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Navy probing M’sian border violation
Yuliasri Perdani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | World | Wed, May 21 2014, 12:30 PM
The Navy is continuing investigations into the possibility that the installation by Malaysia of a light beacon on Tanjung Datuk Island is in violation of Indonesian sovereignty.
However, such investigations would have to take into account the unresolved issue of a 1970 bilateral treaty that the House of Representatives (DPR) did not ratify, an expert on international law has said.
Tanjung Datuk lies on the border between Paloh district in Sambas regency, West Kalimantan, and the Malaysian state of Sarawak. The area includes the sand ridge of Gosong Niger in the sea and Camar Wulan on the main island.
Navy chief of staff Adm. Marsetio confirmed to The Jakarta Post that the Pontianak Naval Base had received a report about the possible border violation from the Navigation District Office in Pontianak.
“We have sent a warship to the island, and today [Tuesday] we sent an aircraft to take aerial photographs of the area,” he said on the sidelines of a maritime leadership conference in Jakarta, on Tuesday.
The construction of the beacon on Tanjung Datuk follows a previous border spat with Malaysia over the Ambalat bloc in the Sulawesi Sea.
Marsetio explained that part of the reason why they were still gathering data was because each country had their own perception of the maritime borders. This made it unclear where exactly the border lay.
“[Our investigations] are not finished,” he said. The data will then be submitted to the Indonesian Military (TNI) chief Gen. Moeldoko and also to the Malaysian authorities.
Meanwhile, Navy chief spokesman Commodore Manahan Simorangkir confirmed on Tuesday that Malaysia had halted construction of the light beacon. “Our corvette reached the site and our officers asked them to halt the construction. On 19 May [Monday] at 6 p.m. they agreed to stop the work and go back to their side of the border,” he said in a telephone interview.
Separately, University of Indonesia (UI) international law expert Hikmahanto Juwana said that disagreements on the 1970 sea boundary treaty were at the root of the problem.
He told the Post that Malaysia assumed that the signing of the treaty meant that the borders were final. However, both the 1960 Presidential Letter 2826/HK/60 and Law No. 24/2000 on International Agreements stipulate that an international agreement must be ratified by the DPR to become valid.
“We still claim islands such as Tanjung Datuk because we assume that the treaty is not final because we have not ratified it,” he said.
Hikmahanto said that conflicting views on the subject existed within the government, making it difficult to decide on how to act next.
Spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Michael Tene, said they were waiting for the TNI to finish verifying the information they received about the alleged violation before speaking to the Malaysian authorities.
“We cannot make contact with Malaysia yet without verifying the information,” he said. (fss)
Navy probing M’sian border violation | The Jakarta Post
They have already left the area................