Saturday March 9, 2013
Lahad Datu: Need for rethink of Malaysia crisis response structure
By DZIRHAN MAHADZIR
Pahang football fans singing the national anthem and the Inilah Barisan Kita song before their team’s Super League match against PKNS at the Darul Makmur Stadium in Kuantan. The stadium reverberated with patriotism as the 15,000-strong crowd rendered the heartfelt songs after observing a minute’s silence as a tribute to the eight security forces personnel who died while on duty in com bating the Sulu intruders in Sabah.
IN light of the current crisis in Sabah, there have been queries on why the police were the initial responders to the situation and not the military,
I am not sure where this nonsense originated from but there have been various statements in circulation saying that if we had sent in the military, it would mean that we were declaring war.
This would mean that the Sulu gunmen would fall under the Geneva Convention, resulting in us having to accord them legitimate status as prisoners of war if we capture them.
This is nonsense. Without going into a long-winded definition of the third convention, suffice to say that all it requires Malaysia to do is to treat its prisoners of war humanely.
It does not automatically mean we have to recognise the gunmen as legitimate armed forces or the Sulu nation as a sovereign state.
The 1977 Protocol II of the Ge*ne**-va Convention was enacted specifi**cally to require signatories to the Geneva Convention to treat any combatants and non-combatants humanely, even if the country involved does not recognise their legitimacy or authority.
So how everyone is running op-eds, Facebook postings and blog entries on the contrary is beyond understanding.
The answer to the question is in our National Security Directive (NSD) No. 18, which deals with terrorism response. Yes, I am aware that we have not defined the Sulu gunmen as terrorists but given the situation, NSD No. 18 would just as easily apply.
It makes the primary response the duty of the police force, with the armed forces in support, unless or until the Government decides otherwise.
The problem is that some demands made by the Sulu militants touch upon political and foreign policy aspects that may be outside the scope of the police force, or an area that the police have little or no standing to make decisions.
NSD No. 18 lays down a series of sub-committees which would be coordinated by the National Security Council, which is under the Prime Minister’s Department.
Unfortunately, the council serves only to coordinate and its head is a civil service appointment rather than a specialist designation.
This is something that needs to be changed. In my opinion, national crisis management in Malaysia needs to be restructured with the appointment of a National Security Adviser (NSA) to the Prime Minister, heading a group of relevant experts and specialists with the authority to oversee the crisis and be able to advise the Prime Minister appropriately.
The NSA should be someone with an operational background, either in intelligence or military operations, given that such experience is vital for someone who will be advising the highest levels of government.
He must be allowed to handpick his own team as such a group would need to work efficiently and seamlessly together during a crisis.
He should be given the authority to draft or invite external specialists and advisers as and when required.
Also, the NSA should have autho*rity over all security forces in terms of managing the crisis, although he should not be micromanaging the operations at ground level.
The recommendation of a candidate for this post should be done by the Prime Minister and cleared by a special bipartisan committee of Parliament, set up to provide independent oversight on national security issues, with the final approval coming from the Yang di-Pertuan Agong.
After the dust has settled in Sabah, there needs to be a serious and independent post-mortem on how Malaysia handled the crisis.
The findings would help the nation formulate a better crisis management structure and action plan. This is vital because the next situation could be far more serious than the Sabah incident.
Having an NSA to cut through bureaucracy and multiple agency protocol to provide the Prime Minister with clear assessments of the situation, along with recommendations for decisive courses of action, would be in our best interests.
At the same time, there is a need for the Government to rethink how it handles media issues – far too many reports have been coming out of the Philippine media on the Sabah situation, many of these inaccurate. Yet, very little has been done to publicly refute such reports.
These reports are also picked up by the international media and the result is perhaps an unfavourable outlook or coverage of what Malaysia is doing. We need to be able to quickly counter such inaccurate reports.
At the same time, the Government must reassess its mechanism for making official announcements because this appears to be slow, allowing all sorts of speculation to run wild in the vacuum created by the lack of official information.
It must be realised that we are in an information war with the Philippine media in this situation and the country must be able to clearly present its perspective and actions. After all, the events are happening on our soil, not in the Philippines.
Yes, that post-mortem is very necessary.
> Dzirhan Mahadzir is a freelance defence journalist and analyst based in Kuala Lumpur. He writes for Defence Review Asia, Janes Defence Weekly, and other publications.
