India does not wield the big stick when it should. The Indian overseas tries to keep himself apart from the local Indian, and is usually arrogant, even dismissive of the Indian here. Elsewhere in the region, the Indian is tolerated by the local governments, even if they themselves are Indian in their culture. Many Indonesians have Sanskrit names, Bali practices a Hinduism that disappeared with Adi Sankaracharya in the 8th century. The Rama legend is theirs too, and the Balinese often say the Indians took it from them. As one Indonesian professor of Sanskrit once explained to me: "Islam is my religion; Sanskrit my culture." The state is guided by the Panchashila, the five principles, and a take off from the Panchatantra, the five arts. The former Indonesian president, Megawati, was given her name by an Indian politicians, Biju Patnaik. The present president's name, Yudhoyono, is Sanskrit although he is a Muslim.

ASEAN was founded in 1967 to make sure Indonesia and Malaysia never went to war again. I was on holiday from Reuters in Saigon, and had gone to the 'wrong' room in a restaurant in Bangkok where the officials met. There was Mr Thanat Khoman, foreign minister of Thailand, who brought them together; Col. Benjamin Loudevik Murdani, who was then deputy head of Garuda, the Indonesian airways, later became the first diplomatic head for Indonesia in Malaysia, and went on to be a lieutenant general in the Indonesian armed forces; Tan Sri Ghazali Shafie, now Tun, but then secretary-general of the Malaysian foreign ministry. In return for my silence, the three of them told me of these behind-the-scenes talks. Later on, the Indonesian vice- president Adam Malik, who I had known since the early 1960s and who is dead now, filled me in the details. If Indonesia and Malaysia lost control of ASEAN, it would be a dead letter, as now. It was originally the foreign ministers who met, but now it is a meeting of presidents and prime ministers. The Summit should look at South East Asian Regional Conference, which is not allowed to succeed because India, its leading member, plays politics with other members.

Two-thirds less Chinese tourist has come to Malaysia this year to September than the same period last year. Malaysian tourist facilities are empty because of it. Earlier this year, Genting Higlands casino lost millions of ringgit because high-rolling Chinese tourist did not visit it because other Chinese tourists have been illtreated. The government reaction is to talk of 50,000 Chinese tourists did not return, and have melted into the crowd in Malaysia. But this shows only that it does not make sure the tourist returns home. The laws are not strictly applied. It is applying the laws now only in vengeance, but it shows at the same time it is lax about it. Most of these tourists would not have returned, because local political figures, usually from UMNO, has joined with China to bring them in for prostitution and other nefarious activities. The Chinese tourist is money for these people here, and the government allows this to happen. The Indonesian overstayers were brought in to boost the Malay population, or promised an extension by these political figures on the West coast of Peninsular Malaysia. They would get citizenships soon enough, much sooner than non-Malays in the country who have been here for decades.

So when videoclip of the nude Chinese woman doing the ear squat is made public, the Malay tried to divert attention by asking if there would have been such a fuss if the woman had been an Indonesian. But is that the issue, or that the police take the law into their own hands, and harass the foreigner? The policy is wrong. It is best the government comes clean. But that is now how it operates. It will waffle for as long as it can, it will blame the victim of falling into the police hands, it will do no anything to pin the problem on the victim. It has two problem on its hands now, the nude Chinese woman doing the ear squat, and the byelection in Pengkalen Pasir. The government says the woman is at fault, and in Pengkalen Pasir, PAS is at fault even when the National Front is wrong. It does in Pengkalen Pasir what it would not do in state constituerncies it won in 2004. It has promised the earth if PAS could be removed from government. It does not believe in its supporters in the constituency because of the presence of more workers from outside then there are voters. But it cannot in this byelections.

The Malaysians were keen to buy an Indian company. The owner's jet was allowed into Malaysia but the owner was not. The immigration thought him an illegal Indian, although he had valid papers and had come to way one of his companies to a Malaysian firm. He and his jet went to Singapore instead, where the signing took place. The only reaction to this was that most Indian business went to Singapore. The Indians are still harassed, although an Indian got the Nobel Prize for Literature, for Physics in 1930, and for Economics in 2003. Malaysia hopes to gain a Nobel Prize in 2020. It has refused entry to Indians although they have the expensive re-entry, or once in, the police make their life difficult. It is true of the Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Nepali, Burmese, Thai, Indonesian tourist. Most of them are law abiding, but a few do come in with what they think is a valid entry visit but they are being fleeced by the Malaysian and the agent in their country. It is not said too loudly that local political figures are allowed to bring in foreign workers for fee. But many Malaysians issue false entry certificates. Even the Chinese from China working here is caught in this racket. And this allows the policeman to take money from, and harass, these fellows. They are correct in assuming that most governments will not take any action. This includes China, which will not interfere if the Chinese come here without a legal entry pass but would if their citizens are harassed although their papers are in order.

So the tragedy that has struck Dato' Aziz is normal if you are on the outside. In the course of finding out what happened, I was told he was a 'mamak', which is not what he would have described him. In Malaysia, Malay means a Muslim as well. Dato' Aziz's ancestors became a Muslim perhaps a century ago. In Singapore he would be known as an Indian Muslim. By identifying himself as a Malay, he thought he rise up the civil service ladder. He did. But because he was an Indian Muslim, he was identified and regarded as an outsider by the Malays in the civil service. The ancestors of some Chinese became Muslims long before Islam came to the Malaysia. But they are kept aside because they are Chinese. That is why PAS has decided to field Chinese and Indian candidates for elections in their control. PAS realises that they cannot isolate Muslims other than Malay. The spin we hear is that PAS is doing that for political reasons. What does the National Front say about the Malays treating the Muslims as "mamak" and worse? In this rush for racial purity, the Malays are making nonsense of race. The Filipino Malay can be a Christian, a Muslim or any religion. It is so for an Indonesian. Lieut.-Gen. Benedict Loudevik Murdani is surely of the Malay race. But a Malay Christian in Malaysia cannot be. The brother of the former rector of the Inslamic University was an Anglican priest. He was driven out of his residence in Petaling Jaya. Another served time in jail under the Internal Security Act. An English Catholic became a Muslim before he married his wife but retained his name. He spent time under the ISA.

AL-QAEDA SUICIDE BOMBERS ARE blamed for bombing three Amman hotels. Abu Musab Al-Zarkawi, who is believed to be dead, is the agent directly responsible, the television news and talk shows try desperately to inform the world that this bombings are the trade mark of Al-Qaeda. There is great effort to blame Al-Qaeda for the bombing although there is no hard evidence. But the United States and others have decided that Al-Qaeda is responsible. And that gets world wide play. But is it? Jordan is a soft target who could cause mayhem in the West's war on terror. Iraq is to the left of it, Syria to the north, Israel to the East. It need not be Al-Qaeda or the believed dead Al-Zarkawi, it could be any of the myriad of countries and organisations that could be responsibe. It could also be the West, which is why the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which we are told can investigate it, is rushing to Amman to aid the Jordanian authorities. But is the FBI going there as the Australian police authorities are going to Bali to help the Indonesian authorities investigate the bombing in Bali: to remove the evidence of their involvement?

Similarly in Bali. The emphasis is on how badly off the Balinese are, and the tourists, mostly Australians, who are put to such terrible inconvenience, by being bombed out of their revelry. No one stops to think why they are bombed. The news is about Balinese who lose their tourist dollars, and the news wring us our tears, and makes us not to think. But the Bali bombing is not accepted as an Indonesian attack. It is to get Indonesia on the anti-Islamic terror bandwagon. There is widespread news on Malaysians taking part, and we are told soon enough that they have escaped. We are shown on television the sabotuers leaving the scene in grainy pictures, and we concentrate our attention on news about the saboteurs, and the impact on the locals and the tourists, who have had an idyllic existence destroyed by the bombers. It did not work as those in authority intended. As is well known, cameras can lie. Early this morning (05 October 2005), the Bali bombing is still news on CNN and BBC. The Western reporters are sceptical of Al Qaeda or its fraternal cousins responsible. So CNN is forced to bring on Rohan Gunaratne, a questionable security expert, to show the Al Qaeda or Jemah Islamiyah is responsible. No one has yet told us why it took place, or given a credible explanation why the bombing should be in Bali, other than it is Hindu and a popular Holiday resort of lumpen Australians. But to have Al Qaeda or Jemah Islamiyah conduct two or its four alleged bombings in Indonesia in Bali suggests that the organisation operates to make the Western powers look good. But as I wrote on 04 October 2005, they used bombs normally available to governments. What the Bali bombings showed is that they have an arsenal as powerful as the Western powers. That may not be correct, but it leaves us wondering if the Western powers are a match to them.

There is an Australian researcher in town looking at the early foundantion of ASEAN, and speaking to the people involved in it, and I have accompanied her on many occasions, the story she got was not what the printed records of historians and researchers reveal. So, which are theories, and which facts? Or do participants lose their objectivity 40 years after the event, and it is the historian and the book writer of the period who has the facts correct? There is a fetish about "correctness" of facts, but how historians and journalists get their facts correct is by going to who is in authority and take their word for it. They do not delve into events beyond what they cannot see. Four days after the Bali bombings last week, it is a replay of events three years ago at the Bali bombings, but the reporting is the same. There is no attempt at anaysis, except to blame Al Qaeda and its fraternal organisations. Indonesia is not allowed to conduct its own inquiries, Australia, like the Bali bombings in 2002, have offered to 'help' Indonesia to solve the 'crime". But is Australia coming in to help or to rub out its own involvement? We do not know if Australia is involved, but reporters were quick to blame Al Qaeda and its fraternal organisations. And they would not blame Al Qaeda and others if the Western embassies do not say so. (I have worked for Reuters, and I could not write a story until a Western embassy 'confirmed' it.) It has to do with the war in Iraq and the war on terror. It is not going well, as any invasion would not, but it is going worse than in Vietnam. Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country, and it was important to the 'West' it is on board. So pressure is put on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyone and his governent, and the result is conflict between the Indonesian people and its government, just as there is in Pakistan.

TUN MAHATHIR GOT IT RIGHT. He did not apportion blame on the Bali bombings to Al Queda or the Jemayah Islamiyah or to other Muslim groups. But the ease with which both these organisations were blamed, and that this has been on the news particularly round-the- clock ever since the bombings last week, and the defensive posture of the Indonesian government followed by the British blaming the Australians for not letting it know of its 'early warning' to Australian revellers in Bali, and the constant berating of those who would listen that Al-Qaeda was involved, suggests something has gone wrong. The Western governments, or its intelligence agencies, are behind it, and keep at it because the people on the ground in Indonesia and elsewhere do not believe the events in Bali last week. The United States (and Australia, among others) created incidents in South Vietnam in the 1960s, blaming it on the Vietcong. There is no unanimity among Western reporters that Al Qaeda was involved, Jason Burke of the Guardian thought that Al Qaeda could not be involved, and the discordant voices in the Western media is matched by the ordinary people around the world, Muslim or otherwise, having doubts on the official story of the Bali bombing.

We have nothing to celebrate on the 48th birthday of Malaysia. In Malaysia, the Chinese and Indians are relegated as "pendatang" (arrivals). Those who trace their background to the early days of british rule in Malaya cannot still get their citizenship while those from the Indonesian islands can get it after a year's stay here for that would increase the Malays here. In the 1931 census, the Malays in Selangor had their parents born overseas. Part of it is the British probem. They could not persuade the sultans to issue citizenship except by an involved procedure. It was only after the war, with the formation of the Federation of Malaya in 1948, that sultans could issue citizenships to those who had lived in their state for a number of years. My father became a subject of the ruler of Johore in 1952, 22 years after he had decided to live here. It was only in 1957 that he became a federal citizen, and I, who was born in Johore Bahru, became one as a result. But my father had thrown in his lot to Malaysia early on, and he was criticised by the Malaysian Indian Congress (now part of the BN) for forsaking his Indian citizenship! Now it is an obstacle course for a Chinese or an Indian to take his citizenship.

THE DIRECTOR OF MILITARY INTELLIGENCE, Lieut.-Gen. Dato' Wan Abu Bakar omar, proved by his own words why he should be removed forthwith. In an irrelevant television and print interview with Bernama yesterday (19 April 2005), broadcast on all TV channels and reported in the newspapers today, he proved why military intelligence, at least in Malaysia, is an oxymoron. He ignored totally Singapore's breach of our national security, to which the armed forces, the police forces, the intelligence agencies, the prime minister and deputy prime minister, were complicit. Instead, he attempts to divert attention to an irrelevant operational episode in the unchartered waters in the Sulewesi Sea when a Malaysian and Indonesian warship grazed each other.

Mr Lee Kuan Yew did not understand this when he hanged two Indonesian marines for an explosion at an official block in Singapore during Indonesia's confrontation of Malaysia, and paid a heavy price for it: he had to place wreaths at their graves before bilateral ties resumed, but on sufferance. His successors have not fared better.

So when Malaysia peremptorily threatened to cane illegal workers last year if they did not leave within a fortnight, it set off fear and panic. That this deadline was periodically extended because it raises more problems than solving them. Many went into hiding when they could not leave in time, and held to the mercy of policemen, petty officials and others. Since most illegal workers are Indonesian, it strained bilateral ties and worsened when linked to oil exploration in diputed territory in the seas between Sabah and Indonesia. There is a promise to allow those who leave to return legally, but the red tape and shifting rules makes it all but pointless. Registering the illegals in Indonesia is all but impossible. Internal travel to remote registration centres, often across waters, is not easy. It is often cheaper to just pay a middle man and cross the waters into Malaysia.

It was one-upmanship all the way, with officials and politicians unwilling to give way or even explain their point of view. The aim was to best the other in a hammerlock, and to show their citizens he could be trusted to represent their interests to the world outside, especially their hated neighbours. It was essentially to carry their citizens with him that the visits went on. International law and ASEAN practice were thrown out the window. It did not always succeed. Indonesia's six decade civil war in Aheh could not give way to conciliation after the tsunami and earthquake. It is the rebels that have the upper hand there because it is on the ground. The Indonesian armed forces is not about to give way: it lost at least 25,000 of its soldiers in the tsunami.

BEHIND EVERY Indonesian GENERAL stands a successful "cukung" (Chinese businessman). That is as true today as at the fight for independence from the Dutch, when supplies and money was scarce. A link forged through decades, the cukung betting on the young officer getting to be a general and higher; a relationship in which the general holds the trump cards. In Malaysia, we have the Ali Baba system, in which Ali, the Malay, gets the licences for the Baba, the Chinese businessman, to run riot. Over the years, this relationship has prospered beyond the wildest dreams of both, in which the greed of one outstrips the other in an entrenched system in which the Baba has the upper hand. Nowhere is this as stark as when the bright young kids of the establishment flex their muscles for naked cash.

Let us look a little closely to a few of its projects. A company called RPJaya went into the Tuanku Jaffar Power Station in Teluk Kemang (Port Dickson) without authorisation after it was discovered that TNB had offered the contract to gut it was given to two companies, RP Jaya and an Indonesian company, Bukaka. Attempts to resolve the impasse failied, Bukaka threatens to sue for RM20 million, the contracts are cancelled. RP Jaya brings its men into the power station and in stealth guts it.

Let us take a few steps back. TNB had called in for international tenders to gut the Tuanku Jaffar Power Station in Port Dickson, and to the surprise of all in the business, awarded the contract to two companies, RP Jaya and Bukake, an Indonesian company. Work was to begin on payment of a RM3 million deposit and a RM12 million payment for the machinery in the power station said to be worth four times more. TNB, to wriggle out of its mistake, negotiated with the two companies to work together. But RP Jaya, impatient at the delay and without depositing the RM15 million with TNB and without a work order, moved in its contractors and began dismantling the power station on Wednesday night. This power station is linked to the national grid. TNB did nothing, and calls were left unanswered, and has yet to act.

It takes a tragedy for Malaysia's utter callousness to surface. The tourism secretary was glad, as the tsunami stuck the Malaysian coast, that few tourists were among the victims, and hope they would return. No one talked about the Malaysian victims except as a nine-day wonder, and in passing, while the newspapers and media concentrated on the havoc overseas. Malaysia had ordered mainly Indonesian illegal immigrants to return by the end of January. When the tsunami struck, officials held to the timetable, then relaxed it by a month. Now, I understand, the Acehnese could become legal workers without having to leave the country. The sticking point is how much can they be asked for under the table. The transport ministry has issued plans not to help those who lost their documents but so they could charge the higher charges for lost documents.

Earlier this month, he visited Indonesia about the same time the Malaysian deputy minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, arrived for a general border committee meeting. His media coverage was impressive, making the front pages while Dato' Seri Najib had to be content with the inside pages, though, in truth, his overall coverage was better in Indonesia than in Malaysia. The Malaysian embassy in Jakarta moved to restrict Dato' Seri Anwar's access to top officials, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and his media coverage. It only reinforced senior Indonesian officials' contempt for those across the Straits of Malacca.

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