"HONEY! WE'VE GOT COMPANY FOR DINNER TONIGHT!"
What's for dessert?
Friday, April 3, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Martin Jalleh on Zambry Abdul Kadir
ZAMBRY IS NOT
A VERY SMART MAN
BN-appointed menteri besar Zambry Abdul Kadir (left) thinks he is very slick and smart. Sadly, he has shown himself to be very shallow and slow.
He very gleefully posed what Malaysiakini called a “pertinent question” to the Menteri Besar of Perak, Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin, thinking he had delightfully delivered a body blow, damned his rival, and driven him to the ground. Zambry claimed that Nizar had stated his position as ‘Pasir Panjang assemblyman’ and not as ‘menteri besar’ in his nomination papers filed last Saturday, to contest the Bukit Gantang by-election on April 7.
“All this while, he has been telling the whole world he is the lawful menteri besar. So why didn’t he address himself as the menteri besar in the nomination papers?” exclaimed Zambry, much to the delight of the crowd comprising mainly women and the elderly. (M'kini)
The answer is very simple and it reflects how astute a politician Nizar really is. He has taken into account the politicial realities that he has to contend with - realities that appear more and more grotesque with each passing day in Bukit Gantang.
If he had stated that he is the Menteri Besar of Perak, his victory in the by-election will be challenged by Umno and its cohorts. Yes, this may sound ridiculous, but what is no longer ridiculous with regard to the powers that be? So here goes.
The Election Commission, which decided to play politics to put the fraudulent Perak State Government in power, will declare that Nizar had made a "fraudulent claim" in the nomination papers!
Or Umno could resort to an Election Court and they could look for the most junior judge (judicial commissioner) in Perak (which has made the judiciary the butt of everyone's jokes by his jaundiced judgments) to decide that Nizar's declaration was technically faulty.
Or the police, under the instructions of the Home Minister, who is slowly being nursed back to health after a badly bruised ego as a result of being rejected by his own party, could arrest Nizar for "impersonation"!
Nizar is not so naïve as Zambry so desperately tries to project him. He is a humble man with nerves of steel. In fact, he does not need to state in his nomination papers that he is the true Menteri Besar. We Perakians know it in our hearts, and that would suffice.
It would be best that Zambry zips up, for his ignorance is becoming very glaring especially in Bukit Gantang.
Martin Jalleh
2 April 2009
A VERY SMART MAN
BN-appointed menteri besar Zambry Abdul Kadir (left) thinks he is very slick and smart. Sadly, he has shown himself to be very shallow and slow.
He very gleefully posed what Malaysiakini called a “pertinent question” to the Menteri Besar of Perak, Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin, thinking he had delightfully delivered a body blow, damned his rival, and driven him to the ground. Zambry claimed that Nizar had stated his position as ‘Pasir Panjang assemblyman’ and not as ‘menteri besar’ in his nomination papers filed last Saturday, to contest the Bukit Gantang by-election on April 7.
“All this while, he has been telling the whole world he is the lawful menteri besar. So why didn’t he address himself as the menteri besar in the nomination papers?” exclaimed Zambry, much to the delight of the crowd comprising mainly women and the elderly. (M'kini)
The answer is very simple and it reflects how astute a politician Nizar really is. He has taken into account the politicial realities that he has to contend with - realities that appear more and more grotesque with each passing day in Bukit Gantang.
If he had stated that he is the Menteri Besar of Perak, his victory in the by-election will be challenged by Umno and its cohorts. Yes, this may sound ridiculous, but what is no longer ridiculous with regard to the powers that be? So here goes.
The Election Commission, which decided to play politics to put the fraudulent Perak State Government in power, will declare that Nizar had made a "fraudulent claim" in the nomination papers!
Or Umno could resort to an Election Court and they could look for the most junior judge (judicial commissioner) in Perak (which has made the judiciary the butt of everyone's jokes by his jaundiced judgments) to decide that Nizar's declaration was technically faulty.
Or the police, under the instructions of the Home Minister, who is slowly being nursed back to health after a badly bruised ego as a result of being rejected by his own party, could arrest Nizar for "impersonation"!
Nizar is not so naïve as Zambry so desperately tries to project him. He is a humble man with nerves of steel. In fact, he does not need to state in his nomination papers that he is the true Menteri Besar. We Perakians know it in our hearts, and that would suffice.
It would be best that Zambry zips up, for his ignorance is becoming very glaring especially in Bukit Gantang.
Martin Jalleh
2 April 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
TAKE LEAVE, BALIK KAMPUNG, AND VOTE!
That's right, good voters of Bukit Selambau, Bukit Gantang and Batang Ai, please go back to your respective constituencies on April 7th... AND VOTE LIKE CRAZY FOR HOPE!
A community service message from the Democratic Action Party, uploaded 27 March 2009. Please pass this link around!
A community service message from the Democratic Action Party, uploaded 27 March 2009. Please pass this link around!
ALTANTUYA ASIDE...
Malaysiakini | 31 March 2009
Meanwhile in a related development, the police chief issued a warning to all political parties not to incite, provoke or utter words that are deemed to be seditious.
Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan also said that they must avoid making unfounded and baseless allegations on their opponents or the party they represented.
"Police will be monitoring all political ceramah and will record them. We urge everyone including supporters not to provoke or taunt anyone during their campaigns," he said in a statement today.
Musa also added that the police would beef up security in all three by-election spots to prevent untoward incidents.
Even if Altantuya Shaariibuu never existed... and therefore never met Najib Abdul Razak or Abdul Razak Baginda... never demanded USD500,000 for keeping mum about backroom negotiations she was privy to over the purchase of three submarines for the Malaysian Navy in 2005... and therefore was never abducted on the evening of 19 October 2006 by police officers in front of eyewitnesses, toyed with like a trapped mouse, shot twice in the head and then blown to smithereens with C4 military-grade explosives... that still does not immunize the erstwhile defence minister from being investigated for corruption of the highest order.
Kickbacks, okay, commissions amounting to hundreds of millions of ringgit cannot be cavalierly swept under the Umno carpet.
What about the PSC Naval Dockyard fiasco involving billions in inexplicable losses? As defence minister at the time, Najib Razak should have been immediately sacked for gross mismanagement. This extraordinary debacle was never investigated and no heads were seen to roll. Amin Shah, the Umno crony responsible for the grotesque budget overruns, reportedly fled the country. He ought to be doing time for embezzlement or criminal breach of contract.
Instead, against the wishes of more than 90% of the electorate, Najib Razak is on the verge of being anointed by Umno as Malaysia's sixth prime minister. Correction: CRIME minister!
Where got meaning, I ask you?
As for Musa Hassan's outrageous warning...
HOW DARE YOU DICTATE TO THE RAKYAT, YOUR EMPLOYERS?
You, sir, are essentially the nation's Chief Security Guard. We, the rakyat, pay your salary to safeguard our property and our public spaces. We do not take instructions from our security guards, do you understand? Of late, your personnel have behaved so despicably you deserve not only to be IMMEDIATELY SACKED... but thoroughly investigated for all your alleged misdeeds since 1998. Musa Hassan, I hold you personally responsible for the absolute and utter degradation of the Malaysian police, whose reputation for criminal misbehavior has sunk far below that of the most vicious street gang.
You can make people fear you... but you can't make them respect or trust you. I know you see yourself as a tough guy, tougher than even Rahim Noor. However, less than a year ago you underwent heart bypass surgery. Have you been listening to your heart? I guess not! Instead, you choose to obey your criminal masters in Umno. You have joined forces with the crime minister - the biggest desperado in the country - and you are waging war against the rakyat. Do you HONESTLY believe you are serving your goddam bangsa dan agama? Musa Hassan, I urge you to repent and voluntarily step down. I'm sure the rakyat will find it in their hearts to forgive you and let you spend the rest of your days in peace, making amends.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics began to crumble and disintegrate into dozens of semi-autonomous countries. Russia came under the control of powerful Mafia-style crime syndicates and renegade generals. It's a miracle the country still exists. And look at the tragedy that befell Zimbabwe when that hideous monster Robert Mugabe rose to power... yes, I'm talking about Mahathir's bosom buddy, birds of a feather!
We don't want this to happen to our beloved Malaysia. But it appears that the crime syndicates, masquerading as Captains of Industry and the corporate elite, are determined to suffocate our newborn democracy in its crib - so that they can continue with impunity their 50-year rape and pillage of the nation's wealth. Not only are you liars, hypocrites, thieves and murderers... you are about to commit infanticide!
I regard it as my moral duty to thwart your evil designs. Anyone else care to join me?
Meanwhile in a related development, the police chief issued a warning to all political parties not to incite, provoke or utter words that are deemed to be seditious.
Inspector-General of Police Musa Hassan also said that they must avoid making unfounded and baseless allegations on their opponents or the party they represented.
"Police will be monitoring all political ceramah and will record them. We urge everyone including supporters not to provoke or taunt anyone during their campaigns," he said in a statement today.
Musa also added that the police would beef up security in all three by-election spots to prevent untoward incidents.
Even if Altantuya Shaariibuu never existed... and therefore never met Najib Abdul Razak or Abdul Razak Baginda... never demanded USD500,000 for keeping mum about backroom negotiations she was privy to over the purchase of three submarines for the Malaysian Navy in 2005... and therefore was never abducted on the evening of 19 October 2006 by police officers in front of eyewitnesses, toyed with like a trapped mouse, shot twice in the head and then blown to smithereens with C4 military-grade explosives... that still does not immunize the erstwhile defence minister from being investigated for corruption of the highest order.
Kickbacks, okay, commissions amounting to hundreds of millions of ringgit cannot be cavalierly swept under the Umno carpet.
What about the PSC Naval Dockyard fiasco involving billions in inexplicable losses? As defence minister at the time, Najib Razak should have been immediately sacked for gross mismanagement. This extraordinary debacle was never investigated and no heads were seen to roll. Amin Shah, the Umno crony responsible for the grotesque budget overruns, reportedly fled the country. He ought to be doing time for embezzlement or criminal breach of contract.
Instead, against the wishes of more than 90% of the electorate, Najib Razak is on the verge of being anointed by Umno as Malaysia's sixth prime minister. Correction: CRIME minister!
Where got meaning, I ask you?
As for Musa Hassan's outrageous warning...
HOW DARE YOU DICTATE TO THE RAKYAT, YOUR EMPLOYERS?
You, sir, are essentially the nation's Chief Security Guard. We, the rakyat, pay your salary to safeguard our property and our public spaces. We do not take instructions from our security guards, do you understand? Of late, your personnel have behaved so despicably you deserve not only to be IMMEDIATELY SACKED... but thoroughly investigated for all your alleged misdeeds since 1998. Musa Hassan, I hold you personally responsible for the absolute and utter degradation of the Malaysian police, whose reputation for criminal misbehavior has sunk far below that of the most vicious street gang.
You can make people fear you... but you can't make them respect or trust you. I know you see yourself as a tough guy, tougher than even Rahim Noor. However, less than a year ago you underwent heart bypass surgery. Have you been listening to your heart? I guess not! Instead, you choose to obey your criminal masters in Umno. You have joined forces with the crime minister - the biggest desperado in the country - and you are waging war against the rakyat. Do you HONESTLY believe you are serving your goddam bangsa dan agama? Musa Hassan, I urge you to repent and voluntarily step down. I'm sure the rakyat will find it in their hearts to forgive you and let you spend the rest of your days in peace, making amends.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics began to crumble and disintegrate into dozens of semi-autonomous countries. Russia came under the control of powerful Mafia-style crime syndicates and renegade generals. It's a miracle the country still exists. And look at the tragedy that befell Zimbabwe when that hideous monster Robert Mugabe rose to power... yes, I'm talking about Mahathir's bosom buddy, birds of a feather!
We don't want this to happen to our beloved Malaysia. But it appears that the crime syndicates, masquerading as Captains of Industry and the corporate elite, are determined to suffocate our newborn democracy in its crib - so that they can continue with impunity their 50-year rape and pillage of the nation's wealth. Not only are you liars, hypocrites, thieves and murderers... you are about to commit infanticide!
I regard it as my moral duty to thwart your evil designs. Anyone else care to join me?
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Ambiga Sreenevasan honored at 2009 International Women of Courage Awards
From Suara Keramat Pak Sako...
Ambiga's acceptance speech @ 24:35 (uploaded 11 March 2009)
The Secretary of State's 2009 International Women of Courage Awards
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
March 5, 2009
In celebration of International Women’s Day, the Department of State announces the recipients of the third annual Secretary of State’s Award for International Women of Courage. This is the only award within the Department of State that pays tribute to outstanding women leaders worldwide. It recognizes the courage and leadership shown as they struggle for social justice and human rights.
This year, the Secretary of State will pay tribute to honorees representing Afghanistan, Guatemala, Iraq, Malaysia, Niger, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Yemen. They are among over 80 exceptional women nominated by U.S. Embassies worldwide for their extraordinary work in advancing human rights. The women will be in Washington from March 8 – 12 for a program of meetings with government officials, NGOs and the media. The Office of International Visitors is partnering with the Office of International Women’s Issues on this project.
The 2009 recipients of the Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Awards are:
Ms. Wazhma Frogh (Afghanistan)
Wazhma Frogh is the Afghanistan Country Director for the NGO Global Rights and a dynamic leader in the fight against domestic violence, marital and child rape, and sexual abuse in Afghanistan.
Ms. Norma Cruz (Guatemala)
Norma Cruz is on the forefront of women who are fighting on behalf of victims of violence and sexual abuse. As director of the NGO Survivors Foundation, Ms. Cruz combats the widespread impunity that too often accompanies the endemic violence against women in Guatemala.
Ms. Suaad Allami (Iraq)
A prominent lawyer, Suaad Allami fights against the erosion of women's rights and defends the most disadvantaged. She founded the NGO Women for Progress and the Sadr City Women's Center, which offers free medical care, literacy education, vocational training, and legislative advocacy. She has accepted a Humphrey Fellowship from the State Department for academic year 2009-2010.
Ms. Ambiga Sreenevasan (Malaysia)
An accomplished lawyer who became President of the Malaysian Bar Council, Ambiga Sreenevasan masterfully uses the rule of law to advance human rights, the status of women, and religious tolerance. In the face of death threats and intimidation, Ms. Ambiga has emerged as a strong voice of tolerance and justice.
Ms. Hadizatou Mani (Niger)
Sold to a "master" at the age of 12 for the equivalent of $500, Hadizatou Mani persevered in gaining her freedom and helped pave the way for others trapped in similar circumstances to seek justice. Through her valiant efforts, persistence, and refusal to succumb to social pressure to abandon her case, she won a historic, precedent-setting decision in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court of Justice that condemned her enslavement.
Ms. Veronika Marchenko (Russia)
Veronika Marchenko is the head of the NGO Mother’s Right, and has demonstrated exceptional bravery and leadership in exposing the truth surrounding the disturbing peacetime deaths within the Russian armed forces. Ms. Marchenko has successfully sought justice on behalf of bereaved families of servicemen who died as a result of cruel and inhumane conditions.
Ms. Mutabar Tadjibayeva (Uzbekistan)
Imprisoned for criticizing her government's handling of events surrounding the 2005 violence in the city of Andijon, Mutabar Tadjibayeva refuses to be silenced. She has returned to human rights advocacy, and remains a fearless critic of human rights abuses.
Ms. Reem Al Numery (Yemen)
When she was 12, Reem Al Numery had her childhood cut short when she was forced to marry her 30-year -old cousin. She has emerged as a strong and brave voice on behalf of other girls facing a similar fate. Her courage has inspired a widespread drive against child marriages in Yemen.
NOTE: Ambiga Sreenevasan is an old friend I met during the days I was active in theatre. I have been following her moves as Bar Council President and - apart from her tacit support of Zaki Azmi's appointment as Chief Justice - am pleased to say Ambiga fully deserves the recognition she's getting from abroad if not at home. Here's another Malaysian who does the nation proud - unlike the noisy and noisome bunch of evolutionary retards rattling their cages and baring their fangs in Umno.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Asia Sentinel on the ascension of "a scandal-ridden party hack" to power
NAJIB IT IS
Asia Sentinel | 29 March 2009
Malaysia's leading ethnic party names a scandal-ridden party hack as its head and the country's leader
On Friday, Malaysia is scheduled to end months of waiting to announce its new prime minister, Najib Tun Razak, after the United Malays National Organisation, the country's biggest ethnic party named him their leader during their annual convention.
Najib told the UMNO parley, held in Kuala Lumpur last week, that it is crucial that his party reform itself or it will lose its hold on the electorate. But Najib's history, and that of the party itself, portends instead a return to the politics and practices that got the national ruling coalition into trouble in the first place, losing its historic two-thirds majority in the national parliament in national elections last year. Najib's ascent to power more likely represents a clear preference by UMNO stalwarts to return to cronyism, money politics and corruption after a six-year interregnum from the authoritarian reign of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
The new prime minister's history may make it problematical whether the leaders of major countries are going to want to be seen with him. Concerns include hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable contracts steered to UMNO cronies and friends, not to mention continuing allegations of his involvement in the murder of the Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu following the controversial purchase of French submarines and, more recently, his role in sabotaging the opposition in the state of Perak and his shuttering newspapers and thwarting opposition candidates during his own party's elections last week.
The convention itself was a good example. Opponents of the Najib team were denied places on the ballot by a panel supposedly charged with cleaning up money politics, although they let Najib's allies slide by after having committed the same offenses. The result was that the deputy president, Muhyiddin Yassin, and all three vice presidents are from the Najib faction although the Najib forces were unable to prevent Khairy Jamaluddin, the son-in-law of ousted Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmand Badawi, from becoming head of the important UMNO Youth wing. They also were unable to stop Shahrizat Abdul Jalil from defeating longtime party hack Rafidah Aziz to take over the Wanita, the women's wing of the party, also a Badawi ally.
The final election night erupted into name-calling, with allies of Mukhriz Mahathir, the son of the former prime minister, charging that Khairy had bought the votes to make him head of UMNO Youth. Mahathir Mohamad himself railed against the two candidates against his son, calling them corrupt. Rais Yatim, the foreign minister, who lost out in one of the vice president races, demanded that UMNO's disciplinary board investigate the entire new supreme council over allegations that they had delivered gifts and money to delegates in the effort to win their seats. Mahathir Mohamad has repeatedly launched furious attacks on UMNO leaders, calling them corrupt although he showed up at the last night of the convention to be seen with Najib and others.
The UMNO-owned New Straits Times described the top party positions as having "given much-needed breathing space to Najib as he sets out to unite UMNO and push the party to undertake the reforms he has promised. He will have less of a task to deal with the factionalism that so often arises after a bitterly fought contest in the party." But in fact, UMNO appears to be as much riven by factional politics as it was going into the convention.
As early as April 7, the party faces the first of three important by-elections – one for a seat in the Dewan Rakyat, or national assembly, and two more for state legislative seats. The first test is for a Perak seat in which support for the Barisan appears to be waning.
"The problem is not the opposition, but within our own ranks," a local leader told the Kuala Lumpur-based website Malaysian Insider, referring to the perennial problem of factionalism within Umno.
Najib has sought to nullify the opposition with force. Last Monday, a rally led by Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim was broken up by police who fired tear gas at the audience. Other rallies have been cancelled as well. Two opposition newspapers were suspended for three months, presumably because the two papers have hammered away at allegations of Najib's connections with the two men on trial for killing Altantuya in October of 2006 and her role in the €1 billion purchase of French submarines that netted one of his closest friends €114 million in "commissions."
To say Najib brings considerable baggage with him is an understatement. While attention has focused on allegations of corruption in the submarine purchases, the fact is that as defense minister from 1999 to 2008, Najib presided over a cornucopia of defense deals that poured a river of money into the coffers of his close friends and UMNO cronies. A September 24, 2007 story in Asia Sentinel quoted Foreign Policy in Focus, a think tank supported by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, as saying that "many foreign arms manufacturers generally used well-connected Malaysians as their lobbyists for contracts."
Three contracts approved under Najib have been widely cited by the opposition and fit well into Foreign in Policy in Focus's patronage scale. They have been forced back into public attention by his ascension to the premiership and by the exoneration under questionable circumstances of Abdul Razak Baginda, one of his closest friends, for Altantuya's murder.
Spending for defense accelerated across the board after Najib, called "the driving force" behind Malaysia's military modernization program by Foreign Policy in Focus. The shopping list, the think tank reported, "includes battle tanks from Poland, Russian and British surface-to-air missiles and mobile military bridges, Austrian Steyr assault rifles and Pakistani anti-tank missiles. Kuala Lumpur was also negotiating to buy several F/A 18s, the three French submarines and Russian Sukhoi SU-30 fighter aircraft.
It was the Sukhois that, after the French submarines, became the second controversial purchase brokered by Najib. The deal, worth US$900 million (RM3.2 billion), was through a Russian state company, Federal State Unitary Enterprise 'Rosoboronexport' on May 19, 2003. A company called IMT Defence Sdn. Bhd. was appointed the local agent for the Russian company and received 12 percent of the purchase price, US$108 million (RM380 million). The principal figure and chairman of IMT Defence is Mohamad Adib Adam, the former chief minister of Malacca, the previous Land and Development Minister and a longtime UMNO stalwart.
The involvement of IMT Defence only became known because in March 2005, a former director of IMT, Mohamad Zainuri Mohamad Idrus, filed suit against several Adib-related companies, alleging that Adib and his sister, Askiah Adam, "wanted to prevent him from exposing the reality of the Sukhoi deal." In 2006, Mohamad Zainuri lodged a police report alleging that Adib had stolen the US$108 million (RM 380 million) commission that was supposed to be channeled to the company.
According to Mohamad Zainuri's report, Adib had secretly registered a new company in the federal island of Labuan, Malaysia's offshore banking center, bearing a name similar to IMT Defence Sdn Bhd, allegedly in order to channel the commission illegally to the new company. The report was then sent to the Commercial Crime Investigations Department Headquarters. No report, however, has ever been released to the public.
Then, in late 2007, a third military scandal surfaced. Malaysia's Auditor General, in a report tabled in Parliament on September 7, alleged that a contract to build naval vessels given to PSC-Naval Dockyard, a subsidiary of Penang Shipbuilding & Construction Sdn Bhd, which is owned by another UMNO crony, Amin Shah Omar Shah, was near failure.
PSC-Naval Dockyard was contracted to deliver six patrol boats for the Malaysian Navy in 2004 and complete the delivery by last April. Those were supposed to be the first of 27 offshore vessels ultimately to cost RM24 billion plus the right to maintain and repair all of the country's naval craft. But only two of the barely operational patrol boats had been delivered by mid 2006. There were 298 recorded complaints about the two boats, which were also found to have 100 and 383 uncompleted items aboard them respectively.
The original RM5.35 billion contract ballooned to RM6.75 billion by January 2007. The auditor also reported that the ministry had paid out RM4.26 billion to PSC up to December 2006 although only RM2.87 billion of work had been done, an overpayment of RM1.39 billion, or 48 percent. In addition, Malaysia's cabinet waived late penalties of RM214 million. Between December 1999, according to the Auditor General, 14 "progress payments" amounting to RM943 million despite the fact that the auditor general could find no payment vouchers or relevant documents dealing with the payments.
The auditor general attributed the failure to serious financial mismanagement and technical incompetence stemming from the fact that PSC had never built anything but trawlers or police boats before being given the contract. Once called "Malaysia's Onassis" by former finance minister Daim Zainuddin, Amin Shah (right) was in trouble almost from the start, according to a report in Singapore's Business Times in 2005. The financial crisis of 1997-1998 meant he was desperate to find funds to shore up ancillary businesses, Business times reported.
After a flock of lawsuits, the government ultimately cut off funding in 2004 amid losses and a net liabilities position. Boustead Holdings effectively took control from Amin Shah, reducing him to non-executive chairman.
Umno veteran and former deputy prime minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah wrote in a recent blogpost: "The scandal is bringing shame to the nation and damaging our international credibility. For the honour of the nation, for the honour of the office of prime minister, for the honour of the sovereign institutions expected to endorse, confirm and lend authority to him should he become prime minister according to Umno's plans, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak should finally face these suspicions and implied charges, submit himself to legal scrutiny, and come clean on them."
"Swearing on the Al-Quran is not the way out," Razaleigh continued. "Scoundrels have been known to do that. The truth, established through the rigorous and public scrutiny of the law, is the only remedy if an untrue story has gained currency not just internationally but at home among a large section of the people. Najib should voluntarily offer to testify at the trial of the two officers charged with killing Altantuya Shaariibuu. He could also write to these newspapers and if necessary he should take legal action against them to clear his name and that of our country."
The case has troubling aspects that have increasingly been noted in British and French newspapers after Asia Sentinel raised them in 2007. They bear repeating.
According to testimony in the trial of the two men accused of killing her, Altantuya accompanied her then-lover Abdul Razak Baginda (left) to Paris at a time when Malaysia's defense ministry was negotiating through a Kuala Lumpur-based company, Perimekar Sdn Bhd, to buy two Scorpene submarines and a used Agosta submarine produced by the French government under a French-Spanish joint venture, Armaris, which in turn was bought by DCNS, a French contractor, in 2007. Perimekar at the time was owned by a company called Ombak Laut, which was wholly owned by Abdul Razak.
The contract was not competitive. The Malaysian ministry of defense paid €1 billion (RM4.5 billion) to Amaris for the three submarines, for which Perimekar received a commission of €114 million (RM510 million). Deputy Defense Minister Zainal Abdidin Zin told the Dewan Rakyat, Malaysia's parliament, that the money was paid for "coordination and support services" although the fee amounted to a whopping 11 percent of the sales price for the submarines. Altantuya, by her own admission in the last letter she wrote before her murder, said she had been blackmailing Abdul Razak Baginda, pressuring him for US$500,000. She did not say how she was blackmailing him, leaving open lots of questions.
The French government has never shown any enthusiasm for investigating French companies alleged to be involved in corruption in gaining contracts overseas. It appears likely that it will in this case.
After Altantuya was murdered, one of her accused assassins, Sirul Umar, in a written confession, said he and his boss had been offered RM50,000 to RM100,000 to kill her. In the 22 months since the trial began, nobody in court has thought to ask who was going to pay the money. Abdul Razak Baginda was exonerated by the court and has left the country to study at Oxford.
Again, What Did Najib Know And When Did He Know It?
Asia Sentinel | 29 March 2009
Malaysia's leading ethnic party names a scandal-ridden party hack as its head and the country's leader
On Friday, Malaysia is scheduled to end months of waiting to announce its new prime minister, Najib Tun Razak, after the United Malays National Organisation, the country's biggest ethnic party named him their leader during their annual convention.
Najib told the UMNO parley, held in Kuala Lumpur last week, that it is crucial that his party reform itself or it will lose its hold on the electorate. But Najib's history, and that of the party itself, portends instead a return to the politics and practices that got the national ruling coalition into trouble in the first place, losing its historic two-thirds majority in the national parliament in national elections last year. Najib's ascent to power more likely represents a clear preference by UMNO stalwarts to return to cronyism, money politics and corruption after a six-year interregnum from the authoritarian reign of Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
The new prime minister's history may make it problematical whether the leaders of major countries are going to want to be seen with him. Concerns include hundreds of millions of dollars in questionable contracts steered to UMNO cronies and friends, not to mention continuing allegations of his involvement in the murder of the Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu following the controversial purchase of French submarines and, more recently, his role in sabotaging the opposition in the state of Perak and his shuttering newspapers and thwarting opposition candidates during his own party's elections last week.
The convention itself was a good example. Opponents of the Najib team were denied places on the ballot by a panel supposedly charged with cleaning up money politics, although they let Najib's allies slide by after having committed the same offenses. The result was that the deputy president, Muhyiddin Yassin, and all three vice presidents are from the Najib faction although the Najib forces were unable to prevent Khairy Jamaluddin, the son-in-law of ousted Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmand Badawi, from becoming head of the important UMNO Youth wing. They also were unable to stop Shahrizat Abdul Jalil from defeating longtime party hack Rafidah Aziz to take over the Wanita, the women's wing of the party, also a Badawi ally.
The final election night erupted into name-calling, with allies of Mukhriz Mahathir, the son of the former prime minister, charging that Khairy had bought the votes to make him head of UMNO Youth. Mahathir Mohamad himself railed against the two candidates against his son, calling them corrupt. Rais Yatim, the foreign minister, who lost out in one of the vice president races, demanded that UMNO's disciplinary board investigate the entire new supreme council over allegations that they had delivered gifts and money to delegates in the effort to win their seats. Mahathir Mohamad has repeatedly launched furious attacks on UMNO leaders, calling them corrupt although he showed up at the last night of the convention to be seen with Najib and others.
The UMNO-owned New Straits Times described the top party positions as having "given much-needed breathing space to Najib as he sets out to unite UMNO and push the party to undertake the reforms he has promised. He will have less of a task to deal with the factionalism that so often arises after a bitterly fought contest in the party." But in fact, UMNO appears to be as much riven by factional politics as it was going into the convention.
As early as April 7, the party faces the first of three important by-elections – one for a seat in the Dewan Rakyat, or national assembly, and two more for state legislative seats. The first test is for a Perak seat in which support for the Barisan appears to be waning.
"The problem is not the opposition, but within our own ranks," a local leader told the Kuala Lumpur-based website Malaysian Insider, referring to the perennial problem of factionalism within Umno.
Najib has sought to nullify the opposition with force. Last Monday, a rally led by Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim was broken up by police who fired tear gas at the audience. Other rallies have been cancelled as well. Two opposition newspapers were suspended for three months, presumably because the two papers have hammered away at allegations of Najib's connections with the two men on trial for killing Altantuya in October of 2006 and her role in the €1 billion purchase of French submarines that netted one of his closest friends €114 million in "commissions."
To say Najib brings considerable baggage with him is an understatement. While attention has focused on allegations of corruption in the submarine purchases, the fact is that as defense minister from 1999 to 2008, Najib presided over a cornucopia of defense deals that poured a river of money into the coffers of his close friends and UMNO cronies. A September 24, 2007 story in Asia Sentinel quoted Foreign Policy in Focus, a think tank supported by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, as saying that "many foreign arms manufacturers generally used well-connected Malaysians as their lobbyists for contracts."
Three contracts approved under Najib have been widely cited by the opposition and fit well into Foreign in Policy in Focus's patronage scale. They have been forced back into public attention by his ascension to the premiership and by the exoneration under questionable circumstances of Abdul Razak Baginda, one of his closest friends, for Altantuya's murder.
Spending for defense accelerated across the board after Najib, called "the driving force" behind Malaysia's military modernization program by Foreign Policy in Focus. The shopping list, the think tank reported, "includes battle tanks from Poland, Russian and British surface-to-air missiles and mobile military bridges, Austrian Steyr assault rifles and Pakistani anti-tank missiles. Kuala Lumpur was also negotiating to buy several F/A 18s, the three French submarines and Russian Sukhoi SU-30 fighter aircraft.
It was the Sukhois that, after the French submarines, became the second controversial purchase brokered by Najib. The deal, worth US$900 million (RM3.2 billion), was through a Russian state company, Federal State Unitary Enterprise 'Rosoboronexport' on May 19, 2003. A company called IMT Defence Sdn. Bhd. was appointed the local agent for the Russian company and received 12 percent of the purchase price, US$108 million (RM380 million). The principal figure and chairman of IMT Defence is Mohamad Adib Adam, the former chief minister of Malacca, the previous Land and Development Minister and a longtime UMNO stalwart.
The involvement of IMT Defence only became known because in March 2005, a former director of IMT, Mohamad Zainuri Mohamad Idrus, filed suit against several Adib-related companies, alleging that Adib and his sister, Askiah Adam, "wanted to prevent him from exposing the reality of the Sukhoi deal." In 2006, Mohamad Zainuri lodged a police report alleging that Adib had stolen the US$108 million (RM 380 million) commission that was supposed to be channeled to the company.
According to Mohamad Zainuri's report, Adib had secretly registered a new company in the federal island of Labuan, Malaysia's offshore banking center, bearing a name similar to IMT Defence Sdn Bhd, allegedly in order to channel the commission illegally to the new company. The report was then sent to the Commercial Crime Investigations Department Headquarters. No report, however, has ever been released to the public.
Then, in late 2007, a third military scandal surfaced. Malaysia's Auditor General, in a report tabled in Parliament on September 7, alleged that a contract to build naval vessels given to PSC-Naval Dockyard, a subsidiary of Penang Shipbuilding & Construction Sdn Bhd, which is owned by another UMNO crony, Amin Shah Omar Shah, was near failure.
PSC-Naval Dockyard was contracted to deliver six patrol boats for the Malaysian Navy in 2004 and complete the delivery by last April. Those were supposed to be the first of 27 offshore vessels ultimately to cost RM24 billion plus the right to maintain and repair all of the country's naval craft. But only two of the barely operational patrol boats had been delivered by mid 2006. There were 298 recorded complaints about the two boats, which were also found to have 100 and 383 uncompleted items aboard them respectively.
The original RM5.35 billion contract ballooned to RM6.75 billion by January 2007. The auditor also reported that the ministry had paid out RM4.26 billion to PSC up to December 2006 although only RM2.87 billion of work had been done, an overpayment of RM1.39 billion, or 48 percent. In addition, Malaysia's cabinet waived late penalties of RM214 million. Between December 1999, according to the Auditor General, 14 "progress payments" amounting to RM943 million despite the fact that the auditor general could find no payment vouchers or relevant documents dealing with the payments.
The auditor general attributed the failure to serious financial mismanagement and technical incompetence stemming from the fact that PSC had never built anything but trawlers or police boats before being given the contract. Once called "Malaysia's Onassis" by former finance minister Daim Zainuddin, Amin Shah (right) was in trouble almost from the start, according to a report in Singapore's Business Times in 2005. The financial crisis of 1997-1998 meant he was desperate to find funds to shore up ancillary businesses, Business times reported.
After a flock of lawsuits, the government ultimately cut off funding in 2004 amid losses and a net liabilities position. Boustead Holdings effectively took control from Amin Shah, reducing him to non-executive chairman.
Umno veteran and former deputy prime minister Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah wrote in a recent blogpost: "The scandal is bringing shame to the nation and damaging our international credibility. For the honour of the nation, for the honour of the office of prime minister, for the honour of the sovereign institutions expected to endorse, confirm and lend authority to him should he become prime minister according to Umno's plans, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak should finally face these suspicions and implied charges, submit himself to legal scrutiny, and come clean on them."
"Swearing on the Al-Quran is not the way out," Razaleigh continued. "Scoundrels have been known to do that. The truth, established through the rigorous and public scrutiny of the law, is the only remedy if an untrue story has gained currency not just internationally but at home among a large section of the people. Najib should voluntarily offer to testify at the trial of the two officers charged with killing Altantuya Shaariibuu. He could also write to these newspapers and if necessary he should take legal action against them to clear his name and that of our country."
The case has troubling aspects that have increasingly been noted in British and French newspapers after Asia Sentinel raised them in 2007. They bear repeating.
According to testimony in the trial of the two men accused of killing her, Altantuya accompanied her then-lover Abdul Razak Baginda (left) to Paris at a time when Malaysia's defense ministry was negotiating through a Kuala Lumpur-based company, Perimekar Sdn Bhd, to buy two Scorpene submarines and a used Agosta submarine produced by the French government under a French-Spanish joint venture, Armaris, which in turn was bought by DCNS, a French contractor, in 2007. Perimekar at the time was owned by a company called Ombak Laut, which was wholly owned by Abdul Razak.
The contract was not competitive. The Malaysian ministry of defense paid €1 billion (RM4.5 billion) to Amaris for the three submarines, for which Perimekar received a commission of €114 million (RM510 million). Deputy Defense Minister Zainal Abdidin Zin told the Dewan Rakyat, Malaysia's parliament, that the money was paid for "coordination and support services" although the fee amounted to a whopping 11 percent of the sales price for the submarines. Altantuya, by her own admission in the last letter she wrote before her murder, said she had been blackmailing Abdul Razak Baginda, pressuring him for US$500,000. She did not say how she was blackmailing him, leaving open lots of questions.
The French government has never shown any enthusiasm for investigating French companies alleged to be involved in corruption in gaining contracts overseas. It appears likely that it will in this case.
After Altantuya was murdered, one of her accused assassins, Sirul Umar, in a written confession, said he and his boss had been offered RM50,000 to RM100,000 to kill her. In the 22 months since the trial began, nobody in court has thought to ask who was going to pay the money. Abdul Razak Baginda was exonerated by the court and has left the country to study at Oxford.
Again, What Did Najib Know And When Did He Know It?
VOTE FOR THE RAKYAT ON APRIL 7TH 2009
50,000-100,000 turned up in Taiping on 29 March to support Nizar Jamaluddin's candidacy for the parliamentary seat of Bukit Gantang. (Pic courtesy of Knights Templar)
BUKIT SELAMBAU (N25): S. Manikumar (PKR)
BUKIT GANTANG (P59): Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin (PAS)
BATANG AI (N29): Jawah anak Gerang (PKR)
Congratulations to all three Pakatan Rakyat candidates for the Bukit Selambau, Bukit Gantang, and Batang Ai by-elections on April 7th. Judging by the epic turnout (some say as many as 100,000 showed up) for Nizar Jamaluddin in Taiping, the people of Malaysia have absolutely had it with Umno/BN.
The only vote Najib Razak will ever get from me is for "Most Despicable Politician In Malaysia." I can think of only one word to describe all the self-serving creeps who endorse Najib as PM...
BUKIT SELAMBAU (N25): S. Manikumar (PKR)
BUKIT GANTANG (P59): Mohd Nizar Jamaluddin (PAS)
BATANG AI (N29): Jawah anak Gerang (PKR)
Congratulations to all three Pakatan Rakyat candidates for the Bukit Selambau, Bukit Gantang, and Batang Ai by-elections on April 7th. Judging by the epic turnout (some say as many as 100,000 showed up) for Nizar Jamaluddin in Taiping, the people of Malaysia have absolutely had it with Umno/BN.
The only vote Najib Razak will ever get from me is for "Most Despicable Politician In Malaysia." I can think of only one word to describe all the self-serving creeps who endorse Najib as PM...
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