Malaysia’s Top Diplomat Kamil tells his story

May 21, 2013

“The life of a diplomat and foreign policy maker can be pretty much routine and humdrum during the best of times. However, there is no lack of excitement and thrills.”–Ambassador Kamil Jaafar.

In the Preface to his memoirs, Growing Up with  the Nation,  Special Envoy of the Prime Minister and  former Secretary General to Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ambassador Kamil Jaafar says “[T]he subject of this book will be a personal, subjective account of my life and career as a diplomat. It is my intention to try to explain the decision-making process preceding the policy formulations of Malaysia’s approach to a number of specific international issues as well as Malaysia’s understanding of regional priorities.” (Preface, xii).

He has been able to discuss in depth with insight and eloquence issues like the formation of ASEAN, bilateral relations with Indonesia and the Philippines over the formation of Malaysia and the Sabah claim and Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew, the Cambodian conflict in the context of the Vietnam War, Malaysia’s engagement with China following the historic visit to the PRC by our Second Prime Minister Tun Haji Abdul Razak in 1974 (see pic below), the civil wars in Somalia and Sudan, and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Malaysia’s role in the Middle East  especially over the Palestine Question receives good coverage in his memoirs.

Ambassador Kamil also discussed territorial disputes that continue plagued our region. His account of his years in Japan as our Ambassador makes a very interesting read from my perspective. I recall my meeting with him in Tokyo over dinner and he told me that he admired the Japanese people and their rich culture, work ethics, and proud history. He handled the Japanese well and for that he should be congratulated. He is without doubt an excellent representative of our country to Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, China,Japan, Germany, Switzerland, and the United Nations.

In dealing with complex issues and difficult problems throughout his 34-year career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he  showed lots of patience and tact, using excellent interpersonal and negotiating skills, and bringing into play his breadth of knowledge and well rounded education in history and politics he had at the University of Malaya,coupled with his hands-on training in diplomacy and international relations in Wisma Putra under the stewardship of then Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of External Affairs, (Tun) Ghazali Shafie.

On his former boss, Ambassador Kamil had this to say”…It is generally recognised that the early batches of the Malaysian Foreign Service were the product of Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie’s moulding. His aggressive and inquisitive stye, coupled his quick temper, put a fear in our young hearts. Those who survived the full blast of his temper when thing went wrong were later transformed into a dedicated and professional core of officers that would serve the country right into the 21st century.

Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie made great demands on us all and once you learned to face the challenge you begin to appreciate  and value his style of on-the-spot training, even when it felt like a whipping. Yes, he whipped us into shape…” (p.31)

The Postscript to his memoirs merits carefully reading because it contains invaluable pointers on the conduct of Malaysia’s foreign policy. Ambassador  Paramjit S. Sahai, former High Commissioner of India to Malaysia (1996-2000), who wrote the Introduction to Growing Up with the Nation noted:

” ‘Postscript’ is couched in highly philosophical tones. Even though Tan Sri Kamil claims that he would try to avoid forcing Malaysia’s foreign policy into any theoretical mould, be it described as ‘predictive, scientific or deductive’ he is not unmindful of the challenges coming from global governance, trans-nationalism, power politics versus issue politics. He unhesitatingly states that it would not be in Malaysia’s national interest to ‘compartmentalise our practice of diplomacy into being Islamic and non-Islamic’ as Malaysia’s existence ‘is founded on cultural pluralism and social justice, built upon communal tolerance and individual dignity’. Prima facie, it has to be ‘based on the need to protect, defend and promote its national interests’ while ensuring that ‘communitarianism and normative values form part of that world’”

The memoirs is a candid and heart rending story of a boy from Kulim-Bukit Mertajam, North Malaysia who was privileged to have have an excellent education from school ( Bukit Mertajam High School and Malay College Kuala Kangsar) and University of Malaya. That boy blossomed into an impressive Malaysia’s top diplomat and Special Envoy of the Prime Minister. I recommend Growing Up with a Nation as an excellent read on Malaysia’s Foreign Policy.–Din Merican

NOTE:  The launch of Growing Up with the Nation by HE Tun Datuk Seri Mohd. Khalil bin Yaacob, Governor of Malacca, will be at the Hotel Impiana, Jalan Pinang, Kuala Lumpur on May 22, 2013 at 4.30 pm

Islamic Diplomacy and the Search for Human Security

May 20, 2013

The Keynote Address at the Peace and Security Forum 2013 at the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kuala Lumpur on May 16,2013.

by  HRH Dr. Raja Nazrin Shah

I WARMLY commend the organisers of this conference for shining a spotlight upon one of the most pressing challenges confronting the Muslim world.

The violent conflicts that afflict some Muslim countries are discussed in many conferences. They feature in the global media every day. In fact, they feature in the global media virtually every hour of every day, and in my view rightly so, for almost every day Muslim lives are lost, Muslims’ limbs are maimed and Muslim land and property destroyed.

But few international forums — and far less the global media — look at the problems the Muslim world is encountering in a way that is more profound and comprehensive, as that of a paucity of human security.

Fewer still approach the subject of human security in the Muslim world from the standpoint of the role that Islam and diplomacy can play in promoting it. The theme of this conference is, therefore, both novel and welcome.

Before I proceed, I should like to take a moment to place the problem of human security, as I see it, in perspective. It is interesting to note that the concept of human security first came into international vogue as a result of the work of a Muslim economist, Dr Mahbub ul Haq. He conceived both the concepts of human development as well as human security that have been so central to the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) approach to developmental issues since the 1990s.

Unlike the Human Development Index of the UNDP — which has now been widely accepted and adopted — an index of human security is still very early work-in-progress. Even an understanding of what human security means and what it encompasses is the subject of debate and discussion.

Until the dust settles on this subject, I should like to be guided essentially by the initial concept as outlined by the UNDP in 1994 and developed further in Version 2 of the Human Security Index.

I must stress, however, that the Human Security Index probably cannot yet be regarded as a sufficiently robust measure of the real state of human security among different countries. But it does give some general picture of the situation. Its importance at this stage lies more in its ability to depict the relative gravity of conditions in different countries based on the criteria employed.

In my view, briefly expressed, human security centres on the security of the human person and the community. This is unlike the conventional notions of national security which pivot around the security of the state.

Human security includes traditional national security concerns such as security from external aggression, security from external intervention, security from foreign occupation as well as security from internal strife; but it also embraces much more.

It includes the security of livelihood provided by steady jobs and meaningful employment; the security from disease that is provided by good and widely accessible health facilities; food security; protection from crime and domestic violence; freedom from political repression; the right to practice one’s religion freely; and the right to clean air, safe water and a sustainable and healthy environment.

Human development as postulated by the UNDP is thus closely correlated with human security. The former seeks to develop the human person; the latter to protect him or her from threats to that development.

Human security facilitates human development, while human development releases more resources to improve human security.

Human security tends to be better assured in peaceful countries that rank high in human development, but it can also lag behind.The United States, for instance, ranks No. 3 in the latest Human Development Index; yet its composite Human Security Index ranking is 147 out of 232 countries and dependencies.

The ranking reflects very poor scores in several areas, including very high incarceration rates and wide disparities in income and wealth.

Thus understood, human security, or human insecurity, knows no nationality. It knows no religion. And it knows no race or ethnicity.

Although the peoples of the developed nations of Europe and North America are less vulnerable, human insecurity also tends to recognise no geography.

Unemployment in the European Union, for instance, is expected to reach an average of 12.2 per cent this year. That is four times the unemployment rate of Malaysia. In Spain and Greece, every fourth person in the workforce is unlikely to have a job.

Human security, whether in the Muslim world or elsewhere, is something that is complex in the sense that it cannot be advanced by just the one tool of diplomacy.

Diplomacy, indeed, is perhaps not even the most important instrument. Much of the hard work must be done at home in each country, through sound and equitable political, economic and social policies.

The primary actor and driver may indeed be the state, but there are a host of other important domestic and external players that make an impact upon human security in every individual locale.

The mix of political, economic, social and security factors that affect human security differ markedly among countries and communities, Muslim as well as non-Muslim.

I will elaborate on some of these general points presently, but let me turn now to the quest for human security in the Muslim world.

As we know, Muslim communities are found virtually everywhere on the globe and amidst differing conditions of human security.

Like many non-Muslim majority countries, Muslim countries and Muslim-majority countries often fare worse in the Human Security Index than they do in the Human Development Index.

This reflects their relatively poorer performance in areas such as political freedoms, income distribution, access to information and personal security compared to indicators such as per capita GDP (Gross Domestic Product).

Whereas at least ten Muslim-majority countries make it to the top 70 in the Human Development Index ranking, none are in the top 70 in the Human Security Index ranking. Seven countries managed to be ranked between 80 and 100. As in the case of the Human Development Index, many Muslim countries are ranked in the bottom third of the Human Security Index table.

The picture that emerges shows that the comprehensive well-being of the people in a number of Muslim-majority countries leaves much to be desired.

Many millions of Muslims do enjoy high levels of material security as minorities in affluent Western countries and as majorities in high income and peaceful Muslim countries like Malaysia, Brunei, Turkey, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

But when factors like extensive poverty, unemployment, income inequality, poor education opportunities, inequitable access to healthcare, violent conflict, political repression, abuse of rights, lack of information empowerment, and the position of women are factored in, about a billion Muslims in a majority of the Muslim countries, or two-thirds of the total global Muslim population, are at risk.

The tragic human security conditions in conflict-ridden and occupied Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and war-torn Syria, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan — the last four are occupied, but, only by themselves — are only too painfully evident to us all.

But there are also hundreds of millions of Muslims who live in vulnerable communities or areas in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Indonesia, Yemen, Nigeria, Niger, Ethiopia, Sierra Leone, Benin, Chad and Senegal.

Put bluntly, the Muslim world is home to a disproportionate share of all the seven areas of human insecurity identified by the UNDP.

Vulnerabilities to aggression, foreign intervention and occupation, sectarian, tribal and ethnic strife, joblessness, poverty and severe income disparities, disease, crime, undemocratic regimes, political repression and violation of rights, discrimination against and abuse of women, and even natural and environmental disasters are all too common and even pervasive in large parts of the Muslim world.

In the Arab world, including the imploding crucible that is Syria today, as well as in Afghanistan, the destruction that Muslims have managed to inflict upon themselves has been colossal. This has been aggravated by some countries that have colluded with foreign powers and involved themselves in the affairs of fellow Arab and Muslim nations.

The Sunni-Shia fault line that runs through the Arab crescent and the Persian Gulf has been a major destabilising factor. It pits Muslim against Muslim not only within countries but between countries as well.

Together with historical tribal enmities, it underlies much of the unrest in the Arab world today. The confrontation between Arabs and Persians, for example, is an age-old enmity that has further embroiled West Asian nations in intra-Muslim struggle and conflict.

The Sunni-Shia sectarianism, tribal animosities and Arab-Persian power plays have undermined not just the national resilience of Muslim countries in West Asia and North Africa. They have also rendered the countries even more vulnerable to the machinations, military intervention and occupation by foreign powers and weakened their capacity to present a collective response to Israel.

Next to war and violence, nothing degrades human security and human dignity more than extreme poverty and widespread unemployment, for their effects are often hunger, malnutrition, starvation, illiteracy, disease and crime.

Such conditions also contribute to a highly combustible political environment.In this regard, poverty and unemployment levels are unacceptably high in much of the Muslim world. No less than 40 to 65 per cent of the population live below the national poverty line in nearly a third of all Muslim countries or those with a sizeable Muslim component, for which there is reliable information.

Democratic governance, protection of human rights and support for gender equality are also key attributes of human security and human development that are in short supply in many of those countries.

Taken together then, the human security landscape of the Muslim world is a grim and dismal one. However, this situation has nothing to do with Islam. It is, in fact, the very antithesis of all that Islam stands for.

Instead, the problems have more to do with factors such as sectarian, tribal and class rivalries; the consequences of colonisation including borders drawn without regard to the glue that natural demographic patterns would have yielded; the strategic location and resources of the Gulf region that make them perennial targets of predatory powers; the insecurity of small states that seek alliance with foreign powers; the dislocation that the imposition of the state of Israel created and the half century of violence that has followed in the absence of a political solution; the grip of unhealthy tribal traditions and customs that distort religious interpretation and inhibit human development; and the absolute lack of resources in some sub-Saharan countries.

As I observed earlier, the improvement of human security, as also in the case of human development, is a task mainly to be done at home. Indeed, diplomacy is one of the means which can be used for that purpose. It normally comes into prominence, however, only when a country is at war or is under military threat, or when there is foreign intervention in internal conflicts.

For those Muslim countries and their peoples that are in this unfortunate situation, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Sudan (and thus South Sudan), diplomacy becomes a crucial instrument.

But good diplomacy — I am using “diplomacy” here interchangeably with foreign policy — can also be important for alleviating other aspects of the human security conditions that prevail in many Muslim communities.

Diplomacy has become indispensable in this globalised age when the politics, economics and security of nations and communities are becoming increasingly enmeshed.

Although domestic policies are primary, human security and human development are impossible to pursue without engagement with the outside world and without interaction with other important actors.

This is especially the case for the less developed nations with scarce or limited resources that make up a large proportion of the Muslim world.

If diplomacy — that is diplomacy as in foreign policy — is important in the pursuit of human security, what has Islam to offer to the endeavour? How can Islam affect diplomacy so as to provide better human security in the Muslim world and beyond?

When I surveyed the literature on Islam and diplomacy, the work that stood out was the Rusul al-Muluk, or Messengers of Kings. Written in the tenth century, or about 300 years after the demise of the beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), it describes the diplomacy that was practised by the Arabs and Muslims from pre-Islamic days to its own time.

It also presents and makes use of examples of Arab diplomatic practice drawn from the Quran and other sources used by Muslim scholars.

The work examines extensively the use of emissaries, diplomatic exchanges, the types of treaties and agreements that the Prophet and other Muslim leaders entered into with Muslim and non-Muslim tribes and empires, the principles of diplomatic negotiations, the codes that guided war and peaceful settlement, the granting of asylum, and the treatment of prisoners, refugees and minorities.–Part I (May 18, 2013)

MUCH of the diplomacy that is described in the book Rusul al-Muluk, or Messengers of Kings, existed before Islam, and it also continued to be practised by non-Muslim nations after the revelation of Islam.

From translations of ancient writings such as Letters from Early Mesopotamia and the Amarna Letters, we learn that there was a thriving culture of diplomacy that had been practised as far back as the 3rd millennium BC, in the very region we now call West Asia and North Africa.

The diplomacy depicted in that literature, practised by the ancient kingdoms and empires of Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Assyria and Egypt, among others, included diplomatic codes of conduct, exchange of emissaries, arbitration and mediation, negotiation of treaties and treatment of political fugitives.

Diplomacy in somewhat less ancient times developed in similar modes in the great civilisations of China and India. For example, the “realist theory” of International Relations can be traced back to Sun Tzu in 6th century BC China and Kautilya in 3rd century BC India. The Persian, and the Roman and then the Byzantine Empires, of course, were famous for their diplomatic endeavours.

The revelation of Islam, however, brought a sea-change in the conduct of foreign policy and the practice of diplomacy as Muslim political sway expanded in West Asia and beyond.

Islam’s conception of humanity, the Ummah, its world view and its ethos and values were infused into foreign policy and diplomatic practice. The personal character of the Prophet (PBUH), guided by the principles and teachings of Islam, also left its imprint.

The Rusul al-Muluk, the Islamic work which I referred to earlier, is not an ordinary manual on diplomacy; rather, it is a work that boldly argues for a very modern theory of International Relations, by rejecting warlike policies in favour of low-key but firm diplomacy with the pragmatic outlook of constructive realpolitik — all done with the aim and intention of securing the common goal of human security among all mankind.

The ultimate purpose of Islam is the well-being and salvation of all humankind, irrespective of national, ethnic or even religious identity. Islam’s horizon is the Universe: it does not stop with the Muslim Ummah.

This is the bedrock upon which universal human well-being (including what is now called “human security”) is to be built, both domestically and abroad, across nations.

Development, peace, security, justice and human dignity are for all peoples regardless of race or gender or even faith. Human beings are created by God to fulfil the dual role of the person as a servant of God (al-’Abd) and as His representative (al-Khalifah) on Earth.

The goals of Islam that have a bearing upon the prevailing ideas of human security – as well as human development – are founded on two concepts. One is that of human well-being: Sa’adah, which can also mean success, happiness, prosperity or felicity.

The second is the Muslim concept of the good life in this world and in the next world: Hayatun Tayyibah. The balanced fulfilment of both the material and spiritual needs of all human beings will lead to human well-being and the good life that fulfils human security needs.

A fundamental core of human security is the freedom from want, and this is best assured by education and knowledge, which can help secure jobs and a better livelihood. In Islam the pursuit of knowledge, both spiritual and material, is nothing short of a religious obligation. Acquisition of knowledge is considered a form of worship and will bring a Muslim closer to God.

Islam also enjoins ethical action (‘Amal Salih), morality (Akhlak), justice and fairness (‘Adl), moderation (‘Iffah), integrity (Amanah), and provision for the poor and the disadvantaged.

The payment of zakat, or charity, by the rich for the poor is obligatory. Islam’s principle of Tawhid further demands that there be no exploitation among human beings. All these teachings point to a basic concern with what we call “human security”.

In the field of foreign policy, diplomacy and war, the Islamic tradition privileges negotiations and peaceful resolution of disputes over war. It further specifically forbids the taking of innocent life and damage to property.

It also enjoins humane treatment of prisoners and due protection for refugees. Our tradition counsels just peace, when the circumstances allow.

The Islamic faith, thereby, provides a unique religious, normative and legal reference for the formulation and implementation of foreign as well as domestic policies to protect and promote human security.

So what roles can Islam play in the contemporary diplomacy of Muslim countries in their pursuit of human security? I can think of at least three.

FIRST the great achievement of the Prophet (PBUH) in bringing peace and reconciliation to the warring tribes and communities of Arabia can be invoked to inspire and reinforce efforts to reduce enmity among Muslim countries and communities and make their relations harmonious.

There is no more necessary and important effort than the active pursuit of reconciliation for healing the wounds caused by conflicts, bloodshed and violence.

This is especially pressing for the conflicts in West Asia and North Africa, where Sunni-Shia sectarianism and tribal conflicts are tearing nations apart and bringing them into conflict with one another.

What is happening in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan with the involvement of other Muslim countries as well as outside powers is producing the very antithesis of the peaceful aims and teachings of Islam. It strikes at the very core of the human security concerns of the affected multitudes, which include millions of displaced persons and refugees.

SECOND Islam is all about human dignity, human development and human security. Yet in so many countries of the Muslim world, it is these very things that are in shortest supply.

The values and teachings of Islam can be more effectively mobilised to spur greater efforts by Muslim countries, acting individually as well as collectively, through such institutions as the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), to bring more and better development.

These efforts could embrace marginalised minority communities, such as the Rohingyas in Myanmar and the Muslims in southern Thailand and southern Philippines.

Among the programmes that should be highest in priority are those aimed at improving education and health facilities, reducing income inequities, bringing greater protection and emancipation for women, strengthening representative government, and enhancing standards of governance.

These, in fact, are some of the causes that are already being championed by organisations such as the Islamic Development Bank, but progress will continue to be slow unless there is greater commitment from many member countries.

THIRD the non-governmental infrastructure for human development and human security greatly needs to be developed in many Muslim countries. Organisations in civil society and the private sector have a vital role to play and an important contribution to make.

 In areas such as education, healthcare, welfare activities, protection of women and children, crime prevention and environmental conservation the participation of voluntary organisations is necessary and invaluable, especially when they are supported by the business sector and the state.

Muslim nations, again, individually as well as collectively, can do much to foster and strengthen the infrastructure within their own countries and sometimes even in others.

If we take our humanity seriously, and are motivated by the guidance conveyed in our sacred traditions, then we should expand our conception of security to embrace its human dimensions.

A foremost requirement for promoting human security is the recognition of diversity and differences in our global context, as well as within the boundaries of individual nations.

To this end we should cultivate awareness and understanding of the worldview of others, and learn to respect their various traditions.

This is why inter-cultural competence and training for understanding other religions and worldviews is important – both for non-Muslims to appreciate Islam, and for Muslims to appreciate cultures and peoples belonging to other traditions.

Indeed the search for human security is the gateway to the future of a reformed global order.The combined experiences of human societies in the modern era in the economic, political, social and cultural domains of life are pushing towards recovering the basis of security reflected in basic human needs and hopes.

Peace will only be achieved between nations, and among the diverse peoples within nations, when security is understood in these terms. (Part II-May 20, 2013)

http://www.nst.com.my

Kamil Jaafar–The Diplomat Extraordinaire of My Generation

May 19, 2013

COMMENT: Kamil Jaafar (he insists that I forget the “Tan Sri” bit when I address him) was my senior at MU and Wisma Putra (I joined the Foreign Service in 1963 when Tun Ghazalie Shafie was the Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of External Affairs) and housemate together with Tun Mohd Khalil Yaccob, the present Governor of Malacca (right) and a host of other foreign  service colleagues at No 272, Jalan Brickfields/Jalan Tun Sambanthan, Kuala Lumpur in the heart of Little India.

Despite his many achievements as Malaysia’s top career diplomat, the First Among Equals, Kamil remains the simple and kind man that I knew when we first met at Bukit Mertajam railway station when we took the train to MU at Kuala Lumpur. Of course, he was not really that nice on the train!

He and another Kedahan, (Tan Sri) Razali Ismail (left), who was President, United Nations General Assembly in 1996-1997, ragged me throughout the night.  But I suppose the ragging brought us together to this day.

I promised Kamil that I will review his book, Growing Up with the Nation after it is launched by our respected friend, the Governor of Malacca on May 22, 2013 at 4.30 pm at Hotel Impiana, Jalan Pinang, Kuala Lumpur. My wife Dr Kamsiah and I will be there and hope you will join us at the launch.–Din Merican.

The Tiger of Wisma Putra still has his bite

by Balan Moses@http://www.nst.com.my

RESPECTED AND REVERED: After 51 years of diplomatic service, the imposing former Secretary-General has stories to tell

THE giant who greets me at the door of his spacious condominium unit in the upmarket Jalan U Thant suburb of Kuala Lumpur is wearing a wide smile, inimical really,  on the diplomat extraordinaire never known more than three decades in harness to smile.

He might have smirked, but that was par for the course, fitting the carefully cultivated image of the uncaring senior civil servant, who tolerated subordinates (and superiors), only as long as their actions and professional philosophy were in consonance with his.

But if anyone is looking to read about a Tan Sri Ahmad Kamil Jaafar, who ran roughshod over everyone, was vengeful and worked only for his glory, nothing is further from the truth as “I never harmed anyone and I never kept anything in my heart”.

“If you did well, you were promoted and gained my trust and respect. If you did not see things the way I did (in the larger interest of the nation) and fumbled, you were on your own,” he says a little past midway into the interview for this column on his memoirs — Growing Up With the Nation — to be launched on Wednesday (May 22, 2013).

“Of course, I even scolded ambassadors (and a few others in various capacities) at airports and other places, with many afraid to even talk to me after that,” the 76-year-old says, admitting that his temper sometimes got the better of him.

But again, I get the feeling that even those episodes were crafted to fuel the image of the hard-boiled bureaucraft who did not suffer fools gladly, when he was actually just a man on a personal mission to serve his country to the best of his abilities using the manpower available.

The smile for me this morning is part of a countenance reserved for friends and people that Kamil likes, a compliment for a story I wrote nine years ago in my column “Diplomatic Dealings” about him that he fancied.

The breezy welcome from the former number one diplomat at Wisma Putra, more famous for his scowls and penetrating gaze than the expansive countenance he is wearing today, is courtesy of the fact that he will be baring all about his 51 years in diplomatic service (the last 17 years or so on national service as special envoy to the Prime minister) at Hotel Impiana in three days’ time.

The 189cm-tall Kamil, a little thicker around the waist, more jowl than cheek and slightly slower in movement than in 2004, is in his element, casting a commanding eye over all he surveys at home. It is not very much unlike the towering presence he had at Wisma Putra as secretary-general, frightening lesser beings into acquiescence with a look that told you where you stood in his esteem.

Kamil is almost curt on the phone in his baritone that has lost a little of the boom it held in years past, but is still respected enough to be listened to carefully by his wife, Lena Hultgren Kamil, son, Tariq, daughter, Yuhanis, a wide range of friends and acquaintances.

If there is an occasional observation of a seemingly lack of steel in his overt personality, I feel it is just another side to the multi-facetted life of the man touted as the most famous non-conventional diplomat that Malaysia has ever produced.

The cloak-and-dagger stuff of the spy (he refuses to be buttonholed in this genre) is still very much evident to me in the almost whispered requests to steer clear of issues “better less spoken about”.

This is vintage Kamil at its best, always putting the nation first as he had since he began serving the nation under founding Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman in 1962 and continuing under five Prime Ministers, including Dato’ Seri Najib Razak (son of second Prime Minister Tun Razak Hussein, for whom he probably had the most personal affection for…”he was a very kind man”).

“This is my first and last book, Balan. Don’t expect to interview me on another book,” the tiger that roamed the corridors of Wisma Putra says in an almost threatening growl, sans a few of the proverbial “teeth” that gave him his bite in office.

Kamil beams as I ask him who will launch his book as the honour goes to old friend and bosom buddy of 56 years, Tun Mohd Khalil Yaacob, the Yang di-Pertua Negeri of Malacca, one of four classmates (also prefects) at Malay College Kuala Kangsar, who wrote new chapters in the schools annals with their mischief.

“We did a lot of havoc like going to the prefects’ room and sneaking a few cigarettes. At night, we used to leave the school and go for packets of char kuey teow in town and come back before dawn. We also used to take laundry money from students under our charge, use it for a taxi to town to live it up before giving what was left to the dobi and telling him he will get the rest the next month,” he says, chuckling at the incident that occurred in the 1950s.

His four partners-in-crime rose to high office in different areas of calling; Khalil became the head of a state; Tan Sri Razali Ismail became Malaysian special envoy to the United Nations; Sallehuddin Alang joined the French Foreign Legion; while the late Dalil Awin became a senior executive here.

All these episodes find print in his memoirs, written in a style that could be termed “diplomatese”, in the sense that the memories are strong in their profundity, but are often played out in a style that lacks the colour and character of a true-blue novelist. But then, Kamil has never claimed to be a writer, admitting in his low-key manner that “I speak better than I write”.

I am convinced that the veracity of his stories, told in a frank, guileless and breathtaking manner, will embrace and captivate the reader to a great extent.

The man who has worked with Kings, Prime Ministers and Statesmen has vignettes for some of them in his book, that traces his genesis from a gangling kampung boy in Kedah to a respected and towering figure in international diplomacy.

“Tunku Abdul Rahman was almost like a father to me. He used to tell his wife, Sharifah Rodziah, that I looked like my father because of our height. I remember one night in Bangkok, when I had to physically dig up the remains of his younger brother as he wanted them to be reburied in Kedah.

“It was a terrible night, with heavy rain and thunder, almost like out of a ghost movie, and there I was, a middle-ranking diplomat in a Muslim cemetery in a Buddhist country, up to my arms and knees in mud.”

Tun Abdul Razak was also almost like a father to Kamil, constantly wanting him to take up a diplomatic position in London, which the latter gently demurred as he wanted to be at home to do national service here. On Tun Hussein Onn, he says the old soldier was made of the stuff of legends, with his razor-sharp ethics that were premised on the fact that “one must not do to others what you do not want others to do to you”.

Kamil reminisces that Hussein (he always had a ruler and pen with him) took his own time with decisions, which sometimes did not work in consonance with the demands of a Foreign Ministry that worked around the clock. But his career truly took off under Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, with whom he had a special chemistry based on a shared belief that Malaysians were no lesser beings than others, “especially whites, who sometimes thought we were second-class people”.

On Dr Mahathir, he says they worked extremely well in “unconventional diplomacy”, which fitted the former Prime Minister’s bill as both had the force of will, commitment and character to help the downtrodden in places like Bosnia and Kosovo.

“I became an arms runner of sorts when I helped arrange for delivery of weaponry to the Bosnians, who were at the mercy of Serbs around them. Dr Mahathir and I shared a personal commitment to the Bosnians that went beyond the pale of our jobs.”

Kamil may be getting on in age, but the sharpness that sometimes riled others at senior levels in government is still there.

“Wisma Putra committed a faux pas a little while ago in the case of Bahrain, where there was a disconnect between the reality and the advice given to the leader of the land (Najib). This would never had happened back then.”

There is more new ground touched upon as Kamil meanders into Malaysian politics, which he has always studiously steered clear off, but here again, his comments are in relation to foreign policy.

“The ground under our feet is shifting after what Malaysians collectively did at the recent general election.Our foreign policy is shaped on a multiracial, multilingual and multireligious character at home and represents the sociopolitical make-up of the nation.”

Kamil wants the powers-that-be to address the problem fast,  “with special attention paid to communitarian and normative values as these are important and at the core of our social fabric”. The former diplomatic craftsman also remembers people like Farah Aidid, the Somali strongman, who  gave him a walking stick which “he said had kept him alive for years, but you know that he died the month after giving me the souvenir”.

Kamil tries to laugh the deep laugh that rang through his office and that of his friends  (he has great memories of his late friend, historian and author, Dr Chandran Jeshurun)  years ago,  but is unable to do so, no thanks to a 50 per cent lung capacity,  courtesy of scores of Camel cigarettes for a major part of his life.

“I never cry when giving speeches,  but I cried when delivering his eulogy,” says the characteristically unemotional  diplomat,  never known for asking for a quarter  and certainly giving none to no one of his childhood friends, fellow Malaysian visionary and noted historian.

Today, Kamil says the days of unconventional diplomacy are over and that he never bothered to pass on the tricks of the trade that he wrote the book on in his heydays between 1962 and 1989,  when he ruled the heap at Wisma Putra. The world at large, however, should never forget that the slightly bent (crouching) tiger still has much fire in his belly, a phenomenon  that Malaysians may witness (if he so decides to) at the launching of his book.

After all, he is still the Special Envoy to the Prime Minister and who knows what demands the nation may still make of the man who managed more delicate scenarios in foreign service than a hoard of diplomats across the board will ever handle in their lifetime.

‘GE-13 exposed elements of PKR being a US puppet’

May 16, 2013

Ruhanie Ahmad, trying to make a political comeback?

‘GE13 exposed elements of PKR being a US puppet’

by Aidila Razak@http://www.malaysiakini.com

The 13th general election has elements fitting the hypothesis that Pakatan Rakyat, or PKR in particular, is a foreign stooge working to change the regime for the benefit of the United States of America.

However, whether PKR is indeed on the US payroll to do its bidding can only be confirmed by the party itself.This is the argument put forth by blogger Ruhanie Ahmad (left) at a forum in Universiti Malaya today that discussed the way forward for the BN and Pakatan after GE13.

According to Ruhanie, who authors the socio-political blog Kuda Kepang, geo-political readings would make US interference not entirely surprising.

He told a packed lecture hall at the main campus in Petaling Jaya that this was because the US has been sore with Malaysia for blocking its control of the Malacca Straits.

“If they can control (the Malacca Straits), they can transport energy from the Middle East to East Asia.Control of sources of energy and transportation routes will make the US the ultimate superpower,” said Ruhanie, who is a doctorate candidate in geo-politics and security studies.

Malaysia’s Prime Ministers from Dr Mahathir Mohamad to Najib Abdul Razak have been clear that no global superpower will have a stake in the maintenance of the straits.

This makes Malaysia the last elusive jigsaw piece in the US bid to control the Southeast Asia maritime channels, after successfully forging agreements with the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia.

“I see the 13th general election as the climax to an attempt by a superpower to put its proxy against the ruling government. That is my initial assumption. Is it true?” asked the former BN backbencher.

Ruhanie said question marks over foreign influence also extended to NGOs such as electoral reform group Bersih, which has admitted to receiving funding from US sources.

He said that this argument was also put forward by “authentic” sources like socio-political portal Global Research writer Tony Cartalucci, who said that Wall Street was disappointed that its “proxy” lost in the Malaysian election.

“For the BN, this election exposes two security problems – national security and societal security – and this must be corrected by the BN as a government’s role is to safeguard security.”

Hypothesis failed peer review?

However, Ruhanie’s views were challenged by members of the audience, made up largely of post-graduate students and doctorate candidates.

One doctorate candidate from Akademi Tentera Malaysia Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (ATMA-UTM) – who stood up during the question-and-answer session – even went as far as saying that if he were Ruhanie’s supervisor, he would not give the former MP a passing mark.

“As a doctorate candidate, what framework did you use to come to that conclusion?

“The Global Research writer Cartalucci had also written that the Lahad Datu intruders were part of the Free Syria army, which is absolutely absurd,” the UTM student said.

To this, Ruhanie replied that he did not make a conclusion, but merely raised a hypothesis for further study.

“My hypothesis is based on the new classical realm… that everything that happens in a country is a causal effect of something else that happens outside the country,” he said.

Another postgraduate student also asked how was it that supporters of BERSIH and Pakatan have to often fork out their own expenses to attend events if the two groups were so flushed with cash.

However, the former Parit Sulong MP did not respond to this.To another question, Ruhanie admitted that he had been very supportive of BERSIH in 2007, but “the objectives and perceptions were different then”.

“The first BERSIH is not the same as the second and third BERSIH (rallies),” he said, admitting that he was also very critical of the Abdullah Administration, but that he was okay with the Najib Administration.

Also on the panel were Merdeka Centre Director Ibrahim Suffian and Keevan Sivarajah (left), who coordinated the Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs (Ideas) election observation mission.

In response to Ruhanie, both started their presentations by admitting that they are foreign funded.

Ibrahim said he received US$60,000 in foreign grants, while Keevan said the entire election observation mission was funded by foreign missions and most controversially, by the George Soros-funded Open Society Institute.

“We wrote to the Pakatan and BN governments, as well as the Prime Minister’s Department for funding, but no one wrote back,” Ibrahim said.

Although not taking Ruhanie head on, Ibrahim said one needed to truly question if funding of US$60,000 for Merdeka Centre and US$20,000 for BERSIH was as big a security threat as the thousands of foreigners flooding Sabah, as was revealed to the Royal Commission of Inquiry on illegal immigrants.

Preserving Najib Razak’s Gains

May 4, 2013

An American Perspective on Malaysia’s Elections: Preserving Najib Razak’s Gains

By: Jeffrey A. Bader and Douglas H. Paal(05-01-13)

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak has called national elections for May 5. This date is perilously close to the statutory deadline to hold the elections, suggesting he is concerned that the results may lead to his departure from office. Malaysia, the United States, and much of the world have a stake in the outcome.

The traditionally dominant party, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO), and its partners in the long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition have experienced internal divisions. Ethnic preferences for Malays in government and the economy have alienated many Chinese, who are a minority (roughly 40 percent of Malaysia’s population) but economically dominant. Najib’s efforts at internal reform have threatened traditionalists associated with former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad. Younger, urban voters seem itching for change.

There is a strong challenge from an Opposition coalition headed by former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. His Pakatan Rakyat coalition includes Chinese and Islamic parties and is close enough in some polls to win outright.

But many longtime observers believe the real election is within UMNO, between old warhorses associated with Mahathir and the reformists surrounding Najib. The argument is that if Najib cannot bring in a result that preserves UMNO’s two-thirds majority and capacity to rewrite the constitution, old-line leaders, possibly current Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, would displace Najib and stem reforms.

This is where the stakes need to be clearly stated. Under Mahathir, opposition to perceived residual Western colonialism was a rallying cry and a frequent and increasingly anachronistic theme. His successor, Abdullah Badawi, was less shrill but did not move significantly away from Mahathir’s policies. Najib has fundamentally repositioned Malaysia internationally. He has moved away from the old UMNO policy seeking to divide Asia from the United States and has seen the United States as an important partner for Malaysia and ASEAN.

Najib and his top officials have been forthright in speaking about democratic values in international forums such as the ASEAN Regional Forum. They have been critical of states such as North Korea and even Myanmar before reforms commenced there, something that would not have been countenanced in an earlier period when criticism was aimed solely at the West.

Najib has done all this as part of a strategy to retain domestic (Chinese) investment and attract foreign investment in order to accelerate Malaysia’s development. As a demonstration of his commitment to a more open Malaysian economy, he has joined the discussions on the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement with ten other nations.

After economic contraction in 2009, Malaysia’s GDP growth has rebounded to a robust 5 percent, led by double-digit export growth in 2010 and large FDI inflows in 2010 and 2011. Gross investment for 2012 was up 9 percent over the last year, with the fastest growth in private and domestic investment (up 22 percent and 55 percent, respectively). The current account surplus is expected to narrow in the near term, and employment growth is expected mostly in domestic-oriented sectors such as services, in line with Najib’s New Economic Model that aims to create more sustainable, equitable, high-income growth. The Asian Development Bank forecasts that Malaysia’s GDP will grow by 5.3 percent in 2013, accelerating a little to 5.5 percent next year. Malaysia’s strong performance under Najib stands in marked contrast to the ethnic preferences and frequent allegations of corruption and cronyism under Mahathir.

Domestically, Malaysia remains an impressive Muslim-majority nation with a democratic system, pluralism, and generally good standards for human rights protection. Najib has given a number of speeches in international settings denouncing terrorism in the Islamic world and indeed has preached formation of a league of moderate nations to fight terrorism.

Under Najib, Malaysia also has moved to significantly tighten its previously porous export-control system, which had made the country a transit point for shipment and financing of dual-use products going to Iran. Defense cooperation with the United States and others has been normalized, and it has not remained a forum for grandstanding against the West.

Najib has moved to dismantle one of the instruments of repression, the Internal Security Act inherited from the British when Malaysia became independent. Under his guidance the legislature has replaced the law, which provided the basis for lengthy detention without trial.

These are not just achievements for Najib’s leadership, but they are gains for Malaysia, the region, and the world.

As the election campaign unfolds, it will be interesting to see what issues UMNO and its Barisan National coalition and Anwar with his Pakatan Rakyat coalition use against each other (see the table below).

Barisan National (ruling coalition) Coalition head: Najib Razak	Pakatan Rakyat (opposition) Coalition head: Anwar Ibrahim
The Economy
Gradually increase the government’s 1Malaysia People’s Aid (BR1M) handouts to RM1,200 for qualified households and RM600 for qualified singles Enact a more broad-based tax system and gradually reduce personal and corporate tax rates	Maintain BR1M cash assistance if elected Broaden income tax band, raise the income floor for the 26 percent tax rate to RM400,000 from RM250,000
Bumiputera (Ethnic Malays and Indigenous Groups)
Promote and improve Bumiputera policies that favor ethnic Malay businesses Provide RM500 million in seed funding to the Indian community	Equally distribute economic assistance regardless of race Undertake an inclusive development platform that includes all ethnic groups
Transparent Government
Establish additional corruption courts Elevate officers of Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to higher level	Introduce corruption elimination policy (DEBARAN) to free anticorruption institutions from political control and improve anticorruption prosecution Undertake electoral reform
Living Standards
Expand transport subsidies, education aid, food and housing assistance, public transportation, and rural infrastructure	Undertake similar populist policies, and raise minimum monthly income to RM4,000 by end of first term
Innovation
Enact the 2020 plan for high-income development based on innovation Attract RM1.3 trillion worth of investments and create 2 million new high-income jobs Channel investment to small and medium enterprises	Raise research and development expenditures to 5 percent of GDP Create a RM500 million national innovation fund Reshuffle tax incentives to give more assistance to small and medium industries
The Environment
Introduce financial incentives for renewable energy investment Voluntarily reduce emissions intensity of GDP by up to 40 percent by 2020 Pass stricter illegal logging laws	Halt work at the Lynas rare earth plant Review the implementation phases of the RAPID petrochemical project in Pengerang Reform logging regulation

Anwar has a mixed record. He earlier stood out as one of Malaysia’s leading progressive political figures and someone who creatively reconciled Islam and Western values. Since his imprisonment by Mahathir in 1998 on allegations of sodomy and a subsequent revival of similar charges in 2008 that was overturned in Malaysia’s courts, he has moved toward a closer alignment with Islamic politics. He has, for example, irritated women voters by suggesting that sharia law could be adopted by tradition-minded Malaysian states. Anwar nonetheless continues to be a strong public advocate of democracy and human rights and criticizes Najib as essentially continuing the more repressive policies of the Mahathir years.

Whether the winner is Najib or Anwar or the conservative forces within UMNO, Malaysians should consider seriously how to preserve the gains of the Najib era.

*Dr Jeffrey Bader is the John C. Whitehead Senior Fellow in International Diplomacy at the Brookings Institution. Dr. Bader returned to Brookings after serving in the Obama administration as senior director for East Asian affairs on the National Security Council from January 2009 to April 2011.

Prior to his appointment to the Obama administration, Dr. Bader was the first director of the John L. Thornton China Center and senior fellow of the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. He brings to Brookings profound expertise in U.S. foreign policy and Asian security after three decades of experience in the Department of State, National Security Council, and office of the United States Trade Representative. He is the author of Obama and China’s Rise: An Insider’s Account of America’s Asia Strategy (Brookings Press, 2012).

Dr. Bader was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1945. He graduated from Yale College in 1967 and earned his M.A. and PhD in European History from Columbia University in 1968 and 1975 respectively. He is married to Rohini Talalla. They live in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/articles/2013/05/01-malaysia-elections-najib-razak-bader

Norodom Sihanouk’s Legacy

April 29, 2013

By Martin Stuart-Fox, Guest Contributor

– 26 February 2013

No-one in the modern history of Southeast Asia has had such a continuous and lasting effect on the politics of their country than the late King Father (Samdech Euv) Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia (above). His cremation on 4 February in Phnom Penh brought to an end a career reaching back to his coronation on 3 May 1941. Since then, in one form or another – king, prime minister, head of government in exile, guerrilla leader, king again and finally King Father after he abdicated for the second time – Sihanouk bestrode Cambodian politics.

Sihanouk’s cremation was an extraordinarily lavish affair. Rumours circulating in Phnom Penh reported that the current Cambodian strongman, Hun Sen, was “shocked” by the spontaneous outpouring of grief by the hundreds of thousands of ordinary Cambodians who lined the processional route when Sihanouk’s body was returned from China, and concluded that his government would gain popular approval by giving the King Father a right royal send-off.

Whether this is true or not, Hun Sen’s order to conduct a full-scale royal cremation sent officials to scour the archives to find out proper procedures. The whole ceremony thus became an occasion to restore and celebrate Khmer traditional culture. No expense was spared in constructing the five-storey high central  Phra Meru  (within which the body was burned) along with its surrounding gardens, pavilions, cloisters and walls – all of which will eventually be dismantled.

All the streets converging on the cremation site beside the palace were blocked off and people kept well away. But as invited VIPs left in their fleet of cars and night fell, the barriers were drawn aside and crowds surged into the open space in front of the palace to make offerings of flowers, burn incense, pray, or just sit quietly in groups remembering – what? What did Sihanouk represent for ordinary Cambodians?

Judging by the documentary footage shown repeatedly on Cambodian TV channels, Sihanouk’s great achievements were gaining independence from France in 1953, and instituting a building program in the 1960s that converted Phnom Penh into a modern city. But there was surely more than that in the minds of those who mourned his passing.

Cambodia–An Oasis of Peace in Troubled Indochina

For those in their 70s, the Sihanouk years are mostly remembered as an era of peace and prosperity before war and revolution tore the country apart. In idealised form, survivors have passed on this version of history to successive generations, a version reinforced by the horrors of the decade of civil war and Khmer Rouge tyranny that followed the removal of Sihanouk from power in 1970.

For some the revival of the monarchy under United Nations auspices in 1993 and the return of Sihanouk to the throne was a powerful symbol, along with the re-emergence of Theravada Buddhism, of the survival of Cambodian culture and society in face of terrible adversity.

Most Cambodians are aware of, and proud of, their Angkorean heritage. Those with even limited education know the names of one or two of their great kings, if little else. As their direct descendant, Sihanouk connected them to a glorious past that anchors Cambodian identity in the present. Even the Khmer Rouge placed the outline of Angkor Wat on their national flag.

For every Cambodian, it is the person of Sihanouk who represented the monarchy, even after he relinquished the throne to his son, Norodom Sihamoni – just as he continued to do after he placed his father on the throne in 1955. For abdication is a constitutional act that in the Theravada worldview in no way diminishes the store of merit that ensured royal birth in the first place. In fact it may increase merit, as for example, when a king steps down to become a monk.

Sihanouk’s evident compassion for his people and concern for their welfare added to the store of his merit in the eyes of his people. The respect paid to Sihanouk by ordinary Cambodians was for his accumulated merit, which they believe ensures rebirth directly into one of the Buddhist heavens.  Its basis, therefore, is identical to the respect shown for monks and nuns.

The question most frequently asked with Sihanouk’s passing has been where does this leave the Cambodian monarchy? Well, we shall see, though at present the institution does not seem to be under threat. But if we cannot peer into the future, we can look back at the past. The more interesting question to ask, therefore, concerns Sihanouk’s historical legacy. What have his years in politics bequeathed to his country?

Between his coronation in 1941 and his overthrow in 1970, Sihanouk made two decisions that were crucial not just for his personal career, but for the history of Cambodia. These were his decision to take the leading role in Cambodia’s struggle for independence from France, and his decision to abdicate in order to assume political leadership of the country.

The first of these has been widely acclaimed by both Cambodians and historians, but its celebrated outcome exacerbated two persistent weaknesses in Sihanouk’s character – his craving for adulation and his conviction that he alone had the foresight, the wisdom, and yes, the semi-divine power that comes with the possession of great merit, to guide and develop (modernise) his country. Yet Cambodia would still have obtained independence from France without Sihanouk’s dramatic exodus to Angkor, though it is true that Sihanouk’s actions took the wind out of the sails of the so-called Khmer Vietminh, enabling Cambodia at Geneva in 1954 to escape division into separate areas of control for government and insurgent forces (as in Laos).

Sihanouk’s abdication and creation of his own political movement, the Sangkum Reastr Niyum, had by contrast a much more baleful effect on modern Cambodian history. Sihanouk had already shown himself to be no friend of democracy when in 1952, with French collusion; he dismissed the popularly elected Democratic Party (DP) government, and jailed several DP leaders without trial. Those leaders were French-educated. For all their squabbles they admired French democracy.

Sihanouk disliked the DP because it aimed to make Cambodia a constitutional monarchy, which would have relegated him to a largely ceremonial position. Parties further to the left were overtly republican, but particularly after 1953 they attracted limited popular support. Immediately upon independence Sihanouk could have used his considerable influence and stature to support multi-party democratic government. Instead he sought personal power.

The Sangkum masqueraded as a political party, but in reality it was an entirely different animal. Sihanouk built the Sangkum as a royal patronage network whose lofty purpose was to unify the country, but whose modus operandi was to eliminate all political opposition, or drive it underground, while concentrating power in the hands of Sihanouk as legitimate, if ex, king.

The structure of the Sangkum derived from the ‘mandala’ model of the kings of Angkor, whose power rested on the loyalty of regional rulers and court officials, given in return for favours ascribed to the beneficence of the king in the form of delegated administrative authority and status. Educated urban Cambodians flocked to join the Sangkum to facilitate access to such benefits as government employment and contracts, entry to top schools and universities for their children, overseas scholarships, and useful contacts with government officials. Peasants supported the Sangkum because it was led by their meritorious king, though they got little in return.

As a political movement the Sangkum was remarkably successful. Elections were still held, but became formalities in which the Sangkum won up to 85 per cent of the vote. Such a degree of popular support fed Sihanouk’s craving for adulation and reinforced his conviction that his leadership was indispensable for the future of his country.

If Sihanouk had a motto at this time, it surely was “Cambodge, c’est moi!” What was less apparent was that in establishing the Sangkum as a royal patronage network centred on himself, Sihanouk had sealed off the tiny window of opportunity that existed to create a modern democratic political order in Cambodia. Instead the Sangkum drew upon traditional Cambodian political culture to provide a model of how to concentrate and exercise political power.

Perhaps that small window of opportunity to create a democratic system in Cambodia that Sihanouk slammed shut in 1955 never really existed. Perhaps if political parties had been permitted freely to contest elections they would sooner or later have degenerated into rival patronage networks. What is certain, however, is that the very success of the Sangkum as a patronage network centred on Sihanouk as leader destroyed any possibility of instituting an alternative political order. All subsequent Cambodian leaders have applied the Sangkum model in consolidating their power.

Phnom Penh City–Symbol of a Modern Cambodia

Sihanouk used the power he gained from leadership of the Sangkum to pursue his vision for his country. That vision was of a modern Cambodia, proudly taking its place among the nations of the world. The symbols of that modernity were concentrated, however, almost entirely in Phnom Penh. Sihanouk set out to create a capital he could proudly display to international delegations and visiting heads of state.

In this too he was following in the footsteps of Angkorean kings, particularly his favourite role model Jayavarman VII, who built the last great city of Angkor Thom. The boulevards, monuments, government buildings, universities, theatres and sports stadium that he built remain impressive architectural achievements for which Sihanouk will long be remembered.

Two other areas Sihanouk promoted were education and the arts. Phnom Penh came to boast seven universities, devoted to separate disciplines (medicine, law, fine arts, etc.), and a number of good secondary schools. Primary education came much lower on his list of priorities. Sihanouk had genuine compassion for the peasant families he rather disparagingly called his ‘children’, especially compared to subsequent Cambodian rulers, but did little to provide them with opportunities for economic or social advancement. Economic development was tied to government. The Sangkhum system did not promote entrepreneurship, but rather dependency on opportunities provided by working political connections.

Ironically, in the end it was the failure of tertiary education that was in large part responsible for Sihanouk’s political demise. Urban supporters of the Sangkum expected admission to universities for their children, irrespective of their abilities – and expected them to be awarded degrees. Standards fell as a result, and universities turned out graduates of poor quality in numbers too large to employ in government jobs.

Avenues for advancement for the bright and ambitious were limited by the employment of the children of the politically well-connected. As popular dissatisfaction grew, Sihanouk turned to film making and the arts. For Sihanouk these were another arena to showcase Cambodian modernity, but in the process he took his eye off the political main game, and was destroyed by the weakness that makes all patronage systems inherently unstable – which is the ability of clients to shift their allegiance to another patron.

Sihanouk has been much lauded for his efforts to shield Cambodia from the war in Vietnam – and rightly so. But his commitment to neutrality and his activism within the non-aligned movement were not sufficient of themselves to insulate Cambodia from all repercussions of the Cold War – and Sihanouk knew it. So he used every means at his disposal: the media, open threats and denunciations, and secret agreements of the kind with Hanoi that guaranteed Cambodia’s borders and kept the Khmer Rouge on a leash in return for infiltration rights for Vietnamese guerrillas through Cambodian territory. At the same time his suspicion of the intentions of the Vietnamese communist regime, which he rightly believed would win the war, led him to build close relations with China as the only power with the capacity to keep Vietnam in check.

As a strategy this was remarkably perspicacious: Sihanouk foresaw likely developments in Indochina more clearly than anyone in Washington. This led him, however, to pursue a left-leaning neutrality that eventually led to a rift with the United States that deprived Cambodia of considerable US aid. This was an avoidable error on Sihanouk’s part. Neutrality works best when it is balanced, thus ensuring a competitive flow of aid from both sides.

Relations with the US

Breaking relations with Washington reinforced Sihanouk’s credentials in Beijing, but it deprived him of a significant source of projects and funds with which to ‘oil’ the Sangkum patronage network. The lack was felt most severely in the military. It would have required astute diplomacy to keep American aid flowing while currying favour with China. But it was not impossible, even under the prevailing circumstances. Relations were re-established after four years in 1969, but the damage had been done, and was an additional factor behind Sihanouk’s overthrow.

Sihanouk’s gravest error of judgment came in 1970 when he angrily responded to his removal from power by calling upon the people of Cambodia to join with the Khmer Rouge to overthrow those who had deposed him. Sihanouk acted out of hurt pride, and his egotistical belief that he alone could lead Cambodia. So blinded, he misread the situation that was unfolding, and entirely failed to understand how his action would affect his people. With Sihanouk removed, his tacit agreement with North Vietnam collapsed. Hanoi not only unleashed the Khmer Rouge, but poured in support for the insurgency – just as Sihanouk’s call to arms massively increased recruitment to the revolutionary cause.

Did Sihanouk really think that from exile in Beijing he could control the course of events in Cambodia? If so, he was delusional. Despite his friendly relations with Chinese leaders, he had always distrusted and repressed the revolutionary left inside Cambodia. Was he so ill-informed that he only realised the true nature of the Khmer Rouge once he returned to Cambodia to become their prisoner at the end of 1975? His resignation in April 1976 as titular head of what was by then the KR regime left him under palace arrest and vulnerable. That he survived the KR years was thanks to his Chinese friends.

The Vietnamese invasion that overthrew the Khmer Rouge at the end of 1979 realised Sihanouk’s worst fears: Cambodia effectively became part of an Indochinese union dominated by Vietnam. This time backed by an unholy de facto alliance between the US, ASEAN and China, Sihanouk once again found himself in coalition with the Khmer Rouge – though this time leading his own separate guerrilla force. There was no alternative, as he explained to journalists in his engaging trademark way, with Gallic shrug, upturned palms, and perplexed expression, plaintively asking: “What could Sihanouk do?”

When Vietnamese forces finally withdrew a decade later, and the United Nations moved in, Sihanouk found himself in the position he had so determinedly refused to accept forty years before: that of constitutional monarch. But democracy in the new Kingdom of Cambodia was almost bound to fail. To begin with there was no precedent. No-one except perhaps Sihanouk himself remembered that brief period of democratic government installed under the French that the Sangkum had effectively destroyed.

After Sihanouk had been overthrown, Cambodia had had one military and two single-party governments, all of which concentrated power at the apex of a hierarchical organisation that brooked no political opposition. A combination of coercion and fear kept members in line and loyal to the leadership.

From the point of view of Hun Sen and his Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), the imposition of multi-party democracy in 1993 threatened their hold on power. The election result giving a narrow victory to Prince Ranarridh’s FUNCINPEC Party was perceived not as an expression of the hopes and desires of the Cambodian people, but as a call to political struggle. The CPP response was not to formulate more appealing policies, but to extend the tentacles of its social power. And its model of how this should be done was the Sangkum.

The CCP set out to build a patronage network that would draw in clients through the lure of promised benefits for them and their extended families. But for this strategy to work the Party needed the wherewithal to buy client loyalty. At the same time FUNCINPEC was building its own rival patronage network, also modelled on the Sangkum, though Ranarridh was no Sihanouk. Real political competition, therefore, was not for votes, but for control over resources – in the form not only of exploitable natural resources such as timber and minerals, but also government revenues and the perks associated with foreign aid. The outcome over time was pervasive corruption – and victory for the CPP.

The CCP is not organised as and does not function as a Marxist party modelled on the Chinese or Vietnamese communist parties. Its exemplar is the Sangkum. Hun Sen does not exercise power as Chinese or Vietnamese leaders do, by virtue of the offices they hold within their respective parties, but because of his position at the apex of a vast patronage network. Hun Sen will not be deposed by a vote at a CCP congress. The only way he could lose power is through the erosion of client loyalty and their ultimate defection to alternative patrons – just as happened to Sihanouk.

Hun Sen has been the most successful Cambodian political leader over the last twenty years in large part because he modelled himself closely on Sihanouk, even down to how he comports himself in public. Sihanouk owed his political status to his birth and his achievement of independence from France; Hun Sen can only advert to his role in freeing Cambodia from the Khmer Rouge through alliance with Vietnam. He has therefore had to rely more on greasing the strings of patronage. This is why it took so long to pass an anti-corruption law, which is in any case ineffective. It was passed to ensure the continuation of foreign aid (so avoiding Sihanouk’s mistake), which is necessary if revenue is to be freed up for patronage.

The patronage network that keeps Hun Sen in power has produced massive maldistribution of wealth, most of which has been concentrated in Phnom Penh, plus a few regional centres like Siem Reap. Few resources have trickled out to rural areas, not even for basic health care or primary education, because too much revenue gets siphoned off into private pockets.

This is unlikely to change while Hun Sen maintains his patronage network in place. Like the monarchy (or North Korea), Hun Sen reportedly wants his position to become hereditary, to be handed on to one of his sons. This makes even more evident the extent to which Hun Sen has taken Sihanouk and the Sangkum as his political paradigms. Sihanouk’s lasting legacy, one can only conclude, has been the system of government Cambodia currently enjoys. 

NY Times Book Review: ‘The Dispensable Nation,’ by Vali Nasr

April 22, 2013

Books of The Times

Superpower, Leading From Behind

‘The Dispensable Nation,’ by Vali Nasr

by Michiko Kakutani (04-18-13)

The title of Vali Nasr’s provocative and uneven new book, “The Dispensable Nation: American Foreign Policy in Retreat,” plays on President Bill Clinton’s description of the United States as the world’s one “indispensable nation.” Mr. Nasr — who was a senior adviser to Richard C. Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (AfPak) — suggests in this sharply critical volume that the foreign policy pursued under Mr. Obama has diminished America’s leadership role in the world.

To our allies, Mr. Nasr writes, “our constant tactical maneuvers don’t add up to a coherent strategy or a vision of global leadership. Gone is the exuberant American desire to lead in the world. In its place there is the image of a superpower tired of the world and in retreat, most visibly from the one area of the world where it has been most intensely engaged,” the Middle East.

Mr. Nasr does not grapple here with how the Bush administration’s aggressive, pre-emptive policies led the United States into a costly and unnecessary war in Iraq, and he also fails to provide a convincing and detailed assessment of just how the developments of the Arab Spring might have been more cogently handled by the Obama administration.

What Mr. Nasr’s book, at its best, does do is shed light on the heated infighting within the Obama administration, particularly between the White House and the State Department, adding new details and insights to dynamics previously chronicled in news reports and books like “Little America,” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran; “The Obamians,” by James Mann; and “Obama’s Wars,” by Bob Woodward.

Mr. Nasr (left) offers his own thoughts about one of the most watched relationships in modern politics, the pas de deux of former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama: he asserts that had it not been for Mrs. Clinton’s personal connection with the president and her tenacity, “the State Department would have had no influence on policy making whatsoever.”

He also fleshes out our understanding of the contentious relationship that developed between Mr. Holbrooke and the White House, which was the result of turf wars, philosophical differences, a clash of personalities (the brash, sometimes swashbuckling style of Mr. Holbrooke crashing up against the “no drama” style favored by President Obama and many of his aides) and differing ideas about how to bring the war in Afghanistan to a close.

It was a rivalry, Mr. Chandrasekaran argued in “Little America,” that “sabotaged America’s best chance for a peace deal to end the war” there. Mr. Holbrooke became ill during a meeting in Mrs. Clinton’s office on December 10, 2010, and despite surgery to repair a tear to his aorta, died a few days later.

In this book Mr. Nasr contends that “the White House campaign against the State Department, and especially Holbrooke, was at times a theater of the absurd. Holbrooke was not included in Obama’s video conferences” with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, “and was cut out of the presidential retinue when Obama went to Afghanistan.”

“The White House,” Mr. Nasr says, “resented losing AfPak to the State Department,” and “that was one big reason” it was “on a warpath with Holbrooke — he was in their way and kept the State Department in the mix on an important foreign policy area.” Mr. Holbrooke, he goes on, “would not cede ground to the White House, not when he thought those who wanted to wrest control of Afghanistan were out of their depth and not up to the job.”

Mr. Nasr describes Mr. Holbrooke (who oversaw the 1995 Dayton peace accords that ended the war in Bosnia) as “a brilliant strategic thinker in the same league as such giants of American diplomacy as Averell Harriman and Henry Kissinger.” And he uses his own in-depth knowledge of the geopolitics of the Middle East to make an impassioned case for many of Mr. Holbrooke’s diplomatic initiatives and ideas, which often failed to find traction within the White House.

In these pages Mr. Nasr — who is now dean of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington — writes about Mr. Holbrooke’s pressing for reconciliation talks with the Taliban early on, when, in Mr. Nasr’s words, “our leverage was at its strongest — when we had the maximum number of troops on the ground in Afghanistan,” and before troop withdrawal plans were announced.

Mr. Nasr also writes thoughtfully about Mr. Holbrooke’s understanding of the regional dynamics of the Middle East and South Asia. He discusses Mr. Holbrooke (right)’s belief that lasting political solutions could be forged not by military means alone but through a combination of leverage and diplomacy involving all the stakeholders in the region (including countries like Iran and India), and his conviction that such diplomacy included engagement on issues of long-term social and economic interest to individual countries.

The problem with this book is that its genuinely interesting analyses are often undermined by Mr. Nasr’s certainty about matters that are subject to an incalculable number of variables; his vitriolic anger at the Obama White House; and his penchant for making overly broad, sometimes willfully alarmist generalizations.

Mr. Nasr asserts that the president was “very concerned with shielding his right flank so as not to open himself to right-wing criticism,” then goes on to declare that “it is not going too far to say that American foreign policy had become completely subservient to tactical domestic political considerations.”

He writes that the administration’s current policy toward Iran (its assumptions and strategy are now “hardly distinguishable,” he says, “from those of the Bush White House”) will “eventually turn Iran into a failed state” that will “pose a new set of security challenges to the region and the United States.” And he argues that the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” policy and what he sees as its neglect and mismanagement of the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan and the unspooling fallout of the Arab Spring are simply pushing that vital region “further into China’s bosom.”

One nightmarish possibility envisioned by Mr. Nasr goes like this: in a couple of decades, “China and Russia will have gobbled up Central Asia, cornered Europe’s energy markets, and planted themselves smack in the middle of the Middle East. They will have emerged as global giants challenging America’s place in the world and perhaps the primacy of the U.S. dollar as the currency of international exchange. And once that happens, it will be all but impossible to reverse. We would then face global threats, threats on a scale we encountered during the cold war, threats that dwarf whatever danger Iran can ever pose.”

Mr. Nasr makes some persuasive arguments for more concerted diplomatic and economic engagement on the part of the United States around the globe, though his observations about America’s essential role on the world stage owe a lot to those set out by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his astute 2012 book, “Strategic Vision: America and the Crisis of Global Power.”

When it comes to specifics, Mr. Nasr’s recommendations can sound vague or unrealistic. For instance, he writes that “solving the problems of the Middle East and the threat they pose to the world requires a fundamental change in the region’s economic profile,” and the “international community would have to make a sizable investment — a Marshall Plan in scale — to bring about change of that magnitude.”

He acknowledges that this is problematic, given the economic difficulties America faces today, but in another chapter complains that our settling “for doing so much less” — in Egypt — “than we did after 1989 in Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America speaks volumes about our disengagement from the region. If the potential for democracy held by the Arab Spring was not enough to compel our engagement, it is not clear what would be.”

In the end, Mr. Nasr’s eagerness to see virtually every action taken by the Obama administration on foreign policy through as dark a glass as possible distracts attention from his many valid criticisms, and from his thought-provoking assessments of how developments across the Middle East and South Asia today — in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Libya and Syria — are intertwined historically, economically and politically in a fantastically complicated puzzle that has no easy or straightforward solutions.

A version of this review appeared in print on April 19, 2013, on page C27 of the New York edition with the headline: Superpower, Leading From Behind.

From ASA to ASEAN

April 19, 2013

By Datuk Dr. Ananda Kumaraseri | akumaraseri@yahoo.com

http://www.nst.com.my

REGIONAL TIES: ASA paved the way for a more palpable multilateral cooperation outfit

IT would be recalled that the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA) was a foreign policy goal that Tunku Abdul Rahman had envisioned, from the outset of newly independent Malaya, as the country’s major thrust of diplomacy.

His primary motive for ASA’s formation is to be viewed against the backdrop of the Cold War rivalry that triggered a growing concern over the future security and peace of member states.

Defined blandly, ASA represented a regional and inter-governmental organisation aimed at promoting cohesiveness among Southeast Asian states which external powers had for centuries fiercely contested over for rich natural resources and to gain strategic and geo-political advantage in the region.

However, in terms of substance, ASA’s collaborative activities since its formation in 1961 were generally confined to promoting technical and cultural cooperation among its members.

The modest performance on the part of ASA — the first-ever indigenous undertaking among independent Southeast Asian states in regional cooperation — was understandable, especially given the political and cultural diversity of the member states and the turbulent state of the regional environment. This perception of ASA was self-evident in my personal involvement with the Malaysian secretariat of ASA, as a young desk officer in 1966, under Walter Ayaduray, the principal assistant secretary who was at the helm during its pioneering years.

Here, I cannot help but digress a bit to acknowledge that as my immediate superior, Ayaduray was more of a mentor than a boss.

I am ever grateful that I had the good fortune of commencing my diplomatic career under his highly competent and caring tutelage. His sudden death in 1979 robbed Wisma Putra of a brilliant officer possessed of a genius mind that had so much to offer towards Malaysia’s diplomatic prowess.

As Ayaduray used to pacify us in our moments of professional frustration over the lethargic pace of regional cooperation: “ASA is a nascent inter-governmental organisation. We must be realistic and move forward in small incremental steps and not expect earth-shattering developments to manifest in a poof with the stroke of a wizard’s wand.”

Furthermore, the hopeful expectations of regional cooperation were battered by serious impasses virtually from the very outset of ASA’s creation.

Indonesia’s Konfrontasi against Malaysia, the Philippines’ Sabah claim and Singapore’s separation from Malaysia had the effect of weighing down heavily on any remarkable progress in regional cooperation.

These were indeed unsettling times for the whole of Southeast Asia that impelled ASA to remain dormant and exist more in terms of name than in substance. In fact, ASA ceased to be operational for a period as a result of the strain in Malaysia-Philippines relations arising from the Sabah claim.

In the midst of the strained relations, president Diosdado Macapagal floated the concept of a larger Malay Confederation or Union of Malay peoples in the region that was encapsulated in his initiative to form a new regional grouping, Maphilindo.

A summit conference of the heads of government of the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia was convened in Manila from July 30 to August 5, 1963 to endorse the creation of the Pan-Malay grouping.

Maphilindo, however, suffered a still birth because of severe suffocation of mutual suspicion, distrust and enmity that beset the rather loosely defined ambiguous grouping. Moreover, the Maphilindo concept was ethnic-based in a narrow sense and was retrograde in a modern global village context.

Looking back, it can be said that notwithstanding its modest track record, ASA paved the way for a more palpable multilateral cooperation outfit. This came about on Aug 8, 1967 as a result of the mutually agreed subsumation of ASA to form a larger grouping, namely, the Association of Southeast Asian States, acronymed Asean, comprising five member states. They were the three founder members of ASA, plus the new players, Indonesia and Singapore.

The timing as well as the circumstances surrounding the birth of Asean were certainly more propitious than when its precursor ASA was formed. The new ASEAN grouping evolved closely on the heels of the downfall of president Sukarno and the annihilation of Parti Kommunist Indonesia.

The regime of new Indonesian leaders, under President Suharto, was distinctively receptive to regional cooperation.

Indeed, an underlying motivation among ASEAN’s founding fathers was a desire to reconcile differences that had cropped up in the recent past and to seek genuine cooperation.

Against the backdrop of the escalating wars in the Indo-China peninsula bearing ominous security implications, the move to establish a new and larger regional grouping appeared pertinent and urgent as well.

In addition, leaders of the member states embraced a common believe that an environment of peace in the region would enable individual states to harness national resources to focus on building strong economic, social and political national fabrics.

They were further convinced that this would in turn help to forestall internal communist subversion as well as preempt external powers harbouring narrow self-interest from continuing to dictate the stability, security and peace in the region.

akumaraseri@yahoo.com

Tunku Abdul Rahman with (right) talking to Philippine ambassador Romeo Busuego (left) and Thai ambassador Prasong Bunchoem in 1967. Tunku had envisioned ASA as Malaysia’s major thrust of diplomacy.

An Alternative View of Thatcherism

April 12, 2013

All is not Rosie about Maggie: An Alternative View of Thatcherism

Medhi Hasan
Political Director of The Huffington Post UK

The reactions and tributes to Margaret Thatcher’s death have, perhaps above all else, illustrated the way in which modern conservatives have emptied the words ‘freedom’ and ‘liberty’ of all meaning and import.

“The world has lost a true champion of freedom and democracy,” declaimed Nancy Reagan.

“She believed in the power of liberty, individual freedom and the rule of law,” argued former Tory Minister Virginia Bottomley.

“The freedom of the individual stood at the core of her beliefs,” claimed Germany’s very own Iron Lady, Angela Merkel, while Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, called Thatcher a “fearless champion of liberty”.

The Economist magazine hailed the late Tory leader’s “willingness to stand up to tyranny” and “bet on freedom”.

And it wasn’t just card-carrying conservatives who lined up to laud Thatcher as an unflinching defender and promoter of democracy; self-professed liberals joined in with the encomiums too. Echoing Nancy Reagan, US President Barack Obama, for instance, described Britain’s Iron Lady as “one of the great champions of freedom and liberty”.

I suspect, however, that the citizens of countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Iraq, South Africa and Chile might disagree. The inconvenient truth for Thatcher fans is that the freedom-loving, democracy-defending British premier was a close friend and admirer of the thugs, thieves, despots and racists who ruled over those nations in the 1980s.

“In Pakistan, Margaret Thatcher was best known for supporting General Zia ul Haq’s military dictatorship,” tweeted Time magazine’s Pakistan correspondent Omar Waraich yesterday, referring to the Iron Lady’s anticommunist alliance with the country’s vicious, Islamist dictator. In a speech at a banquet hosted by Zia in 1981, Thatcher praised the general’s “courage and skill” and toasted “the health and happiness of His Excellency”. She made no reference to the need for democracy or elections in the self-styled ‘Islamic Republic”.

Consider also the case of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Remember the infamous Al Yamamah arms deal with the corrupt and totalitarian Saudis, signed by the Thatcher government in the mid-eighties and described by the Campaign Against The Arms Trade (CAAT) as “the largest ever UK arms contract with a foreign customer” and by the Financial Times as “the biggest [UK] sale ever of anything to anyone”? Well, she was just batting for British business, right? Wrong.

Thatcher shamelessly praised the Saudi regime, an absolute monarchy and exporter of Islamist terror, as “a strong force for moderation and stability” at a Chatham House conference in 1993, three years after leaving office. “I am a great admirer of Saudi Arabia,” she proclaimed, adding: “I have no intention of meddling in that country’s internal affairs.” How the repressed women of Saudi Arabia, denied not just the right to vote but the right to drive, must have cheered this supposed feminist icon back in 1993.

How about General Suharto of Indonesia, whose 32-year dictatorship was rightly described by the New York Times as “one of the most brutal and corrupt of the 20th century”? Suharto’s military coup in 1965 was followed by the torture and killing of around 500,000 suspected Communists in Indonesia; his invasion and occupation of East Timor in 1975 resulted in the deaths of around 250,000 men, women and children on the island – yet the liberty-loving Thatcher later celebrated this blood-soaked Indonesian tyrant as “one of our very best and most valuable friends”.

How about the bloodiest dictator of them all, Saddam Hussein? According to investigative reporters David Leigh and Rob Evans, it was on Thatcher’s watch that “£1bn of Whitehall money was thrown away in propping up Saddam Hussein’s regime and doing favours for arms firms”.

In fact, we now know that the Thatcher government began selling arms – sorry, “non-lethal equipment” that just happened to include spare parts for tanks and fighter jets – to Iraq as early as 1981. A letter from junior minister Thomas Trenchard to the PM in that same year explained how a meeting with Saddam would represent “a significant step forward in establishing a working relationship with Iraq which … should produce both political and major commercial benefits”. Thatcher’s response? “Very pleased” she scribbled by hand at the top of Trenchard’s letter.

Seven years later, after the Baathist dictator deployed chemical weapons in his now-notorious attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja, Thatcher did not merely turn a blind eye to the atrocity; she and her ministers actively played down reports that the Iraqi regime had used poison gas against its own people. “Within a month of the Halabja attack,” wrote US investigative journalist Barry Lando in his book on Iraq, ‘Web of Deceit‘, “Thatcher’s trade secretary, Tony Newton, was in Baghdad to offer Saddam 340 million pounds of British export credits.”

This, I guess, is how liberty is championed and freedom is secured. Then there’s apartheid South Africa, where millions of black people were denied the most basic of liberties – and yet this British champion of liberty had little to offer them by way of support. “Thatcher resisted global efforts to isolate apartheid-era South Africa, including by vetoing sanctions,” wrote the Washington Post’s foreign affairs blogger Max Fisher yesterday. “Though she opposed apartheid as a policy, she still supported the government that implemented it…”

In fact, in 1984, Thatcher defied tens of thousands of anti-apartheid demonstrators and invited P.W. Botha to Chequers: the first South African premier to visit the UK since his country’s departure from the Commonwealth in 1961.

Oh, and who can forget her despicable description of Nelson Mandela’s ANC as a “typical terrorist organisation”? Is it any wonder then that Dali Tambo, son of the former ANC President Oliver Tambo, told the Guardian that “it’s quite likely that when Margaret Thatcher reaches the pearly gates, the ANC will boycott the occasion”. It’s a shame, he noted, “that we could never call her one of the champions of the liberation struggle”.

Apologists for the Iron Lady tend to excuse such shameful and anti-democratic behaviour by their heroine by invoking realpolitik and citing the backdrop of the Cold War and the struggle against Soviet communism.

Such arguments are both disingenuous and unconvincing. They don’t, for a start, explain Thatcher’s close, personal friendship with Augusto Pinochet, which continued long after the Cold War had ended and long after both leaders had left office? The Chilean general presided over a 17-year reign of terror in which a minimum of 3,000 people were killed or ‘disappeared’, tens of thousands were imprisoned and tortured and hundreds of thousands were forced into exile.

Yet in 1999, when Pinochet was arrested and detained in London on a Spanish warrant, Thatcher – who, in the words of Virginia Bottomley, believed in “the power of liberty” and “the rule of law” – visited Pinochet at the former dictator’s rented Surrey mansion to thank him for “bringing democracy to Chile” and to denounce his arrest as “unjust and callous”. There was no mention of the ‘desaparecidos‘ (disappeared) from our former prime minister on that particular occasion.

“She recognised… the benefits of the military government,” declared retired Chilean general and Pinochet underling Guillermo Garin yesterday, adding: “President Pinochet always had tremendous admiration for her, they had a very close relationship highlighted by the visit she made to his place of detention in London.”

Forget the row over who gets credit for the fall of the Soviet Union – Mikhail Gorbachev or Reagan and Thatcher. If (wo)man is judged by the company (s)he keeps, then Thatcher – self-professed friend to generals Pinochet, Suharto and Zia, ally of Saddam Hussein, admirer of the Saudi royals, soft on apartheid – must be judged a champion of despotism and dictatorship, not of freedom or liberty. The historical record is so clear and indisputable that to believe otherwise is wilful blindness.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/mehdi-hasan/was-thatcher-a-chamoion-o_b_3042342.html

Barisan Nasional GE-13 Manifesto: More Goodies for Malaysians

April 7, 2013

by Bernama

KUALA LUMPUR: Transformation of the entire nation for the better, reaching out to all levels of society – this is what the Barisan Nasional manifesto for the 13th general election really amounts to.

From drawing a massive RM1.3 trillion worth of investments and creating 3.3 million new jobs with better incomes to harnessing the full potential and capacity of people with special needs and taking proactive steps to better care for the environment, the pledges in the document stand out in one major aspect.

And what’s that?

All the promises are realistic and can indeed be fulfilled by a government led by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak that over the last four years has shown its capability and capacity to deliver on all the commitments it had made earlier.

In introducing the government and economic transformation programmes (GTP and ETP) during his term in office, he has ensured that these produce the desired results, and this is the foundation on which he can readily assert that all the 2013 election promises can be fulfilled.

This is a first-ever for an election manifesto in this country – chockfull of specific projects, programmes and actions that encompass every aspect of the people’s lives. The 32-page manifesto contains more than 150 commitments, most of them with specific projects and programmes.

This is in sharp contrast to the opposition manifesto released recently, with DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng conceding that it only comprises general policies, directions and targets.

Lim papered over the lack of details by saying the Opposition “can’t put every detail in the manifesto, otherwise it will be too thick and people will not be interested in reading it.”

The BN, however, has managed to present a comprehensive manifesto that has all the particulars that the electorate would really want to know; in other words, commitments are spelt out in terms of specific projects and programmes that are realistic because the BN has been delivering on similar commitments over the past four years.

What stands out in particular in the BN manifesto is Najib’s insistence that “we must never leave anyone behind” in the national discourse and in pursuing the national agenda.

He urges Malaysians to judge the BN on its merits, saying: “Please join my colleagues and me in fulfilling our potential towards developing a country that we can be truly proud of.

“A country where the weak are protected, those in want assisted, the strongest protect, the young are loved, the elderly valued, those in need are attended to, and those with potential given opportunities to bloom.”

Some of the headline commitments to be realised over the next five years should the BN be returned to power:

* Increasing the value of BR1M to RM1,200 per household, book vouchers and schooling aid payments.

* An automotive policy that will gradually reduce car prices by 20 per cent to 30 per cent and make the national cars more competitive.

* Lowering broadband charges by at least 20 per cent with guaranteed bandwidth.

* A host of consumer-oriented measures to help ease the cost of living.

* Greater focus on dealing with the pronounced urban shift, including creating a new ministry and providing quality public housing.

* Building a million affordable homes and assisting the poor and lower income group in rehabilitating their homes.

* Quality healthcare for every Malaysian, discounted prices for specific medication for Malaysians with special needs, and palliative home care for the aged and terminally ill.

* Bus, rail and taxi terminals in all towns and cities as well as ensuring more efficient bus services.

* Expansion of the highway network, constructing the Pan-Borneo Highway.

* Compelling service providers to ensure quality mobile phone service and reliable wireless access.

* Implementing the 21st Century Village concept to spur rural transformation and bring the rural community into the mainstream of development

* Create 3.3 million new jobs, of which two million will be in high-income sectors.

* Work towards achieving a per capita income of RM45,000 by 2020.

* Implement a transformation programme for small and medium enterprises.

* Reform the tax structure that is more broad-based and gradually cut personal and corporate tax.

* Enhance the effectiveness of the bumiputera agenda by having a stronger support system and creating more business opportunities.

* Having policies that are fair and equitable to all races.

* Improving the education system so that it is among the best globally.

* Developing further the thinking skills of students, enhancing performance in mathematics and science studies and making English a compulsory pass for SPM.

* Bring about a Police omnipresence so that people feel safer and more secure.

* Have greater women participation in the national decision-making process

* Programmes to nurture quality leadership and creativity among youths.

* Gazetting all native customary land and provide more income-generating opportunities for the indigenous communities.

* Appoint a Minister to deal with non-Muslim matters.

* Public disclosure of contracts to enhance transparency in government procurement.

* Compelling MPs and state assemblymen to sign the integrity pact.

* Ensuring a fair mix of all races in the civil service and government-linked companies.

* Improve the quality of the civil service through, among others, talent development.

* Expand the urban transformation centres to all major cities and towns.

* Seek a seat on the UN Security Council so that Malaysia can play a prominent role in regional peace and international security through the government’s policy of moderation.

* Allocate space for green lungs within major cities, revitalise rivers and streams, further promote renewable green energy resources, and modernise waste disposal and management.  - BERNAMA

Muhasabah Lahad Datu

April 6, 2013

oleh Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang@http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

5hb April, 2013–Peristiwa berdarah di Lahad Datu menjadi ujian kebijaksanaan kerajaan dan kesetiaan seluruh rakyat terhadap negara.

Walau pun berbeza kaum, agama dan fahaman politik, namun tugas mempertahankan negara apabila diceroboh dan keselamatannya diganggu gugat adalah kewajipan bersama mengikut agama, adat dan akal yang waras.

Maka Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) dan seluruh ahlinya mendoakan Allah melimpahkan rahmat kepada anggota keselamatan yang terkorban dan dimasukkan ke dalam kalangan para syuhada, sekurang-kurangnya syahid akhirat dan disembuhkan mereka yang tercedera, serta dikembalikan keamanan dan keselamatan negara.

Walau bagaimana pun muhasabah wajib dilakukan terhadap kerajaan yang diamanahkan menjaga keselamatan negara. Dalam hal ini pihak tentera dan polis tidak boleh dipersalahkan, kerana banyak asas dari sudut politik yang kukuh menunjukan bahawa peristiwa seperti itu tidak sepatutnya berlaku.

Pasukan keselamatan juga tidak sepatutnya menjadi mangsa korban musuh yang tercipta dengan sebab kecuaian politik mereka yang memimpin negara sejak mencapai kemerdekaan lebih 50 tahun yang lalu.

Persoalan asas yang kita ingin tanya ialah: “Mengapa asas keharmonian yang sedia ada di daerah itu tidak dijaga dan dibina dengan baik?”

Hakikatnmya ialah, kedudukan serantau, kejiranan, serumpun, sekelurga dan se agama cuma dipisahkan oleh sempadan geografi dua negara. Malaysia mempunyai hubungan kejiranan dengan Filipina, dan sama-sama menjadi anggota ASEAN sejak penubuhannya pada 8 Ogos 1967 lagi.

Orang-orang Suluk, atau grup etnik Tausug pula mempunyai hubungan keluarga, agama dan budaya yang sama dengan sebahagian besar penduduk keturunan Sulu di Sabah yang sukar dipisahkan. Hubungan rapat ini menjadikan aktiviti keluar-masuk antara rakyat kedua-dua negara berada pada kedudukan yang paling sukar untuk dikawal secara keras oleh pasukan keselamatan yang bertugas.

Tragedi ini berlaku kerana pihak politik yang berkuasa tidak menyelesaikan akar-usul masalah ini secara bijaksanaan sehingga berlakulah kemalangan yang sangat menyayat hati itu. Di samping kemarahan membara terhadap penceroboh yang tidak beretika, namun sifat kemanusiaan tetap berada dalam setiap orang yang berperasaan.

Muhasabah wajib dilakukan dengan meneliti dan memahami kerana beberapa perkara.

Pertama, pemisahan secara sempadan negara yang berbeza dimulakan oleh penjajah asing terhadap rantau ini, mereka sengaja meninggalkan bom jangka selepas mereka meninggalkan tanah jajahan dengan niat jahat, setelah mereka melaksanakan agenda pecah dan perintah di zaman penjajahan dahulu. Bukan sahaja pembahagian rantau ini di antara penjajah Inggeris, Belanda dan Sepanyol dan selepasnya Amerika juga mengambil tempat di Filipina secara khusus.

Kedua, perjanjian juga di buat oleh penjajah ini secara menipu sultan-sultan dan raja-raja yang dilemah dan dihilangkan kedaulatannya.

Ketiga, setelah masing-masing mencapai kemerdekaan dengan negara yang berbeza dan mempunyai kedaulatannya, mengapa segala syarat perjanjian yang sudah lapuk di zaman penjajah yang sudah pulang ke negeri masing-masing, dengan pihak yang sudah diletakkan dalam lipatan sejarah masih lagi wujud? Mengapakah pihak kerajaan dalam negara kita ini masih menghidupkan lagi perjanjian seperti ini?

Keempat, negara Malaysia dan Filipina pula yang terlibat secara lansung dalam perjanjian damai yang memberi kuasa otonomi kepada bangsa Moro di Mindanao. Mengapa terlepas pandang terhadap wiliyah dan kepuluan yang lain bersamanya, sehingga penyelesaiannya tidak lengkap dan masalahnya tidak selesai?

Perkembangan pendidikan, ekonomi dan sosial terbiar dan terus terbiar, kerana kerajaan UMNO lebih menumpukan kepentingan politik mengejar kerusi mendapat takhta dan harta semata-mata, tanpa perhatian terhadap pendidikan, ekonomi dan social di kawasan berkenaan. Rakyat miskin terus di rumah dalam air sejak turun temurun, hanya segelintir di daratan dengan kemudahan yang terhad tanpa penyelesaian.

Semua kecuaian tanpa cakna ini boleh menempah kesan negatif dalam kehidupan dan boleh mencetuskan ketegangan berbagai kaum. Semua perkara ini perlu dimuhasabah dengan adil dan ikhlas walaupun tercalar diri sendiri.

Tindakan ketenteraan mempertahankan kedaulatan negara, langkah menjaga keselamatan rakyat wajib dilaksanakan dengan berhemat, dalam masa yang sama jalinan hubungan tersebut di atas wajib diperbetulkan.

Jangan ikut contoh buruk yang pernah dilakukan oleh penjajah semasa darurat dahulu, penyelsaiannya secara mengepung dan memaksa semata-mata tanpa pendekatan yang lain. Perlu difahami bahawa perasaan manusia tidak boleh dikepung dan dikongkong sepanjang masa, walau pun jasadnya dikepung dan dikongkong secara paksaan .

Peristiwa 13 Mei 1969 wajar menjadi iktibar apabila ianya ditangani sendiri oleh pemimpin di masa itu. Ditubuhkan Jawatankuasa Muhibbah melibatkan kerajaan dan seluruh pemimpin masyarakat, agama dan kaum yang berpengaruh tanpa mengira perbezaan agama, kaum dan politik. Seterusnya ditangani secara politik, ekonomi, pendidikan dan lain-lain.

Konfrantasi dengan Indonesia juga dapat ditamatkan dengan pendekatan ini, walau pun ada yang terkoban dan cedera, akhirnya berakhir dengan damai tanpa dendam.

Janganlah pihak kerajaan UMNO-BN terus menerus berdegil tidak mengaku kesilapan atau mahu menangguk di air keruh, kerana kedua-duanya akan menenggelamkan kita semua, atau laksana Pakistan yang melahirkan Bangladesh.

* Datuk Seri Abdul Hadi Awang adalah Presiden PAS.

Regionalism in Diplomacy

April 5, 2013

by Datuk Dr Ananda Kumaraseri@http://www.nst.com.my

COOPERATION:Forging regional economic cooperation in Southeast Asia was by no means smooth sailing

IN a sense it can be said that regionalism and regional economic cooperation have been key features of Malaysia’s foreign policy even before its formation.

Being the visionary he was, ever since Malaya’s independence, Tunku Abdul Rahman had consistently favoured the fostering of close cooperative relations with the country’s immediate neighbours as a prerequisite of foreign policy.

What was truly significant in the Tunku’s foreign policy perception of regionalism was his earnest departure from the conventional route of promoting good neighbourly relations through bilateral endeavours.

No doubt, the legendary Burmese leader, General Aung San (left) had articulated his vision of regional economic cooperation among the countries in Southeast Asia a decade earlier. However, this foreign policy goal died along with his tragic assassination in 1947.

The Tunku’s foreign policy initiative in forging a regional economic cooperation grouping among the non-communist states of Southeast Asia was by no means smooth sailing.

Its beginnings in fact were greeted with false starts before it steered full steam ahead in the turbulent sea of Southeast Asian geopolitics and its unpredictable conflict-ridden regional environment.

In reminiscing over these turbulent years, it is indeed noteworthy that the proposal for establishing a regional economic cooperation grouping in Southeast Asia was among the very first foreign policy pronouncements of newly independent Malaya.

Inspired by the vision of a closely knit and unified Southeast Asia, the Tunku, on an official visit to Sri Lanka (Ceylon then), in February 1958, formally proposed his dream of a Southeast Asian regional grouping.

Today, of course, it is fashionable to talk about regionalism and regional cooperation. But this was certainly not the temperament when the Tunku articulated his proposal to his Sri Lankan host.

Interestingly, many have wondered why the Tunku had chosen distant Colombo instead of a more proximate capital as the venue to launch his innovative regional grouping proposal.

Moreover, he did so just several months after the country had gained independence. A cogent reason was that the very coinage of the modern-day term Southeast Asia originated out of Sri Lanka.

It would be recalled that it was in Sri Lanka, to be more precise, the hill city of Kandy, that the British had set up their Southeast Asia Military Operations Headquarters of their engagements in the Pacific War.

Thus, the term Southeast Asia historically as well as geo-politically was Sri Lanka-based. By definition, therefore, a regional grouping of Southeast Asia was to include Sri Lanka.

There was also another important consideration for the Tunku to choose Colombo to moot his regional cooperation proposal which has not been given due attention.

In part, this is because not many are privy to it, namely, the confidence reposed in the Tunku from the close personal friendship he had forged with Sri Lankan leaders since his student days in England.

His intimate circle of influential Sri Lankan friends included the then Prime Minister, Dudley Senanayake, Solomon Bandaranaike who succeeded him and several other leaders such as his buddies, the ever-popular, Savaranamutu brothers.

The latter interestingly were siblings of his close friend and confidant, Manicasothy Savaranamuttu, of the Straits Echo.

As it turned out, however, the high hopes the Tunku had placed on securing the support of Sri Lanka for his regional initiative were dashed. Contrary to assurances given by his highly influential Sri Lankan friends, the proposal failed to survive the vibrant Sri Lankan domestic politics that was seized with an anti-imperialist fervour.

The Sri Lanka government perforce had to concede to domestic criticism that the country’s participation in such a regional grouping would compromise its non-aligned credentials, which it felt beholden to uphold.

Furthermore, the virulent leftist-slanted Sri Lankan media that viewed the proposal with scepticism, even suspect as being a Western imperialist tool, dismissed it as inimical to the country’s interest.

On hindsight, it would appear that Sri Lanka lost a golden opportunity to play a definitive role in the regional diplomacy that was to unfold later with the emergence of ASEANan as a robust regional organisation.

By the time Sri Lanka tried to redeem itself and seek membership of Asean in the mid-1980s, it found to its dismay, the doors to ASEAN membership shut.

Despite the disappointing Sri Lankan response meted out to the Tunku’s proposal, he persisted in actualising his visionary regional grouping for Southeast Asia.

Numerous high-level consultations transpired and exchange of visits with leaders of neighbouring countries were actively pursued to give meaning and substance to his regional grouping proposition.

The Tunku’s daunting initiative finally took real tangible form in 1961 with the formal agreement among the Philippines, Thailand and Malaya to form the Association of Southeast Asia, with the acronym ASA.

The “Sabah Claim”: Disrespect for UN Charter On Right of Self-Determination

April 5, 2013

by Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail@http://www.nst.com.my

U.N. APPROVAL: The Cobbold Commission ascertained views of the people of North Borneo and Sarawak on the proposal to join Malaysia

THE catalyst for the United Kingdom’s agreement to grant independence to its colonies, including Malaya and later Sabah (and Sarawak), lies in the establishment of the United Nations.

With its establishment in 1945, the international community showed growing concern with regard to the position of territories of all kinds which had not attained independence and the condition of their inhabitants.

Self-determination, usually leading to independence, accordingly became the standard proclaimed by the international community.

The UN Charter in Chapter XI contains the “Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories” in which member states of the UN administering territories “whose peoples have not yet attained a full measure of self-government recognise the principle that the interests of the inhabitants of these territories are paramount, and accept as a sacred trust the obligation to promote to the utmost … the wellbeing of the inhabitants of these territories”.

That obligation includes in particular the duty enshrined in Article 73(b) of the UN Charter “to develop self-government, to take due account of the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions, according to the particular circumstances of each territory and its peoples and their varying stages of advancement”.

The principle of self-determination has gradually transformed from a mere acknowledged principle in Article 1(2) of the UN Charter into a legal right recognised in international legal instruments under the auspices of the UN.

In 1970, the Declaration on Principles of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation Among States, the principles of which are declared to “constitute basic principles of international law, elaborated the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”.

An important element in the principle of self-determination recognised in UN instruments is that self-determination must respect the freely expressed wishes of the people in question.

Article 73 of the UN Charter lays down that the interests of the inhabitants are “para-mount”; and the International Court of Justice has emphasised the need to pay regard to the freely expressed will of the peoples concerned.

These wishes are normally to be established by the usual political processes of the territory (for example, elections), but in some circumstances it may be necessary to make special arrangements, for example by holding a referendum or arranging for a UN mission to verify the expression of the peoples’ views.

In fact, further visiting missions may be ordered by the UN to satisfy itself of the will of the people. Based on the UN practice in ascertaining the valid exercise of self-determination, it appears that requiring a referendum or a UN mission is considered only when necessary. Otherwise the UN will not intervene in the self-determination process.

The integration of Sabah (and Sarawak) into Malaysia was unconditionally accepted by the UN as a valid exercise of self-determination by its peoples, firstly through the findings of the UN Malaysia Mission and subsequently by the removal of North Borneo (and Sarawak) from the list of non-self-governing territories maintained by the UN.

Members of the Cobbold Commission

In April 1962, the Cobbold Commission was formed to ascertain the views of the peoples of North Borneo and Sarawak on the agreement of the governments of the United Kingdom and the Federation of Malaya to include North Borneo and Sarawak (together with other territories) in the proposed Federation of Malaysia and to make recommendations in the light of their assessment of these views.

The Cobbold Commission spent a total of about four weeks in North Borneo and managed to complete all its sessions with the people before concluding its enquiry on April 18, 1962.

The commission unanimously agreed, in the light of their assessment of the views of the peoples of North Borneo and Sarawak, that a Federation of Malaysia was in the best interests of North Borneo and Sarawak.

On June 21, 1962, the Report of the Cobbold Commission and its findings were completed and submitted to the Prime Ministers of Britain and Malaya.

The report was considered in detail in a series of meetings between British and Malayan ministers in London in July 1962.The final report was published on Aug 1, 1962. The Cobbold Commission determined from the enquiry that two-thirds of the peoples of North Borneo were agreeable to the proposal for Sabah to join Malaysia while less than 20 per cent of the people disagreed with the proposal.

The Manila Accord of July 31, 1963, between the Federation of Malaya, the Republic of Indonesia and the Republic of the Philippines, entrusted the United Nations Secretary-General with the task of ascertaining the wishes of the people of North Borneo.

He reported that the majority of the peoples of North Borneo had given serious and thoughtful consideration to their future and to the implications for them of participation in a Federation of Malaysia.

He believed that the majority of the peoples of Sabah (North Borneo) and of Sarawak “have concluded that they wish to bring their dependent status to an end and to realise their independence through freely chosen association with other peoples in their region”.

He further added that the “fundamental agreement of the three participating governments in the Manila meetings, and the statements by the Republic of Indonesia and the Republic of Philippines that they would welcome the formation of Malaysia provided that the support of the people of the territories by me and that, in my opinion, complete compliance with the principle of self-determination within the requirements of General Assembly Resolution 1541 (XV) Principal IX of the Annex was ensured; my conclusion based on the findings of the mission is that on both these counts there is no doubt about the wishes of a sizeable majority of the peoples of these territories to join in the Federation of Malaysia”.

In fact, in the 2001 Application by the Philippines for Permission to Intervene in the Case Concerning Sovereignty over Pulau Ligitan and Pulau Sipadan (Indonesia/ Malaysia), the International Court of Justice per Ad Hoc Judge Franck discussed the impact of the principle of self-determination on historic titles and emphasised that it is basic to the international rule of law that historic titles cannot, except in the most extraordinary circumstances, prevail in law over the rights of non-self-governing people to claim independence and establish their sovereignty through the exercise of bona fide self-determination.

The independence of North Borneo was brought about as the result of the expressed wish of the majority of the people of the territory in a 1963 election.

It is established fact that the state of Sabah has been, is and remains a legitimate and integral part of Malaysia since September 16, 1963, Sabah having joined the Federation of Malaysia as a newly independent state following its decolonisation by the United Kingdom, based on the wishes of the people of Sabah.

The independence of Sabah before it joined Malaysia having been gained and established through the legitimate exercise of the right of self-determination, as expounded under the UN Charter and international law, its status as part of Malaysia today is firmly established under international law and beyond dispute.

Therefore, any purported claim put forward by the self-styled sultan of Sulu on behalf of the self-proclaimed Sultanate of Sulu today to the territory of Sabah or any part of it has no legitimacy or merit.

Sabahans are now enjoying a higher standard of living and maintaining their traditions.

Politicians among 1,500 who own offshore companies

Politicians among 1,500 who own offshore companies – Malaysiakini

EXCLUSIVE: Top Malaysian politicians, their family members and well-heeled associates are among those owning secretive offshore companies in Singapore and the British Virgin Islands, according to an explosive cache of leaked documents.

They include former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s son Mirzan, Federal Territories and Urban Well-being Minister Raja Nong Chik Zainal Abidin and Michael Chia, the alleged ‘bagman’ for Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman.

The files, which were obtained by Washington-based International Confederation of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and examined by Malaysiakini,show more than 1,500 Malaysians owning offshore companies in Singapore – dubbed as the new Switzerland – as well as the British Virgin Islands (BVI), an international tax haven.

The ICIJ list comprises a curious mix of Forbes-listed tycoons, parliamentarians, retired politicians, civil servants and their spouses, members of royal families, famous and infamous businesspeople, underworld kingpins and even former beauty queens.

While some of the offshore companies carry out legitimate transactions, others are likely to be part of the RM871.4 billion estimated by Washington-based financial watchdog Global Financial Integrity (GFI) to have been lost through illicit outflows over a 10-year period.

In 2010 alone, GFI reported that close to RM200 billion of dirty money was siphoned out of Malaysia, putting the country second only to Asian economic powerhouse China in global capital flight.

The leaked ICIJ files provide secret records of offshore holdings of people and companies in more than 170 countries and territories.

“The hoard of documents represents the biggest stockpile of inside information about the offshore system ever obtained by a media organisation. The total size of the files, measured in gigabytes, is more than 160 times larger than the leak of US State Department documents by Wikileaks in 2010,” says ICIJ.

However, despite the extensive data, this is not the complete list of all off-shore companies around the world. Indeed, it is only the tip of the iceberg.

Nevertheless, it allows members of the public, for the very first time, to sneak a peak into the secretive world of anonymous wealth.

Raja Nong Chik

According to the leaked documents, Raja Nong Chik, who is Lembah Pantai UMNO chief, is a prominent shareholder and director of RZA International Corporation, a British Virgin Islands entity incorporated on Aug 21, 2007, through Singapore.

The company is a mirror of Malaysian entity Kumpulan RZA Sdn Bhd, a 1997-founded company dealing in real estate and equities investment.

Raja Nong Chik set up the offshore entity with his father, Raja Zainal Abidin Raja Tachik, a number of his sisters and brothers as well as other family members. Most of them are also shareholders and directors of Kumpulan RZA Sdn Bhd.

Prior to his senatorship, Raja Nong Chik was a corporate figure who founded and managed an engineering firm for 20 years.

Contacted by Malaysiakini, the minister confirmed that RZA International was set up by his father, who will turn 96 this year, “for the purpose of holding legitimate offshore investments for the family”.

However, the minister did not elaborate on the offshore investments made by his family through the company. He added that RZA International was de-registered in 2009.

“The company was not used to obscure activities of Kumpulan RZA Sdn Bhd, and neither was it used to circumvent taxes or hide transactions overseas,” Raja Nong Chik said in an email to Malaysiakini.

Mirzan Mahathir

Mirzan Mahathir, the eldest son of Mahathir, is also among those the ICIJ list as director and shareholder of three off-shore companies.

Mirzan’s major commercial vehicle in Malaysia is Crescent Capital Sdn Bhd, an investment holding and independent strategic and financial advisory firm. He is the company’s chairperson and chief executive officer.

A Forbes-listed entrepreneur, Mirzan holds a non-executive director position in Philippines-based San Miguel group, which has raised eyebrows in Muslim-majority Malaysia, as beer brewery is a core businesses of San Miguel.

One of Mirzan’s offshore entities is called Crescent Energy Ltd, a Labuan offshore company incorporated on Dec 16, 2003, originally named Mainline Ltd and with an authorised share capital of US$12,000 (RM37,000).

Mirzan became a director and main shareholder six days later and the company was renamed Crescent Energy on May 16, 2008.

Another Labuan offshore company, Utara Capital Ltd, in which Mirzan is named as sole shareholder and director, was incorporated on Aug 19, 1997, with an authorised share capital of US$15,000.

The third company, Al Sadd Investments Pte Ltd. was also a Labuan offshore company. It was established on May 14, 2009, with an authorised share capital of US$12,000. Mirzan is listed as the sole shareholder and director of Al Sadd Investments.

Malaysiakini has approached Mirzan’s office for his comments on these offshore companies, but his aide said he was unable to respond on the matter as he was out of town.

Michael Chia

Another prominent personality on the list is Chia Tien Foh, who is better known as Michael Chia – the shadowy business tycoon allegedly linked to Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman.

Chia, too, has three offshore companies in which he is listed as either as director or shareholder. One of them was CTF International Ltd , with ‘CTF’ seen as the initials of Chia’s full name. It was incorporated on April 18, 2007, in the British Virgin Islands.

CTF International gained notoriety when it was named by whistleblower website Sarawak Report of being a conduit in channelling millions of ringgit to a Hong Kong account allegedly linked to Musa.

However, Musa (left), has denied any business ties with Chia (right).

CTF was de-registered in 2008. The other two offshore companies owned by Chia are Ravenswood Development Ltd and Ark Capital Technologies Ltd.

In addition, Chia’s wife Yap Loo Mien and another woman, who is alleged to be his mistress, Yap Siaw Lin, also appear on the list as key shareholders in three separate British Virgin Islands entities.

Loo Mien owned two companies – Perfect Minds Incorporated and StarWater Corporation – while Siaw Lin owned Splendor Success Worldwide Ltd.

Malaysiakini contacted Chia through the address stated in his company registration documents for comments, but there has been no response.

Iron-clad secrecy

According to a former officer with of the Inland Revenue Board (IRB), crooked Malaysians parked their money offshore to enjoy either significantly lower or even no taxes, and where the income is illegal, they are protected by a wall of secrecy.

Such ploys, said the officer who was a tax investigator, may not always succeed as Malaysia has a double taxation agreement, with close to 80 countries, that provides for the exchange of information on investigations involving the prevention or detection of tax evasion or fraud.

This includes Singapore, where some of the offshore companies are based.

The island republic has been labelled by Sarawak corporate lawyer Alvin Chong (right) as the “new Switzerland” in a recent video clandestinely filmed by London-based NGO Global Witness.

The retired officer, who worked with the IRB for more than 20 years, added that while the setting up of offshore companies was, in itself not illegal, such companies could be used to evade taxes.

“For example, a payment can be made for a seemingly legitimate service, like consultancy for the procurement of submarines, but it is paid to a company set up overseas, where the recipient pays a lower tax.

“Singapore and Hong Kong, with corporate tax rates of about 17 percent compared with Malaysia’s 25 percent, are popular parking lots,” he said, speaking on condition he not be named.

Tax evasion

One of the methods of tax evasion was explained by Chong in the Global Witness video – on how to avoid paying capital gains tax relating to Sarawak’s doggy land deals.

According to the former tax officer, offshore companies often include many layers of ownership through nominees to camouflage and “water down the link” to the original owner.

As such, he said the act of setting up offshore companies in tax havens often raises red flags.

“Someone can say that their company is set up at the British Virgin Islands, for example, but the money they use to set up the BVI company, or more importantly, the operations channeled through these tax havens could raise suspicion as being not genuine and invite an IRB probe,” he said.

“If the MACC (Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission), IRB or the police want information from their Singapore counterparts, for example, the latter are obliged to give, at least under the Malaysia-Singapore DTA (double taxation agreement),” he said.

But most tax havens are not signatories to DTA agreements and they operate outside international law.

Moreover, it is also up to the Malaysian authorities to decide whether to pursue the case and seek the necessary information from their counterparts abroad.

---

Aidila Razak, Kuek Ser Kuang Keng, Wong Teck Chi and Steven Gan contributed to this report.

 

ASEAN’s chairmanship in 2013 and 2014

April 3, 2013

by Rodolfo C. Severino, ISEAS (04-02-13)

For the first time in the organisation’s history, ASEAN Foreign Ministers failed to issue the normal joint communiqué at the end of their annual meeting last July.

Many people fear the same historic debacle could repeat itself this year and the next. They cite the small size of Brunei Darussalam, this year’s ASEAN chair, and the relative inexperience and geographic location of Myanmar, which will take its turn as ASEAN chair in 2014, as reasons for their concern. They argue that Brunei’s economy depends almost entirely on oil and gas exports. Myanmar is deeply divided ethnically and is one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia. These weaknesses are supposed to render the two countries vulnerable to political pressure from interested great powers, as, it is claimed, Cambodia was from China last year.

The disputes over sovereignty and jurisdiction in the South China Sea, on which the joint communiqué supposedly foundered, seem only to have escalated. China’s military ability to pursue its claims is reported to have increased, and Beijing’s assertiveness in the pursuit of those claims is said to have intensified.

On these counts, many people view the 2013 and 2014 chairmanships and the future of ASEAN itself with deep pessimism. Yet there is still cause for a touch more optimism.

First, we can safely assume that, as a matter of regional pride and practicality, the ASEAN foreign ministers will not allow an ASEAN ministerial meeting to take place again without adopting a joint communiqué.

Secondly, both Brunei and Myanmar enjoy the services of experienced diplomats. Brunei joined ASEAN in January 1984 and has chaired several ASEAN ministerial meetings, ASEAN summits and other ASEAN-organised gatherings. Spearheaded by the redoubtable second Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Lim Jock Seng, the long-time Foreign Minister, Prince Mohamed Bolkiah, and the Sultan himself, Brunei Darussalam’s leaders and diplomats — and their past performance — should reassure us that Brunei’s chairmanship of ASEAN, which started in January 2013, will proceed without missing a beat.

Myanmar, which joined ASEAN in 1997, or almost 16 years ago, has its share of competent diplomats. Although 2014 will be the first year the country chairs ASEAN as a whole and hosts ASEAN’s most high profile meetings, it has chaired and hosted many ministerial and other high-level meetings in the past.

The issues surrounding the conflicting claims in the South China Sea, which are said to have caused the foreign ministers’ failure to adopt a joint communiqué in Phnom Penh in July 2012, are old ones. Disagreements within ASEAN over the formulation of the paragraphs on the South China Sea have not, in the past, prevented ASEAN from adopting a common position.

Indeed, on July 20, 2012, a few days after their Phnom Penh meeting, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers issued a statement on the South China Sea embodying the basic ASEAN position on the disputes, namely the ‘full implementation’ of the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties, the ‘early conclusion’ of a Code of Conduct for the area, ‘full respect’ for international law, the exercise of self-restraint and the non-use of force.

This statement of principles was paraphrased in the paragraphs on the South China Sea in the Chairman’s statement of the ASEAN Summit in November 2012 in Phnom Penh.

Finally, the strongest source of confidence in the leadership of ASEAN in 2013 and 2014 is that it is in the national interest of the major world powers, as well as ASEAN’s member states, that ASEAN remains united on the principles governing the conduct of international relations in Southeast Asia. These principles are consistent both with the values proclaimed by the United States and with the safeguards insisted upon by China.

Rodolfo C. Severino is the Head of the ASEAN Studies Centre, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. He is a former ASEAN Secretary-General. The views expressed here are solely his own.

http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2013/04/02/aseans-chairmanship-in-2013-and-2014/

King Ghaz and the Question of the “Sabah Claim”

March 30, 2013

by Dato Hamzah Abdul Majid*

Fast forward to a morning in July 1962, I was reporting for duty at the Ministry of External Affairs (now Ministry of Foreign Affairs-Wisma Putra). The Ministry was located at the (then) Selangor State Secretariat Building (now Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad), directly opposite  the (Royal) Selangor Club.  It shared the  building with the Treasury and a few other government departments.

Meeting King Ghaz (The Boss) of Foreign Affairs and his Professionals

I reported to the Assistant Secretary (Administration) Encik Hanafiah Ahmad (later Chief of Tabung Haji and now Tan Sri). A slight gentleman with glasses, he was friendly and helpful. With all the formalities completed, Encik Hanafiah took me to YM Tengku Ngah Mohamed, the Deputy Secretary of Ministry.

The pipe smoking Tengku Ngah informed me that I would be assigned to the Ministry’s Political Division reporting to my immediate superior, Principal Assistant Secretary (Political Division) Raja Aznam Raja Ahmad (later Tan Sri), a well- educated Malay aristocrat with impeccable manners.

Raja Aznam briefed me on the role of the Ministry and its structure, Right at the top was the Prime Minister (Tengku Abdul Rahman) and concurrently  Minister of External Affairs. The top  Diplomatic Service Officer was the Permanent Secretary, Encik Muhammad Ghazali Shafie.

Raja Aznam took me to the Permanent Secretary’s Office where I was introduced to the redoubtable Matthew Josef, Personal Assistant to the Boss. Josef looked at me and said, “The Permanent Secretary is expecting you. Come in, he will see you now, Good Luck.“

With that he took me into the Boss’ spacious wood-panel office. Directly in front of me were a set of sofa and 2 deep armchairs. To my left was a large somewhat semi-circular desk. Behind the desk was the Man himself. I recognised him at once. The same ear of a man that I met five years earlier in the Radio Malaya studio–in command, confident, even arrogant.

He then asked me if I knew that we had a diplomatic issue with Indonesia and the Philippines  over our intention to invite North Borneo and Sarawak  to form Malaysia. I told him only from I read in the newspapers. Again that glare. He snapped, “then, write me a brief summary of how you understand the situation…Get to work.”

Zainal Abidin Sulong and Jack de Silva

Raja Aznam introduced me to Zainal Abidin Sulong (later Tan Sri) who had just returned from a posting in the United Nations, New York. Zainal was an excellent office mate–well informed, calm, hardworking and with a sense of humour. He was always busy drafting. From time to time, the Boss would barge into the room and growl instructions to him.

Zainal (left)  would slowly stand up. listen patiently and, when the Boss left, quietly resume his work. He was widely liked and respected. His knowledge of the personalities involved in North Borneo, Sarawak, Singapore, Brunei and Indonesia was encyclopedic, and the Boss depended heavily on him.  Next to the Boss, I would say Zainal was to play an exceedingly important role in the formation of Malaysia.

In the next room was Jack de Silva, a Catholic and strongly anti-Marxist. He  had served as First Secretary  in our High Commission in London. Articulate, gregarious, chain smoking, Jack was a hard driving officer with a mercurial temperament and a prolific drafter of documents and reports. I got my ‘sea legs’ in the ministry while sharing the small office with Zainal.

Tunku’s Singapore Statement on the Formation of Malaysia

On May 27, 1961, the Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman had made a historic statement in Singapore proposing the formation of Malaysia. The (then) Federation of Malaya was intent on inviting British North Borneo (now Sabah) and Sarawak to join in and from a new nation, Malaysia.

Initially, the Philippine government did not react. But after the election of Diosdado Macapagal as president in December 1961 the “Sabah Claim” emerged as a factor. It had been on the “back burner” for a while, as it was an issue only between the Philippine and British governments.

The  “Sabah Claim”

Now with the formation of Malaysia becoming reality, the clamour in the Philippine media grew stronger. The momentum built up quickly, and emotions morphed into policy.

Indonesia, headed by President Sukarno regarded North Borneo and Sarawak as part of Indonesian Kalimantan and claimed to be the rightful heir when the British finally withdrew.

Thus Sukarno and Macapagal joined forces in opposition to the Tunku’s proposal. Macapagal (left) hoisted a Philippine “claim” on Sabah and Sukarno vowed to “ganyang” (crush) Malaysia.

Both Indonesia and the Philippines regarded the idea of Malaysia as a “Neo-colonialist plot”. They claimed that the British no longer had any moral authority to hold on to the two colonies and were using the concept of Malaysia to perpetuate their influence in the region.

The Boss  was the main figure in the gathering storm, helping Prime Minister and his illustrious Deputy, Tun Abdul Razak, and tasked to design and implement a strategy to bring about the formation of Malaysia.

A team of competent and dedicated officers in the ministry was assigned to assist the Boss. They did a Herculean task of keeping in touch with events and developments in North Borneo and Sarawak, in the United Nations,in our neigbouring countries, and among our allies.  It was a small but effective and ably led team.

Sometime in April, 1963, the Boss told me that there would be a meeting of top diplomatic officials of Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines at the Padre Faura (the Philippine Foreign Ministry) in Manila. He would lead the Malaysian Delegation and I was to attend it as a member.

The Boss said, “You can stay with Bertie (now Dato Albert Tallala). You know Bertie, don’t you? I think you both the same University (in Dublin). Bertie (left) had graduated the year before I joined.

On the morning of the meeting, the Boss, Ambassador Zaiton Ibrahim Ahmad, First Secretary Hashim Sam-Latiff were greeted by Pete Angora Aragon, Chief of Protocol at the Padre Faura and taken to the reception room where Philippine Undersecretary Salvador P. Lopez and the Indonesian First Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Suwito Kusumowidagdo were waiting. The three men greeted one another warmly. Lopez was the very epitome of Philippine charm and bonhomie and Dr Kusumo was all smiles. Each diplomat tried to project an air of earnest amity.

Right of Self Determination

This meeting was in every sense historic. It was the first time that the three adversary countries actually sat down at the official level to try to solve their problems diplomatically and avoid a military conflict. From the outset the Boss took the position that the two territories should not be viewed as pieces of real estate, devoid of human inhabitants, to be carved up and divided cynically by neighbouring countries.

There was need to ascertain the wishes of the people of the two territories, as was undertaken and reaffirmed by the Cobbold Commission in its Report dated August 1, 1962.

But both the Philippines and Indonesia did not accept the Cobbold Report as the last word on the wishes of the people of North Borneo and Sarawak.

Clearly, these officials could decide on the issue after several days of deliberations (April 9-17, 1963). It was finally agreed that the meeting would recommend to their respective governments that the Foreign Ministers of the three countries should meet early in May. They further agreed to recommend that the Foreign Ministers meeting should be followed by a meeting of the Heads of Government of the three countries.

Two more Tripartite meetings followed. One  was at the Foreign Ministers’ level on June 7-11, 1963, where our side was led by the Deputy Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak. The Philippine delegation was led by Vice President Emanuel Pelaez, Dr. Subandrio headed the Indonesian side. The Ministers reaffirmed in the Manila Accord (Clause 10) the principle of self-determination and “would welcome the formation of Malaysia provided support of people of the Borneo territories is ascertained by an independent and impartial authority, the Secretary-General of the United Nations or his representative”.

As quid pro, Malaysia “undertook to consult the Government of the Borneo territories with a view to inviting the Secretary-General of the United Nations or his representative to take the necessary  steps in order to ascertain the wishes of people of those territories.” (Clause 11).

Clause 12  reflected the long discussion on the issue of the Sabah claim and the subdued compromise that the Foreign Ministers “took note” of the Philippine claim to North Borneo and its rights to pursue it in accordance with international law and the peaceful settlement of  disputes. This was another fig leaf that we could live with, but it was  to lead to lingering tensions with the Philippines.

The successful June 7-11 Foreign Ministers meeting paved the way for the Summit Meeting of Malaya’s Tunku Abdul Rahman, Indonesia’s President Sukarno and Philippine President Macapagal which produced the Manila Declaration of August 5, 1963. The Heads of Government of Malaya, Indonesia and the Philippines “welcomed” the formation of Malaysia.

Eventually, with the fall of Sukarno and with the installation of the New Order government led by General Suharto, Malaysia reached an amicable solution with Indonesia. However, normalisation of relations with the Philippines took longer as the issue of the Sabah claim lingered on. In fact, bilateral relations underwent some strains over the issue.

Malaysia will not enter into any further dialogue on the Question of the Claim

A defining bilateral meeting was held in Bangkok, Thailand on July 15, 1968. The Philippine delegation was led by Ambassador Guerrero, an aggressive diplomat who played hardball. The Malaysian delegation included the brilliant lawyer R.Ramani (who was also our Permanent Representative to the United Nations), Zainal Abidin Sulong and Zain Azraai.

This meeting did not start, nor did it end for that matter, too auspiciously.The Philippine delegation began with tactical moves to cause delays and with sweeping dicta and claims. It declared that its claim on Sabah was valid based on history and on its own security arrangements and made clear that it would not entertain any further clarifications sought by Malaysia.

The Boss rose to the occasion and demolished the Philippine claim with devastating logic and I quote:

“…Our questions indicated that we wished to challenge your basic assumption that the Sultan of Sulu had in fact sovereignty over the territory. his rights and powers over which he purported to convey to Dent and Overbeck in 1878. We did receive any precise answer from you on this question; and you were unable to point to anything in support of the Sultan’s claim to sovereignty, except to say in the vaguest terms that the Sultan of Brunei had ceded the territory to him, and you mentioned several dates when such cessation was understood to have taken place…

“We drew your attention to various authorities which cited different dates when the Sultan of Sulu acquired some rights and powers over the territory. Was it therefore in 1650, or was it in 1704, or was it about 1836, or near 1842, or was it 1878? You yourself gave several possible dates. It did not seem to occur to you that each particular date destroyed every other date and the fact of cession was, thereby, at the highest, left in doubt. Nor were you able to indicate the circumstances of his acquisition, whether rebellion in the territories of Brunei, a war of succession or an act of capitulation…

“We drew your attention to the documents of that time…Whether your case should not go no further than mere assertion of Sulu sovereignty…You are unable to do so, and we did not any intelligible answer from you as this, except that you had not heard of the Anglo-Philippine Talks in London in 1963…

“… in fighting subversion and terrorism Malaysia has the best record in this region…Malaysia has a good record of cooperation with Thailand and Indonesia on these matters. It is common knowledge that Malaysia and Thailand have a working arrangement on the Malaysian/Thai border…likewise along the Malaysian/Indonesian border.”

He concluded his long address with…

“Let me say this once again, Excellency. Do not pursue your claim to Sabah in order to satisfy these economic and security needs. These can only be fulfilled through cooperation with us. But your persistent pursuit of the claim will destroy that cooperation and therefore will not achieve for you the very things which you desire most for your economy and security…

“Therefore, let us maintain the good relations between our two countries and discuss our common needs. But at the same time let it be clearly understood that my Government will not enter into any further dialogue on the question of the Claim, or with that claim as its basis”.

__________________

*The above by Dato Hamzah Abdul Majid is an abridged and edited excerpt of his tribute titled King Ghaz: Personal Recollection, which appears in the National Archives publication titled King Ghaz: A Man of Time (2010) edited by Dato Seri Utama Dr. Rais Yatim.

I have chosen parts that deal with the Philippine Claim on Sabah. It is intended to provide a historical account of what happened during the period leading to the formation of Malaysia in 1963. Dato Hamzah was a member of the Malaysian foreign policy team led by (Tun) Muhammad Ghazali Shafie that dealt with the struggle to form Malaysia.

Filipino politicians are now apparently using the Lahad Datu Incursion as a pretext to revive  this issue  of the Sultan of Sulu’s claim on Sabah which is now a sovereign state in Malaysia. As far as Dato Hamzah and I are concerned, this matter should be put to rest in the interest of good relations between the Philippines and our country. Sabah belongs in Malaysia and the Philippines must learn to respect the wishes of the people of Sabah to be part of Malaysia.–Din Merican

Also read this :http://www.dlsu.edu.ph/research/journals/apssr/pdf/200712/4Fernandez.pdf

Who is the Enemy?: Certainly not us Malaysians

March 28, 2013

by Dr. Kua Kia Soong@http://www.malaysiakini.com

COMMENT: As the Global Day of Action on Military Spending, GDAMS 3.0 (April 15, 2013) approaches, it is time for Malaysians to ask: Who are Malaysia’s enemies and what appropriate weaponry do we need?

One would think this is the first question the Ministry of Defence should ask in the multi-billion decisions to procure armaments now that the arms merchants are here again for LIMA 2013. Yet our National Defence Policy has never even been properly debated in Parliament.

Just a few months ago, the Ministry of Defence would not have said that Malaysia’s enemies were among the Suluks who have been coming back and forth between Southern Philippines and Sabah all these years.

After all, hadn’t we helped to train MNLF fighters there against Marcos in the seventies? Wasn’t this the reason why the Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein(right) said that the invaders at Lahad Datu were “neither militants nor terrorists” during the two or three weeks that they were already there?

And haven’t we got a “Rapid Deployment Force” (10 Paratrooper Brigade) ready to be dispatched to any flashpoint? One wonders what flashpoint scenarios they are trained for?  Are they ready to be deployed only when there are secessionists fighting to take East Malaysia out of the federation? They certainly hadn’t been prepared for the Sulu Sultan’s army to “turn”.

Don’t be surprised if the “defence analysts” in the Ministry have now shredded all their previous analyses about Malaysia’s perceived “enemies”. With the new-found enemies of the Malaysian state, the arms lobby has at last found a raison detre for their fabulous arms procurements.

Heck, didn’t we finally get the chance to use our F18 fighter bombers and Hawk 208 fighter jets against this so-called “rag-tag army”? Wouldn’t armoured cars and tanks and mortars have sufficed in that four square kilometer area of land against that motley crew? In the end, were Malaysians given a clear picture of the efficacy of those fighter jet sorties?

Whatever the reasons for sending in the fighter bombers and jets, the international arms merchants have now come to town to peddle their wares. The French have started advertising their ‘Rafale’ fighter jets in our mainstream newspapers, alongside bargains by ‘Giant’ and ‘Tesco’ for the attention of Malaysians.

BAE are also desperately trying to flog their ‘Typhoon’ jet fighters in a RM10 billion deal they hope to clinch with a “Buy 1 – Get 1 free” gambit. They lost out recently to the French when the Indian government opted to buy 126 Rafale fighter jets instead, and are still fuming.

But do we need any fighter jets at all, considering their cost is spiraling way out of control and they so quickly become obsolete? They will be even more obsolete when future air wars are fought using drones (Unarmed Aerial Vehicles)!

Malaysians should be aware that the latest (US) F35 fighter jets cost at least half a billion ringgit a piece? Can we keep up with the race? What race? Who are we racing against? Who are our enemies?

Appropriate vessels for RMN

When the bombardment finally began at Lahad Datu, it was mentioned that the navy had formed a cordon to prevent the intruders from getting away. It became clear that there has never been a cordon to prevent any intruders from getting INTO Sabah all these years.

Looking at the geography of the area, it is evident that our two submarines (costing more than RM7 billion) sitting pretty in Sepanggar Bay and our six New Generation Patrol Vessels (costing RM9 billion) were not the most suitable vessels in such circumstances.

This mismatch raises the question of the need for our navy to prioritise the deployment of appropriate alternative vessels.  As part of the RM5 billion arms deal signed between Dr Mahathir and Margaret Thatcher in 1989, we procured two corvettes built by the Yarrow shipbuilders costing RM2.2 billion. (NST, Novembe 11, 1991).

At the time, the Royal Malaysian Navy said they required sixteen offshore patrol vessels but due to financial constraints, the RMN could only afford four or five of these locally-built OPVs. Mindef had budgeted RM85 million per OPV. (NST, November 25,1991).

Now, in the light of the latest incident at Lahad Datu, Malaysians will be in a better position to see the appropriate vessels that would be more suitable to secure the Sabah coastline.

Before the Lahad Datu incident, the main “enemies” testing the capacity of our armed forces were the pirates in the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca.

There were no bigger “enemies” than those seafaring marauders. Are state-of-the-art fighter jets and submarines the appropriate defence equipment against pirates? These would likewise be inappropriate if “international terrorists” and suicide bombers choose to target Malaysia.

So, exactly how are decisions made in the Ministry of Defence to purchase the submarines, the corvettes, the frigates (costing billions) instead of more effective patrol boats to guard our coastlines?

ASEAN needs to take ZOPFAN more seriously

There is no end if we choose to embark on an arms race with our neighbouring countries. We simply cannot afford such an arms race and it is time ASEAN countries seriously talk about disarmament and joint defence agreements instead of an arms race within ASEAN.

Our economic priorities need to be diverted away from military production toward production for human needs, and public expenditure diverted to more and better social services throughout ASEAN.

Any disputes over territories should be settled through international arbitration as was done over Pulau Batu Putih with Singapore. The dispute of the Spratly Islands should be resolved the same way.

M’sian people not the enemy

The Lahad Datu incident should act as a wake-up call for the Malaysian government that seems preoccupied with treating its own people as the enemy. When we bear in mind that throughout the tenure of the Internal Security Act since 1960, more than 10,000 people had been incarcerated for being “threats to national security”.

But hardly any have been charged for any crimes involving violence against the state. Then again, there have been at least two cases of Malaysians who have been killed in neighbouring countries for alleged terrorist activities. Yet, none of them were ever arrested under the ISA!

This goes to show that our intelligence service has been focusing on the wrong suspects. As a former ISA detainee who was incarcerated for being a “threat to national security”, I can vouch for the wanton wastage of security personnel on Malaysians who are simply not “enemies of the state”.

When I think of the number of state operatives who had been spying on me, arresting me, guarding me, interrogating me, accompanying me on family and hospital visits, I immediately wonder how they could be better deployed to prevent crimes being committed and watching out for the real enemies of the state.  And when we multiply the cost 10,000 times since 1960, we will realize the enormous waste of human resources that could be better put to use!

It was recently reported in the New York Times (March 13, 2013) that Malaysia is among 25 countries using off-the-shelf spyware to keep tabs on citizens by secretly grabbing images off computer screens, recording video chats, turning on cameras and microphones, and logging keystrokes:

“Rather than catching kidnappers and drug dealers, it looks more likely that it is being used for politically motivated surveillance,” security researcher Morgan Marquis-Boire was quoted by NYT as saying.  This is what I mean when I say our intelligence service is not focused on the job but wasting valuable resources spying on and apprehending the good guys!

Indeed, if the Malaysian state had only focused on the job of catching the real criminals, Malaysia would be a much safer place instead of being the “nation of guarded communities” it has become today.

Militarism serves ruling class

Apart from the huge commissions that can be creamed from multibillion ringgit arms contracts, the ruling class requires militarism to contain the oppressed and disgruntled sections of the population.

A strong military is necessary to prop up the ruling class. At the same time, the military-industrial complex promotes the development of a specially favoured group of companies engaged in the manufacture and sale of munitions and military equipment for personal gain and profit. These armaments companies have a direct interest in the maximum expansion of military production.

Arms production is a green issue

Military spending and arms production are very much green issues. The military- industrial complex not only produces toxic products, they produce weapons that kill indiscriminately. LIMA and other defence fairs are certainly not congruent with Malaysian leaders’ stated commitment to peace and spiritual values.

The green movement has a responsibility to work toward an end to the culture of war. This involves re-ordering our financial priorities away from wasteful and destructive arms production and procurement to the social well-being of the people.

Ultimately, working towards a culture of peace is a vision that is only attainable in a society that respects human dignity, social justice, democracy and human rights.