Clinton Lecture in Malaysia on 6/12/2008

HINDRAF
243 Hanworth Road
Hounslow Middxnews
England.

The Honorable President Bill Clinton
William J. Clinton Foundation
55 West 125th Street
New York NY 10027
United States of America

20th November 2008


Dear Mr. Clinton

Clinton Lecture in Malaysia on 6/12/2008

Ethnic Minority Indians segregated and excluded from National mainstream development of Malaysia

This is root cause of slavery and poverty
Appointment to meet your good self in Malaysia


We refer to the above matter and to the public lecture your good self is to present in Malaysia on the 6th day of December 2008.

Malaysia has successfully projected itself as a modern and progressive country with the tallest twin towers. However the mere 8% ethnic minority Indian community have been segregated and excluded from the mainstream national development and causing about 70% of them to be mired in poverty and remaining in the low income group and 90% being in the daily and monthly wage earning group (New Straits Times 25/11/08 at page 14).

May we seek your kind indulgence to also consider addressing some of the critical Indian problems in your lecture which would help draw attention to their day to day pain and suffering.

Article 8 of Malaysia’s Federal Constitution provides for equality before the law while Article 153 provides for a reasonable proportion of the civil service jobs, land, permits, scholarships, places in institutions of higher education etc to be reserved for the Malay Muslims. However the UMNO controlled Malaysian government which has been ruling continuously for the last 51 years since independence in 1957, in the name of Article 153 implements and practices an institutionalised racism, religious extremism and racial and religious extremism and racial and religious extremism and racial and religious supremacy to the brim resulting in the following consequences to the said Indian Community as follows: -

1. Slavery among the Indians who are made to toil from dawn to dusk with no salary and workers benefits sometimes having to go on one meal per day of watered down rice and in instances women and children have been made sex slaves. Children who do not work are beaten up so badly before the helpless mother until one boy almost died. These enslaved children are not allowed to attend school (New Straits Times 15/9/2008) at pages 12 and 13).

2. Birth Certificates and Identity Cards are denied to 50,000 (Editorial New Straits Times 23/10/08 at page 23)(our estimate is 150,000) mostly Malaysian born Indians which in turn denies them admission even into Primary Schools and to receive medical treatment in government hospitals, are denied jobs, upward mobility opportunities, driving licences, bank account and face problems in almost every aspect of life. They are made to become stateless.

3. Equal educational opportunities right from the Kemas Kindergarten (New Straits Times 14/10/08 at page 8) to fully residential, elite technical schools and science \junior colleges are almost 99.0% excluded to the Indians simply by reason of their not being a Malay Muslim.

4. For show only about 1% of the Indians are admitted to the civil service (New Straits Times 13/6/08 at page 14) 1.7% Indians granted scholarships to study overseas (New Straits Times 16/5/08 at page 6) Merely 1% admitted to Public Universities

5. 370 out of the 523 about 70% (New Straits Times 11/6/08 at page 24) Tamil (ethnic Indian) primary schools are not fully government aided schools and most looking like cow sheds. Of the 7,800 teachers (New Straits Times 30/6/08 page 24 teaching about 150,000 primary school children, 1400 (Tamil Nesan 16/6/08 at page 15) are untrained teachers and are refused formal Diploma level training let alone being graduate teachers as in the Malay Muslim schools. The per student allocation for Tamil schools is a mere RM10.55 but for the Malay Muslim
schools it is about 300% higher at RM33.31 (Sempurithi Magazine August 2008 at page 47.)

6. In the government linked companies, corporate, commercial, banking and the private sector the top Executive and \upper \management level jobs are excluded to about 99% of the deserving Indians.

7. In the Mid Term Review of the Ninth Malaysia Plan and the 2009 National Budget despite a whopping allocation of RM230 Billion (New Straits Times 27/6/08 at headlines) and RM207.9 Billion (New Straits Times 29/8/08 headlines respectively there has been zero allocation for especially the poor and under privileged Indians.

8. To compound matters even the opposition parties, NGOS, civil society and the media chose to abandon the Indians as they draw very little political mileage, have almost zero economic clout and draw almost zero foreign funding or help.

9. The Indians become so vulnerable that in one day alone six Indians whom the police deem ‘suspects’ are shot dead in broad daylight (New Straits Times 3/9/08 at page 12, Utusan Malaysia 3/9/08 at page 5 and TV3 News bulletin at 8.00 pm on 3/9/08.)

10. Over the past twenty-five years a new “Indian criminal class” has been created by the system as a result of no or very little upward mobility opportunities even though they are prepared to work hard. 60% of the prisoners in police lock ups and prisons are of ethnic Indian. One Indian could end up killing another Indian friend when he had refused to pay back a debt of a mere RM50.00 (USD 13.00) such is the pressure of life for the many Indians.

11. The weakest among them end up committing suicide. In just one day alone six Indians committed suicide (New Straits Times 14/4/08) due to largely poverty and poverty related problems.

We have raised the aforesaid problems on very strong terms after having written hundreds of letters, Memorandums, Protest Notes etc to the Prime Minister, Home Minister, Attorney General, Inspector General of Police etc and running into thousands of pages. For raising the same four of our Hindraf lawyers have been arrested and detained without trial under the draconian Internal Security Act for almost one year now since the 13th day of December 2007. Our chairman Mr P Waytha Moorthy was forced to seek asylum and is now living in exile in London. Hundreds of mere peaceful assemblers were arrested, detained and prosecuted for unlawful assembly and even a false charge of attempted murder.

Finally on 15/10/2008 our very NGO i.e. HINDRAF was declared unlawful and outlawed for good. Even the Sessions Court Judge who had dismissed the sedition charges against three HINDRAF lawyers was removed arbitrarily and in turn prosecuted for some trumped up criminal charges.

HINDRAF civil rights lawyer of sixteen years standing and frontline campaigner P. Uthayakumar in trying to draw the Commonwealth Heads of Governments attention wrote to the British Prime Minister exposing the “ethnic cleansing” of Kampung Medan from the 8th day of March 2001 for fifteen days in a row where the Indians were specifically targeted and five Indians were killed and one hundred over suffered grevious bodily injuries.

Despite this tragedy being Malaysia’s worst human rights tragedy, and despite our scores of written requests the Government had refused to hold a Royal Commission of Inquiry, refused to present a White paper in Parliament. The Chief Justice had refused to initiate Inquests into the death of the five Indians and the Attorney General had refused to seriously prosecute for the five murders and the one hundred over cases of causing grevious bodily harm. In short there was a whole scale cover up.

In the same letter to Mr Gordon Brown Mr P Uthayakumar had also highlighted that in every three weeks one Hindu temple was ruthlessly demolished in Malaysia.

For exposing these and other atrocities Mr P Uthayakumar was in turn arrested on his way to his legal office, prosecuted for a second charge of sedition and was released on RM50,000-00 court bail, rearrested right outside court, again detained overnight. Upon release P. Uthayakumar was again arrested from his legal firm on 13/12/2007 and for about one year now has been detained without trial under the draconian Internal Security Act on false and politically motivated charges. The courts have rejected four applications for his release vide habeas corpus applications. This is the classical workings of law, order and the administration of justice in Malaysia.

During your visit to Malaysia we would also be grateful if your good self could make time to meet us.

Thank you for your kind attention in this matter.


Yours faithfully


…………………………………
P. Waytha Moorthy
Chairman
HINDRAF
Currently in London