UPDATED
JAKARTA, Oct 8 – The Indonesian activist group Benteng Demokrasi Rakyat (Bendera) has delayed its 200-strong “invasion” of Malaysia to Friday but announced it does not preclude having peaceful dialogue over thorny bilateral issues.
The group also said it already has 12 agents in Malaysia, nine of whom are in the peninsula, for the past three weeks to spread the “Ganyang Malaysia” message to the thousands of Indonesians working there.
The term “Ganyang” was first used in 1963 when then Indonesian President Sukarno opposed the merger of Malaya with Sabah, Sarawak and Singapore, resulting in the undeclared armed conflict known as Konfrantasi.
“We will send the first 200 tomorrow,” Bendera coordinator Mustar Bonaventura told The Malaysian Insider here.
His group also hinted they would first attack Sabah and Sarawak, where Malaysian defence forces have tightened security.
Bonaventura declined to give specifics of the “invasion”, which both Putrajaya and Jakarta have condemned. But he did say that one of their wooden boats (sampan) was damaged recently and took some time to repair. "The sampan is fine now," he said.
He only said they have some 1,500 people ready to invade Malaysia, some of whom had worked in the country before.
Bendera said its dispute with Malaysia is about overlapping claims of islands, oil-rich territories, culture and the ill treatment of Indonesian workers.
Bonaventura said the group would consider peaceful dialogue to resolve the problem but there has not been any overtures from the Malaysian side other than media reports in Malaysia poking fun at their attempts to defend their national sovereignty.
“Disappointment has led to anger,” he said emphatically, adding high-level dialogue between both countries did not include any attempt to speak to Bendera.
“If Prime Minister Najib Razak is willing to meet us to discuss this, that would be good,” he said
The vigilante group also criticised the Indonesian police for threatening to arrest Bendera activists who attack Malaysia.
“If the police consider our actions a threat, then it will weaken our spirit to struggle and defend our country’s sovereignty. So we apologise if it [the police’s statement] will not change our intentions,” Bonaventura said.
“I think would be better for the police and Ministry of Foreign Affairs to honestly disclose the true number of Indonesians who have died from torture or murder in Malaysia,” he added, saying the group has collected its own data to show ill treatment in Malaysia.
Responding to the statement, the Jakarta Globe quoted Indonesian Military spokesman Air Vice Marshall Sagom Tamboen as saying they would not deploy special forces to stop the Bendera activists from entering Malaysia.
He said that the current immigration officers and soldiers on duty on the country’s borders were enough to prevent any attack.
“Surely our officers at the borders already know what to do. The officers will take the best steps, which in this case, will be by asking them to go home,” Tamboen said.
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Someone please tell me I'm being duped. Surely this is all for comedic purposes!