Nasib Umno dan BN kini seperti pernah dialami kerajaan empayar Inca

Nur Jazlan

The Malaysian Insider

4 March 2015

Banyak yang diperkatakan mengenai Umno, satu-satunya parti politik yang ditubuhkan sebelum negara mencapai kemerdekaan dan kini menjejaki usia tujuh dekad serta sudah pasti bagi pucuk pimpinannya pada masa sekarang adalah dengan terus melaungkan kejayaan Umno mendapat 88 kerusi dalam pilihan raya umum (PRU) ke-13 lalu.

Kejayaan Umno itu sudah berusia dua tahun dan hanya tinggal tiga tahun lagi sebelum parti orang Melayu ini akan berdepan semula dengan rakyat dalam PRU14 dan ketika ini, suasana di peringkat akar umbi terus resah gelisah dengan apa yang berlaku di peringkat bawahan, situasi berbeza dengan peringkat atasan terutamanya di Pusat Dagangan Dunia Putra (PWTC) dan Putrajaya yang berterusan dibuai mimpi indah.

‘Mimpi indah’ orang Melayu akan berterusan menyokong Umno dan keluarlah segala statistik dan perangkaan bagi membuktikan ‘mimpi indah’ itu sedangkan hakikatnya, sokongan orang Melayu di kawasan bandar dan luar bandar terus terhakis.

Terus juga dicanang yang Umno adalah parti akar umbi dan sentiasa mengutamakan suara akar umbi dalam perjuangannya tetapi ia hanyalah sekadar retorik yang disedari ahli akar umbi sendiri.

Saya sendiri dalam sebuah laporan sebuah akhbar baru-baru ini, ‘dicap’ sebagai bertindak di luar kebiasaan Umno oleh dua tokoh akademik kerana kerap mengkritik pucuk pimpinan terutama sekali Presiden parti secara terbuka dalam tulisan-tulisan di blog saya atau di portal berita.

Bagi dua tokoh akademik itu, Umno adalah sebuah parti feudal dan segalanya, perlu mengikut protokol dan suara kritikan seakan ‘haram’ dilakukan secara terbuka kerana ia akan mengundang persepsi negatif rakyat kepada pucuk pimpinan.

Terus terang saya amat sedih dengan kenyataan itu bukan disebabkan ia mengkritik saya tetapi sebab orang luar mungkin bukan ahli Umno juga melabelkan parti sudah menjadi institusi feudal di mana dalam sistem ini, yang berkuasa adalah raja, sultan atau pucuk pimpinnnya dan mereka tidak boleh dikritik dengan sesiapa yang mengkritik sistem berkenaan akan dikenakan hukuman.

Ingin saya tegaskan di sini, Umno adalah parti akar umbi dan tanpa ahli biasa bagaimana pucuk pimpinan mendapat kuasa, jika ahli sendiri sudah tidak boleh bersuara secara terbuka bagi mengkritik demi kebaikan, ia seakan sudah melanggar perjanjian penubuhan parti keramat ini sendiri.

Jadi seharusnya, sistem feudal tidak boleh dikaitkan dengan Umno kerana jika itu tanggapan orang luar terhadap parti terutama sekali jika ia datang daripada orang Melayu sendiri, natijahlah kepada perjuangan leluhur Umno yang menubuhkannya dalam memperjuangkan golongan akar umbi Bumiputera.

Persepsi mengenai Umno menjadi sebuah institusi politik feudal menyebabkan saya teringat kepada sejarah empayar Inca apabila berkesempatan ke Ecuador baru-baru ini, ketika menghadiri Forum Ahli Parlimen Asia Pasifik.

Sejarah menjelaskan empayar Inca terletak di sebuah negara yang memerintah daripada Peru hingga Ecuador daripada tahun 1438 hingga 1533 dan ia begitu makmur dengan dapat meluaskan empayarnya bukan melalui peperangan tetapi hanya dengan kemakmuran serta kepesatan ekonomi.

Malah peninggalan kemakmuran empayar Inca masih terdapat sehingga kini dengan pelbagai binaan yang mengagumkan, tetapi siapa menyangka kerajaan yang begitu mewah, begitu kuat ini akhirnya jatuh ke tangan penjelajah Sepanyol yang berjumlah hanya kira-kira 200 orang diketuai Francisco Pizzaro.

Pizzaro dalam ketika menemui pemerintah kerajaan Inca ini yang dipimpin Atahualpa menggunakan agama dalam mengadakan hubungan serta kerjasama dengan kerajaan Inca selain menabur kata-kata manis terhadap pemimpinnya.

Namun, beliau juga mengesan kelemahan kerajaan dan rakyat empayar ini yang terlalu taksub dengan adat istiadat serta upacara keagamaan dan ia adalah peluang untuk mereka menawan empayar yang terbesar di Amerika Selatan ketika itu.

Ini kerana segala apa yang hendak dilakukan kononnya perlu mendapat persetujuan daripada tuhan mereka dan lebih malang lagi rakyat menganggap pemimpin mereka sebagai dewa dan turut menyembahnya.

Di sinilah kelemahan kerajaan Inca yang menyebabkan penjelajah Sepanyol yang berjumlah 200 orang mampu menumbangkan kerajaan dengan hanya membunuh Atahualpa menyebabkan seluruh rakyat Inca berada dalam keadaan kelam kabut dan melarikan diri daripada pusat kerajaan selepas mendapati ‘tuhan’ mereka boleh dibunuh.

Walaupun, kerajaan Inca kemudian cuba menawan semula pusat pemerintahan kerajaan Inca yang berpusat di pergunungan Andes dengan tentera berjumlah ratusan ribu orang tetapi disebabkan lambat bertindak kerana mendahulukan adat istiadat, protokol dan upacara keagamaan yang mengambil masa beberapa hari lamanya, menyebabkan tentera Sepanyol mampu sampai terlebih dahulu dan memberikan bantuan kepada 200 penjelajah Sepanyol dengan menewaskan tentera kerajaan Inca yang berjumlah ratusan ribu orang.

Ketiadaan pelan penggantian dalam kerajaan Inca yang hanya bergantung kepada sistem feudal iaitu turun temurun daripada ayah ke anak menyebabkan masyarakatnya terlalu selesa tetapi apabila keturunan berkenaan dihapuskan, mereka tidak mempunyai pemimpin yang mampu lagi memimpin mereka.

Sejarah yang sama juga yang berlaku kepada kerajaan Melayu Melaka apabila tentera Portugis dengan jumlah sedikit daripada tentera Kesultanan Melayu Melaka mampu menumbangkan kerajaan Melaka dalam tempoh sedikit.

Hanya berbekalkan kelebihan sedikit teknologi dan peranan si Kitul yang bertindak sebagai ‘punahsihat’ kepada Sultan Melaka, maka jatuhlah Kesultanan Melayu Melaka yang pernah menjadi antara empayar Melayu terbesar di rantau ini.

Terus terang saya katakan betapa ada sedikit persamaan dengan apa yang berlaku dalam pemerintahan kerajaan Inca dan kerajaan Melayu Melaka dengan apa yang berlaku dalam Umno pada ketika ini apabila ada tanggapan masyarakat luar bahawa parti ini adalah sebuah institusi feudal.

Kini pemimpin Umno dianggap sebagai pemimpin institusi feudal yang tidak boleh dikritik dan jika ada ahli akar umbi yang mengkritik secara terbuka walaupun untuk kebaikan, mereka akan dicap sebagai tidak taat atau derhaka.

Sebaliknya, pemimpin feudal Umno ini kini mahu segala kritikan dilakukan menggunakan saluran tertutup tetapi adakah mereka mendengarnya atau mengambil tindakan terhadap segala kritikan dan masalah akar umbi yang dinyatakan atau mereka terus bersenang lenang dengan bermimpi bulan dan bintang.

Sudah acap kali saya nyatakan betapa Umno dan Barisan Nasional (BN) perlu segera berubah kerana pakatan pembangkang semakin berkembang dan mempunyai ramai pengikut dan sudah sampai masanya Umno berfikir seperti tentera Sepanyol.

Pemimpin Umno dan BN perlu berani mengikis sistem feudal dalam parti dengan segera dan membuang segala pelan penggantian yang diatur kerana sudah banyak rekod membuktikan pelan yang diatur tidak akan berjaya kerana ia hanya memuaskan hati sesetengah pihak sahaja… lihat apa yang berlaku dalam parti komponen BN sendiri, baru-baru ini.

Apa yang berlaku kepada Umno dan BN kini, adalah lebih kepada menyalahkan orang lain, menyalahkan pembangkang, menyalahkan kaum lain hingga pemimpin parti dilihat tidak mempunyai strategi ‘perang’ politik.

Dan keadaan ini melarat hingga ke peringkat akar umbi hingga menyebabkan rakyat semakin meluat sedangkan sebagai sebuah parti yang sudah menjadi kerajaan hampir enam dekad, kekuatan Umno dan BN adalah lebih daripada itu.

Kegagalan mengeksploitasikan kekuatan sebenar Umno dan BN sebaliknya terus leka dengan adat istiadat, protokol dan yang terbaru menggunakan imej agama bagi menarik sokongan rakyat sedikit sebanyak menyerupai apa yang diamalkan dalam kerajaan Inca.

Memang benar kita tidak boleh melupakan perjuangan terhadap agama bangsa dan negara termasuk mempertahankan apa yang sudah diamalkan tetapi janganlah menggunakannya sebagai sumber kekuatan hingga dilihat parti tidak lagi mempunyai idea dan strategi.

Lebih sedih apabila ada pemimpin Umno secara terang-terangan menyalahkan kaum lain kerana kononnya ‘merompak’ hak keistimewaan orang Melayu sedangkan hakikatnya, masyarakat Bumiputera terus memerlukan ‘tongkat’ untuk berjaya dan ia diakui sendiri Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

Kejayaan empayar Inca yang dikecapi pada zaman Tanah Melayu ketika itu masih primitif berteraskan dalam bidang pertanian moden waktu itu yang menjamin bekalan makanan cukup selain kejuruteraan, malah mereka juga menjadi manusia pertama yang berjaya menjelajah dan memanjat Gunung Andes, gunung paling tinggi di Amerika Selatan, jauh lebih hebat daripada apa yang pernah dikecapi Malaysia sepanjang Umno dan BN memimpin Malaysia selama hampir enam dekad.

Namun dengan kejayaan yang sebegitu hebat sekalipun kerajaan empayar Inca tumbang disebabkan 200 penjelajah Sepanyol serta wabak penyakit seperti Tibi yang dibawa kaum pendatang berkenaan membunuh sebahagian rakyatnya.

Jika pemimpin Umno dan BN berterusan mempunyai sindrom penafian terhadap penolakan rakyat terhadap parti pada ketika ini dan menguruskan parti seperti sebuah institusi feudal seperti tanggapan dua ahli akademik terhadap saya, tidak mustahil parti ini akan menjadi seperti empayar Inca yang hanya mampu berkuasa selama 95 tahun sahaja di sebalik segala kejayaan besar yang dikecapi.

Walaupun mempunyai segala kemewahan dan kemakmuran, sejarah empayar Inca membuktikan hanya dengan 200 orang penjelajah Sepanyol mampu menumbangkan sebuah empayar apabila rakyat tidak lagi bersama-sama dengan pimpinan kerajaan dan parti yang terlalu sibuk dengan adat istiadat, protokol dan bermewah-mewahan. – 4 Mac, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 5 March 2015, 6:43 am and is filed under
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Stop Arrests and Harassment on Those who Exercise Their Constitutional and Internationally-Recognized Right to Freedom of Expression

Malaysia: Open Letter to the Prime Minister

William Nicholas Gomes, Human Rights Ambassador

27 February 2015

(LONDON) – Dato’ Sri Mohammad Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak

Prime Minister of Malaysia Office of the Prime Minister

Main Block, Perdana Putra Building

Federal Government Administrative Centre

62502 Putrajaya, MALAYSIA

Via facsimile: +60-3-8888-3444

Malaysia: Stop Arrests and Harassment on Those who Exercise Their Constitutional and Internationally-Recognised Right to Freedom of Expression

Mr. Prime Minister,

We, the undersigned human rights organisations and individuals, write to you to register our grave concern over the continued crackdown on freedom of expression in Malaysia, including the latest arrests and investigations against those who criticised or commented on the Federal Court’s decision to uphold the conviction of Anwar Ibrahim of sodomy charges earlier this month.

Since May 2014, more than 40 individuals have been arrested under the Sedition Act and the Penal Code for the exercise of their right to freedom of expression. Over 70 arrests have been made since May 2013.

We are alarmed by your government’s continued abuse of the Sedition Act, exemplified by the following recent cases:

•The conviction of activist Hishamuddin Rais under the Sedition Act for calling the 13th General Election results fraudulent and for urging the public to reject the newly-elected government.

•The arrest and charges against human rights lawyer Eric Paulsen under the Sedition Act over a Twitterpost which criticised the Malaysian Islamic Development Department for spreading extremism through Friday sermons.

We are further appalled by the responses of your government and the police force towards those who have criticised the Federal Court’s decision on to uphold the conviction of Anwar, including:

•Political cartoonist, Zulkiflee Anwar Haque or Zunar, who was arrested at his house on 10 February 2015, detained and interrogated for three days after he posted a comment on Twitter criticising the independence of the Federal Court. His satire cartoon books were also seized by the police on 14 February 2015, the day the book was launched.

•Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) Secretary-General S. Arutchelvan, who was arrested on 19 February 2015 after he released a press statement on behalf of his party on the Federal Court’s decision on Anwar. He was released on 20 February 2014 after the police’s application to detain him further under remand was rejected by the Court.

In addition to these, your government’s use of the Penal Code to supress the right to freedom of expression, as demonstrated in the most recent following cases, is also a matter of great concern:

•Activists Adam Adli Abdul Halim and Fariz Musa, and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR)’s State Assemblyperson for Seri Setia, Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad were arrested under Section 143 Penal Code for unlawful assembly in relation to the organising of a rally on 21 February 2015 to protest against the Federal Court decision on Anwar. Adam Adli and Fariz Musa arrested during the rally, while Nik Nazmi was arrested on the following day.

•Chong Eng, a Penang State Executive Councillor from the Democratic Action Party (DAP) was also investigated under the Penal Code for criticising a statement made by the Selangor Islamic Religious Department (JAIS) that cases of rape, illicit sexual activities and incest can be reduced if women cover their intimate body parts.

The continued arrests, detention, investigations and charges appear to be a concerted effort to intimidate Malaysians from exercising their right to freedom of expression, a right enshrined under the Federal Constitution of Malaysia and a fundamental right under international human rights law.

More precisely, these efforts to curb free speech appear to be targeted specifically to criticisms against the Barisan Nasional (BN) administration.

We thus urge your government to immediately bring an end to the clampdown on freedom of expression, including by ensuring that the police immediately ceases its arrests, investigations, and all forms of harassment against individuals who hold dissenting opinions from that of your administration, including those who expressly criticise the BN government.

We further strongly urge your government repeal all laws that impose unreasonable restrictions and that have been repeatedly abused to place disproportionate curbs on the right to freedom of expression, including the colonial era Sedition Act 1948, a piece of legislation that was enacted by the colonial rulers to suppress freedom of expression, including calls for independence.

We wish to bring your attention to the numerous and repeated calls from both the international community and from within the country for the repeal of the Sedition Act.

Among those making such calls is the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM), an institution established by legislation and mandated by law to, among other things, make recommendations relating to human rights to the government.

SUHAKAM has most recently, through several public statements throughout 2014, unequivocally called for your government to repeal the Sedition Act. We urge you to heed the recommendations made, including by SUHAKAM, and honour the pledge you have repeatedly made since 2012 to repeal the Act. We are of the view that failure to do so, and the continued use of repressive legislation and heavy handed actions by the police to suppress the right to freedom of expression in an attempt to intimidate the Malaysian public, will not only severely damage the worsening international reputation of Malaysia as a democratic country, but also heighten the groundswell of discontent among the Malaysian people domestically.

CC:

1. Tan Sri Dato’ Sri Khalid Abu Bakar

 Inspector-General of Police (IGP)

 Fax: +603 2070 7500; Email:
[email protected]

2. Tan Sri Hasmy Agam

 Chairperson, Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM)

 Fax : +603 2612 5620; Email :
[email protected]

Signed by:

1.Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), Bangladesh

2.Alternative ASEAN Network on Burma (Altsean-Burma)

3.Amnesty International Malaysia

4.ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR)

5.Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (FORUM-ASIA)

6.Banglar Manabadhikar Suraksha Mancha (MASUM), India

7.Bytes for All (ICTs for development, democracy and social justice), Pakistan

8.Centre for Human Rights and Development (CHRD), Mongolia

9.Globe International, Mongolia

10.Human Rights Ambassador for Salem-News.com, UK

11.Informal Sector Service (INSEC), Nepal

12.Judicial System Monitoring Programme (JSMP), Timor Leste

13.Korean House for International Solidarity (KHIS), Korea

14.Kyong-Whan Ahn, Professor Emeritus, Seoul National University Law School

15.Law and Society Trust, Sri Lanka

16.Odhikar, Bangladesh

17.People’s Empowerment Foundation, Thailand

18.People’s Watch, India

19.Sarawak Dayak Iban Association (SADIA), Malaysia

20.Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA)

21.Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM), Malaysia

22.Thai Volunteer Service, Thailand

23.Working Group for Peace (WGP), Cambodia

24.Yayasan LINTAS NUSA, Indonesia

Sincerely,

William Nicholas Gomes

Human Rights Ambassador for Salem-News.com, UK

 www.williamnicholasgomes.com

 Twitter: @Wnicholasgomes

Salem-News.com Human Rights Ambassador William Nicholas Gomes is a Bangladeshi journalist, human rights activist. As an investigative journalist has written widely for leading European and Asian media outlets. William Gomes concentrates on humanity; his advocacy of human beings in dangerous, preventable circumstances does in fact lead to some of our most vital reports, because they give a voice to the voiceless.

 William Gomes said, “I am against any form of intolerance alongside xenophobia and antisemitism. I am and will always stand strong in combating all forms of racial discrimination and intolerance any where.” Read his letters and reports to see what the new generation of world journalists are doing to preserve human rights worldwide.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 5 March 2015, 5:10 am and is filed under
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The Cabinet meeting and outcome on 1MDB yesterday seemed to have been scripted and choreographed by Najib’s “master publicist” Paul Stadlen with one objective in mind –  to avoid accountability for the RM42 billion MDB scandal in the whole month of Parliament beginning on Monday

The Cabinet meeting and outcome on 1MDB yesterday seemed to have been scripted and choreographed by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s “master publicist” Paul Stadlen with one objective in mind, to avoid accountability for the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal in the whole month of Parliament beginning on Monday.

If true, this must be the first time a Cabinet anywhere in the world  is led by the nose like a flock of sheep by a “master publicist” to play out the script choreographed even before the Cabinet meeting, which does not redound to the credit of Malaysia’s Ministers, whether their intelligence or integrity.

The cabinet decided, after 1MDB and its auditors provided a briefing on the company’s current situation and responded to a series of questions posed by Cabinet Ministers, including the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, that the  debt-laden state investment firm 1MDB has done nothing wrong.

Did all the 35 Cabinet Ministers yesterday know what they were doing and fully understood the going-ons in 1MBD in the past six years when they issued a clean bill of health and integrity to 1MDB?

Were they presented with any Cabinet papers on the 1MDB to read and study before the Cabinet meeting?

Were they given access to the “thousands” of 1MDB transactions and email which London Sunday Times and Sarawak Report have said they have obtained access to, despite abrupt attempts by 1MDB at the end of last year to call in all of its computers, employee laptops and servers to wipe them clean of such transactions and emails?

Be that as it may, after yesterday’s Cabinet meeting which  issued the 1MDB a clean bill of health and integrity, all the 35 Ministers in the Najib Cabinet are now individually and collectively implicated in all the going-ons in 1MDB and cannot plead ignorance as an excuse.

Let all the 35 Ministers, henceforth, go up and down the country and answer the thousand-and-one questions about the shenanigans in 1MDB in the past six years, since they have arrogated to themselves the role as the stout defenders of 1MDB.

If the Cabinet has issued a clean bill of health and integrity to 1MDB, the Prime Minister and all the Cabinet Ministers must be prepared to stand up in Parliament during the entire month of meeting from March 9 to April 9 to answer and defend all the going-ons in 1MDB in the past six years, which clearly they are not prepared to do.

This is the only rationale for the Prime Minister’s instruction to the Auditor-General to independently verify 1MDB accounts and that “If any wrongdoing is proven, the law will be enforced without exception”.

Surely, it is premature for the Cabinet to declare that 1MDB has done nothing wrong  when the Auditor-General has yet to verify the 1MDB accounts.

But this is the whole object of the devious plot in the Cabinet choreography yesterday – for the Cabinet to declare a clean bill of health and integrity for 1MDB and to stymie and forestall any parliamentary questioning in the month-long Parliament meeting beginning on March 9 by declaring that any questions about 1MDB should be put in abeyance until the  Auditor-General has  completed and reported on  his investigations into the 1MDB  accounts.

I am prepared to be proven wrong.

Let Najib clarify that he and his Ministers will not  run away or stonewall parliamentary queries about the 1MDB scandal in the forthcoming Parliamentary meeting, by claiming that all questions on the 1MDB scandal should await the outcome of the Auditor-General’s investigations and the PAC follow-up.

Let Najib and his Ministers make a commitment that they will not avoid or evade parliamentary questions as to how the Cabinet can issue a clean bill of health and integrity for 1MDB when the Auditor-General had not even started his investigations into the 1MDB accounts!

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 5 March 2015, 7:40 am and is filed under
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Why am I ‘wasting’ my time at Sogo on 307?

 — Kenneth Cheng

The Malay Mail Online

MARCH 4, 2015

MARCH 4 — I have to be frank, this is by far the worst Chinese New Year that I have ever celebrated, not because Anwar Ibrahim has been incarcerated in what is widely perceived as a travesty of justice or the farcical strategic development company 1MDB that may cripple our economy and financial sovereignty.

It is certainly not the advent of GST which 40 per cent households with an income of less than RM1,500 per month will suffer the most. Additionally, I have learn to turn a deaf ear towards Cabinet Minister’s race inciting hate comments which seek to further divide Malaysia and divert the attention away from his sheer incompetency.

Last but not least, I would expect nothing less than RM1,200 worth of hair treatment from our very dear first lady, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor given her “modest” and prudent financial management lifestyle.

Yet, I was crestfallen during this festive period simply because friends and family who I visited, choose to remain dispassionate and detach themselves from the recent political development of our country. Furthermore, questions arise among my peers concerning the rationale of holding massive #kitalawan protest in Sogo. They generally empathise with the partisans and resolve to punish the corrupt regime in the next General Election, but deem there is no meaning in participating in the social movement.

As much as I appreciate their attentiveness toward this political issue, nevertheless I need to accentuate that social progress is very much attainable by effective social movements, be it small or big. Therefore, with the interest of the amnesiac public in mind, it is of vital importance to revisit history and to remind the rakyat how humanity and society have constantly made substantial progress through social movements.

The French Revolution was generally considered to be a violent, bloody and anarchic revolution, and some critics argue that it was a total mess, achieved little and replaces an authoritarian regime with another authoritarian regime.

However, its ideas changed human history far more than any revolution ever happened. The brutality of French Revolution should not obscure us from radical ideas that it championed. For example, The Declaration Of The Rights Of Man And Of The Citizen that emerge from the French Revolution proclaims that men are born and remain free and equal in rights, law is the expression of the general will and every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his representative.

These ideas-where laws are not made by Gods or Kings and those laws should apply to everyone equally are profound and radical indeed especially given the zeitgeist of the late 18th century. The insistence and universality of these ideas that we come to appreciate so much these days are rooted from the social movement initiated by a group of poor peasants who were disgusted by the privileges enjoyed by the clergy, aristocrats and monarchs when the country was in a dire economical state.

On September 13, 1989, 30,000 Capetonians (The people of Cape Town) led by Desmond Tutu went on a peaceful march to protest against Apartheid and ban of political protest. I remember looking at the archives in the Apartheid Museum and how awe-inspiring it was looking at pictures of Desmond Tutu encouraging the crowd that the struggle for freedom shall not be stopped.

The success of the Cape Town peaceful march sparked similar protests in other parts of the country and it is widely believed that the size of the protest and public pressure is the beginning of an end to the archaic Apartheid in South Africa. A few months later, Nelson Mandela and other prominent African National Congress leaders were freed and the rest, like everyone says, is history.

Social movement is a natural occurrence that seeks to reconsult with reality and it answers to no one but human conscience. Just as the majority of South Africans wanted an end to Apartheid, Bersih rally was able to amass such a huge amount of crowd because deep down most Malaysians wanted a free and fair election. Although Umno Barisan Nasional makes the mess out of the indelible ink issue, but it is still a victory for the people and the country.

Now again, our rights as Malaysians have been trampled on over and over again, we see valiant leaders getting arrested for voicing the truths about the corruption. We witness a total prejudiced annihilation of our opposition leaders just because they have the means and ability to end the absolute rule of the current draconian regime.

The endless, sickening corruption and mishandling of funds make my stomach turn every time I talk or think about it. And yet, despite all these, we still remain unwavering to go down to the streets and let our voices be heard.

Rakyat seems to forget (again) that our rights and freedom are gained through constant overstepping of the boundaries, voices are heard by marching on the streets. Therefore, if we are still reluctant to exercise our rights to protest and assemble to at least remind Umno Barisan Nasional that they are mishandling our country and abusing the state apparatus, then all the efforts for forcing a change in this country proves nothing more than a futile effort.

We are condoning the fact that Sharizat’s cows are being reared and fed in the condominiums, 1MDB is straightly a strategic investment company and projects huge potential in the future, Ismail Sabri is perfectly right about boycotting Chinese traders and perhaps, most unfortunately, Anwar Ibrahim did really sodomise someone.

Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it requires participation, and it doesn’t mean voting once in five years. It entails responsibility to every rakyat to keep the government in constant state of check and balance.

Therefore, to even think that giving up on your political rights and refuse to participate in any meaningful social movements indicates that we are happily obliging to be ruled by those who are inferior to us.

Gathering at Sogo on 7th of March guarantees nothing. However staying silent and complacent changes nothing but ensuring a decline of our standard as being a proud citizen in this beautiful country.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 5 March 2015, 5:28 am and is filed under
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MH370 families vow not to give up hope until there is proof

The Malaysian Insider

5 March 2015

Just three days to the first anniversary of the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370, families of the missing passengers and crew have vowed not to give up hope until there is physical evidence of the aircraft.

In a statement today, Voice370 – a group made up of wives, husbands, children, parents and other close relatives of the missing passengers and crew – also called on Putrajaya to commit to the search for the missing plane and their loved ones until they are found.

“Despite the complete lack of wreckage found or physical evidence of a catastrophic event, the Malaysian government has officially declared that the airplane crashed, leaving no survivors, and it has ended the rescue phase of the search effort.

“We do not accept this finding and we will not give up hope until we have definitive proof of what happened to MH370,” it said.

On March 8 last year, flight MH370 vanished en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing with 239 people on board. There has so far not been any signs of the plane and those on board.

Voice370 said it was unlikely that on Sunday, the next of kin would find out anything more about the final moments of the flight or the whereabouts of their family members.

It said the disaster had been devastating for the families and caring people all over the world, and in the months following the disappearance of the plane, MH370 families were subjected to “a disorganised barrage of information from varied sources, much of which later proved to be incorrect”.

“This included when the plane’s transponder and Acars (Aircraft Communications and Reporting System) stopped sending data in relation to the crew’s last recorded radio call, what was said in the last radio call, what items were stored in the plane’s cargo bay, and other critical details.

“We were initially told that the airplane went either on a northern route, which would bring it over land and possible landing sites, or a southern route, but the possibility of a northern route was quickly abandoned.

“Since then, the entire search effort has been focused on a relatively small area of the southern Indian Ocean, a search area that was determined by a never-before-employed analysis of automatic communications between the plane and a communications satellite.”

Voice370 said the determination of the area as the only place to search remained questionable, and accused Putrajaya of abandoning hope of finding their loved ones alive early in the search effort.

Recalling the March 24 announcement by the government last year that MH370 had crashed into the southern Indian Ocean and that there was no hope of survivors, Voice370 said some families only received the information by text message.

It added that the announcement was “emotionally devastating” and “unacceptable” at the time, when it was too early to make such a determination, especially given the mistakes, miscalculations, misinformation and lack of crash evidence associated with the search then.

The group also recounted the second blow, which came with little warning when Putrajaya declared on January 29 that the plane was lost in an accident and all on board were killed, and that the rescue effort would be called off.

It expressed concern that the January 29 announcement was the first step towards the government calling off the search effort completely, with the underwater search of the area of the southern Indian Ocean scheduled for completion in May this year.

“We do not accept this declaration and will not give up hope until we have definitive proof of a crash and a determination of location – even if it is just one piece of the wreckage.

“The majority of that area has already been searched with no findings. The search must continue and all options explored if nothing is found in the coming weeks.

“Finding MH370 is important not only for humanitarian reasons, but also to discover out what caused the plane to disappear,” they said, expressing fears that MAS and Putrajaya wanted to put the tragedy behind them.

Voice370 said the group harboured no ill-will towards MAS, which is going through a restructuring exercise to recover from the tragedies it suffered last year, including the shooting down of flight MH17 in Ukraine, but added that it could not accept the government’s announcements and move on.

The group also asked MAS and its insurer to treat the MH370 families with compassion. They said neither had offered settlements to the families other than a US$50,000 (RM180,000) advance per family.

“They told us that we will need to prove our losses in accordance with whatever the law in our home countries requires MAS to pay. This plan, however, is in stark contrast to how we understand other families have been treated in recent accidents,” it said.

It said that in the TransAsia Flight 222 crash, the airline reportedly offered each family approximately US$500,000 and did not require the affected families to go through the painful steps of proving their emotional and financial losses as the investigation unfolded.

“We ask Malaysia Airlines and its insurer to treat us fairly, to not require us to initiate the painful process of obtaining death certificates in order to discuss compensation, and to consider the benefits to not only us, but the future of the airline, if we are treated with compassion,” it said.

The group also expressed gratitude to the countries that helped in the search for MH370, and the people around the world who sent their good wishes and sympathies as the families endured the tragedy.

Voice370 is organising “A Day of Remembrance” on Sunday to pay tribute to their missing loved ones at The Square @ Publika in Kuala Lumpur from 3.30pm to 6.30pm. The event will also feature live links to India, France, Australia and New Zealand. – March 5, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 6 March 2015, 6:23 am and is filed under
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Pakatan Rakyat leaders must be vigilant on the watch-out for UMNO/BN agent provocateurs who are trying to wreak maximum damage to destabilise, divide and destroy Pakatan Rakyat unity to distract attention from mounting UMNO/BN woes

Pakatan Rakyat leaders must be vigilant on the watch-out for UMNO/BN agent provocateurs who are trying to wreak maximum damage to destabilise, divide and destroy Pakatan Rakyat unity to distract attention from mounting UMNO/BN woes.

The responsibility of UMNO/BN agent provocateurs for the recent assaults on PAS leaders, like PAS MP Dr. Hatta Ramli and Dr. Dzukefly Ahmad have not and cannot be ruled out – which is why Pakatan Raykat leaders should be very careful about what they say and do in public.

It is very unfortunate that the Kelantan PAS Deputy Mentri Besar and Deputy Commissioner (I) Datuk Mohd Amar Abdullah had adopted such a negative attitude as to say that the door was closed to DAP in its bid to stop PAS from bringing its hudud Bill to the Kelantan State Assembly, and that there will be no more talk with DAP, claiming that he had explained the reasons behind the Kelantan hudud amendment to DAP’s top leaders at least four times.

He even asked: “What more do they want?”

Datuk Mohd Amar and I must be living in a very different world, for the only time he had briefed DAP leaders about the proposed Kelantan hudud amendment bill was the Pakatan Rakyat Leadership Council meeting last month on Feb. 8, where the top PR leaders from DAP, PKR and PAS, including top PAS national leaders led by PAS President Datuk Seri Hadi Awang and top PKR leaders including Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Datuk Seri Dr. Wan Azizah Ismail, together with Datuk Mohd Amar present, agreed that the proposed Kelantan hudud amendment bill would be presented to the PR Leadership Council before it is tabled at the Kelantan State Assembly in late March. I must say that Datuk Mohd Amar’s briefing about the proposed hudud amendment on Feb 8 was most sketchy and unsatisfactory.

It is up to Datuk Mohd Amar if he wants to renege on this commitment made by him and PAS leaders at the PR Leadership Council on Feb. 8, but one thing I am sure is that Tuan Guru Nik Aziz Nik Mat would never go back on his undertaking, as to Nik Aziz, his word was his bond!

In fact I am confident that Nik Aziz, if he is alive, will see the Big Picture on the need to protect and enhance the unity, solidarity and effectiveness of Pakatan Rakyat to replace UMNO/BN in Putrajaya in the 14th General Elections.

This is the reason why Nik Aziz was the strongest bulwark of Pakatan Rakyat and gave his blessings to the Pakatan Rakyat Common Policy Framework focussing on common policy positions among DAP, PKR and PAS while putting aside policy differences among the PR parties like hudud law.

This is also the reason why Nik Aziz was the strongest opponent to the “UG” (Unity Government between UMNO and PAS) concept, the strongest voice in PAS to any UG Government.

This is the time when UMNO and BN parties are faced with mounting woes, as evidenced by the need for UMNO to summon a meeting of UMNO Divisions this Sunday.

PR leaders should focus on how to strengthenl PR unity, solidarity and effectiveness and not to create greater divisions and tensions among the Pakatan Rakyat parties.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 6 March 2015, 12:05 pm and is filed under
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The six-paragraph PMO statement on Wednesday on Cabinet meeting on RM 42billion 1MDB scandal signifies the arrival of “The Whale” in Malaysian politics overshadowing not only the 10-Minister PM Department but the 35-Minister Cabinet

The London Sunday Times expose on Sunday, which shook the Najib administration to its very roots with reports of joint Sunday Times-Sarawak Report investigations into the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal and revelation that they have obtained access to thousands of 1MDB transactions and email which 1MDB had attempted at the end of last year to wipe out from all its computers, employee laptops and servers, started with the story of “The Whale”.

In its report
“Harrow playboy linked to troubled Malaysian fund”
, Sunday Times London of Sunday, 1st March 2015 which launched  its series of investigation exposes on 1MDB scandal (which has forced the Malaysian authorities to seriously think of an “exit strategy” for Najib in 1MDB) opened as follows:

“IN THE summer of 2009, a Malaysian nicknamed ‘the Whale’ appeared on the New York nightclub scene. He would travel with a large entourage in a fleet of Cadillacs and his party would spend tens of thousands of dollars a night in the company of socialites such as Paris Hilton.

“’The Whale’ is said to have celebrated his 28th birthday with a four-day event in Las Vegas that included a party at a pool surrounded by caged lions and tigers. Manhattan was abuzz with questions over his identity and the source of his wealth.

“It emerged that the ‘mystery man’ of the nightclubs was the Malaysian tycoon Taek Jho Low, who had been educated at Harrow School and the Wharton School in Pennsylvania. He claimed his success was due to being in the ‘right place at the right time’.

“Low certainly has a wide range of business interests, building up a £650m investment fund that he started at university. He also runs Jynwel Capital, a Hong Kong fund with investments in media, retail, property and commodities. His family is independently wealthy.

“There has been speculation, however, over his role at Malaysia’s state investment fund, which the bank Merrill Lynch warned last year had racked up debts of £7.8bn. The fund, 1MDB, is turning into a running sore for Najib Razak, the Malaysian prime minister, who chairs its advisory board, and a potential liability for his country’s balance sheet.

“Senior fund officials have previously insisted that the charismatic Low, who is known to be close to the prime minister’s family, has had ‘zero’ involvement in 1MDB.

“Arul Kanda, the fund’s executive director, said last month: ‘Jho Low has no ties with 1MDB and I have not come across any document that linked him to this company.’

“However, emails and documents passed to the Malaysian investigative website the Sarawak Report and seen by The Sunday Times expose for the first time the young tycoon’s role as a secret broker for 1MDB.”

While Malaysia is making waves in international socialite circles with the contribution of “The Whale”, what is little noticed  is the arrival of  another “Whale” in Malaysian government and politics –  epitomised in the six-paragraph statement of the PMO on 1MDB after the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

“The Whale” in Malaysian politics and government is not Jho Low, but the PMO Communications Unit headed by a foreigner which has overshadowed not only the 10-Minister Prime Minister’s Department but the entire 35-Minister Cabinet.

I observed yesterday that the Cabinet meeting and outcome on 1MDB yesterday seemed to have been scripted and choreographed by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s “master publicist” Paul Stadlen with one objective in mind, to avoid accountability for the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal in the whole month of Parliament beginning on Monday, and this appeared to borne out by the six-paragraph statement issued by the PMO after the Cabinet meeting.

In fact, the six-paragraph PMO statement on the 1MDB could have been prepared even before the Cabinet meeting as all that is required of the 35-Minister Cabinet is to follow the script choreographed by Najib’s master publicists so that the six-paragraph statement could be issued intact after the Cabinet meeting, without any change of  punctuation marks.

If this represents the political scenario in government and Cabinet today, then we are seeing the Najib Cabinet – already dismissed by Tun Mahathir as “half-past six” and Tun Daim Zainuddin as “deadwood” – being pulverized into total inconsequence and irrelevance by Najib’s second “Whale”, the PMO Communications Unit!

In the past month, Najib’s PMO “Whale” has been making its presence felt – showing that it reach is well beyond the imagination of any one Minister in Najib’s Cabinet and that it could even act with impunity.

On February 10, 2015, the PMO tarnished the credibility, independence and professionalism of the Malaysian judiciary when it came out with a statement defending the Federal Court’s 5-0 unanimous decision on the Anwar Ibrahim Sodomy II case even before the completion of the Federal Court judicial process –indication that the government was privy to the Federal Court decisions before they were delivered in open court.

Although little noticed at the time,  the PMO had already waded into international controversy a day earlier when the New York Times report of Feb. 9, 2015 quoted a PMO statement attributing the Prime Minister’s expenditures, including the million-dollar purchases of his wife’s jewellery and shopping sprees, to the Prime Minister’s inheritance.

This is the PMO statement as quoted by the New York Times:

“Neither any money spent on travel, nor any jewellery purchases, nor the alleged contents of any safes are unusual for a person of the prime minister’s position, responsibilities and legacy family assets.”

The PMO statement in the New York Times had greatly offended and outraged the four brothers of the Prime Minister, Johari, Nizam, Nazim and Nazir who, in a rare private statement expressed worry that the name of their father, who was known for his frugality, would be tarnished by such talks of family assets.

Although Najib belatedly came out with a statement agreeing with his four brothers about Razak’s frugality and integrity,  former New Straits Times group editor-in-chief, Kadir Jasin, questioned Najib’s media advisers and strategists whether they have lost the plot in bringing up the Prime Minister’s grandfather’s role in financing his education in the raging controversy over his family inheritance.

Up to now, Najib has yet to be forthcoming about the PMO statement about his “inheritance” – in particular what the PMO meant when it referred to “…the alleged contents of any safes…” as it raises the question what, where and how many such safes, what are  in the safes and in which country are the safes located.

But these embarrassing errors  do not seem to hurt Najib’s PMO Communications Unit, which is expanding from strength to strength to the extent that it could not only anticipate Federal Court decision on Anwar’s Sodomy II case, make controversial statements about Najib’s inheritance, but seemed to have taken over Najib’s 1MDB publicity offensive to the extent of scripting and choreographing Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting on 1MDB.

Why is Najb allowing such a “Whale” to exercise unaccounted power to overawe his Cabinet and other government departments as well?

                This entry was posted on Friday, 6 March 2015, 8:28 am and is filed under
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DAP  whip in the Sabah State Assembly, Dr. Edwin Bosi will  move a motion in Sabah Stafe Assembly next month to propose  a Sabah State Assembly Select Committee  headed by Speaker Salleh  to hold public inquiry to review 52 years of Sabah in Malaysia

DAP  whip in the Sabah State Assembly, Dr. Edwin Bosi will  move a motion in Sabah Stafe Assembly next month to propose  a Sabah State Assembly Select Committee  headed by Speaker Salleh Keruak  to hold public inquiry to review 52 years of Sabah in Malaysia.

This will provide all Sabahans an opportunity to ventilate and articulate their hopes, expectations ad dream of Sabah in Malaysia, and an important aspect of such a review must be the three fundamental guarantees engraved in the Keningau Batu Sumpah – freedom of religion, land rights  and adat istiadat of native Sabahans.

Edwin’s motion will be  follow-up to the recent suggestion by Salleh that he Federal Government gove  partial autonomy to Sabah and Sarawak, as both states lacked independence in decision-making, and make both  feel they are partners in Malaysia and not servants of West Malaysian colonialists.

I am amazed by the very co-operative and friendly attitude of the people in Kg Iban, without  any sense of bitterness but prepared to work with the authorities, although five years ago they suffered a great injustice when 1,800 acres of land in Landau which the 300 people in the kampong had worked since their forefathers in the British colonial period, were seized back by the State Government without any compensation whatsoever.

This is a violation of one of the three guarantees in the Batu Sumpah and such a deprivation of the land rights of the people in Kg Iban would not have taken place if the state government had respected both the letter and spirit of Batu Sumpah.

The people of Kampong Iban are model citizens of Sabah and Malaysia, who harbour no grievances despite the injustices visited on them five years ago.

I will write to the Sabah Chief Minister, Tan Sri Musa Aman to appeal to him to consider the appeal of the 300 people in Kampung Iban for restitution of the land which had been seized from them five years ago, and I hope that the Chief Minister would use his good office to ensure that the people in Kampong Iban would be restored their land together with the proper titles in accordance with Batu Sumpah.

(Speech  at the launching of the fourth Batu Sumpah replica at Kampung iban, Marotai on Friday, 6th Mach 2015k at 8 pm)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 7 March 2015, 3:54 pm and is filed under
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Are 1MDB’s woes revealing a fractured Najib government?

COMMENTARY BY THE MALAYSIAN INSIDER

6 March 2015

The Cabinet might have tried to put up a united front over debt-heavy 1Malaysia Development Bhd’s (1MDB) financial woes but it took Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin just 48 hours to crack that façade.

His seven-paragraph statement tonight made three points not found in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) statement on Wednesday which said, “Cabinet expressed confidence that no wrong-doing has been committed within 1MDB, and their desire for the company to be allowed to implement the proposed outcomes of its strategic review.”

Muhyiddin’s points were simple for a company that reportedly sits on a RM51 billion asset base that can cover its RM42 billion debts.

For him, there should not be any bailout of 1MDB if it involves public funds, the Auditor-General must verify 1MDB’s accounts from 2009, and that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) should carry out an independent probe.

In the PMO statement, Prime Miinister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had informed the Cabinet that he has instructed the Auditor General to independently verify 1MDB’s accounts.

“The Auditor General’s report will be passed for transparent inspection to the Public Accounts Committee, which is fully bipartisan and reflects Parliament’s composition,” said the statement.

“If any wrongdoing is proven, the law will be enforced without exception,” it quoted the prime minister as saying.

But Muhyiddin has taken matters further in asking for experts to assist the Auditor-General in conducting the audit in the shortest time possible for a complete and comprehensive report about 1MDB’s finances, adding that a forensic audit must be done to ensure there was no financial irregularities in 1MDB’s transactions.

In one did not know better, it would appear that Muhyiddin was channelling the requests of Barisan Nasional’s (BN) political opponents, Pakatan Rakyat (PR) in asking for a thorough investigation.

Just a year ago, no one bothered to answer PR’s complaints about 1MDB until former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad brought up the issue.

The country’s longest-serving prime minister even granted an interview to whistleblower website Sarawak Report on the matter.

That was when it became a serious issue which the Cabinet then discussed when Najib was away from the country last December.

In recent weeks, the Cabinet even demurred from confirming its minutes to give a RM3 billion cash injection to 1MDB, which has an advisory board chaired by Najib in his capacity as prime minister and finance minister.

It would go down as the first time the Cabinet had rejected such a request from a prime minister for a government-owned company that needed some cash to tide over a cashflow problem.

If that decision did not reflect fractures in Najib’s Cabinet, tonight’s statement by Muhyiddin clearly shows that there are elements in the ruling administration who are concerned the cost of 1MDB’s financial woes.

Bailing out 1MDB or exonerating the company from any wrongdoing is not on the agenda now, a far cry from the days when financial scandals were cleared by other government-owned entities or the national oil company.

Muhyiddin is clear about that, even if it does not seem to be Putrajaya’s stand. The question now is whether other government ministers stand with him or the prime minister in solving 1MDB’s woes. – March 6, 2015.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 7 March 2015, 6:54 am and is filed under
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Call on Speaker  Salleh to support a DAP motion in April Sabah State Assembly to set up a Sabah State Assembly Select Committee to hold public inquiry to review 52 years of Sabah in Malaysia

Recently, the Sabah State Assembly Speaker Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak suggested that the Federal Government consider giving partial autonomy to Sabah and Sarawak, as both states lacked independence in decision-making.

He  said Sabahans and Sarawakians must be made to feel they are partners in Malaysia and not servants of West Malaysian colonialists, and the matter should be dealt with quickly before state elections are held in the next few years.

He said the present system of the federal government practically running the two states did not go down well, as the states were supposed to enjoy a certain level of autonomy.

He said Sabah and Sarawak did not really want independence, as proposed by some.

“What is of concern to Sabah and Sarawak is the federalisation of the state government and the loss of its autonomy in deciding some matters,” he said.

He said the federal government not only decides on development expenditure but also controls how, what and when development is implemented.

“This causes delays, wastage and overlapping of functions between the state and federal agencies. Many times the state is left out entirely in the decision-making process,” he said in an article on his blog.

Salleh’s admission about the legitimacy and gravity of grievances and unhappiness by the people of Sabah and Sarawak about their “step-children” treatment by the Federal Government is commendable, although his call for “partial autonomy” only address the symptom but not the root of the problem in both Sabah and Sarawak.

What for instance is the use of talking about “partial autonomy” when Sabah has lost meaningful control and power over areas where it should have unquestioned autonomy like in the matter of immigration.

If the Sabah State Government and people have genuine autonomy on immigration, the problem of illegal immigrants would not have dragged out for four decades to mushroom into a humongous problem as to change the political, economic, educational, social and security landscape in Sabah where native Sabahans have been reduced to become a minority and strangers in their own land!

If there is genuine Sabah autonomy on immigration,  there would not be the scandalous non-outcome of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS), as there is absolutely no follow-up action to resolve once and for all the four-decades-old problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah becoming  citizens and even voters through fraudulent and illegal means.

Seven months after the RCIIIS Report had been submitted to the Yang di Pertuan Agong, and three months after the publication of the RCIII Report (a total of 10 precious months), absolutely nothing had been done to resolve the problem of illegal immigrants in Sabah.

This is the most glaring example where Sabah has full autonomy on immigration, but it has become one issue which had haunted Sabahans for the past two generations and will haunt future generations of Sabahans.

This is why on the 50th anniversary of formation of Malaysia, DAP had proposed a Royal Commission of Inquiry on whether the hopes and aspirations of Sabahans and Sarawakians in the formation of Malaysia had been fulfilled, which would be an occasion for a full-fledged public inquiry into all the hopes, aspirations, disappointments and grievances of Sabahans and Sarawakians about their five decades in Malaysia.

While Salleh’s admission that things are not well about Sabah and Sarawak in Malaysia is a step in the right direction, he should be prepared to deal with the root causes and not just the symptoms of such unhappiness  and deep-seated grievances in Sabah and Sarawak.

For this reason, I call on Salleh, as Speaker of the Sabah State Assembly, to support a DAP motion in the April meeting of the Sabah State Assembly to set up a Sabah State Assembly Select Committee to hold public inquiry to review 52 years of Sabah in Malaysia, which will allow a full ventilation of the unhappiness, disappointments and grievances of people of Sabah after 52 years of Malaysia.

(Media Conference Statement  in Tawau on Friday, March 6, 2015 at 5 pm)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 7 March 2015, 6:22 am and is filed under
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Muhyddin’s seven-para statement has smashed Najib’s six-para PMO Statement on Cabinet position on RM42 billion 1MDB scandal into smithereens

Within 42 hours of the meeting of  UMNO Divisional chiefs in Kuala Lumpur at 3 pm tomorrow  Sunday), the Deputy Prime Minister and UMNO Deputy President, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin has thrown a bomb to shatter the facade of UMNO and Cabinet unity which the Prime Minister’s Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s PMO Communications Unit had carefully crafted with  a six-paragraph statement after the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday on the RM42 billion 1MBD scandal.

Muhyiddin’s seven-paragraph statement late last evening has smashed Najib’s six-para PMO Statement on  the Cabinet position on the RM42 billion 1MDB scandal into smithereens.

The UMNO Divisional chiefs meeting was supposed to be a “show of force” by the pro-Najib forces in UMNO to demonstrate how unshakeable and even  invincible was Najib’s position in UMNO  despite all the talk, inside and outside the country, of a gathering of anti-Najib forces coming to a crescendo  with the many crisis of confidence and financial scandals coming to a head  – whether the five-year jailing of Anwar Ibrahim;  the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder case with Azila and Sirul convicted and sentenced to death for the murder but the whole country asking who had ordered the two former police commandos to kill and use Defence Ministry explosives to blow up her body; the blacklisting and second by-passing of Justice Hishammudin from elevation to Federal Court for being the most respected serving judge of integrity; the cacophony of extremist, intolerant and bigoted hate speech, both on race and religion; or what the DAP MP for Petaling Jaya Utara Tony Pua has described as “the mother of mother of mother of financial scandals”, the RM42 billion 1MDP scandal!

Not that Najib does not have chinks in his armour or Achilles Heel but the pro-Najib forces were supremely confident that the UMNO Divisional Chiefs meeting tomorrow could be transformed into  a triumphant Najib gathering akin to crowning him as the undisputed UMNO President.

But all this has crumbled with Muhyiddin’s seven-para statement which disputed Najib’s six-para PMO statement, in fact questioning the claim that the Cabinet had issued the 1MDB with a clean bill of health and integrity.

Otherwise, why is Muhyiddin asking for experts to assist the Auditor-General in conducting the audit in the shortest time possible for a complete and comprehensive report about 1MDB’s finances,  including to verify 1MDB’s accounts from 2009, adding that a forensic audit must be done to ensure there was no financial irregularities in 1MDB’s transactions; that there should not be any bailout of 1MDB if it involves public funds, and that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) should carry out an independent probe without having to wait for the Auditor-General.

Is the PAC, particular its Chairman, Datuk Nur Jazlan going to listen to Najib or Muhyiddin?

What is clear is that the 1MDB scandal is no more an “untouchable subject” at the UMNO Divisional Chairmen’s meeting tomorrow, which had been the object of the six-para PMO Statement on the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday – banning the subject from Parliament and all UMNO/Bnl meetings until the outcome of the Auditor-General’s investigations which can take years.

Will any UMNO Division chairman “bell the cat” tomorrow?

(Media Statment in Kota Kinabalu on Saturday, March 7, 2015)

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 7 March 2015, 10:34 am and is filed under
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5 theories about what happened to MH370

Nick Vivion

USA TODAY

March 7, 2015

It’s been one year since the tragedy of missing Malaysia Airlines flight 370 unfolded in disbelief. How could an airliner in today’s jet age simply disappear without a trace? Of course, like any widespread mystery, there are many theories about what happened on that fateful day. Here’s a rundown of what could have happened to MH370:

Sabotage, or the “rogue pilot” theory

This has become the predominant theory due to recent analysis by former Boeing 777 pilot Byron Bailey. According to the Telegraph, he suggests that the pilot was able to deftly thread through country borders in order to avoid raising suspicion with nearby flight controllers, leading Bailey to conclude:

 It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to work out who did it. Nearly all my colleagues in the aviation industry realised within days of the crash that only a pilot could have done this.

Facts that support this deliberate diversion theory include that someone turned off the plane’s transponder and disabled the communications system within the cockpit. This is a sophisticated move that most agree could only be done by a trained pilot rather than a malfunction or amateur hijacking. The question of motivation is still left unanswered, but it could have been simple suicide, says science writer Ewan Wilson. A 777 pilot, Bailey also points out that a suicide attempt by the pilot would void any life insurance payments to family, which would be a real incentive for such an elaborate scheme.

Hijacking

There was some discussion of two Iranian passengers traveling with forged documents as potential hijackers. However, this theory was deflated by reports that they were seeking asylum. Writer Jeff Wise believes this theory to be most valid: Someone turned the power off and then on again for the satellite communication system, which is under a bay near the galley and unreachable without leaving the cockpit. The pilot would have had to leave the cockpit to achieve this, and pilots are not generally trained to do this. This following video also shows how technically complicated it would be to identify the correct circuit to cycle the power of the satellite system:

This theory is also disputed by the fact that emergency squawk codes — or transponder codes used in case of emergency — were not deployed by the pilots, and also that there were no unusual communications from the plane.

Loss of cabin pressure due to mechanical failure

This theory works well to address the reasons for the plane’s long journey on auto-pilot. According to estimates, the plane would have been able to fly for 7 hours on autopilot before running out of gas. A rapid loss in cabin pressure would have rendered the pilot’s unconscious, and the plane would have kept going, gradually descending and crashed into the ocean with minimal surface debris.

However, it doesn’t account for the transponder being turned off, and the precise way in which the airliner was maneuvered.

American conspiracy to kill Chinese intelligence workers

Jim Stone is a freelance journalist that operates a conspiracy-rich website, and suggests that America was responsible for wiping out the plane:

  “They nailed that plane which was unusually full of key people for the sole purpose of getting the NSA back into a position of completely raping Chinese data and regaining total information superiority.”

This is an extension of Stone’s theory that MH370 was somehow swapped with MH17, the plane that was shot down over the Ukraine close after the disappearance of MH370. We’re not buying it.

Insurance scam

One Malaysian police chief continues to suggest that the plane’s disappearance could be due to amassive insurance fraud scheme. Police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said to the media:

“Maybe somebody on the flight has bought a huge sum of insurance, who wants family to gain from it or somebody who has owed somebody so much money, you know, we are looking at all possibilities.”

While there are no clear answers, the documentary
below
from Smithsonian Channel explores the enduring mystery.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 8 March 2015, 7:33 am and is filed under
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A year into MH370 disappearance, Chinese aircraft maker pushes for new emergency recorder system

by Shuang Guo, Lei Yang

Xin Hua

2015-03-08

LOS ANGELES, March 7 (Xinhua) — In an event of a test model plane crash, an emergency recorder and tracking system is separated from the tail section of the plane.

The test, which is shown in a video clip, is part of a series of tests completed since October by the U.S. subsidiary of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) on a comprehensive emergency information recorder and tracking system.

COMAC America Corporation says its emergency recorder system includes a data storage and transmitter called Harbinger, claiming for the system it had been applying new methods that transcend traditional designs of black box recorders used in commercial aircraft.

The yearlong searching effort for Malaysia Airlines’ missing flight MH370 has turned up with no sign of the plane, but it has fueled the company’s resolve to come up with a system more efficient instead.

The flight MH370, a Boeing 777-200, disappeared en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, with 239 passengers and crew on board. So far no trace has been found despite a massive surface and underwater hunt, in what has become one of the biggest mysteries in the aviation history.

The search is jointly carried out by Australia, Malaysia and China in the vast swaths of the Indian Ocean some 1,600 kilometers off Australia’s west coast, with four ships using sophisticated sonar systems to scour a huge underwater area.

The protracted search for the missing plane’s black boxes, or the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, are presenting new demands for aviation security and rescue. Major aircraft makers of the world continue to contribute to black box technologies.

A traditional black box emits distress signals for 30 days after sinking with the plane. It stores 30-minutes of cockpit voice conversation and two hours of flight data before the crash.

However, when the plane crashes and goes down at sea, the sonar signal emitted from the black box only transmits several kilometers, therefore requiring a rather definitive search area, which is often difficult in sea crashes.

If the black box becomes covered in seabed sludge (or heavy snow, in the case of a mountainside crash), distress signals are weak and hard to detect, making it difficult to locate the crash site in a timely manner for rescue.

COMAC America believes that the Harbinger emergency system is a useful supplement to existing black box designs that sink with the plane after a crash.

Engineers of the company say, the Harbinger emergency system is able to capture images of the last few minutes of the plane before it crashes. With the system, the last few minutes of the plane’s position, black box data, and video footage is captured through cloud technology to a satellite.

The system can also save a copy of the data and is equipped with a parachute and inflation system to enable it to stay afloat at sea. The inflation system can also protect hardware when the Harbinger lands on hard surfaces. It will also transmit distress signals to help rescue teams locate its position.

Based on repeated tests of the system, the video footage of the last few minutes of a plane crash, for instance, offers invaluable insight into the data captured in a traditional black box. The position tracking system and cloud data transmission function also increases the probability of rapid location of the crash site and the survivability of the captured flight data.

“Being able to find the true cause of an air disaster is a crucial step towards improving aircraft designs for safer air travel tomorrow,” said Wei Ye, president of COMAC America Corporation told Xinhua. “The Harbinger emergency system will bring revolutionary changes to air rescue and aviation security.”

The company has filed a patent application of the Harbinger emergency system with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, said Ye, adding that “we believe new models of commercial aircraft in the future will benefit from using this system.”

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A year later: Why did we find AirAsia jet but not MH370?

Lindsay Deutsch

USA TODAY

March 7, 2015

Three commercial plane crashes and recoveries dominated the news last year. Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down in eastern Ukraine. AirAsia Flight 8501 crashed into the Java Sea during bad weather. And Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 — well, what happened in the skies with that jet remains shrouded in mystery.

Officials are still searching a vast area for any sign of MH370 one year after the crash on March 8, 2014. So what makes Flight 370’s case so different from Flight 8501, which was on a similar flight path?

Several factors contributed to why the debris from the AirAsia plane was located, rather than remaining the subject of conspiracy theories:

1. The AirAsia debris field was in relatively shallow water. Debris from the AirAsia jet was found in Indonesian waters — including the Karimata Strait between Sumatra, Java and Borneo, a large island shared among Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei — at a depth of about 150 feet.

The location of Malaysia Air Flight 370, however, is unclear. The search that started in the South China Sea spanned out to the Indian Ocean and beyond. Pings thought to possibly be from the plane’s black box provided a false lead in April. Searching continues in parts of the Indian Ocean that have crevasses and dips that go as deep as 4 miles.

2. Weather difficulties provided information. Before it lost contact with air-traffic control, AirAsia Flight 8501 had asked for permission to climb to a higher altitude to avoid tropical storm clouds. Other aircraft were in the area, so controllers temporarily denied the request.

Before Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared, all seemed smooth on the horizon, keeping its downfall a complete mystery. “All right, good night,” was reported to be the pilot’s final message to air-traffic control before it lost contact.

3. Tracking was working. Not only was AirAsia flying in more populated skies over relatively shallow water, but the flight did not deviate from its flight plan, and communications were working correctly until contact was lost.

Flight 370 flew for hours after it lost ground communication and was well off course.

4. Size of search area. Search for the AirAsia flight focused on a 70-square-nautical-mile area between Belitung island, off Sumatra and Borneo island.

The Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 search area was more than 100,579 square miles and covered parts deep in the southern Indian Ocean. About 10,000 square miles have been scoured, and the goal is to search 23,000 miles by May.

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A year on, MH370 still a mystery, errors go unpunished

by Elizabeth Zachariah

The Malaysian Insider

8 March 2015

One year since Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 vanished, the plane’s whereabouts remains a mystery, as does the nagging question – why can’t anyone be held responsible?

Scrutiny of the timeline of events after the Boeing-777 disappeared from radar on March 8, 2014 revealed gaps in communication and a lapse of judgment, in particular by the military, which saw the plane on primary surveillance radar, but did nothing to investigate why it had flown off course.

Malaysian military officials revealed on March 12 that an unidentified aircraft, believed to be MH370, had travelled across the peninsula after doing an air turn-back, and was last sighted on military radar 370km northwest of Penang.

Following this, the search area was then expanded from the Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea to include the Strait of Malacca.

It was reported then that senior military officers only became aware of the radar data after news of the aircraft’s disappearance had spread.

Criticism quickly rolled in after this revelation, from opposition politicians, civil society, the Malaysian public and international media.

“Clearly, they had let an unidentified aircraft pass through Malaysian sovereign territory without bothering to identify it; not something they were happy to admit,” aviation consultant David Learmount had said.

“There was clearly a significant failure of response on behalf of the Malaysian air force. There’s no real way around it and you might imagine heads would roll for that,” Bangkok-based analyst for defence-and-security-intelligence firm IHS-Jane, Anthony Davis was quoted as saying in a report by Time.

Veteran DAP leader Lim Kit Siang had also called for “heads to roll”, demanding that an inquiry be launched to seek accountability in the plane’s disappearance and subsequent response.

Renewing his calls for accountability, the Gelang Patah MP said no one has been brought to book for the grave error that could have saved millions of ringgit and given the families of the 239 on board the closure they need.

“This only highlights the need to hold an inquiry through the setting up of a Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) to look into the incident,” he added.

Lim said then that one of the areas that should be investigated was whether the disappearance of the jet could have been averted if military radar operators had been more vigilant and had acted promptly.

DAP’s Bukit Mertajam MP Steven Sim had also attempted to learn more about the military radar which detected MH370 in Parliament but his queries were rejected as such information was deemed “secret”.

He had also asked if there were any follow-up action on the lack of emergency response in the early hours when the aircraft went missing but was shot down.

Speaking to The Malaysian Insider recently ahead of the first anniversary of MH370’s disappearance, Sim expressed his disappointment in Putrajaya for its lack of concern over the errors that had contributed to the plane’s whereabouts still being a mystery.

“Before Parliament convenes next week, I urge the prime minister to do several things to show his commitment towards truth, justice and closure for MH370.

“He has to answer if there was any audit conducted on the tragedy, especially with regard to the government standard operating procedure, given the reported negligence such as the lack of response after the loss of communication with MH370 and the lack of response after military radar detected a so-called unidentified flying object moments after MH370 went off communication,” Sim said.

He said he had called for a post-mortem report to be tabled in Parliament but this was never done.

Now, a year later, the critics are justified.

In the absence of any admission of wrongdoing or negligence by the Malaysian authorities, the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) has noted the failure of Malaysia’s military in communicating information about MH370 as it went off course.

In a paper presented in January at the Third Meeting of the Asia/Pacific Regional Search and Rescue Task Force in the Maldives, ICAO said the delay had resulted in the loss of valuable time in the initial search for the plane.

It was some 20 hours before civil aviation authorities were informed and a week before the information that military radar had detected MH370 flying north of Pulau Perak in the Strait of Malacca, was released, the paper noted.

“PSR (primary surveillance radar) information from Malaysian military PSR and the two PSRs in Thailand at Hat Yai (near the Thai-Malaysian border) and Phuket (Bang Duk Hill) that could have observed the west-bound track of MH370 were not provided to civilian authorities during the immediate period following the disappearance,” the paper titled “ICAO brief on the SAR response to MH370” said.

Though the ICAO paper did not mention the need to scramble jets, it noted the lack of cooperation between military and civil aviation authorities.

This point has also been raised by former Royal Malaysian Air Force fighter pilot, Zaidi Ahmad, who told The Malaysian Insider that Malaysia should have learned from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 to beef up cooperation between the military and civil aviation to deal with airborne threats.

Last year, Malaysian officials drew flak for contradictory and clumsy statements made over the radar fiasco (see graphic).

Royal Malaysian Air Force chief Gen Tan Sri Rodzali Daud initially inadvertently admitted that primary surveillance radar had picked up MH370 over the Strait of Malacca and later denied it, only to have the information be made public later.

In May, Defence Minister and acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein, defended the military’s inaction, saying, “it was not deemed a hostile object and pointless if you are not going to shoot it down.

“If you’re not going to shoot it down, what’s the point of sending it up?”

No one knows if any action has been taken against any official, although current Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said to wait for an interim investigation report on MH370 that was expected to be released today, one year from the incident, as required by international convention.

Will there be answers later today when the report is released?

The next-of-kin of passengers and crew members on board MH370 have spent this weekend remembering their loved ones with vigils and gatherings, refusing to call them “memorial” events as they hold out hope that those missing might still be alive.

This is despite the January 29 announcement by the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation, that after 327 days of searching, flight MH370 was lost in an accident and all 239 on board are considered dead.

The ongoing search in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean, where depths reach 6,000m, has covered more than 40% of the total 60,000 sq km search area.

Search operations, led by Australia, are expected to be completed by May if all goes well.

Authorities have remained sketchy at best in revealing what they plan to do next should the current search yield nothing by then.

Liow has said authorities would need to go back to the drawing board, and Malaysia, as the lead investigator, would rely on experts to help it plan the next move.

Whatever the interim investigation report reveals today, and whether anyone is held to account, the question will still remain: where is the plane? – March 8, 2015.

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DAP calls for a “land for landless” policy in Sabah, derived from the Batu Sumpah guarantee of land rights for Sabahans

This is the fifth Batu Sumpah replica to be raised in Sabah since the start of the Batu Sumpah movement five months ago. The first Batu Sumpah replice was in Inanam, second in Mempulut in Pensiangan, third a double mammoth Batu Sumpah in Moyog and the fourth in Kg Iban in Merotai last night.

The Batu Sumpah movement has brought about a quickening of the awareness among Sabahans about their basic rights, symblising the three basic issues which are fundamental to the formation of Malaysia 52 years ago in 1963 – firstly, freedom of religion and land rights and adat istiadat for native Sabahans.

This is taken place at a critical time in the history of Sabah and Malaysia.

For the first time in Sabah history, the voice and aspirations of the people of Sabah are being given more attention by Putrajaya than at any time in the state’s history.

This is because of the sudden realization that if not for Sabah and Sarawak, the Prime Minister today would have been Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and the Parliamentary Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Sabah and Sarawak were the saviours of not only the Barisan Nasional but Najib as the Prime Minister.

Never before have there been more Federal government appointees in the history of Sabah – from Cabinet Ministers to the Parliamentary Speaker and Deputy Speaker.Can

But it is  the Sabah Barisan Nasional leaders who are the main beneficiaries of such Putrajaya “generosity” rather than the ordinary people of Sabah.

After 52 years, the number of Sabahans appointed as head of Federal departments in Sabah are only 20 to 30 per cent, when it should at least be 70 to 80 per cent after more than five decades of formation of Malaysia.

Is the Barisan Nasional prepared to set a time table for achieving the target of at least 75% of Sabahans heading Federal departments in Sabah in the next 12 months?

The three fundamental guarantees promised the people of Sabah in the Keningau Batu Sumpah should be inspiration for the formulation of policies for the people of Sabah.

For a start, let the Sabah State Government introduce a “land for landless” policy in Sabah arising from the Batu Sumpah guarantee of land rights to all native Sabahans.

(Speech at launching of 5th Batu Sumpah replica at Kampung Kondopi Matunggung on Sunday, 7th March 2015 at 3pm)

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Flight MH370 a year on: Will we EVER find out what happened to the missing plane?

By John Kelly

Mirror UK

7 March 2015

It has been a year since Captain Zaharie Shah steered his mighty Boeing 777 into the night sky with 227 passengers and 12 crew, who have never been seen again

In a routine he had performed countless times before, Captain Zaharie Shah steered his mighty Boeing 777 into the night sky.

All must have seemed normal to the 227 passengers and 12 crew on the Beijing- bound aircraft – but something was wrong.

Shortly afterwards, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 disappeared.

One year on, what happened still remains a mystery.

In a world where every movement seems to be recorded by someone, somewhere, the best investigators have failed to produce a single scrap of evidence, not even a flake of paint, to show where the plane went.

That is despite the spending of around £62million on a so-far fruitless search in which 10,000 square miles of the southern Indian Ocean – a “priority zone” – have been trawled by underwater mapping machines.

An interim report on the disappearance from Malaysia’s Department of Civil Aviation is due to be released.

The country’s transport minister Liow Tiong Lai has promised the airliner will be found in weeks – possibly by May.

But for the families of those missing, the waiting just goes on.

There are growing signs that the will to find the plane is waning.

Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister of Australia which has ploughed most of the money into solving the mystery, this week said he could “not promise that the search will go on at this intensity for ever”.

What is known is this: the flight left Kuala Lumpur at 12.41am a year ago supposedly heading for Beijing with the last contact at 1.19am, when a co-pilot radioed: “Goodnight Malaysian three seven zero.”

Two minutes later the plane fails to check in with air traffic control in Vietnam. Radar shows it makes a sharp turn left and an alarm is raised at 5.30am. No distress signal is ever picked up.

What happened to the pilot?

Had he prepared an audacious plan?

Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah, 53, had his own flight simulator at home.

Investigations showed he deleted a flight path to an island in the southern Indian Ocean.

Or did he kill himself mid-flight?

He was supposedly unhappy after a marital split and some investigators believe he simply turned off the plane’s oxygen supply.

Where did the aircraft go?

There are three theories:

 *It went north heading towards Kazakhstan. Thai military radar seems to confirm the plane turned west, then north.

    *It went west and was flown to Diego Garcia, the British-owned island in the Indian Ocean that is let as a military base to America. Surrounding islanders claim they saw a plane low in the sky the morning Flight MH370 went missing.

    *It went south over the ocean off Australia, where the search has been concentrated.

But the seas are among the roughest in the world, with mountainous underwater terrain that has hampered the search.

What has happened to the plane?

    The most likely explanation is it crashed because of:

*Mechanical or structural failure, perhaps caused by sudden decompression.

    *Terrorists who over-powered crew and crashed the plane in a remote location. Eleven al-Qaeda suspects were interrogated last May with a Malaysia Special Branch officer saying: “The possibility it was diverted by militants is high on the list.” No terrorist organisation has claimed involvement.

    *A fire in the cargo. The jet was carrying 200kg of lithium-ion batteries which are known to catch fire and are now banned by some airlines. Malaysia only admitted this two weeks after the disappearance.

    *It was shot down accidentally, perhaps by a joint US military exercise with Thailand in the South China Sea that involved the use of live heat-seeking missiles.

    *It was shot down on purpose. Did US forces on Diego Garcia panic when a low-flying plane came at them?

    *It was captured by the Russians, on the orders of President Putin. There were allegedly three ethnic Russians on board.

    *It was captured by the CIA and flown to Diego Garcia because the US wanted someone or something on board. Relatives say passengers’ mobile phones were still ringing hours afterwards.

     *The Lost Theory – after the TV show – that the plane landed somewhere is believed by many families because not a scrap of wreckage has been found and they feel in their hearts that their loved one is still alive.

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In MH370, military should have learned from 9-11, says ex-airman

by Muzliza Mustafa

The Malaysian Insider

8 March 2015

When Malaysia Airlines (MAS) flight MH370 vanished on March 8 last year, many believed the mystery as to its whereabouts could have been prevented had the Malaysian military scrambled jets to investigate an unknown aircraft its radar was tracking across the northern part of the peninsula.

It is still unclear whether any official has been held to account for this lapse in judgment, as questions posed to ministers have been sidestepped.

Former Royal Malaysian Air Force pilot Maj Zaidi Ahmad said the lack of military action at the time stressed the need to change and update certain standard operating procedure (SOP) for the military, as well as for military-civilian cooperation.

This should have been done following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, but the Malaysian military maintained a “lackadaisical” attitude, said Zaidi, who had been a fighter pilot for more than 20 years.

“The 9-11 incident proved that anything can happen and we should be prepared. After 9-11 there was still no SOP between the military and commercial airlines. We should be taking note of things that happen in other countries and be cautious,” Zaidi told The Malaysian Insider.

He was recently sacked from the force for whistleblowing on the indelible ink used in the 2013 general election. Zaidi was found to have broken protocol by going public and telling the media that the ink washed off easily, thus compromising the integrity of the election.

Zaidi said exercises should be conducted between the military and commercial airlines so that any threats involving aircraft could be addressed quickly and smoothly.

“There are many theories and speculation on what happened to MH370. It could be anything, it could be hijacking, but there is no proper SOP between the military and the commercial aircraft operator to streamline the communication for faster action,” he added.

His comments reflect the content of a recent paper by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) that the Malaysian military’s delay in communicating information about the unidentified plane on its radar had resulted in valuable time lost in search and rescue (SAR) operations for MH370.

It was around 20 hours later before civil aviation authorities were informed and a week before the information was publicly released, the paper titled “ICAO brief on the SAR response to MH370” said.

The paper was presented at the Third Meeting of the Asia/Pacific Regional Search and Rescue Task Force in the Maldives in January.

The paper also noted that improvements were needed on the cooperation between civil aviation and military authorities for the Asia-Pacific search and rescue plan.

This was because Thai military radar had also tracked MH370 as it flew west and then northwest over the Andaman sea, but had received no advice on whether action should be taken.

“It is apparent that a higher degree of Malaysian civil/military coordination may have revealed the possibility of the MH370 course reversal much earlier after the initial alert advice from Vietnam, and as the hypothesised track also crossed Thailand’s PSR coverage, advice to Thailand may have also proved beneficial.

“In essence, a week or more was lost in the initial search because of poor civil/military cooperation,” ICAO said.

Zaidi said Malaysia could not afford to lower its guard just because the country was in peace time.

“Just because we are not involved in any war with anybody, it does not mean we should be careless about protecting our country or preparing ourselves to counter any threats.

“Certain SOP in the military also needs to be changed as the current situation requires us to be alert all the time. Even during peace time, we should be on our toes all the time,” said Zaidi.

One SOP that he felt ought to be changed was the two hours given to pilots to be ready and report to base upon receiving orders.

“This should not be the case. This kind of SOP needs to be revised. We should have our pilots ready at all times although we are not at war or under any kind of threat.”

Zaidi said he did not know whether any official inquiry had been conducted after it was found that Malaysian military radar detected the plane but did not scramble jets to investigate it.

He had been stationed at the Butterworth Airbase, where primary surveillance radar had detected MH370 flying near Pulau Perak after making an air turn-back from its supposed course towards Beijing.

He was already suspended from flying at the time for breaching military protocol over the indelible ink fiasco, pending the hearing in a court martial.

The Malaysian Insider sought a response from the RMAF on the radar fiasco and whether action had been taken, but a senior officer with the air force said all matters related to MH370, even if involving the military, had to be channelled to the Transport Ministry. He said this instruction had been issued to all government agencies.

Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, however, had told The Malaysian Insider in an interview ahead of the first anniversary of MH370’s disappearance, to “wait for the outcome of the investigation’s report” when asked if any Malaysian officials had been held responsible for the plane’s disappearance.

In May last year, then acting Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishammudddin Hussein had told the Australian Broadcasting Corp in an interview that the Malaysian military had been told to keep an eye on the plane but allowed it to disappear off their radar after considering it to be non-hostile.

In the interview, Hishammuddin said the military did not send a plane up to investigate as “it was not deemed a hostile object and pointless if you are not going to shoot it down”.

MH370 was a Boeing-777 which carried 14 nationalities and an all-Malaysian cabin crew. It left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport for Beijing at 12.40am on Saturday, March 7, and made its last contact with civilian radar around 1.30am while flying above the South China Sea between the Malaysian east coast and the southern coast of Vietnam.

It then made an air turn-back in a westerly direction across the peninsula, and flew in a zig-zag pattern around Penang and then north towards the Andaman Sea, where it was last detected by Malaysian military radar.

From there, it was found to have flown on a southward path into the Indian Ocean, based on satellite data by Inmarsat.

The undersea search off the western coast of Australia and in a remote part of the southern Indian Ocean has so far only turned up a few shipping containers but no sign of the plane.

On January 29 this year, the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation declared the plane lost in an accident and all 239 on board presumed dead. – March 8, 2015.

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It doesn’t make sense, says Maira Elizabeth Nari

Arfa Yunus

The Rakyat Post

Mar 7, 2015

KUALA LUMPUR, March 8, 2015:

“I think he is still alive, they all are, but I have a feeling that they are never coming back”.

Those were the words of MH370 chief steward Andrew Nari’s daughter, Maira Elizabeth Nari, who up until now still believes that the passengers and crew of the ill-fated flight are still alive.

Speaking to The Rakyat Post, Maira expressed her anger and said that the mystery involving the Boeing 777-200ER did not make sense and believed that “something fishy is going on”.

“How can a big plane just disappear? Maybe it is being kept somewhere. I am at this point where I don’t even know what to say or think anymore.”

Slowly moving on, Maira, who is currently studying Mass Communications at a private college, said she and her family members had become “immune” to the situation as her father was still missing after one year.

“We are getting used to it. We only talk about him when we see something that reminds us of him. For example, my boyfriend has sinus, just like daddy. So when he made this weird sound from his nose, we would say ‘that is just like daddy’.”

Reminiscing about her father, Maira said she could still remember the hugs her father gave her on his birthday.

According to Maira, her father had always wanted a power bank to charge his mobile phone, but could not afford it at that time.

“I had just finished my SPM and started working. I decided to buy something for him with my first salary and so I bought him a power bank.

“At first when he unwrapped the gift, he thought I bought him an Internet package. But when he realised it was a power bank, we could hear him screaming all over the house. Then, he hugged me,” said Maira.

As challenging as it is, the 19-year-old girl keeps a brave front, but said she could not let a day go by without praying to God for her father’s return.

“I used to pray to God to let me see daddy in my dreams. I had a few dreams where daddy was standing in front of our house. Then I realised I cannot keep dreaming about it. So I pray to God for his safe return instead, every day.”

Maira added that her family and her father’s friends would be holding a prayer at the St Thomas Moore Church, Subang Jaya, to mark the one-year anniversary of the tragedy.

Andrew was one of the 12 crew members who were with 227 passengers on board MH370 that disappeared from the radar screen about an hour after departing the KL International Airport on March 8 last year en route to Beijing, China.

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