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Should we count our blessings the Reformasi 6 are released?

THE MALAYSIAN GOVERNMENT HAS ORDERED the 'Reformasi 6' be freed from detention under the Internal Security Act. The two-year detention order expired this month. The Home Ministry, in its wisdom, had extended the order, but in a scene of high drama, in hurried consultations between the minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, on 31 May, when he arrived from a week's holiday in Perth, and his secretary-general, reversed it and ordered them freed with no conditions attached. Normally those released from preventive detention have to to report regularly, usually weekly, to the police for mnonths and years, and often have conditions attached to their release.

The haste shows. Four were ordered released the next day; two more should be on 12 June. One, Saari Sungib, the alleged leader of an Islamic fundamentalist group out to destroy the Malaysian government, came out breathing fire and brimstone, telling the world nothing had changed, and he is back in the political fray from which he was seized two years ago. The Police however, denied of their pound of flesh, drags its feet and insist cannot be released until bail is posted for the several criminal charges against them, which led to their detention under the ISA in the first place.

The courts declared their initial police arrests to be flawed. The government-sponsored Human Rights Commission, thought to so too, and recently called for their release. But the Home Ministry ignored it, and ordered them detained. ad called for their release. The police, denied its pound of flesh, insist they cannot be released until they post bail over several police charges against for disturbing the peace, which led to their detention in the first place. But the law is the law, insists its guardians, and the charade continues. So the film-maker Hishamuddin Rais and the Keadilan vice-president, Tien Chua, remain in jail while the niceties are sorted out. One, the Keadilan youth chief, Mohamed Ezam Mohamed Noor, had earlier been convicted and jailed for two years for breaches of the Official Secrets Act, remains in jail. Dr Badrulamin Bahrom and Lokman Nor Ahmad expect to be released on 12 June.

But what surprised me was the comment of the Suhakam commissioner, Prof. Dato' Hamdan Adnan, that while Suhakam was opposed to any detention without trial, he was neverthess thankful to the Home Ministry and the police for their "right decision" in releasing the four. Why? Their detentions were illegal, the Home Ministry was not about to release them but had to so the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, would not face unncessary flak from the G8 nations over how he treated his political opponents. Why is Dato' Hamdan thankful? Because the Home Ministry and the police acted illegally? That they released them even when they did not want to? For realising that they could not but set them free? If he believes in what he says, he should have castigated them for what they did.

The Reformasi 6 were detained for their support of the jailed former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. He is jailed not for the crimes he allegedly committed - sodomy and corruption, none of which was proven in court, and the cases against him flawed when the man who accused him refused to appear in court and the courts agreed he need not. In a feudal system as ours, the Prime Minister, for it is he who accused him of what he would not come to court and repeat, cannot be seen to lose to a lesser being. The courts understand this well, and would not make him lose face. It was clear from the first day of his arrest that he would spend years in jail for crimes that could not proven. The Reformasi 6 is a consequence of that injustice.

The government would not accept it, but it must address it. The release of the Reformasi 6 is one more evidence of that. UMNO destroys itself from within, a direct consequence of its president's injustice to the deputy president. The succession is in doubt although Dato' Seri Abdullah Badawi will succeed Dr Mahathir in October. The Anwar hurt energised the Malay community, and today many cabinet ministers and UMNO MPs dare not even visit their constituencies.

In one sense, Dato' Hamdan is right. We ought to be thankful to the Home Ministry and the police for their insistence that they exist to protect the BN government, and ordered the crackdown of any who disagreed with that. Because of that, the Malaysians have learnt that their rights have been curtailed, and their rights as citizens there only in name, and only if they use that right to be cheer leaders for the government. But is that what citizenship is all about? The Home Ministry and the police helped in that turnaround. And for that, in a backhanded way, we ought to be thanks and indeed grateful.

That they continue to means neither learnt from their mistakes. This led to a leaderless and rudderless UMNO. Its president has neither the focus nor the desire to turn it around but he wants to be in total control; the deputy prime minister is trapped in a power vaccuum and makes him seem a lesser man than he undoubtedly is. UMNO members are in doubt and fear, and drift to other parties, notably PAS and Keadilan. The Gordian's Knot of the Anwar problem no one would dare confront.

But it must come to a head before long. Dr Mahathir wanted the Reformasi 6 released for an easier passage at Evian. Would he eat his words yet again when he hosts the OIC Putrajaya Summit in October if some Middle Eastern countries where he is not as popular as Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim is? Would he succumb to foreign pressure, as he did over the Reformasi 6, and decide he can, but not Malaysia as a whole? There is more to the release of the Reformasi 6 than meets the eye.

[I wrote this for my column in Seruad KeADILan, the organ of Parti KeADILan Nasional, in its latest issue, out today, 10 June 2003]

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@mgg.pc.my