Sabah’s Border Scouts: a history of warding off threats

 

A unit of the Sabah Border Scouts on patrol. (United Varsity Students of Borneo pic)

PETALING JAYA: Claims made last week that a militant group from the Philippines was about to invade Sabah have reignited calls for the Border Scouts to be revived.

Those making the calls speak of the need to prevent militant incursions and to monitor coastal borders for the illegal entry of migrants into the country.

FMT looks at who the Border Scouts were, what happened to them, and why there have been calls to revive the unit.

The Sabah Border Scouts were a paramilitary unit formed in 1963 and trained by the British. The unit consisted of about 1,500 men under the command of Richard Noone and officers from the Senoi Praaq, the Orang Asli tracker unit of the Royal Malaysia Police.

The Border Scouts were formed to ward off incursions by the Indonesian army in the south of Sabah during the Konfrontasi, the 1963-to-1966 conflict between Malaysia and Indonesia when the latter opposed the formation of Malaysia.

The Border Scouts consisted of indigenous Sabahans, largely from the Murut ethnic group, and proved a success due to their knowledge of the land and forests. They gathered intelligence for enforcement units to enable strikes against enemy incursions and the prevention of cross-border crime and smuggling.

What happened to the scouts

The unit was disbanded in 1986 on the grounds that there was no longer any external threat to Sabah.

Mailam Baru, who joined the scouts in 1966, told FMT he could not understand the reason for the disbandment of the unit and would welcome any move to revive it.

He said many ex-scouts went on to join the police force or to help the police carry out their duties.

Those who are calling for a revival

Sabah deputy chief minister Jeffrey Kitingan has been one of the most vocal figures calling for the return of the Border Scouts.

Last week, he said the scouts could help security agencies in intelligence gathering and the fortification of state borders.

“We cannot treat this news as mere rumour as this has happened before and can take place again,” he said when asked about the claims of an impending invasion from Filipino militants.

He made a similar call in 2019, saying there was a need to revive not only the Border Scouts, but also the Sabah and Sarawak Rangers, a military unit.

Sarawak’s Parti Bumi Kenyalang recently said the rangers and border scouts should be revived to safeguard borders.

“We have to understand that the defence of this part of Borneo, of Sarawak and Sabah, cannot depend on the Malaysian Army alone,” party president Voon Lee Shan said. “Past instances have indicated that the Malaysian army is incapable of defending the borders of Sarawak and Sabah from being infiltrated by foreign forces and terrorists.”

Sabahans have not forgotten the February 2013 incursion by the Royal Sulu Army, a militia from the southern Philippines.

More than 200 armed militants set out from Jolo and landed on the east coast of Sabah. The militants intended to reclaim the land, which they believed still belonged to the Sultan of Sulu.

The invasion resulted in a 42-day standoff between the militants and the Malaysian armed forces. Fifty-six militiamen, 10 Malaysian security personnel and six civilians were killed.

The alternatives

The Border Scouts were a land-based unit and would theoretically be effective in securing or monitoring land borders. However much of Sabah and Sarawak is surrounded by sea.

The president of the National Patriots Association, Brig-Gen (Rtd) Mohamed Arshad Raji, said the focus should be on strengthening coastal and border patrols.

“Malaysia needs to re-enforce surveillance of coastal areas and the sea as well as establish more sea patrols,” he said. “The police or defence ministry must not take rumours of a possible invasion lightly. They need to conduct a study on possible landing points and increase physical presence in those areas.”

He said there were not enough security personnel to cover the vast areas of Sabah and Sarawak and the authorities should therefore allow the local people to get involved by establishing village vigilante corps.

Defence analyst Lam Choong Wah agreed that better surveillance was needed and that the current level of security forces was inadequate for protecting Sabah’s borders.

“We should consider employing more technology,” he said. “We need more drones, more maritime surveillance radars, introduction of face recognition systems and more CCTV in strategic locations.”

Lam suggested more intelligence exchange and enforcement cooperation with the Philippines and Indonesia.

“A joint maritime effort between the three countries would enhance land and sea border enforcement and surveillance operations,” he said. “The three countries should negotiate a border control agreement to tighten border security and overcome loose immigration checks.”

Whether the Border Scouts will be re-established is still up in the air, but as long as the potential for incursions exist, the calls for the unit’s revival won’t be silenced. - FMT