Najib Waffles Over MH17 Disaster

By admin-s On Jul 22, 2014

(Asia Sentinel) – Lurking in the background of all this is Najib’s fear of the Mahathir faction within UMNO which would like to unseat him. Following the old man, these believe, or purport to believe, all kinds of theories

Has Malaysia been frightened into silence?

The global criticism that Malaysia and particularly Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak and Defense Minister Hishamuddin Hussein received four months ago for their handling of the disappearance of MH 370 appears to have frightened them into near silence.

It would have been expected that, like the Dutch, Australians and others, they would have been boiling over with anger at the shooting down of MH 17 over eastern Ukraine. But instead of outrage, instead of joining the global chorus of condemnation of what the Dutch, like the whole of Europe, know to have been the responsibility at least indirectly, of Russia through its arming of the Ukraine rebels with sophisticated weapons, there has been almost complete silence from Malaysia’s leaders.

In a July 21 statement, Najib appeared to try to defend himself from allegations of inaction by saying that the silence was necessary to try to secure a deal with the rebels for the return of the bodies before the end of Ramadan and of the “black box” flight recorders, and the entry of independent international inspectors who could establish more precisely the causes of the disaster and hence assign blame more precisely.

In fact, Malaysia’s involvement in behind-the-scenes bargaining with the rebels was very much second fiddle to the Dutch, who not only suffered the most deaths in the crash but were also better equipped to examine the evidence. Yet the Dutch showed no signs of letting their desire to negotiate the return of bodies get in the way of strong backing for European Union sanctions against Russia, predicated on the belief by all the EU members that Russia was ultimately responsible via its surrogates in eastern Ukraine, and perhaps more directly.

The failure of Najib to criticize Russia demands explanation. He has hidden behind the fiction that only independent international experts can assign responsibility. In doing so the Malaysian leader has given some credence to the Russian claim that Ukraine itself was responsible. That almost no one else, other than the usual gang of anti-western conspiracy theorists, believes that makes Najib seem at best a weak leader fearful of causing offense to Russia despite the huge blow to the nation as well as to the families of the Malaysian bereaved caused by the destruction of MH 17. It is a weakness that since the 2013 general elections has telegraphed through a wide range of Malaysian domestic politics including his refusal to take on the Sultan of Johor, who is busy taking over the state despite constitutional limitations that theoretically render him a ceremonial leader.