The Malaysian Nation Service Camp or PLKN is a symbolic icon of our failed education system. The main objectives of the program are to instill patriotism among the younger generation, enhance unity and national integrity and to develop participant's character. These are the same objectives of our schools, but how is that 11 years of schooling cannot achieve what a 3-month camp intends to achieve?
Our nation continue to have racial polarization and our crime and corruption rates continue to increase. All these while the BN government continues spend good money on the wrong things. The costs of our mistakes and abuses today will become even more costly for our future generations to correct.
As the government continues to spend enormous amount of taxpayer money to try to rectify what our schools fail to do, owners of the PLKN camps continue amass wealth from the PLKN contracts. It is obvious that this is a scheme of wealth distribution to enrich cronies of political party leaders and eventually fund the political machinery. Guess who are the owners of the national service camps all over the country.
Now we are degenerating into a worst of situation with the government making failure to attend the camp an offence.
In the process of making the failure to attend National Service Training an offence, the amendments to replace imprisonment and fine with community service does not make an unfair law morally justified.
Although the amendments to replace the existing penalties for a person who is absent without leave from national service training from imprisonment or a fine to community service is welcomed, the main complaint is that failure to attend remains an offence.
According to the Hansard, Najib Abdul Razak as the Defence Minister in tabling the Act on June 25 2003 said that the objectives of the Act is to enhance the patriotic spirit of the younger generation, to improve unity among the races, improve national integration and help in character building.
The Defence Minister made it clear that the programme is ala Malaysia and is not military training. Therefore, not attending a three-month camp does not harm any person and is not a threat to the nation. There is thus no justification for making it an offence.
The Defence Minister in moving the Act said that in order to ensure the success of the programme it is necessary to make it compulsory for those selected to attend and to provide for penalties to enforce the attendance.
This is where the government and Parliament fell into error. It has caused the Act to become an instrument of oppression and injustice.
An example of this injustice is the case of Ahmad Hafizal Amad Faudzi. He admitted guilty to the charge of committing an offence under section 18(1) of the Act for not attending the National Service Training Programme.
No moral and legal justification
He was 18 years old. He had stopped schooling after Form Two to help support his mother and brothers when his father divorced his mother. He was the sole bread winner of the family. He would like to attend the training but he needed to feed his family.
Ahmad Hafizal Ahmad Faudzi was fined RM600.00 in default imprisonment for 14 days. He chose imprisonment because he did not have the money to pay the fine.
What is the moral and legal justification for putting this boy in prison? What has he done that society deems to be improper. No right thinking member of a civilised society would condemn a child who prefers to support his family and not go to camp as improper conduct.
Ahmad Hafizal Ahmad Faudzi did not do any wrong. It is the government and the Members of Parliament who approved the Act and made it an offence that committed a wrong.
Ahmad Hafizal is not the only person who is charged under the Act. According to the Auditor-General’s report, as at December 2007, three persons have been charged, 3,856 cases are under investigation and 751 cases have been referred to the Deputy Public Prosecutor for charges to be preferred.
It is a recognised right of a person to life. This is enshrined in the Declaration of Human Rights and also the Federal Constitution. This is also embodied in the Penal Code as the right of self defence. No person can be forced to risk his life and injury.
In the five years that this National Service Training Program has been implemented we have received reports of the following:
1) 17 trainees have been killed.
2) On Feb 28, 2004, a 17-year-old female trainee was raped by an instructor.
3) Hundreds of trainees have suffered sickness ranging from food poisoning to various diseases.
4) Trainees have been bullied and beaten up.
Instructors are not qualified
The Auditor-General in his 2007 Report stated as follows:
1) Instructors are not qualified. There are instructors who do not have the necessary experience and expertise.
2) The locations of the training camps are unsuitable and the facilities inadequate. There is a camp that does not have running water and is dependent on the river for its water supply. The Beringin Beach Resort Langkawi is flooded when the tide comes in.
3) Trainees’ uniforms do not meet specifications and quality. And many other problems.
There are thus undisputable facts that the National Service Training Programme is not only unsatisfactory but poses a risk to lives and limbs of the trainees.
Although the government spent billions of ringgit each year, the problems and risks have not been eliminated. They are real and they are deadly. The parents of the trainees have therefore justifiably lost confidence in the programme.
Jane Lim is another example where the Act has become an instrument of injustice. Her parents requested for her to be exempted from National Service Training on the ground that her brother, Ricky, had been killed nine days after attending the National Service Training Programme.
This was rejected. Her parents have not been able to come to terms with the loss of their son and are not prepared to risk their only surviving child in the programme.
Under the Act, Jane Lim and her parents commit an offence. What is the legal and moral justification for parents carrying out their duties of protecting their children to become an offence?
The Act has failed
A law that requires parents to be in default of their responsibilities to protect the lives and limbsof their children cannot be legal and moral.
The Act has failed. The programme has become an instrument of injustice. The proposed amendments do not resolve the problems of the National Service Training Programme.
Instead of building a patriotic spirit it has created disharmony, suffering and grief. The government must realise that not all programmes must be enforced by the use of force.
The carrot and stick approach cannot be used all the time and this programme is one of them. Sometimes, programmes such as this can be carried out successfully other than by using the stick.
It is better to be carried out by providing incentives such as scholarships or grants. In moving the amendments, the Barisan Nasional government has missed a golden opportunity to correct the mistakes of the National Service Training Programme.
Malaysian parents and the children unfortunate enough to be selected by the computer shall have to continue to suffer grief and sorrow until the unjust law is abolished or if the government is changed.
Source: Lina Soo http://linasoo.com/blog/?p=1212
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