From Today
DEAR Balji,
A PERSONAL PLEA FROM A SOON OUTGOING HIGH COMMISSIONER
I am under no instruction to write you this letter. In any case, in three and a half months’ time, I would be leaving Singapore at the end of my tour of duty. But having been High Commissioner of Malaysia to Singapore for the last five years, I do have some insights into Malaysia-Singapore relations that many may not have.
It is because of this knowledge that I was rather perturbed over the article, “Under fire — the ‘First Lady-in-waiting’” by your journalist Ms Jessinta Tan that appeared in Today last Friday. I have no intention to touch on the domestic political issues nor the criminal case that the article adverted to but only on the character vilification of Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, wife of my Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Dato’ Seri Mohd Najib Tun Razak.
In the article, your journalist cites a “Kuala Lumpur resident A.L. Tan” and a “Ms Agnes, a resident of Penang”, both of whom vilified the character of Datin Seri Rosmah. Surely your newspaper knows that Datin Seri Rosmah is no ordinary person. She happens to be the wife of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence of Malaysia. To attempt to establish a public opinion on her based on the sources mentioned above is surely a naughty line to take.
I have been in the Malaysian Foreign Service coming close to 39 years. During this period, I have had the rare privilege of working under all the prime ministers and foreign ministers of Malaysia, as well as their spouses.
I have also had the privilege of interacting with these VIPs as well as many Malaysian ministers in my seven postings abroad. I, therefore, hope that your reading public would give some credence to what I have to state.
Since my arrival in Singapore on June 2, 2003, I had occasion to meet and interact with Dato’ Seri Najib, who was often accompanied by Datin Seri Rosmah and sometimes also by their children, on 15 visits, both official as well as private, that they had made to Singapore to-date.
Never have I found Datin Seri Rosmah “arrogant” or “not as humble” as Ms Jessinta’s article suggests. In fact, Datin Seri Rosmah was always warm towards my officers and me and was also always caring about our welfare.
On all their visits to Singapore, never had Dato’ Seri Najib nor Datin Seri Rosmah imposed on the High Commission on any matter related to their private programme.
Furthermore, my officers and I know fully well that the private programmes of all our VIPs should always be treated as strictly private.
I want to end this letter with a personal plea that your newspaper as well as others in Singapore treat with much more circumspection allegations or innuendos that clearly seek to damage the character and reputation of a particular Malaysian VIP.
I say this because I believe that it is personalities who determine the state of relations between two countries.
When I arrived in Singapore, Malaysia-Singapore relations were really at a low. But it was the personalities of Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong which made possible the positive changes that had taken place in the bilateral relations between Malaysia-Singapore.
Since then, other personalities too, both in Malaysia as well as Singapore, had contributed much to bringing the bilateral relations to the very warm level that we find ourselves in today.
I would be sad if I learn next year that Dato’ Seri Najib finds himself not in a position to attend the Shangri-La Dialogue which he has attended five times since its inception, or if I learn that the Najib family has decided to spend their holidays elsewhere.
Let’s catch up again soon, with Conrad too, before I leave.
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