What Happen to Malaysia’s Non-Interference Policy?

Lawyers of Liberty has written that the UN Panel of Experts on Yemen to the UN Security Council had indicated that the Saudi-led military coalition attacks in Yemen “may amount to war crimes”. The reports do not sound good for a small country like Malaysia.  

As defence circles are aware Malaysia is part of the Saudi led military coalition against Houthi in Yemen. Malaysians were not informed with strong justification in what capacity our soldiers were sent to Riyadh to serve a non-UN Security Council military operation. Former Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin had downplayed the issue despite questions were raised by lawmakers as well as civil activists.

Hishammuddin said that our troops were deployed for “evacuation process” and “not for military operation” against Houthi in Yemen. Even at that point the statement was not strong enough to convince Malaysians on needs to send our soldiers. In the past especially during Arab Spring we have evacuated thousands of Malaysian from Middle-east countries and the entire operation only took two weeks under the administration of National Security Council. Thus, I don’t understand why the so-called “evacuation operation” in Yemen took years, and that if Hishammuddin was speaking the truth?

Our foreign and defence policies since independence are pragmatic strategies. We uphold the policy of non-interference in other country internal conflict as well as disputes between two countries. Our involvement was and will be only through the UN mandates otherwise we don’t interfere. Under certain circumstances, we have tried to make peace through other multilateral platform for instance Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. For reason only known by few in former government none of these platforms used to bring peace in Yemen instead abetting with Riyadh.

There are many reasons to believe that the past government had compromised foreign and defence policies to shield their abuse of power which have driven scandals after scandals. As a result, they deformed our national interest and succumb to the demand of foreign governments with vested geo-political interests. For instance, non-UN mandated military collaboration with Riyadh against Houthi is one of the examples. There are also strong feelings that our security interest in South China Sea have been compromised in various means by the scandal tainted former government.

Thus, Malaysians should welcome new Defence Minister Mohamad Sabu’s statement to pull troops out of Riyadh and this should be done as soon as possible. Malaysia shall cooperate with UN investigation bodies if there is a war crime investigation. Never in future to send our troops for military operation without the UN mandate. And please keep public inform on the progress of calling back our troops. To strengthen our international image, we need to go back to the fundamental of our foreign and defence policies.