Ultra Malays out to polarise nation, warns Ani Arope

By Stephen Ng

Malaysiakini

Oct 10, 2013

To say that Ani Arope epitomises a true Malay statesman is an understatement.

 In his recently launched ‘Memoirs of Tan Sri Ani Arope’, the former chairperson and chief executive of Tenaga Nasional Bhd (1990-96) portrays himself as a good communicator who speaks fluent Hokkien, passable Cantonese and Mandarin and reasonably good Tamil and French.

 Yet, he did not at any point lose his identity as a Malay, a person well-respected by family and friends as ‘Pak Ani’ or Uncle Ani.

Lamenting that a lot of today’s woes are the result of gutter politics played by politicians bounded by arrogance, boastfulness, avarice, hate and jealousy, the octogenarian says his major concern is “to see a more stark polarisation of races in our schools and institutions of higher learning”.

 Ani, the country’s first recipient of the Fulbright scholarship in 1964, said such polarisation opened the door to prejudice and bigotry among the various races.

 “Harnessing our diversity could be the driving force for development, not only in respect of economic growth but also of leading a more fulfilling intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual life,” he says.

 In his latest book, Ani, 81, also includes a chapter on his speech to the Fulbright alumni on enhancing cultural and religious tolerance in Malaysia.

 “It is convenient to put the blame for this prejudice and bigotry as part of the legacy of the former colonial masters,” he says. “However, the reality is that much of this prejudice and bigotry are our own making and enforced by interested parties driven by fear-based environment.”

 Without mentioning Umno in his speech, Ani adds: “These parties need to perpetuate the prejudice and bigotry to exist, because these, whether real, perceived or invented, are the reasons that justify the existence of these extreme chauvinistic groups.”

Sense of superiority

 Warning how some ultra-Malay groups were disturbing the race harmony in the country, Ani continued to point out that the concept of ‘Ketuanan Melayu’ is where “one group would have a sense of superiority from believing that they are members of some elitist group that is superior to others”.

 What saddens him further is that the mass media is in fact giving support to reinforce this kind of thinking, which he considers as an “insidious moral and social disease in our midst”.

 Calling himself an “endangered species” who still carries the Malaysian spirit at heart, Ani opines that, whatever the conflicts, they should not be swept under the carpet but met head-on and discussed openly and honestly.

 “We may disagree, but we must understand that healthy disagreements would help build better decisions,” he advises the younger generation of Malaysians.

 “We must be prepared to discuss our value systems and our priorities. We should not feel embarrassed to talk of the shortcomings amongst us or the marginalised sections of our society who are not able to participate in the mainstream of society.”

 An avid user of the social media, Ani in one of his postings on his Facebook page wrote: “Do you know why a car’s windshield is so large and the rearview mirror is so small? Because our past is not as important as our future. Look ahead and move on!”

‘Memoirs of Tan Sri Ani Arope’ is published by the Fulbright Alumni Association of Malaysia (FAAM). The soft-launch of the 143-page memoir was done at Fulbright’s 50th anniversary dinner in July this year by its president Prof Dr Gendeh Balwant.

 The book will be available in major bookstores nationwide soon.

STEPHEN NG is a chemist by training. He dealt with printing ink, paint and emulsion polymer for 15 years before becoming a freelance writer.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 20 December 2014, 8:01 pm and is filed under
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We won’t forget how CM labelled a holy pig

By TK Chua

Malaysiakini

Dec 20, 2014

Only in this country could a small group of extremists label a chief minister of a state a holy pig and “kurang ajar” and get away with it. Only in this country would a chief minister making a statement based on his legal interpretation be considered as encroachment into the rights of others. When are these extremists going to grow up?

 Whatever Lim Guan Eng had said or did not say, we should all debate decently and if possible allow the due process to determine whether he has infringed any law in the country.

 But this is not the case. Everyone in the country knows that the extremists are bullying others with raw power and brutal force. They know non-Muslims and non-Malays are the minority and powerless to retaliate. In fact, have you seen non-Malays resorting to trigger-happy demonstrations like this group of extremists in Penang? Since Pakatan took over the helm of the state government, may I know how many demonstrations have been staged by them?

 Don’t forget that the tactic used was most uncouth and depraved. We have not forgotten the cake in the shape of faeces that was presented to the chief minister. We have not forgotten the photograph of the chief minister put up as if it was for his funeral. We have not forgotten there was once a challenge to “fist fight” with the chief minister.

 We have not forgotten the aggressive storming of the state government office building. We have not forgotten the intrusion into the state assembly building. Now, surely we will not forget how the chief minister of the state was labelled as a holy pig, a wild boar, et cetera.

 Have we ever asked why they are so bold and vile? Do you think they are brave? Do you think they are fighting for justice and equality? No, I don’t think so. On the contrary, they are cowardly, depraved and uncouth. They are not man enough to indulge in politics the proper way. They are hiding behind religion, race and royalty to further their own selfish political ambitions.

 Don’t be mistaken. This group of extremists is not just doing harm to the non-Malays or non-Muslims. This group of extremists will eventually destroy the ‘political culture’ of this country. Politics from now on does not need intellect, decorum and contest of ideas. All it needs is samseng culture, uncouth behaviour and raw power.

 I urge the authorities, particularly the police, to nip in the bud this fast emerging moronic culture perpetrated by the extremists. Please do not sacrifice long-term interests of this country for short term expediency. What this group is doing is not contesting for political power in a democratic way. What they are doing is akin to staging an upheaval to destabilise a legitimately-elected government with inflammation and hatred.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 20 December 2014, 6:44 pm and is filed under
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Why such uneasiness among Muslims over ‘Allah’?

By Stephen Ng

Malaysiakini

Oct 12, 2013

As the nation anxiously awaits the Court of Appeal’s decision on Monday regarding the use of the word ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims, a short chapter on the controversial issue in former Tenaga Nasional Bhd chief’s latest book, ‘Memoirs of Tan Sri Ani Arope’, is both apt and timely.

Representing the “endangered species” of broadminded Malays who grew up in multicultural Malaysia, Ani asks, “Why there is so much uneasiness among Muslims to hear others using the word loosely?”

Ani is referring to the dispute on the use of ‘Allah’ by non-Muslims in Malaysia, which has gone all the way up to the appellate court.

 It has also created tension between Muslims and non-Muslims in the country, which led to a few churches being fire-bombed following the High Court decision to allow the Catholic weekly The Herald to use the word ‘Allah’ for God in Bahasa Malaysia, the language used by many Christians in Sabah and Sarawak.

 Pig’s heads, wrapped in plastic, were also found in two mosques in Kuala Lumpur, but to date police have not arrested the culprits.

Sincere and frank dialogue

 According to Ani, the term and use of the word ‘Allah’ is not and cannot be exclusive to Muslims.

 “The Jews and Christians in the Arab speaking world would use the name ‘Allah’ to refer to the Almighty,” he argues.

 He further explains: “Allah (swt) to us, Muslims, is not merely a word but more importantly, the concept from an Islamic teaching.”

 The octogenarian, who turned 81 recently, said he had hoped that his sincere and frank dialogue on the Allah row could help to “continue to build peaceful and friendly relationships based upon mutual respect, justice, and what is common in essence in our shared Abrahamic tradition, particularly ‘the two greatest commandments’ in Mark 12:29-31 (and, in varying form, in Matthew 22:37-40), that the Lord, our God, is one Lord (Rabi Allahu Ahad).”

‘Memoirs of Tan Sri Ani Arope’ is published by the Fulbright Alumni Association of Malaysia. The soft-launch of the 143-page book was done at the Fulbright’s 50th anniversary dinner in July this year by its president, Professor Dr Gendeh Balwant.

 The book will be available in major bookstores nationwide soon.

STEPHEN NG is a chemist by training. He dealt with printing ink, paint and emulsion polymer for 15 years before becoming a freelance writer.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 20 December 2014, 8:40 pm and is filed under
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A Christmas message to my nation

— Charles Ganaprakasam

The Malay Mail Online

December 21, 2014

DECEMBER 21 — On this stunning, life-giving harmonious day, I would like to convey my Christmas wishes to my fellow brothers and sisters who are rejoicing this holy day as a birth of Jesus on earth to redeem us from our sin which we committed by God given free will.

We should not celebrate Christmas without knowing the proper mode of celebrating it. Some celebrate this pure delightful day solely with their friends and family gathering with gleaming smiles and once it’s done, then Christmas is over and they are glad of it.

The most wonderful and meaningful way of celebrating Christmas is through serving the deprived people with pure heart and remembering them as one of our brothers and sisters. We should serve them notwithstanding by where they belong racially, culturally and religiously.

Whether the underprivileged person is in someone’s own neighbourhood or in a distant area, we must not neglect our duty to serve them. Man’s responsibility to help his fellow beings is the central essence of teaching by Jesus Christ.

The notion of serving others not only mentioned in Christianity by Jesus, but also in the teaching of Buddhism and Islam. In Islam it’s compulsory for every Muslim to pay a certain amount of money from their earning as “zakat” for the poor people. Additionally, the Hindu religion traditionally believes that act of serving the needy is for repentance for their sin in this or their previous lifetime to discharge them from cycle of death and rebirth.

One of the greatest commandment preached by Jesus was “thou shalt love thy neighbour”. Ever since the creation of God, we are collectively sharing similar identities as a human being, therefore we should educate ourselves by serving those deprived, those suffering from starvation or lack of emotional support.

Instead of celebrating Christmas materially by organising parties and inviting friends, it’s far greater to celebrate this Holy day through serving them. This is somewhat comparable to sowing the prime seeds of wisdom and spiritual courage in order to struggle to do in the will of God.

I certainly did not mean to say that materialistic celebration of Christmas is unlawful in God’s vision, but it will be infinite blessing from God if we look upon others as an extension of ourselves by serving the poor.

Pure unconditional love towards others is an essential precondition in order to serve others, regardless of any distinguish. It has paramount important to indicate here about the golden law of all the religion: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. We should do for others just as we are doing for ourselves.

This golden rule naturally motivates us toward pure altruism, and it will make us see the pure image of God in man. I verily emphasise all my brothers and sisters to celebrate this wonderful day by beginning to put into practise the philosophy of serving others from now and forever. It certainly will be a revolutionary to the concept of all humanity throughout the world in the nearest future.

It’s a promise that each one of us will discover everlasting joy through serving the deprived with pure hearts by breaking the walls of selfishness with selfless righteous behaviour. May this Christmas step us toward radical reform not only from inner self, but to the outer world as well to preserve crowning glory of humanity.

“When thou makes a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich neighbours; lest they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee.

But when thou makes a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind; and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee; for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.” – (Luke 14:12-14)

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 – See more at: http://www.themalaymailonline.com/what-you-think/article/a-christmas-message-to-my-nation-charles-ganaprakasam#sthash.PDpFeNMO.dpuf

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 21 December 2014, 9:33 pm and is filed under
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Challenge to Mahathir to a public debate on “Whether after 57 years of UMNO government and six UMNO Prime Ministers, Malays have lost political power and become beggars in their own land”

Yesterday, former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir repeated ad nauseam his politics of fear, hate and lies that Malays have lost political power and have become beggars in their own land.

Does Mahathir really believe such garbage, that after 57 years of UMNO Government and six UMNO Prime Ministers – with him ruling for 22 years or 39% of these 57 years as the fourth Prime Minister of Malaysia – that the  Malays have lost  political power and become beggars in their own land?

If so, then this is the most powerful reason why the Malays and even Malaysians  must throw  UMNO out of Putrajaya in the 14GE, for there can be no greater indictment of the failures of 57 years of UMNO rule under six UMNO Prime Ministers (including his 22 years as PM) than the fate Mahathir insists the Malays have been reduced to – stripped of political power to become beggars in their own land!

But does this fearsome scenario tally with reality?

Malaysia had not only been ruled by the UMNO Government under six UMNO Prime Ministers for 57 years, the DPMs, the heavy-weight Cabinet Ministers like Finance, Home  and  Education;  the Attorney-General;  heads of the civil service, judiciary, the police, the armed forces and  the army, navy and air force; secretaries-general of all important and the overwhelming  majority of ministries; heads of key government departments and statutory bodies, the Vice Chancellors of all public universities – they are all helmed by Malays.

The UMNO mouthpiece, Utusan Malaysia, recently quoted the Public Service Department (JPA) director of organizational development Datuk Norzam Mohd Nor as saying that a whopping 60 per cent of chief executives helming government statutory bodies appear to have little knowledge about their agencies.

Is this fault to be laid at the doors of the Chinese in Malaysia?

Mahathir said Malays have lost political power.  Have the PM, DPMs, the heavy-weight UMNO Ministers, heads of civil service, judiciary, police, armed forces, secretaries-general and heads of departments, university vice chancellors become puppets of the Chinese at their beck and call?

Only crazies would answer in the affirmative, and it is unthinkable that  Mahathir, having been Prime Minister for 22 years, could believe such garbage.

I challenge Mahahtir to a public debate on whether the Malays have lost political power and been  reduced to be beggars in their own land after 57 years of UMNO government under six UMNO Prime Ministers.

As as former and longest-serving Prime Minister, Mahathir should be a benign and constructive influence in Malaysian life and politics. But he has become an evil influence who not only claimed he  did not understand what Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia policy was all about, but have openly repudiated his own policy of Bangsa Malaysia and Vision 2020.

Mahathir is not in retirement but is hyper-active in speaking engagements to continue his  fear-mongering, incitement of hate and spreading of  lies.

I await Mahahir’s answer to my challenge to a public debate on “Whether after 57 years of UMNO Government under six UMNO Prime Ministers, Malays have lost political power and have become beggars in their own land?”

Mahathir’s repetition yesterday ad nauseam that Malays have lost political power and have become beggars in their own land is not because he believed in such garbage, or that  dementia is at work with Mahathir  but it represents the  last gasp of Mahathirism to prevent the politics of inclusion replacing the politics of exclusion in Malaysia.

He has become patron of the extremist and racist Perkasa who  clearly approves of their Friday demonstrations, one  in Penang where  uncouth, coarse and vulgar  language were used, abusing the Penang Chief Minister as  “holy pig (babi cuci)” and  “wild boar (babi hutan)” and the Penang Exco Member for Islamic Affairs as a “pondan” together with threats and other uncivilized conduct  and in Ipoh at the DAP Perak headquarters, tearing a Christmas banner and assaulting the DAP Assemblyman for Tebing Tinggi Ong Boon Piow.

I am shocked that Mahathir could approve of such gangsterish misconduct by Perkasa, showing  his approval of their demonstration but silent on their boorish behaviour.

Whatever my differences with UMNO leaders in my 48 years of politics, I have always treated Mahathir and all the other five UMNO Prime Ministers with the greatest of respect, not only as due to their high  office, but to set an example of rational and civilised  political discourse in Malaysia politics.

I feel sad that Mahathir has degenerated to a stage where he could look with approval at the gangsterish and boorish misconduct of the Perkasa demonstrators in  Penang and Ipoh last Friday.

Yesterday, Malaysia lost a towering Malaysian – Tan Sri Ani Arope, who quit as TNB executive chairman in 1996 as he was  not prepared to be a cipher and kowtow to then PM Mahathir’s demand that TNB sign lopsided deals with independent power producers where TNB was forced to buy electricity generated by the IPPs at a significantly higher price.

One thought struck me  yesterday – who would have made a better Prime Minister for Malaysia in the nineties, Mahathir or Ani Arope?

In his book,
 “Memoirs of Tan Sri Ani Arope”
, Ani said that although the issue of special rights for Malays and other bumiputeras is and will always be a delicate issue, Malaysians will view the whole matter in a different light if these rights will benefit Malays and other bumiputeras who truly deserve them.

He said:  “However, it appears that these rights have been skewered to benefit the privileged Malays. The rural folk and those who really need help are getting the smallest of crumbs, if at all.”

He said Malaysia does  not need ”party loyalists, but people who are sensible, temperate, sober and well-judging persons to guide us through this tumultuous political time.”

He warned that some ultra-Malay groups were disturbing the race harmony in the country who need to perpetuate prejudice and bigotry, “because these, whether real, perceived or invented, are the reasons that justify the existence of these extreme chauvinistic groups”.

This was why I tweeted yesterday: “No doubt TS Ani Arope would have endorsed Open Letter by 25 Eminent Malays. He is not just eminent but Great Penangite and Malaysian!|

In fact I further tweeted:

“TS Ani Arope deserves Tunship. Call on PM Najib to recommend conferment of posthumous Tun-ship on TS Ani Arope who is real people’s hero!

“Great if someone can start people’s movement urging PM Najib 2recommend bestowal of posthumous Tunship to TS Ani Arope for national services.”

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 21 December 2014, 9:36 am and is filed under
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China Revises Its GDP Calculations

By Mark Magnier

Wall Street Journal

Dec 19, 2014

New Calculation Adds About 3.4% More to 2013 Data

BEIJING — With the stroke of a pen, China announced Friday that world’s second largest economy was 3.4% larger last year than previously thought — chiefly due to a more accurate counting of services and their impact on economic output.

China’s 2014 gross domestic product will be calculated using the new methodology when the full-year results are released next month.

The new calculation added 1.92 trillion yuan ($308.3 billion)—or about the equivalent of the economy of a Colorado or a Singapore—to the size of China’s economy in 2013, bringing it to a total of 58.80 trillion yuan.

While at one level the statistical change is fairly arcane, it should give investors and policy makers a more accurate picture of the economy as Beijing tries to pivot from investment-led growth in industry and infrastructure toward services and consumption.

“I think they’re genuinely trying to improve the quality of the numbers,” said Michael Pettis, professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management. “When you have bad numbers, it’s hard to make policy, and this is especially important in China, where the single most important player is the government.”

Analysts said the recalculation likely moves forward the date approximately a decade from now when China’s economy is projected to surpass the U.S.’s as the world’s largest. The U.S. surpassed the U.K. as the world’s largest economy in 1872. China has been expected to surpass the U.S. as the world’s largest economy around 2024 or 2025.

Aside from bragging rights, however, China’s population will remain four times that of the U.S. That means its citizens will be less wealthy on average than Americans and its government, analysts said, will face issues on how to raise living standards beyond those of middle-income countries even as the maturing economy continues to slow.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics earlier this week announced the coming revision would be about 3%. In a statement on its website Friday, the bureau said that the new method would “basically” not affect its calculations of economic growth this year. China is expected to miss its annual growth target—set at about 7.5% in 2014—for the first time since 1998.

Friday’s 3.4% revision in absolute terms is smaller than the 16.8% and 4.4% upward adjustments China announced in 2004 and 2008, respectively, after earlier recalculations of gross domestic product. The statistics bureau said Friday it will release GDP figures for earlier years using the new methodology, though it provided few details on the method.

The change bumps the share of services in economic activity up to 46.9% in 2013 from 46.1% at the expense of agriculture and manufacturing. It was made after collecting more comprehensive factory and service-sector figures as part of the recently completed national economic census, it added.

Some economists said the recalibration doesn’t appear to address the undercounting of consumption by China’s huge migrant population and other underlying problems that affect the accuracy and consistency of Chinese data. “They’re just playing at the margin, not doing anything substantive. Three percent is neither this way nor that,” said Ramesh Chander, a former World Bank adviser to China and author of a book on Chinese statistics. “The Chinese national accounts have been cryptic for a large part.”

Information provider Rhodium Group, in a report, said it expects that the system China has adopted for the recalculation is based on the System of National Accounts 2008 devised by the U.N. and other organizations. That system gives more weight to services, counts research and development, which China excluded before, and incorporates a rental-based revaluation on housing services. On other fronts, China is also expected to count land transfer income and treat stock options as employee compensation.

“Anything the government does to try and improve its statistics has got to be welcome, especially the service sector which is underrepresented,” said Matthew Crabbe, Asia-Pacific research director at Mintel, an information provider. “Services are as important as retail and probably growing as fast.”

The changes to China’s national accounts are modest compared with countries such as Kenya, Nigeria and Italy that revamped their methodology in recent years to better capture the informal economy, resulting in GDP size increases of up to 89%.

Problems with the reliability of Chinese national statistics tend to be more the result of systemic problems and skewed data from below than conscious manipulation by Beijing, said Mr. Chander, who worked closely with China’s statistics bureau while at the World Bank.

In one example, the sum of GDP reported by Chinese provinces has exceeded the national GDP figure in recent years, often by a significant amount. For the first half of this year, the sum of GDP figures for 31 provincial regions was 10% higher than the national figure, a discrepancy a government economist has attributed in September to different calculation methods.

The discrepancy has been attributed by a government economist to different calculations, but the phenomenon also reflects what’s sometimes dubbed “GDP worship” under which officials are promoted largely based on local economic growth, creating an incentive to inflate the figures.

“NBS used to tear its hair out,” Mr. Chander said. “Four or five years ago, they started doing their own calculations so they’re not as dependent on provincial data.”

—Grace Zhu and William Kazer contributed to this article.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 21 December 2014, 7:11 pm and is filed under
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Malaysia is the only country with a RCI which has a produced a report (RCIIIS Report) so replete with conflicts,  contradictions, non-findings, omissions, including over 6,000 missing pages, that another high-level committee has to be set up to read it and to try to understand it

Is there a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) or its equivalent in the world which had  spent 20 months to hold public hearings, calling 211 witnesses whose evidence covered more than 5,000 pages, public memoranda, “177 exhibits including charts, pictures, statistics, letters, official directives, commentaries and articles” which must have exceeded over 1,000 pages, but producing a 368-page report so replete with conflicts, contradictions, non-findings, omissions (including over 6,000 missing pages) that another high-level committee has to be set up to read it and try to understand it, as well as wondering what to do with it?

If there is such a RCI or its equivalent in another country, I will like to know about it.

Malaysia is probably the only country in the world with the dubious honour of having such a RCI – the Royal Commission of Inquiry on Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS).

It is a marvel that the Cabinet sat on the RCIIIS Report for some six months and did not know what to do about it – as UMNO/Barisan Nasional just want the status quo to continue undisturbed.

The Report was presented to the Yang di Pertuan Agong on May 14 and finally the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Abdullah acceded to  public pressures from  political parties both in  Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat as well as  Sabah-based for its public release on Dec. 3 – but after Dewan Rakyat has adjourned to avoid a parliamentary debate and scrutiny.

The only Cabinet decision taken was to set up a Working Committee chaired by Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan to “peruse and study” the recommendations of the RCIIIS Report and then submit its findings to the Permanent Committee on the RCIIIS Report.

When Najib had first announced the publication of the RCIIIS Report and the appointment of a Working Committee on the RCIIIS Report with Joseph Pairin as it chairman, I had immediately suggested that the Cabinet appoint Joseph Pairin to be Chairman of the RCIIIS Implementation Committee to demonstrate that Barisan Nasional has the political will to resolve the 40-year nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah – and the RCIIIS Report had approved the language used by a former Chief Minister witness who described Sabah as having reached “ICU stage” as a result of the illegal immigrants problem.

But I was wrong, as clearly there was nothing much to implement in the  RCIIIS Report, as it avoided giving any concrete or conclusive finding or recommendation on the basic issues about the problem, whether about the existence of the ‘Project IC’, the number of illegal immigrants on Sabah’s electoral roll or the number of illegal immigrants in Sabah.

In fact, the RCIIIS Report was so vague, inconclusive and self-contradictory, it allowed the Home Minister to deny the existence of “Project IC” and the Chief Secretary to claim that the RCIIIS had found that there was no political motivation to “Project IC”, which were never the findings of the RCIIIS.

Can the Chairman and the other four members of the RCIIIS list out the findings and recommendations to be implemented to address the 40-year nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah? No, because there were no such findings or recommendations in the RCIIIS Report.

So now we have a Joseph Pairin Working Committee on the RCIIIS Report to “peruse and study” the findings of the RCIIIS, which is going to be as big a job as that entrusted with the RCIIIS as the Report is unbelievably inconclusive and vague about all the basic issues of the illegal immigrant nightmare.

After that, the Joseph Pairin Working Committee is to submit its recommendations to the RCIIIS Report Permanent Committee, chaired by the Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and the Sabah Chief Minister, Datuk Seri Musa Aman, which will study the recommendations and proposals submitted by the working committee and bring them to the cabinet for its decision.

When will Joseph Pairin Working Committee complete its “perusal and study” of the RCIIIS Report, and when will the Joseph Pairin Report on the RCIIIS Report be submitted to the Permanent Committee, and when will the Permanent Committee submit its report to the Cabinet, and when will the Cabinet decide on how to implement the “findings” of the Working Committee of the RCIIIS Report?

What happens if the Joseph Pairin Working Committee on the RCIIIS cannot reach a consensus for a Report to be submitted to the Permanent Committee?  Whole process jammed to a halt?

The merry-go-round seems to be an endless frolic, by which time, the illegal immigrants  in Sabah would have exceeded the native Sabahans as the population in the state!

What we are seeing is the latest episode in a long catalogue  of outrageous examples  of  the utter lack of political will to resolve once-and-for-all the four-decade nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah, and the putting up of an empty façade of action which takes the problem nowhere and finally ends up in another long circuitous merry-go-round with neither end nor solution.

In fact, nobody knows whether the Working Committee of the RCIIIS Report has been formed, although it is more than a month after its announcement by Najib and 18 days after the publication of the RCIIIS Report.

Joseph Pairin seems to have gone into hiding when he should be telling Sabahans how he propose to ensure that following the publication of the RCIIIS Report, concrete action would be taken to resolve the 40-year  illegal immigrants problem once and for all, as recalling all blue identity cards in Sabah and to conduct a state-wide re-registration exercise to issue all ICs to flush out all illegal and fake Ics!

The Home Minister, Datuk Seri Abdul Zahid Hamidi made a very intriguing statement when he visited Sabah last week to announce the terms of reference for the Permanent and Working Committees of RCIIIS Report.

He said that both committees had their first informal  meeting at the Chief Minister’s official residence last Tuesday.

What is the meaning of this “first informal meeting”? Does it mean that both Committees had not been constituted yet – which appears to be the case as the full list of the members of the two committees have not been published. If so, there could be no first meeting of both Committees, whether formal or informal.

Even more intriguing is Zahid’s response when asked whether Pairin had accepted the appointment as Chairman of the Working Committee. The Home Minister said Pairin had verbally agreed to the appointment but he had to check whether the appointment had been accepted by Pairin officially.

Again, this is ridiculous, as how can Zahid say that the Working Committee had its first “informal” meeting when he does not know whether Joseph Pairin had officially accepted appointment as Chairman of the Working Committee?

Are we having phantom committees of the RCIIIS Report holding phantom meetings, whether formal or informal?  This will be Phantoms Galore in Sabah, adding to the hundreds of thousands of phantom voters in Sabah as a result of the illegal immigrants on Sabah’s electoral rolls.

All this rigmarole of the endless merry-go-round about the Grand Pretence to resolve  the 40-year nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah must stop.

For a start, Joseph Pairin should break his silence and state his position on the following ten points:

1.	Whether he has accepted and has started work as Chairman of the Working Committee.

2.	The list of full members of the Working Committee.

3.	When is the first meeting of the Working Committee and the regularity of its meetings.

4.	What is the deadline for the Working Committee to complete and submits its report to the Permanent Committee.

5.	Whether he and the Working Committee members have full access to the 6,000 missing pages in the RCIIIIS Report.

6.	Whether the Working Committee can ensure that the missing 6,000 pages of the RCIIIS Report are published for public study.

7.	What are the priority business of the Working Committee.

8.	Whether he would ask the Sabah Chief Minister to convene  an emergency meeting of the Sabah State Assembly within the next 30 days to debate the RCIIIS Report.

9.	Whether the Working Committee can ensure that the authorities would recall all ICs in Sabah and carry out a state-wide re-registration exercise of ICs to flush out all illegal and fake documentation.

10.	Whether the Working Committee can ensure that there will be two-day full debate on the RCIIIS Report when Parliament reconvenes on March 9.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 21 December 2014, 2:52 pm and is filed under
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The Conventional Wisdom On Oil Is Always Wrong

By Ben Casselman

Five Thirty-Eight

Dec 18, 2014

In 2008, I moved to Dallas to cover the oil industry for The Wall Street Journal. Like any reporter on a new beat, I spent months talking to as many experts as I could. They didn’t agree on much. Would oil prices — then over $100 a barrel for the first time — keep rising? Would post-Saddam Iraq ever return to the ranks of the world’s great oil producers? Would China overtake the U.S. as the world’s top consumer? A dozen experts gave me a dozen different answers.

But there was one thing pretty much everyone agreed on: U.S. oil production was in permanent, terminal decline. U.S. oil fields pumped 5 million barrels of crude a day in 2008, half as much as in 1970 and the lowest rate since the 1940s. Experts disagreed about how far and how fast production would decline, but pretty much no mainstream forecaster expected a change in direction.

That consensus turns out to have been totally, hilariously wrong. U.S. oil production has increased by more than 50 percent since 2008 and is now near a three-decade high. The U.S. is on track to surpass Saudi Arabia as the world’s top producer of crude oil; add in ethanol and other liquid fuels, and the U.S.is already on top.

The standard narrative of that stunning turnaround is familiar by now: Even as Big Oil abandoned the U.S. for easier fields abroad, a few risk-taking wildcatters refused to give up on the domestic oil industry. By combining the techniques of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and horizontal drilling, they figured out how to tap previously inaccessible oil reserves locked in shale rock – and in so doing sparked an unexpected energy boom.

That narrative isn’t necessarily wrong. But in my years watching the transformation up close, I took away a lesson: When it comes to energy, and especially shale, the conventional wisdom is almost always wrong.

It isn’t just that experts didn’t see the shale boom coming. It’s that they underestimated its impact at virtually every turn. First, they didn’t think natural gas could be produced from shale (it could). Then they thought production would fall quickly if natural gas prices dropped (they did, and it didn’t). They thought the techniques that worked for gas couldn’t be applied to oil (they could). They thought shale couldn’t reverse the overall decline in U.S. oil production (it did). And they thought rising U.S. oil production wouldn’t be enough to affect global oil prices (it was).

Now, oil prices are cratering, falling below $55 a barrel from more than $100 earlier this year. And so, the usual lineup of experts — the same ones, in many cases, who’ve been wrong so many times in the past — are offering predictions for what plunging prices will mean for the U.S. oil boom. Here’s my prediction: They’ll be wrong this time, too.

To be fair, the drop in oil prices is still too new for the experts to have settled on a clear consensus of what it will mean for U.S. producers. But the range of opinions is narrow, ranging from “production will be keep growing, but more slowly” to “it won’t have much effect at all.”1 Author and analyst Daniel Yergin, long the embodiment of the conventional wisdom on all things energy2, put it this way in a Wall Street Journal op-ed late last month, when oil was trading for just under $70 a barrel:

It is now clear that the new U.S. production is more resilient than anticipated. … True, with prices now near or below $70 a barrel, U.S. companies are looking hard at their investment plans — where and how much to cut or postpone. But it will take time for these decisions to affect supply. U.S. oil output will continue to rise in 2015.

I don’t take issue with anything Yergin is saying here. In fact, it makes sense. But that’s the thing about the conventional wisdom: It always makes sense at the time. It’s only later that we can see all the reasons it was wrong.

I don’t yet know why the conventional wisdom will be wrong this time, but I can guess. Not about what will happen — I’m no better at these predictions than anyone else — but about the sources of error. Here are a few of the most likely candidates:

No one has any idea what oil prices will do: In July 2008, my Journal colleague Neil King asked a wide range of energy journalists, economists and other experts to anonymously predict what the price of oil would be at the end of the year. The nearly two dozen responses ranged from $70 a barrel at the low end to $167.50 at the high end.3 The actual answer: $44.60.4

It isn’t surprising that experts aren’t good at predicting prices. Global oil markets are a function of countless variables — geopolitics, economics, technology, geology — each with its own inherent uncertainty. And even if you get those estimates right, you never know when a war in the Middle East or an oil boom in North Dakota will suddenly turn the whole formula on its head.

But none of that stops television pundits from making confident predictions about where oil prices will head in the coming months, and then using those predictions as the basis for production forecasts. Based on their track record, you should ignore them.

Drilling economics are complicated: In recent weeks, Wall Street analysts have published estimates of “break-even prices” for various U.S. oil fields. According to Goldman Sachs, for example, companies need at least $80 oil to make money in Texas’s Eagle Ford shale but only $70 in North Dakota’s Bakken shale. In theory, that makes it easy to see where companies will keep drilling at a given price and where they’ll pull back.

The reality is far more complicated. Not all parts of an oil field are created equal. Wells drilled in a “sweet spot” can be an order of magnitude better than those in less promising areas. Companies will keep drilling in the best areas long after they’ve pulled the plug on more marginal prospects. Break-even prices also change along with the price of oil. As prices fall and companies drill less, that leaves more rigs and equipment available, pushing down the price of drilling a well and allowing companies to stay profitable even at lower oil prices.

With oil under $60 a barrel, it’s a fair bet that many U.S. wells are now unprofitable. But that doesn’t mean companies will stop drilling them, at least right away. Companies often have contracts for rigs and would rather keep drilling than pay a penalty. They also have contracts for the land where they drill. If they don’t drill within a certain period, they lose the right to the land altogether.

Even when drilling does slow, production won’t necessarily follow. Wells keep producing for decades after they’ve been drilled, although at ever-declining rates. Companies prioritize their most promising projects, so the wells that do get drilled will be the best ones. And technology keeps improving, so companies can coax more oil out of each well. Natural gas provides an instructive example: The U.S. is drilling half as many gas wells today as it was five years ago and producing a third more gas.

Drilling finances are even more complicated: One thing I learned in my years covering the industry is that oil companies, and especially small oil companies, will keep drilling for as long as they can get the money to do so.5 That means the key variable in forecasting oil production isn’t drilling costs or even oil prices; it’s Wall Street.

In recent years, investors have handed energy companies half a trillion dollars in loans. That’s partly because of all the promising new oil fields in North Dakota and Texas, but it’s also because with interest rates near zero, investors are hungry for returns wherever they can find them. Now the Federal Reserve is talking about raising interest rates, which could kill the bond bubble, even as falling oil prices make those loans look riskier than they used to. If Wall Street turns off the money spigot, drilling will slow down no matter what oil prices do.

And then there’s politics: Why are oil prices falling? The short answer is lots of supply (the U.S. oil boom) and not much demand (a weak global economy). The longer answer is all about the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. OPEC usually tries to keep prices high by limiting supply. But right now the cartel — or at least its dominant member, Saudi Arabia — appears content to let prices fall. The Saudis apparently think they can weather the storm of low prices better than companies in the U.S., where oil is much more expensive to produce.

But the policy has created divisions within OPEC, and no one knows when or if the cartel will start pulling back production. Tumbling prices are wreaking havoc on Russia’s economy, and they could easily lead to political unrest in other countries as well.

Oh, right, and geology: It’s easy to forget, but just a few years ago people were fretting about “peak oil,” the idea that global oil production had reached its maximum capacity and was doomed to start falling. The shale boom pushed those fears out of the mainstream, but the underlying questions remain. The shale boom is still young, and it was unclear how long it could last even when prices were higher. The U.S. government’s official production forecasts are subject to an almost comical level of uncertainty, and independent researchers have called even those estimates into question. The government didn’t see the boom coming, after all; there’s no guarantee it will see the end coming, either.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 21 December 2014, 7:43 pm and is filed under
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The hardest word

– Mariam Mokhtar

Rakyat Times

21 December 2014

The day Malaysia makes history will be the day our leaders apologise for their shortcomings, say ‘sorry’ for the failures of their staff, and express regret for the abuses of power by their children. Malaysians have much to learn from South Korea, and our leaders should learn the lesson from the ‘Nut Rage’ scandal.

Cho Hyun-ah, daughter of the chairman of Korean Air, apologised for losing her temper with a First-Class air steward at New York’s John F. Kennedy (JFK) airport on Dec 5. Cho, who was a senior vice-president and head of cabin service for Korean Air, had been served nuts in a bag and not on a plate. The plane had been waiting to take off when she ordered the captain to return and drop off the offending cabin crew member.

The contrast in her behaviour, a few days later, could not have been more stark. Cho was brought back down to earth with a bump. Her arrogance,  that of someone with the power to overrule the pilot, was gone. In a faint, trembling voice, Cho issued her grovelling public an apology. Dressed in black from head to toe, with her hair shielding her face from the cameras and onlookers, she avoided eye contact and bowed her head in shame.

Hours earlier, her father Cho Yang-ho, also the chairman of Korean Air, had apologised and bowed before journalists at the airline’s head office. He expressed regret for his daughter’s actions and said, “It’s my fault. As chairman and father, I ask for the public’s generous forgiveness.”

News agencies like Reuters and Associated Press had reported that the South Koreans had been outraged by the behaviour of the children and grandchildren of the founders of big business empires. Cho was dubbed a “princess” for shaming the nation.

Malaysia has many such princes and princesses, most of whom are the sons and daughters of powerful Umno-Baru cronies, although some are the offspring of politicians. Many are crass and spoilt; they behave as if they own Malaysia.

Two years ago, Tourism and Culture Minister Nazri Aziz’s son Nedim caused public outrage when he and his bodyguard allegedly assaulted the security guard of a luxury condominium at Mont Kiara in Kuala Lumpur.

Nedim had driven his Porsche into the condominium grounds but had refused to register his details at the guard house. Nedim’s bodyguard claimed that his master was a member of royalty. When the Bangladeshi guard refused to break the strict rules of the management, both Nedim and his minder, a former policeman, punched the security guard.

If you or I had claimed to be a member of royalty, we would have been charged with impersonation or fraudulent misrepresentation. Nedim tarnished not only the reputation of all Malaysian royalty but also that of his family and Malaysians. However, this is not Nedim’s first brush with the law; neither  is it the first assault allegation made against him.

In 2004, Nedim was allegedly implicated in the death of a law student from Sheffield University. Despite witness statements from the victim’s girlfriend and other professionals, confirming Nedim’s involvement, the charge of manslaughter was made instead against five innocent Thai immigrant labourers. Cover-ups are the norm in Malaysia.

In April this year, South Korea’s Prime Minister Chung Hong-won offered his resignation for his government’s poor handling of the rescue operations in the Sewol ferry disaster. Over 300 students and teachers had died when their boat capsized.

At an emergency press conference, Chung refused to be a “burden to the administration” and said that he would take responsibility for the tragedy by tendering his resignation. He apologised for being “unable to prevent this accident from happening and unable to properly respond to it afterwards”.

He said that many irregularities and malpractices in society had been in existence for many years. He hoped that these would be corrected, to prevent repeats like the Sewol ferry disaster.

Contrast this statement with the intransigence of our ministers, heads of department and CEO of MAS in the aftermath of the MH370 tragedy. The Chief of the Armed Forces defended the incompetence of his radar control operators. To this date, the cargo manifest is missing. The head of the Civil Defence Aviation and his army counterpart appear not to communicate with one another. Attempts were made to blame the pilots of MH370. The Prime Minister, the Transport Minister and the IGP gave conflicting statements.

To this day, none of our leaders has issued an apology for the poor handling of MH370’s Search and Rescue operations. If we look back in time, no apology has been issued for any other national disasters and incursions – tragedies like the Highland Towers disaster, the Memali massacre and the Lahad Datu invasion.

Unlike the South Koreans, our leaders lack accountability and have no sense of remorse. They prefer to blame others and that is why history will be made on the day one of them says “sorry”.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 21 December 2014, 10:25 pm and is filed under
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Tunisia caught between fear and stability

Noureddine Jebnoun

Aljazeera

19 Dec 2014

Tunisia might be making progress with elections, but internal political polarisation is reaching dangerous heights.

  The Tunisian transition is perceived as exceptional in the light of the instability in the rest of the region: return of authoritarianism, spread of sectarian and ethnic violence, chaos and civil war. L Carl Brown recently praised the “Tunisian exception” for providing a “less hectic and less bloody revolutionary transition” in the Arab world.

But a closer look at Tunisian politics shows that the perceived exceptionalism of political developments in the country is somewhat overstated and necessitates a more nuanced analysis.

Political fatigue

Three years after Bouazizi’s immolation set off the Arab uprisings, Tunisia is living in the rhythm of elections. Most recently, parliamentary elections where held on October 26, followed by the first round of presidential elections. On December 21, Tunisia will have its presidential runoff between Beji Caid Essebsi of Nidaa Tounes (Call of Tunisia) and the incumbent interim President Moncef Marzouki. The outcome of these elections will provide the country with its first democratically elected permanent institutions.

But as much as the world is praising these elections, Tunisians do not seem as enthusiastic. While the number of registered voters surpassed 5 million out of more than 8.2 million Tunisians of voting age, barely 3.3 million turned up at the voting stations for the first round of the presidential elections. This indicates a low voter turnout particularly among youth, the most disenfranchised social group whose mobilisation was decisive in the fall of Ben Ali’s dictatorship.

This first round of the presidential elections mirrored the political fatigue and apathy of the Tunisian electorate whose confidence in the potential of democracy to generate positive outcomes has declined. This declining confidence was already observed in the parliamentary elections, which showed that Tunisians apparently have preference for a leader with “a strong hand” who is able to stabilise the country.

Presidential candidates and sensationalist media coverage instrumentalised this desire for stability, seeking to nurture Tunisians’ anxieties and maintain their fear of insecurity in order to affect their vote.

Haunted by an authoritarian past

The two presidential contenders seem to be promoting irreconcilable visions for the country’s future to the extent that it has become inconceivable for them to compete without missing an opportunity to stigmatise one another. In this context, the visibility of other candidates was reduced in the first round and the debate of ideas impoverished. Political pluralism bore the negative consequences.

As the election date approaches, media, business interests, and civil society actors have settled in this polarity. In fact, both candidates are sharing excessively passionate discourses. Marzouki travels across the country campaigning against the threat of Nidaa’s “hegemony” should its candidate win the presidency after the party’s victory in the October legislative elections. Marzouki tried to position himself as the bulwark against the return of the old regime’s tyrannical rule and its men. Ben Ali’s dark era is, indeed, far from being forgotten by many Tunisians, especially the Islamists.

Marzouki’s fear of authoritarian temptation has become an obsession. He blatantly warned that if his rival gets elected, “Tunisia risks a plunge into instability,” and strongly critisised the “old mindset” of the remnants of Ben Ali’s regime “that has not changed one iota”, blaming these relics for failing to learn from their mistakes. Although this narrative resonates positively among Tunisians who experienced systematic repression and marginalisation by the previous regime, it is worth noting that its rationale is problematic.

Standing as a rampart against the return of the old order is asserting that Tunisians are immature, civil society actors are weak, and youth are anesthetised. More than three years of rocky transition has demonstrated that sociopolitical activism is indeed a constant variable of Tunisian society and that the tutelage of a leader is not a prerequisite for maintaining democratic momentum.

Unconsciously, Marzouki made a mistake appropriating the status of the indispensible saviour of Tunisians from an ineluctable autocratic fate. His personification of the country’s political destiny risks jeopardising the embryonic and fragile democratic consolidation, which needs strong, reliable and accountable institutions rather than a strong leader.

Patriarchal management and Islamist aversion

Nidaa Tounes is more of a motley aggregation of leftist politicians, trade union leaders, businessmen, and “recycled” old regime figures than a political party per se. The ideological weight of each of these groups is unknown; the party has never held a national congress. The coexistence within the party is maintained by the patriarchal style of Essebsi who claims to follow in the footsteps of the late President Habib Bourguiba. The party benefited from the protest vote of segments of the population fearful of deteriorating security and standards of living, nostalgic for stability, and tired of futile political dissensions.

Yet, what cements these diverse groups is their shared rejection of political Islam and their attempt to counterbalance Ennahda. Nidaa Tounes positioned itself as a champion-protector of “national values”, resisting transnational Islamism. Moreover, Nidaa stresses the importance of restoring the “prestige of the state”, a controversial notion of a strong state led by a charismatic autocratic leader, a model that charecterised Bourguiba’s era.

Essebsi’s dismissal of Islamism was clear in his interview with RMC radio: “Those who voted for Mr Marzouki are Islamists, those who have managed to be on his side [are] … the leaders of Ennahda … the party that is more extremist [than Ennahda] … the Salafi jihadists and … the League for the Protection of the Revolution, who are all violent parties.” He added: “Unfortunately, there will be a division into two, the Islamists on one side and then all democrats and non-Islamists on the other.”

Hearing this reductionist and essentialist conception of democracy that depicts Islamism as undemocratic in nature is a deja-vu. It revives legitimate concerns and serious doubts about Essebsi’s ability to be an inclusive leader. This tendency to depict 1.1 million voters as religious extremists for their political preferences is a worrying signal about the country’s democratic future.

The real debate should overcome the simplistic partition of Tunisians between undemocratric Islamists and democratic non-Islamists, a superficial division that thrives on fear and stability.

The uprising for “freedom, justice, and dignity” accentuated Tunisians’ rejection of the status quo and call for real democratic change. This change will depend on the degree of proper institutionalisation of these aspirations.

Thus, whoever will be the future president has to be a “symbol” of the country’s “unity” as stipulated in Article 71 of the 2014 Constitution. He must be the guarantor of political diversity, compromise, citizen activism, tolerance, and legal protection of human rights from unchecked abuses of state security apparatus. He and the government must address corruption which has become another lethal form of violence – an endemic phenomenon that recently reached an alarming rate. He must focus on the ways and means of breaking the barriers to youth inclusion strongly affected by economic exclusion and address their socioeconomic integration through creative and tailored programmes that respond to their genuine needs.

Otherwise, more and more young Tunisians will become potential recruits for global jihad; or to paraphrase the 18th century French journalist Jacques Mallet du Pan, the Tunisian revolution risks becoming yet another “revolution [that] devours its children”.

Dr Noureddine Jebnoun teaches at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in Washington, DC. He previously served as an assistant professor of strategy and geopolitics at the National War College, Command and General Staff College, and National Defense Institute in Tunisia. He is the principal coeditor of Modern Middle East Authoritarianism: Roots, Ramifications, and Crisis.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 21 December 2014, 9:16 pm and is filed under
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Call on Najib and Cabinet to endorse the Open Letter of 25 Eminents to send a clear message to the nation and the world that Malaysian government fully committed to moderation against intolerance, extremism and bigotry

The Open Letter by 25 Malay former top civil servants and personalities on December 8 asking the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to show leadership  against festering extremism and intolerance is undoubtedly the No. 1 News Event of the Year.

Never before has an Open Letter by the citizenry struck such  a resounding chord in our multiracial,  multi-cultural and multi-religious nation, as evidenced by the enthusiastic support from all groups of Malaysian society, not confined to Malays and Muslims, like ‘I am #26’ online petition with over 5,000 supporters; “KamiJuga25” (We, too, are 25),signed by over 1,600 supporters; 95 NGOs in Malaysia, 22 Muslim activists and a multitude of support demonstrated by diverse groups and strata of Malaysian society in the past fortnight.

But the reaction has started, and the assaults on the 25 Eminents will escalate in personal attacks, character-assassination and viciousness employing the full resources of the intolerant and extremist media and social as we witnessed in the past two days.

This is the time for all moderates, crossing race, religious, gender, age and even political party lines to take a stand for moderation and marginalize, isolate and defeat intolerance, extremism and bigotry which are the greatest threats and enemies of a plural society like Malaysia.

This is the time for the positive politics of inclusion to replace the negative politics of exclusion!

At international fora in the past four years promoting wasatiyyah and the Global Movement of Moderates, Najib had called for a movement of moderates to drown out the extremists.

As he said in one such wasatiyyah conference, “We must ensure that our voices are heard — not just the voices of moderate Muslims but those of moderate Christians, moderate Hindus, moderate Jews and even moderate atheists.

“If these voices are to become loud enough to drown out the extremists, they need to be heard from every corner of the world.”

The voices of moderate Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, gender, age or political affiliation, are being raised to drown out the cacophony of the coarse loud-mouths and thugs from those preaching intolerance, extremism and bigotry.

The question is whether Najib will provide leadership for the voices of moderation to drown out siren calls of intolerance, extremism and bigotry.

It is now  two weeks since the Open Letter of the 25 Eminents and the resounding support from all strata and groups of society, both Muslim and non-Muslim for moderation to drown out extremism in Malaysia, have shown the power of their call.

Is Najib prepared to present the Open Letter of the 25 Eminents to the Cabinet to get  Ministerial endorsement to show to the nation and the world that the Malaysian government is fully committed to the course of moderation against intolerance, extremism and bigotry?

Is every Minister a moderate and prepared to take a stand against intolerance, extremism and bigotry?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 22 December 2014, 2:36 pm and is filed under
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Dr M fear-mongering, playing race card to keep Umno in power, say analysts

by Eileen Ng

The Malaysian Insider

22 December 2014

Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s warning that the Malays are losing political dominance and may end up being left behind was meant to strike fear into the community and ensure that Umno remained in power, analysts said.

Observers said the former prime minister was also looking at matters through a racial lens, which was ironic considering that he was a proponent of Bangsa Malaysia policy of an inclusive national identity.

Professor James Chin said it was impossible for the Malays to lose power to the minority races in the country as all the top positions, from the Malay rulers to the civil service, were dominated by that community.

Citing examples, the academic with Monash University Malaysia said the posts of prime minister and deputy prime minister, at least half the Cabinet postings as well as senior positions in the government service were held by Malays.

“He is stating that to play up the racial card and to scare the Malays to ensure Umno remains in power,” Chin told The Malaysian Insider.

In last year’s general election, the ruling Barisan Nasional pact of which Umno is the lynchpin party failed to retain its customary two-thirds federal majority for the second consecutive time.

The ruling pact fared worse in the 13th general election, winning only 133 federal seats, seven fewer than in the 2008 national poll.

Dr Mahathir has received brickbats from opposition politicians for saying that the Malay community’s grip on politics was weak due to disunity, and that they had to beg for support from other races to remain in power.

The statesman said yesterday that the Malays who make up 60% of the population should be politically dominant, but that their power had weakened.

“Now Umno, PKR, and PAS have to beg for support from DAP to win the general election. When we become beggars, we no longer have power,” he said, adding that even if the country achieved developed-nation status, the Malays might be left behind.

Pointing out that Umno has been the ruling Malay party since Malaysia achieved independence in 1957, Chin questioned how the Malays could still be weak and marginalised as claimed, especially since Dr Mahathir who was prime minister for 22 years, was Malaysia’s longest-serving national leader.

Political analyst Dr Oh Ei Sun from Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies said Malaysia’s main problem was not due to the racial and religious divide, but glaring gaps in wealth and education of which some quarters took advantage by masquerading them in racial and religious cloaks.

“These divides are present in all communities but it is convenient for the powers that be to couch them in racial terms. They do so to garner support from those who don’t know any better,” he said, advising people to get out of their racially and religion-defined comfort zones and focus on improving their education and livelihoods.

However, analyst Wan Saiful Wan Jan felt Dr Mahathir was in his speech referring to Malays who promoted extremist and divisive agendas.

“Yes, these people have good reason to be fearful because they are losing power and their numbers are growing smaller and that is good for the country,” he said.

The Institute of Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) chief executive officer said the country was heading towards a more progressive and lively direction, and as a result, race-based parties, which were the senior parties in BN, were losing their popularity with the electorate as evident in the results of the last two general elections. – December 22, 2014.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 22 December 2014, 9:36 am and is filed under
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Joseph Pairin should stop procrastinating but get cracking as RCIIIS Report Working Committee Chairman or declare he will decline appointment

More than five weeks have passed since the announcement by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak that Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan will be Chairman of the Working Committee of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS) to make recommendations on the RCIIIS Report, and some three weeks have passed since the public release of the  RCIIIS Report in Kota Kinabalu on Dec. 3.

But there is no sign of urgency or even a sense of responsibility on the part of Joseph Pairin as nobody knows whether the full Working Committee had been formed or whether Joseph Pairin had chaired the first meeting of the Working Committee. In fact, nobody knows whether he is going to accept the appointment as there had been contrary noises from his party leadership.

One would have thought such developments would be important news in Sabah but there has been total silence on the Joseph Pairin front.

Under the circumstances, Joseph Pairin should stop procrastinating but get cracking as RCIIIS Report Working Commtitee Chairman or declare that he will decline appointment as the Working Committee Chairman.

The first thing Joseph Pairin should do as Working Committee Chairman is to  express the Working Committee’s disappointment and even censure of the RCIIIS Report for failing in its duty to come to any concrete or conclusive finding or recommendation on the basic issues about the four-decade long illegal immigrant nightmare in Sabah, whether about the existence of the ‘Project IC’, the number of illegal immigrants on Sabah’s electoral roll or the number of illegal immigrants in Sabah.

In fact, the RCIIIS was so irresponsible, remiss and negligent in carry out its duties that it had absolutely nothing to say about its eighth term of reference, viz: “ (h) to enquire into the number of immigrants in Sabah who were issued blue identification cards or citizenship by taking into consideration their status as stateless persons”.

The RCIIIS has absolutely nothing to say about its eighth term of reference. How more irresponsible could the RCIIIS be? Or has the RCIIIS completely forgotten about this term of reference?

I have already dealt in the past media statements about  the outrage of the RCIIIS avoiding giving a conclusive answer as to whether there was in existence the “Project IC” (all it said was “there is a probability that such a Project did exist at all material times”), or the number of illegal immigrants on Sabah’s electoral roll.

But it is also the same sorry tale about the number of illegal immigrants in Sabah with the RCIIIS, giving mumbo-jumbo answer that means nothing.

Joseph Pairin himself appeared as a witness before the RCIIIS on behalf of Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS), pointing out the unprecedented hike of Sabah’s population by 30% in  three decades.

PBS submitted a memorandum to then Prime Minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in 2007, expressing grave concern about the huge number of illegal immigrants in Sabah.

It drew attention to the period from 1970 to 2000 where the increase in the population of Sabah was 301% (1,954,707), as compared to 106% (1,036,347) for Sarawak.

Statistically,  they showed  56% increase in the population of Sabah in 1980, 78% increase in 1991, and 44% increase in 2000 as compared to 27% increase in 1980; 33% increase in 1990 and 23% in 2000 for Sarawak.

The RCIIIS Report noted: “It was quite evident that the biggest increase was in 1991 when it registered an increase of 78%”.

PBS had, in the memorandum, alleged that on calculation, the number of illegal immigrants in Sabah would have been 1.7 million, comprising:

(a)	600,000 new citizens who were claiming to be Bumiputras and who were actually holders of genuine Malaysian ICs and their dependants;

(b)	750,000 with false ICs or expired documents or none at all; and

(c)	400,000 legal workers and IMM13 holders (refugees).

The PBS Memorandum also cited figures allegedly from the Statistics Department that from 1970 to 2000, the population increase for KadazanDusun Murut (KDM) was 162%, while the increase for Bajau and Iranun was 344 and for Malays was 1,552%.

However, the RCIIIS came out with its mumbo-jumbo finding that while taking note  of the “unofficial figures” in the PBS memorandum, “there is no clear evidence as to the accuracy or otherwise of the figures given as these figures were not obtained from the Statistics Department nor were they confirmed by the said department.

Why did’nt the RCIIIS sub-poenae officials from the Statistics Department to verify or deny these figures in the PBS memorandum?

Now that Joseph Pairin is the Chairman of the RCIIIS Report Working Committee with five terms of reference to “peruse and study” the Report, will he use his position to ensure that a definitive figure is arrived on the number of illegal immigrants of Sabah and the number of illegal immigrants on Sabah’s electoral rolls?

The RCIIIS Report on page 286 made two important statements, that “if illegal immigrants have access to political suffrage, they are able to determine who holds political office and thus indirectly control  national policies” and “it is possible for illegal immigrants to gain access to social, political and economic rights through falsely obtained documentation”.

What action plan is  Joseph Pairin as the Chairman of Working Committee going to draw up as a result of these ominous observations in Page 286 of the RCIIIS Report?

                                                             Lim Kit Siang

                This entry was posted on Monday, 22 December 2014, 4:57 pm and is filed under
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December 29 Kelantan State Assembly special sitting to implement hudud will be a point of no return for both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat

The December 29 Kelantan State Assembly special sitting to implement hudud will be a point of no return for both Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat.

The stand of the first three Prime Ministers, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak and Tun Hussein Onn were crystal clear, that hudud laws are at variance with Malaysia’s Constitution that Malaysia is a secular state.

This was also the position of the other MCA and MIC founding fathers of the nation, Tun Tan Cheng Lock, Tun Tan Siew Sin and Tun V.T. Sambanthan – as well as Tun Dr. Lim Chong Eu who was the second MCA President in 1958 and subsequently left MCA and became the second President of Gerakan from 1969 – 1980.

Indisputably, this was also the position of all the founding fathers of Malaysia from Sabah and Sarawak.

If the Kelantan UMNO Assemblymen are allowed to vote in support of  the proposal to implement hudud at the  Kelantan State Assembly special sitting on Dec. 29, the whole character and basis of Barisan Nasional would have undergone its most radical transformation in the history of the ruling government coalition in the country.

What more, if this is done without any meeting or resolution of the Barisan Nasional Supreme Council or any effort by the other Barisan Nasional component parties, whether MCA, MIC, Gerakan or the component BN parties in Sabah and Sarawak to ask UMNO to stay loyal to the commitments of the founding fathers of UMNO and the nation and to  adhere to their consensus, which predates the formation of Malaysia in  1963 as it went back to the nation’s  Merdeka in 1957 that hudud laws are not suitable as they are at variance with the Constitution and the  nation’s founding principles.

But it will be a point of no return not only for Barisan Nasional, it will also be a point of no return for Pakatan Rakyat, as there is no way Pakatan Rakyat can survive in its present form after one of its component parties could act so unilaterally and arbitrarily as to show utter contempt for the other PR parties, the PR common policy framework as well as PR’s operational consensus principle.

It is a fallacy to contend that Pakatan Rakyat had reached an agreement that PAS and DAP had  “agree to disagree” on the hudud issue, permitting PAS to unilaterally pursue the hudud issue in Parliament.

There was never such an agreement.

In fact, the September 28, 2011 joint Pakatan Rakyat statement, which saved Pakatan Rakyat from its first crisis, again over the hudud issue, make it very clear that as  the hudud enactment in Kelantan and Terengganu pre-dated the formation of Pakatan Rakyat and  the DAP and PAS agreed to disagree on hudud,  hudud is not part of the PR joint common policy framework until all parties agreed to it.

The meaning and implication is very clear – that PAS will not unilaterally push for the implementation of hudud without the agreement of all PR parties.

Now we are informed that PR Leadership Council will not even be notified of the details of the Kelantan State Assembly special sitting on December 29 to implement hudud – raising the question of the weight and value of PR in the eyes of the PAS leadership.

The following charts on  the thirteen general elections held in the country since 1959  show that the 1999, 2008 and 2013 general elections were high water-marks for the  the Opposition parties in Peninsular Malaysia as they achieved their best performances in these three general elections – when there was the Barisan Alternative in 1999,  the  pre-Pakatan Rakyat co-operation  in 2008 and Pakatan Rakyat in 2013.

Parliament – Total

Year

PAS

DAP

PKR

S46

Total

1959

13

13

1964

9

9

1969

12

13

25

1974

PAS in BN

9

9

1978

5

15

20

1982

5

9

14

1986

1

24

25

1990

7

20

8

35

1995

7

9

6

22

1999

27

10

5

42

2004

6

12

1

19

2008

23

28

31

82

2013

21

38

30

89

State – Peninsular Malaysia

Year

PAS

DAP

PKR

S46

Total

1959

42

42

1964

25

25

1969

40

31

71

1974

PAS in BN

23

23

1978

11

25

36

1982

18

12

30

1986

15

37

52

1990

35

46

17

98

1995

33

11

12

56

1999

98

11

4

113

2004

35

15

0

50

2008

83

72

40

195

2013

85

91

42

218

PAS and PKR achieved their  best electoral performances in the 1999, 2008 and 2013 GEs while  the DAP in the 2008 and 2013 GEs.

I had said that if hudud had been a hot controversial issue in the 13th GE in May 2013, Barisan Nasional would not only have regained its two-thirds parliamentary majority to redelineate electoral constituencies at will, Pakatan Rakyat might have lost Selangor apart from Kedah,  and Johore would have reverted as an invincible Barisan Nasional “fixed-deposit” state.

Instead of winning a total of 89 parliamentary seats  (40% of total of 222 parliamentary seats), comprising 21 PAS, 30 PKR and 38 DAP, the results could have been slashed to 46 seats (21% of parliamentary seats) comprising 16 PAS, 7 PKR and 23 DAP.

PR’s total of 229 State Assembly seats in Peninsular Malaysia (45% of 444 seats) in the 13GE comprising 85 from PAS, 45 from PKR and 95 from DAP could have been slashed to 134 State Assembly seats (30% of total) comprising 62 from PAS, 15 from PKR and 57 from DAP.

PR would have suffered devastating setbacks in the State Assembly elections, losing Selangor and Kedah, while all PAS gain in Johore (4 State Assemblymen) and Malacca (1) could have been completely wiped out.

It is sad and even heart-rending if such a political scenario should come to pass, especially for Malaysians who had hoped that change for the better is at last very close,  but Malaysians must be prepared to face the unavoidable.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 December 2014, 4:21 pm and is filed under
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Despite Pakatan’s hudud row, grass not greener on BN’s side, analysts say

By Shazwan Mustafa Kamal

The Malay Mail Online

December 23, 2014

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 23 ― A public and intractable row over hudud is raising questions over the viability of Pakatan Rakyat (PR), but Barisan Nasional (BN) faces equally awkward problems despite its calmer surface, according to several political analysts.

They believe that while PR’s public disagreements ― especially between DAP and PAS ― could affect the pact’s future, the disputes were reflective of the equal footing the two parties have along with PKR.

The same cannot be said of BN where Umno stands above and apart from the rest of its coalition partners, the analysts added, citing issues such as Malay rights and even the same Islamic penal code that is giving PR such grief.

BN’s apparent calm was the result of Umno asserting its dominance and political agenda at the expense of the ruling coalition’s weaker component parties.

“As for Barisan, the hardening of the racial and religious card within Umno and major differences in views about nation building as a whole indicate a larger crisis which has been long postponed by the enjoyment and sharing ― even if unequal ― of the fruits of power.

“How much longer can BN stay together as a coalition is, however, clearly equally problematic,” Centre for Policy Initiatives (CPI) director Dr Lim Teck Ghee told Malay Mail Online when contacted.

Lim said that the split within PR on hudud has “long been in the making”, and that its coalition members should resolve it as soon as possible instead of papering it over for the sake of political expediency.

“The prospect of a new political force emerging from the present political uncertainty and volatility – through realignment of both coalitions ― cannot be discounted. It may take some time to cobble together but it may offer the best way out of our current mess,” he added.

Political analyst Wan Saiful Wan Jan from the Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS) argued that PR’s political model is “more principled” than BN’s, noting how PAS was able to pursue its hudud ambitions despite resistance from its partners.

PAS is the oldest opposition party in Malaysia, but is also the one that commands the fewest parliamentary seats within PR.

“The current BN model will only be viable if the component parties continue being subservient to Umno,” he told Malay Mail Online when contacted.

Wan Saiful pointed out that while PAS has made clear its support for hudud, Umno has yet to firmly state its position on the matter, save for a few leaders speaking out in support of it.

Sections within Umno, particularly in Kelantan where PAS is bidding to enforce hudud, have been openly supportive of the Islamic penal code, dangling the support the Islamist party needs to achieve its goal.

Such a move would violate BN’s touted consensus, as partners such as MCA and Gerakan are vehemently against hudud.

“Very soon people will start to realise this and ask Umno (to explain),” he said.

Ibrahim Suffian of independent pollster Merdeka Centre for Research told Malay Mail Online that PR’s problems may be “more acute and immediate”, but Umno’s dominance within BN threatens the ruling coalition’s solidity in the long run.

He added that allowing the Malay right wing elements to gain such prominence would increasingly drive Umno away from the middle ground it shares with the rest of BN.

Ibrahim was more dire, however, in his prognosis of PR’s current impasse, saying a failure to work past the hudud issue would indicate its lack of credentials to govern the multiracial and multicultural Malaysia.

“In my view, if parties in the opposition can’t patch things up and moderate their differences then they would deserve to lose as a country as complex as Malaysia needs political leadership that serves the whole nation rather than specific communal or sectarian interests,” the political analyst stressed.

The federal opposition is again at a crossroads, with PAS once more on the defensive against vehement protests by DAP and PKR over the Islamist party’s renewed push for hudud law.

Politicians from the pact have admitted that the current impasse over PAS’s insistence on enforcing the Islamic penal code in Kelantan could potentially be the last straw for the coalition, as those for and against hudud remain stubbornly rooted in their positions.

Kelantan Mentri Besar Datuk Ahmad Yakob previously announced that the state legislative assembly will hold a special sitting on December 29 to table and pass amendments to the Kelantan Shariah Criminal Code Enactment II.

The move is in preparation for PAS’s plan to table in Parliament a private member’s bill to amend the Federal Constitution and allow Kelantan to implement the Shariah Criminal Code Enactment II passed by the state assembly in 1993.

In Islamic jurisprudence, hudud covers crimes such as theft, robbery, adultery, rape and sodomy. Punishments for the crimes are severe, including amputation, flogging and death by stoning.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 December 2014, 8:29 am and is filed under
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Finding ‘dirt’ on the 25 is dirty, to say the least

 -Dr Azmi Sharom

Rakyat Times

22 December 2014

Ah, Awang Selamat.

One can always depend on you to say the most ridiculous things.

Today, I read that this ‘person’ (in reality the collective editorial voice of that paragon of journalistic virtue: Utusan Malaysia) wants the 25 Eminent Malays investigated.

Their backgrounds and lifestyles should be put under the microscope, they say.

I guess this is so that the erstwhile ‘newspaper’ can find out any “dirt” on the 25 and then they will be able to dish it out with orgasmic glee.

In this way they can detract from the fact that respectable individuals, who are essentially conservative people who have served the nation all their working lives, and who I am sure would be happy to spend their retirement in peace with their grandchildren, have felt that this country is in such a poor state that even they have to say something about it.

It is odd that the Utusan feels no need to delve into the murky past of other retirees who have something to say.

I am thinking of course of the noisiest Malaysian retiree in the world, the indestructible and seemingly immortal Dr M.

The longest-serving PM in the country (sometimes I wonder if he is still not serving as PM) has said that Malays are so politically impoverished that they have been reduced to begging from the Chinese to maintain their political power.

Of course I am not of the same ilk as Awang Selamat, so I will not be casting any aspersions on the good doctor’s character. I don’t know him at all. So I will just look at some facts.

Sixty per cent of Parliament is Malay; 63 per cent of the Cabinet is Malay; 60 per cent of the Deputy Ministers are Malay. We have always had a Malay Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister since independence. All the states except Penang have a Malay Chief Minister.

Is this clear grip on political power due to all these Malay men and women going on bended knee to the Chinese community for their favours and blessings?

It seems extremely unlikely, but I must admit that I don’t know. But then I am not as wise and knowledgeable as the great Mahathir.

He must have some secret power to see things that ordinary folk can’t. I wish I could find out what that super power is.

But unlike Utusan and the 25, I respect the old man’s privacy and I have no wish to investigate him.

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 December 2014, 8:37 pm and is filed under
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New Year’s resolution: are all Malaysians ready to stand up for it?

 – J.D. Lovrenciear

The Malaysian Insider

22 December 2014

The year 2014 is soon going to be left behind as we gear up, joining the world for another year of hope. We will join billions around the globe come January 1, 2015, with hopeful hearts in prayer and as we celebrate with joy our determination to end pain and drown fears.

For Malaysians, 2014 was indeed a painful year punctured with fears as hopes and joys kept swaying and wilting in the rage of race and religion battles that hogged the media every other day.

2014 was also a year where political parties put their survival above happiness, peace, tolerance and acceptance. It was one of “it is our way or no way”.

In fact, since the days of Semangat 46, the Umno-Baru and Umno-Lama battles, the sacking and jailing of Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, the forced eviction of Pak Lah and now the spearing attempts on Datuk Seri Najib Razak, Malaysia has been besieged with endless fears and buried in much pain, with each passing year’s hopes and joys diminishing drastically.

True or not true, Malaysians?

Never have we witnessed such aggression displayed openly against other religions; never have we seen such race-laced attacks in the open and yet smoothly getting away without any action – let alone reaction from leaders.

As we may look forward to joining billions around the world on the eve of year 2015 to prayerfully and in jubilation express our one-world hope for peace, progress and happiness, having witnessed the recent mindless, senseless killing of innocent children in Pakistan, we are also not sure if even that congregation of citizens on January 1, 2015 will be soiled and marred and buried in ugly screams of Muslim and non-Muslim issues.

Senior citizens will recall the times when under the leadership of our widely loved Bapa Malaysia, allahyaram Tuanku Abdul Rahman, when Mountbatton Road would be lighted up at about this time of the year in welcoming the New Year.

Carolling in the streets and merry-making in peaceful tunes (without the threats of mat rempits and ultras, mind you), was not seen as a religious evangelisation threat but one of goodwill and well wishes for a nation hoping to grow up soon and join the progressive world of tomorrow.

We did not have brawls over what was more Islamic or less; we did not hear of whether one was Shia or Sunni; the “holier than thou” watchword never existed.

Respect and acceptance of each other’s faith, beliefs, traditions and practices were not an issue as fears and suspicions were non-existent in our midst.

But fast-track forward into the close of 2014 and see what we have before us.

Even whether a Muslim can wish a Christian “Merry Christmas” has become a national debate. Whether Muslims can eat in a Hindu restaurant have flared up. Screams to respect “my religion” are fearlessly traded in the open.

Exclusivity of how and who can call and worship his or her God has become central to this country’s future.

Indeed, as we end year 2014, what can Malaysians look forward to in 2015? Will our politicians bring deliverance to a country so deeply thrown into the chaos of the Orwellian mindsets?

Or will Malaysia become a Malay-first-and-Malaysian-second nation?

Will 2015 see uglier battles fought to create more billionaires based on race and religion cards? Will 2015 drag this nation into murkier swamps of political divides structured on race and religious paradigms?

Or will the Moderates Movement of Malaysia rise above the ashes of 2014 and the cumulated sins of omissions of past decades, and bring new sunshine into the lives of 30 million people, living side by side, praying for each other’s well being and progress and enabling the capable to work for the less capable in our midst?

Will 2015 light up a rainbow in our hearts, motivating us to feel, think and act as Malaysians first and forever?

Will 2015 see a wilful change in the hearts of extremists and leftists and bring us all Malaysians to dine on this one and only one table – this country called Malaysia, as a family of citizens committed to excellence?

Will 2015 kick start from January 1, 2015, a country of people who rise to become a beacon of hope in a troubled and uncertain world of terror?

Wonder then what will the prime minister’s New Year message be to all Malaysians?

And wonder too, if all the religious leaders (Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, others) of this once so beautiful country of hope and endeavour that supported the building of mosques, churches, temples side by side, will have the courage and dream in their hearts to bring their followers together as one nation of people, congregating at Merdeka Square in the federal capital as well as nationwide, to pray for each other, come January 1, 2015?

Or will we be even more buried in our hatred and suspicion for one another; divided over our battling for greed for power and control; and zero courage to upset individual status quo, so much so that we let this god-given opportunity of the dawn of new year to slip between our souls like quicksand?

Or would we end up witnessing another round of ballistic condemnation from religion-defenders and race-protectors for harbouring goodwill and harmony along their often traded “liberalism and pluralism” allegations?

Pray what do we Malaysians want to create for 2015? Or will we choose to stand by the wayside and keep pointing our fingers at each other’s throats or worse, pull our blinkers tight and operate on that mantra of “mind-your-own-business”? – December 22, 2014.

– See more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/new-years-resolution-are-all-malaysians-ready-to-stand-up-for-it-j.d.-lovre#sthash.D1gqJZAB.dpuf

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 December 2014, 8:20 am and is filed under
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RCIIIS gone full circle – from skepticism of the public when announced, to high hopes raised during public hearings, to dashed hopes and back to even deeper skepticism after RCIIIS Report

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS) has gone full circle.

It was met with skepticism from the public when the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced the setting up of the RCI, taking seven long months from the Cabinet decision on 8th Feb. 2012 to set it up  for the RCI to be appointed with its eight-point terms of reference.

But high hopes were raised that the RCIIIS would not be a “white-wash” when the RCI conducted its public hearings from January to September 2014, with explosive testimonies from some of the 211 witnesses, confirming long-held negative public perceptions that the influx of illegal immigrants in Sabah and the issue of hundreds of thousands of fake identity cards and voting rights particularly under “Project IC” was part of a political conspiracy to change the political demography in Sabah, reducing native Sabahans into strangers in their own land.

When the Report of the RCIIIS was finally made public on Dec. 3, after being put in the cold-storage for more than six months after submission to the Yang di Pertuan Agong on May 14, 2014,  public disbelief, dismay and disquiet enveloped Sabahans – with “dashed hopes” and the return of even deeper skepticism.

This is because the RCIIIS Report failed its eight terms of reference and did not come out with any Recommendations for the government to implement – which is why there is the ludicrous Cabinet decision to set up a Working Committee of the RCIIIS Report under Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan to find out what are the recommendations from the RCIIIS Report, and then to submit a report to the Permanent Committee of the RCIIIS Report which will decide whether to submit the Working Committee’s report to the Cabinet for action.

The people of Sabah and Malaysia are again being taken for a ride by the UMNO/Barisan Nasional government, creating one committee after another to further procrastinate resolution  on the issue, while the influx of illegal immigrants continue unchecked and the electoral rolls in Sabah continue to be contaminated by illegal immigrants and non-citizens.

It is indeed shocking and unbelievable that the RCIIIS Report made no recommendations whatsoever against the wrongdoers, as asking the Police, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, and the Federal Attorney-General to further investigate those civil servants and political leaders alleged to be involved in the illegal issuance of identity cards to illegal immigrants to acquire voting rights, and to charge them in court for their actions if there is sufficient evidence.

The evidence produced at the RCIIIS public hearings show deplorable weaknesses in three government agencies, viz:

(i)	Immigration Department – allowing hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants to enter Sabah illegally with ease and to roam about without any hindrance, as well as the issue of immigration documents such as IMM 13 contravening the law;

(ii)	The National Registration Department – the high-handed and unlawful  manner in which identity cards were issued to tens and even hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants without proper and valid supporting documents.  This is in contrast to the great difficulty faced by  native Sabahans, especially those in the interior, in getting identity cards.

(iii)	Election Commission – allowing people holding illegally issued identity cards to be registered as voters without proper procedure to verify whether they were genuine citizens of Malaysia.

Has the RCIIIS come out with Recommendations and  a Plan of Action to end the influx of illegal immigrants, revoke identity cards issued illegally,  ensure a clean and untainted electoral roll in Sabah and to punish those who had acted unlawfully, whether through abuse of power or corruption, in the massive issue of illegal identity cards?

In his testimony before the RCIIIS, PBS President and Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan stressed the importance of political will in resolving the four-decade long nightmare of illegal immigrants in Sabah.

The question now is whether Joseph Pairin, as Chairman of the Working Committee on the RCIIIS Report, will have the political will to take firm, immediate and effective action to propose within a month a Plan of Action to resolve once-and-for-all the 40-year-old Nightmare of the Illegal Immigrants  problem in Sabah?

                This entry was posted on Tuesday, 23 December 2014, 10:59 am and is filed under
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