THE MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT, after the Sauk stand-off, faces an incredibly complicated political dilemma. Its version of what happened is disbelieved, with UMNO blamed for the Grik arms heist. So much so UMNO plans a nationwide effort to protest its innocence. The 27 arrested pose another problem. Most, if not all, are UMNO members, belong to an UMNO-sponsored silat organisation of which the deputy prime minister and home minister was once treasurer, its leader a former cabinet minsiter and its patron, another deputy prime minister. After the initial euphoric announcement that all would be charged for offences punishable by death, the government faces the dilemma of 27 Malays going to the gallows for what, in retrospect, reflects a marginalisation of the Malay community in the government's policies of the past two decades.

The opposition made an effective case that it was an intra-UMNO one-upmanship that soured. The two ministers involved -- Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak -- are political rivals, and that this was to blacken the defence minister's standing is, unfortunately for the government, widely believed. The UMNO wanita chief, Datin Rafidah Aziz, in a reflex action that other National Front leaders adopt, blames PAS for what happened. She and others give PAS an unusually high profile: that it is so well organised that it could get two UMNO politicians to hold the country to ransom. But the problem for the successful conclusion of the Sauk saga is UMNO's not the Opposition's. This cannot be resolved by asking PAS to hand over its membership list so that the government can, at leisure, decide which of them are members of the silat group involved.

We are not told if there was a link between the first raid on the 304 Wataniah battalion's tactical outpost at 0230 on July 2nd and the second at 0430 on the battalion itself. Or if the fellows who holed up in Bukit Jenilek carried with them the hundred weapons, ordnance with accompanying bullets. Contrary to what the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Norian Mai, said, the arms taken could not have been transported in five Pajeros and then carted to Sauk village, and then transferred through jungle to Bukit Jenilek in 90 minutes. The guns and ammunition are too bulky and too heavy for that.

If the weapons, ammunition and ordnance are transported like goods for sale at a pasar malam, it would have raised a hue and cry in the battalion headquarters. The public relations stank. The different versions of the official truth, from responsible men, raised doubts about the official Truth. We still do not know what actually happened. And if the 100 odd weapons from the Wataniah battalion camp has been recovered. We are now told that the arms were hijacked to terrorize Kuala Lumpur.

The unfortunate downside is a deliberate politicisation of the military. The army field commander, Lieut.-Gen Dato' Seri Zaini Mohamed Said, blamed the opposition for the problem. Opposition? When did the armed forces decide the political opposition to be the nation's enemies? The Indian navy chief, not so long ago, was dismissed when he took issue with the defence minister on a political issue. None would dare in Kuala Lumpur. Certainly not a manufactured hero. The politicisation is implicit in its involvement in the police action in Sauk. Up to now, the military's neutrality in political disputes was sacrosanct.

Not any more. Tan Sri Norian, in his television interview, assumed that the armed forces could be called, as could other government agencies, if the police so wanted. The armed forces, in other words, has descended into the political arena. One cannot expect the military now to keep quiet under a politically ambitious defence minister or general. The thin line between a professional armed forces and a political force is breached, however slightly, to challenge civilian authority sometime in the future.

Unfortunately, this becomes easier with religious and cultural groups highlighting disaffection amongst the ranks. More so when the armed forces leaders themselves do not have the respect of the men under them, as now. Already, one mutiny in the ranks about two decades ago, which killed a major and the surrounding of the officer commanding's residence, led to the disbandment of the 25th Royal Malay Regiment and, later, for other reasons, the 26 RMR. Retired soldiers were first hired by the Malayan Communist Party in the mid-1970's, and now some drift to armed burglary.

Official efforts to raise working conditions of soldiers, airmen and sailors are often caught in a bureaucratic maze, while hundreds of millions of ringgit purchase weapons and systems often irrelevant to our needs. The widening chasm between the officers' perception and the rank's makes it is profitable hunting ground for the ambitious politician and by groups with an agenda of their own to infiltrate the armed forces.

The Grik arms heist reflects the malaise in the armed force, heightened by official neglect. This is strengthened by high faluting political solutions quickly ignored once the heat is off. Something is wrong when routine military security is so easily breached. It just shows official and officer neglect about the need for it. This is so routine that some years ago when the Director of Military Intelligence was a close friend, and lectured at the staff and defence colleges, I was often waved through, giving me a pass only when I insisted. Such lackadaisical procedures loosen security all round.

Unless this is addressed, the security lapses would recur. The promise to close the gaps, after every breach, is useless if forgotten a week later. The frightening number of guns robbed from military camps is potentially destabilising. These lapses make it easy to politically motive an armed force into a political force. The histories of newly independent countries of the men on horseback taking power are too many to even enumerate. One shudders at this thought, but as it stands one cannot see how it could not.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my