AFTER guarding Malaysia’s borders against intrusion for more than three decades, all Limam Bin Angkalal asks is to be allowed to live near a hospital.

Half paralysed from a stroke three years ago, walking is a struggle for the 72-year-old Murut, a retired Sabah Border Scout who, along with his former colleagues and their families, is fighting for the right to live on the land they have occupied for 28 years.

The former Border Scouts have lived in Camp PPH since they were disbanded in 1986. Including their families, about 600 people live on the18.6ha plot of land located next to the Keningau district hospital.

But the Royal Malaysian Police holds the lease on the land and it can evict the residents anytime.

Camp PPH is formerly a Forest Ranger base camp that the scouts took over in 1989 with the permission of the Royal Malaysian Police, which has a 99-year lease on the land from the state government. There are about 30 years left on the lease.

Though his living quarters are dilapidated, with a rickety wooden floor, the camp is home to Limam, his 72-year-old wife, Bonong Mantai, and their 24-year-old grandson, an odd-job worker.

The couple have 11 children and more than 30 grandchildren.

“Two of my sons are now working in Kuala Lumpur, I have a child working with the Veterinary Service Department, while the rest are in Sabah,” said Limam, who is from Kampung Sumabi in rural Pensiangan. 

Nowhere else to go

Maimul Tabubul, a 68-year-old Dusun from Pensiangan, said most of them were “just waiting to be evicted”.

“More than three generations of us have lived here. We have been applying for the land since 2013 and the most recent attempt was last year, with a letter to the private secretary of the prime minister, but nothing has come out if yet,” said the former Sabah Border Scouts Association deputy president. 

“There are about 200 of us here today. Some have passed on, but their widows, children, and grandchildren continue to live here as they have no other place to go.

“When the forest rangers moved out in 1989, we were told not to move into any of the officers’ houses, but to occupy only the constables’ quarters, which were already in bad shape when we moved in. We had to use our own limited resources to make repairs.”

The Malaysian Insight understands that the police wish to use the land for a police training college. They have fenced up the perimeter of the land and erected several signboards prohibiting entry.

The retired scouts have written letters of appeal to the police, accompanied by letters of support from ministers and elected representatives. They also held dialogues with the police twice between 2013 and last year, all to no avail.

“The only response we got from the government was a letter stating that our application has been ‘extended’ but for how long, we are not clear,” said Maimul.

“We have been loyal to the government all these years. We never went against our orders. This is the only thing we are asking for now. Give this land to us.”

Keeping Malaysia’s borders safe

The Sabah Border Scouts was established in September 1963 to repel incursions by the Indonesian army and communists. 

Men were recruited from villages along the Sabah-Kalimantan border and given para-military training by the British. The scouts were based in Keningau, where the police quarters are presently located.

The scouts’ main tasks were to gather intelligence, mark enemy locations and open up helicopter landing sites deep in the Sabah border rainforest. This was to allow British and Gurkha paratroopers stationed in Brunei to be flown in for assault operations.   

Limam said as indigenous people, the scouts did not have the physical build for combat but the British were looking for men with knowledge of Sabah’s jungle terrain and the ability to survive in harsh tropical conditions.

The border scouts’ deeds and stories are still a source of pride for many Sabahans who believe their skills were as good as, if not better, than modern military methods.

The scouts are invested with super powers and abilities in the stories told by the locals, including of one Aki Garing, a Murut border scout who is said to have been able to take the form of  different animals.

Limam said military training lasted six months before he was sent to a guard post in Kampung Bantul, near the Kalimantan border.

The men there were divided into platoons of 30 each and took turns to patrol the state lines. Patrol duty usually lasted two months, he said.

“We were not tasked to engage, but to provide accurate location points of infiltration and report to base.”

The information was then passed to the British and Gurkha forces stationed in Brunei and a team to ambush the infiltrators would be immediately dispatched.

Despite their lack of modern weaponry and tracking devices, the border scouts have been credited with preventing the Indonesian military from crossing over from Kalimantan during the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation (1963-1968).

Maimul, on the other hand, was his platoon’s morse code expert. He had no military training when he was sent to the Sungai Agison and Sungai Sibuda guard posts in Pensiangan. 

“Only at camp was I given hand grenade and weaponry training, but my main duty was carrying the heavy communication equipment called HF 156,” he said, adding that it weighed about 40kg, next to the M4 Carbine rifle that he also carried while on patrol.

The father of six joined the border scouts in 1966 and retired in 2004. After the scouts were disbanded, they were absorbed into the police force as constables and took part in the Forest Rangers Batallion 16 operations. 

Among their new duties was to secure Sabah’s east coast borders against Filipino incursions. 

“We were involved in almost all the operations – Op Lanun, Op Duyung, Op Tayang – across the state and were  successful in stopping the smuggling of weapons into Sabah via Kampung Bantul in 1980, as well as from the southern Philippines later.”

‘Give us this land’

Maimul said the former scouts and their families were “lucky” not to have been evicted over the years.

He said the police had a tacit understanding to leave them alone.

Still, the lack of certainty is worrying. Added to the problem of having nowhere else to go is the high cost of living today for which the pension of RM1,000 per family is insufficient.

Maimul said back then, the scouts earned RM150 a month, but food did not cost much.

“These days, the monthly pension is hardly enough for us to get by on.

“We have been told that a decision (on the land) will be made by those at the top. But for how long do we have to wait?

“Give this land to us.” – September 17, 2017.