuggling syndicates. Allegedly as of today, the local militants in the southern Philippines islands are still able to obtain endless supply of illegal weapons. However, Malaysia with its Sabah state geographically closest to the southern Philippines islands has turn from a suspect of illegal weapon transit nation in the past to the present status as a victim of illegal weapon smuggling activities.
Learn From Past Experience
Malaysians generally think that the security measures taken by the Government to safeguard military weapons must be very secure and safe. They cannot imagine that the military weapons under the tight country of the military force could get lost or stolen.
However, in recent years, the few major incidents leading to the theft of military weapons have shattered people's belief that the military weapons of the nation are well kept and managed. Nowadays Malaysians cannot help but to ponder over the fact that if big jet fighter engines under tight security could get lost, what other military equipment cannot get missing?
Military Theft Incidents
Nevertheless, if we look back at the few military theft incidents that happened in the past few years, we can indeed observe some common trail or pattern.
1. On 2 July 2000 between two to four o'clock in the morning, some member of Al-Malunah, which was an extremist group with former Malaysian servicemen background, bought some multicolor jungle track military uniform and disguised as senior military officials. They got into three disguised Pajero 4-wheel military vehicles and drove to two military camps in Gerik and staged what they called "emergency spot checks" of all the ammunitions stored at both the two camps. They took away from these two camps over 100 firearms, ammunitions and other army equipment.
2. In 1999, police discovered that the riffles used by the Steyr Rifle Gang to rob local banks and financial institutions were in fact the missing firearms stored at the Kamuntin military camp.
3. In January 2006, more Steyr rifles were reported missing from a number of military camps in the country. After going through an inventory of firearms exercise, the Lumut Navy Base, the military commander base in Penang and the Royal Air Force's military camp in Sungai Petani Airport in Kedah have found they have lost some Steyr rifles from their stocks. The Lumut Navy made the report of loss to the police.
4. Toward the end of 2009, the case of two stolen F-5E jet fighter engines from a military camp in Kuala Lumpur was exposed. It was reported that a container loaded with two F-5E jet fighter engines were sent to the military camp in Kuala Lumpur's air base on 31 October 2007. The arrival date of the two engines to the air force base's No. 1 weapon store was 1 November 2007. On 30 December 2007 and 1 January 2008, the two F-5E jet fighter engines were reported being shipped to a venue in Subang Jaya USJ area in Petaling Jaya. On 4 May 2008, the two jet fighter engines were being shipped by a ship liner to Argentina and then forwarded to Uruguay.
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