Setback Fail to Deter Malaysian Reformer

He walks slowly, with measured steps. On the stairs, he holds onto the railing. His back still hurts eight years after a police chief’s punch sent him crashing to a concrete floor and gave him the black eye and bruises that shocked the world.

I’ve finally caught up with Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, for whom Canada – especially Paul Martin, a pal from the World Bank circle – lobbied during his six years in solitary confinement (1999-2004).

Last summer, Ibrahim had to cancel a visit to Toronto, and in December, our conversation on his last day of a visiting professorship at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. had to be cut short.

Today over dinner, the Malaysian equivalent of Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi is happy to oblige.

He was heir-presumptive to Mahathir Mohamad, longstanding prime minister, but was dismissed Sept. 2, 1998 and arrested two weeks later, which is when he was dragged handcuffed and blindfolded to a room.

Later testimony showed that the burly police chief had come in quietly, put his index finger to his lips to motion everyone to be silent, so he could add the sting of surprise to his blows.

“The moral of the story,” Ibrahim tells me, smiling, “is that if you ever get to name a police chief, make sure he is thin.”

Slapped with a trumped-up charge of sodomy, Ibrahim had the conviction overturned by the courts but was found guilty of corruption and barred from politics until April 2008.

He was not released until well after Mahathir stepped down in 2003. After medical treatment in Munich, Ibrahim went to Oxford to teach and then Georgetown.

Now back home and plotting his political return, he finds Mahathir’s successor, Abdullah Badawi, blocking him at every turn, using some of Mahathir’s tactics.

Why had Mahathir turned on him? The court of “close family members and cronies were feeling insecure with my talking about corruption and the need for freedom.”

But real trouble came when “he asked me to bail out his son, who had then a home in Vancouver and whose company was ailing and needed 2 billion ringgit ($600 million).

“Mahathir wanted the treasury to bail it out, and I said, `Look, there’s no way we can do it, except to table a supplementary budget in parliament.’

“As finance minister, I had to disagree. At about that time, I met Martin and he understood my position.”

Mahathir didn’t.

“He got the state petroleum company, Petronas, to come up with the money” and fired Ibrahim.

In solitary confinement, Ibrahim took to performing the post-midnight voluntary prayer called Tahajjud, memorizing the Qur’an, exercising and reading both Islamic and Western canons, “enough to become a professor.”

“I have a great wife and kids and friends who stood by me, as did many people abroad. Paul did. And the Canadian high commissioner himself appeared at my trial, and then made sure some Canadian official was always present in court during the proceedings.

“My consolation was that others have had it worse. When I met Nelson Mandela later, I told him that compared to his, mine was a short walk to freedom.”

Mahathir has since turned against Badawi for cancelling his legacy projects, such as a causeway to Singapore.

Badawi, in turn, has turned against Ibrahim, even though both are family friends and met two years ago. “He was exceedingly polite.” But harassment continues.

“I cannot go to a campus. I mean I can go but only with a permit. We are organizing a meeting here in Kuala Lumpur and the police are refusing a permit.”

Even when one is forthcoming, “there’s police all over, hundreds of them checking out cars.

“Nobody dare (help me). They get harassed. Their licences may be revoked.”

The media maintain a blackout, and the bloggers are “harassed and hauled into police stations, and have their computers confiscated.”

His wife Wan Azizah, an MP, leads their National Justice Party. But he plans to run for the presidency in May.

“If the Registrar of Societies, in the ministry of home affairs, does not approve my request to run, we will go to court.”

It’s a good issue to launch his campaign for the next election.

“Yes, but I’ll need a good judge.”

It’s possible that Badawi would call the vote this fall, well before Ibrahim’s ban ends next spring. Ibrahim fully expects it.

So, why the Quixotic quest?

The self-described “incorrigible optimist” says he has a commitment to democracy. “I went to jail because of it. Now that I am out, I cannot abdicate that responsibility. The country needs a change. The situation is not hopeless. You cannot under-estimate the wisdom of the people. They are aware of what’s going on.”

What can Canada do to help?

“Canada can continue to talk about freedom, democracy and human rights. You are seen to be more balanced and fair. You can air some of these concerns that I have outlined.”

- Haroon Siddiqui, Toronto Star


Part Two : Why the West's `war on terror' is failing



Malaysia - Hunt takes cops to cyberspace

Police are using a foreign website to trace the blogger who posted allegations that a politician had received money to assist in freeing three Emergency Ordinance detainees.

Federal Commercial Crimes Investigations Department director Comm Datuk Ramly Yussof said the allegations made involved classified documents.

“We have sought the assistance of an international website to trace the person who posted the blog,” he said.

He declined to give more details on how the investigations would be carried out.

The Star had on March 3 front-paged an article saying that a senior politician was alleged to have received more than RM5mil to free three suspects detained under the Emergency Ordinance.

The following day, Deputy Internal Security Minister Datuk Johari Baharum, who said he was the politician named in the website, denied any involvement and said the authorities could investigate him. (Source)