MGG Pillai Commentary View

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Is Malaysia involved in the transfer of nuclear technology to Muslim nations?

THE MORE THE MALAYSIAN government nervously insists it is not involved in Pakistan's plan to spread its nuclear technology to Muslim nations, the less it is believed. It is nervous because the blame is laid at the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's door. A company controlled by his son, Mr Kamaludin Abdullah, supplied the centrifuge units, to Pakistan specifications, to intermediaries who delivered it to Iran, Libya, perhaps others. After several days of stonewalling and embarrassment, Pak Lah is relieved that his son's company is cleared of "any wrongdoing or collaboration with illegal" international nuclear arms syndicates. He said "the outcome of police investigations proved that the allegations of certain segments of the foreign press against the company in Malaysia was unfounded", the New Straits Times reported on 09 February 2004. He did not want to say much, since his son's company is involved. But he has. He does not address if Malaysia is involved, only that he is "relieved" the foreign press reports on it is unfounded. Is that the issue in this affair? Why should wrong and false foreign press reports cause so much anguish if all was above board? And more important, why Malaysia? The centrifuge units can be used for a variety of applications, is widely used in the oil and gas industry in Malaysia, but is an important element in nuclear technology.

Underscoring this is the larger vision of the former Prime Minister, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, one I have no qualms over, of the Third World asserting its rights over attempts by the industrialised world, in the name of globalisation, to keep it in permanent subjugation as hewers of wood and carriers of water. It is the most pernicious since Western domination started with the arrival of Vasco da Gama in Calicut, India, in 1498. Tun Mahathir saw that clearly, and forcefully articulated it in the forums of the world. As he thought through his ideas, he focussed his attention at the Muslim world, and as he prepared to leave office in October last year, his concerns were more of the Muslim world, and its millennial confrontation with Christianity, which began in 1089, with Pope Urban II and the first Crusades. That confrontation is not over. When the subjugated Third World had intellectuals who thought through the fate of their nations throught an alternate confrontation, it challenged the status quo. Islam replaced communism as the new enemy. Any development in Islam was seen as a threat. But the oil that fueled Western growth was abundant in the Muslim countries. So it had be involved. But the new thinking permeated upwards to the governments of these nations. Pakistan exploded her nuclear devices, to keep in tune with India but as a Muslim nation, found its reach the more in the Muslim world. It quietly offered her nuclear weapons expertise to like-minded Muslim nations, linking with those who could help. Malaysia was one. The Pakistan nuclear hero, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, is not alone in this. If it had been, Tun Mahathir would not have given him the time of day.

Let us look at the state of play in South Asia at the turn of the millennium. Washington shifted its support from Islamabad to New Delhi, forcing Pakistan leaders to justify what it was once taken for granted. Afghanistan was firmly in Western hands, the last victory of the Cold War, the Taliban, supported no doubt at Washington's request but which it continued after the war. The rise of the Muslim parties threw Washington's goodwill in Islamabad at risk. The destruction of the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in 2001 changed the confrontational world view from the Soviet Union and communism to Islam and Osama bin Laden. But on the basis of what is known, or rather published, it does appear that Dr Khan's activities could not have gone the way it did if it was not approved. The Pakistan armed forces is in control of its nuclear weapons programme. It would not allow a rogue scientist of even national acclaim to do what Dr Khan did. It did not. He was forced to take the blame, but for one who, if the charges against him are true, is guilty of treason is let off with a light slap on his wrist. There is more to it than meets the eye. Dr Khan could not have sold his wares to North Korea without official authority, even if it is for the money it would bring in.

It is in this context, it now appears, that Dr Khan made several trips to Malaysia. Officials insist he saw no high ranking official. But the Pakistan high commissioner in Malaysia at the time, Lieut-Gen. Naseem Rana, a former head of the Inter Services Intelligences, would arrange appointments for lesser officials, even on holiday here, with their counterparts in Malaysia. It would defy logic he did not for one as eminent as Dr Khan in his several visits during his tenure here. However much Pak Lah protests now, his son's company would not have gone into it without some official assurances, though not for what it is used for. The company, SCOMI, was then prepared for listing on the Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange, and neither it, nor its subsidiaries, would have looked at gift horses in the mouth. There is nothing wrong in this. If SCOPE, the SCOMI subsidiary at the centre of the storm, would not, there would be others happy to do so. It was a legitimate deal, and it should have stopped there.

But 11 September 2001 frightens many a Muslim world nation faced with an international confrontation with its Islamicists to follow the syariah and Washington's unilateral assertion that if it did, it is an enemy in the global war against terror. Washington effectively sidelined Tun Mahathir in his last year in office. Pak Lah needed Washington's support and backing to keep his Islamicists, led by the Opposition PAS, at bay. So, when this centrifuge crisis blew into the open, he and his government panicked. There is a reason for this. He is not yet annointed the Prime Minister. He must show he is in control. He is angry that this crisis makes him defend what should not be. He sees shadows where there are none. When this hit him as he marked his first 100 days in office, it damaged him more than he bargained. Not for what he did, but for his nervousnessness when the crisis hit his family. Foreign reporters are flown in, given interviews, taken on a tour of the centrifuge factory in Shah Alam, and their reports published in local newspapers as proof they are right. How? The underlying questions remain unanswered.

For the importance of Washington's accusations is in its civilisational arrogance, to extend the crusades by other means, to keep the Third World in check, prevent it from ever challenging the Christianised world. Turkey is a European country when its soldiers offer their lives in the defence of Europe, as a member of Nato, but not when this Islamic nation wants to be a member of the EU. Only Christian nations are invited to join. Cyprus, an island divided by its Greeks and Turks, is told it can join the EU if its two halves could unite as one nation by May. Why is Eire in the EU when its northern half is in conflict with it, the main cause being the variant of Christianity practiced there? Pak Lah and his government does not understand this, nor take steps to avert the crisis. All one can surmise from his crisis is that there is more to this than is let out. Malaysia is not a nuclear nation. It does not have the wherewithal for it. We do not have a concerted programme in developing nuclear technology, nor do we allocate resources for its development. Its policies inhibit it. So it jumps to any one who can provide a short cut. Tun Mahathir realised it, did not see any harm in helping out another Muslim nation achieves its aim. Pak Lah probably was not even aware of it. He reacts one who did not know. That does not mean Malaysia does not, when it can, help in transferring nuclear technology to Muslim nations. The nervousness stems from that, not for what SCOPE did.

[This is my column in the latest issue of Harakah, the fortnightly organ of Parti Islam Malaysia (PAS), out today, 10 February 2004]

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com