Johor will head the list of states Pakatan Harapan aims to win and form State Government in the 14GE on the way to Putrajaya

The launching of Parti Amanah Negara  (AMANAH)  in Gelang Patah parliamentary constituency a week after AMANAH’s official launch in Johor is a sign of AMANAH’s thrust and momentum in preparation for the next general elections which must be held in less than 30 months.

In the 14th General Election, Johor will the front-line state and Johor will head the list of states Pakatan Harapan aims to win and form the State Government on the way to Federal power in Putrajaya.

Until the 2008 General Election, Johor was the impregnable and invincible state of Umno/BN, so much so that UMNO/BN leaders boasted about making Johore a zero-Opposition state in the 12th GE in 2008.

However, the political landscape in Johor underwent a drastic and fundamental change in the 12th and 13th General Elections, and Johor politics will never be the same again as compared to the first five decades after Merdeka in 1957.

In the 13th GE in 2013, Pakatan Rakat comprising DAP, PKR and PAS achieved the “Great Leap” forward in Johor  with PR representation in the Johor State Assembly tripled from six to 18 seats, one seat short of denying the BN its two-thirds majority in the Johor State Assembly.

If there was a fair and democratic “one man, one vote” delineation of constituencies, PR should have won another eight seats, i.e.26 out of a total of 56 State Assembly seat in Johore as PR secured 46% per cent of the total votes cast for the Johore State Assembly seats.

The Opposition parties are  not asking for another trebling of State Assembly seats in the 14th GE, but only to double our seats from 18 to 36 seats, which will see the formation of a Pakatan Harapan state government in  Johor.

However, if the  previous opposition coalition of Pakatan Rakyat had been maintained, such a possibility of a quantum leap in Johor in the 14GE as to catapult the Opposition  to the seats of power in Johor would have been impossible.

In fact, a Pakatan Rakyat coalition in the 14 GE would be hard put to defend the present 18 State Assembly seats, as the voters of Johor may be prepared to vote again for UMNO/BN state government on the adage “the devil you know is better than the angel you don’t”.

This was because Pakatan Rakyat had been a great disappointment after the 13th General Election to the people of Malaysia, in particular the voters of Johor who had transformed the political terrain of Johore by their unprecedented support for the Opposition in Johore, because PR had been broken by PAS breaking the Pakatan Rakyat consensus principle  and PAS refusal to abide by the Pakatan Rakyat Common Policy Framework.

Between a corrupt, inefficient and self-serving Barisan Nasional government, and a coalition of convenience without common policy consensus and objectives, the voters of Johore as elsewhere in the country would probably prefer “the devil that you know than the angel that you don’t”!

The formation of Parti Amanah Negara and the establishment of Pakatan Harapan at this crucial juncture of the political development of the nation is most critical  as they fill the political void and vacuum created by the disintegration of Pakatan Rakyat.

Out of the ashes of Pakatan Rakyat, there is now a new hope in the politicial horizon of Malaysia with  the formation of Pakatan Harapan comprising DAP, PKR and AMANAH

A new political wave represented by AMANAH and Pakatan Harapan also provides a sharp contrast to the turmoils and turbulence in discredited political parties like the report today of some 20 UMNO branches in Sepang calling on the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, to resign.

The group’s spokesperson, Rushdan Mohamed, said Najib should resign as both prime minister and as Umno president because the prolonged scandals afflicting him have made him a liability.

He said that there is widespread dissatisfaction, even among the three million ordinary UMNO members, with the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), the 1MDB scandal and the RM2.6 billion  donation” directly traced to Najib’s personal banking account.

He estimated that only about 60 percent of the Umno members currently support Najib.

Many Umno branches nationwide have, at their branch annual general meetings, called for party elections to be held as scheduled next year, including about two-thirds of the branches in the Umno Sepang division.

UMNO party elections have however been postponed by 18 months to mid-2018.

Najib is facing  a crisis of confidence not only among the 30 million Malaysians, but even among the three million UMNO members, although he has at present the loyal support of the 300 UMNO chieftains who fill the UMNO Supreme Council and UMNO divisional leaderships.

This is in fact a battle between the three million UMNO members vs the 300 UMNO chieftains, with the former  no voice or rights as compared to the latter, and the challenge is not only to reach out to ordinary 30 million Malaysians but also the three million UMNO members to unite on a common national platform to save the country from corrupt and repressive policies to safeguard the interests of a few at the expense of the majority of Malaysians, including the majority of UMNO members.

[Speech (2) at the ceramah in conjunction with the launching of Parti Amanah Negara Gelang Patah in Kangkar Baru on Wednesday, November 18, 2015 at 10 pm]

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 19 November 2015, 1:39 pm and is filed under
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The Halus (Subtle) Way Datuk Onn Aborted the Malayan Union

M. Bakri Musa

www.bakrimusa.com

18th Nov 2015

In an earlier commentary I gave high marks to our leaders for their enlightened ways and sophisticated strategies in the pursuit of our independence. Malaysia could have easily gone in a very different direction following the Japanese defeat. It could have just as quickly been turned into a permanent British Dominion.

     The man responsible for sparing the country that terrible fate was Datuk Onn Jaafar. He was a former senior civil servant, a significant and rare achievement for a native. Had he been a Hang Tuah, ever loyal to his sultan and the British, there would be no limit to the height of his personal achievement within the colonial civil service. He could have been the first native Governor-General of the Dominion of Malaya.

      Instead, in the tradition of Jebat, Onn saw the grave injustice perpetrated upon Malays by the colonialists in cahoots with our sultans. They had sold out our country, repeating what their brother Sultan of Johor did with Singapore 127 years earlier.

      The pathetic aspect to the Malayan Union Treaty, like the earlier ceding of Singapore to the British, was how easy it was to make those Malay sultans capitulate. Sir Harold MacMichael, the British point man, needed only a few months to secure the agreement. There was not even a whimper of protest from the sultans.

     Some, like the Johor Sultan, enthusiastically signed the treaty within a day or two, and were proud of that fact! The few who had flashes of courage quickly backed down under threat of being replaced or prosecuted for presumed collaboration with the Japanese during the war.

     It turned out that those Malay sultans – Allah’s representatives on earth – also menurut arahan (follow direction), as per the mantra of the civil service, not from Allah but from Sir Harold.

     Thanks to Datuk Onn, the Union treaty was rescinded. He took on the mighty British and prevailed, with no help from his sultans. Onn did it without being biadap (treasonous) to the sultans or resorting to armed insurrections.

      It is ironic that Onn would be instrumental in this endeavor. Earlier the Sultan of Johor had banished Onn for daring to criticize him. If Onn had been consumed with settling old scores and at the same time endear himself to the British, he would have let the treaty be, and those Malay sultans would today be reduced to the status of the Sultan of Sulu.

     Onn’s accomplishment was even more remarkable considering that by the time he mounted the challenge, Malayan Union was already a fait accompli. The sultans had already signed the treaty, ceding all their authorities to the British. Essentially Malayan Union made what was hitherto “indirect” British rule into a direct one, with no pretense to the contrary.

     The open but peaceful opposition to the Malayan Union (and also indirectly, the Malay sultans) was truly a transformational cultural phenomenon. It was a genuine mass movement made even more remarkable considering the speed with which it was planned, organized and executed. Consider that up until a few months before the event there was not a single national Malay organization; there were plenty of little ones each with its own parochial agenda. Onn changed all that with UMNO.

     The other remarkable aspect was that up until that time it was the accepted wisdom that Malays were an apathetic lot, not in the least interested in politics; hence the British overreaching attempt at railroading the treaty. Onn changed that too. Today, Malays are obsessed with politics to the detriment of everything else. Who says we cannot change Malays? Onn did it successfully, and in a matter of years, not decades or generations.

     Before Datuk Onn, the Malay nationalist movement was slow to develop because of our separate political identities in the various states. Some of the “Federated” states felt that they were better off with British “protection.” The “un-Federated” states meanwhile felt very proud of their “independence,” even though that was more illusory than real.

     Even among the “un-Federated” states there were significant variations. Johor’s sultan was an unabashed Anglophile; his Kelantan counterpart was notorious for his insularity. Their subjects in turn followed the patterns set by their sultans.

     Even as late as the 1950s and 60s Malays still lacked a sense of common national identity, with Kelantan Malays considering themselves separate from those in Johore. Even government jobs and quarters were restricted to “anak Johore” (the children of Johore) or “anak Selangor.”

     Thanks to Onn, the formation of UMNO was the first time Malays began to have a sense of national consciousness, at least politically. It would be a few more decades before that sentiment would truly be felt by the masses, and then spread beyond politics.

     One undisputed but not widely acknowledged fact to the successful opposition against the Malayan Union was that Malay sultans were of no help. They were in fact very much part of the problem with their earlier capitulation through British flattery. The pathetic part was that the sultans’ price for their agreement was so ridiculously cheap: a modest stipend and the knightship of some ancient English order. Regardless whether it was the sultans’ collective stupidity or British perfidy, the result was the same.

     The surprise was that there was minimal republican or anti-sultan sentiment expressed during all those mass protests against the Malayan Union despite the obvious sellouts by the rulers. On the contrary, the Malay masses reacted in exactly the reverse and counter-intuitive fashion; they expressed their unreserved affection and loyalty to their sultans.

     This display was no more dramatically demonstrated than on that one day in Kota Baru, Kelantan, where all the sultans were gathered for the formal installation of the first British Governor-General. The rakyats packed the palace grounds such that the sultans could not leave to attend the ceremony.

     On the surface it was a show of massive public loyalty; on the subtle side, it was nothing more than the mass kidnapping of the sultans by their subjects. The Malay masses had in effect “CB’ed” (confined to barracks) their sultans.

     I doubt whether those sultans received the subtle message that day. That would require some degree of subtlety, intelligence and sophistication for which they had not demonstrated thus far. The British on the other hand heard the message loud and clear, and the Malayan Union treaty was rescinded.

     Had it not been for the rakyats intervening, Malay sultans today would have been all titles and tanjak (ceremonial headgear symbolizing the sultan’s power) but little else.

     So when former Prime Minister Mahathir lamented that he could not change Malays, and by implication we cannot be changed, I bring forth this dramatic example of our remarkable transformation in response to the Malayan Union threat.

     An enterprising soul, Fahmi Reza, has collected all the file pictures and cartoons of the anti-Malayan Union protests into his award-winning documentary, “Sepuloh Tahum Sebulum Merdeka” (“Ten Years Before Merdeka”). It is truly inspiring to see those Malays, young and old, male and female, in sarongs and in suits marching calmly and peacefully in the streets. Their only uniting feature was the defiance and resolve that shone bright on their faces.

     Fahmi Reza has done a remarkable public service in producing this documentary. To his credit, he has also made it freely available on the ‘Net.

     Much has been written about the aborted Malayan Union, both from the perspective of the natives as well as the colonials. I have yet however, to see anyone portray those mass rallies against the treaty as expressions of our rebellion against the sultans. That was a measure of Onn’s subtlety and sophistication.

    Onn was attuned to the halus ways of our culture and used that to bring out the best in us. He united us towards a shared and noble objective –  to kill off the existential threat posed by the Malayan Union Treaty.

     In contrast, today Malaysia is cursed with a leader who revels in the crass aspects of Malay culture, in particular our propensity to berlagak (conspicuous consumption).  Najib’s jetting around in his luxurious jets and his wife’s Bollywood gaudy tastes are expressions of this ugly and destructive trait. His underlings only too willingly ape him with gusto; monkey see,monkey do. Onn united the rakyats; Najib polarizes Malays, as well as Malaysians.

     Onn’s legacy is a free Malaysia; Najib’s will be a Malaysia that is corrupt, divided, and mired in debt.

Adapted from the author’s latest book, Liberating The Malay Mind, ZI Publications Sdn Bhd, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia , 2013.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 19 November 2015, 3:59 pm and is filed under
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Woman believed to be Abdel-Hamid Abu Oud’s cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen and as yet unidentified man dead after raid on St-Denis apartment

Ben Doherty

Guardian

19 November 2015

French forensic teams are investigating whether the body of a man found dead after a massive firefight with police in a St-Denis apartment is that of the alleged mastermind of last week’s Paris terror attacks, Abdel-Hamid Abu Oud.

At least two people died in the assault targeting Abu Oud but neither the 27-year-old Belgian extremist nor another fugitive sought in connection with Friday’s shootings and suicide bombings, Salah Abdeslam, were among the eight people arrested.

One of the dead was a woman, believed to be Abu Oud’s cousin, Hasna Aitboulahcen, who blew herself up with an explosive vest, and the second an as yet unidentified man killed by police sniper fire or a grenade whose body was recovered in rubble from the flat in a rundown house in the rue du Corbillon.

Media reports quoting sources have suggested Abu Oud was killed in the assault but French officials have so far said in public statements that they do not know. Identification was proving difficult because the bodies had to be pieced together, Paris prosecutor François Molins said, and may take “longer than expected”.

The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, told French radio on Thursday that if Abu Oud had managed to return to France from Syria, where he was initially believed to have plotted the attacks from, it showed that there were faults in the entire European system of checks.

Molins said those arrested and killed in the St-Denis raid were likely to have been plotting further attacks.

“A fourth cell of terrorists has been neutralised,” Molins said, in reference to the three “cells” of jihadis who attacked Paris in co-ordinated strikes on Friday night, targeting a football match at the Stade de France, a concert hall, and a swath of cafes and bars in the 10th and 11th arrondissements.

“Everything leads us to believe that given their weaponry and level of preparation that they [the fourth cell] were ready to act.”

The Washington Post reported that two European officials from different countries told the newspaper they had been told Abu Oud was dead by French authorities. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity.

As police investigations into the attacks, their perpetrators, and organisers continue, French diplomats have said president François Hollande will urge the US president, Barack Obama, to act with greater urgency in Syria and Iraq, when the pair meet in Washington next week.

France is supportive of America’s strategy in the two war-torn countries, but is anxious to impress upon the US the destabilising effect the Syrian refugee crisis is having on Europe.

“The message that we want to send to the Americans is simply that the crisis is destabilising Europe,” a French diplomat, who did not wish to be named, told The Guardian. “The problem is that the attacks in Paris and the refugee crisis show that we don’t have time. There is an emergency.”

Eight people were arrested and two bodies were found, one male and a female believed to be Abu Oud’s cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen. It is understood Aitboulahcen died when she detonated an explosive belt she was wearing inside the apartment.

If the dead man is Abu Oud, it is not known precisely how he died: whether he was shot by police, killed by a grenade, or by the suicide blast triggered by Aitboulahcen.

Three people were arrested inside the apartment, along with two who tried to conceal themselves in the rubble. The landlord of the property, who denied any wrongdoing, and a friend were also arrested, as was a man founded wounded in the street.

Investigators had identified Abu Oud, a Belgian of Moroccan descent, as the architect of Friday’s attacks in Paris, which killed 129 people and wounded 368 others.

He was reported to be a key figure in Isis operations outside Syria and Iraq. He was part of an external operations cell that had been tracked by US intelligence agencies, for months.

Initially, it was believed he was in Syria at the time of the Paris attacks, having escaped back to that country following a police raid in Belgium in January.

He has reportedly boasted previously that he was able to move back and forth between Europe and the Middle East undetected by authorities.

A tip-off early in the week had led police to believe that Abu Oud was neither in Syria, nor his native Belgium, but in France.

Phone intercepts, and examination of banking records, led police to 8 rue du Corbillon early on Wednesday.

One of the alleged attackers from Friday night, 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, remains on the run, six days after the attacks. He was briefly detained by police when pulled over for a routine stop in the hours after the attacks, but let go because his name was not yet on any wanted lists.

In the southern French site of Marseille, a teacher at a Jewish school was harasse, abused, and then stabbed in the street on Wednesday night by three people professing support for Isis, prosecutors said.

The 57-year-old victim, who was wearing a kippa, was attacked about 8pm outside his home. He was stabbed in the arm and the leg. His injuries are not life-threatening.

Internationally, after Isis posted a video online threatening a terrorist attack in New York City, mayor Bill de Blasio appeared alongside police commissioner Bill Bratton in Times Square at the unusually late hour of 11pm, saying there was “no specific or credible threat” to the city, and dismissing the video as an “obvious attempt to intimidate the people of New York”.

“The people of New York will not be intimidated,” he said.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 19 November 2015, 4:25 pm and is filed under
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Education Minister Mahdzir Khalid should declare whether he had a hand in setting the immoral questions in the SPM Moral Education paper and if not, who are the officers responsible for such irresponsible conduct and whether they would be penalised

The Education Minister, Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid should declare whether he had a hand in setting the immoral questions in the SPM Moral Education paper and if not, who are the officers responsible for such irresponsible conduct and whether they would be penalized.

SPM students for the Moral Education paper were asked to answer questions based on a notice and a picture.

The notice states that civil servants are not allowed to participate in anti-government protests; the picture is of two students speaking to each other.

Student A is putting up a poster promoting an anti-government rally, saying that he would receive RM100 after he finishes putting up the posters. Student B advises Student A against doing so.

The questions:

(a) Why students should not participate in anti-government rallies?

(b) How should schools prevent students from participating in anti-government rallies?

(c) We should support Student B’s stance. Why?

The blatant attempt to brainwash students with politically-loaded questions in the SPM Moral Education paper is most reprehensible and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms, especially as it involved a not-so-subtle attempt to tell lies and demonise protest gatherings as anti-government and anti- national, even  suggesting that those who participate in them are not high-minded idealists but  “mercenaries”.

In his short stint as Education Minister since the Cabinet reshuffle less than three months ago involving the sudden and immoral sacking of Deputy Prime Minister-cum-Education Minster, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, this is the second scandal in the Education Minister under his purview –  the first the tragedy of the seven Orang Asli students of SK Tohoi, Gua Musang who went missing for some 50 days, ending with five dead and two alive.

Even up to now, Mahdzir has not been able to restore the confidence of the Orang Asli people in Gua Musang  in the education system as more than 50 per cent of the Orang Asli parents have refused to send their children back to the school because of their  safety concerns especially in Kampung Penad, Gawin, Simpor and Rekom

Before the tragedy and fiasco of the seven Orang Asli missing students in Gua Musang could be fully resolved, the Education Ministry is now hit by a second scandal – its  ham-fisted attempt to brainwash  students through the SPM Moral Education paper as if it wanted to nurture a Malaysian “nation of sheep” in  post-2020!

Instead of asking  dishonest and politically-slanted questions, SPM Moral Education paper should probably ask whether they agree that the Education Ministry should assume full responsibility for the death of the five Orang Asli students in Gua Musang or even whether they agree with the sacking of Muhyiddin as Education Minister!

As students were not allowed to remove the SPM question paper from the examination hall, I call on Mahdzir to make public the SPM Moral Education paper for the parents and public the judge for themselves whether the questions were appropriate and suitable – like “absurd” question which asked candidates what were the positive effects of queueing up to collect water during a water supply cut.

The demand by the six university student groups – UM Association of New Youth, Gabungan Mahasiswa UKM, UKM Student Unity Front, UTM Chinese Student Council, USM Student Progressive Front, and UUM Student Progressive Front – that the authorities explain and  justify the  educational abuses in turning the examination process into a propaganda tool must be met.

Why vilify civil society groups as anti-government and anti-national, as well as subtly spreading lies and falsehoods,  when moral education should inculcate students with good virtues instead of being ‘brain washing” courses?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 20 November 2015, 7:37 am and is filed under
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Here’s Everything You Need to Know About the Paris Attackers

Tessa Berenson

Time

19th November 2015

Of the nine people believed to have been involved in Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris, eight are now dead. Here is what you need to know about all of the suspects, including the one still at large, Salah Abdeslam.

Still at large

Abdeslam, 26, is the brother of one of the suicide bombers in the Paris attacks. He was last spotted Saturday, when police stopped him at the French-Belgian border but then let him go after questioning, the Associated Press reports.

According to the New York Times, Abdeslam is French and has been living in Belgium. He is believed to have visited Syria and committed previous crimes. Abdeslam’s other brother, who is not believed to have been involved in the attack, has urged him to turn himself in. “We’re family, we’re thinking of him, we’re wondering where he is, whether he’s scared, is he eating,” Mohamed Abdeslam told French television station BFMTV. “The best outcome would be for him to turn himself in so that judicial processes can shed light on this story.”

The mastermind

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 27, the alleged mastermind behind the attacks, was killed in a French police raid Wednesday, authorities confirmed Thursday TIME’s Vivienne Walt reports:

Police confirmed that they had killed Abaaoud when anti-terrorist police stormed a house on Wednesday before dawn, in Saint-Denis in the northeast of Paris. In an operation that began at 4.20 a.m. and lasted six hours, one woman blew herself up with a suicide belt, and one other died by “grenades and other projectiles,” according to Paris prosecutor François Molins in Saint-Denis on Wednesday. That second person, it turned out, was Abaaoud.

The stadium

The three people who attacked the French stadium are dead. One was Bilal Hadfi, 20, but two have not been identified. One of them was carrying a passport identifying him as Ahmad al-Mohammad from Syria, but French authorities believe the passport was stolen.

The concert

The three attackers of the Bataclan concert hall are also dead, after they opened fire inside a crowded concert and killed almost 90 people. One of the three has not been identified, and the other two were Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, 29, and Samy Amimour, 28. Both had previously been suspected of having terrorist connections.

The restaurant

Ibrahim Abdeslam, 31, the brother of Salah Abdeslam who is still at large, is dead after killing people who were eating outside of a restaurant. He had spent time in the same Brussels prison as Abaaoud, the alleged architect of the attacks.

The Nov. 13 attacks killed 129 people in Paris and injured hundreds more.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 20 November 2015, 6:24 am and is filed under
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Malaysian Parliament should not make world Parliament history by producing the first PAC Chairman with a  Press Conference-phobia when his KPI should be to uphold government financial accountability and integrity starting with the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals

The Malaysian Parliament should not make world Parliamentary history by producing the first Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairman in the world with a press conference-phobia,  when his KPI should be to uphold government financial accountability and integrity starting with the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals.

In his first month as PAC Chairman, Datuk Hasan Arifin (who was elected Member of  Parliament only in May in the Rompin by-election) has also already carved out  a place for  himself in the Malaysian Parliamentary pantheon of well-known personalities, though not in any laudatory sense.

How can Hasan discharge his principal role as PAC Chairman to uphold government financial accountability and integrity when he is afraid of the press, to the extent that he has declared a total ban on press conferences.

Hasan has already given a rather knavish connotation to his position as PAC Chairman when he disarmingly admitted that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak would not be called as a witness to the PAC as he himself has to “cari makan”, but which he subsequently aggravated trying to deny he had made such remarks although it was captured on videotape by several journalists.

If anybody should be referred to the Parliamentary Committee of Privileges for bringing Parliament into public contempt, ridicule and odium, it should be the new PAC Chairman first of all.

The Malaysian Parliament is suffering a serious case of schizophrenia.

We talk on the one hand of parliamentary reforms to catch up with developments all over the world to become a First-World Parliament, but our Parliamentarians, including the Speaker, is deeply stuck with a third-world Parliamentary mind-set.

All over the world, Public Accounts Committees (PAC) are holding their sessions in public, but in Malaysia, PAC is not only still a very secretive conclave, we now have a PAC Chairman so averse to  the media that he has banned all PAC press conferences!

His decision not to call Najib to the PAC investigations into the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 1MDB twin mega scandals, without asking the PAC to decide on the matter, can only be described as most  unilateral, high-handed and arbitrary.

It can only attract the question whether this is how he “cari makan” as the new PAC Chairman when everybody knows that any investigation into the twin mega scandals which does not summon Najib is a farce and an utter waste of time, as everybody including Hasan knows that Najib is the only person in the world who knows the ins-and-outs of the twin mega scandals.

The 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy is only the latest highly-paid “operative” who joined  the “revolving-door” teams of 1MDB operatives in January this year and he would have no personal knowledge  like Najib of what happened in the past five years.

Before the PAC can get on with its continued investigations into Najib’s twin mega scandals, Hasan’s own “cari makan” controversy must be resolved first.

Would Hasan apologise for the “cari makan” remark and make a solemn undertaking that he will  not be guided by any “cari makan” mindset in carrying out his duties as PAC Chairman, particularly in the PAC investigations into the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 20 November 2015, 8:37 am and is filed under
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18 Would-Be Suicide Bombers Are at Large in Malaysia, Police Believe

Time

Nov. 20, 2015

A leaked memo sounds warning on the eve of a major summit to be attended by President Obama

Ten prospective suicide bombers are at large in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital and largest city, according to a leaked police memo cited by the Guardian. Another eight thought are in the western part of the country.

The news comes as foreign leaders — among them President Barack Obama — arrive in the capital for the 27th summit of the Association of South East Asian Nations this weekend.

The memo reportedly said that the attackers had received training in “Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq” and were awaiting orders.

“There have been reports of imminent terrorist threats in Malaysia,” Khalid Abu Bakar, the country’s police chief, said in a statement. “At this point, I would like to underline that they have yet to be confirmed.”

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 21 November 2015, 8:05 pm and is filed under
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Brussels is put on high alert as officials warn of ‘imminent threat’

By Anthony Faiola, William Booth and Emily Badger

Washington Post

November 21 2015

PARIS — The government abruptly shut down the metro system in Brussels, canceled sporting events and warned shoppers to stay away from malls as Belgium placed the capital on maximum alert early Saturday, citing a “serious and imminent” threat of attack.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel said Saturday morning that officials had identified shopping centers, public transportation and major events as targets of a possible attack, involving multiple assailants, similar to the deadly assault that struck Paris last Friday.

In Brussels, armed troops stood guard in front of hotels and at major intersections. There was a scattering of shop closures. At least four of the Islamic State militants who attacked Paris came from the same immigrant neighborhood of Molenbeek in the Belgium capital.

Police continue to hunt for one of the Parisian attackers, Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old French national who lived in Brussels and may have returned after the attacks.

The new threat alert in Brussels comes after European countries agreed Friday to new steps aimed at securing Europe’s frontiers, as further evidence emerged that extremists in the terrorist attacks in Paris were using the region’s porous borders to slip between the continent and the battlefields of the Middle East.

French prosecutors said Friday that they had confirmed that another of the suicide bombers who died in the attack on the Stade de France had traveled through Greece, adding more evidence of how militants have been taking advantage of the same routes used by migrants to flee into Western Europe from the war-torn Middle East. The man, officials said, had apparently entered Greece on the same date and location — Leros island on Oct. 3 — as another attacker who had arrived with a fake Syrian passport under the name Ahmad Almohammad.

The name of the second stadium bomber was not provided by prosecutors. But two senior security officials briefed on the investigation in two different countries said the man had traveled on a fake Syrian passport under the name Mohammad al-Mahmod.

Senior European officials meeting in Brussels agreed to implement a higher measure of monitoring at external borders, even as France extended its broad counterterrorism sweeps nationwide.

Currently, citizens of the European Union — unless they display suspicious behavior — face only cursory checks when arriving on flights from outside the 26 nations in Europe that share an open border treaty. The new policy would bring more scrutiny, including thorough passport checks against European watch lists.

Nine people were arrested in sweeps Thursday in Belgium in connection with the Paris attacks. Seven were released Friday without charges, and two remained in detention.

The Belgian federal prosecutor announced Friday that a person arrested in police raids in Brussels on Thursday was charged with participation in terrorist attacks and participation in the activities of a terrorist organization. No additional details were released.

In Paris, French officials said Friday that a third body — that of a male — was found in the rubble of Wednesday’s massive pre-dawn police raid in which Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected ringleader of the Paris attacks, was killed. French officials now say that it was this newly uncovered but still unidentified third person who detonated a suicide vest in the apartment — not, as authorities had earlier reported, the lone woman in the group. She was officially identified Friday as 26-year-old Hasna Aitboulahcen. Prosecutors said a passport in that name was also found in the targeted apartment.

Police believe that Abaaoud fired one of the three Kalashnikovs on cafés in Paris last Friday night. Abaaoud was seen entering the metro system on video surveillance about half an hour after the attack on the Bataclan began at a station east of Paris near where police later found an abandoned Seat used in the attacks.

On Thursday, French officials said that a “non-European country” had provided information Monday that Abaaoud had passed through Greece, the single-largest gateway to Europe for a record flood of migrants. A senior police official said that at least one of the three suspects captured alive Wednesday had also been in Greece.

Abdeslam, 26, a French national now wanted in connection with the attacks, is also believed to have been stopped in Greece in August. Four other assailants are believed to have traveled through Europe to Syria, but their exact routes remain uncertain.

The confirmed death toll in the attacks rose Friday to 130, from 129. More than 350 people were wounded in the carnage.

With Europe confronting a heightened terrorist threat, the measures announced Friday underscored a trade-off between security and the open borders that the European Union once held dear. Moving to shut down a network of homegrown jihadists who are slipping undetected between the continent and the battlefields of the Middle East, officials agreed to come up with a proposal before the end of the year to enhance the ability to track airline passengers. Currently, passenger list information in Europe is kept for only a month. That could now be extended.

“A month to conserve data?” French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said Friday. “That’s definitely not enough.”

The measures were announced as a new terrorist crisis erupted in Mali on Friday and as France, still reeling from last week’s attacks, continued a swift crackdown on suspected Islamists by searching an ultraconservative mosque in Brest, on the Atlantic coast. In a sermon in May 2014, the mosque’s imam, Rachid Abou Houdeyfa, told children that they risked being turned into “monkeys and pigs” if they listened to music. Police searched the mosque after obtaining a lead from a previous raid, according to local officials.

French officials said that they have used broader powers under a state of emergency in effect since Nov. 13 to conduct 793 searches, detain 90 people, seize 174 weapons, confiscate 250,000 euros ($266,500) and place 164 people under house arrest.

Authorities said a three-month extension of the emergency laws, which was approved by legislators Friday, was necessary to ensure public safety after the discovery of another terrorist plot aimed at Paris. Wednesday’s raid in Saint-Denis thwarted a planned attack in La Defense, a suburb northwest of the capital, officials said. But the extension has also raised questions about the curbing of civil liberties and freedom of speech.

In the neighborhood of Champs-Plaisant in Sens, 77 miles southeast of Paris, officials imposed a curfew from 10 p.m. Friday through 6 a.m. Monday.

Pedestrian and car circulation is forbidden, except for emergency vehicles. The restrictions were imposed after SWAT teams staged a raid leading to the discovery of unauthorized weapons and fake documents. The city’s administration said that “a few” people were taken into custody.

Within the Muslim community, religious leaders were divided on whether the French measures were going too far. Samy Debah, 44, president of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, said the government was casting too wide a net — and targeting some people who are innocent. He said one Belgian man, a convert to Islam who lives in the suburbs of Paris, complained that police wrongly searched his residence, breaking items before leaving.

“We’re going through a disastrous situation right now,” Debah said. “The government is making the same mistakes it did in January” during counterterrorism raids after a rampage by three homegrown extremists against the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket.

But Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, on Friday urged his counterparts in Europe to agree to fresh security measures, including more involved passport checks at Europe’s borders. He warned Friday that “we can’t lose any more time.”

The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a French-sponsored resolution Friday calling on all nations to redouble and coordinate action to prevent further attacks by Islamic State terrorists and other extremist groups, the Associated Press reported.

The resolution says the Islamic State “constitutes a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security,” and it expresses the council’s determination “to combat by all means this unprecedented threat.”

The measure is the 14th terrorism-related resolution adopted by the Security Council since 1999.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 21 November 2015, 7:51 pm and is filed under
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Justice, Truth and Reconciliation for the Tamils in Sri Lanka

The latest development in the  decades-old  tragedy of the Tamils in Sri Lanka was  the one-day hartal last Sunday in the whole of the entire northern province of Sri Lanka, an area mainly inhabited by Tamils, which  was brought to a standstill in support of about 300 Tamil prisoners in Sri Lanka who had renewed their  hunger strike for the immediate  release of all prisoners of war and political prisoners involved in the Tamil war of independence.

All private and public activities, except for medical services, came to a standstill. Students did not attend schools. Roads remained deserted except for the army and police.

The  300 Tamil political prisoners had suspended their hunger strike launched on Oct. 13 demanding freedom for all prisoners at the request of Tamil National Alliance members of parliament, who had urged them to give the government more time to respond to their demand for freedom.

The “War of independence” refers to the armed campaign by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam for an independent Tamil homeland in the north and east of the island of Sri Lanka. The LTTE was defeated in 2009, but alleged LTTE members are still being held in prison, many of them detained without trial. Some have been detained for up to 20 years.

The Northern Provincial Council chief minister C.V. Wigneswaran met the Sri Lankan president Maithripala Sirisena on November 11 to request a general amnesty for prisoners of war and political prisoners, but Sirisena rejected his request.

All the commissions of inquiry in the past over gross human rights violations  in Sri Lanka and efforts to bring about national reconciliation between the Singhalese and Tamils  have all come to nought because of the lack of a political will to do what is right by the Sri Lanka authorities, as illustrated by the following history:

Investigative Commissions

1. Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka

(a) After a change of leadership in 2006, the Human Rights Commission did not pursue its work on enforced disappearances in any meaningful way

(b) The decision to stop working on disappearance cases, and the manner in which the Chair and other members were appointed, led to the October 2007 decision of the International Coordination Committee of National Institutions for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights to downgrade the Commission to its current “B-status”, citing that “it is not clear whether the actual practice of the Commission remains balanced, objective and non-political, particularly with regard to the discontinuation of follow-up to 2000 cases of disappearances in July 2006”

2. Commissions of inquiry to investigate enforced disappearances

(a)  Many were criticised for their lack of independence and transparency, and their recommendations, when made publicly available, were never followed up in a systematic manner.

(b)  Some of the commissions drew up lists of alleged perpetrators. However, for the most part, only in a small number of cases did the investigations lead to convictions of those responsible

3. Presidential Commissions (1991, 1992, 1993)

The final reports and recommendations of these commissions have never been made public

4. The Zonal Commissions (1994) and the All Island Commission (1998)

While the Commissions did not resolve all cases of disappearances or lead to the prosecution of many of those responsible, they did nevertheless collect extensive material about disappearance cases, structures and individuals allegedly involved

5. Presidential Commission on Abductions, Disappearances, and Killings (September 2006) and its follow-on Commission (May 2007)

(a) The unpublished findings of the Commission, reviewed by OISL, confirm the lack of credibility and independence of the investigation. In stating that cases of disappearances were used as a tool of political propaganda against the Government, the Commission downplayed the phenomenon (OHCHR Report)

(b) The Commission also attributed lack of proper investigation to police inexperience with domestic legal provisions relating to the maintenance of law and order such as Penal code provisions, the Emergency Regulations and the Constitution (OHCHR Report)

(c) At the top of the list of recommendations in the report was to bring legal action against those “who made complaints to the Police of abductions or disappearances knowing very well where the person concerned was at the time. (OHCHR Report)

6. Presidential Commission of Inquiry appointed to investigate and inquire into alleged serious violations of Human Rights arising since 1 August 2005 (Udalgama Commissions)

7. Lessons Learned and Reconciliation Commission (Sri Lanka)

(a) In spite of these important findings, there has been considerable concern expressed about the work of the Commission and, in OISL‟s assessment, has so far failed to conduct a comprehensive, independent and transparent inquiry

(b) The expansion of the mandate of the COI in July 2014 to include investigations into broader violations related to the conflict, and particularly focused on LTTE abuses, raised strong concerns among human rights organizations and family members of disappeared persons that this would detract from the Commission‟s ability to deliver on its primary responsibility: to assist families of the disappeared

8. The Presidential Commission to Investigate Complaints Regarding Missing Persons (2013) (Paranagama)

9. International mechanisms: the role of the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID)

However, the Government failed to implement crucial recommendations made by the Working Group, such as the establishment of an independent body with the task of investigating all cases of disappearances which had occurred since 1995; the setting up of a central register of detainees as provided for in article 10(3) of the Declaration and that the prohibition on enforced disappearances should be included as fundamental right in the Constitution of Sri Lanka

10. United Nations Human Rights Office report in September 2015
 which  accused both sides of atrocities, especially during the final stages of the war in 2009, where 40,000 Tamils were estimated to have been killed in the final army offensive.

The United Nations called for a special court to try war crimes committed during the Sri Lankan army’s long conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels.

In response, Sri Lanka promised a local inquiry but will not allow the proposed court, which would have foreign judges.

During the whole period of the civil war from 1983, the whole justice process in Sri Lanka was highly flawed, compounded by a lack of political will to stop the carnage and human rights violations, and their failures could be seen by the following incidents:

# lack of independent oversight of appointments to the judiciary, as well as to the Human Rights Commission and other bodies;

— Appointments to commissions and senior public posts from then on were made by the President (as they had been before 2002) without external oversight, and contributed to the control of the Executive over rule of law institutions and their politicization

# undue delay in cases languishing in the courts for many years without progress;

— Such cases rarely get beyond the initial phases of opening a case at the level of the Magistrate‟s court, and limited police investigations, such as a visit to the crime scene and sometimes recording evidence. At these early stages, Judicial Medical Officers also might intervene, including carrying out autopsies and assessing forensic evidence in relation to torture and other non-fatal incidents. Witnesses told OISL that magistrates are very reluctant to investigate crimes involving security forces beyond these steps, and rarely proceed any further

— Reprisals against judicial and other professionals who try to prosecute human rights-related cases involving State officials are also an impediment to progress in such cases. The case of the magistrate who tried to investigate the disappearance of Father Brown and other cases, and of magistrate threatened in the context of investigations into the killing of five ACF workers illustrate this pattern

— Challenges in the delivery of judicial accountability appear to be exacerbated when the suspects belong to the security forces. The LLRC stressed the need for a de-politicised judiciary and police investigations. In several of the cases documented by OISL, members of the security forces obstructed and/or interfered with investigations. Security forces have sought to pressurise relatives of victims into signing documents admitting that the victims were terrorists, or pressured the authorities to replace Judicial Medical Officers responsible for conducting autopsies (see the case of the Trincomalee Five outlined below)

# the failure to implement recommendations made by national and United Nations bodies regarding accountability;

— Although the Government passed a Victim and Witness Protection law in February 2015, no mechanisms have been set up yet to provide the necessary security and protection.

# threats and reprisals against those who make complaints against security forces and Government officials, as well as lawyers and judicial officials;

# the absence of effective witness protection mechanisms.

# lack of relevant legislation criminalizing international crimes and instituting modes of liability including command or superior responsibility.

— However, other international crimes, notably war crimes, crimes against humanity, and the crime of enforced disappearance, have yet to be defined under domestic law. A legal framework suited to fostering accountability for international crimes must also include an array of modes of liability, and in particular the command or superior responsibility

— In terms of investigations, effective prosecution strategies for large-scale crimes must focus on the planners and organizers of crimes, rather than those of lower rank or responsibility.

— Effective prosecution strategies for large-scale crimes focus on their systemic nature and their planners and organizers, formal and informal/shadow chain of command, rather than those of lower rank or responsibility. Such investigations require not only crime-base reconstruction, but also analysis of the practices of military or paramilitary organizations and of their organizational structures (formal and informal); the general socio-historical context of the events; the local context and dynamics of violence; of public and classified evidence. They seek to identify patterns that, by their frequency, location and nature, imply some degree of planning and centralized control and can be crucial in determining individual criminal responsibility at multiple levels, beyond those who executed the crimes.

— Even sophisticated legal systems like Sri Lanka‟s – that may be well suited to deal with ordinary crimes – may lack the capacity to effectively address international crimes. Most domestic investigators are not trained in using the different skills and forms of analysis required. Most domestic courts are not familiar with the international criminal jurisprudence that has evolved, and may have no experience of dealing with complex criminal trials involving crimes under international law

— This challenge is even greater in a fragile, post-armed conflict environment where the criminal justice system remains vulnerable to interference and influence by powerful political, security and military actors. Other countries have shown the constraints of prosecutions which take place in a highly politicised environment, the most common complaint being that they are driven by political considerations, revenge or victors justice

# No integrated national policy on reparations

The future lies in concrete and meaningful steps in Sri Lanka supported by the international community which upholds justice, truth and reconciliation.

As stated in the Declaration made by Penang Society for Advancement of Tamils Conference in Penang last year, the United Nations and the international community must “recognize the traditional homeland, the existence of Tamil nation and the rights of Tamils to self-determination” and  an “UN monitored referendum for a sovereign Tamil Eelam should be conducted among Eelam Tamils of North and East in the island of Sri Lanka and amongst the Diaspora Tamils.

The international community must continue to put pressure on Sri Lanka government and the United Nations to ensure that no efforts are spared until the Tamils in Sri Lanka are restored  justice and human rights and that the truth and reconciliation process initiated under international auspices is allowed to be completed justly and meaningfully.

Towards this objective, international forums and conferences like the present  one must continue to be held to apply international pressure for the true end of the decades-old civil war in Sri Lanka and the  achievement of justice, truth and reconciliation of the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

(Speech at the Penang Society of Advancement of Tamils (PSAT) International Forum on Human Rights Violations in Sri Lanka held in Penang on Saturday, 21st November 2015)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 21 November 2015, 10:15 am and is filed under
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Parliament must take a stand on Monday whether it wants to have a “cari makan” Chairman of PAC, especially as it is  poised to continue its “derailed” investigations into Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals

The Malaysian Parliament must take a stand on Monday whether it wants to have a “cari makan” Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), especially as it is poised to continue its “derailed”  investigations into Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals.

PAC Chairman Datuk Hasan Arifin has compounded his faux pax with a ban on all PAC press conferences on the ground that he is victim of a diabolic plot by  the media to present him in the worst possible light.

Why should the media have such an  animus  towards him and not others, as no other UMNO/BN leader, whether Minister or other parliamentary personality, had ever lodged such a serious complaint of collective bias against the parliamentary media.

Does the fault lie in the media or in Hasan himself?

If Hasan’s political skills are so lacking that he could be such a disaster  in so short a time when handling the parliamentary media, what could one expect of him as PAC Chairman when the PAC is probably facing its greatest test in 58 years since Merdeka in 1957 when not just Malaysians, but the world, will be watching PAC’s every step in its resumption of its “derailed” investigations into Najib’s twin mega scandals!

In fact, the question whether there should be a ban of all PAC press conferences about its inquiries to uphold government financial integrity and accountability should be decided by the PAC as a whole, and not by the Chairman alone – unless the PAC Chairman has assumed the powers of a dictator in PAC.

Members of Parliament should use this weekend to ponder whether they want to have “cari makan” PAC Chairman, and if not, what they could do to purge Malaysian Parliament of such shame and stain.

Members of the PAC should also  use this weekend to ponder whether they could allow the PAC Chairman to unilaterally and arbitrarily shame the PAC and PAC members in making Malaysians and the world  think that the Malaysian PAC is nothing but a “cari makan” PAC, and what they could do to immediately and effectively purge the PAC of such shame and stain of  being such a spineless and soulless mercenary creature.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 21 November 2015, 5:51 pm and is filed under
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Five ways for Members of Parliament to send a clear and unmistakable message to the world that they do not want to a “cari makan” PAC or a “cari makan” PAC Chairman and to  redeem the esteem,  integrity, honour and good name of Malaysian Parliament

There are five ways for Members of Parliament from both sides of the House to send a clear and unmistakable message to the world that they do not want a “cari makan” Public Accounts Committee or a “cari makan” PAC Chairman and to redeem the esteem, integrity, honour and good name of Malaysian Parliament.

Without these five measures, Members of Parliament from Malaysia will be the butt of jokes at international conferences as “cari makan” MPs – whether at Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA)  conferences,  International Parliamentary Union (IPU) gatherings or other international meetings, whether directly in their face or from their backs.

These five measures are:

1.	Sack Datuk Hasan Arifin as PAC Chairman if Hasan does not have the humility and good sense to realise that he had committed an inexcusable and unpardonable parliamentary sin when he said that he had to “cari makan” as the  reason why the PAC will not summon Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to its 1MDB investigations, and compounding his egregrious mistake by blaming the media for it instead of apologizing and owning up to his faux pax. This is a classic example of a public office holder mistaking his personal idiosyncrasy as a public imperative,  the start on the road of corruption of public responsibilities for personal or private gain.

2.	An official decision by the PAC to summon Prime Minister Najib to the PAC investigations on 1MDB as Najib is the only person who knows the ins-and-outs of the 1MDB scandal.  The 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy is only the latest highly-paid “operative” who joined  the “revolving-door” teams of 1MDB operatives in January this year and would have no personal knowledge  like Najib of what happened in 1MDB in  the past five years.

3.	Rescinding of Hasan’s unilateral and arbitrary ban on PAC press conferences and instead reaffirmation of  past practice of the PAC Chairman holding a media briefing after every PAC meeting until parliamentary reforms in Malaysia become a reality with PAC meetings being held in public as is the case with more and more Parliaments in the world.

4.	Make public the Auditor-General’s interim report on 1MDB which was handed to the PAC in June and give an undertaking to table the PAC report on its resumed investigations into 1MDB latest by November 30, so that it could be debated in Parliament before it adjourns on Dec. 3.

5.	All UMNO/BN MPs whether in the PAC or otherwise to declare their pecuniary interests in the 1MDB issue. As former MCA President Datuk Chua Soi Lek had admitted that the scandal of the RM2.6 billion “donation” in Najib’s personal banking accounts was related to UMNO/BN expenditures in the 13th General Elections campaign, all UMNO/BN MPs should declare whether they have any pecuniary interest in the matter, and if so, what amounts each had received as UMNO/BN candidate for the 13th general election campaign from Najib’s RM2.6 billion personal banking accounts.

Are all  the 222 MPs in Parliament prepared to support these five measures to ensure that Parliament does not become a “laughing stock” of parliamentarians all over the world as MPs of a “cari makan” Parliament?

(Speech at the DAP “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang and Mana RM2.6 billion?” ceramah at Nibong Tebal on Saturday, November 21, 2015 at 10 pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 22 November 2015, 8:13 am and is filed under
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Hotel Attack in Mali Is a Setback in Fight Against Extremism

By DIONNE SEARCEY, ADAM NOSSITER, CARLOTTA GALL and SOMINI SENGUPTA

New York Times

NOV. 21, 2015

BAMAKO, Mali — The terrorists chose carefully: There are nearly always French, Russian and even a few American visitors to be found in the hotel restaurant, around the pool, in the health club or on the thin black-leather sofas of the glass-fronted lobby, now shattered by gunfire.

With its marble floors, open atrium and lipstick-red lounge, the Radisson Blu Hotel served as a lifeline to the world, a gathering place where diplomats, contractors and others doing business in Mali, one of the poorest countries on earth, could all be found.

Now, bullet holes pockmark the walls and blood is pooled on stairs. The hotel, once a symbol of the international presence in a country trying to emerge from years of upheaval, is the site of a massacre in which terrorists killed 19 people, storming in at breakfast on Friday as terrified diners sprinted into an elevator whose doors did not close in time to save them.

The brutal attacks in Paris this month were a strike against France’s joie de vivre. The siege of Kenya’s gleaming Westgate mall two years ago was an assault on that country’s rising prosperity, modernity and stability. The terrifying attack on the Radisson Blu here in Mali’s capital was a strike on this nation’s fragile efforts to restore peace after years of fighting.

But in all of these places, the same fundamental question applies: How does a democratic society protect itself from a few determined extremists who can upend an entire nation with a single devastating strike?

“Nobody has found the way to really kick-start a multidimensional approach to countering radicalism,” said Jean-Herve Jezequel, an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Even in Iraq and Afghanistan, where thousands of lives and billions of dollars have been spent trying to wrest those countries from chaos, extremist forces are flourishing.

It is a lesson that Mali knows only too well.

Before the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, swept across wide stretches of Syria and Iraq, establishing a self-proclaimed caliphate, black flags flew in Mali.

After a rebellion and military coup plunged the country into disarray, jihadists from across the Sahel charged through northern Mali. They abducted girls and raped them, imposed their harsh version of Islam on the towns they took over, carried out summary executions and destroyed ancient Sufi shrines. They drove out tens of thousands of Malians from their homes, and ruled the northern half of the country for months in 2012 while the rest of the country could do little more than watch.

Unlike in Syria, the West did not sit on the sidelines while the country disintegrated. France, the former colonial power, put hundreds of boots on the ground, chasing out the extremists from the towns they controlled, scattering them to the desert and killing some of their top leaders, while the United Nations took on the job of working out a peace deal between the government and the rebels.

There are close to 10,000 peacekeepers still in Mali, along with drones that hover over the region. And yet, even after elections and a peace deal to set the country on a new course, extremists have carried out multiple terrorist attacks this year against civilian targets like a restaurant and another hotel, shaking the nation’s faith.

“It means that we’re not over it yet,” said Karim Keïta, the president’s son and the head of Mali’s commission of national defense. “We had a terrorist past, but we’re not over it.”

Witnesses described how easy it was for the gunmen to carry out the attack on the Radisson Blu on Friday, for which militants linked with Al Qaeda claimed responsibility.

Across the street from the hotel, Ibrahim Maiga was in his apartment over his small corner store when he noticed something odd outside his window: a man fishing a few things out of a suitcase that he had opened on the ground.

The man pulled out a grenade, a gun and some other items that Mr. Maiga could not make out. The man then picked up the gun and fired it into the air before walking toward two security guards outside the hotel. He shot one, crossed the road, then shot the other. Both of the men collapsed, Mr. Maiga said. One of them, a friend of Mr. Maiga’s, later died.

Hotel guests were at breakfast around 7 a.m. on the mezzanine level of the hotel when the shots first rang out.

“We heard shooting, pa-pa-pa, from Kalashnikov,” said Ali Yazbeck, 30, the assistant patisserie chef on duty. The head chef shouted that there was an attack, he said. Guests and staff members fled together from the dining room through the kitchen, to a staff elevator at the back of the building.

“The lift takes eight, but there were many more than that,” Mr. Yazbeck recounted from his hospital bed. “The doors would not close.”

A gunman appeared and opened fire. Mr. Yazbeck, a slim man with glasses, was the first to fall, shot in the neck. He prayed silently as the gunman turned to the open elevator and gunned down everyone inside. They were hotel guests, Mr. Yazbeck said: French, Chinese, among others.

Within minutes, the killer returned. For a second time, Mr. Yazbeck feigned death. “I felt shots brushing by my head,” he said. The gunman leaned close and lightly brushed Mr. Yazbeck’s lips with his hand, apparently checking to see if he were still alive. Then he left.

Mr. Yazbeck said he stayed frozen in fear in his hiding place for hours, listening to gunfire and explosions reverberate through the hotel, until security forces eventually rescued him and others around 3 p.m.

The gunmen — Mr. Yazbeck said he saw two in all — were young, 20 or 21, he estimated, and appeared calm. They wore baseball caps. The first was dark-skinned and had a black turban around his neck, he said. The second was lighter skinned. They made no comment or explanation for what they were doing.

The first gunman was laughing when he opened fire on the foreign guests, Mr. Yazbeck said. At one point, the second gunman came into the kitchen and calmly took some meat from the fridge, grilled it and ate it during a break in the killing.

They targeted foreigners and Malians equally, Mr. Yazbeck said, and did not hesitate to open fire on fellow Muslims (a statement that was at odds with other accounts). “When he saw me, he just fired,” he said. Three of the five hotel staff members on breakfast duty were killed, he said.

During coups and countercoups, violent demonstrations and rebel incursions in the north, the Radisson Blu continued to operate, even when the guest count dwindled to a few rooms.

The tally of those who died hereon Friday is a testament to the global hub the hotel had become: Among them were one American, two Belgians, six Russians and three Chinese. They included a development specialist, railroad construction executives, air cargo employees bringing in machinery, and a foreign government worker in the country for a conference on training Mali’s civil servants.

Still, even with hundreds of millions of dollars in aid and continued international engagement — Mr. Keïta, Mali’s president, was recently received with great pomp in Paris by the French president, with Malian flags adorning the Champs-Élysées — Mali is as troubled as ever, according to analysts.

A political solution for the fractured nation remains elusive, with jihadists rejecting it outright. “Large swaths of territory” remain “devoid of state authority,” leaving armed groups free to commit “abuses with impunity,” Human Rights Watch warned this year.

“There are a lot of actors who continue to threaten,” said Pierre Englebert, an expert on African politics at Pomona College. “We are not far from where we were in 2012 in terms of state weakness.”

For some, the attacks show the limitations of a military-driven approach to fighting terrorism, and how hard it is to find a solution that actually works.

“It’s been 3 years that French are eliminating some extremist leaders, with some success by the way,” said Mr. Jezequel of the crisis group. “But it does not solve the problem.”

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 22 November 2015, 6:37 am and is filed under
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One Lim Kit Siang can be suspended from Parliament for six months, but let tens and hundreds of thousands and even millions of Malaysians stand up and declare “I am also  Lim Kit Siang”  to ask the same question: “Najib, Mana RM2.6 billion?”

I thank the DAP in Nibong Tebal for this “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang and Mana RM2.6 billion?” ceramah and the large crowd tonight despite intermittent rain which  shows the nation-wide concern transcending race, religion, region or even politics about government accountability, transparency and good governance – especially over Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals.

The message central to the nation-wide “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang & Mana RM2.6 billion?” campaign is to let the Prime Minister know that one Lim Kit Siang can be suspended from Parliament for six months, but tens and hundreds of thousands and even millions of Malaysians will rise up and declare “I am also Lim Kit Siang” to ask the same question: “Najib, Mana RM2.6 billion?”

Leaders of over 20  Asian-Pacific leaders are in South-east Asia  for the Asian Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) Summit in the Philippines and the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur to exchange views about the future of the region and the world, but there is one thing that Malaysian Prime Minister Najib has outclassed all the world leaders from the Asia-Pacific region,  whether President Xi Jingping of China, President Barack Obama of the United States, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India,  Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan, President Joko Widodo of Indonesia, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull of Australia or  President Vladimir Putin of Russia.

No other leader in APEC, ASEAN or in the Asia-Pacific region would have RM2.6 billion in his personal banking account, and what is worse, refusing to explain where the RM2.6 billion came from and to whom the RM2.6 billion went to, although Najib claims full commitment to the principles of accountability, transparency and good governance.

In his visit to Malaysia, Obama met  social activists who identified corruption as the main concern in Malaysia which in turn affected public institutions and human rights.

Obama’s assurance to the social activists that the anti-corruption agenda was very important to him would have to be taken with more than a pinch of salt.

This is because the elephant in the room in Malaysia about Obama’s commitment to an anti-corruption agenda is the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) in the US Department of Justice probe under the DOJ’s Kleptocracy Assets Recovery Initiative 2010 of Najib in connection with the 1MDB.

This was first reported by the New York Times on Sept. 11, but up to now, leaders from both countries have been very coy about it – neither confirming nor denying that Najib is being investigated whether he is a “kleptocrat” by the US Department of Justice.

When will Najib stand up in Parliament and inform the nation whether for the first time in the 58-year history of the nation, the country’s Prime Minsiter is being investigated as to whether he is a “kleptocrat” by the US Department of Justice or issue an outright and definitive denial?

[Speech (2)  at the DAP “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang and Mana RM2.6 billion?” ceramah at Nibong Tebal on Saturday, November 21, 2015 at 10 pm]

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 22 November 2015, 9:57 am and is filed under
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Saudi Arabia, an ISIS That Has Made It

by Kamel Daoud

New York Times

NOV. 20, 2015

Black Daesh, white Daesh.

The former slits throats, kills, stones, cuts off hands, destroys humanity’s common heritage and despises archaeology, women and non-Muslims.

The latter is better dressed and neater but does the same things.

The Islamic State; Saudi Arabia.

In its struggle against terrorism, the West wages war on one, but shakes hands with the other.

This is a mechanism of denial, and denial has a price: preserving the famous strategic alliance with Saudi Arabia at the risk of forgetting that the kingdom also relies on an alliance with a religious clergy that produces, legitimizes, spreads, preaches and defends Wahhabism, the ultra-puritanical form of Islam that Daesh feeds on.

Wahhabism, a messianic radicalism that arose in the 18th century, hopes to restore a fantasized caliphate centered on a desert, a sacred book, and two holy sites, Mecca and Medina. Born in massacre and blood, it manifests itself in a surreal relationship with women, a prohibition against non-Muslims treading on sacred territory, and ferocious religious laws. That translates into an obsessive hatred of imagery and representation and therefore art, but also of the body, nakedness and freedom. Saudi Arabia is a Daesh that has made it.

The West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia is striking: It salutes the theocracy as its ally but pretends not to notice that it is the world’s chief ideological sponsor of Islamist culture. The younger generations of radicals in the so-called Arab world were not born jihadists. They were suckled in the bosom of Fatwa Valley, a kind of Islamist Vatican with a vast industry that produces theologians, religious laws, books, and aggressive editorial policies and media campaigns.

One might counter: Isn’t Saudi Arabia itself a possible target of Daesh? Yes, but to focus on that would be to overlook the strength of the ties between the reigning family and the clergy that accounts for its stability — and also, increasingly, for its precariousness. The Saudi royals are caught in a perfect trap: Weakened by succession laws that encourage turnover, they cling to ancestral ties between king and preacher. The Saudi clergy produces Islamism, which both threatens the country and gives legitimacy to the regime.

One has to live in the Muslim world to understand the immense transformative influence of religious television channels on society by accessing its weak links: households, women, rural areas. Islamist culture is widespread in many countries — Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Mali, Mauritania. There are thousands of Islamist newspapers and clergies that impose a unitary vision of the world, tradition and clothing on the public space, on the wording of the government’s laws and on the rituals of a society they deem to be contaminated.

It is worth reading certain Islamist newspapers to see their reactions to the attacks in Paris. The West is cast as a land of “infidels.” The attacks were the result of the onslaught against Islam. Muslims and Arabs have become the enemies of the secular and the Jews. The Palestinian question is invoked along with the rape of Iraq and the memory of colonial trauma, and packaged into a messianic discourse meant to seduce the masses. Such talk spreads in the social spaces below, while up above, political leaders send their condolences to France and denounce a crime against humanity. This totally schizophrenic situation parallels the West’s denial regarding Saudi Arabia.

All of which leaves one skeptical of Western democracies’ thunderous declarations regarding the necessity of fighting terrorism. Their war can only be myopic, for it targets the effect rather than the cause. Since ISIS is first and foremost a culture, not a militia, how do you prevent future generations from turning to jihadism when the influence of Fatwa Valley and its clerics and its culture and its immense editorial industry remains intact?

Is curing the disease therefore a simple matter? Hardly. Saudi Arabia remains an ally of the West in the many chess games playing out in the Middle East. It is preferred to Iran, that gray Daesh. And there’s the trap. Denial creates the illusion of equilibrium. Jihadism is denounced as the scourge of the century but no consideration is given to what created it or supports it. This may allow saving face, but not saving lives.

Daesh has a mother: the invasion of Iraq. But it also has a father: Saudi Arabia and its religious-industrial complex. Until that point is understood, battles may be won, but the war will be lost. Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books.

The attacks in Paris have exposed this contradiction again, but as happened after 9/11, it risks being erased from our analyses and our consciences.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 22 November 2015, 6:16 am and is filed under
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300 cawangan Umno diupah bagi desak Najib undur, kata Ku Nan

The Malaysian Insider

Monday November 23, 2015

KUALA LUMPUR, 23 Nov — Wujud gerakan dari dalam Umno sendiri untuk mendesak Presidennya Datuk Seri Najib Razak meletakkan jawatan, dedah setiausaha agung parti.

Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor berkata gerakan “orang dalam” parti itu sedang mengumpulkan 300 cawangan bagi tujuan tersebut, lapor Utusan Malaysia hari ini.

“Kita tahu ada dalang yang berlegar dalam Umno yang ingin melihat ada percanggahan dan kekeruhan berlaku dalam parti kerana sehingga kini mereka tahu bahawa Umno adalah sebuah parti yang kukuh.

“Dalang ini merupakan orang yang kecewa dengan parti. Kita tiada masalah, Umno mempunyai 25,000 cawangan seluruh negara, walaupun 300 cawangan dibayar untuk membuat kenyataan sedemikian, ia langsung tidak akan menjejaskan parti.

“Tindakan cawangan parti yang telah mengeluarkan kenyataan juga tidak mengikut saluran yang betul,” Tengku Adnan, juga dipanggil Ku Nan, dipetik berkata.

Beliau bagaimanapun tidak menjelaskan siapa di belakang gerakan tersusun itu.

Sementara Sinar Harian pula memetik beliau berkata 100 ketua cawangan diupah untuk mengganggu Perhimpunan Agung Umno, yang dijadual antara 8 hingga 12 Disember ini, dengan mendesak presiden berundur.

“Mereka ini dibayar dengan duit (untuk buat begitu). Mereka buat kecoh untuk (ganggu perjalanan) perhimpunan agung,” kata Tengku Adnan kepada harian tersebut.

Dalam perkembangan berkaitan, Naib Presiden Umno Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi hari ini berkata berkata beliau dapat “menghidu bau” dalang yang cuba mempergunakan pemimpin akar umbi untuk menjejaskan kepimpinan parti.

Menurut laporan portal Sinar Harian, timbalan perdana menteri berkata dalang tersebut mempergunakan ketua-ketua cawangan Umno untuk mencampuri urusan parti, termasuk mendesak Najib meletakkan jawatan.

“Kita fikir eloklah dalang berkenaan sama ada dalang yang nampak atau tidak nampak mengikut perundangan sedia ada.

“Saya tidak berhasrat untuk menghentak hati mana-mana pihak, (kerana) Umno hidup dan terus relevan, perkara ini harus dihormati oleh semua ahli dan kepimpinan Umno,” beliau dipetik berkata.

Ahmad Zahid mengulas tindakan 34 ketua cawangan Umno dari lima negeri baru-baru ini yang mendesak secara terbuka agar Najib meletak jawatan sebagai presiden.

Mohd Isa Mohd Yasin, ketua cawangan Umno Taman Port Dickson Utama, dilaporkan berkata ketua-ketua cawangan di Negeri Sembilan, Selangor, Johor, Perak dan Sabah mengadakan pertemuan di Port Dickson baru-baru ini.

Beliau juga mendakwa pihaknya mendapat sokongan hampir 5,000 ketua cawangan lain di seluruh negara dan bercadang untuk mengadakan himpunan besar-besaran bulan depan. Lokasi perhimpunan itu bagaimanapun belum diputuskan.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 23 November 2015, 5:46 pm and is filed under
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Apart from saying “yes” or “no” as to whether he is being investigated as a “kleptocrat” by FBI, there is still a third answer by Najib

Last night, at the DAP Nibong Tebal  “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang and Mana RM2.6 billion?” ceramah, I asked  for the umpteenth time when the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak will stand up in Parliament and inform the nation whether for the first time in the 58-year history of the nation, the country’s Prime Minister is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigations in the United States as to whether he is a “kleptocrat” in connection with his  RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals?

Since the publication of the New York Times “scoop” on Sept. 11 of  FBI and US Department of Justice investigation of Najib under the DOJ’s Kleptocracy Assets Recovery Initiative 2010, Najib had been avoiding the subject like the plague.

However, Najib cannot continue to keep mum and run away from this subject especially after his meeting with United States President Barack Obama, who subsequently said he had raised the importance of transparency, accountability and rooting out  corruption with Najib, though he would not comment on investigations against Najib as he  would not touch on ongoing probes even on the US soil.

It is most demeaning and degrading for the Malaysian Prime Minister to be “lectured” by the US President on the importance of transparency, accountability and rooting out corruption – something Obama would never dream of doing in his meetings with the Prime Ministers of Japan or Singapore for instance.

This is because the Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe or Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong could simply shut up Obama by pointing out that in the 2014 Transparency International (TI) Corruption Perception Index (CPI), Japan is ranked No. 15 and Singapore No. 7, while United States is placed lower at No. 17.

Najib could not shut Obama up, not only because Malaysia’s is ranked No. 50 as compared to the United States No. 17  in the 2014 TI CPI, but also because of the New York Times revelation that Najib is being probed by FBI under the US Department of Justice Kleptocracy Assets Recovery Initiative 2010 in connection with  his twin mega scandals.

Najib cannot continue to keep mum on whether he is being probed by US FBI as a kleptocrat as conscientious and patriotic Members of Parliament from both sides of the House have a right  to demand an answer from Najib in the current meeting of Parliament.

However, apart from saying “yes” or “no” as to whether he is being investigated by FBI as to whether he is “kleptocrat”, who have assets directly or indirectly in the United States which the US government could confiscate and return to the Malaysian government as has happened with other “kleptocrats” in other corruption-ridden nations,  there is a third answer which could be given by Najib in the current Parliament.

This is for Najib to answer that he just does not know.

Will Najib answer “Yes”, “No” or “I do not know”, or will he just play dumb to the  allegations that he is being investigated by the FBI in the United States although more than two-and-a-half months have elapsed since the New York Times report on the issue on Sept. 11?

The Public Accounts Committee Chairman Datuk Hasan Arifin has given a very vivid and dramatic account of the disease afflicting Malaysian politics, including Parliament when he was asked by the media last Wednesday why the PAC was not summoning Prime Minister Najib in the PAC investigations into the 1MDB.

Hasan asked the media not the pursue the issue as he also had to “cari makan”.

It is this “cari makan” disease of UMNO/Barisan Nasional leaders, causing them to close their eyes and shut their mouths about worsening corruption and abuses of power in Malaysia,  highlighted by Najib’s twin mega scandals, which are a bane to Malaysia, aggravating the political and moral crisis in the country.

The “Mana RM2.6 billion?” nation-wide campaign is in fact political consciousness campaign to wipe out the “Cari Makan” disease afflicting political leaders in the country, for their KPI must be to ensure that there is accountability, transparency and good governance in Malaysia to ensure that  30 million Malaysians can “cari makan” and not a system where the top priority of  political leaders, whether Ministers or MPs, is to “cari makan” for themselves, at the expense of the Malaysian people!

(Speech at the DAP Semenyih “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang and Mana RM2.6 billion?” ceramah at Semenyih on Sunday, 22nd November 2015 at 8 pm)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 23 November 2015, 8:37 am and is filed under
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ASEAN summit tarnished by Malaysian corruption scandal involving PM

Thomas Maresca

Special for USA TODAY

November 22, 2015

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — As the summit of Southeast Asian  nations ended here Sunday, much of the focus was not on the leaders’ discussions with President Obama but on a corruption scandal dogging the summit’s host and his government’s crackdown on civil liberties.

Prime Minister Najib Razak, who told Obama that he is “committed to reforms,” stands accused of shifting nearly $700 million from a government-owned development fund into private bank accounts.

The fund, 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), is under investigation in Malaysia, the United States, Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Switzerland. Opposition leaders in parliament filed a formal no-confidence vote against him in October.

Political opponents and human rights groups allege that Najib has responded to the increased criticism with a campaign of intimidation. In July, he fired a deputy prime minister and the attorney general who had been investigating him. Since February, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim has been serving a five-year sentence on a sodomy conviction, which supporters argue is politically motivated.

Since the scandal broke, “things have gone a bit out of control,” said Charles Santiago, an opposition member of parliament. “I think the government is feeling the heat, especially the prime minister. So to avoid attacks against him and further criticism of his rule, he’s putting the pressure on civil society groups.”

Human Rights Watch released a report in October that charges the Malaysian government with a pattern of using broad and vaguely worded laws to arrest, investigate and imprison critics. The report said the practice began to intensify after the 2013 election, in which Najib’s Barisan Nasional coalition lost the popular vote but held on to a majority in parliament.

“President Obama and other world leaders visiting Malaysia right now are meeting a prime minister who is leading a charge against civil society critics, using draconian laws to haul them into police stations and courts for their comments to the media, on Facebook or on Twitter,” said Phil Robertson, Deputy Director of the Asia Division at Human Rights Watch.

“It’s not an exaggeration to say that a full-fledged crackdown on free expression is underway, trying to silence those criticizing government policies and of course the massive 1MDB corruption scandal.”

Among the laws that critics of the government say are being used to target them is the Sedition Act, a colonial-era law that Najib promised to repeal in 2012. He has instead strengthened it, and it has been used to target everyone from political cartoonists to members of parliament.

Eric Paulsen, executive director of the human rights group Lawyers for Liberty, was arrested and charged last February under the Sedition Act for a tweet he posted that was critical of a government agency that issues sermons for mosques in the Muslim-majority country. “We are talking about, in 2015, somebody can spend a few years in jail, basically for a hundred-letter tweet,” he said. “It is a very jarring notion.”

Paulsen said the arbitrary application of the law was already having a widely felt impact. “You just never know,” he said. “There’s always a sword hanging over you. I have to be much more careful these days. My tweets and my press statements have definitely toned down. There is a chilling effect, no doubt about it.”

Another government critic who is facing criminal charges is Maria Chin Abdullah, leader of Bersih 2.0, a coalition of dozens of civil society groups calling for fair elections.

The group has held massive street rallies in Malaysia since 2007, and Chin Abdullah was charged this month under another law, the Peaceful Assembly Act. Prosecutors claim she violated the law by failing to give police the necessary 10-day notice before staging a rally in August. She has pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The increasing crackdown is “a show of desperation by (Najib’s) government,” she said.

During his three-day visit to Malaysia, Obama focused on other issues, including the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement and security in the South China Sea. But he told reporters he also talked with Najib about the importance of a free civil society, and he held a private meeting with Malaysian human rights leaders Saturday.

Chin Abdullah, who participated in the meeting, said she told the president his visit was harming the cause of human rights in Malaysia. “We wanted to let him know that supporting and having trade relations with Malaysia actually undermines the democratic processes in this country,” she said. “The U.S. being perceived as supportive of Najib does us more harm than good.”

Obama also discussed terrorism with Najib since Malaysia, as a Muslim country, has emerged as a key regional partner in the counterterrorism fight.  However, critics charge that a key tool used by the Malaysian government, the 2015 Prevention of Terrorism Act, is being turned against them, too.

“The rule of law is being subverted,” said human rights lawyer Andrew Khoo. “The government is choosing to define any anti-government activity as terrorism. Because terrorism doesn’t have a fixed definition, the idea is to extend the concept of terrorism to cover anti-Najib supporters.”

As the ASEAN summit closed, Najib’s critics saw no indications that the human rights situation would improve because corruption and abuse of power remain deeply entrenched in the government.

“As long as Najib is desperate and insecure, it will get worse,” Chin Abdullah said.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 23 November 2015, 5:30 pm and is filed under
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Birth of AMANAH and formation of Pakatan Harapan  re-ignited the lost hopes of Malaysians for political change in 14GE which had been dampened or destroyed in the past two years by a mutinous PAS in Pakatan Rakyat

The birth of Parti Amanah Negara and the formation of Pakatan Harapan in the past three months have re-ignited the lost hopes of Malaysians for political change in the 14th General Election which had been dampened or destroyed in the past two years by a mutinous PAS in Pakatan Rakyat.

Despite the treasury of the then  secret RM2.6 billion “donation” in Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal banking accounts for the general election campaign (breaking all election laws in the country on money politics), the 13th General Election in May 2013 was held with highest-ever public hopes for political change in Putrajaya in the nation’s 13 general elections since Merdeka in 1957.

This was borne out by the 13GE results, as for the first time in the nation’s electoral history, the Opposition coalition of Pakatan Rakyat secured the majority of total votes cast while the UMNO-led governing coalition since Merdeka secured only 47% of the popular votes.

However,  because of the undemocratic and unfair delineation of parliamentary constituencies,  which  translated UMNO/BN’s 47% of the national votes  into 60% of the 222 seats in Parliament, Datuk Seri Najib Razak continued as the country’s first minority Prime Minister who failed to command the support of the majority of the voters in the country.

Public disappointment and disillusionment with the cohesion, unity and sense of purpose of Pakatan Rakyat set in swiftly after the 13th General Election when one of the three component parties, PAS, decided to play rogue and refused to abide by the PR consensus principle as well as the PR common policy framework, resulting in the final disintegration of Pakatan Rakyat in the middle of this year.

Pakatan Rakyat’s failure to capture the majority of the parliamentary seats and inability to form Federal Government in the 13th General Election may be a blessing in disguise, for in retrospect, a Pakatan Rakyat Federal Government would have faced its first major crisis of survival immediately after the polls as there would be disagreement not only over basic nation-building policies (with PAS’  repudiation of the PR consensus operational principle and the PR common policy framework) but even the appointment of the Prime Minister and Cabinet.

For more than two years after the 13th General Election, the high hopes of Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region, for political change in Putrajaya suffered one setback after another – causing them to be  dampened, dashed and even destroyed.

The nation’s future was  never so dark, bleak and hopeless with the demise of Pakatan Rakyat in the middle of this year and the question everybody had to wrestle with is whether there was no way for such political void or vacuum of hopelessness to be repaired and filled?

The formation of Parti Amanah Negara and establishment of Pakatan Harapan comprising DAP, PKR and AMANAH have filled such a political void or vacuum, and the speed and momentum in the membership campaign, the establishment of Amanah in the various states and divisions, as well as the launching of Pakatan Harapan in the various states, are refreshing and positive signs of the re-ignition of the people’s high hopes for political change in the 14th General Election which must be held in 30 months.

The re-ignition of the people’s high hopes for change coincides with the  plummeting of the stocks of the UMNO/BN coalition government in Putrajaya, not among the Malaysian public as a whole, but even among Malay voters and the three million UMNO members.

I just read an online news report that 34 more UMNO branches from five states – Negri Sembilan, Selangor, Johor, Perak and Sabah – are calling for Najib’s resignation as they have lost confidence in the Prime Minister’s leadership, especially over Najib’s twin mega scandals and the GST.

Taman Port Dickson Utama branch chief Mohd Isa Mohd Yasin claims he has support of close to 5,000 other branch chiefs nationwide and plans a mega rally on this at a yet-to-determined venue next month.

I do not know how credible is Mohd Isa’s claim but the report matches my forecast that the  battle between UMNO’s 300  chieftains who want to “cari makan” and the UMNO’s three million members who want to save not just UMNO but the country, will intensify.

The 300 UMNO chieftains are primarily Umno Supreme Council members and Umno division chiefs who are mostly in Najib’s pockets, as compared to the three million Umno members most of whom are very embarrassed by unpopular policies like the GST and Najib’s two  mega-scandals of the RM50 billion 1MDB and RM2.6 billion “donation”,  the lack of political will to resolve these two scandals until they mushroom to become international scandals, and the move to penalise UMNO leaders for speaking up against these two scandals.

It was recently reported that Malay voter approval for Najib’s government has reached an all-time low and Najib’s government had, for the first time, lost the approval of the majority of Malay voters.

A survey in  Peninsular Malaysia in mid-August by independent pollster Merdeka Centre showed that only 31 percent of Malay voters is satisfied with Najib’s government – a far cry from the 77% popularity rating of Najib as  Prime Minister in early 2013, a few months before the 13GE.

This is the first time approval for the government among Malays has fallen below 50 percent since Merdeka Centre began recording the data in February 2012.

The fall among Malay voters to 31 per cent was drastic as it had stood at 52 percent this January.

The government’s overall approval rating also plummeted to 23 percent, the worst since the polls started in 2012. In January this year, the UMNO/BN coalition government’s approval rating remained at 38%, the same as the previous poll last October.

As for Chinese voters, only five percent approved of the government compared to 11 percent this January.

The issues confronting Malaysians, including the three million UMNO members,  will be whether to save Najib, UMNO or the country as these three issues dictate different strategies and responses.

The re-ignition of the hopes of Malaysians for political change in Putrajaya in 14GE to save Malaysia represented by the launching of the Pakatan Harapan campaign must seek to reach out to the three million UMNO members as well as to all Malaysians to rise above race, religion , region and even party politics to save Malaysia from becoming a rogue and failed state where there is a breakdown of rule of law and rampant corruption and abuses of power.

Pakatan Harapan must represent the Malaysians’ hope for change for the first time in Federal government to save the country from a mediocre and divided future by ensuring an united, vigorous, vibrant, progressive, just and prosperous future for all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region.

Pakatan Harapan leaders must learn from the mistakes of Pakatan Rakyat if there is not going to be a second round of national disappointment and disillusionment among Malaysians for political change in Putrajaya in the next general election.

(Speech at the ceramah marking the launching of Gombak Parti Amanah Negara in Gombak on Sunday, 22nd November 2015 at 11 pm)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 23 November 2015, 12:01 pm and is filed under
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