Intelligence agents in Malaysia have been meeting leaders from 10 main multi-ethnic organizations hailing from Burma in Malaysia since last February, said Burmese community leaders in the country. The meetings are to be monthly affairs.
The exercise is unusual and it is being gone through in the name of "National Security" by the Special Branch or SB also known as Cawangan Khas in Malay. It is an intelligence agency attached to the Royal Malaysian Police, said a Burmese migrant worker who holds a refugee card of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee (UNHCR) in the country's capital Kuala Lumpur.
Leaders of three Kuala Lumpur-based Burman political organizations and seven major ethnic minorities from Burma--- Kachin, Karenni, Karen, Chin, Arakan, Shan and Mon were forcibly summoned to meet the SB in Kuala Lumpur, a Kachin migrant worker told KNG today.
Simultaneously, the infamous People’s Volunteer Corps called Rela has intensified searching for both illegal migrant workers and foreign jobless people, block by block in Kuala Lumpur, said Kachin migrant workers.
Detained illegal Burmese workers are being temporarily put into foreign illegal workers detention camps and then sent to Thailand’s border with Malaysia, added Kachin workers.
On the other hand, Burmese people who have arrived in Malaysia with passports on a "Free Calling" job visa status are also being detained by Rela but they are being sent back to Burma directly because there is a severe scarcity of jobs in Malaysia given the global economic meltdown, according to Burmese migrant workers in Kuala Lumpur.
Burmese workers in Kuala Lumpur say the Malaysian government would like to prevent loss of jobs for its people rather than the jobs going to foreign illegal workers.
At present, there are 44 Burmese organizations related to refugee and political organizations in Malaysia, which is one of Burma's neighbouring countries, where Burmese people seek UNHCR refugee status for third country resettlement, said Burmese organizations in Malaysia.
According to the Kuala Lumpur-based Burma Workers’ Rights Protection Committee (BWRPC), about 500,000 Burmese work in Malaysia.
