It took nine years for them to finally wake up

It took nine years for them to finally wake up

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Wednesday, 24 February 2010

Today, there is so much brouhaha about the Oil Royalty (illegally renamed ‘Wang Ehsan’) issue. Even Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has awoken and it looks like a hornets’ nest has just been stirred. On 18 February 2001, I wrote the article below called Fight Fire With Fire. On 11 April 2001, I was detained under the Internal Security Act on grounds that I am threat to national security. I was earlier also arrested under the Sedition Act on Hari Raya Haji and the police raided my house and confiscated my computer. And this article was one of those ‘grounds’ they used against me to justify my arrest and subsequent detention.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Fight Fire With Fire (Raja Petra Kamarudin, 18 February 2001)

Two weeks ago I met Ustaz Haji Abdul Hadi Awang, the Chief Minister of Terengganu, to interview him on behalf of Berita keADILan. The question I asked was how would the state fare without their RM800 million a year oil royalty and what does the state intend to do about the matter?

Three courses of action

Ustaz Hadi laid out three courses of action the state is taking. First is administrative, the second political, and the third legal.

On administrative, the state has already sent a high-powered delegation to meet the higher-ups in Petronas. On political, the State would go round explaining the issue to NGOs and political parties. Finally, on legal, the state has set up a technical committee to explore the possibility of taking Petronas to court.

With all due respect to Ustaz Hadi who I have personally known for more than 20 years (30 years now) and whom I have extremely high regards for, I feel all three avenues are a dead end and will come to naught in the end.

First of all, on the administrative route. So they have met Petronas and Petronas has not denied that a legal contract does exist between the national oil company and Terengganu. But what good does it do? Terengganu will still not get its money. It is not Petronas that refuses to pay Terengganu its money but Mahathir.

Mahathir is the real culprit - not Petronas

Under the Petroleum Development Act (144) 1974 passed by Parliament in 1974, the Prime Minister has absolute and final authority over Petronas. That’s it, Mahathir decides and dictates what Petronas does and there’s no two ways about it. And unless Terengganu talks to Mahathir personally Petronas can do absolutely nothing to help Terengganu.

More details on this Act have been included in this feature as a footnote below.

Should Terengganu then talk to Mahathir?

No way! Mahathir hates PAS from the bottom of his heart and he would rather die than give in to PAS.

Terengganu’s weak political action

So, over to option number two -- political. The State is going round explaining to the people the real issue behind Terengganu’s oil royalty being withdrawn. But the people already know the facts. Why try to convert the already converted? The people do not want talk. They want action.

Can Terengganu really get a fair trial?

Finally, legal action. Does Terengganu really believe it can get a fair trial in a Malaysian court? If it does then pigs can fly. Trials and court cases in Malaysia are rigged and you can bet your last oil Dollar that the Terengganu versus Petronas court case will be heavily rigged.

Anyway, the trial will go on for ten years or more. By then Terengganu will be so broke PAS will beg UMNO to take the State off its hands (it did in 2004). UMNO can afford to wait ten years (it only had to wait three years). Can PAS? With no money in the pocket, time creeps by ever so slowly and ten years can feel like a life sentence.

No, all the above will not work. Let us not be idealistic but be realistic. Let us analyse what is really going on.

First of all, it is Mahathir and not Petronas that’s the culprit. Secondly, it is a political decision taken for political considerations and the action too is political. Lastly, stop talking and start acting.

Taking all this into consideration, immediate action is required and the action must be political and not legal or administrative.

And the type of political action to take?

Terengganu is too paranoid about being seen as “aggressive”

Before I continue I must add that Terengganu State is too paranoid about its image and is reluctant to be seen as doing anything “illegal” or “ganas”. That attitude should change. Mahathir did not care about his image or whether he is seen as ganas when he withdrew Terengganu’s oil royalty. In fact, Mahathir said no such agreement exists. If this is not ganas I don’t know what is.

Fight fire with fire

Terengganu must fight fire with fire. Terengganu must realise it is fighting for survival and its (political) life is at stake. Terengganu must “take to the streets”.

First, all East Coast rakyat should be told to boycott Petronas petrol stations. So the petrol station owners go bankrupt, but that’s the price of “war”. How can the petrol station owners continue to support Petronas when it is killing off Terengganu State anyway? Maybe they deserve to go bankrupt.

Blockades should be set up at the Petronas refinery in Kertih so that the tankers cannot get in or out. “Guards” should be placed at all Petronas petrol stations to “discourage” people from patronising the place.

This sounds confrontational and it is. Terengganu must confront Petronas. In fact, it should declare war on Petronas and whoever else cooperates with Petronas. Whether they are car owners or petrol station owners they should be treated like the enemy if they cooperate with Petronas.

Terengganu stands to lose about RM4 billion by the next general election. This is no paltry sum and the state should fight tooth and nail to get the money back. The state should also not be afraid to spend a bit of money in employing guards to enforce the statewide boycott on Petronas stations and the blockade on the oil refinery.

Petronas must be made to lose money for the money Terengganu State is losing - an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

Promote it at a National issue and not just a State issue

Terengganu State must see its fight with Petronas as a National battle. The state must remember that Petronas has earned a total of about RM300 billion from Terengganu since it started its operation around 25 years ago (double that now). However, it can account for only about 20% of that money.

Since under the Petroleum Development Act 1974 it says Petronas is only answerable to the Prime Minister and takes direction from the Prime Minister only, this means only the Prime Minister, and no one else, knows what happened to all that money.

The opposition Parliamentarians have been trying for years to get Petronas to reveal its accounts but it refuses to do so, saying that they need only show the accounts to the Prime Minister and to no one else. Not even Parliament has the power to direct Petronas – and to think Petronas was set up through Act of Parliament.

Petronas needs to be “stripped naked” so that Malaysians can see where all their money has gone. We are talking about hundreds of billions here. Malaysians need to know where Mahathir has stashed all this money.

Rally “People’s Power”

The State should not confine its fight to a handful of people. Get the rakyat involved. The rakyat are waiting for directions from the top.

On 25 November 2000, Dr Hatta Ramli, the political secretary to Dato Ustaz Fadzil Noor, the President of PAS, handed a Memorandum to Tun Daim protesting the withdrawal of the oil royalty. A crowd of at least 5,000 people escorted him there. Dr Hatta then announced that if the Federal government ignores this Memorandum, he would get one million people to take to the streets.

Well, the government has ignored the Memorandum. Where are the one million people? Dr Hatta should carry through his promise – or was it just a threat? He should mobilise these one million people - and I know he can if he puts his mind to it. In fact, if you can get one million people onto the streets, not only would Petronas buckle but Mahathir himself will also fall. This will be Malaysia’s equivalent of People’s Power.

Form a human barricade

There are about 3 million people in the East Coast. You don’t need all these three million but a mere percentage of them. Call the people out. Get them onto the streets. And ask them to form a human barricade and block all Petronas installations in the East Coast.

People will not be able to get in or out. All economic activities will grind to a halt. Even Mahathir’s police will be powerless. Petronas will have to either reinstate Terengganu’s oil royalty or close down.

If Terengganu cannot get the money that is rightfully theirs then let no one else get it either.

FOOTNOTE:

The Petroleum Development Act (Act 144) 1974

This Act covers the exploration and exploitation of petroleum, whether onshore or offshore, by a corporation in which will be vested the entire ownership in, and the exclusive rights, powers, liberties, and privileges in respect of the said petroleum, and to control the carrying on of downstream activities and development relating to petroleum and its products.

Important clauses in this Act are:

1. A Corporation would be set up for this purpose under the Companies Act to be called Petroleum Nasional Berhad or PETRONAS for short.

2. The Corporation shall be subject to the control and direction of the Prime Minister who may, from time to time, issue such direction as he may deem fit.

3. The direction so issued by the Prime Minister shall be binding on the Corporation.

4. In return for the ownership and rights, powers, liberties and privileges vested in it by virtue of this Act, the Corporation shall make to the government of the Federation and the government of any relevant State such cash payments as may be agreed between the parties concerned.

The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers (Anwar is No:32)

The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers

From the brains behind Iran's Green Revolution to the economic Cassandra who actually did have a crystal ball, they had the big ideas that shaped our world in 2009. Read on to see the 100 minds that mattered most in the year that was.

DECEMBER 2009

32. Anwar Ibrahim

for challenging the Muslim world to embrace democracy.

OPPOSITION LEADER | PEOPLE'S JUSTICE PARTY | MALAYSIA

Two decades ago, it would have been impossible to imagine Anwar pulling together rural Malays, ethnic Indians and Chinese, and Islamists into a coherent political bloc. Back then, Anwar was deputy prime minister in a de facto single-party state that espoused preferential treatment for ethnic Malays. It was a policy that Anwar had pushed from his days as a youth leader right up until 1997, when he denounced his patron, then-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, for corruption. He would spend the next six years in solitary confinement on trumped-up charges for that political betrayal. And he would leave jail in 2004 with a bold message for change in a country now at the forefront of the struggle for democracy in the Muslim world. Today, Anwar's political career is blossoming, despite a new, politically motivated indictment. Abroad, he has become an outspoken advocate of religious tolerance.

He sat down with Foreign Policy to talk about his big ideas:

On Muslim countries and the West: You can't just erase a period of imperialism and colonialism. You can't erase the fault lines, the bad policies, the failed policies, the war in Iraq, and support for dictators. That to me is the reality. But what is the problem? When you … apportion the blame only to the West or the United States. They want to deflect from the issue of repression, endemic corruption, and destruction of the institutions of governance.

On his time in prison: I spent a lot of time reading. I decided to focus on the great works and the classics. Friends from around the world were sending books, but it takes months for [the prison] to vet them. There came a book on the Green Revolution at that time. The officer said, "Anything revolution -- out!" even though it was about agriculture. But the books kept coming. The officers were not even graduates, and [the books] were in English. They would say, "Anwar, out of 10 books, can you send back one?" So I would select something I had already read or something I was not interested in and say, "We should reject this."

On politics: Of course, you simplify the arguments [for politics], but the central thesis remains constant. People say, "Anwar, you are opportunistic. How can you talk about Islam and the Quran here, and then you talk about Shakespeare and quote Jefferson or Edmund Burke?" I say, it depends on the audience. You can't talk about Edmund Burke in some remote village in Afghanistan. Then you go to Kuala Lumpur and you quote T.S. Eliot. If I quote the Quran all the time to a group of lawyers, [they will think] I am a mullah from somewhere!

Spare the Rod, Spoil the Country

Spare the Rod, Spoil the Country

Asia Sentinel

Written by John Berthelsen

WEDNESDAY, 24 FEBRUARY 2010

Malaysia seeks to organize an international caning conference

Malaysia appears determined to make an international fool of itself. The latest news, according to Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, the Women's Minister, is that the country is considering organizing an international conference on caning and whether it is an appropriate punishment for women under Islamic law.

The announcement by Shahrizat comes on the heels of a government statement last week, nine days after the fact, that a shariah court had ordered the caning of three women for adultery. A fourth, far more publicized, is the case of Kartika Dewi Shukarni, a part-time model who was ordered by a shariah court to be caned for drinking beer. The case is still hanging fire while the Regent of Pahang decides how to treat the matter.

This all is in addition to the widely publicized show trial of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on charges of consensual sex with a male, a selective prosecution at best even if he did it, since Kuala Lumpur throngs with gay bars, and political persecution at the worst over widespread suspicion that the charges were trumped up. There is also the January violence in the wake of a high court judge's decision to allow the Malaysian Catholic Church to use the word Allah as a synonym for God in its Malay-language editions of its newspaper, the Catholic Herald.Eleven churches, a Sikh temple and two Muslim prayer rooms were attacked.

Many critics hold UMNO responsible for fanning racial disharmony. In the cases of the prayer rooms, eight UMNO members were arrested for attacking them in an apparent attempt to make it look like either Chinese or Indians had done it. There are similar suspicions that ethnic Malays had thrown pigs' heads with money in their mouths into mosques in Kuala Lumpur.

That, plus the continuing political turmoil, appears to be driving up flight capital totals and citizens who are leaving along with their money. And it is giving international investors some serious second thoughts at a time when the export-led economy is finally starting to emerge from the global financial crisis that began in October of 2008.

As to the caning, in the first place the government ought to organize a conference on whether caning, Malaysia style, is an appropriate punishment for anybody, anywhere. Although it is officially outlawed in only 25 countries, it is rare in a lot more, and in very few is it practiced as barbarically — on men — as it is in Malaysia, which until quite recently was regarded by the world as one of the globe's most advanced Islamic states.

Now that reputation is in shreds, largely driven not by religion but by politics. Parti Islam se-Malaysia, or PAS, a traditionally conservative opposition Islamic party, has expressed concern about the canings, announced by Hishammuddin Hussein, the Home Minister. It may well be that PAS will end up more lenient on caning than UMNO, and thus draw in more moderate Malays alienated. Dzulkefly Ahmad, the Islamist party's chief strategist, called the canings politically motivated and said Islamic justice calls for fairness without cruelty or corruption.

The caning itself makes one wonder if Malaysia can do anything right. Hishammuddin told reporters the caning was carried out while the women were fully clothed and seated, and the person wielding the whip was not allowed to raise his (or her) arm above the shoulder. The caning, he said, "did not injure them, [but] the three women said it caused pain within their souls."

One would assume that the purpose of corporal punishment is to cause pain. And when it is done to males in Malaysia and other countries that were once part of the British empire, the damage from the rotan, a thick rattan whip, can be so traumatic that they pass out after one or two strokes. The wounds can take months to heal, at which time the authorities may subject the offender to the rest of his strokes. Offenders have been known to beg for more prison time to escape the rotan. Authorities use only a light rattan stick to hit women on their backs.

So what the caning of the women has done is to show that to much of the world the authorities look like barbarians, while to the rest of it they look like fools for sparing the rod and trying to have it both ways.

Certainly, the outcry across both Malaysia and the world should have been enough to give pause to the government.

"The case constitutes further discrimination against Muslim women in Malaysia," said Hamidah Marican, executive director of Sisters in Islam, a moderate Muslim women's group, in a statement. "And to do this surreptitiously implies that the government wanted to hide this degrading and unjust treatment from public scrutiny." Sofia Lim Sui Ching, president of the All Women's Action Society (AWAM), told local media the government must explain itself for allowing the punishment to be carried out in a government prison in secret without addressing issues raised in Kartika's case, which is still hanging fire while the ex-model meets with the Regent of Pahang.

"The caning of these three women is just the tip of the iceberg," said Donna Guest, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific program, in a prepared statement. "Since 2002 the Malaysian authorities have caned over 35,000 people, mostly non-Malaysians for immigration offenses."

The rights organizations also object on the basis that Malaysia has a two-tier justice system. Muslims come under the jurisdiction of shariah courts for personal matters as a result of changes pushed through by former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in the 1990s to create a parallel court system. The other 40 percent of Malaysia's 28 million people, mostly ethnic Chinese and Indians, come under the regular civil courts. Under the country's civil justice system, flogging of wmen is forbidden. Thus, the rights groups say, Muslim women are being discriminated against.

Nonetheless, Shahrizat said she plans to invite ministers from other Muslim-majority countries, academics and religious experts to exchange "ideas and experiences with regards to the implementation of shariah law."

This is not particularly a product of Islam. Judicial corporal punishment in Asia is practiced only in countries formerly ruled by the British. The late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto put an end to the practice in Pakistan.

Despite the concerns over the Anwar trial, which has drawn criticism from lawmakers in Australia and the US as trumped up to snuff out a legitimate opposition, tourism visits are up – or were, hitting about 1.5 million from January 2009, a rise of 7.2 percent year-on-year in October. Expectations of a double-digit increase in 2010 tourism may be dampened by the publicity.

http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2317&Itemid=199

Malaysia State Constitutional Crisis

Malaysia State Constitutional Crisis

Tuesday, 09 February 2010

The courts award Perak to UMNO

In the meantime, his party is beset by infighting in several state assemblies, particularly Penang and Selangor, with a growing number of restive lawmakers threatening to leave the opposition coalition and return to the Barisan. Three have been brought before a disciplinary committee of the opposition coalition seeking answers to questions over their use of personal expense accounts.

Asia Sentinel

Any indication that Malaysia's courts were becoming independent of the government disappeared from view again Tuesday when the five-member Federal Court ruled that United Malays National Organization stalwart Zambry Abdul Kadir is the rightful chief minister of the state of Perak, the country's second biggest and one of its richest.

The state has been caught a constitutional crisis since May of 2009, with the government paralyzed by the controversy over who was actually in charge. Perak had been controlled by the national opposition coalition Pakatan Rakyat as a result of the March 2008 national election, with Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin as chief minister. However, then-Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak engineered the defection of three lawmakers, bringing the government to a halt in a 28-28 tie. Upon their defection, Sultan Raja Azlan Shah immediately ordered Nizar to vacate his position and installed Zambry in his place.

That kicked off a melee in which 65 people were arrested. Ahead of Tuesday's decision, Rais yatim, the the Information Communication and Culture Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim, was quoted by the state-owned national wire service Bernama as calling on the people to be calm.

"We should respect the decision irrespective of whether it favors A or B. We are confident in our judicial system and in the way the law is administered," Bernama quoted him as saying.

Kuala Lumpur High Court Judge Abdul Aziz Rahim ruled on May 11 that the sultan lacked the authority to remove Nizar without a vote of confidence in the statehouse, only to have the appellate court put his decision in abeyance a few hours later. The case – and the Perak state government – have been stalled as the Federal Court, the country's highest, took up the decision in November and has chewed on it ever since.

The ruling, led by Court of Appeal president Alauddin Mohd Sheriff, was built on the premise that the Barisan Nasional, or ruling national coalition, controls 31 votes in the Perak statehouse although no vote has ever been taken, and while the three defectors are said to be leaning towards the Barisan, they have given no official indication that they would cross the aisle. The Election Commission refused a letter proclaiming the realignment of their loyalty, setting the stage for the constitutional crisis.

When Nizar refused to go, instead of waiting for Judge Abdul Aziz's original ruling, elite federal Field Reserve Unit police invaded the Ipoh statehouse on May 7 to drag opposition Speaker V. Sivakumar out of the chambers amid flying furniture and protests that resulted in the arrest of 65 people. As far as can be determined, it is the first time in Malaysian history that federal police had ever entered a legislature.

The ruling appears unlikely to end the continuing political uncertainty in either Perak or the government. Political analysts in Kuala Lumpur say the logical solution to the stalemate – a state popular by-election to determine the makeup of the statehouse – is unlikely because Najib and the Barisan do not believe they could win it.

The state, long a tin mining center, has an extremely large Chinese and Indian population and the Chinese have largely abandoned the Barisan because of the collapse into scandal of the Malaysian Chinese Association, which is embroiled in infighting over the disappearance of billions of dollars in the attempt to turn Port Klang, 60 km. west of Kuala Lumpur, into a multimodal port.

The Barisan instead appears to be counting on time to bring the voters, particularly disaffected ethnic Malays who have abandoned UMNO for the fundamentalist Parti Islam se-Malaysia and Anwar Ibrahim's Parti Keadilan Rakyat, or People's Justice Party, because of a long series of scandals and outright crimes.

However, Anwar is on trial in Kuala Lumpur in what has been widely billed as Sodomy 2, on charges of sodomizing a former aide in a trial that to everybody but the government itself appears to be built on dubious allegations that were laid to derail the first realistic challenge to the ruling national coalition since the country was formed.

In the meantime, his party is beset by infighting in several state assemblies, particularly Penang and Selangor, with a growing number of restive lawmakers threatening to leave the opposition coalition and return to the Barisan. Three have been brought before a disciplinary committee of the opposition coalition seeking answers to questions over their use of personal expense accounts.

The coalition that Anwar cobbled together has been an unlikely one from the start, with the Islamic, largely rural and fundamentalist PAS on one side and the ethnic Chinese Democratic Action Party on the other, with Anwar's moderate, urban Malays in the middle. Zulkifli Nordin, a member of Anwar's Parti Keadilan Rakyat, was quoted publicly earlier this week as predicting mass resignations over the next two to three weeks over tensions with the DAP and PKR's difficulty in dealing with them.

"The problem was that Anwar rounded up a bunch of incompetents to run in 2008, and disillusionment was so great with UMNO that a lot of people got voted into office who should never have been voted into office," said a businessman in Kuala Lumpur. The opposition coalition, he said, has thus never been able to capitalize on its gains by actually paying attention to governing. At the same time, the opposition has been harried by Najib's use of law enforcement powers including the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and others to bring opposition lawmakers in on charges that many observers believe are superfluous.

Nonetheless, the court's decision appears certain to reinforce popular opinion that Malaysia's judiciary is thoroughly in the pockets of UMNO. That isn't helped by the case against Anwar, who is charged with having consensual sex with the former aide, a charge that is extremely rare in Malaysia and especially Kuala Lumpur, where gay bars abound and homosexuality isn't particularly condemned despite the fact that it is nominally against the law. An examination of the evidence against him in similar charges in 1998 leads to the overwhelming conclusion that it was concocted to derail his political career.

The case has been put on temporary hold as Anwar's lead counsel, Karpal Singh, seeks to disqualify the presiding judge, Mohd Zabidin Mohd Diah.

Why the prosecution of Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim matters to the West

Why the prosecution of Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim matters to the West

Sunday, 07 February 2010
That's why the Obama administration and other Western governments interested in stability in Asia should make clear that the imprisonment of Mr. Anwar would be a blatant human rights violation -- and not in Malaysia's interest.

The Washington Post Editorial

IN THE PAST two years, Malaysia, which has been a one-party state since it gained independence in 1957, has made remarkable strides toward becoming a democracy. That it has done so is mostly due to the efforts and political talent of one man -- Anwar Ibrahim. So the fact that Mr. Anwar went on criminal trial last week should deeply concern the democratic world. The outcome could determine whether one of Asia's most economically successful countries preserves its stability and embraces long-overdue reforms.

A former deputy prime minister in the ruling party, Mr. Anwar was deposed and jailed in 1998 by former Malaysian strongman Mahathir Mohamad. A manifestly unfair trial followed in which Mr. Anwar was convicted of homosexual sodomy, which shamefully remains a crime in Malaysia. Six years later, the conviction was overturned by a court, and Mr. Anwar resumed his political career -- this time as an open champion of democracy in Malaysia and other Muslim countries.

Mr. Anwar succeeded in forging a coalition of opposition parties, including his own multiracial People's Justice Party, an Islamic party, and a secular party. He has campaigned against the government's toxic policy of racial discrimination, which funnels economic favors to well-connected members of the ethnic Malay majority. In the past two years, his coalition has pulled off a string of stunning victories in state and parliamentary by-elections; it now controls four of 13 state governments. If led by Mr. Anwar, it would have a fair chance of winning the next national election in 2013.

That's one reason it's suspicious that, three months after the state election victories in 2008, Mr. Anwar was once again accused of sodomy. Another is that his young male accuser was seen with aides of Najib Razak, who is now prime minister; Mr. Anwar says he has evidence that the accuser met with the prime minister and his wife shortly before making his charge. A third is that the case has been transferred from criminal court to a higher court whose judges are closely linked to the ruling party.

If Mr. Anwar is convicted, he could be sentenced to up to 20 years in prison and would be banned from politics for five years. He is 62. The ruling party no doubt hopes a conviction will cause the opposition coalition to crumble. But it could just as easily provoke a backlash against Mr. Najib or street demonstrations that could destabilize the country. That's why the Obama administration and other Western governments interested in stability in Asia should make clear that the imprisonment of Mr. Anwar would be a blatant human rights violation -- and not in Malaysia's interest.

BN shows how bankrupt it is of strategies

BN shows how bankrupt it is of strategies

Fri, Feb 5, 2010

By Daniel W. Delaware

BANGKOK: Malaysia, always in the shadow of its sparkling city-state neighbour, now seeks, it seems, to draw the spotlight of world attention upon itself but for entirely the wrong reasons.

The lacklustre Hobson’s choice premier Mohammed Najib Tun Abdul Razak, who has been struggling to be taken seriously and continues to struggle mostly, in vain, to try and restore the dwindling fortunes of his party, is behaving like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a fast approaching vehicle.

Dr Mahathir bin Mohamad’s wish to see Malaysia join the first world seems to become more and more of a pipe dream. The good doctor’s feelings towards Mr Najib’s predecessor, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, are well known, and the appetite for interfering with the judiciary is said to have started with the good doctor; so unsurprisingly there has been a tumult of criticism from human rights groups concerning the latest trial, as Anwar Ibrahim’s last conviction was so publicly overturned by Malaysia’s highest court after a lengthy delay.

The question all serious Malaysia watchers are asking is: Why is this happening again? The last bungled attempt to remove Anwar from the political landscape ended in utter ignominy, and the Malaysian state was most certainly the loser. Well, the best guess seems to be the analogy of a drowning man grasping at straws, however hopeless, in order to survive, because as a political strategy another trial is totally bankrupt.

Interestingly, the one factor the plotters appear to have totally overlooked is the present incumbents of the White House and State Department. Both of these current office-holders are unlikely to stay silent if history repeats itself in how Anwar is dealt with. Thailand has recently felt the new realism of the current American administration when the US ambassador in Bangkok wrote a letter to the English-language press deploring the forced repatriation of Hmong refugees to Laos, a most unheard of action in diplomatic protocol.

The Malaysian regime seems to lack the sophistication and good grace to deal with successful opposition as it desperately tries to cling to power. Voters have already punished it at the ballot box and are likely to repeat the process again. A suspect verdict on Anwar will draw nothing but opprobrium from the world at large and pigeonhole the current regime as only slightly more sophisticated than the generals in Burma in how it deals with its opponents, but not that much.—The Nation

Saiful says Anwar was his idol

Saiful says Anwar was his idol

Friday, 05 February 2010

Saiful's and Rahimi's statements contradict each other

(The Malaysian Insider) - Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s accuser told the High Court today that he once idolised the Opposition Leader, describing himself as an “Anwar fan”.

Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan was recounting in court today on the third day of Sodomy II his experience when he first met his idol Anwar in March 2008, soon after the general elections that year.

“In March, my friend Rahimi Osman called me to come to his office in Petaling Jaya, Section 16. He had called because he wanted to chat with me and catch up on things.

“While talking at the office, he asked me whether I was employed. When I said that I was not working, he then asked me whether I wanted to become an assistant in Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s office,” said Saiful.

According to Saiful, Rahimi had told him that Anwar was short of office staff owing to the fact that staff members such as Nurul Izzah and Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad were contesting in the elections at that point of time.

Saiful recounted how he was still divided over taking a job there when Rahimi took him to a meeting and introduced him to Anwar.

“I was shocked. I had not decided on anything yet when Anwar said, ‘I appreciate your helping us’. It was a signal as if he had accepted me there and then.” Saiful also told the court that he had always idolised Anwar because “Anwar is a charismatic leader.”

BUT THIS VIDEO SAYS THE OPPOSITE (SEE MINUTE 7 ONWARDS)

SEE VIDEO ON YOUTUBE HERE