Malaysians must be reminded of motto “United we stand, divided we fall” and  should talk the language of unity, moderation, tolerance and justice and not the language of division, extremism, hatred and injustice

Parliament reached rare unanimity yesterday when MPs from both sides of the political divide united to unanimously adopt a motion in an emergency meeting to condemn the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH 17 last Thursday in Ukraine as a heinous and barbaric crime against humanity, killing 298 passengers and crew on board.

The rare unity shown by Members of Parliament yesterday mirrored the unity of Malaysians transcending race, religion, region or politics shown by Malaysians in the past week at the second airline disaster and tragedy to hit the national airline, Malaysian Airlines and the nation in less than five months – the MH 370 disappearance disaster with 239 passengers/crew on board on March 8 and the MH 17 disaster on July 17.

While Malaysians unite in grief and sorrow, extending condolences, support, sympathy and solidarity with the bereaved families, relatives and friends of the 537 victims of the two air disasters, as well as encouragement and support to the MAS employees so that they will be not be demoralised, all Malaysians should pause and ponder why we are  only capable of unity when there is disaster and catastrophe but not during ordinary times.

Under the shadow of the two air disasters in less than five months, with the country still reeling from the shock and trauma at being the epicentre of these two catastrophes with world-wide repercussions, Malaysians must be reminded afresh of the truth and power of the adage “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”.

This is therefore the time when Malaysians should talk the language of unity, moderation, tolerance and justice and not the language of division, extremism, hatred and injustice.

However, Malaysia seems to have lost its national direction in the past 14 months, abandoning not only the two key initiatives of 1Malaysia and the Global Movement of Moderates initiated by Datuk Seri Najib Razak when he became the sixth Malaysian Prime Minister five years ago, but heading towards a “failed state” status with the country never more divided and disunited.

It is no exaggeration to say that the nation had never seen greater racial and religious polarisation as in the past 14 months when the language of division, extremism, hatred and injustice sought to drown out the voices of unity, moderation, tolerance and justice.

The two air disasters, MH 370 and MH 17, in less than five months have been salutary reminders of the perils of such  racial and religious polarisation, bringing Malaysians back to the reality and truism that  regardless of race, religion or politics, we are one Malaysian people who must remain united to face the challenges of the  future, whether adversities, achievements or triumphs.

Can the country benefit from the shock and trauma of the two air disasters of the past five months to end the racial and religious rhetorics of division, extremism, hatred and injustice of the past 14 months?

Can Members of Parliament take the unity and unanimity shown yesterday on the barbaric and uncivilised downing of MH 17 another step further to show unity and solidarity to end the racial and religious rhetorics of division, extremism, hatred and injustice in the past 14 months?

For example, if I had attacked individual Barisan Nasional leaders and accused them of causing the May 13 riots in 1969, I would have immediately, and rightly, been arrested and charged in court on a variety of offences for such irresponsible conduct.  But why are there double standards when accusations have been made publicly and repeatedly against me for the lie and falsehood that I was the cause of the May 13 riots in Kuala Lumpur when I was not even in Kuala Lumpur during the May 13 riots in 1969, or any time after the May 10, 1969 General Elections with no action whatsoever from the police or the authorities?

Again, if any DAP leader had threatened May 13 riots in the country, he or she would have to face  the full weight of the law – and rightly so, because all Malaysians cherish peace, harmony and unity in our multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural nation. But why is it that the May 13 threats had been openly made at least three times this year  by racial and religious extremists and chauvinists without any action being taken by the police or authorities?

This is not the language of justice which is conducive to the fostering of national unity and promotion of a national motto for all Malaysians that “United We Stand, Divided We Fall”.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 July 2014, 12:54 pm and is filed under
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Phone Diplomacy in Ukraine Crisis Lifts Malaysian Leader’s Standing

By KEITH BRADSHER, CHRIS BUCKLEY and DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

New York Times

JULY 23, 2014

Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Intervention on Flight 17 Pays Off

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — It was not an aide or a diplomat on the phone with pro-Russian rebels, trying to get them to relinquish the bodies and the “black boxes” from the wreckage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in eastern Ukraine — it was the leader of Malaysia himself.

Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia played an unusual personal role, holding a series of cellphone conversations with a rebel leader and then coaching a Malaysian colonel on what to say as he passed through nearly a dozen rebel checkpoints on his way to the crash scene, according to a person who was with the prime minister much of the time.

Mr. Najib’s success has at least temporarily restored his standing at home, where his government was battered by accusations of incompetence after the disappearance in March of another Malaysia Airlines jet, Flight 370. The arrival of most of the bodies and the flight data recorders from Flight 17 at a Ukrainian military base on Tuesday brought an outpouring of relief and praise in Malaysia.

But Mr. Najib’s willingness to negotiate directly with Alexander Borodai, the rebel leader, has prompted disquiet outside the country about whether the prime minister had lent unwarranted legitimacy to a man the Ukrainian government has condemned as a terrorist.

Malaysian officials say Mr. Najib established a rapport with Mr. Borodai over the weekend, and finally reached an agreement with him on Monday for handing over the remains and the recorders, which the rebels had taken from the crash site, in territory they control near the Russian border. The plane, a Boeing 777-200 with 298 aboard, was on its way from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was struck by an antiaircraft missile on July 17.

Opposition politicians in Malaysia who had excoriated Mr. Najib through the spring over Flight 370 endorsed his actions on Wednesday at a special session of Parliament and in a series of earlier statements. A senior opposition politician, Lim Kit Siang, wrote on his blog that the prime minister “is to be commended for the breakthrough with the handover of the two black boxes.” And Lim Guan Eng, the secretary general of the Democratic Action Party, a major opposition bloc, said his party was “willing to stand together with the federal government to support their efforts to bring back the bodies to their families.”

Officials in Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, insisted that Mr. Najib’s arrangement with Mr. Borodai did not involve any promise of formal diplomatic recognition or payment to the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. Political analysts said that Mr. Najib’s domestic political bonanza depended partly on that remaining true.

“If it emerges that there are issues behind this deal, then things will be seen in a slightly different way,” said Bridget Welsh, a senior research associate at National Taiwan University who specializes in Malaysian politics.

The Malaysian delegation in Ukraine incurred the anger of many Ukrainians by using the honorific “excellency” in referring to Mr. Borodai, who styles himself the leader of a breakaway republic. But, at least in public, Mr. Najib has not used the term, referring to the rebel leader only as “Mr. Borodai.”

Few Malaysians have followed the Ukrainian conflict in detail, so the question of legitimizing Mr. Borodai, who is a Russian citizen, has barely been raised here. The overwhelming priority has been recovering the bodies of the 43 Malaysians who were on Flight 17, including two infants — an especially delicate matter in a mainly Muslim country where prompt, proper burial of the dead is a strong religious imperative.

“Over here, people don’t care how the deal was done,” said James Chin, a professor of political science at the Kuala Lumpur campus of Monash University. “All they care is that the bodies are coming back, so that the families have closure.”

But, Mr. Chin said, Mr. Najib’s political boost might not last long. When he announced the deal early Tuesday morning, Mr. Najib predicted that the bodies of Malaysians would be in their families’ hands by the end of Ramadan, which in Malaysia will be Sunday. But Dutch and Australian officials now say that it could take weeks or months to identify the remains, which are first being flown to a laboratory in the Netherlands.

“Now he’s smelling like roses, but I suspect it’ll end in tears,” Mr. Chin said of Mr. Najib.

The prime minister sharpened his criticism of the initial difficulties in recovering the bodies and data recorders in a speech to Parliament on Wednesday, but he continued to refrain from assigning blame for the downing of the aircraft.

For Mr. Najib, the loss of a second Malaysia Airlines jet in less than five months is an ordeal that began when he received a call at his Kuala Lumpur home late last Thursday telling him that Flight 17 had disappeared from the radar. The person who was with him for much of that night, and who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of a ban on commenting publicly about the prime minister’s private activities, said Mr. Najib immediately summoned officials to meet him at an emergency response center at the capital’s airport.

Airport guards outside the response center were not prepared for the appearance of the prime minister’s motorcade, with its escort of armed guards on motorcycles, and initially refused to let it pass, while they tried to check with superiors by telephone, the person said. The prime minister’s security detail cut the wait short by bodily lifting the guards and carrying them to the side of the road, and then pushing up the heavy gate blocking the entrance road.

Mr. Najib was given Mr. Borodai’s cellphone number by someone whom Mr. Borodai trusted and who vouched for Mr. Najib, according to Malaysian officials. They declined to say whether the intermediary who set up the initial call was Russian.

Malaysia has long sought to avoid conspicuously taking sides in the rivalries among the United States, Russia and China, and many of its citizens are wary of American influence. While the Netherlands is a member of NATO, which many pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine see as a threat, Malaysia is a distant Southeast Asian nation that has stayed largely silent on the turmoil there.

Russia has invested years of effort in building up its relations with Malaysia, in which aviation has played a major role for more than a decade. Malaysia agreed to buy 18 Sukhoi fighter jets from Russia in May 2003, in a deal worth nearly $1 billion. In exchange, Russia agreed to train and transport to space Malaysia’s first astronaut, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, an orthopedic surgeon by profession who traveled to the International Space Station in 2007 and became a celebrated national hero, not least because he observed the Ramadan fasts in space under the guidance of a large team of religious experts.

At a meeting with President Vladimir V. Putin in Vladivostok in 2012, Mr. Najib noted that he personally oversaw the deal for the Sukhoi jets, and added, “The time has come for us to broaden the relationship and to look into new areas of cooperative relationship with you.”

The deal to recover the recorders and remains from Flight 17 may be the richest political dividend Mr. Najib has yet reaped from that relationship.

Keith Bradsher and Chris Buckley reported from Kuala Lumpur, and David M. Herszenhorn from Kiev, Ukraine.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 July 2014, 9:56 am and is filed under
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Ukraine Says 2 Fighter Jets Are Shot Down as Clashes Intensify

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and ANDREW HIGGINS

New York Times

JULY 23, 2014

KIEV, Ukraine — Fighting intensified in the rebel-controlled region of Ukraine on Wednesday, with military officials reporting that two Ukrainian Su-25 fighter jets had been shot down near the village of Dmytrivka in the east.

Few details of the latest downings were available. But the news was reported as Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council in Kiev said the military operation to suppress the insurgents was advancing in the east, with government troops having retaken two cities in the Luhansk region as they continued an aggressive push from the north and west.

Officials said rebels had blown up a road bridge, a railroad bridge and train tracks in the city of Gorlivka, and they reported continued fierce fighting along a section of the border with Russia that remains porous. Ukrainian forces are increasingly desperate to seal that border to prevent resupplies of weapons or new fighters from entering Ukraine.

A Ukrainian military spokesman, Andriy Lysenko, said Russia had strengthened its troop presence along the border and cross-border gunfire had increased.

The reported downing of the two fighter jets was a serious blow to the Ukrainian military, which has limited air power.

In the Netherlands, two military transport aircraft arrived at an air-base in Eindhoven at midafternoon on Wednesday, carrying 40 coffins with the first bodies of victims from Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine last week. The aircraft were greeted by a minute’s silence from dignitaries and others, led by King Willem-Alexander, Queen Maxima and Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

The solemn moment in bright sunlight was part of a day of national mourning over the Flight 17 disaster, which killed 298 people, two-thirds of them from the Netherlands. After a trumpeter played the Last Post, military pallbearers marched up a loading ramp to unload the coffins as motorcycle outriders escorted a convoy of 40 hearses across the tarmac.

The identities of those in wooden coffins aboard the Dutch and Australian military transports, which flew in from Kharkiv, Ukraine, were not known. None of the bodies collected from the crash site have been identified. Ukraine and Malaysia have authorized the Netherlands to identify and repatriate all the recovered remains, which could take months.

Before the remains left the country, Ukrainian officials and foreign diplomats mixed tributes to the dead with angry demands that those responsible be brought to justice.

“This is a tragedy of unspeakable proportions,” an Australian representative, Angus Houston, said at the gathering, flanked by a Ukrainian military honor guard dressed in black uniforms.

The Ukrainian vice prime minister, Volodymyr Groysman, said, “Those who are guilty for this terrorist act will be punished.”

Mr. Groysman left no doubt that Ukraine believed that the guilty parties were not only pro-Russia rebels who control the territory in eastern Ukraine where the plane crashed, but also Russia, asserting, “Russian military personnel launched the missile that hit a civilian Malaysian aircraft.”

“We are today sending off innocents who were murdered,” he said.

Officers from the Kiev Military Academy, dressed in blue uniforms with yellow braid — the colors of the Ukrainian flag — carried four wooden coffins into the plane, which took off at noon bound for the Netherlands with 16 bodies on board, according to Dutch officials. A second plane from Australia was due to take 24 more bodies, also to the Netherlands, later on Wednesday.

Although foreign officials at the ceremony called for justice, they did not assign blame. That stood in contrast to Mr. Groysman, who denounced what he called “Russian aggression” against Ukraine.

As the plane carrying the first bodies took off, a Ukrainian woman waved a hand-drawn sign reading “Judge Putin in the Hague,” a reference to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

The woman, Alexandra Kharchenko, a 39-year-old designer who lives in Kharkiv, said Mr. Putin should be called before an international tribunal. She accused him of encouraging and arming the pro-Russia separatists whom Ukraine and the United States have accused of firing the surface-to-air missile that downed the jet.

“I just want to draw attention to who is ultimately responsible for this crime,” Ms. Kharchenko said.

The Kremlin and the rebels have repeatedly denied any role in shooting down the plane and have said the blame lies with Ukraine.

A representative for the Dutch government at the farewell ceremony in Kharkiv called for patience in assessing exactly what happened. He cautioned that even identifying the bodies — a task that will be carried out by Dutch specialists at a laboratory in the Netherlands — would be a long and laborious process.

The bodies, held for days by the rebels, were delivered to Kharkiv by rail on Tuesday, along with the data and voice recorders from the plane. It will take at least several days for experts to unload five refrigerated railway cars at a Soviet-era tank factory in the city, place the bodies in coffins and fly them to the Netherlands.

“Today your journey home begins,” said Hans Docter, a Dutch representative. “It will still be a long journey. We have started a process that will take time. We have to do this right. The eyes of the world are upon us.”

In Britain, the Department for Transportation confirmed in a statement Wednesday that Dutch investigators had delivered the data and voice recorders to the department’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch.

Under international rules, Ukraine, as the country where the accident took place, would normally be first in line to lead the inquiry, followed by Malaysia, as the country in which the aircraft was registered. Both governments exercised their authority to delegate the responsibility to another country.

David M. Herszenhorn reported from Kiev, and Andrew Higgins from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Nicola Clark contributed reporting from Paris, and Alan Cowell from London.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 July 2014, 1:15 am and is filed under
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Zam, are you “Malaysian first, Malay second” or “Malay first, Malaysian second”?

Former information minister Datuk Zainuddin Maidin wondered in his blog what if the roles were reversed in the case of a Malay woman threatening an elderly Chinese man with a steering wheel lock following an accident, how would the “Chinese press, Chinese social media, Chinese parties and Chinese NGOs reacted if the person punished was a Chinese”.

He asked: “Wouldn’t they have considered the punishment to be racist since it was a small case?” he asked in his blog posting.

Zainuddin was commenting on the Kuantan Magistrate’s Court decision to fine Siti Fairah Asyikin Kamaruddin, also known as Kiki, RM5,000 and ordering her to engage in 240 hours of community service.

Kiki landed in trouble after a video of her threatening the senior citizen Sim Siak Heong went viral online.

It is shocking and the height of irresponsibility for  a former Cabinet Minister to frame an issue on law-breaking  through such racial and even racist lens.

Even more reprehensible and deplorable is his dismissal of “Chinese press, Chinese social media, Chinese parties and Chinese NGOs” as communal organisations utterly bereft of Malaysian nationalism or patriotism.

Zainuddin should first answer whether he is “Malaysian first, Malay second” or “Malay first, Malaysian second”, for it is only when he regards himself as in the  former category that it is worthwhile, useful and productive to engage in any  discussion with him pertaining to any subject whether concerning nation-building or fostering harmonious and congenial inter-racial and inter-religious relations in our plural nation.

From the standpoint of being  Malaysian first, and race, religion or region second, the answer to the question “What if Kiki was Chinese” is a simple and straightforward one, as the  question of race is utterly irrelevant as Article 8(1) of the Federal Constitution confers the constitutional guarantee of equality before the law to all Malaysians, providing that “All persons are equal before the law and entitled to equal protection of the law”.

Whether “Kiki” is Malay, Chinese, Indian, Kadazan or Iban, she must face the  consequences of the law for any infringement, as she found out after her inexcusable “road rage” causing damage to the car belonging to Sim Siak Hong, 61, in front of the Urban Transformation Centre in Kuantan on July 14, striking the bonnet roof and windows of Sim’s car with a steering lock, causing him to suffer a loss of RM500.

Zainuddin commended the authorities for bringing the matter to court and also agreed with the sentence meted out.

As a Malaysian first, Chinese second, this is where I disagree with Zainuddin.  Yes, the authorities are to be commended for bringing the matter to court, but No, I do not agree with the sentence which I feel is  on the heavy side.

She was charged under Section 427 of the Penal Code for committing mischief, which carries a maximum jail term of two years, a fine, or both, upon conviction. She was fined RM5,000 and ordered to perform 240 hours of community service.

I feel Kiki had been punished enough. She had expressed regret and remorse for what she had done.  Sim had forgiven him.  She was the subject of universal scorn and condemnation in the social media – a punishment never envisaged when the Penal Code was drafted in the last century, which was pre-Internet era and before the advent of the social media. She underwent the “trial of the social media” which should have been taken into account, which is why  I think the RM5,000 fine is on the high side.

DAP is prepared to provide free legal service to Kiki if she wants to appeal against the RM5,000 fine and  the DAP MP for Puchong, Gobind Singh Deo has confirmed that the DAP Legal Bureau headed by him is prepared to render such a service.

As a former Cabinet Minister, Zainuddin should have set a better example to unite instead of dividing Malaysians.

I had lamented that Malaysians are only united in grief and sorrow when there are disasters or catastrophes like the two recent air disasters in five months – the MH370 and MH 17 disasters which claimed 537 lives – but not during  ordinary times and I had urged Malaysians to speak the language of unity, moderation, tolerance and justice and not the language of division, extremism, hatred and injustice.

Can Zainuddin change his mindset to set an example to speak the language of unity, moderation, tolerance and justice instead of harping on the rhetorics of division, extremism, hatred and injustice?

Zainuddin wants “lightning-quick action” from the Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar against me under the Sedition Act for my statement that Teoh Beng Hock (TBH) had been murdered and that the killers are still at large.

Zainuddin has no views or position about the infamous double standards and notorious selectivity of the police with regard to the crescendo of seditious utterances and threats by extremist individuals and NGOs inciting racial and religious hatred, tension and conflict  in the past 14 months.

If I had attacked individual Barisan Nasional leaders and accused them of causing the May 13 riots in 1969, I would have immediately, and rightly, been arrested and charged in court on a variety of offences for such an irresponsible conduct.  But Zainuddin is quite happy and comfortable with  the police  double standards with false accusations against me  that I was the cause of the May 13 riots in Kuala Lumpur when I was not even in Kuala Lumpur during the May 13 riots in 1969 – with no action taken by the authorities against such malice and hatred!

Again, if any DAP leader had threatened May 13 riots in the country, he or she would have to face  the full weight of the law – and rightly so, because all Malaysians cherish peace, harmony and unity in our multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural nation. But Zainuddin is quite happy that no action is being taken by the police or authorities although May 13 threats had been openly made at least three times this year  by racial and religious extremists and chauvinists.

I invite Zainuddin to join me to foreswear  the language of division, extremism, hatred and injustice and to embrace the  language of unity, moderation, tolerance and justice to build a united, democratic, just and prosperous Malaysia for all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 July 2014, 6:34 pm and is filed under
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Call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry to review all flawed judgments by the Malaysian judiciary whether because of  racial bias or corruption in the past 26 years after the first judicial crisis of 1988

After the 13th General Elections of May 5, 2013, the country was shocked with the appearance of a former member of the judiciary making racist and seditious statements and speeches undermining the unity, harmony and goodwill among the different races and religions in the country.

One of the most racist and seditious speeches in the nation’s history was made by the former Court of Appeal Judge Mohd Noor Abdullah at the forum titled “GE13 post-mortem Muslim leadership and survival” organised by UiTM Malaysia Alumni Association and Gabungan Pelajar Melayu Semanjung in Kuala Lumpur in May 2013 where Mohd Noor warned that the Chinese Malaysians must be prepared for a backlash from the Malay community for their “betrayal” in the recently concluded 13th general election.

He said: “The Chinese betrayal towards the Malay’s hand of friendship – that is true. Because they plotted to seize political power even though they already have economic power”.

Mohd Noor’s racist and seditious speech was defended on the ground that it was “as a whole constructive and within the boundaries of what is in the federal constitution”, and in line with his expertise as a former judge.

Up to now, Mohd Noor has not been able to quote chapter and verse as to which article or part of the Malaysian Constitution justified his making irresponsible, fictitious, inflammatory, racist and seditious allegations that the Chinese in Malaysia “plotted to seize political power even though they already have economic power” or his criminal and gangsterish threat of a “Malay backlash” to a completely non-existent “Chinese betrayal towards the Malay’s hand of friendship” ?

Mohd Noor seemed to be blissfully unaware that in Peninsular Malaysia, Pakatan Rakyat won more Malay votes compared to Chinese votes in the 13GE, although by a slight margin – i.e. 2.31 million Malay votes compared to 2.29 million Chinese votes.  Chinese support for Pakatan Rakyat was estimated at 80% while Malay support was estimated at 42%, and Indian support at 50%.

Mohd Noor also disgraced the legal and judicial profession when he tried to create fear among the audience with the Singapore bogey, mischievously and maliciously concocting the lie that just a simple majority in Parliament would be adequate to admit Singapore into the Federation of Malaysia without needing the consent of the Conference of Rulers.

Malaysians at the time had asked how could  a former high judicial officer be so irresponsible, mischievous and seditious as to suggest that Article 1 of the Federal Constitution on “Name, States and territories of the Federation” could be amended by a simple majority and not two-thirds parliamentary majority?

However the police had so far failed to take  any action against Mohd Noor for his seditious statements, and the Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar had  not said a single word about investigating Mohd Noor for sedition although he recently announced publicly that the police would be coming for me under the Sedition Act for my recent statement that Teoh Beng Hock had been murdered at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) premises in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009.

Now, Malaysians are getting a further shock that another former judge, who had held a higher judicial office than Mohd Noor as Tun Abdul Hamid Mohamad  was the Chief Justice in 2007, had joined him in making irresponsible, racist and seditious statements.

After his unfounded, incendiary and seditious comments that the position of Islam is under threat in Penang,  a former federal court judge revealed that Hamid had been guilty of racial and religious prejudice in a decision on a civil case which he heard as a High Court judge in the 90s.

In this case,  a bank had sued two business partners, a Malay and an Indian, who had stood guarantors for a loan.

Both the defendants relied on the defence that their signatures were forged by a third party. Hamid, who had written the judgment in Bahasa Malaysia, accepted the claim by the Malay defendant because “as a Muslim he would not tell lies”. However, Hamid did not accept the allegation of the Indian.

The bank and the Indian appealed to the Court of Appeal, which  dismissed the bank’s appeal, set aside Hamid’s judgment and ordered a trial.

This is most shocking and has revived public concerns about the independence, professionalism and integrity of the judiciary in the past half a century – after the first judicial crisis in 1988 which saw the sacking of the then Lord President, Tun Salleh Abas and two Supreme Court judges by the then Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, marking the height of executive interference and destruction of the independence of the judiciary in Malaysia.

What is needed now is to fully restore public confidence in the independence, professionalism and integrity of the judiciary and I call for a  Royal Commission of Inquiry to review all flawed judgments whether by racial bias or corruption in the past 26 years after the first judicial crisis of 1988.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 25 July 2014, 1:04 pm and is filed under
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Joko Widodo must not waste his mandate in Indonesia

Financial Times

July 23, 2014

The new leader has the chance to take the country to the next level

After an extended count lasting the best part of a fortnight, Joko Widodo, governor of Jakarta, has narrowly won the race to become president of this nation of 250m people. Initial fears that Indonesia’s second truly democratic passage of power might end in violence and chaos have proved exaggerated; the presidential baton has been transferred relatively smoothly. Opportunistic attempts by Mr Widodo’s opponent, former general Prabowo Subianto, to question the fairness of the process have fallen on deaf ears. Given the definitive nature of the result, Mr Subianto should do the graceful thing and concede in a way that confers legitimacy on the victor.

Mr Widodo, universally known as Jokowi, has much to prove when he takes office in October. One reason the result was so close was that he turned out to be a lacklustre candidate, far less organised and politically astute than his more ruthless and better-funded opponent. Things are unlikely to become any easier now the count is over.

Having campaigned against the old elites that have dominated Indonesian politics for so long, Mr Widodo must show that he can govern effectively without their patronage. In particular he must redeem his promise to avoid traditional horse-trading and appoint to his cabinet only those with the character and capacity to hold their offices. Given the new president’s lack of a reliable majority in parliament, this will require political skills of a high order – ones he has yet to demonstrate he possesses on the national stage.

A former factory owner, Mr Widodo made his name first as mayor of Solo, a small Javanese city, and then as governor of Jakarta. In both posts he impressed with his honesty and ability to get things done. Part of his appeal is as a “man of the people” with few ties to the old elites or big business. If he can cut red tape and bring greater transparency to a country that still suffers from shocking corruption he will have performed a service.

But that is not enough. Mr Widodo must also tackle structural weaknesses if Indonesia’s potential is to be realised. At less than 6 per cent, the country’s growth rate is too low for Indonesia’s stage of development. A priority is to repair the fiscal hole. The rising cost of fuel subsidies has widened the budget deficit, just as falling commodity prices have caused a deterioration in the current account. Having consistently called for subsidies to be cut, Mr Widodo must act – even if it costs him some short-term popularity.

Another area that requires his attention is infrastructure, the decrepitude of which is damaging competitiveness and blunting Indonesia’s aspiration to be a regional manufacturing hub. More energy resources and better roads are needed. To assemble the investment capital required, the president must establish a clear framework, ending the dismal situation where project after project becomes snarled up in competing claims over land and permits.

The door should be opened to more foreign investment. Inflows have slowed in recent years as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s administration sought to protect well-connected companies from the full force of international competition. Mr Widodo should negotiate clear, open rules for FDI – and then stick to them.

In the longer run, education must take priority. In spite of excellent demographics – some 45 per cent of the population is under 25 – too many of those entering the workplace lack the skills to prosper in a modern economy. Mr Widodo should ignore those who argue that raw numbers alone will deliver prosperity, and ordain the needed structural reforms. Fate has presented the new president with a historic chance to take Indonesia to the next level. He should seize it.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 25 July 2014, 7:43 am and is filed under
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Sticking together through cobwebs and rendang

Dyana Sofya

The Malaysian Insider

July 26, 2014

Dyana Sofya suffers from dysania and is using her superpowers to pen down her thoughts late into the night. Political Secretary to Lim Kit Siang by day and she tweets from @dyanasmd.

JULY 26 — Seated in the passenger seat, I try to collect my thoughts as old memories flash by. My eldest brother is driving the car and we are cruising steadily on the North-South Expressway en route to our hometown of Ipoh to celebrate Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

Now that all four of us siblings are grown up, it is a rare occasion for us to travel together. Hence, this particular ride was a proverbial trip down memory lane.

Prior to his retirement, my workaholic father would refuse to take early leave before Raya. As a result, it was always a frantic rush back to Ipoh on Raya eve. However, our manic moments would disappear the instant we arrived home to be greeted by the smell of wonderful, aromatic rendang. As usual, my mother would return a few days earlier to make preparations for the celebration.

After devouring our traditional late supper on Raya eve, my brothers would start spring-cleaning the house while I would devote myself to kitchen duties to prepare more (last minute) Raya goodies.

Sleep is always a commodity on short supply on Raya eve, but all the trouble would be worth it as we welcome Raya in the morning with a clean house, fancy jars filled with freshly-baked cookies, new clothes laid out and most importantly, my mother’s signature dish — a laksa johor-curry mee hybrid.

In short, Raya has always been a time of gathering for the family. It is when we reminisce over old stories, update each other on new ones, argue over which Raya TV commercial was the best that year (Yasmin Ahmad comes to mind), savour delicious home-cooked food and sweat together through the annual spring-cleaning routine.

For me, this is what family is all about. Sticking together through thick and thin, good times and bad. Whether it was to clean cobwebs at the furthest corner of the ceiling, or to share a ladleful of very spicy rendang, the most important thing is that we are all together and no one is left out.

This year, as we dig into mother’s rendang, our conversations have understandably evolved. Yasmin Ahmad is no more, and Teluk Intan happened. Rather than the usual family gossip, we talk instead about the homeless in Kuala Lumpur, and how they were unceremoniously told to leave, whether they liked it or not. Worst, their only reliable source of food was denied them when volunteer soup kitchens run by socially conscious Samaritans were given marching orders.

So cold is the treatment given to the homeless, I told my family, that metal bars have been installed on benches in the city to prevent the homeless from lying on them. I could not help but stare in disgust as I did my Raya shopping on Jalan TAR (Tuanku, not Tunku) this last week. What has our society degenerated into, when our public officials seem hell-bent on making life even more difficult for those already in difficult situations?

However, as with all good stories, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Following a certain minister’s arrogant remarks about the homeless dirtying “his” city, many Malaysians stood up to rebuke him. The city belongs to the people, and that means every human being, regardless of whether he is rich or poor, roofed or roofless.

Another inescapable topic, of course, would be the two national aviation disasters that happened this year. First, the MH370 that went missing and then the MH17 that fell victim to a civil war that had nothing to do with us. How brutal and unfortunate it must be for the friends and families of those who were on board. Feeling helpless, we agreed that all we can do is to keep them in our prayers, provide endless support and encouragement, and continue the push for justice.

Lastly, we also cannot help but discuss the security breaches that have been occurring in Sabah. Grief is replaced by frustration as we discuss how porous our borders are, and how an invading force could remain for two weeks before a counter-offensive was launched. While all of us were confident that Malaysia Airlines is still one of the safest airlines in the world, we could not say the same about Sabah after the series of abductions, murders and territorial violations that have happened over the last year.

As the last dollop of rendang is licked clean, I cannot help but realise that everything we discussed over supper only reinforces the importance of the struggle for a better nation.

If there are homeless Malaysians, it is because the system is broken. While the prime minister boasts about achieving high-income status by 2020, there remains millions of Malaysians left behind by this progress. We have the highest rate of income inequality in South-east Asia, and this is proven by the fact that more than two thirds of Malaysians are BR1M recipients. Meanwhile, the high-handedness of our leaders in dismissing the homeless as unwanted vermin only goes to show that they are either ignorant of the social problem at hand, or too arrogant to care.

As unfortunate as the two national aviation tragedies have been, they have at the very least succeeded in bringing together Malaysians of all ilk, regardless of political persuasions, skin colour and background. Against the backdrop of irresponsible quarters provoking race and religion at every opportunity, such unity amongst Malaysians is sorely needed.

 Be that as it may, both socio-economic prosperity, better governance and national unity can only be achieved with good intentions. Therefore, this Aidilfitri, let us seek forgiveness and start over. Each of us can do this, by visiting our families and our friends, sharing our food and our homes, and sticking together through cobwebs and rendang.

Salam Aidilfitri. Be safe on the road and eat sensibly. Maaf zahir dan batin.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 27 July 2014, 6:45 am and is filed under
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What is Impian Malaysia?

Wan Hamidi Hamid

The Malaysian Insider

26 July 2014

Once upon a time, a political party was formed. Its name was Democratic Action Party or DAP, and it wanted to promote the idea of a Malaysian Malaysia.

It was meant to be an idea for a united nation, a country for all Malaysians, regardless of race and religion. Hence, Malaysia would never be a monopoly of any particular race, religion or ideology, as enshrined in the original Federal Constitution.

The idea was born almost a half century ago. It may sound obsolete to some, it may even sound obscene to some racist-minded people.

However, despite its noble intention, the Alliance and its successor Barisan Nasional under the control of Umno through their controlled media had portrayed the ideal as something evil, especially for the Malays.

The obstacles

Even until today, there are some Malays who believe that Malaysian Malaysia is an attempt to destroy the Malays, although no one has ever come up with a detailed explanation on how such a diabolical plot would be carried out.

In other words, it was just a lie propagated over the years by Umno-Barisan Nasional.

But in politics, perception is almost everything. Hence “Malaysian Malaysia” has become a dirty word, regurgitated by Umno-owned media as well as other state apparatuses such as government-conducted team-building courses and political talks.

“Malaysian Malaysia” has even paved the way for Umno-BN to push the boundary of control by vilifying words such as “liberal”, “secular”, “plural” and many more terms that imply freedom, democracy and rights.

Yet many Malaysians, including some Malays, are not easily cowed by such form of control. They know some leaders in the Umno-BN government are merely trying to usurp power via hegemonic dominance, especially by using, misusing and abusing religion and race.

For DAP, it has suffered almost 50 years of lies and slander of being demonised as communist and Chinese chauvinist party. Yet the party is still standing.

And now, more than ever, young Malaysians have become more interested to know about DAP. Many have joined, many more are still thinking of joining.

To the surprise of Umno and its political cronies, even young Malays are interested in joining DAP, or at least are keen to know deeper about the party. “What’s happening here?” some of them may be wondering.

No doubt some people have some ideas about the phenomenon – maybe it’s the new generation of millennials (born after 1985) who have had no historical baggage, maybe the Internet has helped the young to circumvent old politics, or maybe the youth are merely curious or perhaps they are just being rebellious.

Or perhaps – to some Malays especially – it’s the image of Dyana Sofya Mohd Daud, the DAP candidate for the recent Teluk Intan by-election, giving hope to a new era of politics in Malaysia.

Whatever the reasons, for he DAP, it is yet a new hope for its ongoing process of rejuvenating the party. By that, it doesn’t simply mean having young faces but also new ideas, allowing the combination of strength between the young and old with a shared ideal of a new Malaysia.

The dream

It’s also beyond the party. It’s a dream for all Malaysians. This is the idea of Impian Malaysia or the Malaysian Dream.

In the words of Lim Kit Siang:

“The Malaysian Dream (Impian Malaysia) envisions a plural society where all her citizens are united as one people, rising above their ethnic, religious, cultural and linguistic differences as the common grounds binding them as one citizenship exceed the differences that divide them because of their ethnic, religious, linguistic and cultural divisions.

“The Malaysian Dream does not exist only today. It had existed even before the founding of Malaya and Malaysia.

“The Johor Malay leader Datuk Onn Jaafar had also fought for it as far back as 62 years ago in 1951 when he suggested that Umno open its door to non-Malays and Umno change its name from United Malays National Organisation to United Malayans National Organisation.

“This is a worthwhile patriotic contribution to the Malaysian Dream shared by all patriotic Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region, down the decades, whether in Malaysia or in the world Malaysian Diaspora.”

Those words were uttered a year ago when Kit Siang launched the Impian Malaysia movement in Gelang Patah, Johor to recruit “agents… for our activities and programmes to promote Malaysian identity and consciousness particularly among the young generation of Malaysians.”

The DAP veteran is serious with his dream of hope.

This means Impian Malaysia is not merely a slogan, it is aimed at the younger generation. It challenges them to be in the forefront. It wants them to walk the talk, pardon the cliché, because the Umno-BN leaders have failed the young in providing the environment, the space and the zone needed for them to express themselves openly without fear of anything.

The Umno-BN leaders have failed the young who are disgusted to see politics of hate, racial abuses and discrimination, economic injustices, income inequalities, job opportunities, limited freedom for arts and culture, lack of academic excellence and many other forms of unnecessary restrictions.

The reality

Hence, Impian Malaysia aims to unite Malaysians through all forms of programmes, activities and ideas that promote understanding and tolerance.

Impian Malaysia is both an idea as well as a programme that aspires to empower Malaysians, especially the marginalised and the have-nots.

In fact, programmes have begun since last year with the launch of “Impian Sarawak” where DAP volunteers are working hand in hand with local villagers to build basic infrastructure such as roads, water and electricity supply, and other amenities.

From Sarawak to “Impian Sabah”, and now more similar projects, including environmental care programme are being implemented in the peninsula.

Cynics will always have time and energy to point out weaknesses. Most of them will see Impian Malaysia as at best, an idea or worst, a political slogan.

Surely they are entitled to their opinion. However, lest they forget, nothing is stronger than an idea whose time has come, a saying usually attributed to the great French author Victor Hugo.

However, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be automatically successful. Many of us understand that if such an idea can win the hearts and minds of all Malaysians, it may spell the end of racial politics and race-based political parties in our country. And we know that many people in power now may not like it, to put it mildly.

This simply means that for Impian Malaysia to become a reality, it’s not going to be a walk in the park. Hence the minds, the strength and the tenacity of our younger generation are much needed.

With the help of the senior minds and experiences, the young can finally achieve the equal opportunity dream of Datuk Onn whose idea was far ahead of its time.

At the same time it’s important to note that Impian Malaysia is not a new thing. Yet it’s not about going back into the past. It’s all about refreshing an idea that has always been with us for such a long time.

It’s about doing the right thing without being afraid of our own shadow. It’s not easy but it can be done, if we want to. – July 26, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 27 July 2014, 12:57 am and is filed under
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Clashes again force investigators to abort visit to Malaysia Airlines crash site

By Carol Morello

Washington Post

July 29 2014

KIEV, Ukraine — An international team of forensics experts and investigators does not expect to reach the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 before Wednesday or even Thursday, two full weeks after it was shot down by an antiaircraft missile fired from rebel-held territory, an official said Tuesday.

Negotiations for access are underway with both the Ukrainian government and pro-Russian rebels in control of the debris field in eastern Ukraine, said Ertugrul Apakan, head of a monitoring team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe that is accompanying the experts.

“We expect in a short span of time, tomorrow or the [next] day, to be able to reach the crash site,” Apakan told reporters in Kiev.

Heavy fighting around the site forced a team of about 50 Dutch and Australian experts to abandon a planned visit Tuesday for the third straight day.

The Ukrainian military is in the midst of a major offensive against the rebels, and some of the fiercest fighting has been in the general area where the plane came down in pieces on July 17. The Malaysian Boeing 777 was carrying 298 passengers and crew en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

Rebels and the government accuse each other of preventing the team from reaching the area where body parts, possessions and wreckage are still strewn around fields, trees and backyards. Their Tuesday visit was aborted when they were warned of fighting on the road between Donetsk, where they are staying, and the crash site about 40 miles to the east near the border with Russia.

Deputy Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman, head of a government task force investigating the crash, said government forces are following President Petro Poroshenko’s order not to fire or fight within 25 miles of the wreckage. Despite reports of fighting close to the crash site, Groysman and military officials insist that Ukrainian troops have not breached the order.

“No shot will be fired in the direction of the area where we will have the task force,” he said. “There will be no shooting. We have to enter the territory, avoiding any provocation.”

Asked who was responsible for the team’s inability to reach the site, Groysman placed the blame on the pro-Russian insurgents.

“As to who is putting obstacles in the way, it is terrorists, separatists, criminals doing everything in order to delay the process of entering the area,” Groysman said.

Apakan was careful in choosing his words when asked who was responsible.

“We are doing the best we can,” he said. “There should be no fighting at all at the crash site. We are talking with all parties.”

The impasse persisted a day after the White House said it expects Europe to adopt significant new sanctions against Russia this week, including against key economic sectors that the Europeans have resisted targeting in the past.

“In turn and in full coordination with Europe, the United States will implement additional measures itself” amid growing evidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “doubling down” on his efforts to support separatists battling the government in eastern Ukraine, deputy national security adviser Antony Blinken said.

The West has said Flight 17 was downed with a Russian-supplied missile fired from separatist territory, and investigators hope to make it to the site before evidence is destroyed.

Agreement on the sanctions followed a five-way videoconference among President Obama and his counterparts from Britain, France, Germany and Italy — all of whom separately indicated that they would support additional measures against Russia. European Union ambassadors are scheduled to meet Tuesday in Brussels to consider an arms embargo and sanctions against portions of Russia’s financial and energy sectors.

While agreement from leaders of Europe’s four leading governments was seen as a major step forward, it is unclear whether all 28 E.U. members — which operate on the basis of consensus — will support the new sanctions package, drawn up late last week.

All had agreed to ready the package, to be imposed if there was evidence that Russia was expanding rather than withdrawing its support for the separatists.

On Sunday, the United States published overhead surveillance photographs it said proved that Russia was continuing to supply weapons and to fire artillery from its own territory into Ukraine. Russia has also increased deployment of its forces along the Ukrainian border in possible preparation for a “so-called humanitarian or peacekeeping intervention in Ukraine,” Blinken said.

“The latest information,” a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron said, is that “Russia continues to transfer weapons across the border and to provide practical support to the separatists. Leaders agreed that the international community should therefore impose further costs on Russia, and specifically . . . a strong package of sectoral sanctions as swiftly as possible.”

The Obama administration has said it recognizes that Europe, with far larger economic relations with Russia, has more to lose than the United States. The new European sanctions package, while painful, has been carefully drawn to cause as little disruption as possible. An arms embargo would apply only to new contracts, a senior European diplomat said, allowing at least part of a massive French military shipbuilding contract to proceed.

But the downing of the airliner, and Moscow’s refusal to yield in the face of previous sanctions, have strengthened the U.S. case that Europe must act.

Blinken, who spoke to reporters in the White House briefing room, said Russian support for the separatists has increased as they have lost ground.

Ukrainian forces said Monday that they had captured the separatist stronghold of Saur Mogila, where two Ukrainian planes were shot down last week. A military spokesman characterized the army’s success there as a major victory, since it simultaneously blocks a supply route for rebels from Russia, opens a corridor for Ukraine to resupply its own troops and gives the military control of mountaintop positions used to fire on government forces.

The Ukrainian army is fighting in a circle around the crash site, with the aim of ousting the rebels from the area, military spokesman Andriy Lysenko told reporters Monday in Kiev. “We will force them to leave the site.”

Lysenko said experts analyzing the flight data recorders from the plane have turned up findings showing that the aircraft experienced a “massive explosion, decompression” consistent with being struck by a missile. Investigators in the Netherlands and Britain, however, have not said anything publicly about the contents of the recorders other than that they have begun to listen to them. If the plane went down because of a missile, not a mechanical failure, the recorders may not yield much useful information.

Also Monday, the top U.N. human rights official said the shoot-down of the plane, with 298 passengers and crew members aboard, “may amount to a war crime.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said it would be a grave mistake for the United States and Europe to send military aid to Ukraine, as some U.S. lawmakers have urged.

“Seeing how the Ukrainian authorities have been trying to resolve the so-called problem of the southeast, I think such decisions would directly add oil to the fire and would ignite the belligerent and uncompromising instincts of Ukrainian leaders,” Lavrov told reporters in Moscow.

He called for a U.N.-sponsored inquiry into the fate of the downed Malaysian airliner, and he again rejected U.S. and Ukrainian accusations that Russia is funneling weapons to rebels across the border and shelling Ukrainian military positions from the Russian side.

A top rebel leader, Vladimir Antyufeev, blamed the Ukrainian government Monday for hampering international access to the plane’s debris site, saying the military was attacking rebel positions in the area and making it impossible for international investigators to make the journey from Donetsk.

In a possible sign of stresses on rebel leadership, Antyufeev also announced that he was becoming the acting head of the Donetsk rebels after Alexander Borodai, another leader, left for Moscow for consultations with unnamed individuals. Although Borodai, a Russian citizen and former resident of Moscow, has previously traveled to the Russian capital on rebel business, and no handover of power has been made public, it was unclear whether Borodai would be returning.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 29 July 2014, 10:36 pm and is filed under
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Ukraine troops nearing MH-17 crash site; U.N. opens war-crime probe

By STEVEN ZEITCHIK, CAROL J. WILLIAMS

Los Angeles Times

July 28, 2014

Ukrainian government forces recaptured three towns from pro-Russia separatists and were pressing toward the Malaysia Airlines crash site in eastern Ukraine where the separatists accused of downing the plane have obstructed international disaster investigators, officials said Monday.

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, meanwhile, said at a news conference in Geneva that the shooting down of MH-17 and the deaths of all 298 people on board were being investigated for possible war-crime charges.

Pro-Russia militants who seized a dozen towns and cities in eastern Ukraine in March and April have seen the territory under their control reduced by more than half during the past few weeks and are now holed up in their embattled strongholds of Donetsk and Luhansk. The separatists also control the miles-wide crash site strewn with debris and victims’ remains but face an advancing government offensive emboldened by international outrage over the plane’s destruction.

Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, told journalists in Kiev on Monday that government troops had recovered control of Shakhtarsk, about 20 miles from the center of the crash site.

“Our troops entered Shakhtarsk, Torez and Lutuhyne,” Lysenko said, claiming government control of towns on roads leading to the wreckage strewn among sunflower fields.

A team of more than 60 Dutch and Australian investigators attempted to reach the crash site for a second time Monday but stopped short because of fighting nearby, a spokesman for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe told reporters in Kiev.

The international police team is charged with securing the debris field near the village of Hrabove but has been prevented from reaching the area by fighting and militants’ roadblocks since the July 17 disaster.

U.S. intelligence sources have identified the cause of the crash as a surface-to-air missile launched by a sophisticated BUK anti-aircraft system allegedly provided to the separatists by Russia.

U.S. and European Union officials have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of arming the separatists and instigating them with his late February seizure of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula and annexation of the militarily strategic region to Russia. Much of the eastern Ukraine territory occupied by the pro-Russia militants would provide a land bridge for Russia toward Crimea, which hosts Russia’s naval fleet but has no border with the Russian mainland.

Putin denies responsibility for the separatists’ actions, although many of those killed in battles with Ukrainian forces have been identified as Russian citizens and Russian special forces veterans openly command the militants in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The European Union is expected to vote this week on a proposal for tough new sanctions that would target key sectors of the Russian economy, including banking, oil and defense. The U.S. has led a campaign to impose harsh penalties on the Russian economy to force the Kremlin to change its policies in Ukraine and halt alleged support for the separatists.

The Russia-allied militants located the downed plane’s black boxes and held them for several days before turning them over to investigators led by the Netherlands, which lost 193 citizens in the crash.

Lysenko said the Ukrainian government had been informed that an initial review of the black-box data suggested the crash was caused by shrapnel puncturing the fuselage, causing massive decompression and breakup of the Boeing 777 that had been flying at an altitude of more than 33,000 feet.

The flight from Amsterdam en route to Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, was carrying more than 100 passengers destined for an international AIDS conference in Australia, including 28 Australians.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop was in Kiev on Monday to discuss Ukrainian government support for an armed Australian police force to protect the crash site and foreign investigators trying to collect evidence from the scene.

“We’ll be seeking assurances that any military action doesn’t compromise our humanitarian mission,” Bishop told a news conference.

Bishop also said Australia hoped Russia would use its influence on the rebels to ensure access to the site so that investigators can determine responsibility for disaster.

In Geneva, a U.N. report released Monday said the eastern Ukraine conflict spurred by pro-Russian militants’ land grabs four months ago has claimed the lives of 1,129 people.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said the Malaysia Airlines jet crash was being investigated as a possible war crime and called for immediate and unhindered access for investigators to the crash site.

“This violation of international law, given the prevailing circumstances, may amount to a war crime. It is imperative that a prompt, thorough, effective, independent and impartial investigation be conducted into this event,” Pillay said.

She said all those responsible for the killings, detentions and rights abuses would be identified and brought to justice.

Pillay urged all sides “to bring to an end the rule of the gun and restore respect for the rule of law and human rights.”

Zeitchik reported from Kiev and Williams from Los Angeles.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 29 July 2014, 7:02 am and is filed under
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Tampered MH17 site not likely to yield new clues, experts say

The Malay Mail Online

JULY 29, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, July 29 — After over 12 days of exposure to looters, amateur searchers, and now debris from nearby battles, experts on the ground believe that evidence from MH17’s crash site in eastern Ukraine may be too contaminated to be of much use to investigators.

According to CNN, one frustrated official labelled the site “one of the biggest open crime scenes in the world”  after a team of Dutch and Australian investigators were forced to turn back yesterday due to nearby clashes between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed separatists.

The 45-member team, which was accompanied by officials from the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), were left frustrated by the fighting which, according to reports from wire agencies, may have destroyed parts of the site where the aircraft’s remains still lie.

AFP reported Vladimir Antyufeev, the self-styled deputy chief of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” as saying that the Ukrainian army has now “taken over part of the crash site”.

The situation on the ground now “is very complicated, it is not a secret”, the rebel leader added, AFP added.

OSCE spokesman Michael Bociurkiw told CNN that on-site experts are growing “sick and tired” of being delayed.

“We all know there are still human remains out there exposed to the elements, number one.

“Secondly, it is one of the biggest open crime scenes in the world as we speak, and it is not secured. There’s no security perimetre around the 30— or 35-square-kilometre site,” he was quoted saying on the news channel’s website.

The Dutch and Australian team was forced to turn back yesterday despite a weekend agreement between Malaysia and the rebels at the crash site which sought to secure the area and protect investigators by allowing entry to police personnel.

But a senior air-safety official said the wreckage may now be “long past contamination”, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported today, and investigators may have to rely on a broader range of evidence to determine how the aircraft came down.

Among others, investigators could examine satellite imagery and the flight’s radar tracks, apart from information gleaned from the plane’s black boxes.

According to WSJ, Dutch authorities believe they can find out what happened to the plane and who should be held responsible for the crash.

“They also have talked about the likelihood of conducting some type of criminal investigation to punish the guilty,” the international newspaper reported.

But, the paper noted, air-safety experts have maintained that recovering the plane’s fuselage could provide an important insight to the crash prove, through metallurgical and chemical analyses.

Without guaranteed security for crash investigators, however, the process of retrieving parts of the fuselage may be near impossible.

On CNN, Bociurkiw said the team will attempt again to access the site today.

“We will keep trying every day,” he said.

A broadcast channel reported that its media team had been part of yesterday’s convoy into the site but had to turn back on orders from armed men near Shakhtorsk. They were followed shortly after by a group of forensic experts.

Malaysia Airlines (MAS) Flight MH17, a commercial jetliner ferrying 298 civilians from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, crashed in Donetsk, eastern Ukraine, on July 17.

Western governments and Ukraine have insisted that the Boeing 777 aircraft had been shot down by a Buk missile system operated by the Russia-backed rebels controlling Donetsk. The rebels, however, have accused Ukrainian forces for shooting down the Malaysian plane.

                This entry was posted on Wednesday, 30 July 2014, 7:28 am and is filed under
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Dutch experts still unable to get to MH17 crash site

The Malay Mail Online

JULY 31, 2014

KIEV, July 30 — Dutch police yesterday said it was unlikely they would be able to access the site of the Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 crash in east Ukraine because of on-going combat.

The head of the Dutch recovery mission in Ukraine, Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, also said 68 Malaysian experts and police officers were expected in Kiev today to join the group.

The Malaysians will then travel to Kharkiv in east Ukraine, closer to the crash site.

“Unfortunately, we don’t expect the security situation to improve enough over the next few days,” Aalbersberg told reporters in Kiev.

“This makes it less likely that we will reach the crash site in the immediate future. There is still too much fighting in the area,” he said.

Aalbersberg said Dutch police had to scrap plans to visit the site yesterday with Australian police and monitors from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

“Tomorrow we will try again from Donetsk,” the rebel bastion in east Ukraine where the international mission is stationed, he said.

The plane with 298 people on board came down on July 17 in an area of east Ukraine where pro-Russian separatists are battling government forces.

The Netherlands, which is leading the crash probe and body identification, lost 193 citizens on the flight. — AFP

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 31 July 2014, 9:18 am and is filed under
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The politics and business of bank mergers

Terence Gomez

KiniBiz

22 July 2014

Malaysians were informed on July 10, 2014 that a major bank consolidation was in the pipeline, involving CIMB Group Holdings, RHB Capital and Malaysian Building Society. With this union, CIMB will emerge as Malaysia’s largest banking enterprise, in terms of assets, as RHB Capital owns RHB Bank, currently the country’s fourth largest bank.

According to media reports, the merger will enhance CIMB’s goal of becoming Southeast Asia’s leading Islamic finance institution with the capacity to expand its interests in this sector to other parts of the world. However, one core issue remains unmentioned in the press: this consolidation will tightly entwine the interests of political and business elites in the banking sector.

Common political-business history

The histories of CIMB and RHB are intriguingly common. Both banks have long been controlled by Umno politicians (the case of CIMB) or by well-connected businessmen (the case of RHB). Their histories are also fraught with contestations involving political and business elites, indicating a conspicuous struggle for control over Malaysia’s financial sector.

CIMB’s roots can be traced to a small Sarawak-based financial enterprise, Bian Chiang Bank, which was taken over by Umno in 1975 and renamed Bank of Commerce. Interestingly, in 1985, an attempt was made to merge Bank of Commerce with Malaysia’s then third largest bank, United Malayan Banking Corporation (UMBC), which would eventually evolve into RHB Bank. UMBC was then controlled by a key Umno figure, Daim Zainuddin. This deal fell through because an agreement could not reached over the price of the shares involved, but Daim’s stake in UMBC was eventually sold at a huge profit to a government agency, Pernas. This incident was referred to as the “UMBC scandal” as Daim was then serving as Finance Minister.

In 1992, UMBC came under the control of publicly-listed Datuk Keramat Holdings, whose primary shareholder was Mohd Noor Yusof, once the political secretary of then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. Another shareholder of the bank was Umno’s cooperative, KUB. While under Datuk Keramat Holdings control, UMBC was involved in numerous financial improprieties involving the disbursement of questionable loans. Four years later, UMBC, ridden with bad debts, was sold to a major government-controlled publicly-listed firm, Sime Darby, again at a hefty profit. Since Sime Darby, primarily a plantations enterprise, had no experience in banking, this acquisition was not well-received in the corporate sector, with clear evidence of conflict-of-interest involving Umno. UMBC was renamed Sime Bank.

When the Asian currency crisis broke in 1997, Sime Bank and another government-controlled enterprise, Bank Bumiputra, were revealed to be heavily burdened with non-performing loans. In 1999, of the RM28 billion in bad debts taken over by the government as a consequence of the crisis, RM21 billion had come from these two banks. Bank Bumiputra was merged with Bank of Commerce and become part of the CIMB Holdings group while Sime Bank was merged with RHB Bank, controlled by the well-connected Rashid Hussain through his financial group, Rashid Hussain Bhd. RHB Bank itself was a merger between Kwong Yik Bank, acquired from government-owned Malayan Banking, and D&C Bank, established by former Finance Minister H.S. Lee and then controlled by his son, Alex Lee, a leading member of the Barisan Nasional’s Gerakan, and a close associate of Mahathir and Daim.

Later, in 2003, after Rashid was believed to have had a fall-out with Umno elites, his interest in the bank was taken over by an enterprise owned by the family of the former Chief Minister of Sarawak, Taib Mahmud. This takeover involved a merger with Bank Utama, controlled by Taib’s family. In 2007, the government’s Employees Provident Fund (EPF) took a controlling stake in RHB.

Consolidating banks

During this long practice of shifting the shares of major banks between government agencies and political and business elites, one core public policy discourse that emerged was the need to consolidate the banking sector, presumably because Malaysia had far too many financial institutions. The contention then – and an argument still made by politicians and well-connected business people – was that the presence of large-scale banking enterprises was good for the economy, allowing them to take on major Western financial institutions as they expanded their operations abroad.

This argument gained currency after the 1997 crisis, emerging as the principal justification for the government’s intent to consolidate Malaysia’s 58 banks and financial institutions. In 1999, the government voiced its plan to merge these financial institutions under six “anchor” banks. This plan was widely protested, particularly by families and individuals who had long cultivated these financial institutions. As objections from the business community mounted, and with a general election then impending, the number of anchor banks was increased to ten. This decision to increase the number of anchor banks sparked a rift between Mahathir and Daim, then the serving Finance Minister who had replaced Anwar Ibrahim after he had been controversially expelled from this post in 1998.

This fall-out between Mahathir and Daim was due to the latter’s desire to obtain direct and indirect control over a large segment of the consolidated banking sector. The row was also due to Daim’s attempt to muscle out Mahathir’s son, Mokhzani, who was trying to secure control of one anchor bank. (A full account of this controversial bank consolidation exercise and political feud was published by the Far Eastern Economic Review in July 2001. Republished by Aliran, it can be read here: http://aliran.com/aliran-monthly/2006/2006-1/mahathir-mohamads-split-with-daim-zainuddin/)

One key outcome of this feud between political elites over this forced bank consolidation exercise is that it led to the unprecedented move by Prime Minister Mahathir to appoint himself as Finance Minister, a dubious practice but one that was continued by his successors, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Najib Razak. Control over the Finance Ministry gave these Umno presidents jurisdiction over the financial sector, a large segment of which was now owned by the government. With Umno factionalised due to access to government contracts, control over the banking sector was imperative as it served as a key means to dispense patronage.

Crucially too, there appears to be a link between the consolidation of the financial sector and the subsequent fall in domestic investments in the economy, a situation the government has long been trying to remedy. Through this consolidation exercise, the government instantaneously removed ownership and control of banks by owners who had long held a major presence in this sector. This consolidation exercise was an indication of the might of the strong state, a distinct message to private investors of their limited capacity to protect their corporate assets. Given Malaysia’s history of scandals involving banks controlled by the government, this raised the issue of confidence in a state that could act arbitrarily in the corporate sector to reshape ownership patterns of key sectors of the economy.

CIMB-RHB-MBSB merger: in the national interest?

This review of bank consolidation exercises inevitably raises several concerns about the wisdom of merging CIMB, RHB Capital and MBSB. The first concern is that these three institutions have a common shareholder, the EPF, controlled ultimately by the Finance Minister – and Prime Minister Najib – who happens to be the elder brother of the Nazir Razak who leads the CIMB group. While Nazir, who has a sound reputation as a banker of high calibre, has voiced his intention to step down as chief executive of CIMB, he will retain much influence over the enlarged enterprise as chairman of this institution, along with government agencies, such as the EPF and Khazanah Nasional, CIMB’s controlling shareholder.

In fact, Nazir will be appointed to the board of directors of Khazanah, an appointment that has raised some queries even in Malaysia’s much muzzled media. This merger is also troubling as the Finance Minister has control, through government agencies, of other leading banks: Malayan Banking, currently Malaysia’s largest bank, and Affin Bank.

Najib’s government has articulated consistently the need to check “rent-seeking” and “cronyism”. Government plans such as the Economic Transformation Plan, New Economic Model and 10th Malaysia Plan have strongly stipulated that rent-seeking must be curbed in order to inspire investor confidence, particularly among domestic investors. However, serious allegations of rent-seeking have emerged during Najib’s administration, specifically through the award of government projects to businessmen such as Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary and Tan Kay Hock.

This then raises the second major concern: will this consolidation exercise inspire investor confidence? This history of the banking sector indicates that it will not, even if justified on the grounds that it will appreciably enhance Malaysia’s presence in the Islamic finance sector in Southeast Asia. Ownership and control of the banking sector evidently matters to investors. What is clear is that while the political actors may have changed over the past decade, the practice of Umno elites striving to gain control over the banking sector has not. This is worrying as it suggests that political change, or feuds, will have implications on the banking sector. Equally worrisome is the overwhelming influence that politicians will have over the banking sector, specifically through a government where power is concentrated in the office of the Prime Minister, one tainted with allegations of rent-seeking.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 31 July 2014, 7:27 pm and is filed under
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WikiLeaks gag order: open justice is threatened by super-injunctions

Richard Ackland

theguardian.com

30 July 2014

Australian courts have increasingly been issuing suppression orders preventing the publication of legal proceedings – and an implicit dislike of the media is partly to blame

Last month, an Australian judge issued a super-duper injunction preventing the reporting of bribery allegations which involved south east Asian political figures, and in some cases their family members.

The allegations have arisen in a criminal case before the supreme court of Victoria. The super-injunction, which not only prevents publication of the allegations, but the detailed terms of the injunction itself, only came to light because WikiLeaks published the intimate details on July 29.

So while WikiLeaks, anonymous blogs and social media are buzzing with the details of these sweeping court orders, which apply Australia-wide, the mainstream media cannot trespass in this territory for fear of facing proceedings for contempt of court. This is the ludicrous nature of overreaching suppression orders, and this one is to last for five years unless earlier revoked.

The internet has made them so porous as to be useless. Only those who publish above the radar with sizeable assets and readily identifiable journalists and executives (at least ones that are not corralled in foreign embassies) are effectively injuncted from publishing.

Among the parties to these proceedings, which can be reported, are lawyers for the Commonwealth of Australia, instructed by the department of foreign affairs. So you can put two and two together and guess that the government was the applicant for this injunction.

Maybe the judge was trying to protect people whose names would come up in the criminal trial without warning or without legal representation. At the same time, it does seem an extraordinarily wide order to grant on the application of someone who is not a party to the criminal proceedings and whose self-interest lies beyond the issues to be tried and determined by the court.

Is it a contempt to tweet from Australia a link to the WikiLeaks story? “Yes”, says media lawyer Peter Bartlett, because it would reveal the names of the parties whose identity in this context is now protected.

At the same time, it would be acceptable to use a #WikiLeaks hashtag without a link. Anyone vaguely interested in this can easily find out in this global news village what we are not allowed to publish from Australia. Such is the disjuncture between proscriptive court orders and the real world of information.

The erosion of the principle of open justice has been steadily ratcheted-up with each passing year. Almost on a daily basis, the courts are issuing suppression orders preventing publication of entire proceedings or aspects of proceedings. In Victoria alone, there were 1,502 suppression orders over a five year period.

Since the passage of legislation in both NSW and Victoria that purports to create a presumption in favour of openness, the opposite has been the case and there seems to be a steady rise in orders restricting reporting of proceedings. Rarely are they accompanied with judicial reasons that carefully balance the argument between open justice and protecting the administration of justice – a flexible term which means more or less whatever a judge wants it to mean.

Judges do bang-on about the importance of open justice and love to quote Jeremy Bentham:

Publicity is the very soul of justice … it keeps the judge himself, while trying, under trial.

Yet, in their hearts they don’t like things being too open at all. There’s also an implicit dislike of the media trampling on their patch.

The overriding judicial belief is that the administration of justice is a delicate flower that can all too readily wilt if reporters are telling their readers, viewers or listeners what is going on chapter and verse inside their courtrooms.

This is not to say some suppression is not be justified, including where the physical safety of witnesses is at stake; interconnected criminal trials; family law cases; victims of sexual assault; and trials involving children come to mind. National security is also a popular one for governments to trot out, particularly in terrorism cases or hearings involving security assessments of refugees. Judges have a tendency to be far too craven in the face of overblown claims for suppression on grounds of national security.

Human Rights Watch in New York has been drawn to comment on the Victorian orders, with general counsel Dinah PoKempner saying:

The gag order published by WikiLeaks … is disturbing on its face as it suggests the Australian government is suppressing reporting of a major corruption scandal to prevent diplomatic embarrassment. The embarrassment of diplomatic partners is not the same thing as a threat to national security, or to the integrity of the judicial process.

Britain saw a spate of suppression orders on privacy grounds in relation to the extra-mural sexual activities of sports stars, and in the infamous Trafigura case involving suppression of a report about the company dumping toxic waste on the coast of west Africa. Ultimately, these court orders were rendered worthless by hundreds of thousands of tweets and even questions raised under parliamentary privilege in the House of Commons.

In Australia, the courts have issued internet take down orders in relation to pending criminal trials. The mainstream media tends to comply, while the rest of the internet, including Google, studiously ignores these attempts to quarantine the jury system.

Surprisingly, this pressing issue is missing from the agenda of next week’s big free speech spectacular put on by the Australian Human Rights Commission. The courts have failed to adjust to an environment where suppression orders, injunctions and super-injunctions can be steadfastly ignored by countless self-proclaimed publishers.

Justice Wilmot, an 18th century English judge, said the law of contempt was important to keep the courts surrounded by a “blaze of glory”. Issuing orders whose observance most people now regard as optional does not assist in that mission.

                This entry was posted on Thursday, 31 July 2014, 9:04 pm and is filed under
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Straw poll gives peek into restive feeling in Sabah, Sarawak

BY SHERIDAN MAHAVERA AND DESMOND DAVIDSON

The Malaysian Insider

1 August 2014

A straw poll has confirmed a trend that Sabah and Sarawak folk are becoming more restive, with many urban Sarawakians even talking openly about leaving the federation.

The straw poll of 100 revealed that 72% of Sarawak folk felt that leaving the federation was the best option, with only 14% in Sabah agreeing.

The straw poll also revealed that 43% of them believed that the best way for Sabah and Sarawak to solve their problems was to leave Malaysia and go at it alone.

Secession is considered treason under Malaysian law.

The poll indicates that deep feelings of mistrust and disenchantment still exist between the peninsula Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak half a century after the federation was formed on September 16, 1963.

Results of The Malaysian Insider’s straw poll are similar to previous online surveys which showed that more and more in Sabah and Sarawak want to leave the federation.

A senior Sarawak-based academic who looked at the poll results said there was a wide difference between the Sarawak and Sabah respondents in their analysis and understanding of their problems.

“The Sabahans have a better analysis of what are the core problems of Sabah. But the Sarawakians’ analysis is impoverished,” said Assoc Prof Dr Andrew Aeria.

The poll was conducted via face-to-face interviews with 50 residents each from Sabah and Sarawak from all age groups.

Respondents were interviewed in Kota Kinabalu, Penampang and Papar in Sabah. Sarawak participants were from Kuching, Serian and Sri Aman.

Some 70% of Sabah and Sarawak folk polled thought Putrajaya did not treat Sarawak and Sabah fairly. The number was again higher among Sarawak folk than Sabah.

Among the Sarawak folk, 96% said Sarawak’s biggest problem was that Putrajaya did not treat them fairly.

This answer was chosen from a list that included local economic downturn, high crime and too little development or not enough jobs.

Sarawak respondents complained the state not getting its fair share of development funds from Putrajaya. This is while Sarawak supplies Putrajaya with oil revenue every year.

Many complained of poor roads, murky treated water supply and constant power blackouts in Sarawak’s interior.

Most Sabah folk or 42% also felt that the federal government did not treat Sabah fairly. Some 32% said the Putrajaya was fair to Sabah.

However, 57% of the 100 polled said they were satisfied with the performance of the Sarawak or Sabah government respectively.

Some 76% of the Sarawak folk polled were satisfied with the Sarawak government. While among the 50 Sabah folk, 38% were satisfied with their government compared with 32% who were not.

The majority of Sabah folks polled or 52% said that the flood of illegal immigrants was their number one problem. This was followed by a slowing economy at 18%, not enough development (10%), high crime rate (8%) and not enough jobs (6%).

Aeria, a political economist based in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas), cautioned against taking the poll as representative of what Sabah and Sarawak folk think.

He said the responses from the 50 Sarawak folk were likely from those who had access to the Internet. These individuals had their political attitudes shaped by what was on social media.

“The Sarawak respondents have swallowed the opposition propaganda whole, that the federal government is to be blamed for all of Sarawak’s problems.

“Instead of having deep discussions about Sarawak’s problems, they are playing the blame game,” said Aeria.

He said there was strong anti-peninsula federal government sentiment in last year’s general election that was fanned by both Sarawak Pakatan Rakyat and the Sarawak Barisan Nasional.

Sarawak BN went around urging people to only vote for “orang kita” or native parties. Voters were exhorted to reject candidates from peninsula-based parties, such as those in PR.

Coupled with PR’s rhetoric against the federal BN, this conflated into an anti-federal feeling directed at Putrajaya. The sentiment overlooks Sarawak BN’s own complicity in Sarawak’s problems.

The responses from the 50 Sarawak folk seem to show how this anti-peninsula sentiment is shaping political discourse in Sarawak.

“If you are mad with the BN federal government, why are you still voting for the BN state government? Sarawak BN is still part of the federal BN. It’s an impoverished analysis of what Sarawak’s problems are,” said Aeria. – August 1, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Friday, 1 August 2014, 7:33 am and is filed under
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Call on Najib to defer  480 per cent Johor causeway toll hike to enable proper process of public consultation in keeping with his GTP commitment to uphold the highest standards of transparency and accountability

On his return from Amsterdam, the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak should direct a deferment of the 480 per cent Johor causeway toll hikes to enable a full and proper process of public consultation in keeping with his commitment under the Government Transformation Programme to uphold the highest standards of transparency and accountability.

The Prime Minister should have received public feedbacks by now  not only about  the unpopularity but even more important, the great sense of injustice felt by the people in southern Johor over hardships caused by  the astronomical  causeway toll hikes, especially for the following reasons:

Firstly,  substantive breach of the undertaking  by the Prime Minister in Parliament on Sept. 24, 2012 that the Eastern Dispersal Link (EDL) will remain toll-free as the causeway toll hikes are  imposition of EDL tolls in disguise.

Secondly, although  the causeway toll hikes are purportedly to improve the “facilities and services” of EDL, thousands of vehicles and  the majority of the 200,000 people crossing the Johor Causeway daily do not take the EDL for them to reach the Johor Bahru Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ), while some 80% of the 220,000 vehicles utilizing the EDL daily do not cross over to Singapore at all.

Thirdly, the unconscionable toll  hike up to  480 per cent which is probably the  highest toll hike in Malaysian toll history.

Fourthly, implementation of the toll hikes in double quick time –  less than a week of its announcement –  not giving allowance for public feedback, which again must rank as probably the shortest in Malaysian toll history as well. The toll hikes were announced on July 26 and they were  implemented in less than a week on August 1.

Why such drastic and  astronomical toll hikes and implemented in such a haste, as if the authorities knew that what they were up to were so wrong and unjustifiable from any public interest standpoint that they  wanted to have a “fait accompli” in the shortest possible time!

Najib should direct a full public consultation process before any implementation of the  causeway toll hikes, which should also take into account the following matters:

– His parliamentary statement that the government was considering taking over the EDL concessionaire from MRCB and resolve the EDL issue once and for all;

– The quantum of fair and equitable causeway toll hikes; and

– The issues of Vehicle Entry Permit (VEP) on Singaporean vehicles and a comprehensive public transport plan in Johor Bahru to resolve the problem of traffic congestion, improve local public transport and enhance the local economy.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 2 August 2014, 4:21 pm and is filed under
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No ordinary Zhou

The Economist

Aug 2nd 2014

In carrying out the most significant purge in a generation, Xi Jinping seeks to tighten his grip

Beijing – SINCE President Xi Jinping launched his anti-corruption campaign at the end of 2012, the question has been how high he would aim. On July 29th an emphatic answer came with the news that Zhou Yongkang was under investigation by the Communist Party for “serious violations of discipline”—for which, read corruption.

Mr Zhou was once one of the most powerful men in the land. Until two years ago he was a member of the Politburo’s ruling standing committee: in charge of the state’s vast security apparatus, he controlled a budget bigger than the army’s. It had long been an unwritten rule of China’s power politics that men of Mr Zhou’s stature were untouchable. In flouting the rule, Mr Xi has left no doubt about the authority he believes he now wields. He appears to be the most powerful Chinese leader since the late Deng Xiaoping.

Mr Zhou first appeared to be in trouble in 2012, with the purge of Chongqing’s party secretary, Bo Xilai. It is thought that Mr Bo had been eager to challenge Mr Xi’s ascent to the presidency, and Mr Zhou was a close ally who argued against bringing Mr Bo down. The result was a rare serious split in China’s highest leadership.

Mr Zhou sat atop a network of patronage that ran across the country, in particular through the police state and the oil-and-gas industry (through which he himself had risen). In recent months protégés have been rounded up for graft, including Jiang Jiemin, once head of PetroChina and, last year, of the government body overseeing state-owned assets. And on July 29th reports surfaced of the arrest of Mr Zhou’s businessman son, Zhou Bin, who also has interests in energy. Foreign media have reported that the family’s assets run to hundreds of millions of dollars. But whether Mr Zhou and his clan are much more corrupt than the families of many other senior leaders is moot. His chief sin appears to have been, as with Mr Bo, seeking to amass so much power that he threatened a system of collective leadership that depends on a precarious balance of different factions and interests.

Still, Mr Xi and his able sideman, Wang Qishan, who runs the anti-corruption campaign, appear deadly serious about graft. Since the start of 2013, the party says, over 200,000 officials have been punished. That includes three dozen ministers, provincial leaders or top executives at state-owned companies. Many officials have committed suicide.

Mr Xi and Mr Wang appear to believe that corruption frustrates ambitious economic proposals unveiled late last year, including reforms to make state-owned enterprises—energy companies among them—perform much better. They are out to smash the interests resisting reform.

But the two men also seem to think that graft poses an almost existential threat to the Communist Party’s rule. And they are probably right. Ordinary people are disgusted with party corruption, and going after corrupt “tigers” underpins Mr Xi’s popularity, as far as it can be measured. On July 30th the People’s Daily, the party’s mouthpiece, said that Mr Xi is serious about purifying the ranks, and that no one is safe from scrutiny.

For the moment, the initiative is with Mr Xi and his allies. Mr Zhou’s downfall has elements of a good old-fashioned purge in which rivals are eliminated and power is consolidated. Optimists hope Mr Xi will use his power to push on with economic and social reforms. This week the party also announced that it would convene a big meeting in October to discuss the rule of law, an area that was once Mr Zhou’s to define and control.

Yet Mr Xi’s strategy also raises questions. One is that his anti-corruption drive—more far-reaching and lasting than any other—has sent such a chill through the governing apparatus that demoralised officials are scared to act on any policy or project without clear direction from above. That could hamper the implementation of the very reforms that Mr Xi and Mr Wang are supposed to be working towards.

The second caveat follows from the first: there are presumably risks in taking down too many tigers. Ordinary Chinese may understand better how truly rotten the system is, while other senior leaders will think they are next. Should that happen, then the party’s famed unity could be in trouble as others challenge Mr Xi’s authority—the opposite of what he intends. At some point, then, he and Mr Wang must find a way to bring the anti-corruption juggernaut to a halt. At the moment it is careering along.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 2 August 2014, 11:47 am and is filed under
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