As Malaysia marks the first anniversary of the Lahad Datu war this week, human rights NGOs have questioned if military spending has spiraled out of control merely to benefit politicians.
 
Author and activist Kua Kia Soong said that Malaysia's national defence policy was in need of serious reform.

As the defence minister was busy shopping for top-end jet fighters and other military upgrades, a "ragtag army" had shown they could invade Sabah using just wooden boats.
 
"If our enemies are terrorists with bombs strapped to their chest do we need (state of the art) fighter jets like the Typhoon and Rafale? Was it proper to use fighter jets against this ragtag army of Sulus in Lahad Datu?"
 
"We've got so many armoured cars - were they not enough?" Kua said, noting that it was one year ago this week that Malaysia faced its first foreign intrusion in over five decades.
 
On February 12 last year, a group of men in army gear landed in Lahad Datu. They were later said to be from Southern Philippines and linked to the "Sulu sultanate" and came to lay claim to parts of Sabah, bearing an old map as proof.
 
Malaysia only responded nearly three weeks later, launching Operation Daulat, on March 5, where eight policemen and two soldiers were killed, while Malaysian security forces shot dead 68 armed intruders from the southern Philippines and arrested 173 people under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012.
 
Kua questioned why the Rapid Deployment Force (RDF), trained to spring into action if ever Sabah and Sarawak acted to secede from the federation, was not deployed.
 
"In the first two weeks, what did the Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein say?
 
"Oh, they are not terrorists, just take it easy, it is not something to be worried about ... until something turned ugly. So how is exactly the defence policy in this country decided? Why is this spending going on without any kind of check?" Kua queried.
 
Furthermore, he noted that Malaysia also had two state of the art warships - KD Mutiara and KD Indrapura - but little were known about them, until they were reportedly destroyed while fighting pirates off Somalia on behalf of the Petronas-owned shipping company MISC.
 
"Do you know how expensive warships are? We don't have a lot of warships in this country... but when two warships get burned, that's a lot of money for the taxpayers," Kua said.
 
He noted that under the tenth Malaysia plan, the government had earmarked RM23 billion for military upgrades from 2011-2015, an amount that has risen sharply since independence.
 
Kua, a former MP, was speaking in a forum in Kuala Lumpur organised by human rights NGO Suaram, with the topic "Global arms spending and corruption cuts in defence spending or cuts in living standards?"
 
Some 80 NGOs were invited but only a handful of reporters turned up instead.
 
'Senseless arms buildup'

The forum's invited speaker was Colin Archer, the secretary-general of the International Peace Bureau (IPB), an intra-national organisation that has been trying to lobby governments to disarm for over a century.
 
Based in Geneva, the IPB predates even the United Nations and the League of Nations. It is now most famous for organising the ‘Global Day of Action on Military Spending’ (GDAMS) which falls on April 14 this year.
 
Archer said Malaysia was not alone in its “senseless” arms buildup, as even “model” democracies like US, Britain and France, lacked the political will to control the ever-growing military-industrial complex.
 
"It is easy to whip up paranoia about neighbours and whip up fears," he said, explaining for the rapid growth in arms spending, especially in Asia, despite the end of the Cold War.
 
He noted for example that China's defence budget has nearly doubled over the last decade to US$166 billion a year, but still making it less than a quarter of US military spending.
 
IPB estimated that governments spent over US$1.7 trillion a year on military and only half of the world's nations declare their true budgets, Archer said.
 
Noting that this year was the 100th year anniversary of the First World War, IPB said it was renewing its efforts for world peace by asking taxpayers to scrutinise their governments.
 
"Today, climate change has had disastrous effects and we are far from able to respond to these challenges. The struggle to preserve human civilisation is the biggest challenge and so we need to move the money into important areas," Archer said, explaining IPB's new campaign slogan.
 
"Public money needs to be moved away from military into healthcare, environment, education, alternative energy and transport systems," he said.
 
Kua agreed with IPB and was  an ardent supporter of the GDAMS in the past but it seems a movement to cut back defence spending in Malaysia was not getting much interest, judging from the absence of any other local NGOs other than Suaram at the forum today.
 
He said that even a so-called "progressive" federal opposition leader like Anwar Ibrahim (right) who preached so much about his "Kajang move" had almost nothing to say about an alternative defence policy for Malaysia.
 
"An alternative defence policy... this is what we expect Pakatan Rakyat to come up with... not just to say that when they become the government there will be no corruption."
 
"Will we still be buying submarines? Who and where, will we be buying submarines from? How many do we need? Who are our enemies?" Kua asked.
 
In 2010, Kua authored a landmark book - ‘Questioning Arms Spending in Malaysia: From Altantuya to Zikorsky’ talking about the true victims of uncontrolled military budgets in Malaysia.
 
The human rights activist, who first met IPB's Archer while studying in Manchester in 1972, said that since his book was published, nothing much has changed.
 
"Through the years, there is a very strong link between the Umno leadership and the military leadership. There is a revolving door... people from the military, they retire and become directors of the companies in the military industrial complex and it becomes a form of patronage."
 
"In 2004, (Prime Minister) Najib almost lost his elections in Pekan by about 400 votes. Quickly, the military industrial complex in Pekan grew and grew and until today.
 
“Pekan is now one of the biggest military industrial complexes in the country. His vote is safe now. In 2008 and 2013 elections, Najib's victory margin was very high," Kua said.