MGG Pillai Commentary View

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The Malaysian government in disarray

THE PRIME MINISTER, DATO' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi (Pak Lah) is furious with his deputy internal security minister, Dato' Noh Omar for having said that foreigners could go home if they thought Malaysia was cruel. But he does not drop the deputy minister from his government. He dare not, for Dato' Noh and his supporters may join his opponents in UMNO, which has the power in the National Front government. The home affairs minister, Dato' Azmi Khalid, who had to postpone his visit to China from yesterday to 20 December 2005, blames 'negative press reports". He makes a slur on the Chinese government, which the previous day had protested against Malaysia ill- treating its citizens. The Malaysian public is blamed, and anyone else, if only to tell the world that it is not the government's fault. The Malaysian Government illtreats its citizens and they keep quiet. Those from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Vietnam are, but their governments keep quiet; so it assumed wrongly China would too. Malaysia supports, or vaccilates in public about its departments and agencies illtreating the Chinese tourists, and cannot admit that it has done wrong. In this first crisis of its making, it is in dissaray. It thinks it can explain its side of the story, but no one, especially the Malaysian public, believes it. The foreigners, especially China, disbelieves it. The mainstream newspapers in Malaysia, which by and large is the National Front's public relations machine, has carried articles of police and immigration manhandled foreign tourists. The National Front government has no case, but acts as if it has. It could ask its experts to solve the issue, but they are chosen for their political reliability not for their experise.

It is therefore in a quandry. It depends on more tourists from China, but its agencies and departments illtreat them at the airport or once they have entered the country. Malaysia depends on tourists from China. It has built the facilites for them, but about two thirds less have come here compared to last year. Earlier this year, Chinese tourist high rollers refused to visit the casino at Genting Highlands for two days because some of them had been illtreated earlier this year. Genting Highlands Berhad, which owns the casino, lost millions of ringgit plus the daily takings from these tourists for two days. It should have been a warning sign. Instead, the present crisis, which started with a MMS videoclip showing a naked Chinese woman doing a ear squat in PJ District police station. It was against the rules. The Seputeh MP produced the videoclip at Parliament House, and she is investigated by the police on how she got the tape. The secretary-general of the DAP went to jail for helping a Malay woman who was being harassed by the government. There has been conficting public statements, similar to the National Front government statements now. The hope is this would be forgotten. But it would not. Malaysians have been illtreated by the police. The Indians who have got the short shrift when they approached the Malaysian Indian Congress or the People's Progressive Party, as the Chinese when they approached the Malaysian Chinese Association or the Gerakan Rakyat Malaysia. UMNO would not touch it. So the Malaysians badly treated by the police know they have been, their dignity and self respect had been destroyed in the process and they kept quiet. They have been told they are lying at the police abuses they endured a long time ago, as the Chinese tourists have told Chinese mainland newspapers they have also been manhandled by the police.

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.

The Malaysian Government cannot get help from the mainstream media, even if it owned by one or other party of the National Front. Their editors are chosen for their closeness to authority or deemed harmless and would do as he was told. They do not carry much weight with the people, who depend on the alternate media or the internet which usually carries news the National Front government would not rebut, but arrest its editor instead. So its message is disbelieved. As now. If there is a controversial story to write, the newspapers it controls wait for the official news agency, Bernama, and print its version as their own. Often the various newspapers have headline news with a byline but suspiciously close to what Bernama had written. It is only when that report is challenged, that Bernama is put on the firing line. But these media know that it must also get people to buy newspapers, so their exercise their 'independence' by writing police stories against the government. The Chinese nude woman doing ear squats is a police story, after all. As Watergate was in the United States. Today comparisons are made of Malaysian police cells being as bad as Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

The government is tetchy about reports of its failure. Which is why Dato' Noh Omar is not sacked as he should have for what he said of foreigners at the press conference. Pak Lah has asked him to retriact what he said, but would do nothing. China has decided Malaysia will do nothing to sort matters out so that tourists will continue visiting Malaysia. Beijing has acted to make Dato' Azmi Khalid's visit to China a tourist one. Has Malaysia discussed the problem with the Chinese embassy? Probably not. The newspapers did not carry any articles of that. In any case, the foreign ministry is kept under a tight leash, whose advise the government does not take on foreign affairs. If it had, the present crisis would have been solved a long time ago. But the foreign ministry is also subject to the laziness that affects most government departments. Weeks of diplomatic mail piles up in its mail room, because those in charge don't care about it so long as they have as their hidden motto of Ketuanan Melayu (Malay Dominance). Malaysian diplomats are told to telegraph or use the internet to get important messages across. I have written to Malaysian diplomats overseas if intend to visit the capitals they are accredited, but I receive replies after I visited them, in one instance four months after I had travelled. Books purchased for a now retired foreign minister is never sent on the diplomatic mail: I have handcarried many a book for him, and he got then earlier.

There is a lot of movement but no effort to sort the problem out. But it is backward nor forward. It can be sorted out, but there is no will to do so. The National Front government goes into rigor mortis when it is faced with a crisis not with Singapore or Thailand. It does not know what to do then. It cannot ask those who know how to solve it, for it knows it will be rejected. People have offered in the past, but they have been repeatedly rejected, so they look askance at any offer from the government. Now when it needs them, they would not go to their help. Instead, more stories of government agencies manhandling have come to light. The government insists it is right when it is wrong. But that would not get Chinese tourists coming here.

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