Malaysia’s Mahathir Defends Sarawak Chieftain
Charges of looting Sarawak could just be electioneering, he says
(Asia Sentinel) – Malaysia’s former Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, has defended Sarawak’s embattled chief minister, Abdul Taib Mahmud, questioning calls by international NGOs for investigations of Taib’s vast fortune.
“When an election is near, you get funny things like this coming out,” Mahathir told reporters at a press conference Tuesday. “If it is just a political game to try and undermine somebody’s political image then I think it is not right.”
If the allegations are true, the 86-year-old Mahathir said, the authorities could be expected to take action. In May, Swiss authorities announced they were investigating accounts held in Swiss banks by the Taib family for evidence of corruption. Shortly after that, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission announced it would also investigate Taib’s holdings, although observers in Kuala Lumpur said it was unlikely that the MACC would follow through, Indeed, one source told Asia Sentinel recently that the investigation had “gone cold.” A Taib spokesman said the funds had been legitimately deposited and that there was no evidence of criminality.
Many political observers expect Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to call national elections in the early part of 2012, possibly in March. Sarawak, the country’s largest state, is key to efforts by the Barisan Nasional, the country’s ruling national coalition, to maintain a healthy majority in parliament. Both Najib and Mahathir earlier this year reportedly tried to dissuade the scandal-ridden chief minister to quit before state elections.
When Taib refused to step down, both had to criss-cross the state, campaigning for Taib’s coalition. However, the coalition produced a two-thirds majority in the state assembly. Although he had publicly offered to step down, the magnitude of the victory impelled him to stay in power.
Mahathir’s defense of Taib was generated by the fact that on Tuesday, NGOs from six different countries issued a joint letter demanding that Malaysia’s sultan appoint a royal commission of inquiry and that authorities arrest and prosecute Taib and 13 members of his family for massive fraud, theft, corruption, illegal appropriation of land and abuse of public office. They allege that the looting of Sarawak’s rich timber and other natural resources has earned Taib’s family billions of US dollars through investment in as many as 400 companies in 25 countries.
They also demanded that a multi-agency task force be appointed to attempt to repatriate the vast sums from other countries to the people of Sarawak.
Research released earlier this month by the Switzerland-based Bruno Manser Fund said official documents show the Taib family stake in 14 Malaysian companies alone is worth US$1.46 billion. The fund has uploaded all of the documents onto the Internet. They can be found here. Billions more are believed to be held in other countries.
The fund said its research only covers publicly available information from Malaysia’s Registry of Companies and other official documents and the total of all of the Taib family’s holdings could run well in excess of that amount.
“Not counting their more hidden wealth, this puts the Taib family firmly into the category of one of the richest families in the world and makes them far richer than the Queen of England (whose assets are a mere half billion pounds),” the fund said.
In all, according to the fund, named for a Swiss environmentalist who disappeared in Sarawak in 2000 while trying to aid the Penan tribe, the family also has stakes in companies in Australia (22 companies), Bermuda (1), the British Virgin Islands (7), Brunei (1), Cambodia (1), Canada (9), the Cayman Islands (1), Fiji (3), Hong Kong (7), India (2), Indonesia (3), Jersey (1), the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (1), Labuan (1), New Zealand (5), the People’s Republic of China (2), the Philippines (1), Singapore (2), Sri Lanka (1), Thailand (2), the United Arab Emirates (1), the United Kingdom (4), the United States of America (6) and Vietnam (1).
