MORE POSTAL VOTES WERE cast in the Pengkalen Pasir state byelection than allowed. The Election Commission not only accepts this as normal, it is aggressively defends it. PAS is consulting its legal advisers. The National Front, and UMNO, has stopped crowing about their 'success' and gone into hibernation, its propaganda repeating the untruth but its officials are concerned. If a fresh byelection is not called, Malaysia will follow the dictatorships which produce 99 per cent victories. This byelection is flawed. A fresh byelection should be called. But the chairman of the Election Commission, Tan Sri Abdul Rashid Abdul Rahman, is sure the byelection went well, but did it go well because the National Front won, or because all the Election Commission staff were in the constituency? How can Malaysia say it is a democracy, when it cannot conduct a byelection properly in an insignificant state constituency? The National Front tried too hard to win, and brought in more people to vote than allowed. It does not Matter it happened in postal votes. The fact is it happened. The Election Commission is wrong, should have declared the byelection invalid and ordered fresh byelections. The National Front had to win, because the political future of the UMNO Youth deputy leader, Mr Khairy Jamaluddin, was at stake. It was dubbed "Khairy's election". He set the National Front aim: A victory by 700 and less than 500 votes for the former UMNO leader turned independent, Datuk Ibrahim Ali. A re-byelection in Pengkalen Pasir could go to PAS, and that will be worse for him than having lost to PAS first time. But the Election Commission will see to it it does not happen.

THE MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT IS in disarray. It tries to do what it can, but not what it should. It now takes what it must to divert attention. The Malaysian home minister, Dato' Azmi Khalid, has apologised to Beijing on his arrival there. He went in secret after that telling the press he could go on December 20, postponed after China was not informed of the visit. But the issue of the nude Chinese woman doing an illegal ear squat affects Chinese tourists as well as Malaysians. China does not allow its tourists into Malaysia because government agencies and authorities mistreat its citizens. An MMS videoclip, taken by a policeman probably for enjoyment, has spread like wildfire. The government tried denying, in various ways, that it mistreats tourists. But this is standard police procedure for any woman asked to go to a police station for, for example, leaving her passport at home. Malaysian women - housewives, who believe the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Anwar Ibrahim, students, illtreated over the years - confirm that they had also been asked by the police to undress and do the ear squat. The lock-up rules do not allow illtreating anyone the police had arrested, but the police justify it because the women might be carrying drugs on their person. The MMS videoclip has gone around the world. The official explations to show that the nude woman ear squat did not happen are not believed. It has become a Chinese issue, and even the non-Malay parties in the National Front has commented on it to the detriment of the government. The government accuses the Chinese, Indian and other non-Malays to be racist because they do not support it. Multiracialism in Malaysia means the races would eat together on racial celebrations. At other times, the races go their separate ways. There is nothing in common among the Malay, the Indian, the Chinese and others, who live their separate lives, often oblivious of the others. The government does not understand this. Its education policy, at best aimed at Malay as the language for all. ignores this trend and forces the races to teach, for instance, science and MatheMatics in English. If a Malaysian does not support Malay, he will be a fish out of water in a government department.

WHEN LEADERS AND OFFICIALS waffle, they are caught. The US national security advicer, Mr Stephen Hadley, and his predecessor. Ms Condoleeza Rice, who is now Secretary of State, waffled when asked if the CIA sent people to be tortured. They have, as individuals have come out with horrifying statements of what happened to them once in CIA hands. The US does not torture, said Ms Rice, but there are hundreds who are in Guantanamo Bay prison, who have been systeMatically tortured, and their families know not whether they are alive. Most of them do not know why they are tortured or even in Guantanamo Bay. Almost all are Moslems, and this method is applied to those deemed on the opposite side of the ubiquitous war on terror. The CIA has had frequent flights into European military and civil air flds, carrying their 'rendition' targets - 400 has been said pass through one airfield the past year in the United Kingdom - into a storm. Questions are being asked in Europe, and all Ms Rice could give them is more waffle. She took comfort in the agreement with individual countries that they would keep quiet even if their citizens were taken on CIA flights and tortured in other countries. US officials have waffled their way through this by insisting on following international laws, but are reluctant to say what they are. If the ultiMate country agrees to allow the CIA captives, the US washes its hands even if their captives are tortured.

THE DEPUTY INFORMatION MINISTER, Dato' Zainuddin Maidin, has called on Malaysians not to be racialistic, and the deputy higher education minister, Dato' Fu Ah Kiow, urged authorities not to be 'overzealous' as this 'could be misconstrued as targetting a particular group.' No Malay minister has told the authorities not to. Among the non-Malays in the National Front, only the Chinese members of the government has. Perhaps Dato' Zainuddin might tell the Malay leaders in the National Front, especially from UMNO, not to be racialist. The nude woman in the MMS videoclip is Chinese, the government now says she is not a Chinese tourist. But that must be a guess, since it has called on the woman to say she is the woman. The identity of the woman is not the issue, that she was made to do the ear squat naked is confirmed in the videoclip. The police are running hither and thither to prove it is not at fault, when it is. The government is concerned its explanation is disbelieved. So the appeal to be not racialist. But is this believed? In Malaysia, racial profiling is standard: the Indians are vicious gangsters, the Chinese are responsible for many a wrong doing. It is taken as truth when dealing with the Indian and Chinese. Yet the official word is not to profile people racially. If it had not been done, would this nude Chinese woman doing the ear squat have become serious as it has?

MALAYSIA IS A SAFE place to visit, says the Malaysian Association of Tour and Travel Agents. It is. But tourists from Asia and Africa must allow themselves to be harassed by agencies of the government. That they are is in no doubt. This is a multi-racial country is which the non-Malays are as badly treated as the Asian and African tourists. But the deputy inforMation and former newspaper editor, Dato' Zainuddin Mohamed, has asked 'various parties, not to inject racial overtones into the MMS videclips issue and the crackdown on illegals. The 'ear squats' by women stripped in police station for forgetting passports is normal, he implies, for they may be carrying drugs on them. The authorities have created a side issue of 50,000 illegal Chinese tourists in this country. They say it is deliberate. But the existence of these illegals reveal how impetent they are. By their own admission, as the DAP secretary general Lim Guan Eng, points out, Singapore's population between 2000 and 2003 are illegal stayers in Malaysia. Nothing is done about that. But the authorities have created a campaign to catch the 50,000 illegal Chinese tourists! But Malaysia is a safe country. The MatTA president, Mr Ngiam Foon, assures that Chinese visitors here can feel at home. There were now announcements in Chinese at the immigration counters and 'signagess in that language, too' at the KLIA airport, placed there after the event. But Chinese tourists do not listen to Malaysian statements to the contrary when their experiences are different. It is not official hopes but practice that Matter. And that leaves much to be desired.

UMNO has suggested PAS should resign if it lost Pengkalen Pasir next week. But that has been modified later by saying that PAS should resign unilaterally if it lost Pengkalen Pasir. Under the election laws amended after UMNO stalwart Dato' Shahrir Ahmad won as an independent in the Johore Bahru parliamentary byelections in the 1980s, any one who resigns is autoMatically suspended from standing for five years. There is no talk anymore of UMNO state assemblymen resigning. PAS state assemblyman would resign if they are asked to but UMNO state assemblymen would rather not. The UMNO elected official makes it his life time occupation. He cannot afford to be left on the sidelines. In UMNO it is the individual that counts, in PAS the collective decision. The federal cabinet under the National Front is so constructed that its members hold office for a lifetime. The ministers and other political members of the government puts the country in limbo so that they can survive. The prime minister dare not sack them or reshuffle his cabinet for fear they will join his enemies in the party. The byelections in Pengkalen Pasir is held not so the people can elect their representative to the state assembly. It believes that if the people of Malaysia accept its message, so will the people of Pengkalen Pasir. The media, which it controls, carry what National Front leaders from elsewhere are doing to ensure UMNO's continued relevance in the state. But it is not true.

The Malaysian cabinet instructed the home minister, Dato' Azmi Khaled, to explain the Malaysian position to China on November 30, but the Chinese government was not told beforehand. The Chinese ambassador in Malaysia, Mr Wang Chung, who is in the top rung of Chinese diploMats, went to Putrajaya on Tuesday (29 November) to say that the visit is off until the Malaysian government convinces China that this manhandling will not happen again, told what his government would do that day in Beijing. Dato' Azmi Khalid reacted by going on a tirade on newspapers carrying "negative stories". But he should know that megaphone diplomacy is out in a sennsitive Matter as this. In that press conference, he admitted that some of the "negative stories" came from government departments. But local newspapers did not have to carry them; but the newspapers here would have taken the cue from Bernama. If they did not, the government press officers would harass them. The Malaysian government use the newspapers as its ragsheets. PAS is given short shrift in the newspapers in the byelection in Pengkalen Pasir, while the National Front is not. The deputy UMNO youth chief is shown painting a house in Pengkalen Pasir, to tell Malaysians it should vote, but he would disappear from the area should UMNO win or lose that election. But UMNO is busy in an opposition constituency before an election. That is of course no said.

In the past, a non-Malay minister would have been sent. But he has no powers and cannot commit the Malays. So these visits evolve no purpose. Today, the Chinese government would expect a Malay minister to come to it on an issue that is as important to Malaysia as Chinese tourists visiting the country. But did China agree to receive Malaysia today in Beining? Obviously not. The Chinese ambassador, Mr Wang Chung, visited Putra Jaya yesterday to tell Dato' Azmi not to come. It is common diploMatic practice for a minister to get a his host's permission to visit. It is no use visiting a country to find the host somwhere else. It has been hone by thousands of years of diploMatic practice. The cabinet announced it and then told China. In a Matter of this importance, the plans for the visit had to be kept as quiet as possible. But the Malaysian government addes to the negative reports by announcing it. But Malaysia is caught. It needs to tell the Malays, particularly those voting in Pengkalen Pasir state constituency on 6 December 2005, that it is doing something. Mr Wang, who is high up in the Chinese Government, should have been consulted to get out of this mess. Was he? We don't know. But since the issue is responsibe for the negative reports, consulting Mr Wang would have been all over the newspapers here.

The government and the police have repeated the mantra that they are not involved, but behave differently so that the public, and the world, is convinced that the naked woman doing the ear squat is part of police brutality. The police aim is to remove any sense of dignity of the person they have power over. One man said they did that to him while he was detained under the Internal Security Act. A policeman used to piss on the food that was brought to him, so that he went hungry. Another was periodically served food that he could not eat. A third was beat after he had eaten. Another was not given a Mat to sleep, and had to sleep on the cement floor with four air conditioners on full blast, and mosquitos galore. I had sent a book by a Guardian Reporter who had been detained by the police, and wrote about it, to a party leader who had been arrested because he was standing in the way of the Barisan chief forming a government. He would not write his experiences because it would show that he had been forced to strip his dignity. He did not want that. So he kept quiet.

If I am a 'dangerous' person, why do people in authority see me? Most of these people see me in secret, often late at night, - for being seen with me is dangerous to their safety - and they give me inforMation that may or may not see the light of day. I am not as active after my strokes, but I do move around if I can persuade my sons or a friend to take me around. That was how I was at Dato' Seri Sanusi Junid's, and Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim's, houses for their Hari Raya gathering. The two men, who have known each other for more than 30 years, are in different camps now and cannot bear the sight of each other, but they know that what one tells me the other would not know. I do not follow the current fad of reporting what a man says. I always ask him whether I can quote him for particular views, before leaving. I did that yesterday (27 November 2005) with Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim, but I did not use the quote. I am interested in what is happening, not who said what. The sources are happy to talk to me knowing that I would not quote them except with permission. Often I will not. I rarely have an interview with my sources for publication, usually a discussion.

It has come to the public eye because tourist arrivals from China has dropped 65 per cent this year compared to the last. The Police has continued to mistreat people over the years. The odd case come out to the public eye for reasons that are not the Police's. It was an official inquiry that revealed Dato' Rahim Noor's beating of Dato' Seri Anwar. The police had denied that until then. It was an MMS videoclip that revealed that the Police ill-treats the ordinary man in the street. The reactions has been the same. First defend the indefensible. Second, look for scapegoats. Third, justify the Police wrong doing. The Matter would have been forgotten in the latest incident, had not Chinese tourists stopped coming here. The Malaysian cabinet has ordered the Home Affairs Minister, Dato' Azmi Khalid, to China at end November. If the naked lady was a Caucasian, an impossibility by present rules, this would have been unnecessary. Dato' Azmi would have gone to Europe or the United States with or without cabinet approval. Why was'nt this urgency taken earlier this year when the statistics already spelled trouble?

THE CONTRADICTORY STATEMENTS FROM the Police suggest the ear squat is authorised by the IGP Standing Orders, and is therefore allowed. So what is the fuss? The police give out its inforMation little by little, but they have said, in effect, it has done nothing wrong. The MMS videoclip is therefore not an issue at all. After all, the police have said in effect that a woman caught for leaving her passport at home could also be a drug carrier. If that is the law, then all the Malaysian government has to do is tell the Chinese government that its citizens come here at their risk, that its women will be stripped and made to do the ear squat for minor offenses, and if the Chinese government does not agree, its tourists should go elsewhere. After all, the laws must be respected. The IGP Standing Orders (IGPSO) is brought out to say that the police did the right thing. So, why is the Malaysian government behaving like a cat on a hot tin roof? And allowing the newspapers and media it controls to write to put the police in a bad light. But the police is lying. Unless it says that an ordinary Malaysian woman can be told to strip and do the ear squat for minor offenses. The Pak Lah government is in two minds: it wants to protect the police, and it wants the Chinese tourists to come.

IF THERE WAS A CHANCE of Chinese tourists coming to Malaysia, the latest videoclip has made sure they will not. Pak Lah has ordered the Home Affairs Minister, Dato' Seri Azmi Khalid, to tell Chinese authorities that this will not happpen in future. Malaysia does not welcome Asian or African visitors. They are harassed at the immigration counters at the airport, although they have valid visas. If they escape that hurdle, they face harassment from the police. The 70-second videoclip that the MP, Ms Teresa Kok, produced in Parliament yesterday (24 November 2005) has put paid to any official explanation. It is now the perception that the Asian or African tourist will be badly treated, with the women stripped naked and made to do the 'ear squat'. In the light of the video clip, in fact well before yesterday, Malaysians do not believe the government explanations to the contrary. The Pak Lah administration is desperate that it is believed, for it need the Chinese tourist. There has been less than 65 per cent arrivals for the first nine months of this year compared to the last. Malaysia has all the facilties that are half- empty. The Chinese refusal to come to Malaysia is partly responsible. I have a cousin here with a valid work permit, but all he has seen Kuala Lumpur is between his work place and his flat 300 yards away. He dare not go sightseeing, even with others with work permit, because the police would harass him, and take away his money. The foreigner, unless he is Caucasian, will expect a hard time here. Most professional Indians come here en route to the United States or other Western countries. So they keep quiet about the harassment. The Indian government gets involved for political reasons, making a fuss for specific reasons. The Chinese vote with their feet, their Governments supporting them, especially when it has an edge over the foreign government. A visit by Dato' Seri Azmi Khalid would not reverse a trend caused by his underlings. Could not have Pak Lah raise the Matter when he saw his Chinese counterpart in Busan, South Korea, during the APEC summit?

THE BYELECTIONS FOR THE Pengkalen Pasir state assembly constituency in Kelantan is the first since the general elections last year. The result will make no difference to who governs Kelantan but the main political parties involved, the National Front though practically UMNO, and PAS are treating it as a Matter of life or death. UMNO has called for the state government to resign if it wins, though why the PAS government should not when it can rule the state whatever the result. It was Tun Mahathir who said he would remain prime minister even if the National Front won by one seat. PAS could well be in that position after the byelections. But it is seen as a 'prestige' issue for both that they win Pengkalen Pasir. For UMNO it is a prestige issue, but little else. The leaders of UMNO, including the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Najib Tun Razak, have visited Pengkalen Pasir in the runup to the byelections. There is a permanent UMNO presence from outside in Pengkelan Pasir. The UMNO leader in Kelantan has asked that UMNO and PAS reveal their candidate simultaneously so that one would not get an advantage over the other. They are trying to change the political rules when National Front meets PAS in a PAS- ruled state. But PAS is nervous as well, though why it should be beats every rational Malaysian. UMNO leaders from Kelantan are at odds with the head of the state UMNO, and they work hard to diminish him. And what better way is there than make sure he falls flat in Pengkalen Pasir. A victory for UMNO there would benefit him, and that is not what they want.

Why don't Malaysians enter details other than what is required in the state-of-the-art MyKad? The authorities have said that no one but the official concerned would get the details from a special reader. But the readers given policeman are such that he knows all the secrets you have. A lost MyKad is a hassle. You have first cancel the extraneous inform it contains, then pay a fine for losing it. A man is stopped by a policeman in the evening for speeding. He did not have money on him on him for a bribe. The policeman told him he had more than a thousand ringgit in his bank account, and could draw from that. The policeman got into the car so that he could go to the nearest branch of his bank, where he withdrew sufficient funds to bribe the policeman. The man was told by the police to lodge a report. He did not want to for that would have tied in knots. It would have been a wasteful effort, and would have cost him plenty. He did the next best thing. He removed from his MyKad all extraneous inforMation and today it contains only what is the bare minimum.

THE BIRD FLU, ONE of sixteen strains of the HN virus, has been known for a century. One strain killed six million people in the afterMath of the First World War, but most have lied dormant or would not mutate to affect humans worldwide. The bird flu is in our minds, and we rush to get ourselves and our children infected against it for no reason than to make the pharmaceutical companies rich and the Western countries their peace of mind. The present attitude is that others can die but the Westerner should not. The Tamiflu antitode has not been tested. It is a vaccine to be used only after the bird flu strikes. But hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on the vaccine, controlled panic has been spread throughout the world on what could happen, but the aim is to ensure that no American is dead by the strain. Fifty Asians and Africans have been killed, but it does not Matter. No Westerner has been killed. And no one should die. So bird flu has got into the APEC discussions, and its members, the majority of its members are Asian, have allowed the bird flu into the discussions. But this is part of evolution. The Aids virus was once carried by monkeys, but one strain of it has mutated to affect humans. It was also part of the US biological warfare. And the Americans got infected, and they were homosexual and lived in California. It took the place of bird flu then. It became a world wide fear of AIDS. But we do not hear of it now. Nor has the non- Western countries taken the necessary health measures to make their concern real.

THE CHINESE TOURISTS ARE not coming to Malaysia. It has dropped to 49 per cent less, if you compare the statistics with the traffic in the first six months of 2004 and 2005, and to 65 per cent less, if you compare the figures of the first nine months of last year and this. As the tourism minister and his officials plan to go to China and find out why, the result for the decline is in the Malaysian newspapers. The police stripped four Chinese national women, three of them married to Malaysian citizens, after they were arrested for not having papers on them, the mainstream newspapers said. The tourism minister and his team need not go to China now. The people who Matter know why. Pak Lah says nice things of China at the APEC summit in Busan, South Korea. But Chinese government will not encourage its citizens to visit Malaysia to be harassed. It is as simple as that. The herd mentality is at work, the Malaysians say, but the effect is 65 per cent tourist traffic in nine months. The Chinese have voted with their feet. The Malaysian government is feeling the pinch. The government officials say that the visitors engage in illegal activities, but they cannot prove the Chinese do. In any case, all tourists should not be targetted for the few guilty ones. But the Chinese can show their citizens are badly treated by government officials. The Malaysian newspapers carried stories of the police stripping women Chinese citizens, three of them married to Malaysians. What is worse is that the chief of police has promised an investigation, and then the policemen punished. But the prime minister has not acted swiftly as he must. In normal circumstances. he should already have removed the OCPD for the district, and the police men put on trial if there is any truth in the claim. He must find out why Chinese tourists do not come here, and take steps to defuse the already explosive situation. He has done nothing so far.

APEC LEADERS MEETING IN Busan, South Korea, discussed, among other subjects, bird flu. Less people die a year of bird flu than a day in the United States of car accident deaths. Indeed, more people die of car accidents around the world, even in APEC, in a day than bird flu in a year; police and military brutality around the world is much serious and prevalent than bird flu, but we do not see APEC, or any regional or international body, discussing it. The world spins on corruption, and it affects us all; yet the Matter is not discussed seriously in any international forum. To ensure that corruption will not be brought to court, laws are passed, in every country, to make that more difficult. Bird flu is a laboratory disease that has escaped the coop. As Aids was. The AIDS campaign is over. But how many people have died of AIDS throughout the world in the years we have been warned against it. APEC essentially is a regional body in which the United States, China and Russia is in the same forum. It is their agenda that the rest of APEC accepts. It gives officials a chance to spend public money living it up in foreign countries, even if it was not plain sailing in Busan. Riots and public protests made it inconvenient there, but they were coccooned half-a-mile away in their fortress-like hotels. I have attended many such meetings, and not only APEC, and in countries around the region. But all these international meetings ensure that the divide between the rulers and the ruled at home are wide apart. In a few countries, this is noticed, and the people retaliate.

In today's Malaysia, those who were important in the past are not now. Who ordered that Tun Ghafar be measured for his coffin? Why was it necessary to dig his grave while he was still alive. Admitted he is in very poor health, and taken in an ambulance to London, and after he was coMatose. He is now in the Pantai hospital. Almost any one who reaches high position in Malaysia will wear charms to ward off their enemies. I travelled with a cabinet minister into the bondooks more than twenty five years ago, found this out at first hand. Five star appointments, let alone sufficient rooms, are not available, and in one rural town, we ended up in the same room. I noticed the minister was wearing charms. He explained to me why he was waring it. It did not help him in all circumstances, but it saved him from the most violent backstabbing in the UMNO supreme council. Almost everyone, including the non-Malay men in the cabinet, wear charms to ward off their rivals. It all depends on the power of the 'master'. So different 'masters' are consulted. In one famous incident, the state executive councillor could only be killed over water. He took great pains to not even go to Singapore. He was murdered over a stream!

But in this inforMation war, the enemy is stupid, reacts to what the Americans do, and cannot think or act on their own. But they are not. The Americans thought Ho Chi Minh stupid. But and his advisers, one of whose books on guerilla warfare is taught in military schools in France and the United States. They blame them for not fighting set piece battles. But they will not. In guerila warfare, they fight when the enemy is not looking. Any damage it causes is victory for them. Ho Chi Minh wrote poetry in his free time while he was leading the guerilla warfare or as President of North Vietnam or as President of Vietnam. Osama bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian son of privilege who exchange a cave for a big house, and riches for poverty. He is obviously a strategist. The Americans recruited him to drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, and gave him weapons and everything needed. But Osama had a different aim. And that aim he is perfecting. The more the West particularly the Americans blame him for their difficulty in Iraq or in the Middle East, the more his support grows. He remains intractibly opposed to the West, has touched base with the poor Muslims around the world in which the Muslim leaders are supportive of American global war on terrorism. Malaysia's rather harsh words on the bombing of Amman is a case in point.

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