Terror Month

Hate to be so glib about it, but what else can one say about this October. It was a real “terror” month! No need for me to repeat the horrific international events in Bali, Zamboanga, Manila, Washington DC, Moscow, et cetera. Those were real events involving real terrorists. What may be more interesting for us would be the kind of incredible things that have been happening in our beloved country in October – really terrorlah!

Let’s start with the government’s handling of the 13-year old girl who was allegedly raped in a detention camp for illegal immigrants. Stung by the Filipino government’s protest over the alleged rape of this girl, our blundering authorities proceeded to deport her without ascertaining her nationality. As it turns out, she is really a Malaysian! Now, the proper thing to do would be to bring the girl home and try the rapist and let the Philippines sort out their mistake. Nope. The PM mounts his high horse and demands an apology from the Philippines! Has the man lost his marbles or what? Not a word is said about apprehending the rapist. And shouldn’t we haul on the carpet the officer in charge of the camp and the buffoons at the immigration who mucked up the case? As far as we can tell, not a single bungling Malaysian has yet to be reprimanded nor any action taken against any person.

This is truly a case of Malaysia terrorlah! Only in Malaysia can one get raped in a detention camp, and under the eyes of the police and the perpetrator gets away scot free; only in Malaysia can its citizens be deported to another country without good cause; only in Malaysia will you get jailed for exposing corruption while the accused gets away with not enough evidence; only in Malaysia can you be removed as deputy prime minister after being accused of being a homosexual but get elected unanimously as a woman leader when accused of being a lesbian; should one go on?

No Entry For Reformist

Talking about the immigration department, an item written by Malaysiakini analyst James Wong caught my attention. It seems that the Malaysian immigration authority recently stopped Indonesian lawyer, Dr. Adnan Buyung Nasution from entering the country. He was simply ordered to leave upon arrival at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

Now, who is Dr Adnan Buyung Nasution? An Islamic fundamentalist? Potential terrorist? No sir! Those who follow contemporary Indonesian politics know that Adnan Buyung is not only a leading Indonesian constitutional scholar and human rights lawyer as well as a member of the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), but was also one of the leading Reformasi figures of Indonesia.

He was invited by KeADILan to speak on the condition of jailed ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim. He also came with a petition signed by several key Indonesian politicians, academics and representatives from non-governmental organisations urging the Malaysian government to allow Anwar to seek the treatment of his choice.

A little more about the man from Wong:

“Although a pious Muslim and a legal defender of many Indonesian Muslim opposition leaders and activists, Adnan believes that, ultimately, no one can “unify the country based on religion” and national unity ‘must be based on sameness of citizenship, regardless of religion’ (quoted in Douglas E. Ramage, Politics in Indonesia — Democracy, Islam and the Ideology of Tolerance (London, Routledge, 1995: p.156)

Moreover, despite his consistent and vocal rejection of theocracy in Indonesia, Adnan also warned that the exaggeration of the hypothetical choice of only between an Islamic state and secular autocracy backed by the armed forces, could frighten people away from democracy.

In his view, although Suharto and the Indonesian Armed Forces were opposed to the establishment of an Islamic state, they were also not religiously neutral vis-à-vis other religions because all they wanted was no challenge to their undemocratic rule from any quarters.

In the final analysis, Adnan is a genuinely moderate Muslim whose idea of universal human rights and democracy threatened ‘Suhartoism’ in Indonesia before 1998 ….”

When our immigration authority can act in such a high-handed manner with respect to an unimpeachable citizen of a neighbouring country, do we have a right to complain when another immigration authority demands that we remove our shoes for inspection? BN cannot loselah!

B.K. Ong of SOS! Penang made a cogent point in an e-mail recently. Ong argued that the by-elections in Gaya and the earlier one in Likas, caused by a PBS petition that the SAPP candidate violated election rules, could have been avoided if the Election Commission had taken a fairer course of action to the election violations - namely, it should have just nullified the victory of the offending candidate, rather than nullify all the candidates who took part in the election.

I find his argument quite watertight. Averred Ong:

“It may be raised that the phantom voters found in the electoral roll could be a good excuse to nullify the entire election. But this should not be the case if we consider that, again it is the non-offending party who would then be penalised! The fault lies with the Election Commission and any correction to this should not give any advantage or second chance to the candidate who had been found out to have played with foul means. Nor should it disadvantage the candidates who played by the rules. If anybody were to be penalized, it should be the relevant personnel in charge of the specific electoral roll. As it happened the laws are changed so that the roll cannot be challenged after it is gazetted but what happens if frauds were to be found out later? The Election Commission is supposed to uphold election rules, not to exempt itself from upholding the laws, nor from being penalised for offences committed by itself as a neutral referee for the elections!”

Ong went on to point out that, in the case of former DAP man Wee Choo Keong in the Bandar KL constituency, who was found to be ineligible, his seat went to the BN candidate who won the second highest votes. The Election Commission, following its own precedent, should have done the same and given Likas to Christine Liew, who won the second highest vote, when the ‘old Turk’ Yong was found ineligible for his seat. Instead Yong, who was disqualified, was allowed to run again.

Well, well, it looks like the BN cannot ever lose. Really terrorlah!

Outdoing Saddam

It’s not only Saddam Hussein of Iraq who can get a 100 percent endorsement from his people. The newly annointed Puteri UMNO head Azalina Othman Said has done better. She got the job without contest when 100 percent of the 160-odd Puteri divisions nominated her for the job and no one else got a single nomination. Mind you, there were at least five candidates who had offered themselves, including Ummi Hafilda, whose fame even failed to secure her a single nomination. Some political heavyweights must have leaned very hard on the divisions. In offering herself for service, Ummi didn’t mince any words nor bother with any of Azalina’s alleged misappropriation of funds and the like. She went for the jugular (or so she thought) and claimed that Azalina was a lesbian and was thereby unfit for high office. Ummi forcefully argued that if a deputy prime minister could be brought down on charges of homosexuality, why should Azalina be exempted. It seems no one bought her argument and the prime minister himself came out in Azalina’s defence to state that the lesbian claim remains unproven. Moral of the story; chose the right patron and all will be yours. Hmmm… I seem to recall Dr. Faust’s pact with the devil was sort of similar.

But the controversy over the new chief of the UMNO ‘princesses’ seems destined to prolonged. At the point of writing, an anonymous critic has attacked former Azalina detractor, Mastina Abdul Hamid, one of the five erstwhile contenders for the top post, for obsequiously becoming a “turncoat” in her call to all members to now fully back the new leader. Now, it will just be a matter of time before we get a broadside from the volatile Ummi.

The Most ‘Terror’ Terror Expert

We reserve this Malaysian accolade to Rohan Gunaratna, the terrorist expert who has earned the wrath of virtually the whole country, including all the Malaysian political parties, who have condemned his book Inside Al-Qaeda for being the source of a UN allusion to Malaysian organisations with terrorist links.

My sympathy, strange as it may seem, is with Rohan, a mere ambitious academic trying to make his mark in this dog-eat-dog world. Who is this Rohan Gunaratna? Piecing together information from the internet, here is thumbnail sketch of the Malaysian Public Enemy Number One.

Rohan Gunaratna, we understand is a research assistant at St. Andrews’ University in Scotland, which according to Rohan (from his webpage) is an “acknowledged expert on terrorism in South Asia”. As a Sri Lankan, his expertise is derived originally from his area of expertise in the Tamil Tigers, the militant Tamil separatist group.

Despite that, since September 11, he has been one of the most prolific commentators on global terrorism, being courted by the media and by governments. He recently visited Australia, where he made a number of widely reported, but unchallenged, claims that there were several “child-killing terrorist groups” operating in Australia, hiding behind community and humanitarian fronts, whilst manipulating the Australian government through powerful lobbying of politicians.

In an early media appearance in 1997, Rohan made the amusing claim that the Tamil Tigers had developed a high-tech bodysuit to wear during their suicide bombings that would ensure the head is not destroyed but rather is transformed into a “lethal projectile -sometimes traveling as far as two hundred yards”. He declared this body suit “more advanced than the body suits used by any other groups”, and warned of “technology transfer” to the Middle East. No evidence was given to support his claims, and the media ran it on the basis of him being an “expert”.

Rohan’s claims naturally attracted widespread criticism. His book, “International & Regional Security Implications of the Sri Lankan Tamil Insurgency” (privately published), was described by the Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations as, “a book replete with factual errors and devoid of indexes, footnotes, or any evidence to substantiate the claims made”.

On that note, we confer the title “The Most Terror Terror Expert” on Rohan and, assign him forever to the rubbish heap of failed academics posing as dubious experts of some new-fangled field or other.

Number 110 – Terror Sekali!

Our final tribute must go the Malaysian media. They have surpassed our wildest expectations in performance!

In a new worldwide press freedom index published last week by an international media watchdog, Reporters San Frontiers (RSF), Malaysia secured the 110th spot out of 139 countries surveyed.

Indonesia performed the best among Southeast Asian countries, coming in at 57, while Thailand was ranked 65, Cambodia 71 and the Philippines 89. Countries which performed worse than Malaysia are Brunei, Vietnam, Laos and Burma. Singapore was not ranked. In a class of its own?

The index, reflecting the state of press freedom in the ranked countries between Sept 2001 and Oct 2002, measured the amount of freedom that journalists and the media had in each country and the efforts made by governments to see that press freedom was respected.

Malaysia terror sekali!

D.L. Daun

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