The Truth Serum Behind Najib’s Economic Transformation Programme (ETP)

When Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak launched the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) on 21st September 2010, it was done with the intention of keeping Malaysia on the right track to a high-income status nation by the year 2020. In 2012, ETP boasts 72 out of 131 EPPs launched, surpassing its GNI target of RM830 billion and also surpassing its private investment target worth RM94 billion.[1] The ETP also boasts itself of the pool of acronyms; EPP, NKEA, SRI, SEDIA, IRDA, NCIA, RAPID, BOs, BLESS, and much more. And yet, your average Joe and Jane on the street not only does not fully understand the ETP, they seem to be left out from the fruits of labour of the ETP.

Failures of ETP
Prior to Najib’s ETP and GTP address on RTM last night, the failures of the ETP listed include; falling surplus in which the share of external trade to GDP (gross domestic products) shrunk to 145% caused by weak external environment; the silent death of the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC) which was supposed to be a part of the ETP; Malaysian investment abroad worth RM19.5 billion in the first half of 2012 surpassed the RM13.6 billion worth of inward investment; the GNI per capita of 49% as boasted by Najib in from USD$6,670 in 2009 to USD$9,970 in 2011 was misleading. The real figure was a minor 16.2% according to World Bank data. Recycling old failed projects such as the Karambunai Integrated Resort City and the Tanjung Agas poject. The failure to attract foreign investment to Educity, Iskandar. Of the ten institutions approached by the government, only two have been fully functioning.
Think tank Political Studies for Change (KPRU) believes Najib should also show the other set of glaring failures of the ETP which includes the falling of Malaysia’s rankings in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report (WEFs GCR; Table 2). Amongst the fall in ranking are the fall in wastefulness of government spending ranking; a fall in labour market efficiency, a fall in the government’s budget balance position ; a fall in the labour market efficiency; a fall in the women in labour force, ratio to men, a fall in the technological readiness under NKEA and more.

Dazzling but Substance Lackluster ETP Speech
During the ETP and GTP speech, Najib claimed 149 EPP projects have been announced but in actual fact, according to the 2012 Annual Report, the real number is 152 EPPs planned with 408,443 employment created and it’s expected GNI contribution is RM135.64 billion. Najib used ringgit Malaysia as the currency for GNI, however in an earlier 2012 report, American dollars was used instead. Why the discrepancy and non-compliance of currency? Najib also claimed an increase of 22 percent in private investment from 2011 to 2012. However, what can be seen is that still the major contributor of investment are from the government. Najib boast the ‘success’ of the RAPID Pengerang project and in the 2012 report state drawing the likes of Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia (NUMed), Netherlands Maritime Institute of Technology (NMIT), Raffles University Iskandar, University of Southampton Malaysia (USMC), Reading University Iskandar, Raffles American School and Marlborough College Malaysia (MCM). Yet, he seems to have left out the representatives of those institutions facing immense struggles of bureaucracy causing a mismatch of departments put in place and a lack of students with staff interested to work in Educity.[2]
Najib in his speech also quoted several international rankings such a the World Bank Ease of Doing Business Report  2013, World Competitiveness Yearbook 2012/2013, AT Kearneys FDI Confidence Index, Globe Shopper Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit, and also the International Living Magazine to display Malaysia’s positive international outlook. Yet, KPRU sees that while Najib likes to bask in the so-called glory of the ETP, Najib have failed to state the rankings stated by the World Economic Forum’s GCR Report, in which Malaysia pretty much fell in the expectations of accountable and transparency or that 50% of business lost business in Malaysia over corruption as stated in Transparency International. Malaysia be a leader in global shopping but Malaysia also suffers a heritage loss such as the crumble of iconic places in Jalan Sultan, Tun Perak, Lebuh Pasar and even the infamous yet iconic Pudu Jail and the non-discriminatory loss of our million years old forests particularly in East Malaysia.

Epilogue
Najib may have claimed much successes over the implementation of the ETP but what remains is the amount of gold felt by the common people of Malaysia. He may have boasted on the ‘surge’ felt in the Kuala Lumpur Bursa and the sukuk investment revealing in dazzling numbers, percentage and tables but KPRU sees that none of all that matters when those who feel the returns are the corporate and political figures rather than the common people of Malaysia. In a nutshell, Najib’s ETP is a series of projects benefiting UMNO rent seekers rather than the ordinary Rakyat that he used to claim in his Janji Ditepati rhetoric.

Table 1: List of ETP Activities and its Failures

No.	Failure	ETP 2012 Report
1.	Falling surplus – the share of external trade to GDP has shrunk to 145% caused by weak external environment.[3]	As of 31st December 2012, 149 EPP projects were launched worth RM211.34 billion.
2.	Oil palm replanting programme – the target plant areas was 126,500ha but only 103,000ha was achieved.[4]	113,000 hectre  of oil palm planted
3.	Growth of real GNI is only 4.7%, much lower than 6% target in ETP. Its claim of RM797 billion “target” for 2011 GNI was lower than the MoF forecast of RM811 billion. This “target” was only publicised after the GNI data was released by the MoF. Furthermore, it is very low, calling for just 7.8 per cent growth, well below the average 8.8 per cent targeted in the ETP Roadmap Report. The ETP focuses on GNI, but CEO Datuk Seri Idris Jala misdirected Malaysians by citing the stronger GDP numbers.[5]	GNI per capita increased 49 percent in 3 years. 2010- RM8100 2011-RM9700 2012-RM9970 GNI in 1957 was merely USD257 Purchasing power parity is 2x of the Malaysian GNI.
4.	1 on October 25, 2010, PEMANDU said LFoundry Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of German-based Landshut Silicon Foundry GmbH, would undertake a 200 mm water fab worth  RM1.9 billion project. Yet nothing was mentioned in the “Achievements” section of the ETP Annual Report. Instead, a much smaller RM100 million equipment refurbishment and training centre project was highlighted.Lfoundry in Germany is declaring itself insolvent and going into bankruptcy proceedings.	-
5.	Damansara City 2 project by GuocoLand (Malaysia) Berhad was unveiled in the 3rd ETP Progress update on January 11, 2011. There was no status report, it was not even mentioned in the “Moving Forward” section. Instead three additional heritage routes and the upgrading of Masjid Jamek were highlighted instead.  Marina Island Pangkor’s International Resort & Entertainment Extension Project was showcased in the 4th ETP Progress Update on March 8, 2011. Strangely though, no progress update was given in the Annual Report on this huge project.[6]	-
6.	According to Asia-Pacific Sovereigns Andrew Colquhoun, ETP has failed to boost Malaysia’s average income fast enough to avert a middle income trap.[7]	-
7.	According to Refsa, only 21% of income will eventually go to the workers as opposed to the current 28%. Only 21% of the income created by Pemandu’s ETP will go to workers. Compare this to Singapore which allocates 40% and South Korea and the US which set aside 50%.[8]	-
8.	Karambunai project was initially announced in October 2010 during Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s budget speech as a RM3 tourism project which more than tripled in value to RM9.6 billion when it was included in the fifth ETP update on April 19, 2011.[9]	Between in 2011 and 2012, Malaysia attracted 50 million visitors with RM100 billion GNI.
9.	Abdul Jalil Abdul Rasheed, who helps manage US$3 billion as CEO of Aberdeen Islamic Asset Management in Kuala Lumpur, is worried the lion’s share of the billions in private investments needed for the ETP will come from government-linked companies who then raise funds by issuing bonds. These bonds then get government guarantees, making the government’s debt position even more worrying should a default happen.[10]	TERAJU manages the Skim Jejak Jaya Bumiputera (SJJB), a Government initiative introduced in 2007 providing “lastmile” support to eligible Bumiputera companies for listing on Bursa Malaysia. The initiative will consequently allow for greater Bumiputera corporate equity. Khazanah Nasional Bhd and Permodalan Nasional Bhd have identified a total of 10 companies to be divested to Bumiputera companies. Eight of these have officially been tendered for divestment.
10.	1Malaysia email or MyEmail project from last year that was taken by then public-listed Tricubes Bhd. It recently lost its listing status as it was not able to regularize its financials. RM5 million was invested but only 22,000 Malaysians registering for it. Lfoundry scrapped its operations in Kulim Hi-Tech Park.[11]	2012 Report state the failure of the Myemail is due to failed public relations with the public.
11.	According to Standard Chartered, a more focused approached than the ETP is needed to transform Malaysia. Instead of the ETP, Malaysia should emulate South Korea and Taiwan in reinventing its economy and moving up the value curve to high-quality products.[12]	Between 2011 and 2012, 1087 sundry shops were transformed under the TUKAR scheme with shops experiencing an increase of 30% of sales.
12.	The Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), which was supposed to be part of the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), has died a silent death due to pressure from certain NGOs.[13]	-
13.	RM594 billion of the incremental RM594 billion GNI that the ETP creates will go to corporate profits; Just RM166 billion will go to wages for employees; and RM40 billion will go to the government in net taxes.[14]	GNI will contribute RM135.64 billion and 404,443 employment opportunities.
14.	PEMANDU’s target is to double nominal income per capita to RM48,000 by 2020. But using its forecasts for income and population growth, and inflation, the target should be RM54,145, not RM48,000.[15]	-
15.	MSC was renamed MSC Malaysia, the name of the lead agency changed from MDC to MDeC (while still remaining the Multimedia Development Corporation), MDeC is straitjacketed – it has been given the mandate to oversee and implement an initiative that promises to be as transformative as the other TPs were supposed to be, but without the teeth to do so.[16]	MdeC will focus on ongoing industry initiatives on two thrusts: Maintaining a competitive environment in Malaysia to attract foreign investment in outsourcing; and increasing the competitiveness of local companies by enhancing their scale, credibility and market reach.
16.	According to HwangDBS Vickers Research, GLC/Bumiputera developers tipped to benefit from government land redevelopment, owners of large land bank and investment assets in KL should also stand to benefit from ETP.[17]	48 MRT package contracts contributing to RM19.8 billion and 45 percent of those 48 contracts are awarded to Bumiputeras worth RM8.9 billion
17.	Foreigners withdrew $42 million from Malaysian offshore equity funds in the last six months of 2012, while adding a net $129 million and $230 million to Philippine and Thai funds respectively.[18]	-
18.	Malaysian investment abroad of RM19.5 billion in the first half of this year surpassed the RM13.6 billion worth of investment that the country received.[19]	RM547 million worth of creative output and 157 hours of man hours was poured into the making of the Academy awarded of the movie Life of Pi.
19.	Cypark Resources Bhd has covered the 26ha former landfill in Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, with up to 32,000 solar panels, turning the area into what is said to be the largest solar photovoltaic (PV) farm in the country and South-East Asia.[20]	-
2	In 2009, Najib dismantled a long-time restriction that benefited “sons of the soil.” They can now own 100% stakes in businesses in 27 sub-sectors. Najib’s 2012 budget extends that reform to 17 more sub-sectors such as medical and education services. But bigger reforms are absent from manufacturing and the labour market that suffers from entrenched affirmative-action policies.[21]	18 subsectors liberalised including quantity surveying that will be liberalised in 2013. Competition Act 2010 gazetted in 2012 and the first case is solved.
21.	Only 30% of Malaysians obtained higher education qualifications compared to Singapore’s 46%, Thailand’s 41% and South Korea’s 89% in 2010. 80% of our workforce only receive secondary level education and only 25% of our workers are highly skilled compared to Singapore’s 49%, Taiwan’s 33% and South Korea’s 35%.[22]	MSC Malaysia MyUniAlliance Programme is a new initiative by the MDeC with support from PEMANDU. The goal is to develop graduates who are industry-ready and employable.
22.	Najib says the GNI per capita rose 49% from US$6,670 in 2009 to US$9,970 in 2011. But World Bank note the figure was only 16.2%.[23]	GNI per capita increased 49 percent in 3 years. 2010- RM8100 2011-RM9700 2012-RM9970 GNI in 1957 was merely USD257
23.	Foreign education institutions are struggling to launch in Educity. Of ten institusion approached to open campuses, only two institutions have officialy fully operated.	Globally recognised institutions including Newcastle University Medicine Malaysia (NUMed), Netherlands Maritime Institute of Technology (NMIT), Raffles University Iskandar, University of Southampton Malaysia (USMC) and Reading University Iskandar have set up campuses.
24.	Recycled old projects such as the Tanjung Agas that was originally launched in 2009 with an investment shot of RM8 billion[24] that is relaunched under ETP as a transforming project.	-
25.	IHH Healthcare IPO falls flat, expects not dividends as it is no longer attractive to investors nor is it supportive of its rich valuation.[25]	-
26.	The renaming of the Kuala Lumpur International Financial District (KLIFD) or now known as Tun Razah Exchange (TRX)  worth RM25.07 billion with the possibility of creating a propertyglut.[26]	RAPID Pengerang will provide 4000 employment opportunities with 20,000 contruction workers.

Table 2: Fall in Malaysian Ranking in the WEF GCR from 2011 to 2012[27]

Indicator	Ranking in WEF GCR 2011 and 2012	NKEA/SRI
Wastefulness of government spending	12 to 19	Public finance reform SRI
Government’s budget balance position	96 to 110	Public  finance reform SRI
Intensity of local competition	26 to36	Competition, standardisation and liberalisation SRI
Extenct of market dominance	14 to 19	Competition, standardisation and liberalisation SRI
Labour market efficiency	20 to 24	Human capital devfelopment SRI
Women in labour force, ratio to men	114 to 119	Human capital devfelopment SRI
ICT use	57 to 68	Communications, content and infrastructure (CCI) NKEA
Technological readiness	44 to 51	Communications, content and infrastructure (CCI) NKEA
Broadband internet subscriptions	62 to 68	Communications, content and infrastructure (CCI) NKEA
International internet bandwith	60 to 83	Communications, content and infrastructure (CCI) NKEA

*WEF GCR is an abbreviation for World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report

Scandal-hit PM still sits in office in Shameless Silence!

by Martin Jalleh

MCA To Propose About 70 Per Cent Young Candidates In Selangor - Donald Lim

PELABUHAN KLANG, March 20 (Bernama) -- Almost 70 per cent of the MCA candidates in Selangor for the 13th general election will be young faces, said Selangor MCA chairman Datuk Donald Lim Siang Chai.

He also said that the party was confident of winning seven of the 14 state constituency seats and three of the seven Parliamentary seats in the state.

In the 2008 general election, the MCA won two state seats namely Kuala Kubu Baru and Sungai Pelek and only one Parliamentary seat, namely Pandan in Selangor.

Lim said the party's confidence in winning more seats this time was due to the greater confidence placed by the Chinese community in the Barisan Nasional (BN) under the leadership of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

"The Chinese voters' support (for the BN) appeared to have increased after the Chinese New Year celebrations," he told reporters in Pulau Ketam, near here after opening the Polling District Centre at the fishing village and also at Sungai Lima.

Ongoing Anti-Hindu Violence in Bangladesh Alarms Hindu American Foundation

 
Washington, D.C. (March 20, 2013) -- Upon receiving continued reports of widespread anti-Hindu violence, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) called upon the U.S. State Department and international community to urgently address the escalating crisis in Bangladesh. According to local Hindu community leaders, over 50 temples and 1,500 Hindu homes have been either damaged or destroyed by Muslim mobs since late January. The latest violence began when the first of three Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) leaders was convicted for committing war crimes during the country's 1971 War of Independence from Pakistan. JeI is widely believed to have instigated the current spate of violence and a local Jamaat official, Alamgir Kabir Chowdhury, was arrested last Thursday for inciting attacks on Hindus in the southern district of Chittagong.

"Despite the recent arrest of Chowdhury, Jamaat and Islami Chhatra Shibir activists continue to attack the Hindu community in Bangladesh with impunity," said Samir Kalra, Esq., HAF's Director and Senior Human Rights Fellow. "The government's failure to adequately protect religious minorities from ongoing attacks or rehabilitate those already victimized by the violence is unacceptable."

Media accounts indicated that several Buddhist villages and temples had also been targeted by religious extremists. JeI supporters reportedly set off bombs and torched dozens of vehicles in at least four neighborhoods in the capital city of Dhaka, allegedly aimed at causing panic amongst ordinary Bangladeshi citizens.

"These latest attacks are not unique, but rather part of a larger historical pattern of violence against religious minorities and secular Bangladeshis by Jamaat-e-Islami and its affiliates," said Jay Kansara, HAF's Washington, D.C. based Associate Director. "From 1971 to the present, JeI leaders have systematically orchestrated and engaged in attacks on non-Muslims and liberal Bengalis in their quest to create a theocratic Islamic state in Bangladesh."

Undercover sting exposes Malaysia land-grab

(Al Jazeera) Allegations of corruption get louder following secret tapes showing plunder of resource-rich Sarawak province.
Long Napir, Malaysia - Plantations and logging are ravaging Malaysia's majestic Borneo region and indigenous people who have lived for centuries here say they are increasingly being uprooted from their once-pristine lands.

But as the timber and palm oil companies swarm over the rugged landscape of resplendent rivers and ancient rainforests, villagers in Long Napir in the country's biggest state Sarawak have vowed to thwart any further land-grabs.

The village is a settlement of longhouses, the traditional communal housing favoured by indigenous people in eastern Malaysia's Borneo island.

Under the Sarawak Land Law, indigenous people have rights over areas as long as they can prove they have lived in or used the lands prior to January 1, 1958.

But the surrounding ancient rainforests that are so essential to their traditional way of life is under threat because of logging and plantation companies. Over the past 30 years, Sarawak - one of the richest Malaysian states - has become one of the largest exporters of tropical timber.

Despite its wealth, profits have failed to trickle down, and the people here are some of the poorest in the country.

Long Napir villagers lay the blame for their plight squarely on one man: the state's powerful chief minister, Abdul Mahmud Taib, who is in charge of all land classification and the allocation of lucrative forestry and plantation licenses.

"He lives, the rest of us suffer," Tamin Sepuluh Ribu, a former village headman, told Al Jazeera. "We have no land to farm, our rivers have become muddy, there's hardly any fish left anymore."

'Coterie of cronies'

Global Witness, a non-governmental organisation working against environmental exploitation, has investigated and exposed the situation in remote eastern Malaysia. 

An undercover Global Witness investigator posing as an investor was offered several opportunities to purchase land in Sarawak by company officials linked to Chief Minister Taib. In each instance, the land in question was occupied by indigenous communities, who have valid claims to ownership rights under Malaysian law.

Global Witness said the indigenous areas were being sold by companies with close personal or political ties to the chief minister.

Taib has held the post since 1981, and has been repeatedly accused of corruption during his nearly 32-year rule.

The US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur noted in one cable released by WikiLeaks: "Chief Minister Taib Mahmud … doles out timber-cutting permits while patrolling the underdeveloped state using 14 helicopters, and his family's companies control much of the economy."

The American cable added that, "All major contracts and a significant portion of land to be converted to palm oil plantations [including on indigenous 'customary land rights' that the state government has refused to recognize] are given to these three companies."

People in Sarawak are "fed up" with Taib's administration, "seen as only enriching his family and a small coterie of cronies", it said.

A Penan girl deep in the Borneo rainforests [EPA]

Under investigation

Global Witness released a November 2012 report titled, "In the future, there will be no forests."

"Taib's powerful executive position and personal responsibility for the issuance of lucrative logging and plantation licences has enabled him to systematically extract 'unofficial payments' from the state's timber tycoons for the enrichment of himself and his family," the report said.

Taib, meanwhile, denied the corruption allegations as "wholly untrue and malicious", said the report.

In 2011, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission launched an official investigation into Taib, which continues at present.

In secretly taped negotiations provided to Al Jazeera, the Global Witness investigator discussed buying land with company shareholders Fatimah Abdul Rahman and Norlia Abdul Rahman - Taib's first cousins. Fatimah admitted the parcel of land under discussion had been transferred to them by Chief Minister Taib.

"Yeah, he's the one who gave us the land. He's my cousin," Fatimah said, laughing.

In 2011, Taib gave his cousins 5,000 hectares of land for about $300,000 dollars, according to leaked land registry documents. Having secured agriculture and timber licences, they were trying to sell it a year later for more than $16mn.

Later, discussing the ease of receiving a forestry license, Fatimah told the Global Witness investigator: "The Land and Survey Department, they are the ones that issue this licence. Of course, this is from the CM's [Chief Minister's] directive, but I can speak to the CM very easily."

Fatimah and Norlia did not respond to Al Jazeera's requests for comment.

'Naughty people'

Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud is accused of graft [Reuters]

Over the years, Taib's government has sought to limit the exercise of indigenous land rights. More than 200 land dispute cases are now before Sarawak courts, brought on behalf of claimants from indigenous communities.

Jannie Lasimbang, Malaysia’s National Human Rights Commissioner, told Al Jazeera that numerous amendments have eroded indigenous land rights over the years.

“The commission is concerned about the high degree of frustration, anger and desperation among indigenous peoples,” Lasimbang said.

In 1994, the Sarawak government gave the minister in charge of land the power to extinguish Native Customary Rights to land. Two years later, it was legislated that land dispute cases were automatically to presume the land belongs to the state, and the burden of proof was shifted to the claimant.

In 2011, the definition of "native" was amended to include "any party entering into a joint-venture plantation deal with the Land Custody and Development Authority".

In the secretly recorded conversations with Global Witness, Taib's cousins Fatimah and Norlia showed disdain and contempt for indigenous rights, describing local villagers as "naughty people".

"So the minute they hear this land has been given, has been titled to this company to do oil palm and what-not, they'll plonk themselves there," said Fatimah.

Her sister Norlia added, "They may harass you, that's all. They are actually squatters on the land, because the land doesn't belong to them. It's government land. So they're squatting."

Scratching the surface

The secret dealings caught on tape only scratch the surface of the Taib family's business interests.

Leaked land registry documents analysed by Swiss non-governmental organisation Bruno Manser Fonds suggest that companies linked to Taib's family control about 200,000 hectares of land in Sarawak - an area twice the size of Hong Kong. Global Witness estimates it has a market value of $500mn.

Divorce settlement proceedings in Malaysia between one of Taib's son, Mahmud Abu Bakir Abdul Taib and his first wife Shahnaz Abdul Majid, also highlight the vast wealth of the family. The ex-wife testified that Mahmud had an estimated $233 million deposited in more than 100 bank accounts around the world.

In June 2011, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission said it had launched an investigation into Chief Minister Taib, but gave no further details.  When Al Jazeera inquired about the progress of the case last month, the commission said it had "no comment on the matter".

Taib's office did not respond to Al Jazeera's request for an interview, but he has consistently denied allegations of corruption.

The family appears not view the accusations with much seriousness. As Taib's cousin Fatimah declared on tape: "I know people are talking about him [Taib] being corrupted and all, but I think who isn't in this world when they're leaders?"

One villager in Sarawak promised not to allow the status quo to continue.

"We will fight on at all costs,” farmer Vincent Balingau told Al Jazeera. “We let them take timber in the past, but we had no idea they were planning to take our land."

Mahathir: Rosmah biography should be in schools

Libyan Jihadis Shave Beard of Christian Priest, Attack Church Again

More details concerning the recent spate of attacks on Christian Copts in Libya—including two church attacks and the mass arrest and torture of Christians, resulting in the death of one—are emerging. Apparently during the assault on the Coptic church in Benghazi from two weeks ago, the terrorists severely beat and shaved the beard and mustache of Father Paul, the priest of the church, as a sign of humiliation. They also beat the deacon and nine attendees.

Earlier, their fellow Libyan terrorists shaved all the heads of the approximately 100 Copts arrested for having Christian “paraphernalia," that is, Bibles, crosses, and icons. Shaving the hair, especially the beard, of one’s opponent, is an ancient custom meant to emasculate one’s opponent, or, in these cowardly attacks, one's unarmed victims. A decade ago, one Arab commentator discussing the Iraq war, said, "By shaving his [Saddam’s] beard, a symbol of virility in Iraq and in the Arab world, the Americans committed an act that symbolizes humiliation in our region, where getting shaved by one's enemy means robbing him of his will.”

So Libya's jihadis, the fellows empowered by President Obama, are apparently out to rob the will of any Christian who falls in their clutches.

Meanwhile, because Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government has done little regarding the systematic abuse of Egyptian citizens in Libya, including the murder of one under torture—they are, after all, only Christians—Copts demonstrated in front of the Libyan embassy in Cairo, prompting yet another attack on the Benghazi church, which was set on fire two days ago.

Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Back to school — girl shot by Taliban returns to class

Back to school ... Malala Yousafzai who was shot by the Taliban

A BRAVE teenager shot in the head by the Taliban is set to defy her attackers by returning to school today.

Malala Yousafzai, 15, was gunned down on a bus for standing up to extremists by campaigning for women's rights.

She wanted all girls in Pakistan to be able to attend school - so fanatics tried to kill her last October.

The youngster was transferred to the UK for life-saving treatment after the bullet grazed her brain.

Surgeons at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham operated on her skull and ear before being eventually discharged in January.

Malala will today start lessons at Edgbaston High School for girls in Birmingham.

She has joined the girls in Year 9 and will be studying a full curriculum in preparation for selecting her subjects for GCSEs.

Malala said: “I am excited that today I have achieved my dream of going back to school. I want all girls in the world to have this basic opportunity.

“I miss my classmates from Pakistan very much but I am looking forward to meeting my teachers and making new friends here in Birmingham.”

It is thought she will secure permanent residence in the UK after her father was granted a job with the Pakistani consulate.

She has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and a fund has been set up in her name to support girls' education across the globe.

Rosmah denies Altantuya links in biography launched by Dr M

KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 – Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor has denied any involvement in the 2006

murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu, in her biography launched by former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today.

In the 180-page biography, the prime minister’s wife (picture) said she was attending a breaking of fast session with the Islamic Orphans Welfare Association in Kuala Lumpur on Oct 19, 2006, the day Altantuya was killed.

“I was at the Tabung Haji building from evening till midnight.

“There were many eyewitnesses there,” she says on page 140 of the biography which is on sale for RM150.

“I will run even if a lizard falls in front of me. I am also afraid of the dark. What more me climbing a hill at the place of murder?” Rosmah said in the book.

She disclosed that she was “questioned” for six hours in Bukit Aman as a result of the “slander” against her.

The biography revealed Rosmah’s journey from her youth to her current position as Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s wife.

The book was scheduled to be released in January but suffered printing delays. It was authored by Siti Rohayah Attan and Noraini Abdul Razak and publisher Yayasan Amanah Perdana said sales have reached RM500,000 to date.

When launching the biography, Dr Mahathir suggested that the biography be distributed to schools as a guide for future generations “100 or 200 years from now”.

“This is to make sure that our children are able to read from the other side as well,” he said.

“I always say that our leaders should write more about their experiences and observations. This is a good book that will serve as guidance for the next generation 100 or 200 years from now,” he added.

Indian labourers were invited, not ‘pendatang’

Hindraf chairman P Waythamoorthy pens his political thoughts while on his 10th day of hunger strike.
COMMENT

By P Waythamoorthy

Today is the 10th day of my hunger viratham (hunger strike). Over the weekend we have had people streaming in steadily to the temple, all feeling an inner compulsion to share in my prayers.

The warm touches, the hugs, the tears, vibuthi to my forehead, their words, and their looks all keep feeding me with strength.

I may be getting weak physically but my strength to fight this oppressive system only gets stronger with every passing day and with every warm touch.

Today I want to write about Displaced Estate Workers to clarify some history. This knowledge of history and the consequences are necessary for informed decision making to solve national social problems, something which is sorely lacking. I hope this will help.

In my presentation at the UN office in Geneva in April 2008, I was not sure if using the term ‘Internally Displaced Persons’ for the evicted estate workers in Malaysia was appropriate,.

Part way through my presentation, I paused and asked the officials of the UN if the term ‘Internally Displaced Persons’ was accurate to describe the workers in Malaysia who were evicted from the estates and they readily agreed with me.

So, there we have it, another distinct problem that we have identified and given expression to.

The UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement defines internally displaced persons as “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalised violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognised state border.”

Best for picking jobs

In the case of displaced Malaysian Indians they are forced to leave their homes and places of habitual residence as a result of development programs of the state and in violation of their fundamental rights.

The Indians have lived and worked in the estates for generations and in some cases the forefathers may have lived there as far as the late 1800s.

The British brought in South Indian labourers – whom they considered best for the picking jobs in the plantations for a good 100 years from 1830s- 1938.

They modified both British India policy as well as British Malaya policies with the tacit approvals of the Malay rulers to facilitate this mass movement.

They set up infrastructure on both sides of the ocean to facilitate the flow of South Indian labour, the British splurged on significant false propaganda to the gullible South Indian poor about the good life, about a good future in the “land of plenty in Malaya”.

The British offered free and heavily subsidised fares to travel to Penang, to Port Swettenham and to Singapore for these labourers from Nagapattinam, a port town in India.

These labourers could hardly afford the tickets from their villages to the port town of Nagapattinam let alone to Malaya.

Historical records that I have collated clearly tell this tale of forced migration to Malaya all for the profit of British enterprises and only for the profit of these enterprises.

This stream of migrants coming into Malaya was termed assisted migration. This accounted for the largest part of the migration.

There was yet another stream of migration called unassisted migration. These were the traders, the teachers, the hospital assistants, the money lenders, the policemen, the lawyers, the doctors etc.

These unassisted migrants mainly populated the urban centres while those that came in as assisted migrants formed the hundreds of rural Indian communities deep within the estates.

Promises unfulfilled

To further boost migration each labourer who had completed his/her indenture period of two years were promised a minimum of five acres each for them to settle in Malaya permanently.

So this is clear proof that for the most part Malayan Indians were not “pendatangs” but invitees of the Malay Rulers and British government then acting in the capacity of advising the Malay rulers.

But the promises of land were never fulfilled by the Malay Rulers and the British government ruling in Malaya.

The Indians effectively became slaves. For generations they had the ‘Nambikei’ that one day the British and the Malay Rulers would take care of them.

Even at the point of independence they were not granted land by the British as what had happened to similar workers exported by the Britishers to Guyana and Surinam.

Post independence the Indians went about their lives believing the estates would be forever. In the 1970’s however, when rubber price fell the government devised new plans for the economy and for the plantations.

These plans were to have disastrous effects on the lives of the estate workers in the ensuing years. The estate workers were evicted from the estates as these estates were turned into development land for commercial, industrial or residential purposes or were replanted with oil palms.

These workers were evicted without adequate compensation, housing, alternative temples, alternative job opportunities or new skills training.

Most estate workers are given compensation ranging from RM3,00 –RM5,000 in the 1970’s and in the current times about RM10,000 for working and contributing to the country’s economy for almost 4-5 generations – a pittance.

The implications of this devastating forced displacement are best understood by looking at the life of one evicted worker who is a 4th generation Malaysian Indian.

One sad tale

When she talked to me about the eviction, she was so distraught and she said that all the family had known was the estate for three generations. And they were summarily told to leave. Their option was to move to the fringes of the town adjacent to the estate.

Before this eviction their visits to the towns were mainly for some occasion. Otherwise their lives revolved within the estates. They had a small kebun, a couple of cows, some chicken and grew some vegetables.

The estate temple was the centre of their social and religious lives. Her parents were married in that temple; her marriage was in that temple too. Now it was all gone. So, too with the estate school. It was gone too.

Her community was completely destroyed when they were all evicted. Each family found their different ways out of this eviction and moved out helter skelter. Now she was staying in one of the low cost flats.

Before moving to these flats they had lived for many years on tanah haram. Their children now grown up had put together enough money to purchase this flat. If they had not, they would have been condemned to a perpetually squalid life in their tanah haram shacks.

With their incomes and the pittance for compensation there was no way they could have bought a flat on their own and no bank would give them a loan either to support their purchase.

This is just one of the stories of the 800,000 displaced estate workers. Each displaced worker will have a story similar to tell.

Almost all Indian households have a link to this common past. Most are still stuck in this trap of poverty.

Permanent solution needed

This is why Hindraf seeks a permanent solution in the form of state intervention to get these people out of the trap and to put them on a level playing field and to give them an even shot at life.

Without a proper program to support the displaced during the displacement process, the result contains many of the elements of the life described above.

When this kind of situation is occasional, you can say it is because of the individual. But when you see the same phenomenon repeated at a social scale across the country, it is no more individual caused.

This is exactly what the political class does not accept. The outcomes of these are daily visible in the social statistics – yet the politicians across both sides of the divide prefer to remain ignorant.

Their way of dismissing all this is to simply think of all our demands to correct this situation as “terlalu”.

The displaced estate worker problem is a long recognised problem by the elites. They just do not care enough to address it. These displaced workers are the ones that form the lowest ranks of Malaysian society.

The way they got there or what is needed to get them out of there is unique to the extent of the specific historical circumstances.

So, the statement of some half baked politicians that the source of poverty is the same for the Chinese, the Malays and the Indians is plain dumb and at best is just self serving.

P Waythamoorthy is the Hindraf chairperson. He has been on his hunger strike since March 10.

DAY 10: Waythamoorthy remains resolute

'My limbs feel weak and I have lost some weight but I don't plan on giving up,' says the Hindraf chairman, who is into his 10th day of a hunger strike.

PETALING JAYA: P Waythamoorthy entered the 10th day of his hunger strike today with neither the Barisan Nasional nor Pakatan still willing to endorse Hindraf’s blueprint for the Indian community.

The Hindraf chairman, nevertheless, remains steadfast in his quest to draw attention to the ills plaguing the community and pledged to soldier on as long as he is physically able.

Waythamoorthy started his hunger strike at 7pm on March 10 in the Arulmigu Agora Veerabathrar Sanggili Karuppar Temple, in Kampung Benggali, 17 ½ mile, Rawang.

“I have been visited by a several politicians from Pakatan Rakyat, I thank them for their visit,” said Waythamoorthy.

“But these politicians who visited me are powerless as individuals. I do not expect those of higher authority to visit me as well.”

“I’m doing this on my own free will for the people who have been deprived, I’m not going to depend on anyone in particular.

“My limbs feel weak and I have lost some weight but I don’t plan on giving up,” he added.

No signs of wanting to call off fast

Spokesperson for Waythamoorthy, W Sambulingam said that the former is still containing his hunger but is getting weaker by day.

“It will be the 10th day today and we have three to four volunteer doctors checking on his glucose levels, blood pressure and his weight on a daily basis,” he said.

“Till today, Waythamoorthy has lost about 4.5kg but shows no signs of giving up. He is really very determined,” he added.

Sambulingam said that Waythamoorthy has thus far been visited by PKR Selayang MP William Leong, PAS Kuala Selangor MP Dzulkefly Ahmad and PKR Kapar MP P Manikavasagam.

“MIC CWC member KP Samy also dropped by yesterday but he did so only as a friend and not for any political reasons whatsoever,” he added.

Sambulingam also claimed that six physically challenged people from the Independant Living and Training Centre in Rawang visited Waythamoothy and showed support for his actions.

“We also have a lot of people visiting him [Waythamoorthy] from all over the country and we are very grateful for their show of support,” he said.

While on his hunger strike, Waythamoorthy has also been penning down his thoughts in FMT on Hindraf’s blueprint and the reasons as to why he is battling for their cause.

‘Set up Indian Affairs Ministry’-

Malaysia Nanban Tamil daily feels that setting up an Indian Affairs Ministry is the only way to solve the problems of the community.

PETALING JAYA: Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak should establish an Indian Affairs Ministry to ensure the government’s promises to the Indian community are met, the Malaysia Nanban reported today.

The nation’s leading Tamil daily claimed that it was not enough for Najib to make promises for the community as Pakatan Rakyat, the opposition pact, had already attracted the Indians through its policies.

In an article today, a commentator known as “Evukanai” claimed that the Malaysia Indian community was disappointed with the government because it was unable to deliver on Najib’s promises to the community.

The writer argued that the civil service, which is dominated by Malays, was the main reason why policies and promises to the community were delayed or never materialised.

He cited the matriculation intake for students last year when only 700 Indian students secured their matriculation seats when a total of 1,509 seats were granted to the community.

He said MIC’s failure to ensure Indian officers occupy high positions in the Education Ministry was one of the reasons why only few Indian students obtained matriculation seats.

The paper also said the Serendah crematorium project was another example why the people were shunning the Barisan Nasional.

Waythamoorthy’s hunger strike

The crematorium was completed some six months ago but it is still not open to public. During the Hulu Selangor by-election in 2010, Najib promised RM2 million to build a crematorium in Serendah.

However, the project was mired in controversy after it was found that the building did not meet certain specifications.

The newspaper also highlighted Najib’s promise to re-organise Tamil schools in the country.

It said although a whopping RM540 million was awarded to all Tamil schools, the conditions of the Tamil school were still deplorable.

Malaysia Nanban also raised a question over the prime minister’s promise to build seven new Tamil schools but till now there are no signs of the schools.

The Tamil daily insisted that an Indian Affairs Ministry was the best solution to iron out the woes of the community.

Makkal Osai, meanwhile, requested representatives from both BN and Pakatan to set aside their political differences to meet Hindraf leader P Waythamoorthy, who is currently on a hunger strike.

The Tamil daily’s managing director S Sunther called on Pakatan and BN to meet Waythamoorthy at least on humanitarian grounds.

Sunther visited the latter yesterday along with MIC central working committee member KP Samy.

Waythamoorthy, on March 10, went on a hunger strike to press BN and Pakatan to endorse Hindraf’s five-year blueprint to solve the problems of the marginalised Indian community.

PKR men join vigil for Waytha

They condemn Pakatan reps for failing to use their influence to gain support for the Hindraf blueprint.

SUNGAI PETANI: Two local PKR leaders last night joined a candle light vigil to show their support for Hindraf chairman P Waythamoorthy, who is on a hunger strike to pressure Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat to endorse his organisation’s demands for policies benefitting the Indian community.

M Palaniappan and M Sagathevan of PKR Jerai said the Hindraf blueprint was nothing more than what working class Indians deserved.

Palaniappan is the deputy chairman and Sagathevan the youth chief of PKR Jerai.

They condemned Indians in Pakatan who hold public office but who have yet to use their influence to gather political support for the blueprint. Palaniappan called them “ungrateful lots who have betrayed the Indian cause”.

They said it was sad that the Hindraf leader had to resort to a hunger strike to draw attention to the needs of marginalised Indians.

Waythamoorthy, who has stationed himself at a Hindu temple in Rawang, started his fast on March 10. He takes nothing but water.

“There should have been no need for him to resort to such an extreme action,” said Palaniappan. “But he has been forced to do so by both BN and Pakatan.”

The vigil was organised by Hindraf’s Kedah chapter. Participants prayed for Waythamoorthy’s health and the wellbeing of the Indian community in Malaysia.

Hindraf Kedah leader R Ramu said Waythamoorthy could go into a coma in 10 days’ time if he continued with his fast.

Sagathevan criticised Pakatan and NGO representatives who demand better wages for foreign workers while ignoring Hindraf’s blueprint.

“They call themselves human rights activists but they completely ignore the plight of their fellow citizens,” he said.

PS Krishnan, an official in the Baling office of Malaysia Hindu Sangam, said neither BN nor Pakatan could claim that it cared for the wellbeing of Indians until it had endorsed the blueprint.

“Indians are fed up with lip service,” he said.

To express their solidarity with Waythamoorthy, several members of Hindraf Kedah will go on a 24-hour hunger strike beginning at 9am this Friday at a temple in Paya Besar, Kulim.

‘Dr M punca krisis Lahad Datu’

Dr Mahathir dipersalahkan kerana menjadi orang bertanggungjawab memberi taraf kerakyatan melalui 'Projek IC' di Sabah.

KUALA LUMPUR: Rata-rata panelis forum ‘Mahkamah Rakyat : Kisah dari Lahad Datu, Siapa Pengkhianat Sebenar?’ menyimpulkan mantan Perdana Menteri Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammad sebagai individu yang menjadi punca sehingga timbulnya krisis terbabit.

Dr Mahathir dipersalahkan kerana menjadi orang bertanggungjawab memberi taraf kerakyatan melalui ‘Projek IC’ di Sabah sejak awal tahun 80-an.

Bekas tahanan Akta Keselamatan Dalam Negeri (ISA) Hassnar Ebrahim dalam ucapannya mengakui, beliau pernah menandatangani 500 borang kosong dalam satu masa semasa menjadi Ketua Daerah Sandakan.

Terlibat dalam Projek IC tanpa sedar, Hasnar berkata borang kosong terbabit kemudiannya disahkan dan dibawa kepada Jabatan Pendaftaran Negara (JPN) sebelum diubah menjadi sijil kelahiran.

Katanya, semasa Sabah di bawah pemerintahan Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) antara 1979 sehingga 1984, tidak kurang daripada 125,000 jumlah kad pengenalan yang dikeluarkan kerajaan persekutuan kepada sebilangan besar pendatang haram.

“Gunung berapi dalam dada saya sudah mahu meletup.

“Kalau ini fitnah dakwa saya kita jumpa di mahkamah,” katanya di hadapan kira-kira 1, 000 orang di Dewan Perhimpunan Cina Kuala Lumpur Selangor (KLSCAH) malam tadi.

Peranan Megat Junid

Beliau turut mengakui wujud pertemuan bekas Timbalan Menteri Dalam Negeri Allahyarham Tan Sri Megat Junid Megat Ayub dengan 15 pegawai tertinggi kerajaan ketika itu termasuk Ketua Pengarah Imegresen, polis, dan Timbalan Ketua Pengarah JPN di pejabat Jabatan Perdana Menteri.

Beliau mendakwa, semasa pertemuan itu Megat Junid memberitahu mereka Dr Mahathir sendiri meluluskannya dan mahu meminta RM 2 juta untuk kos
projek terbabit.

“Berikutan itu saya ditahan ISA selama 59 hari namun tidak diseksa atau dipukul,” katanya yang juga pernah menjadi saksi penting kes petisyen Pilihan Raya Dewan Undangan Negeri (DUN) Likas pada tahun 1999.

Sementara itu, Siti Aminah Mahmud berkata dirinya tidak sedar terlibat dalam Projek IC di Sabah ketika menjadi ahli Umno dan bertugas di Pejabat Umno Bahagian Sembulan.

Katanya, pada tahun 1990 sehingga 1995 beliau membantu mendapatkan gambar dan cap jari pendatang asing untuk dihantar ke pejabat Umno.

“Saya tak tahu di mana mereka cetak kad pengenalan…saya bantu Umno di Sabah dan menambahkan undi Melayu,” katanya.

Beliau juga ditahan di bawah ISA dan disiasat selama 10 hari.

Turut hadir berucap pemimpin Sabah Datuk Kalakau Untol, ahli parlimen Tuaran Datuk Seri Wilfred Bumburing, bekas Timbalan Panglima Tentera Darat Leftenan Jeneral (B) Datuk Ghafir Abdul Hamid dan sasterawan negara Tan Sri A Samad Said.

Suasana forum tersebut juga meriah dengan jualan baju, buku, termasuk produk makanan bijirin sarapan Ketua Umum PKR Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim sebagai super hero yang laris dijual dengan harga RM15.

My political thoughts during the Hunger Viratham Day Ten 19th March 2013

When this kind of situation is occasional, you can say it is because of the individual. But when you see the same phenomenon repeated at a social scale across the country, it is no more individual caused. This is exactly what the political class does not  accept.

P. Waythamoorthy 

Today is the 10th day of my Hunger Viratham. Over the weekend we have had people streaming in steadily to the temple, all feeling an inner compulsion to share in my prayers. The warm touches, the hugs, the tears, Vibuthi to my forehead, their words, and their looks all keep feeding me with strength. I may be getting weak physically but my strength to fight this oppressive system only gets stronger with every passing day and with every warm touch.

Today I want to write about Displaced Estate Workers to clarify some history. This knowledge of history and the consequences are necessary for informed decision making to solve national social problems, something which is sorely lacking. I hope this will help.

Part five

Displaced Estate Workers.

In my presentation at the UN office in Geneva in April 2008, I was not sure if using the term “Internally Displaced Persons”  for the evicted Estate workers in Malaysia was appropriate,. Part way through my presentation, I paused and asked the officials of the UN if the term “Internally Displaced Persons” was accurate to describe the workers in Malaysia who were evicted from the estates and they readily agreed with me. So, there we have it, another distinct problem that we have identified and given expression to.

The UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement defines Internally displaced persons as "persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalized violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognized State border."

In the case of displaced Malaysian Indians they are forced to leave their homes and places of habitual residence as a result of development programs of the state and in violation of their fundamental rights. The Indians have lived and worked in the estates for generations and in some cases the forefathers may have lived there as far as the late 1800s.

The British brought in South Indian laborers – whom they considered best for the picking jobs in the plantations for a good 100 years from 1830s- 1938. They modified both British India policy as well as British Malaya policies with the tacit approvals of the Malay rulers to facilitate this mass movement. They set up infrastructure on both sides of the Ocean to facilitate the flow of South Indian labor, the British splurged on significant false propaganda to the gullible South Indian poor about the good life, about a good future in the “land of plenty in Malaya”.

The British offered free and heavily subsidized fares to travel to Penang, to Port Swettenham and to Singapore for these laborers from Nagapattinam, a port town in India. These laborers could hardly afford the tickets from their villages to the port town of Nagapattinam let alone to Malaya. Historical records that I have collated clearly tell this tale of forced migration to Malaya all for the profit of British enterprises and only for the profit of these enterprises.  

This stream of migrants coming into Malaya was termed assisted migration. This accounted for the largest part of the migration. There was yet another stream of migration called unassisted migration. These were the traders, the teachers, the hospital assistants, the money lenders, the policemen, the lawyers, the doctors etc. These unassisted migrants mainly populated the urban centres while those that came in as assisted migrants formed the hundreds of rural Indian communities deep within the estates.

To further boost migration each labourer who had completed his/her indenture period of 2 years were promised a minimum of 5 acres each for them to settle in Malaya permanently. So this is clear proof that for the most part Malayan Indians were not “pendatangs” but invitees of the Malay Rulers and British Government then acting in the capacity of advising the Malay rulers.

But the promises of land were never fulfilled by the Malay Rulers and the British Government ruling in Malaya. The Indians effectively became slaves. For generations they had the “Nambikei” that one day the British and the Malay Rulers would take care of them. Even at the point of independence they were not granted land by the British as what had happened to similar workers exported by the Britishers to Guyana and Surinam.

Post independence the Indians went about their lives believing the estates would be forever. In the 1970’s however, when rubber price fell the Government devised new plans for the economy and for the plantations. These plans were to have disastrous effects on the lives of the estate workers in the ensuing years. The estate workers were evicted from the estates as these estates were turned into development land for commercial, industrial or residential purposes or were replanted with oil palms. These workers were evicted without adequate compensation, housing, alternative temples, alternative job opportunities or new skills training. Most estate workers are given compensation ranging from RM3,00 –RM5,000 in the 1970’s and in the current times about RM10,000 for working and contributing to the country’s economy for almost 4-5 generations – a pittance.

The implications of this devastating forced displacement are best understood by looking at the life of one evicted worker who is a 4th generation Malaysian Indian. When she talked to me about the eviction she was so distraught and she said that all the family had known was the estate for 3 generations. And they were summarily told to leave. Their option was to move to the fringes of the town adjacent to the estate. Before this eviction their visits to the towns were mainly for some occasion. Otherwise their lives revolved within the estates. They had a small kebun a couple of cows, some chicken and grew some vegetables. The estate temple was the centre of their social and religious lives. Her parents were married in that temple; her marriage was in that temple too. Now it was all gone. So, too with the estate school. It was gone too. Her community was completely destroyed when they were all evicted. Each family found their different ways out of this eviction and moved out helter skelter. Now she was staying in one of the low cost flats. Before moving to these flats they had lived for many years on tanah haram. Their children now grown up had put together enough money to purchase this flat. If they had not the children, they would have been condemned to a perpetually squalid life in their tanah haram shacks. With their incomes and the pittance for compensation there was no way they could have bought a flat on their own and no bank would give them a loan either to support their purchase.

This is just one of the stories of the 800,000 displaced estate workers. Each displaced worker will have a story similar to tell. Almost all Indian households have a link to this common past. Most are still stuck in this trap of poverty. This is why Hindraf seeks a permanent solution in the form of state intervention to get these people out of the trap and to put them on a level playing field and to give them an even shot at life.

Without a proper program to support the displaced during the displacement process, the result contains many of the elements of the life described above. When this kind of situation is occasional, you can say it is because of the individual. But when you see the same phenomenon repeated at a social scale across the country, it is no more individual caused. This is exactly what the political class does not accept. The outcomes of these are daily visible in the social statistics – yet the politicians across both sides of the divide prefer to remain ignorant. Their way of dismissing all this is to simply think of all our demands to correct this situation as “terlalu”.

The displaced estate worker problem is a long recognized problem by the elite. They just do not care enough to address it. These displaced workers are the ones that form the lowest ranks of Malaysian society. The way they got there or what is needed to get them out of there is unique to the extent of the specific historical circumstances. So, the statement of some half baked politicians that the source of poverty is the same for the Chinese, the Malaysia and the Indians is plain dumb and at best is just self serving.

The Chinese and Indians screwed up

There is some chatter going on in the Internet regarding the New Economic Policy (NEP) so I thought that maybe I would address this issue. Some readers, however, have said they are incapable of reading my 3-4-page articles. Some say they only read the titles and then start posting comments based on the title. For the sake of these people who want to read brief articles, today I shall try to be as brief as possible.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

In 1981, Tun (then Dato' Seri) Dr Mahathir Mohamad took over as Malaysia’s Fourth Prime Minister.

Soon after he took office he invited members of the Malay and Chinese Chambers of Commerce for dinner at the Equatorial Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. He then placed five Malays and five Chinese at each table for ten and made us all sit alternate to one another.

Dr Mahathir then told the Malays that the NEP had run for more than 11 years and had less than nine years to go before it ended. And, as promised, it will end in 1990 because it is not fair to the non-Malays to extend it beyond 20 years. Hence the Malays need to be prepared to face this day.

Dr Mahathir also told the Chinese that they would need to work with the Malays and help them achieve the aspirations of the NEP so that the government can end the NEP in 1990 as planned. If the NEP ended far short of the target, then this might create a lot of dissatisfaction, which is not good for the stability of the country when one race harbours a grudge against another.

In 1991, Dr Mahathir proposed that the Third Bumiputera Economic Congress be held at the PWTC where the various races, political parties from both Barisan Nasional and the Opposition, Malay-Chinese-Indian Chambers of Commerce, associations, societies, movements, NGOs, etc., could sit down for three days to discuss the ending of the NEP and how the government should face the post-NEP era and address the various short-comings in the social reengineering experiment of 1970-1990.

(SEE MORE HERE: http://www.pmo.gov.my/ucapan/?m=p&p=mahathir&id=210)

At this Congress, which was held in January 1992, the audience was shocked by the public quarrel between Anwar Ibrahim, the then Finance Minister, and Rafidah Aziz, the Trade and Industry Minister. These two Ministers plus the other members of the Cabinet could not agree on a common policy.

The non-Malay members of the Congress, in particular the Chinese and Indians, did not put forward any proposals and attended the session merely as silent observers. They just listened to what the Malay participants had to say without contributing any ideas.

Eventually, the Congress ended without any concrete proposals other than the 20-point Memorandum from the Malay Chamber of Commerce (which Raja Petra Kamarudin presented to Tan Sri Sanusi Junid), which the government accepted as merely an Addendum to the main Resolution from the Congress proper, which was that the Congress left it to the government to resolve the issue of what to do in the post-NEP era.

For all intents and purposes, the Congress failed because the Cabinet Ministers, the non-Malay participants, the members of the Opposition parties, and the Chinese and Indian Chambers of Commerce, did not contribute any ideas and proposals that the government could consider and adopt as Malaysia’s new policy post-NEP.

UMNO Guna Isu Lahad Datu Bukan Sebagai Isu Keselamatan

As the Altantuya Murder Plot Thickens

By Kee Thuan Chye | Bull Bashing

Commentary

Private investigator P. Balasubramaniam is gone, and his untimely death from a heart attack makes it all the more pressing for Malaysians to find answers to the mystery of the murder of the Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Who actually did it? Logically, it would seem unlikely that the two police personnel who have been convicted acted on their own. What would be the motive of Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar and Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri? They didn’t even know Altantuya before they whisked her away and dealt the fatal blow. It would seem they were merely hitmen.

Furthermore, according to Sirul’s cautioned statement, they were offered RM50,000 to RM100,000 to dispose of Altantuya. If this is true, who made the offer?

Other questions float in limbo like ghosts whose souls have not been put to rest. How did these two men get their hands on the C4 explosive used to blow Altantuya’s body to smithereens? It’s something that is difficult to procure. Did they have help from certain quarters?

Bala had said that he wanted to reveal what he knew about matters related to the murder in order to bring justice to Altantuya and the two convicted men. But now he is unable to testify in court.

He did, however, manage to come home from exile to publicly announce that he stood by his first statutory declaration (SD) in which he implicated Prime Minister Najib Razak – if only in the sense that the latter knew Altantuya and had had a sexual relationship with her, and that he might have influenced the attorney-general on the handling of the murder trial.

This first SD also stated that although Bala gave a statement to the police that included Najib’s alleged relationship with Altantuya, what he was given to sign omitted this detail. And when he gave testimony at the murder trial, the lawyers never asked him about that relationship either.

So seemingly damning was this first SD that the very next day, Bala took everyone by surprise when he came out with a second SD that not only retracted the entire contents of the first but also specifically named as being untrue all the parts that referred to Najib.

Since then, businessman Deepak Jaikishan has come out to divulge that he was involved in getting Bala to make the second SD, together with Najib’s brother, Nazim. He said he did this at the request of Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, and that Najib arranged for a senior lawyer to prepare the second SD. He said he regretted getting involved: “It was the biggest mistake I have made.”

Does this vindicate Bala? Well, it depends on whether Deepak is telling the truth. Najib has said Deepak is “not credible” and dismissed what he has revealed as “not an issue”, even though it reinforces Bala’s statement that Najib allegedly knew Altantuya.

And now to further consolidate Deepak’s allegations about the second SD, Bala’s lawyer, Americk Singh, has disclosed to the Bar Council that the senior lawyer who Deepak said prepared it is Cecil Abraham.

Americk said Cecil disclosed this to him in confidence, and – even more interesting – that Cecil said he was acting on instructions from Najib.

Americk apologised to Cecil for breaking his promise of confidence, but felt he had to make it for the sake of carrying on Bala’s quest for justice. To many, Americk did the right thing.

The obvious next step now is for the relevant authorities to query Cecil to verify if this is true. Of course, it could still be one man’s word against the other’s. If Cecil did prepare the second SD knowing that it would contradict Bala’s true intent, he would be guilty of professional misconduct. But if he denies it, and assuming that he believes Bala’s first SD to be true, he would be maligning the word of a man who has just died.

It will be a tough call for Cecil. And even if he were to admit that it was Najib who gave him the instructions, it still may not prove anything unless he has black-and-white evidence of those instructions, or someone else was present to corroborate the fact.

In view of all the allegations that have come about and the keenness of Malaysians to get to the bottom of the murder mystery, perhaps it’s time for everyone concerned to do the right thing. Including Najib.

Some of the pieces seem to fit, and although the picture that emerges may be hazy and inconclusive, his face keeps popping up because of certain circumstances. For example, the two men who have been convicted were at the time of the murder serving as bodyguards to then prime minister Abdullah Badawi and also to Najib. And DSP Musa Safri, who is said to have been a potentially important witness but never called to the stand, was Najib’s aide-de-camp then.

At some point, Najib must surely have to come out and categorically debunk the allegations. Saying that Deepak lacks credibility is not enough to convince the people. And although Najib has sworn on the Quran that he has never met Altantuya, this may not satisfy logical minds.

The impression one gets is that Najib prefers to ignore the issue so that it won’t get any bigger, and that he hopes people will in time forget. But the issue is not getting smaller, and people have not forgotten after seven years.

As such, Najib is being confronted with a big dilemma. As the plot of the Altantuya mystery continues to thicken and he continues to distance himself from it, he could be leading the ruling party into the upcoming general election with an albatross around his neck.

* Kee Thuan Chye is the author of the bestselling book No More Bullshit, Please, We’re All Malaysians, and the latest volume, Ask for No Bullshit, Get Some More!

Shooting suspect dies in lock-up

The New Straits Times

JOHOR BARU: A man, who allegedly shot his Indonesian wife to death, had died in police custody on Sunday.

Seri Alam police chief Superintendent Roslan Zainuddin said the 55-year-old businessman, whose identity has been withheld, died of a heart attack at 7.05am in the lock-up.

His body was claimed by his brother from Perak at the Sultanah Aminah Hospital mortuary here yesterday.

His wife, Then Sui Moi, 40, was found with a gunshot wound in the chest at their home in Taman Johor Jaya on March 7.

It was reported that the man was seen leaving the house in a hurry at 10.45am after a heated argument.

Last Thursday, the businessman surrendered himself at the police station, bringing along the weapon that was said to have been used in the shooting of Then.

Transformation Policy Has Succeeded In Ensuring Every Malaysian Feel The Progress, Says Najib

KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 (Bernama) -- Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak tonight tabled an impressive "report card" from the implementation of the ambitious national transformation programme which has benefited Malaysians from all strata of society.

He said the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) and the Economic Transformation Programme which support Malaysia's vision to emerge as a high-income advanced nation in its own mould is the prime goal and not merely economic indicators.

"I believe the people not only can see, hear and evaluate what has been implemented, but also feel the impact," he said when launching the National Transformation Progamme Annual Report Tuesday night.

"I would like to report to the people that with the cooperation and the hardwork of all parties, be they the masses, the private sector, civil servants and members of the administration, the bulk of the planned objectives have been achieved," he said.

The Prime Minister said the ETP and GTP were "very bold experiments" ever implemented by any government in the world in practising the principles of transparency and accountability besides proving the government's commitment to the 1Malaysia philosophy -- People First, Performance Now.

"In this respect, the country's success can be seen through the higher per capita gross domestic product (GDP) from US$257 in 1957 to US$9,970 last year.

"This is nearly 4,000 per cent increase in more than five decades," said Najib, who is also Finance Minister.

Najib said the higher quality of life was clearly evident from the Household Income Survey figures.

The survey showed that average monthly household income in Malaysia has increased from RM4,025 in 2009 to RM5,000 last year.

"This showed a more than 1,200 per cent increase since the survey was conducted since 1974," he said.

Najib said the initiatives implemented under the GTP have succeeded in providing a better quality of life to low-income earners.

Among the initiatives are RM2.34 billion 1Malaysa People's Aid (BRIM) to more than six million people and RM524 million for 5.24 million students.

In efforts to uplift the people's standard of living, a total of 106,967 people were roped into the "Azam Kerja", "Azam Niaga", "Azam Khidmat" and "Azam Tani" programmes besides extending micro financing through Amanah Ikhtiar Malaysia, Tekun Nasional and Yayasan Usaha Maju, he said.

To improve students' academic achievements, the pre-school enrolment has been increased to nearly 770,000 last year or 80 per cent of the age group, the prime minister said.

The GTP, the brainchild of Najib, was implemented under the purview of the Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) in the Prime Minister's Department.

There are seven National Key Result Areas under the GTP. They are to reduce crime, eradicate corruption, improve education quality, upgrade rural development and improve urban public transport and the living standard of low-income earners and to tackle cost of living.

The launch of the ETP, also attended by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and cabinet ministers, was televised live by RTM.

On the ETP achievement, Najib said private investments grew by more than three fold, recording a 22 per cent increase last year.

The ETP was launched in late 2010.

In line with the ETP objectives and with the private sector playing the pivotal role in driving the nation's economy, the private sector investment ratio had registered a consistent increase, he said.

"In 2009, total private investment, which was at 52 per cent, rose to 58 per cent last year," he said.

Najib said this proved the private sector's growing confidence in the national transformation initiatives, with the private sector investment value surpassing the target by RM139.5 billion, driven by high capital expenditure in the manufacturing, services and mining sectors.

"Private sector investment is important as it influences the economic growth rate. Bigger private sector investment growth coupled with the higher economic growth will generate national revenue which will emable the government to implement more initiatives for the people's benefit," he said.

Najib also said nearly 50 foreign tourists visited Malaysia in 2011 and 2012, contributing close to RM100 billion to the GDP, while in the Greater Kuala Lumpur development, My Rapid Transit has disbursed 48 contract packages totalling RM19.8 billion.

He said 45 per cent or RM8.9 billion worth of the contracts or the bulk of the contracts have been awarded to Bumiputera contractors.

In the oil and gas sector, the RAPID project in Pengerang, Johor, will create business opportunities to 4,000 people and construction work to 20,000 people, he added.

Najib also said 1,087 sundry shop owners have participated in the TUKAR programme, with average sales increasing by 30 pe cent.

Taib Mahmud responds to Global Witness expose (Video)

Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud has responded to an undercover sting video that suggested shady land deals were rampant in the state. See the video below:

What do you think of his response? He looks a bit indignant – or is it flustered? He is not stopping to explain in much detail, is he?

He denies his cousins were his intermediaries but then he doesn’t explain why the ‘investors’ found themselves referred to his relatives despite using official channels in the beginning.

Credit to the journalist who posed the questions to him.

Is HINDRAF blueprint a fact of fallacy for humanity to survival?

Is HINDRAF blueprint a fact of fallacy for humanity to survival?

Pre GE12, you had more than 100,000 Malaysian Indians gathered to voice their grievance? Fact or fallacy?

The opposition parties ran their political agenda solely on Makkal Sakthi, should watch their videos. Fact or Fallacy? Even promised Kg Buah Pala folks but we all know what happened when politically expediency was at play.  

Post GE12, with Pakatan in power nothing has changed for the Malaysian Indians because 110,000 land titles in 349 land titles in 349 Rancangan Kampung Tersusun for Malay muslims in Perak; 102,000 land titles in 134 Chinese New  Villages in Perak. 10 acres to each and every Orang asli in Perak; 1,000 acres of land and RM100 Million for pig farming in Sepang Selangor and  more than 607 (Chinese) New Villages nationwide with 1.2 million villagers. Fact or fallacy? 

Looking at Indian villages within PR hold like Kg Muniandi, Kg Ghandi, Kg Kanchang Puteh, kg Chikadee, Kg DBI, Kg Buah Pala, Kg Bengali, nothing happened. Fact or fallacy?  

Let’s look at the PR manisfesto, for Sabahans/Sarawakians; 1) Raising oil royalty from 5% to 20%. 2) Appointment of Sabahans and Sarawakians to lead and hold office in the Govt. 3) Cleaning up citizenship registry list. 4) Recognition of customary land rights. 5) Raising the level of infrastructure development.

Orang Asli's : 1) Preserving orang Asli customary land rights and welfare. 2) 141k hectares of land reserved. 3) Water and Electricity supplied to Orang Asli settlements. 4) 5000 educational scholarships for Orang Asli students ( Isn’t this all catered in the constitution)

For Chinese : 1) PR will recognize the certificate for Combined Chinese Secondary Schools for the purpose of furthering academic admission to higher education institutions.

For Malays: 1) Abolishing PTPTN loans and as such billions of taxpayers money will be wiped out from existing loans taken but not paid up by irresponsible Malays. 2) Justice for Felda settlers. 3) RM 500 mil allocated for Military Veterans. Increasing govt contribution to Armed Forces Fund Board from 15% to 20% and an addition 5% to a special fund for them. Introducing a soldiers Divident - RM 2k per year. 4) Dissolving 1MDD so that Khazanah remains sole state investment body but Khazanah has been years run in a shady manner benefiting exclusively for Malays primarily. 5) GLC's to be tuned to produce more viable Bumiputra entrepreneurs. 6) Going to double Tabung Haji Fund 7) More allocations for Islamic religious depts 8) adding value to wakaf land.

Now as a Malaysian Indian, I try to understand why we need to be the scapegoat when we have the same aspiration as the rest of the Malaysian? Is this a fact or fallacy?  

Hmmm!!!!, Malaysian Indians not relevant in Malaysia except when we want their votes, fact or fallacy?

Conclusion, whenever it involves a Malaysian Indian, they can be pushovers because it becomes a fallacy for how it breeds for the rest no matter how the truth is self sustained for the fact. Fact or fallacy?

Back to my first question, is HINDRAF blueprint a fact or fallacy?  Fallacy is a melting pot, truth isn’t because it is self sustained not worrying of the possibilities as it is self evidenced for humanity to prevail for the oppressed and marginalized poorer segment of the Malaysian Indians. Hee!!!, Hee !!! Is this fact or fallacy again in an objective manner or a subjective one for how the waves shore us individually to safety?  

-R.Shan (Human Being)

Cyprus shuts banks as bailout backfires

The latest European bailout is blowing up.

Cypriots protest against the EU bailout, which would require a one-time tax on bank deposits.

Two days after the European Union revealed a €10 billion rescue for Cyprus, the tiny island nation said its banks would not reopen at least until Thursday to give it more time to win the backing of parliament for a controversial tax on deposits.

The unprecedented tax on bank deposits led to a run on cash machines in Cyprus over the weekend. It also spooked investors, who feared that other weak eurozone states could eventually be forced down the same path, despite EU statements to the contrary.

Shares across the region fell Monday, and banks were hit particularly hard. The prices of government bonds across southern Europe also fell, pushing up yields. There were no signs of bank runs in other European countries, including Italy and Spain.

"The contagion from Cyprus is fairly limited but there is a tail risk that this measure could backfire," wrote Berenberg Bank analysts in a note.

As part of the plan to rescue Cyprus' outsized banking sector and head off national default, the EU said deposits of more than €100,000 would be subject to a one-off levy of 9.9%. Smaller depositors would be subject to a levy of 6.75%.

It was the first time that the EU has insisted on such terms for bank depositors as part of a bailout. The EU's bailouts of other nations, such as Greece, have been accompanied by strict budget restrictions and led to losses for bond holders and shareholders.

Related: 5 reasons why Cyprus bailout matters

Parliament had been due to vote on the plan Monday -- a bank holiday in Cyprus -- with the tax due to take effect Tuesday. But officials were working on changes to the proposals to force richer savers to bear a bigger share of the cost, reducing the burden on those with less than €100,000 in deposits, according to reports.

The speaker of the parliament confirmed that the debate had been delayed until Tuesday, with a vote tentatively scheduled for midday ET.

Eurozone finance ministers were due to hold an emergency teleconference on Monday to discuss the delay, a eurozone official said.

Analysts said the levy set a dangerous precedent and could undermine depositors' belief that their savings are safe.

"The Cyprus deal may prompt Europeans to question that," wrote financial markets analyst and blogger Louise Cooper. "A fundamental safeguard to Europe's banking industry has been compromised for a tiny country costing 10-20 billion euros to bailout -- not a good trade."

The bailout, while small compared to the emergency loans supporting other troubled European nations like Greece, represents more than half the size of the €18 billion Cyprus economy. Cyprus is the third smallest economy in the eurozone, bigger only than Malta and Estonia.

The problem is its banking sector, which is several times the size of the economy. The country made a formal request for help last June after its banks were decimated by losses on Greek debt -- losses that caused lending to stall and sent the economy into a deep recession.

Negotiations on a bailout stalled last year after a previous government objected to the conditions that international lenders were looking to attach. They restarted following the election of President Nicos Anastasiades last month.

Related: Europe financial sector is fragile, says IMF

EU concerns about money laundering also hampered progress on a bailout. Cypriot banks have large volumes of international deposits, with Russian businesses believed to hold about $19 billion, according to ratings agency Moody's. As part of the bailout deal, Cyprus has agreed to an international anti-money laundering audit.

Russia has come to Cyprus' aid in the past, providing a €2.5 billion loan in 2011 to shore up government finances, but its participation in the new rescue was looking uncertain Monday after President Vladimir Putin attacked the tax on bank deposits.

"If such a decision was made, it would be unfair, unprofessional and dangerous," Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying.

In addition, a finance ministry spokesman said Russia was reviewing its position after not being consulted on the decision to impose the levy.

The International Monetary Fund was expected to contribute to the deal as it has in others. Christine Lagarde, the fund's managing director, said Saturday that she supports the terms and would recommend that the IMF help provide financing for it.

In addition to the tax on bank deposits, other conditions for the bailout loans include an overhaul of the financial sector and an increase in corporate taxes.

Cyprus is the fourth of 17 eurozone states to be granted a bailout by its EU partners and the IMF, after Greece, Ireland and Portugal. Spain has been given EU assistance to rescue its banks, but has so far avoided asking for a full sovereign bailout.

-- CNN's Elinda Labropoulou and Charlie Charalambous contributed to this article. To top of page