Why the need for a para-military group like RELA? Why continue to give them guns?

Maclean Patrick

The RM6.56 million high-tech virtual shooting range set up at the Rakan Muda Complex recently is nothing more than an overpriced game machine that panders to the trigger-happy fingers of 16-year-old volunteers of the Rela Youth cadets. Money, that is otherwise better spent elsewhere, is instead pumped into a system that hopes to “foster youth interest in security and public order issues through the activity of shooting”.

Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein said he hoped trainees would be able to better understand the pressures of being a policeman when faced with a life-or-death scenario. “Maybe the youths will see how difficult it is for the authorities to carry out their duties when faced with certain situations so they won’t easily point fingers and accuse the police in certain cases,” he told reporters after visiting the centre.

“I ask those who accuse the police (of wrongful shooting) … to come to this centre. They can see for themselves what they will do when faced with the choice of shoot or be killed. It’s not easy to make such a decision.”

Hisham – below average intelligence?

These statements coming from the Home Minister boggles the mind, not so much for the fact that he may actually believe what he is saying but also for the totally illogical thoughts that underpin his words.

The cases of wrongful shootings by the police force have all been shrouded in suspicious circumstances. No doubt the shooting of the Glenmarie trio of teenagers last year raised a lot of questions concerning the conduct of police officers when faced with a stressful situation.

But it is not a question of decision, the question that was never answered clearly was, why shoot in the first place, especially when the alleged criminals are teenagers? Did the Glenmarie three constitute a threat towards the police, a lethal threat that forced the police to exert deadly force to counter the threat.

The Home Minister’s assumption that the simulation would grant the public access into the minds of the police officers when dealing with firearms is erroneous to say the least. Intelligent Marksmanship Training Simulation System (IMTS) is wired to present a hostile situation to trained personnel who are geared to deal with the threat. The RM6.56 million system is a primary training tool for South Korea’s police force.

Yet in Malaysia, the IMTS is used to train a volunteer corp – RELA Youth cadets. Yes, Youth cadets.

Civilians and youths are being roped in to further Umno’s ambitions

Get the picture, civilians are being trained to react and act like trained professionals, minus the moral and ethical attachments that come to men and women in uniform.

And the fact that the centre will be used to train up to 14,400 training Rela Youth cadets should worry Malaysian tax-payers. This is like giving license into the hands of the likes of the 1999 Columbine Shooters to go on a killing spree. Bear in mind, the Columbine Shooters practiced on a video game before embarking on their murderous rampage through their high-school that left 12 students and a teacher dead and injured 21 others.

The RELA Youth cadets are an extension of the RELA Corps. A volunteer outfit that was originally set-up in January 1972 under the Akta (Kuasa-kuasa Perlu) Darurat 1964 to supplement the police and arm forces during the Emergency Ordinance era.

Should have been disbanded long ago

By right, the RELA Corps should have been disbanded the day the Emergency Ordinances were lifted, instead the RELA corps have been empowered with more authority in dealing with Malaysia’s illegal immigrant problem via the Peraturan-Peraturan Perlu (Ikatan Relawan Rakyat)(Pindaan) 2005.

Under the Peraturan-Peraturan Perlu (Ikatan Relawan Rakyat)(Pindaan) 2005, RELA is allowed to arrest an individual or enter and search any premises, public or private, without a search or arrest warrant. The amendment also gives RELA volunteers the right to bear and use firearms, and to demand documents. All that is necessary is authorization to conduct a raid from certain RELA officials, including the director general and deputy director general of RELA and other RELA officers appointed by the home affairs minister.

The 2005 amendment also gives effective legal immunity to RELA volunteers. Regulation 16 of the act states: “The Public Protection Authorities Act 1948 shall apply to any action, suit, prosecution or proceedings against … RELA … or any member … in respect of any act, neglect or default done or committed by him in good faith or any omission omitted by him in good faith, in such capacity.”

RELA is therefore the official Malaysian illegal immigrant police-force.

“Vigilante force” initially targeting foreigners, then Malaysians themselves

Untrained and made up of volunteers as young as 16 and numbering 596,799 which is more than the number of police personnel Malaysia has for a nation of 28 million. And this half a million strong force has been accused of stealing the belongings of suspected illegal immigrants, extortion, using unnecessary force, and mistakenly detaining foreign tourists and legal residents.

Given the lack of recognition for refugees under Malaysian law, RELA has also targeted refugee communities for immigration round-ups, drawing concern from the UNHCR among others. Something worth noting when the “Malaysia Solution”, which would have seen Australia send 800 asylum seekers to Malaysia and accept 4,000 refugees in return, was ruled invalid by Australia’s High Court in August, it was because Malaysia had not signed the UN refugee convention.

In October 2007, the Indonesian government protested when RELA detained an Indonesian student and the wife of an Indonesian diplomat. In both cases, Indonesia said, the victims had produced documents but the volunteers ignored these for reasons best known to themselves.

In 2007, Human Rights Watch called for RELA to be disbanded, “The government has set up what’s little more than a vigilante force to target foreigners. Given RELA’s repeated abuses, it should be disbanded right away”said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Malaysian government fans xenophobia through its use of RELA,” said Adams. “By targeting all foreign migrants, Malaysia undermines its espoused pan-Asian ethic.”

Equipping RELA with firearms!

And now, RELA has been blessed with a RM6.56 million video game that would train them to shoot. Is the government of Malaysia via the Home Affairs Ministry, using public money to raise a paramilitary group?

A vigilante force, that has out-lived its use but yet kept in service because it serves as an easy means to target foreigners in Malaysia?

Although the argument that the security of the nation is paramount, the nation has to tread carefully in empowering a volunteer group with full authority over a citizen of another country. The task is not to raise a volunteer corps but rather to have more trained police and immigration officers manning the illegal immigrant threat.

But the government has failed in this regards, and instead turned to a group of rag-tag volunteers to provide security to the nation.

RELA now empowered to target any person deemed an “undesirable person”
Worse still, the 2005 amendment ceded more power to RELA by permitting it, “where it has reasonable belief that any person is a terrorist, undesirable person, illegal immigrant or an occupier, to stop that person in order to make all such inquiries or to require the production of all such documents or other things as the competent authority may consider necessary.”

RELA itself is a threat to good meaning citizens of Malaysia, for RELA can determined if you or I are a threat to the country.