The thrust of the extensive Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) Report 2019 detailing the discovery of remains of migrants in Wang Kelian, Perlis, is a sober understatement: if only the 595km-long porous northern border with Thailand was better guarded.
The RCI's telling narrative: the border is lawless and overrun by murderous human and drug traffickers. The commission established that the mass graves discovered on Jan 19, 2015, contained the bodies of 138 illegal migrants, which were confirmed by top-notch forensics.
Officially entitled the RCI Report on the Discovery of the Temporary Settlement Camp and Graves in Wang Kelian, Perlis 2019, the pages highlighted baffling police delays of a full investigation. Bodies were discovered in March, but search and exhumation at Bukit Wang Burma and Bukit Genting Perah commenced only in May 2015, which meant precious evidence might have been compromised.
More bafflingly, the then inspector-general of police issued "vague" orders to "hold on" exhumation and evidence collection.
The RCI lamented the "lack of urgency", which police responded to by claiming uncertainty in the graves' locations, a shocking admission because it had already been confirmed that the sites were inside Malaysia — the uncertainties could have been promptly resolved and raids conducted did not raise heckles from the Thais.
In short, the police excuses were unacceptable. The Wang Kelian discovery found its way into a National Security Council deliberation — meeting date uncertain — and came to light only after the Thais announced it. The obvious implication is, who are the perpetrators?
And what about the evil motive of a massacre? We can only hazard a guess: the victims had unwittingly become a dangerous liability.
Aside from human and drug trafficking, look at the egress and ingress of contraband at the border, tourists living la vida loca with prostitution and recreational use of marijuana, all in an area awash in firearms.
Descriptions of "border crossers" could be interchangeable: the "tourist" could be the human or drug trafficker, who might also be the trader. In general, locals from both sides sashay in and out of border boom towns at will, through flimsy fencing and shallow rivers. What border control, you say? Many Thais and Malaysians living in border towns are family and some may even carry dual identity cards. The Thais even send their children to Malaysian schools.
Decades-long of mishmash cowboy town anarchy has been normalised as contemporary daily life, border or no border. What about securing the border? Who is actually in charge? It seems that practically every law enforcement outfit and the military have a hand, only that they all operate in silos until the RCI was compelled to recommend for a new, single agency.
The RCI's findings are damning indictments against the government and enforcement authorities, especially the police who were slapped with the severest reprimand.
A final reflection: the Perlis government had pleaded with the federal government months back to reopen Wang Kelian's Free-Flow Zone as a way of revitalising the town's dying economy. The terrible irony.