MGG Pillai Commentary View

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A murder in Hartamas confounds Pak Lah's commitment to law and order

THE POLICE WOULD LIKE to interview an UMNO cabinet minister's son about the murder of a 23-year-old man out on the night with his girlfriend. Not because he is involved, you understand. Just an interview since he was around in the morning hours of 06 July 2004 when the hapless Darren Kang was murdered in an altercation. He was to have met the police a few days ago, but he did not.

Why he did not is not the issue. Why the police did not march into his house and arrest him – as it would happen to any of us unconnected with power or has parents connected to power – is. Especially since he is firmly in the camp of the internal security minister, who as prime minister, wants UMNO to elect him president because he will return the country to what it was before his predecessor, Tun Mahathir Mohamed, messed it up.

If it is the law of the jungle, then of course he is right. But is it the law of the jungle that we head for? It does look now as if it is. Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi would surely know who this cabinet minister is. He would do this country much good if he orders the man to ensure his son is at the police station immediately.

When a son of privilege can flout the law with impunity – the gossip and rumour is that papa has sent his beloved son abroad; this may or may not be true, but the tongue has no backbone and every spread of the rumour or gossip is embellished with the telling – it is not enough to let it go. The man could well be innocent. But the important thing is that the police want to interview him, and it is his duty to present himself. Especially if he, as he is, a son of privilege.

If Pak Lah wants to enshrine his administration as one of law, this gives him a good opportunity to show it. He has yet to rise up to the bait. He has kept quiet. The police flounder their way through with irrelevalent explanations why they want to interview him. But this is common police practice. Those at the scene of the crime are asked to give their statements to the police. It does not implicate him.

Unfortunately, that is now how the police view those they interview. It should not be forgotten that the good samaritan who took the dying Darren Kang to hospital faced a harrowing six-hour ordeal at the hands of the police. This is why the people do not want to be involved when they see crime committed before their eyes. It is too much hassle, with the frightening risk of being accused of what they came to report.

The government's sudden interest in snatch thieves raised much heat but little help. It allowed the people to form vigilantes to catch the snatch thieves. It turned out to be a lynch party with the licence to pummel a suspect. The people are fed up with police inaction, their complaints and pleas ignored, and unresolved. The off-the-cuff statement of vigilante justice is modified on the run, until the issue gets off the newspapers, and consigned to inaction.

The presence of uniformed policemen walking the streets makes wonder for a crime-free environment. Thieves, snatch thieves and others would not act if the men in blue make their rounds. As it is, the policemen are conspicious by their absence. They are no where to be seen. In the Brickfields area of Kuala Lumpur, where I live, I have yet to see a policeman in the several police posts.

The traffic police make their regular rounds twice a day – about 11 am and 4 pm – to issue parking tickets. And of course at the beginning and end of the months, when they are especially active. We know why, but we shall give them the benefit of the doubt. When you want a policeman, you must go to the Brickfields police station, where another all but insurmountable obstacle awaits you.

How many crimes, including murders, are unresolved, although when it occurs, the newspapers scream for justice? Once the cases are no more of interest, they are ignored. This case of Darren Kang is about to be another. The mainstream newspapers would play this down for two reasons: it redounds on Pak Lah and one of his cabinet ministers. They would allow the public to let off steam, and then as quickly vanish from ever mentioning it.

When police work is non-existent, when police officers see no reason why they should be part of a system which would ensure law and order so the residents can live in peace, when the police tell those living in affluent neighbourhoods that they must look after their own security, when the police form special squads to take care of security at embassies and those in the rich and super-rich neighbourhoods, one wonders why and what the police is there for.

They exist, as we now know, so the enemies and critics of the prime minister and his administration are denied their right to complain. They can complain, of course, but their actions would not be entertained. Look at the hundreds of police reports filed about corruption and other malfeasances of law, which are then ignored because it refers to those at the top of the civil and National Front (BN) politics. But let there be a complaint against an enemy or critic, and the police redouble their efforts to make sure he is in jail.

In other words, the police have become the strong-arm division of the prime minister's world. The deputy prime minister needs to be destroyed. A whisper into the Inspector-General's ears, and he does the honors of beating him to an inch of his life while he is handcuffed, manacled and blindfolded before he is carted off to jail and after a trial that turns out to be a sham with each passing day.

When what the police stands for is devalued in this way, the people lose interest in the police as guardians of the law. A corollary to this is the police, with this now established, will ignore, and indeed harrass them, as is now happening. It is no surprise that the cabinet minister's son thumbs his nose at the police, and Pak Lah keeps quiet about it. The police know their power and when to put the pressure, even on Pak Lah. This is why Pak Lah cannot afford to keep quiet. For, in the end, he might win the battle of the UMNO president but lose the war of running a divided government in hostile surroundings.

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