The Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Norian Mai, is head of a police force known more for breaking the law that maintaining it. So, when the officially-constititued Malaysian Human Rights Commission or Suhakam investigated Human Rights violations at an opposition rally last November in what is now known as the Kesah Highway incident, the police dug in and refused to co-operate. In so doing, it lost an opportunity to defend its turf. Instead, it dragged its feet, using every legal manouevre to wriggle out of stating what happened. Mark you, Suhakam is not your every day NGO with a bee in its bonnet to take the government to task. It is a body set up by Parliament with a panapoly of powers that other Human Rights bodies would drool over.

The Anti-Corruption Agency director-general, Dato' Zulkipli Mat Nor, when asked about the Cheras land, would not comment. "I don't wish to comment. No comments, no comments on this." Why? Because the people involved are those who belief they have a bright future in federal politics? Could the Anti-Corruption Agency refuse to comment months after it started investigations into the matter? The ACA, like Suhakam on Human Rights, is an embarassment to the government, set up to keep the public at bay. It was defanged in 1969 after it forced two mentris besar -- of Trengganu and Perak -- out of office for corruption. One irony of that is the ACA chief then is today deputy chairman of Suhakam -- Tan Sri Harun Hashim. The ACA now cannot, indeed do not have the power to, investigate corruption in the higher reaches of government and the National Front -- unless the person to be investigated has fallen foul of the leaders.

The government's and UMNO's monopoly on power is broken. The National Human Rights Commission, Suhakam, strikes a more independent stance, challenging the official view, and, in the light of the recent ISA detentions, demanding, in the manner of opposition parties in times past, that they be brought to court and to see their families. A high court judge orders that two detainees in whose name habeas corpus petitions are filed be brought to court, the first time in memory one has so ordered.

The government roared in high dudgeon. The police said no permits are issued, called on Malaysians to stay away. Those who gather outside the National Human Rights Commission, Suhakam, offices in Kuala Lumpur when opposition leaders presented a memorandum to it break the law and severely dealt with. But the National Justice Party, Keadilan, persisted with its call for 50,000 to be present.

Keadilan members were called to gather at the National Human Rights Commission, Suhakam, headquarters to present its petition. Given the deep divide within the Malay community, a larger crowd could have been expected. The government saw it as a challenge, which it was, and used the ISA to prevent it. Indeed, Zainal Abidin gave the game away: you do not need a crowd to present a petition, "one or two would do," he said.

Saudi Arabia, which if it was not a satrap of the United States and the guardian of Mecca, would be regarded as hostilely as the world now perceives Afghanistan. If you have oil and routinely behead the condemned, you are a friend defended to the death; if you do not, and are as backward, you will be condemned as a persistent violater of Human Rights and worse.

UMNO's call for Malay unity in a multiracial Malaysia links it to Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party in Queensland. It seeks through this Malay unity talks a racial exclusivity that One Nation Party wants in Australia. The circumstances are different, the worldviews dissimilar but the aim is the same. The bottom line for both views is to discard the foreigner in their midst. It is an argument similar to those opposed to universal Human Rights: there is little difference between the worldview of the Talibans who stone a mother of seven to death for adultery before an ecstatic crowd of men and children, and Florida frying condemned men in a faulty electric chair: both defend their position by demanding that they be left alone to do what they must, that universal rules should not apply to them. There is a world of difference between the Taliban and Florida, but the principle is the same. As it is between UMNO and One Nation.

Malaysia looks upon the International Court of Justice for justice to Iraq, but would not, after insisting it would, recognise ICJ advisories. Malaysia's former permanent representative to the UN and once UN General Assembly president, Tan Sri Razali Ismail, insists only in that forum could the UN's "violation of its own principles on Human Rights" could be exposed. "The sanctions on Iraq have never been brought to the ICJ," he said, "... (and this) could be the final option not just for government but for civil society by petitioning the court". Malaysia, "sensitive to the public's feelings", would petition the ICJ "if there is enough ground support". Noble sentiments. The right stance.

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