A Day Out With The Malaysian Border Police

Road leading to the Sarawak - Kalimantan border near Lubok Antu


Retro Journals

From one of my early bordercrossing experiences back in March 2003 when I researched undocumented bordercrossings in Central Borneo. I thought it would be a bit tricky to conduct interviews and field observations around Lubok Antu, a small bordertown in Sarawak (Malaysian Borneo) - especially being an "INDON"* myself. It turned out to be a very easy affair. After showing my credentials (as an affiliate researcher w/ Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia), the Police chief not only ordered his assistant to type the information I needed (yes, in neat Excel format, a list of arrested Indonesians at the border), but even offered "you can join us at the border roadblock and hang around as long as you like while we're checking the buses for Indonesian illegals."

"This job is boring us to death..."


Not only did they allow me to hang around - but it was rather embarrasing when one police officer even offered to stop and check a bus exclusively for me to take pictures and videos.

The Malaysian policemen shared me their food ration, while listening to..ehm...Indonesian rock music from their small cassette recorder (it was Sheila On 7 - which the corporal really liked but described as "muzik untuk gadis perawan" / "gurly music").

"You know, this job is boring us to death. We actually don't want to be too strict on Indons. Although we are ordered to arrest every illegal ones we meet, if they're on their way out back to Kalimantan we usually let them go."

"It's even harder for us to distinguish the local Iban Dayaks. Indonesian and Malaysian Ibans speak the same language, and many have crossborder relatives on the other side. The only way to single out Indonesian Ibans is by asking them to spell the alphabet A, B, C, D, E....you know. The way it is spelled is different from us since we use the British pronounciation."

I filmed the police roadblock, and edited it for a documentary I made - "Borderless Borneo" (23 mins) - a rather patchy collection of research footage that I actually never expected to be screened at the Bangkok International Film Festival (Jan 2004), the Fringes programme at the Singapore International Film Festival (April 2005), and the Jakarta International Film Festival (December 2004).

We didn't met any illegal Indonesians on the buses that day, so I offered myself instead...

A couple of days later I tried my luck on the Indonesian side. The first thing the Indonesian border police asked me was "Go to the provincial capital and ask our Regional Police Headquarters in Pontianak..."

it's hard to be an Indon - in Indonesia....

Borneo border map

* INDON: a press term widely used by Indonesia's ever-suspicious neighbours (Singapore, the Philippines, Australia and Malaysia) - considered pejorative by most nationalistic Indonesians. The earliest usage of the term "Indon" can be traced back to a January 1965 edition of the Sarawak Gazette, during the peak of the Malaysian - Indonesian Confrontation, which reported a border attack by "Indon Border Terrorists" (replacing ever since "Indonesian Border Excursionists")