Closed schools, shuttered sports centres and mass mask handouts. Indonesian wildfire haze has caused a regional pollution crisis and prompted growing frustration in neighbours, including Malaysia.
“You need to treat them as an outcast in the region,” Malaysian parliamentarian Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman railed this week talking about the Indonesian fires.
His comments go much further than the gentle diplomatic pressure Malaysia’s government has so far applied, but they reflect a simmering frustration with Indonesia’s inability to control the fires.
“Malaysia and Indonesia are close neighbours, but that relationship must also come with responsibility,” Malaysian parliamentarian Syerleena Abdul Rashid told AFP.
“Why should Malaysians continue paying the price for irresponsible actions beyond our borders?” she said.
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Thursday defended the approach, saying the Southeast Asian nation “has done everything we can” to engage neighbouring Indonesia on the issue.
– ‘Do the right thing’ –
But at the popular Batu Caves tourist site, visitors and workers alike expressed frustration.
“You cannot see,” tour operator Diddy Hamidon told AFP, looking out at a vista now shrouded in haze.
“The Indonesian (government) needs to do the right thing,” he added.
Malaysia has been forced to close schools over the haze, and has offered Indonesia help fighting the blazes.
But not until Wednesday did the offer appear to finally have been taken up, after talks involving disaster management officials on both sides, Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan said.
“The form of cooperation will depend on the outcome of the discussions,” he told local reporters.