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Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Dear Mahathir - Haris Ibrahim

Sorry to be writing to you so soon after the last, but I read on Malaysianinsider that at the racist Perkasa congress over the weekend, you had called for a review of something or the other so as to be able to reply to allegations that the Malays have stolen the country’s wealth and denied the rights of non-Malays, and felt that I could not let you get away with these mischievous, dishonest observations without responding to the same.

You see, I do not think anyone has said that the Malays have stolen the country’s wealth or denied the rights of the non-Malays.

What many have said, myself included, is that you and your privileged cronies, inside and outside of government, have robbed the people of this nation, Malays included.

And, inspired no doubt by you, many in the civil service also got in on the action.

I’m going to keep this short, so I’ll just cite one instance. I’ll leave commentators to add to the list, if they care to.

One evening in the early 90’s, when Putrajaya and KLIA was being conceived by your government, I got a call from a friend who excitedly asked me to meet him to look at a ‘cannot go wrong’, ’sure make money’ investment opportunity.

I met him at a pub in PJ.

He opened up maps of Sepang and Dengkil, said he had connections with people who had connections in the highest offices of government, identified the areas on the maps that were being earmarked for the construction of Putrajaya and KLIA and the housing and commercial areas that would sprout up thereabouts, and then said that the owners of these property were unaware of these intended developments. If we bought now, the price would be dirt cheap.

When sold later, or if acquired for purposes of the intended development, the returns, either from the re-sale or government acquisition, would be considerably higher.

Big profits to be made.

At the loss of those who had held those properties for a long time, some passed down from generation to generation.

And who were unaware of the intended development.

These were Malays.

Who were screwing them?

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