The Star approach is typical of this re-creation of Pak Lah as 'one of us' by the mainstream press to divert attention into irrelevance when larger issues of state demand his, and our, attention. We know why. Pak Lah sits on an uneasy throne which his spinmeisters believe can best be secured by banal platitudes and irrelevant sideshows. Malaysia is not alone in this. The Singapore Straits Times recently carried a news story about President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urging Indonesians to prefer the nation's interest not their own. Look at the New Straits Times front page headlines about Malaysian affairs: it is one banal platitude or irrelevant sideshow after another. The issues that should be discussed are not. The ghastly reality television shows, now the staple on Malaysian television networks, have come into the mainstream of life, and newspapers begin a print edition of it.

Last week the United States announced a total of 468-million US dollars in development assistance for Indonesia, about a third of that goes to schools. In the wake of the Bali bombing the Australian Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, said a lack of funds for education in Indonesia and other Asian countries attracted students to colleges teaching a radical Islamic philosophy.

When I suggested to Tun Hussein, after he announced his retirement as prime minister in 1981, that he was in effect forced out by his deputy prime minister, he was so offended, and ordered me out of his office. I did not see him for a few years. In between, Dato' Sulaiman confirmed all I had heard, to a group of us at the Hotel Equatorial coffee shop. One there was a class mate, Tan Sri Mohamed Rahmat, in the midst of a mid-career crisis after being dropped from the cabinet and appointed ambassador to Indonesia. A few years later, at the request of Tun Hussein, then advisor to Petronas, I arranged a meeting with Dato' Sulaiman. They met in Penang. I was present at the meeting because both insisted. I left after dinner, and they talked into the night. By the morning, Tun Hussein could not contain his anger, not at being eased out but for the betrayal of feudal rules. There was no question then that when UMNO was declared illegal, and a new UMNO rose in its place under Dr Mahathir, that he would not be a party to it. It was the UMNO elections in 1987, in which by all accounts, it was Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, not Dr Mahathir, who won, with the results doctored in the same way as the election results were doctored to enable victory for the "right" side.

IS THERE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM in Malaysia? Yes. There is no doubt about it. But as in all societies - including the US: try building a mosque or a Hindu temple in the middle of a Christian community; or wear a Muslim headscarf to school in France or at work in a supermarket in Denmark - it is not absolute. It cannot be. The United States, like Malaysia, is fond of lists. They create one for every conceivable occasion and statistic. It is a powerful weapon to browbeat those it believes it can, and use these lists on various issues to shame the governments to believe they are unfit to be in the globalised world of nations it dominates. These lists are at best of doubful truth. The US, in these lists, would be among the top. But we saw what happened to Muslims there after 11 September 2001. The Guantanamo detention camp was for Muslims from the uncivilised world. If the Muslims were from Britain or Australia or other "civilised" nations, different rules apply. But if you from the "uncivilised" Muslim world, like Pakistan, Indonesia, the Middle East, and elsewhere, death is too good for them. Washington is critical of Malaysia's execrable detention laws, but keeps its silence when it enacts tougher laws to punish the Muslims for their temerity to challenge Christian civilisation in this, in President George W. Bush's memorable phrase, crusade.

This should frighten Washington. In its war on terror, after passenger planes crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington in 2001, it targetted Muslims worldwide. And chillingly promised to ignore the rule of law and treat the Muslims it captured as it likes as in Guantanamo Bay. As the rhetoric and war unfolded, the Muslim responded, and supported any move to challenge Washington and its allies. Friendly countries became enemies, forcing the United States into a security purdah worldwide. Muslims in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan - US allies - join hands with Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Indonesia, Malaysia to support the resistance in Iraq. The governments in these countries cannot prevent it. Nor could the United States. The Muslims as a community is aroused, and there is little Washington could do about it. Nor when it makes fundamental mistakes in Iraq. It does not understand Arabic, especially in its Iraqi sophistication, the culture, and uses the gun to prove his presence by force. It holds only the cities, the roads are unsafe, the countryside is in the hands of the resistance, and shows is frustration and anger by alienating the Iraqis in the cities with every move.

AMROZI IS SENTENCED TO DEATH, his brother soon would be. As many more in Southeast Asia and elsewhere in the months and years ahead for sundry acts of terror. Now the alleged mastermind of the Bali bombing and other sundry acts of terror and an alleged associate of Osama bin Laden no less is in US hands. It is touted as yet another feather in the US worldwide campaign against terror. How was he caught? No one knows. Where was he caught? The Thais and Malaysians claim credit. Should he not be extradited to Indonesia? Not on your life. The US demands the right of first interrogation - and trial at its option - in its war on terror. Should not Indonesia be upset at it? Why should it? The global policeman accepts no national boundaries - indeed it has on more occasions than one can count gone into countries to seize whomsoever they want, in once instant the president of that country, who now languishes in a Florida jail.

This double standard came to a high point on Thursday, 07 August 2003, when an Indonesian court in Bali sentenced to death an Indonesian Islamic militant to death for his role in the Bali bombing. The court sat as a Roman circus, put on a tight leash to deliver the verdict demanded, with the baying spectators there to ensure it is. Indonesia is caught in a bind. Justice could not be served when the only acceptable verdict is death whatever the circumstances. Amrozi is portrayed as the bomber, and if he was acquitted, there would be hell to pay. He had already been convicted and condemned long before the trial, in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia. It does not matter here if Amrozi is guilty or not. Only the death sentence was. If it had not been handed down, Indonesian justice is at fault. If it did, Amrozi should not have been sentenced to death for that would make him a martyr, a long life sentence would have been preferable.

But this would have had some sympathy if it had stopped there. The Singapore government has now released a recent exchange of letters between the trade ministers of Singapore and Indonesia to counter Indonesian claim the island republic was 'unfriendly' in not publishing bilateral trade figures. This claim is an old one: for years Jakarta had alleged Singapore encourages the smuggling of Indonesian exports, which were not reflected in bilateral trade figures. Jakarta argues because Singapore is less than honest in what it receives from this smuggling and other indirect imports.

He does not now even seem to be master of his own self. He was forced to release the Reformasi 6 by the Anglo-Saxon powers he rails about. There is much truth in this. It is difficult now to see how Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim can be denied bail, as he desires, on 14 July 2003. The pressure is too hot. He understands the political implications of not kowtowing to this pressure. It was the British and United States ambassadors in Indonesia in 1965 who had a still unclear role in unleashing the bloodbath that killed a million Indonesians to overthrow President Sukarno, and bring in its wake an Anglo-Saxon friendly government. As released official British and US documents now reveal, the then British ambassador, Sir Andrew Gilchrist, gloats about the extent of the bloodbath and gave enough clues of his involvement. The US ambassador, Mr Marshall Green, had come to Indonesia from South Korea, where he had presided over the military coup which brought General Park Chung Hee to power, and with it a clear hold on its economy. It is Britain and the United States that caused the conflagration in Iraq. So he had no choice. His attack on the Anglo-Saxon powers must be viewed with this background in mind.

One can understand Dr Mahathir's nervousness. In his long years in office, he allowed a host of crimes to be enacted in his name. He enriched his acolytes, built a crony of undependable business men whose only raison d'etre is to enrich at his expense. His children went into business and prospered not as business men but as his children. Every business they touched turned to dross at the public expense, and the his government still finds creative ways to lift them from bankruptcy by writing off their loans and start afresh with government help. And land the country with debt that several generations cannot repay. He saw to it that all institutions of government are devalued, and none dared challenge him, and the government is now run in his, rather than the King's name. He is accountable to no one, but that could well cease, as President Suharto of Indonesia could tell him.

The UN, formed so bigger nations would not bully smaller states, as the UK-US of Iraq or Indonesia of East Timor, lost its moral authority when the Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, ordered all UN staff to leave Iraq days before the onslaught began. They should have been ordered to remain. And force US and UK to react to that. Washington and London talks confidently of involving the UN in the peace. But the UN cannot now come in. Two veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council walked away when the other three permanent members threatened to veto its invasion plans. For if it does, it would approve what the US and UK did in Iraq. Which it cannot. As it would not when the Soviet Union invaded Hungary and Indonesia East Timor. The UN must make it clear that in any dispute between might and right, it is right that must be protected. Mr Kofi Annan has much to answer for his dereliction. - 20030326

The anti-colonial giants of the immediate post-war world, which began with the independence of India and Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), China, did not want to be aligned with either the US-led Free World nor the Moscow-led Communist Bloc. And set upon to set up their own group of non-aligned nations. President Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, President Gamel Abdel Nasser of Egypt, President Sukarno of Indonesia, Pandit Jawarharlal Nehru kicked off the movement in Bandung in April 1955, and in the next decade were joined by the likes of President Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, President Milton Obote of Uganda, President Kwame Nkrumah of Guinea, President Sekou Toure of Guinea, President Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria, President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia, President Fidel Castro of Cuba. They could not be ignored. The aligned worlds treated them with kid gloves, and their role in world affairs was as purveyors of the acknowledged middle ground.

But the more one looks at the Bali bombings, the more the official explanations looks skewed and plainly wrong. Far from Al Qaida and JI being the culprits, subsequent events point to other more sinister groups. There is the nationalist Indonesian with a bone to pick with Australia for its role in forcing East Timor out of Indonesia. There is the Tentera Nasional Indonesia (the armed forces) still smarting from the secondary role they are forced into after President Suharto was forced out of office in 1997. What about those groups which lost power when President Megawati Sukarnoputi took office, and who want to isolate her? It could be comeuppance, as John Pilger says in a commentary, for the close co-operation Australia has with Indonesia in security matters that enables Jakarta to rein down hard on Muslim groups, and this is a retaliation for that. And let us not forget, that it could be a deliberate attempt by the United States to force both Indonesia and Australia firmly on its side in this war on terror that loses steam by the day.

THE AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER, Mr John Howard, picks a needless if understandable, in his view, necessary, fight with Southeast Asia when he insisted, in a radio interview this month, on his nation's right to pre-emptive attacks against terrorists in foreign countries. The Bali bombings provided the backdrop. About 200 died, half Australians, as many Indonesians, and a smattering of other nationalities. Seven or more groups, including dissident Indonesian armed forces, even a high-level power play between the armed forces and President Megawati Sukarnoputri, and one to warn off Australia for its overt and covert meddling in Indonesian politics, could have been responsible. But within days, the elusive Muslim Pimpernel, Osama bin Laden, is proclaimed guilty, condemned, Indonesian Islamic clerics allegedly linked to him are arrested and quickly blamed. So far, nothing is proven. When Mr Alexander Downer was asked, in a BBC interview about the involvement of Al-Qaida, he fudged it. The best President Bush has allowed in apportioning blame is he "believes" Al Qaida is responsible.

The Australian Government this month raided two homes, in Sydney and Perth, searching for Muslim terrorists linked to an organisation it once supported and backed, the Indonesian Jemaah Islamiyah. The Malaysian prime minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, to burnish his questionable credentials as a Muslim leader, cries foul, and accuses Canberra of being anti-Islam as President Bush, in Washington, calls Muslims anti-semetic. Canberra and Kuala Lumpur agree with Washington that JI is a terrorist organisation, hoping none would remember that all three once supported, and backed with funds, JI and other now-damned radical Islamic groups including Osama bin Laden'a Al Qaedah. New enemies are capriciously created in this ubiquitous war on terror, that even Muslim nations -- Malaysia is not a Muslim nation but Dr Mahathir insists it is, so let us take that as read -- are in hot soup over it.

A few nights ago, at a diplomatic reception, three European diplomats were livid I would suggest, as I did in an earlier piece, there might be more to the Bali bombings than meets the eye, that it could be a cynical Washington attempt to get both Indonesia and Australia on firmly on its side in this egregious war on terror. They focussed their complaint on the carnage, and how could I dare say Washington would do it. I said there is still doubt about the fourth plane that crashed in the Pennyslyvania fields was deliberately shot down as its target was the White House. In statecraft, such cynical moves are not only common but necessary. Just look at President Bush's demand that President Saddam Hussein be overthrown. When self-interest is all that matters, what is a few hundred, or even a thousand, lives lost? In Vietnam, it was nearer 60,000. Those involved in that do not shed a tear as the families of the dead. Many still think what they did was right.

It is the declared view of all who matter in this war on terror that what happens anywhere in the world that smacks of Muslim terror must be the handiwork of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaida. Any group in Washington's, and its satrapies', eyes, linked to Al Qaida is ipso facto true. So Singapore has a newly discovered terror network of Al Qaida fanatics who were in it years before it was set up. Malaysia has its Kesatuan Militan Malaysia, many of whose members she once encouraged to study Islam in Pakistan but are now convenient scapegoats. In Indonesia there is Jemaah Islamiah. In the Philippines, the Abu Sayyaf. Last week, A French oil carrier on charter to Petronas was attacked in Yemeni waters. Over the weekend, a powerful carbomb blasted two popular foreign haunts in Kuta, in the Indonesian resort isle of Bali, killing 182 and wounding 300, mostly Australians and other foreigners. No one has claimed responsibility, but Washington and Canberra, and Al Qaida experts, are quick to label it an Al Qaida outrage.

But is it that simple? Two conflicting pressures surface. If Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's claim he is here illegally is accepted, then he must, under the amended Immigration Act, have Mr Bilal charged as an illegal immigrant, and the IIU rector charged for harbouring him. It is an open-and-shut case. An automatic caning must, under the law, be prescribed for both, along with a jail sentence. But he cannot. Then Indonesia's claim that Malaysia is selective about how she treats illegal immigrants rings true, and can only worsen bilateral ties between Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. If he believes what he said, and follow the letter of the law, then you can forget about getting Muslim scholars from around the world to teach at IIU. But can he not? Giving the rector six of the best across his rectum, as a headmaster would a recalcitrant schoolboy, is surely not a good advertisement for foreign scholars to teach in our lands.

Malaysia is, always has been, a good neighbour. She does not interfere in our neighbour's affairs, nor does our mature leaders comment negatively on another's internal affairs. She helps her neighbours by offering tens of thousands of Indonesians over the years. Her leaders would not make scathing comments of a neighbour as the speaker of the Indonesian National Assembly, Mr Amien Rais, did. The Indonesians are terrible people, we give them jobs and they burn our flag. They should be grateful for the honour, as Malaysians must to the National Front (BN) for what it wrought to Malaysia, and any who questions, be it a Malaysian, an Indonesia, a Thai, a Filipino, must be severely dealt with. Mark you, no one should question Malaysia's right to pass any law it deems fit. Foreigners should stay out. This is the gist of a comment in the New Straits Times today (29 August 2002, p12) on the burning of the Malaysian flag in Jakarta. But how should the United States view Malaysia when UMNO Youth, an adjunct of the main party in the governing BN coalition, burns the US flag in front of its embassy in Kuala Lumpur for an act that has nothing to do with bilateral ties -- Israel's treatment of the Palestinians?

MALAYSIA'S INTEMPERATE decision to cane and jail those illegal workers who did not leave the country by 31 July turns into a fiasco. With one fell stroke, she quarrels with her immediate neighbours, insisting she is right which none should object. But when domestic policy is enforced without thought to relations with foreign countries, especially when their citizens are involved, its repercussions would cause more than diplomatic fury. This has happened. Southeast Asian countries are horrified not so much as the caning as the speed with which the new rules came into force, without negotiations and forcing the illegals to rush out to escape the punishment. Indonesia and the Philippines sent warships to rescue their citizens from certain caning. When this policy is defended in injured anger at suggestions of foreign interference in domestic matters, it spills over into domestic reaction in those countries which affect Malaysians. Indonesians now target Malaysians for abuse and manhandling. So widespread is this that the Malaysian foreign minister, Dato' Seri Syed Hamid Albar, asks Malaysians not to visit Indonesia.

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