President Chavez's Speech to the United Nations

President Chavez's Speech to the United Nations
16 Sept 2005

By: President Hugo Chavez

Your Excellencies, friends, good afternoon:

The original purpose of this meeting has been completely distorted. The imposed center of debate has been a so-called reform process that overshadows the most urgent issues, what the peoples of the world claim with urgency: the adoption of measures that deal with the real problems that block and sabotage the efforts made by our countries for real development and life.

Five years after the Millennium Summit, the harsh reality is that the great majority of estimated goals- which were very modest indeed- will not be met.

We pretended reducing by half the 842 million hungry people by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be achieved by the year 2215. Who in this audience will be there to celebrate it? That is only if the human race is able to survive the destruction that threats our natural environment.

We had claimed the aspiration of achieving universal primary education by the year 2015. At the current rate that goal will be reached after the year 2100. Let us prepare, then, to celebrate it.

Friends of the world, this takes us to a sad conclusion: The United Nations has exhausted its model, and it is not all about reform. The XXI century claims deep changes that will only be possible if a new organization is founded. This UN does not work. We have to say it. It is the truth. These transformations – the ones Venezuela is referring to- have, according to us, two phases: The immediate phase and the aspiration phase, a utopia. The first is framed by the agreements that were signed in the old system. We do not run away from them. We even bring concrete proposals in that model for the short term. But the dream of an ever-lasting world peace, the dream of a world not ashamed by hunger, disease, illiteracy, extreme necessity, needs-apart from roots- to spread its wings to fly. We need to spread our wings and fly. We are aware of a frightening neoliberal globalization, but there is also the reality of an interconnected world that we have to face not as a problem but as a challenge. We could, on the basis of national realities, exchange knowledge, integrate markets, interconnect, but at the same time we must understand that there are problems that do not have a national solution: radioactive clouds, world oil prices, diseases, warming of the planet or the hole in the ozone layer. These are not domestic problems. As we stride toward a new United Nations model that includes all of us when they talk about the people, we are bringing four indispensable and urgent reform proposals to this Assembly: the first; the expansion of the Security Council in its permanent categories as well as the non permanent categories, thus allowing new developed and developing countries as new permanent and non permanent categories. The second; we need to assure the necessary improvement of the work methodology in order to increase transparency, not to diminish it. The third; we need to immediately suppress- we have said this repeatedly in Venezuela for the past six years- the veto in the decisions taken by the Security Council, that elitist trace is incompatible with democracy, incompatible with the principles of equality and democracy. And the fourth; we need to strengthen the role of the Secretary General; his/her political functions regarding preventive diplomacy, that role must be consolidated. The seriousness of all problems calls for deep transformations. Mere reforms are not enough to recover that “we” all the peoples of the world are waiting for. More than just reforms we in Venezuela call for the foundation of a new United Nations, or as the teacher of Simón Bolívar, Simón Rodríguez said: “Either we invent or we err.”

At the Porto Alegre World Social Forum last January different personalities asked for the United Nations to move outside the United States if the repeated violations to international rule of law continue. Today we know that there were never any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The people of the United States have always been very rigorous in demanding the truth to their leaders; the people of the world demand the same thing. There were never any weapons of mass destruction; however, Iraq was bombed, occupied and it is still occupied. All this happened over the United Nations. That is why we propose this Assembly that the United Nations should leave a country that does not respect the resolutions taken by this same Assembly. Some proposals have pointed out to Jerusalem as an international city as an alternative. The proposal is generous enough to propose an answer to the current conflict affecting Palestine. Nonetheless, it may have some characteristics that could make it very difficult to become a reality. That is why we are bringing a proposal made by Simón Bolívar, the great Liberator of the South, in 1815. Bolívar proposed then the creation of an international city that would host the idea of unity.

We believe it is time to think about the creation of an international city with its own sovereignty, with its own strength and morality to represent all nations of the world. Such international city has to balance five centuries of unbalance. The headquarters of the United Nations must be in the South.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are facing an unprecedented energy crisis in which an unstoppable increase of energy is perilously reaching record highs, as well as the incapacity of increase oil supply and the perspective of a decline in the proven reserves of fuel worldwide. Oil is starting to become exhausted.

For the year 2020 the daily demand for oil will be 120 million barrels. Such demand, even without counting future increments- would consume in 20 years what humanity has used up to now. This means that more carbon dioxide will inevitably be increased, thus warming our planet even more.

Hurricane Katrina has been a painful example of the cost of ignoring such realities. The warming of the oceans is the fundamental factor behind the demolishing increase in the strength of the hurricanes we have witnessed in the last years. Let this occasion be an outlet to send our deepest condolences to the people of the United States. Their people are brothers and sisters of all of us in the Americas and the rest of the world.

It is unpractical and unethical to sacrifice the human race by appealing in an insane manner the validity of a socioeconomic model that has a galloping destructive capacity. It would be suicidal to spread it and impose it as an infallible remedy for the evils which are caused precisely by them.

Not too long ago the President of the United States went to an Organization of American States’ meeting to propose Latin America and the Caribbean to increase market-oriented policies, open market policies-that is neoliberalism- when it is precisely the fundamental cause of the great evils and the great tragedies currently suffered by our people. : The neoliberal capitalism, the Washington Consensus. All this has generated is a high degree of misery, inequality and infinite tragedy for all the peoples on his continent.

What we need now more than ever Mr. President is a new international order. Let us recall the United Nations General assembly in its sixth extraordinary session period in 1974, 31 years ago, where a new International Economic Order action plan was adopted, as well as the States Economic Rights and Duties Charter by an overwhelming majority, 120 votes for the motion, 6 against and 10 abstentions. This was the period when voting was possible at the United Nations. Now it is impossible to vote. Now they approve documents such as this one which I denounce on behalf of Venezuela as null, void and illegitimate. This document was approved violating the current laws of the United Nations. This document is invalid! This document should be discussed; the Venezuelan government will make it public. We cannot accept an open and shameless dictatorship in the United Nations. These matters should be discussed and that is why I petition my colleagues, heads of states and heads of governments, to discuss it.

I just came from a meeting with President Néstor Kirchner and well, I was pulling this document out; this document was handed out five minutes before- and only in English- to our delegation. This document was approved by a dictatorial hammer which I am here denouncing as illegal, null, void and illegitimate.

Hear this, Mr. President: if we accept this, we are indeed lost. Let us turn off the lights, close all doors and windows! That would be unbelievable: us accepting a dictatorship here in this hall.

Now more than ever- we were saying- we need to retake ideas that were left on the road such as the proposal approved at this Assembly in 1974 regarding a New Economic International Order. Article 2 of that text confirms the right of states to nationalizing the property and natural resources that belonged to foreign investors. It also proposed to create cartels of raw material producers. In the Resolution 3021, May, 1974, the Assembly expressed its will to work with utmost urgency in the creation of a New Economic International Order based on- listen carefully, please- “the equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest and cooperation among all states regardless of their economic and social systems, correcting the inequalities and repairing the injustices among developed and developing countries, thus assuring present and future generations, peace, justice and a social and economic development that grows at a sustainable rate.”

The main goal of the New Economic International Order was to modify the old economic order conceived at Breton Woods.

We the people now claim- this is the case of Venezuela- a new international economic order. But it is also urgent a new international political order. Let us not permit that a few countries try to reinterpret the principles of International Law in order to impose new doctrines such as “pre-emptive warfare.” Oh do they threaten us with that pre-emptive war! And what about the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine? We need to ask ourselves. Who is going to protect us? How are they going to protect us?

I believe one of the countries that require protection is precisely the United States. That was shown painfully with the tragedy caused by Hurricane Katrina; they do not have a government that protects them from the announced nature disasters, if we are going to talk about protecting each other; these are very dangerous concepts that shape imperialism, interventionism as they try to legalize the violation of the national sovereignty. The full respect towards the principles of International Law and the United Nations Charter must be, Mr. President, the keystone for international relations in today’s world and the base for the new order we are currently proposing.

It is urgent to fight, in an efficient manner, international terrorism. Nonetheless, we must not use it as an excuse to launch unjustified military aggressions which violate international law. Such has been the doctrine following September 11. Only a true and close cooperation and the end of the double discourse that some countries of the North apply regarding terrorism, could end this terrible calamity.

In just seven years of Bolivarian Revolution, the people of Venezuela can claim important social and economic advances.

One million four hundred and six thousand Venezuelans learned to read and write. We are 25 million total. And the country will-in a few days- be declared illiteracy-free territory. And three million Venezuelans, who had always been excluded because of poverty, are now part of primary, secondary and higher studies.

Seventeen million Venezuelans-almost 70% of the population- are receiving, and for the first time, universal healthcare, including the medicine, and in a few years, all Venezuelans will have free access to an excellent healthcare service. More thatn a million seven hundred tons of food are channeled to over 12 million people at subsidized prices, almost half the population. One million gets them completely free, as they are in a transition period. More than 700 thousand new jobs have been created, thus reducing unemployment by 9 points. All of this amid internal and external aggressions, including a coup d’etat and an oil industry shutdown organized by Washington. Regardless of the conspiracies, the lies spread by powerful media outlets, and the permanent threat of the empire and its allies, they even call for the assassination of a president. The only country where a person is able to call for the assassination of a head of state is the United States. Such was the case of a Reverend called Pat Robertson, very close to the White House: He called for my assassination and he is a free person. That is international terrorism!

We will fight for Venezuela, for Latin American integration and the world. We reaffirm our infinite faith in humankind. We are thirsty for peace and justice in order to survive as species. Simón Bolívar, founding father of our country and guide of our revolution swore to never allow his hands to be idle or his soul to rest until he had broken the shackles which bound us to the empire. Now is the time to not allow our hands to be idle or our souls to rest until we save humanity.

Translated by Néstor Sánchez

Bush will have to resign or face impeachment

Bush will have to resign or face impeachment

President George W. Bush is in second term when tragedy struck in form of Hurricane Katrina, adding to his problems as America's chief executive. He is in the same boat as President Richard Nixon, who resigned 33 years ago than face the possibility of an impeachment, on August 9, the year he was re-elected. President Bush has gone to war against terror in Iraq, when Hurricane Katrina struck. New Orleons and the southern states are just an excuse, but the anti-war crusade has been buttressed by American incompetence in the south, President Bush has taken the blame, and provides reasons by the day why he should be impeached. He has taken responsibility for all that went wrong with Hurricane Katrine. He will dither with excuses until the mid-term elections next year, and then he would resign or face impeachment. But the Republicans are also asking for answers. Even if the Republicans are in the majority in the House of Representatives (Congress) or the Senate, the possibility of an impeachment is real.

Times have changed in the 33 years since President Nixon resigned. President Nixon ended the war in Vietnam but the Watergate caper sunk him. It was a political affair at the top which sank him. President Bush is fighting for his presidency for reasons that had to do with the people. And they have two scores to settle with him: that of sending their sons to Iraq on the dubious anti-Muslim war on terror in Iraq, and of inept handling of Hurricane Katrina. He had projected American superiority a la Hollywood on the rest of the world, but the people who elected him are not happy with having to pay the price. He has got the Sunni Muslims in the Middle East against America, brought religious rivalry in Iraq, supporting Shia Islam against Sunni Islam, in effect supporting a non-Arab ideology in an Arab land. Saddam Hussein saw the opportunity, and while many in the Middle East hated him in office, he is now the Arab hero. He has agreed to die for Arab Islam, and he wins both ways. If he is convicted and sentenced to death in a country where the American passport holder President Jalabani has publicly stated his abhorence to the death penalty, and said he would ask his vice-president to sign the death warrant. If he is not convicted, or if he is not sentenced to death, he becomes a martyr for the Arab cause. Either way he wins.

He faces the same position that President Nixon, then a Pepsi Cola general, found in Vietnam in 1966. I was with Reuters news agency then and was reporting his visit to the higlands. A boy, who looked 13, was brought to the great man's presence. He was told that he was before the great white man, who could American president before long. The boy looked at him, rolled his tongue, and spat at him, with his spittal landing on the future President's nose. The UPI photographer, who unlike today were free lancers, took a photograph of the event, My memory must be failing me, for I had always thought that the UPI photographer was Martin Stuart Fox, who now lives in Bali, but I was told later on by Fox himself that it was not he. I reminded the UPI photographer that the photograph he took was worth its weight in gold, and he should view it as such. When we were returning to Saigon by helicopter, the UPI photographer made the mistake of putting the camera on the seat, the open helicopter made a shake and the camera with its weight in gold disappeared in the forests beneath. President Nixon was elected in 1968 and 1972, ended the war in Vietnam, opened bridges with China, and resigned.

Vice President Spiro Agnew was to have taken over, but he had to resign because of the ground. And for the first time in American history, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr Gerald Ford, took over. President Bush's vice president, Mr Dick Cheney, is not acceptable to the ground, and would have to resign, his presidency of Halliburton, the huge construction company which stands to benefit from Iraq and the southern states, being a problem. But President Bush's resignation could also cause the same debacle for the Republican Party, and like President Carter, who defeated President George Ford in 1976, the Democratic candidate for the presidency should have an easy ride. How easy a ride that would be depends largerly on how President Bush conducts himself in the coming months. The American newspapers will only catch on the public mood after the rest of the country has caught it. They are now critical of President Bush's handling on Iraq and Hurricane Katrina, but no one has yet drawn the parallels between President Nixon in 1973 and President Bush in 2006. Not yet.

President Bush's reign should also be the end of America as a great power. President Bush diverted more money to rebuild the south than it has in iraq, which it first destroyed and now tries to wriggle out of rebuilding it. He, as commander in chief, allowed the US armed forces to use Depleted Uranium bullets in Iraq. The US does not announce in advance that its troops are using DU bullets or its navy ships are using nuclear weapons. But it obviously does. It has withdrawn USaid from those countries who are not prepared to vote against any attempt to bring the US to the International Criminal Court. It has signed an agreement with North Korea not to make nuclear weapons in return for American recognition and aid. All the time, US forces in South Korea carry DU bullets and other weapons of mass destruction. It is reverse side of globalisation. There is an assumption that globalisation should only be good. But the good is only for the Western powevers, as China is finding herself. But Osama bin Laden, who may be dead but is kept alive by the United States, and the Arab Muslim revolt in the Middle East is the reverse of globalisation. The US has got countries around the world to decry the Arab nations and Al-Qaeda and the Arab attack on New York. It is President Bush and the Western countries that now shiver in their pants. President Bush had a great role in this. And for which he will rue in his retirement.

M.G.G. Pillaipillai@streamyx.com

[Malaysia] UMNO Baru, the political party, is not UMNO, the nationalist movement

UMNO Baru, the political party, is not UMNO, the nationalist movement.

UMNO, or the UMNO Baru today, is not the nationalist political organisation that brought this country independence. UMNO that brought this country independence died in 1987, by court order, and in its place rose UMNO Baru. That UMNO Baru is formed is orchestrated by leaders of the old UMNO who led UMNO Baru. They were still in power, and they ordered the registrar of societies to declare Tengku Abdul Rahman's request for UMNO to be re-registered. He had filed the application several days earlier, but it was Tun Mahathir's UMNO Baru that was registered. As it happened, the founder of UMNO, Dato' Onn bin Jaffar, and the first UMNO president of Malaysia, and his son, the fourth president and third Malaysian prime minister, went to their graves without joining UMNO Baru. The flag of UMNO Baru is of different dimensions than of UMNO, but at first sight, they seem similar. In the Johore Bahru byelection, when UMNO Baru warlord, Dato' Shahrir Samad, stood as an independent but with strong support of the old UMNO adherents, the present Prime Minister, Pak Lah, told me at that time that when the two processions met at the crossroads before the nomination station in Johore Bahru, tears came to his eyes, for he saw two UMNO processsions where the two parties had met. It goes without saying that it was the independent who won. It is UMNO the political party that rules, and Dato' Shahir joined the party afterwards, and remains in Parliament as UMNO Baru MP. The question asked by diplomats and even UMNO bigwigs and members is whether Pak Lah would be challenged. I think he would, Dato' Shahrir Samad being the last minute candidate if the other warlords decide not to. Pak Lah is UMNO Baru president held hostage by UMNO warlords, which is why he has not sacked from his cabinet the two warlords – Dato' Isa Samad, found guilty of money politics; and Datin (or rather as she would prefer to be called, Dato') Rafidah, who was guilty of giving her son-in-law a monthly wage of about Rm 1.5 million by giving him sufficient APs. (It is said, and not in jest, that she should be known as Rafidah AP Aziz). But both will not resign from the cabinet and neither will they be sacked. They hold enormous power in their areas of strength, Isa in the Linggi area and possibly Malacca; and Datin Rafidah, in the Kuala Kangsar area that she is MP of. Fearing that either or both would go to those opposed to Pak Lah in UMNO is why they both remain in the cabinet.

UMNO Baru, or UMNO the political party, remained strong while Tun Mahathir remained its head and the country's prime minister. But even he was careful not to cross swords with the warlords. The two times he did – the Johore Bahru byelection, which emerged Dato' Shahrir as a stronger figure than he was then and could well challenge Pak Lah in 2007; and dismissing Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim as a sodomist but refusing to attend court on his trial. Dato' Seri Anwar went on a rampage that proved his crowd pulling status, and he has ruled out rejoining UMNO. Pak Lah would like him in, provided he would agree to become deputy prime minister. I have not spoken to Dato' Seri Anwar on this, but his returning to UMNO would spell danger to the UMNO Baru deputy president and Malaysian deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Abdul Razak. As I see it, Dato' Seri Anwar would come back into UMNO on a free pardon, which he would not apply for. This would enable him to challenge Dato' Seri Najib for the deputy presidency of UMNO Baru and be the next deputy prime minister. But in this scenario, Pak Lah has not considered that Dato' Seri Anwar may prove more dangerous than Dato' Seri Najib in the cabinet. The other version I had heard is that he would join PAS as its president. Either way, it would be a defeat for former UMNO president and Malaysian Prime Minister, who probably had heard of the moves to slander Dato' Seri Anwar once more. Whatever Dato' Seri Anwar might do about a legal action, Tun Mahathir had lost. Tun Mahathir would be remembered in history books for having sacked Dato' Seri Anwar, and not for which he should be. He fights a rear guard battle, at 79, to prevent this happening, but he is not leader of all he surveys now. But he represents a major political force against Pak Lah, and all those who does not like him automatically gravitate towards the ex-Prime Minister.

Tun Mahathir has lost power and esteem in today's Malaysia, Even the senior officials do not respect him. They did not think it important that he be consulted, as adviser to Proton, that the Proton CEO, Tengku Mahaleel, had been sacked. He returned to Proton, in a huff, the cars that Proton had given him. But he had lost ground. He suffers the same fate as Mrs Indira Gandhi, who turned Congress Party the nationalist movement her father was its leader into the political party that now rules India. By so doing, she landed in jail, and was instrumental in the Congress Party the political party being in the opposition. The Congress Party in power today is as head of a coalition. The Prime Minister is in the Upper House from Assam although he is a Sikh. Mr Junichiro Koizumi, the same position with his LDP warlords, took a chance and went to the polls, and won handsomely. He could do it because he was more popular than the party, and he threatened the warlords, with their untold electioneering campaign funds, that he would oust them from his cabinet if they did not support him. That he succeeded has reduced the power of the warlords. The Western media has made privatisation of the Post Office as the cause of the election. But he quits as leader of the LDP in 2006, that is next year. He wanted to reform the LDP, not to privatise the post office. The Japanese bureaucracy is slow moving, and the privatisation of the post office cannot be completed in a year's time. UMNO Baru is not the LDP, but Pak Lah has shot down his Barisan Nasional partners, promising those who failed in party positions the jobs they held when they were in the government in the pre-election of the party.

People in UMNO Baru fought for independence, but the party, founded in 1987, did not. The first, second and fourth UMNO presidents did not join UMNO Baru and died not as UMNO Baru but as Malaysians, The president of UMNO Baru youth executive, who son is the eldest son of the forth minister, agreed with a resolution passed a year ago, that those who left UMNO are traitors. Is he telling all Malaysians that his grandfather, Dato' Onn Jaffar, who founded UMNO in 1946 but left in 1951, and his father, Dato' Hussein Onn, are traitors to the Malay cause? UMNO Bahru youth executive had no right to pass such a resolution, since they are not involved in the early struggles of UMNO. On second thoughts, the UMNO youth executive resolution had as much effect on Malaysian or UMNO Baru history as pissing in the wind has on a man. It just showed how out of touch UMNO Youth is on events in Malaysia. It is an early warning signal of a stroke in UMNO Baru, which will land it eventually in the opposition benches of Parliament. The UMNO Baru supreme council or its president should have vetoed the UMNO Baru youth resolution. But it did not. It was a serious resolution that made UMNO Baru itself a fool.

M.G.G. Pillaipillai@streamyx.com

What we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves

The Guardian, London

What we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves

Six views of the west's problems with the Muslim world reveal as much about those who hold them as the conflict itself

Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday September 15, 2005

The Guardian

Sitting in the capital of the Islamic Republic of Iran, with a metal arrow on the ceiling of my hotel room pointing to Mecca and the television showing a female news presenter in full hijab, I feel impelled to write about our troubles with Islam.

Four years after the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, which were perpetrated in the name of Allah, most people living in what we still loosely call the west would agree that we do have troubles with Islam. The vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists, but most of the terrorists who threaten us claim to be Muslims. Most countries with a Muslim majority show a resistance to what Europeans and Americans generally view as desirable modernity, including the essentials of liberal democracy.

Why? What's the nub of the problem? Here are six different views often heard in the west, but also, it's important to add, in Muslim countries such as Iran. As you go down the list, you might like to put a mental tick against the view you most strongly agree with. It's logically possible to put smaller ticks against a couple of others, but not against them all.

[1] The fundamental problem is not just Islam but religion itself, which is superstition, false consciousness, the abrogation of reason. In principle, Christianity or Judaism are little better, particularly in the versions embraced by the American right. The world would be a much better place if everyone understood the truths revealed by science, had confidence in human reason and embraced secular humanism. If we must have a framed image of a bearded old man on the wall, let it be a photograph of Charles Darwin. What we need is not just a secular state but a secular society.

This is a view held by many highly educated people in the post- Christian west, especially in western Europe, including some of my closest friends. If translated directly into a political prescription, it has the minor drawback of requiring that some 3 billion to 5 billion men and women abandon their fundamental beliefs. Nor has the track record of purely secular regimes over the last hundred years been altogether inspiring.

[2] The fundamental problem is not religion itself, but the particular religion of Islam. Islam, unlike western Christianity, does not allow the separation of church and state, religion and politics. The fact that my Iranian newspaper gives the year as 1384 points to a larger truth. With its systematic discrimination against women, its barbaric punishments for homosexuality and its militant intolerance, Islam is stuck in the middle ages. What it needs is its Reformation.

A very widespread view. Two objections are that such a view encourages a monolithic, essentialist understanding of Islam, and tries to understand its history too much in western terms (middle ages, Reformation). If we mean by Islam "what people calling themselves Muslim actually think, say and do", there is a huge spectrum of different realities.

[3] The problem is not Islam but Islamism. One of the world's great religions has been misrepresented by fanatics such as Osama bin Laden, who have twisted it into the service of a political ideology of hate. It's these ideologists and movements of political Islamism that we must combat. Working with the benign, peaceful majority of the world's Muslims, we can separate the poisonous fruit from the healthy tree.

The view promulgated by Qur'an-toting western politicians such as George Bush and Tony Blair. Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? They're not going to insult millions of Muslim voters and the foreign countries upon which the west relies for its imported oil. But do they really believe it? I have my doubts. Put them on a truth serum, and I bet they'd be closer to 2, while many atheist or agnostic European leaders would be at 1. On the other hand, this analysis is made with learning and force by distinguished specialists on the Muslim world.

[4] The nub of the problem is not religion, Islam or even Islamism, but a specific history of the Arabs. Among 22 members of the Arab League, none is a home-grown democracy. (Iraq now has some elements of democracy, but hardly home-grown.) Needless to say, this is not a racist claim about Arabs but a complex argument about history, economics, political culture, society and a set of failed attempts at post-colonial modernisation.

A case can be made. There are democracies with Muslim majorities (Turkey, Mali). The political scientist Alfred Stepan has written a fascinating article suggesting that, in the democracy stakes, non- Arab Muslim countries have fared roughly as well as non-Muslim countries at a comparable level of economic development. But I'm struck by the fact that even in a traditionally anti-Arab country such as Iran, very few people think the trouble is just with Arabia.

[5] We, not they, are the root of the problem. From the Crusades to Iraq, western imperialism, colonialism, Christian and post-Christian ideological hegemonism have themselves created this antipathy to western liberal democracy; and, at the extreme, its mortal enemies. Moreover, after causing (by the Holocaust of European barbarism), supporting or at least accepting the establishment of the state of Israel, we have for more than half a century ignored the terrible plight of the Palestinians.

A widespread view among Muslims, and by no means only among Arabs in the Middle East. Also shared, from a different starting point, by some on the western left. Of course, even if this simplistic version of history were entirely true, we couldn't change the past. But we can acknowledge the historical damage for which we are genuinely responsible. And we can do more to create a free Palestine next to a secure Israel.

[6] Whatever your view of the relative merits of the west and Islam, the most acute tension comes at the edges where they meet. It arises, in particular, from the direct, personal encounter of young, first- or second-generation Muslim immigrants with western, and especially European, secular modernity. The most seductive system known to humankind, with its polychromatic consumer images of health, wealth, excitement, sex and power, is hugely attractive to young people from often poor, conservative, Muslim backgrounds. But, repelled by its hedonistic excesses or perhaps disappointed in their secret hopes, alienated by the reality of their marginalised lives in the west or feeling themselves rejected by it, a few - a tiny minority - embrace a fierce, extreme, warlike new version of the faith of their fathers. From Mohammed Atta and the Hamburg cell of al-Qaida, through the bombers of Madrid to those of London, this has become a depressingly familiar story.

I wish I could find some compelling evidence against this claim. But I can't. (Can some reader help?) Even if we were to assist at the birth of a free Palestine and pull out of Iraq tomorrow, this problem would remain. It threatens to make Europe a less civilised, comfortable place to live over the next 10 years.

Now, which of the six views got your largest tick? In answering that question, you will not just be saying something about the Islamic world; you will be saying something about yourself. For what we call Islam is a mirror in which we see ourselves. Tell me your Islam and I will tell you who you are.

Freeworldweb.net

Why Iran can't become the new China

Asia Times Online

14 September 2005

Why Iran can't become the new China

By Pepe Escobar

TEHRAN - Ibrahim Yazdi was the man who convinced Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to wear a bulletproof jacket on the chartered Air France flight that took the imam from Paris to Tehran to consolidate the triumph of the Islamic revolution in January 1979. He was one of the Westernized, Islamic non-turbaned princes of the revolution himself. He was the man who "translated" Khomeini to the international media.

Then he became foreign minister in the first, post-revolutionary Mehdi Bazargan government. He fell out with the system after Khomeini's death and was inevitably branded a counter-revolutionary. As the leader of the liberal, secular Iran Freedom Movement, Yazdi saw his party banned and party candidates routinely excluded from standing for office. He was even dismissed himself for not holding a higher education degree - when in fact he's a PhD. His latest disqualification - by the Council of Guardians - was for the June presidential elections. He has been repeatedly thrown in jail - facing accusations like "attempting to convert the velaii [jurisprudence] rule into a democratic rule".

Yazdi, arguably Iran's top dissident politician, received Asia Times Online at his residence in the comfortable middle-class neighborhood of Valiasr to deliver a devastating indictment of the regime. Yazdi is the quintessential Islamic republic version of a "leftist". Iranian "leftists" are in favor of total freedom of speech, liberal democracy, deregulated economy, a strong role for private enterprise and foreign investment, a strong voice for women and a strong civil society. In sum, post-modernist Islam.

Yazdi divides the new government of President Mahmud Ahmadinejadin into three groups. The first group "are those in charge of economic matters, qualified, with a proven record. They know what they want - a market economy, support for the private sector, reducing the size of government". The second group, bundled as security/intelligence/ culture, "represents extreme, repressive forces, displays a disbelief in human rights and advocates harsh treatment" of any dissent. The third group is composed of technocrats, in ministries like health or communication, "individuals with good academic records, but not a management record. A good professor is not necessarily a good minister."

Yazdi sees a glaring internal contradiction in this new cabinet. The first group, pushing for privatization, knows that capital only flows to places under political stability, "They cannot help the privatization drive while confronting the suppressive group. If the hardliners - in the ministries of information, interior, culture and Islamic guidance - want to continue in their harsh ways, capital will flow elsewhere." The total amount of Iranian capital flight may now exceed US$600 billion.

Lessons from the Middle KingdomYazdi deconstructs the idea exposed by many "rightists" of Iran rising to become the new, Muslim China. "There are three components - economic development, social freedom and political expression. The Iranian authorities are only equipped for suppression. Social freedoms in China - like freedom for boys and girls to get together - are no problem in China, as long as they don't involve anything political. The dress code was never an issue. The Iranian government, on the other hand, keeps hammering an Islamization of social behavior. Even novels are censored - there is no kissing in novels published in this country."

Yazdi appreciates how "the Chinese divorced themselves from the Cultural Revolution. They put Mao's [Zedong's] widow and her cohorts in prison. They released liberals, and invited them to government. The Communist Party decided to remove any ideology. Only nationalism remained. Can Iranian authorities divorce themselves from Islam? No. They do have a problem." He adds, "The Chinese understand the world superbly, how to explore all international opportunities in favor of implementing their goals. They have extended their economic relationship with the US." He compares it with Iran's Kish Island, a free zone in the Persian Gulf shores that is "a separate entity, and was not supported enough to set an example".

Yazdi says that from the beginning the revolution has evolved a variation of the same theme: "They [the conservatives] were insisting they should have total power. We always said this is very dangerous." This has led to what Yazdi considers the crucial problem, the isolation of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "During the revolution, the slogan was 'we are all together'. After the revolution , the slogan was switched to 'all with me'. This phenomenon gradually eliminated everyone, one way or another. Those dedicated to the cause of the revolution gradually left. 'All with me' has been the slogan all the way up to this last election."

Yazdi points out that even Khamenei's closest associates, such as former speaker of the parliament Mehdi Karrubi, were sidelined (Karrubi, who maintains that the June 17 elections were stolen, has started a new political party). "This means that the leader is alone. None of the old comrades are with him anymore. So we have reached a critical point. The history of Iran offers several examples of the caliph surrounded by squabbling groups. At the moment Khamenei feels that he has total power. But lessons from our own history show how dangerous this could be."

Montazeri rules

It all comes back to the holy of holies, the problem of Khamenei's legitimacy. Yazdi is extremely attentive when he learns about the official list of eight marja'as - sources of imitation - according to the clerical establishment in Qom. "So Montazeri is not on the list? But he's the most influential of them all." Yazdi remembers how, five years ago, Grand Ayatollah Montazeri literally opposed the Supreme Leader, saying, "You are not qualified to issue a religious verdict." On top of it, Montazeri always insisted that the Supreme Leader must be a spiritual guide, and that control of the police, state security, armed forces and state media is certainly not part of his attributes.

Montazeri - who was Khomeini's most prized colleague and political confidante - remains a giant thorn in the side of the regime. He was to be Khomeini's successor - as designated by the imam himself, and confirmed in 1984 by the Council of Experts. But three years later he was already enmeshed in a web of revolutionary intrigue branding him a "liberal", ie, counter-revolutionary, just like Bazargan and Yazdi.

When Khomeini died in 1989 there was what secular Iranians call nothing less than a coup d'etat: a triumvirate composed of Khamenei, Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ahmad Khomeini, the imam's son, changed the constitution. From now on, one would not necessarily have to be a marja'a to assume the functions of the velayat-e-faqih (the ruling of the jurisprudent). So a sort of junior cleric, Hojjatoleslam Ali Khamenei, became the new leader, while he was not even an ayatollah, much less a revered marja'a.

Montazeri happens to be one of the world's leading authorities on velayat-e-faqih - a doctrine that is the Shi'ite theological version of Plato's philosopher-king. He was the president of the assembly of experts that drafted the constitution of the Islamic republic. And the constitution was explicit: the faqih must be a marja'a.

As Supreme Leader, Khamenei has centralized total religious and political power. To doubt it is to risk a Shi'ite inquisition. Yazdi says, "For Khamenei's supporters, he is the leader of all Muslims. At most, he is the leader of the Shi'ites." And he adds to the chorus pointing out that "many Shi'ites object to it as well. Fadllulah [the Lebanese ayatollah] objects to it openly. Khomeini has been an ayatollah long before becoming a political leader. Others recognized his title as a genuine gift. Khamenei on the other hand got this title as an 'honorary degree' by the Council of Experts." Yazdi stresses the example of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani in Iraq. "He does not believe in velayat-e-faqih. This is how he earned the power to bring together Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds. It's completely different from the Iranian authorities."

The dilemma of the ruling class

So now, for Yazdi, as far as the regime is concerned, "They say 'we are the ruling class, and we are equal to Islam'. To stay in power is more important than the daily life of Iranians. But now that they have full power, how can they keep it? In the Japan of the Meiji emperor, the conservatives had full power. To keep it, they made changes." But however hard the struggle, he remains an optimist: "Intellectual power in Iran is strong. We are the youngest nation in the world, 70% of the population is younger than 30. In Iranian university classes, women account for 80% of the students. Women are active in all walks of life. They don't believe in this regime. And the government is helpless to do anything about them. They may try something harsh, but will have to retreat."

As a former foreign minister educated in the US, Yazdi sees the non- stop Iran-US diplomatic conflagration centered on two themes: nuclear activity and human rights. "Iran has no other choice but to accept IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] resolutions. Many Iranians believe we should stop uranium enrichment and solve the crisis." That's not exactly the feeling one gets in the mosque, in the bazaar or in the teashop, where Iran's nuclear program is viewed as an assertion of national will.

On human rights, Yazdi is convinced "there's no way out of the global village. This is not an American design. America is also trying to adjust. Even the US cannot compete if it has a backward government. Some Iranian authorities blame it all on American democracy. There is no such thing. Even if Iran succeeds in its nuclear program, the human rights question will remain. That's why the rightists cannot do whatever they want." Or can they? One may ask the collective leadership in Beijing. But the only one with a definitive answer may well be the Supreme Leader himself.

Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd.

Iraq War Costs Now Exceed Vietnam's

Inter Press Agency

1 September 2005

Iraq War Costs Now Exceed Vietnam's

by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Treasury is paying out more each month to sustain the war in Iraq than it did during the Vietnam War, according to a new report that calls the ongoing conflict "the most expensive military effort in the last 60 years".

Report: "The Iraq Quagmire"

The 84-page report, "The Iraq Quagmire: The Mounting Costs of the Iraq War and the Case for Bringing the Troops Home", says that the total bill for the war in Iraq has come to some 204 billion dollars, or an average of 727 dollars per U.S. citizen, not counting an additional 45 billion dollars which is currently pending before Congress.

The report, which comes as Congress braces itself for the multi- billion costs of cleaning up after the unprecedented devastation inflicted this week on New Orleans and the broader Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina, also does not include at least another 25-billion- dollar request that the Pentagon is believed to be preparing to sustain operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into next year.

Released by two think tanks, the Institute for Policy Studies and Foreign Policy in Focus, that have strongly opposed the Iraq war, the new study is their third since mid-2004 to attempt a comprehensive accounting of the human, social, and international -- as well as financial -- costs of the war on the U.S. and Iraq.

The new report also includes a plan by IPS Fellow Phyllis Bennis for an "immediate and complete withdrawal of troops, military contractors and U.S. corporations backing the U.S. occupation".

The plan calls for U.S. troops to cease all offensive actions, withdraw from population centres, and redeploy to Iraq's borders to help Iraqi forces secure them, and for Washington to reduce the size of its embassy in Baghdad, and announce that it has no intention of maintaining either permanent bases in Iraq or control of its oil.

Similar steps have recently also been advocated by conservative critics of the war, such as the former director of the National Security Agency, ret. Gen. William Odom.

Bennis also called for Washington to negotiate with Iraqi insurgents over the mechanisms of withdrawal and endorse talks between them and U.S.-backed Iraqi leaders.

The Pentagon, according to the report, is currently spending 5.6 billion dollars per month on operations in Iraq, an amount that exceeds the average cost of 5.1 billion dollars per month (in real 2004 dollars) for U.S. operations in Vietnam between 1964 and 1972.

"While fewer troops are in Iraq, the weapons they use are more expensive and they are paid more than their counterparts who served in Vietnam," according to the report, which noted that at current rates, Washington could spend more than 700 billion dollars over 10 years -- 100 billion dollars more than the total cost of the Vietnam War.

If the 204 billion dollars appropriated for the war so far had been used instead for social programmes, according to the report, it could have paid for the health care of the more than 46 million citizens without medical insurance, the hiring of 3.5 million elementary school teachers, or the construction of affordable housing units for nearly two million people.

The same amount of money would also be enough to effectively cut world hunger in half and still cover the costs of life-preserving anti-AIDS medication, childhood immunisation, and the clean-water and sanitation needs of the world's developing nations for almost three years.

Those costs do not include long-term costs on the U.S. economy, including interest payments on that portion of the record federal budget deficit that is related to the war or the economic impacts on the families and small businesses of thousands of reservists and National Guard who have been called up to serve in Iraq.

Nor do they include the health-care and other benefits and disability payments to Iraq war veterans which, according to a recent estimate published in the New York Times by Linda Bilmes, a public-finance expert at Harvard University, will likely cost 315 billion dollars over 45 years.

Bilmes also estimated the potential impact of the war on the price of oil at five dollars a barrel, which, if sustained until 2010, will cost the U.S. economy some 119 billion dollars.

But the economic costs to the U.S. are not the only measure of the war's costs.

Nearly 1,900 U.S. military personnel have been killed in Iraq since the Mar. 19, 2003 invasion and more than 14,000 have been more wounded.

Iraqis have borne a much higher toll, however. The new study quotes records of the number of Iraqi civilians killed as a direct result of the war and ensuing occupation at between 23,489 and 26,706, and the number of wounded at between 100,000 and 120,000.

Those figures do not take into account the death toll arising from indirect causes of the war and occupation, such as crime and infrastructure breakdowns. According to one study published last October by the British medical journal, the Lancet, Iraq had suffered nearly 100,000 "excess deaths" between March 2003 and September 2004.

A joint Iraqi-U.N. report released last May found that 223,000 Iraqis are suffering from a chronic health problem directly caused by the war.

In addition, the new study cites reports that up to 6,000 Iraqi military and police units have been killed since the war started, with the vast majority of those casualties incurred over the past year.

Despite these tolls, as well the reported killings or arrests of 40,000 to 50,000 alleged insurgents, the number of resistant fighters in Iraq, according to the Pentagon's own estimates, has risen from 5,000 to 20,000 over a two-year period.

Meanwhile, electricity generation in Iraq, which finally surpassed pre-war levels in July 2004, has not increased, while unemployment is estimated at between 20 to 60 percent, according to the report.

U.S. national security has also been degraded, according to the report, which cited recent State Department figures indicating that the number of "significant" international terrorist attacks has more than doubled since 2003, while terrorist attacks in Iraq has increased nine-fold.

Army recruitment this month remained at 11 percent behind its annual targets, while the Reserve and Army National Guard shortfalls are running twice as high. In addition, roughly 48,000 members of the National Guard and Reserve, a disproportionate number of whom are police officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel in their home communities, are currently serving in Iraq.

The absence of these "first responders" back home has become a major preoccupation for local and state governments, including those in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama hardest hit by Katrina.

© 2005 IPS - Inter Press Service

[Malaysia] Dr M's Controversial Speech at SUHAKAM

I had used ISA 'sparingly' - Mahathir Mohamad

Sep 9, 2005

I would like to thank Suhakam for this honour to address you on a subject that you have more knowledge and experience than I do.

You are concerned with human rights or hak asasi manusia. And it is only right that as a civilised society and nation we should all be concerned with human rights in our country and in fact in the world.

But human rights should be upheld because they can contribute to a better quality of life. To kill 100,000 people because you suspect that the human rights of a few have been denied seem to be a contradiction. Yet the fanaticism of the champions of human rights have led to more people being deprived of their rights and many their lives than the number saved. It seems to me that we have lost our sense of proportion.

With civilisational advances it is only right that the human community try to distinguish itself more and more from those of the other creatures created by God which are unable to think, to reason and to overcome the influence of base desires and feelings. Submission to the strong and the powerful was right in the animal world and in primitive human societies. But the more advance the society the greater should be the capacity to think, to recognise and evaluate between right and wrong and to choose between these based on higher reasoning power and not just base feelings and desires.

The world today is, in the sense of the ability to make right choices, still very primitive. For example those who claim to be the most civilised still believe that the misfortune which befall them as a result of the actions by their enemies are wrong but the misfortune that they inflict on their enemies are right. This is seen from the concern and anger over the death of 1,700 ! US soldiers in Iraq but the death of a hundred times more of Iraqis as a result of the military invasion and occupation of Iraq and the civil war precipitated by the imposition of democratic elections are not even mentioned.

There is no tally of Iraqi deaths but every single death of a US soldier is reported to the world. These are soldiers who must expect to be killed. But the Iraqis who die because of US action or the civil war in Iraq that the US has precipitated are innocent civilians who under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein would be alive.

You and I read reports of the death of Iraqis with equanimity as if it is right and just. You and I do not react with anger and horror over this injustice, this abuse of the rights of the Iraqis to live, to be free from terror including state initiated terror.

Act of terror

Prior to the invasion of Iraq on false pretences, 500,000 infants died because sanctions deprived them of medicine and food/ Asked by the press, Madelene Albright, then US secretary of state, whether she thought the price was not too high for stopping Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, she said it was difficult but the price (death of 500,000 children) was worth it.

At the time this was happening where were the people who are concerned with human rights? Did they expose the abuses of Britain and America? Did they protest against their own governments? No. It is because they, the enemy, are killed. That is acceptable. But their own people must not be killed. To kill them is to commit acts of terror.

Yet what is an act of terror. Isn't it any act that terrifies people? Are not the people terrified at the idea of being bombed and killed? Those who are to be killed by exploding bombs know they would have their bodies torn from their heads and limbs. Some wil! l die instantly no doubt. But many would not. They would feel their limbs being torn from their bodies, their guts spilled on the ground through their torned abdomen. They would wait in terrible pain for help that may not come. And they would again experience the terror, expecting the next bomb or rocket. And those who survive would know the terror of what would, what could happen to them personally when the bombers come again, tomorrow, the day after, the week or month after.

They would know that they could be next to have their heads torn off from their bodies, their limbs too. They would know that they would die violently or they would survive in horrible pain, minus arms, minus legs, maimed forever. And yet the bombings would go on. In Iraq for 10 years between the Gulf War and the Iraq invasion, the people lived in terrible fear. They were terrorised. Have they any rights? Did the people of the world care?

The British and American bomber pilots came, unoppose! d, safe and cosy in their state-of-the-art aircrafts, pressing buttons to drop bombs, to kill and maim real people who were their targets, just targets. And these murderers, for that is what they are, would go back to celebrate ‘Mission accomplished’.

Who are the terrorists? The people below who were bombed or the bombers? Whose rights have been snatched away?

I relate this because there are not just double standards where human rights are concerned, there are multiple standards. Rightly we should be concerned whether prisoners and detained foreign workers in this country are treated well or not. We should be concerned whether everyone can exercise his right to vote or not, whether the food given to detainees are wholesome or not, indeed whether detention without trial is a violation of human rights or not.

But the people whose hands are soaked in the blood of the innocents, the blood of the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Panamanians, the Nicaraguans, the Chileans! , the Ecuadorians; the people who assassinated the presidents of Panama, Chile, Ecuador; the people who ignored international law and mounted military attacks, invading and killing hundreds of Panamanian in order to arrest Noriega and to try him not under Panamanian laws but under their own country's law, have these people a right to question human rights in our country, to make a list and grade the human rights record of the countries of the world yearly, these people with blood-soaked hands.
They have not questioned the blatant abuses of human rights in countries that are friendly to them. In fact they provide the means for these countries to indulge in human rights abuses.

Terrorist nations

Israel is provided with weapons, helicopter gunships, bullets coated with depleted uranium to wage war against people whose only way to retaliate is by committing suicide bombing. The Israeli soldiers were well-protected wi! th body armour, operated from armoured tanks and armoured bulldozers, to rocket and bomb the Palestinian and demolish their houses while the occupants were still inside.

Israel has nuclear weapons but it was provided with bombers to bomb so-called nuclear research facilities in other countries. And as with American and British actions, the Israeli bombs and rockets tore up the living Palestinians, Iraqis and soon Syrians and Iranians, without the slightest consideration that the people they killed have rights, have human rights to their lives, to security and peace.

Then there are other friends of these terrorist nations who abuse the rights of their own people, deny them even the simplest democratic rights, jailing and executing their people without fair trial but are not criticised or condemned.

But when countries are not friendly with these great powers, their governments claim they have a right to expend money to subvert the government, to support the NGOs to overthrow the government, to ensure only candidates willing to submit to them win. Already we are seeing elections in which candidates wanting to stay independent being rejected while only those ready to submit to these powers being allowed to contest and to win.

There was a time when nations pledged not to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries. As a result many authoritarian regimes emerged which committed terrible atrocities. Cambodia and Pol Pot is a case in mind. Because of the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of countries, two million Cambodians died horrible deaths.

There is a case for interference. But who determines when there is a case? Is this right to be given to a particular superpower? If so, can we be assured the superpower would act in the best interest of the country concerned, in order to uphold human rights.

Saddam Hussein was tried by the media and found guilty of oppressing his people. But that ! was not the excuse for invading Iraq. The excuse was that Iraq threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Specifically Britain was supposed to be threatened with WMD capable of hitting it within 45 minutes of the order being given by Saddam.

As we all know it was a lie. Every agency tasked with verifying the accusation that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction could not prove it. Even the intelligence agencies of the US and Britain said that there was no weapon of mass destruction that Saddam could threaten the US or Britain or the world with. And today, after months of thorough search without Saddam and his people getting in the way, no WMD has been found.

Yet the US and UK took it upon themselves to invade Iraq in order to remove an allegedly authoritarian government. The result of the invasion is that many more people have been killed and injured than Saddam was ever accused of. Worse still, the powers which are supposed to save the Iraqi peop! le have broken international laws on human rights, by detaining Iraqis and others and torturing them at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

So can we accept that these big powers alone have a right to determine when to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries to protect human rights?

Malaysians are happy

Malaysia is concerned about human rights within its borders. It does not need the interference of foreign powers before it sets up Suhakam, a body dedicated to overseeing and ensuring that there are no abuses of human rights within its borders.

People in Malaysia seem to be quite happy. They can work and do business and make as much money as they like. There is no restriction on the freedom to move about, to go abroad even.

They have political parties that they are free to join, whether these are pro-government or anti-government. They can read newspapers, which support or oppose the government. While the local electronic media is supportive of the government, no one is prevented from watching or listening to foreign broadcasts which are mostly critical of the government.

Foreign newspapers and magazines are freely available. In fact many foreign papers, like the International Herald Tribune and Asian Wall Street Journal are printed in Malaysia and are freely available to Malaysians. Then there is the Internet which no one seems able to stop even if libelous lies are screened.

Periodically, without fail there would be elections in Malaysia. Anyone and everyone can participate in these elections. The campaigns by both sides are vigorous and hard-hitting. And the results show quite clearly that despite accusations against the government of undemocratic practices, many opposition candidates would win. In fact several states were lost to the opposition parties. Not one of the winning opposition candidates has been charged in court and found ! guilty of some minor breaches of the election procedure and prevented from taking his seat in Parliament as happens in a certain country.

But all these notwithstanding, Malaysia is accused of having a totalitarian government during the 22 years of my premiership. That I had released detainees on assumption of office as prime minister and I had used the ISA sparingly does not mitigate against the accusation that I was a dictator, an abuser of human rights.

And not using the ISA, not detaining a person without trial would not help either. And so when a former DPM was charged in court, defended by nine lawyers and found guilty through due process, all that was said was that there was a conspiracy, the court was influenced and manipulated and the trial was a sham. So you are damned if you use the ISA, and you are damned if you don't use the ISA.

In the eyes of these self-appointed judges of human behaviour worldwide, you can never be right no matter what you do, i! f they do not like you. If they like you, a court decision in your favour, even on laughable grounds, would be right.

Those are the people who now seem to appropriate to themselves the right to lay down the ground rules for human rights and who have appointed themselves as the overseers of human rights credentials of the world.

Perils of globalisation

And now these same people have come up with what they call globalisation. In the first place who has the right to propose and interpret globalisation? It is certain that globalisation was not conceived by the poor countries. It was conceived, interpreted and initiated by the rich.

The globalised world is to be without borders. But if countries have no borders surely the first thing that should happen is that people would be able to move from one country to another without any conditions, without papers and passports. The poor people in the poor countries should ! be able to migrate to the rich countries where there are jobs and opportunities.

But it has been made clear that globalisation, borderlessness are not for people but for capital, for currency traders, for corporations, for banks, for NGOs concerned over so-called human rights abuses, over lack of democracy, etc. The flow is, as you can see, only in one direction. The border crossing will be done by the rich so as to be able to benefit their business, banks, currency traders, their NGOs, for human rights and for democracy.

There will be no flows in the opposite direction, from the poor countries to the rich, the flow of poor people in search of jobs, the NGOs concerned with human rights abuses in the rich and powerful countries where the media self-censors to promote certain parties, where dubious voting results are validated by tame courts. There will be no flow of coloured people to white countries. If they succeed they would be apprehended and sent to isolated isl! ands in the middle of the ocean or if they manage to land, they would be accommodated behind razor-wire fence. It is all very democratic and caring for the rights of man.

If we care to look back, we will recognise globalisation for what it is. It is really not a new idea at all. Globalisation of trade took place when the ethnic Europeans found the sea passages to the West and to the East. They wanted trade, but they came in armed merchantmen with guns and invaded, conquered and colonised their trading partners.

If the indigenous people were weak, they would just be liquidated, shot on sight, their land taken and new ethnic European countries set up. Otherwise they would be made a part of empires where the sun never sets, their resources exploited and their people treated with disdain.

The map of the world today shows the effect of globalisation, as interpreted by the ethnic Europeans in history. There was no US, Canada, Australia, Latin America, New Zealand ! until the Europeans discovered the sea passages and started global trade.

Before the Europeans, there were Arab, Indian, Chinese and Turkic traders. There was no conquest or colonisation when these people sailed the seas to trade. Only when the Europeans carried out world trade were countries invaded, human rights abused, genocide committed, empires built and new ethnic European nations created on land belonging to others.

These are historical facts. Would today's globalisation not result in weak countries being colonised again, new empires created, and the world totally hegemonised. Would today's globalisation not result in human rights abuses?

Sheer hypocrisy

In today's world 20 percent of the people own 80 percent of the wealth. Almost two billion people live on one US dollar a day. They don't have enough food or clothing or a proper roof over their heads. In winter, many of these people would freeze to death. The people of the powerful countries are concerned about our abuses of human rights.

But shouldn't we be concerned over the uneven distribution of wealth which deprived two billion people of their rights to a decent living, deprived by the avarice of those people who seem so concerned about us and the unintended occasional lapses that has resulted in abuse of human rights in our country.

We should condemn human rights abuses in our country but we must be wary of the people who want to destabilise us because we are too independent and we have largely succeeded in giving our people a good life, and despite all the criticism, we are more democratic than most of the friends of the powerful nations of the world.

The globalisation of concern for the poor and the oppressed is sheer hypocrisy. If these people who appears to be concerned are faced with the situation that we in Malaysia have to face sometimes, their reactions and responses are much worse than us.! At Guantanamo detention camp the detainees, some of whom are not even remotely connected with terrorism, are tortured and humiliated. At Abu Ghraib, the most senior officers actually sanctioned the inhuman treatment of the detainees.

When forced by world opinion to take action against those responsible for these reprehensible acts, the culprits were either found not guilty or given light sentences. They were tried by their own courts under their own laws. Their victims were not represented. The countries where the crimes were committed were denied jurisdiction. Altogether the whole process was so much eyewash. Yet these are the countries and the people who claim that Malaysian courts are manipulated by the government, that abuses of rights are rampant in Malaysia. And Malaysian NGOs, media and others lapped it up.

We must fight against abuses of human rights. We must fight for human rights. But we must not take away the rights of others, the rights of the major! ity. We must not kill them, invade and destroy their countries in the name of human rights. Just as many wrong things are done in the name of Islam and also other religions, worse things are being done in the name of democracy and human rights. We must have a proper perspective of things. Two wrongs do not make one right. Remember the community have rights too, not just the individual or the minority.

We have gained political independence but for many the minds are still colonised.

The above is the controversial speech given by former prime minister Dr MAHATHIR MOHAMAD at Suhakam’s Human Rights Conference 9 Sept 2005 which led to the walkout of a number of diplomats.

An Unlikely but Eager Voice Between Islam and the West

washingtonpost.com

An Unlikely but Eager Voice Between Islam and the West
By Nora Boustany

After serving six years in jail, Anwar Ibrahim , the former deputy prime minister of Malaysia, has spent his first year of freedom reconnecting with colleagues around the world and immersing himself in books and debates about the rift between Islam and the West.

Anwar, 58, once considered the heir apparent to Mahathir Mohamad, then the prime minister, was jailed on trumped-up charges of sodomy and graft in 1998 for challenging Malaysia's longtime leader on democratic reforms. Anwar said he clashed with Mahathir "on the reform agenda, on election laws and corruption, which went out of hand during the economic crisis."

While in prison, separated from his wife, Wan Aziza Wan Ismail , and six children, Anwar tried to keep abreast of Islamic fanaticism. He agonized over "what had gone wrong," remembering moments in history when there was "active engagement and attraction between East and West."

Since he was released in September 2004, Anwar has shuttled between Kuala Lumpur and Washington, making stops in the Middle East for speaking engagements and to meet with friends. He has lectured in the United States, Britain and the Middle East. He is currently completing a fellowship at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, in conjunction with Oxford University. This fall at Georgetown University, Anwar plans to lecture on several topics, including modernity in Islam, interfaith understanding and contemporary Arab politics.

A self-declared member of the Elvis Presley and Beatles generation and a college activist in the 1960s, Anwar may seem an unlikely interlocutor between the growing sea of what he calls "marginalized, bitter" and disenfranchised Muslims and Western leaders. His commitment to democracy, freedom and the rule of law remains unshakable, he said Wednesday. Although he prefers that such changes be "homegrown," he doesn't mind if the United States takes the lead in promoting them.

"Look at Lebanon, even Saudi Arabia -- it took the Americans to give the right message," he said. "If Americans don't talk about democracy in the Middle East, then who will? People are not against democracy. They are victims of oppressive rule."

Louisa Greve , senior program officer for Asia at the National Endowment for Democracy, said Anwar was emerging as a spokesman for "a vision of a modern and open Muslim society." He is hopeful that Malaysia and other Muslim countries will one day experience greater democratic reforms and competitive party politics.

"He charms audiences everywhere," Greve said. "He has an appealing way of talking about how to have a democratic Islam and how Muslims can participate to explore democratic futures." Anwar grew up in a "religious and conservative" society, he said, in the northern district of Penang. Every weekend, his parents took their nine children to their ancestral village for religious instruction, teachings not offered in schools under British rule. But he also escaped to the small town of Bukit Mertajam to watch Hindi and Hollywood movies.

"We were pious, we observed religious rituals, but we also felt easy with the English language," he reminisced. "We read Shakespeare, the classics, Alexis de Tocqueville, and we learned about April Fools' Day." Anwar studied sociology at the University of Malaya and became active in protests against the Vietnam War and apartheid in South Africa.

His father became a member of parliament for the ruling United Malay National Organization. Anwar himself joined the legislature in 1982, running on an anti-corruption platform, which "resonates well with Islamic constituencies."

He became a government minister in 1983, holding the portfolios of youth, agriculture and education consecutively until 1993. He was later named finance minister and deputy prime minister. Anwar does not shy from criticizing Muslim countries for their failings. During a meeting of Islamic scholars in Dubai last year, he condemned the torture of Iraqis at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison, but he also urged participants to scrutinize their own governments for decades of cruelty in their own jails.

"We should be tough with the fanatics," he said. "Literalism in Islam is a cultural thing espoused by a few. You cannot let minorities dictate. You can push these extreme fringe groups out of the picture." How can that be accomplished? "Simply by winning over the rest," he said. "You can take action against those who are violent and purveyors of violence. When you just go to war, then you provoke the majority as well."

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

[ABIM] ABIM dedah ajaran sesat Kumpulan Din/Pemuda Kahfi

SIARAN MEDIA ABIM

AJARAN DAN AMALAN KUMPULAN DIN/PEMUDA KAHFI
28 September 2005

Kenyataan media ini bertujuan untuk mendedahkan aktiviti sebuah gerakan ajaran menyeleweng yang bergerak melalui siri pengajian tafsir al- Quran. ABIM memandang serius isu ini kerana ianya melibatkan beberapa ajaran yang boleh menyebabkan umat Islam keliru dan terjebak di dalam sebuah lagi ajaran yang akan merosakkan masyarakat Islam. Gerakan ini memiliki potensi untuk berkembang dan disyaki sudah tersebar luas di dalam masyarakat Islam di Malaysia.

Pengenalan: Kumpulan ini pada peringkat awal melibatkan kelas pengajaran dan pemahaman al-Quran yang dilakukan secara tersusun dan rahsia. Berdasarkan maklumat bekas pengikut kumpulan ini, ramai di kalangan ahlinya terdiri daripada professional seperti doktor, jurutera, peguam, pensyarah dan pengaturcara. Sasaran yang berpotensi untuk didekati ialah kawan rapat secara individu yang menyebabkan ianya berkembang tanpa diketahui umum.

Kerahsiaan : Elemen kerahsiaan yang begitu tinggi dapat dilihat melalui tempat belajar yang berubah-ubah, transit kereta, menutup mata dalam perjalanan, eksploitasi (pada kadar yang tidak munasabah) kewangan atas nama pembelajaran Al-Quran. Kerahsiaan nama penyampai pengajian dan tidak membenarkan pengajian ini diketahui umum. Keahlian sesama ahli dalam gerakan juga dirahsiakan, malah mempunyai beberapa lapisan kepimpinan yang tidak dapat dikenal pasti. Mereka bergerak melalui sel-sel kecil dimana anggota antara sel ini tidak mengenali anggota sel yang lain dan tidak mengetahui nama dan maklumat penyampai dan pimpinan atasan.

Bayaran : Sebelum memasuki kelas tilawah, prospek dikehendaki membayar wang ‘taubat’ dengan nilai minimum RM 300. Ini adalah tambahan kepada RM 1000 yang telah dibayar untuk menyertai kelas ini sebagai pendaftaran awal, RM 60 bulanan, RM 70 untuk pembelian barang keperluan dan RM 3500 untuk bayaran melawat “Negara Islam”.

Modus Operandi : Cara pengajaran dilakukan secara abnormal seperti menutup mata, masa yang tidak menentu berdasarkan panggilan telefon, pertanyaan bertubi-tubi dan proses memerangkap peserta dengan idea ajaran dengan justifikasi ayat al-Quran yang ditafsir secara literal mengikut tujuan dan kepentingan gerakan ini. Bentuk nama, bayaran dan modus operandi juga boleh berubah-ubah mengikut keadaan tetapi bentuk asasnya sebagaimana yang sebutkan diatas.

Penafsiran Terhadap Agama : Gerakan DIN ini juga telah dipastikan bahawa mereka memberi maksud yang menyeleweng terhadap Al-Quran dan juga Hadith-hadith Rasulullah S.A.W. Antara contoh pemahaman yang dibawa bahawa baginda Rasulullah s.a.w diertikan tidak lebih dari penyampai risalah Allah dan melaksanakan arahanNya, malah orang lain juga adalah rasul. Memberi pemahaman yang menyeleweng dalam melaksanakan ibadah, seperti tidak perlu solat jika berada pada zaman Jahiliyyah atau zaman Mekah, solat hanya di tempat yang aman. Mengeksploitasi kemampuan kewangan para ahli dengan mengenakan bayaran-bayaran tertentu termasuk yang berkala atas nama ‘Daulah Islamiyyah’.

Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM) melihat gerakan DIN ataupun Pemuda Kahfi ini disyaki tergolong sebagai ajaran sesat yang menyimpang dari ajaran Islam dan pegangan Ahli Sunnah wal Jama’ah. Tindakan untuk membendung kegiatan ini adalah memerlukan tindakan segera kerana:

[i] Modus operandi pergerakannya yang begitu berahsia dan mampu berkembang dengan cepat tanpa disedari masyarakat terbanyak.

[ii] Gerakan yang secara aktif dan agresif dalam menyampaikan ajaran agama yang terpesong dari pegangan sebenar dan menyesatkan orang ramai dalam perkara-perkara terpenting dalam agama Islam seperti ketuhanan dan kerasulan.

[iii] Gerakan yang menyemai sikap taksub kepada pemimpin dan arahan gerakan yang pasti menjadi ancaman kepada kestabilan politik dalam masyarakat dan negara.

[iv] Matlamat gerakan yang ingin membina sebuah negara Islam versi sendiri adalah bertentangan dengan undang-undang serta kekhuatiran kepada keselamatan negara.

[v] Perbuatan gerakan yang bertentangan dengan norma-norma sosial masyarakat seperti cara pengajaran tertutup, sanggup membohongi keluarga dan serta eksploitasi wang hasil pengajaran ini.

Oleh itu, Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (ABIM) berharap agar :

Seluruh masyarakat Islam mengambil sikap berhati-hati memantau ahli keluarga didalam mengikuti pembelajaran agama terutama sekali berkait rapat dengan modus-operandi atau pendekatan yang telah dinyatakan ini. Kepada mereka yang telah terlibat atau baru mengikuti ajaran ini agar benar-benar menilai kembali pembabitan mereka dan berbincang dengan pihak yang berwajib serta alim ulama yang sedia ada. Memohon agar pihak dan individu yang mengetahui maklumat mengenai aktiviti yang sama dengan ciri-ciri diatas supaya dapat di maklumkan kepada pihak jabatan agama atau ABIM sendiri. Menggesa pihak jabatan agama dan pihak keselamatan agar memantau rapi aktiviti gerakan ini.

ABIM bersedia bekerjasama dan membantu dalam menangani isu ajaran seperti ini. Kerjasama dan perhatian seluruh pihak mengenai perkara ini amat penting untuk menjamin keharmonian dan kemurnian agama Islam.

YUSRI MOHAMAD
Presiden

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Abim dedah ajaran sesat Kumpulan Din/Pemuda Kahfi

Wednesday, September 28 2005, Harakahdaily

Oleh SALMIYAH HARUN

KUALA LUMPUR, 28 Sept (Hrkh) - Angkatan Belia Islam Malaysia (Abim) menggesa Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia (Jakim) dan pihak keselamatan agar memantau rapi aktiviti agama khususnya ajaran dan amalan Kumpulan Din atau Pemuda Kahfi.

Berdasarkan modus operandi kumpulan terbabit, Abim juga yakin ajaran Kumpulan Din menyeleweng daripada ajaran Islam. Presiden Abim, Yusri Mohamad, dalam satu sidang media khas di Anjung Rahmat, Gombak, dekat sini hari ini, mendedahkan aktiviti Kumpulan Din atau Pemuda Kahfi yang bergerak melalui siri pengajian tafsir al-Quran.

"Abim memandang serius isu ini yang melibatkan beberapa ajaran yang boleh menyebabkan umat Islam keliru dan terjebak dalam sebuah lagi ajaran yang akan merosakkan masyarakat Islam," katanya. Menurut Yusri, kumpulan terbabit pada peringkat awalnya melibatkan kelas pengajaran dan pemahaman al-Quran yang dilakukan secara tersusun dan rahsia.

Katanya elemen kerahsiaan begitu tinggi dapat dilihat melalui tempat belajar yang berubah-rubah, transit kereta, menutup mata dalam perjalanan, eksploitasi kewangan atas nama pembelajaran al-Quran.

"Kerahsiaan nama penyampai pengajian dan tidak membenarkan pengajian ini diketahui umum, keahlian sesama ahli dalam gerakan juga dirahsiakan malah mempunyai beberapa lapisan pemimpin yang tidak dikenal pasti," katanya.

Dalam pada itu, Yusri juga mengesyaki kumpulan terbabit bermotif mengumpul dana memandangkan pengikut dikenakan yuran sehingga RM3,500 sebaik sahaja tamat pengajian mereka.

Jelasnya, kumpulan Pemudah Kahfi ini akan mengenakan bayaran sebelum memasuki kelas tilawah prospek (orang baru) dikehendaki membayar wang 'taubat' dengan nilai minimum RM300.

Tambahnya, wang 'taubat' itu adalah tambahan kepada RM1,000 yang telah dibayar untuk menyertai kelasnya sebagai pendaftaran awal, RM60 bulanan, RM70 untuk pembelian barang keperluan dan RM3,500 untuk bayaran melawat 'Negara Islam'.

"Kumpulan ini mensasarkan orang Islam sahaja, umurnya pula tidak tua dan tidak muda yang penting pengikutnya adalah orang bekerja dan mempunyai gaji lumayan," kata beliau. Beliau juga mendakwa ajaran ini pun sudah memasuki kampus-kampus institusi pengajian tinggi awam dan swasta.

Justeru, Abim menyeru umat Islam mengambil sikap berhati-hati memantau ahli keluarga dalam mengikuti pembelajaran agama terutama sekali berkait rapat dengan modus operandi atau pendekatan yang didedahkan.

Pengakuan sulit bekas ahli Pemuda Khafi

Seorang pemuda yang enggan mendedahkan identiti kerana dibimbangi dicari oleh pengikut-pengikut kumpulan terbabit yang dikatakan pergerakan mereka sungguh licik dan sistematik, bersedia membuat pengakuan kepada media.

Pemuda terbabit menceritakan bagaimana beliau terjebak dalam kegiatan kumpulan berkenaan tiga bulan yang lalu. Pada mulanya beliau telah diajak untuk memdalami ilmu agama Islam dan al-Quran oleh seorang teman lama waktu sekolah dahulu.

Katanya, bagaimanapun beliau tidak diberitahu tempat dan masa untuk mengikuti kuliah agama itu, sebaliknya akan dihubungi kemudian. Sebaik sahaja dihubungi, beliau akan dijemput oleh salah seorang pemimpin kumpulan itu dan di bawa satu tempat di Shamelin Perkasa selepas berpusing-pusing di kawasan itu untuk mengelak daripada ‘orang kafir’ nampak mereka.

"Kata pemimpin kumpulan ini, orang yang ada di sekelilingnya tidak kira Islam ataupun bukan, semuanya kafir," katanya kepada wartawan. Beliau juga menceritakan bagaimana dirinya boleh terdorong untuk mengikut ajaran berkenaan.

Beliau dibawa berjumpa dengan gurunya yang dikenali sebagai penyampai, pendamping, sponsor (orang yang menariknya mamasuki kumpulan ini) dan calon (dirinya sendiri). "Saya kena berhadapan ketiga-tiga guru itu, dan di sini proses indoktrinasi kepada saya berdasarkan tiga nisbah satu bertolak kepada keyakinan baru yang diperoleh prospek akan meneruskan pengajaran di sesi berikutnya," jelasnya.

Tambahnya, kelas pengajaran bermula dengan program 'brainwash' atau digelar 'pembasmian fahaman jahiliah' yang dilakukan selama enam bulan.

"Proses ini dinamakan Sistem pendidikan Iqra'/Islam (SPI) yang hanya boleh disertai setelah tamat sesi pengenalan (4 sesi dengan tema besar - masa yang diambil kurang daripada 2 minggu)," katanya.

Tegasnya, doktrin utama kumpulan ini berpandukan kepada empat tema besar antaranya, akidah, contohnya, pengertian kalimah syahadah pada frasa Muhammad ur-Rasulullah mereka memberi makna bahawa perkataan Muhammad bukan merujuk kepada Nabi Muhammad tetapi kepada umat, gerakan atau sesiapa sahaja yang menyebarkan risalah Islam.

Selain itu, katanya, konsep Nubuwwah (kerasulan/kenabian) yang pada mereka diyakini berterusan sehingga kiamat, selagi ada orang yang menyebarkan Islam maka orang tersebut adalah juga Rasul.

Tema yang kedua, katanya ialah Sunnah, seperti, sunnah pada mereka diertikan sebagai 'apa yang Muhammad buat setelah dilantik menjadi Rasulullah. Dan tema yang ketiga, kata beliau, ialah ibadah iaitu mereka berpendapat, solat terbahagi kepada dua jenis iaitu 'solat aktual' dan 'solat ritual'.

Katanya, menurut mereka 'solat ritual' adalah solat seperti biasa yang pada mereka hanya dijalankan di tempat-tempat aman dan suci seperti di rumah manakala 'solat aktual' adalah sebarang aktiviti dakwah atau pelaksanaan ajaran keislaman (ataupun tilawah dalam istilah mereka) yang dilakukan, pada mereka ini juga adalah solat.

Atas dasar solat inilah beliau mula berfikir bahawa ajaran mereka adalah sesat dan daripada sinilah beliau mula keluar daripada kumpulan terbabit. Beliau juga menyatakan antara dasar-dasar ajaran Kumpulan Pemuda Kahfi ini juga, rasul tetap diutus sehingga kiamat, wajib ikrar taat setia (bai'ah) kepada imam (pemimpin), dosa boleh ditebus dengan wang bergantung sama ada besar atau kecil jumlah wang ditentukan pemimpin, di luar kelompok mereka adalah kafir, membahagikan suasana persekitaran kepada zaman Makkah dan Madinah dan sekarang zaman Makkah maka syariat tidak perlu dijalankan.

Menurut pemuda itu, beliau telah dikenakan bayaran sebanyak RM1,360 sepanjang tilawahnya enam bulan dan ramai di kalangan ahli keluar dari kumpulan ini kerana tidak mampu untuk membayar wang 'taubat' itu. – lanh

[Malaysia] Shafie: No crisis in higher education

Shafie: No crisis in higher education

Nurul Nazirin - Sep 29 2005, Malaysiakini

Despite certain quarters claiming otherwise, Higher Education Minister Dr Shafie Mohd Salleh said there is no crisis in the higher education circle in the country. He made this clear in his written response in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday to Parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timor).

On the controversy surrounding University Malaya academic Prof Dr Edmund Terrence Gomez, Shafie said the ministry has approved his leave application to take up a United Nations posting in Geneva. “The decision was made based on merit and to encourage more academics in Malaysia to serve and contribute their services at the international level,” he stated.

Initially, Gomez resigned after the university rejected his leave application but the issue was resolved after Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi intervened. On the contract termination of Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia lecturer Prof P Ramasamy (left), Shafie said: “He was terminated upon the expiry of his contract”.

Ramasamy, who has since joined DAP, had previously claimed that he was axed because of his criticism of government policies and his involvement in the peace talks between Indonesia and the Aceh separatist movement.

Don’t politicise

Meanwhile, Shafie said his ministry will continue to ensure that local public universities will secure higher rankings among universities around the world. He also denied that the spirit was low among academics and students here, noting that they have reaped success in several international competitions and conferences.

“Thus the ministry request all parties to assist in the ministry’s efforts in enhancing the academics and students of public and private universities without politicising (the issue),” he said.

[Malaysia] Time runs out for monitoring of campus polls

Time runs out for monitoring of campus polls
Beh Lih Yi - Sep 28 2005, Malaysiakini

Not only has the Higher Education Ministry failed to allow the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) to monitor tomorrow’s campus polls, but it has fixed a meeting only at the eleventh hour to discuss alleged irregularities. Suhakam had sent a written request on Sept 13 to all 17 public universities and the ministry, seeking permission to monitor the campus polls slated for tomorrow. Five of the universities responded, referring the commission to the ministry instead.

Replying yesterday, the ministry said it “intended” to hold a meeting with commission chairperson Abu Talib Othman at Suhakam’s office today and that “two or three deputy vice-chancellors” would be on hand to explain the issues raised in the complaints.

“The ministry faxed the reply at about 5.45pm yesterday, which was after office hours. So we were only able to retrieve it at 8am today - do they (then) expect to meet us at 2.30pm?” asked a clearly irked commissioner, N Siva Subramaniam, when contacted.

“Since the letter is addressed to the chairperson, the commissioners are not in the position to reply. The chairperson is also not available for the meeting. It is ridiculous to set a meeting so late - why has it taken the ministry so long to respond?”

Siva said this indicated the ministry is not serious about handling complaints, stressing that Suhakam’s request to monitor the polls was a fair one. Complaints received by Suhakam this year include that of alleged intimidation and scare tactics, implementation of the electronic voting system, unreasonable campaign period, biased election rules and interference by campus authorities.

Monitoring ‘crucial’

Siva said Suhakam firmly believed that monitoring must be carried out in all universities to ascertain whether violations of human rights occur during the process of nominating candidates, balloting and counting of votes.

“Suhakam looks at the whole (election) process. The Universities and University Colleges Act (UUCA) is clear that additional rules should not be introduced, such as the public speaking test (imposed on candidates in the International Islamic University).”

On the boycott led by the ‘anti-establishment’ students in five major universities, Siva replied: “The students are exercising their right, so it is not for us to comment. Our main concern is whether there is compliance with the UUCA in conducting the election.”

Suhakam had asked to monitor the campus polls last year but was unsuccessful because the ministry questioned its professionalism and argued that there is no provision under the UUCA to allow an external body to carry out monitoring.

Earlier this month, commissioner Prof Hamdan Adnan was quoted as saying the majority of universities had “no objection” to allowing the commission monitor the polls this time around, following a meeting held in August. However, Siva clarified that no final decision had been made at the meeting as the university representatives had said they needed to refer to their respective vice-chancellors or the ministry. This was why the commission had sent an official request.

It is understood that Suhakam will not conduct monitoring tomorrow because it is still waiting for the ministry’s official response. “We don’t want to be turned away at university gates and be made the laughing stock of the public,” said a Suhakam official.

First impressions important

The Malaysian Voters Union (Malvu), meanwhile, expressed deep concern over reported flaws in the campus election process and warned that this may distort the views of youth. “Observing anything less than the full democratic norms of being free and fair will mar and disillusion the students for life in their expectations of our democratic practices,” it said in a statement today.

“The consequences for them as future voters, election candidates and election administrators and for Malaysian democracy will be dire.”

Malvu called upon university authorities to observe the principles of free and fair elections as endorsed by international bodies such as the inter-parliamentary union and the international institute for democracy and electoral assistance.

The body, which formed during the last general election as a monitoring group, also urged the authorities to allow election observers from off-campus groups to ascertain that the process meets the criteria of a free and fair process.

[Malaysia] Kelantan, Sabah, Terengganu, Kedah, Perlis, Perak have similar development standards like Africa, says UNDP

The New Straits Times.
Kuala Lumpur, 28 September 2005

Seven States wallowing in poverty, says UN rep

Malaysians in Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Penang enjoy living standards similar to those of developed countries, but people in Kelantan and Sabah face a level of poverty more associated with the poorest African countries, a UN official said here today.

Many in Kelantan and Sabah, along with Terengganu, Sarawak, Kedah, Perlis and Perak, still have to make do with sub-standard education and health services. This sobering fact was revealed by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in a dialogue with MPs at the Dewan Rakyat on Malaysia’s progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

UNDP resident representative for Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei Dr Richard Leete said the Government had to focus its efforts on improving living standards in these seven States and ensuring they arenot left out of the mainstream of development. Some of the reasons for the destitution, Leete said, are geographical remoteness and the huge amount of resources needed to develop those areas.

"The Government must target its policies more effectively in these States, as they recorded poverty levels well above five per cent in 2002," Leete said in a presentation to Barisan Nasional and OppositionMPs. Present were Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz, Backbenchers Club chairman Datuk Shahrir Samad and House Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang.

Leete also said Malaysia would gain an additional one million workers in the labour force if it developed better maternity benefits. "Malaysian women are highly educated but they drop out of the workforce once they get pregnant. This is an extraordinary waste of talent," he said.

Ends