Friday, July 25, 2008

Ex-World Bank, IMF bosses: M'sia should drop Anwar charges

The calls made by the ex-IMF presidents for the federal govt to review the buggery charges against Anwar as reported in MALAYSIAKINI and Malaysia-Today and the call made by US Secretary of State, Condy Rice, as reported in MALAYSIAKINI and Malaysia-Today, for transparency in the Anwar investigations can be seen in many different ways.
Govt mouthpiece, Rais, has to run helter-skelter to try and shut these foreigners up. Anwar supporters are cheered by the refrain, "the WHOLE WORLD is watching" and the pressure that it places on the govt.
For the ordinary M'sians, particularly those who are outside of M'sia, they have to put up with the embarassing reminder that in the matter of dealings by the politicians in power with dissenting politicians, M'sia is a very civilised country. But, the problem is, the level of civility displayed by the M'sian govt against political dissent can only be favourably measured against Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
If the actions of the M'sian govt against political dissent is measured against most other countries, the measure of civility drops precipitously. That is Rais' dilemma and the dilemma of the entire M'sian govt.
But the politicians in govt ranks must also be sensitive to the dilemma faced by M'sians overseas who have to either bravely defend a system of governance and justice that is so obviously misused or, just capitulate and respond with embarassed agreement at questions about how awful M'sia's governance and judicial processes are. All these will translate into negative votes against the ruling party.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

When I saw Rais's defence that Rice's private conversation was different from her speech, I was stunned how naive he must have been.

As far as US is concerned, they made their stand loud and clear to the international community that the world is watching how Msia is using the rule of the jungle!

In private, probably Rice would have comforted him like ....oh you poor thing Rais, you want some rice we can offer to you just like our deal with North Korean ! Hehehe!

conscience said...

I left Malaysia more than 20 years and when I look back,sadly, nothing has changed. The respect for human rights should be treated as the highest priority in any good and decent govt.
Rice comments were most timely and welcomed. Obviously, this will be in the annoyance of the corrupted Umno led govt....they are almighty! Nobody is fit enough, even to remind them.

de minimis said...

conscience, your sentiments are felt by many M'sians, even those who are generally into "tidak-apathy"! When will we be proud again of our beloved country? Or, will it be a case of Malaysians "mudah lupa" come election time again?

Ronald K. Pillai said...

Normally, when such world-powers speak forth so surely and firmly,some kind of sanctions would follow,I won't be surprised if they did, if repeated calls goes unheeded.

Or else they won't waste their time doing this.

Anonymous said...

Mr RonaldKP,
You are right on that. But, lets us pray that our leader improve so that there will not be any trade embargo or things like that.It is the civilians who will syffer. The oil price increment had already broke down many families.