Just because Mahathir believes it, doesn’t make it true
The wheels came off her attacks on Taib long ago, not because he is clean but because she lied about the evidence. Why believe her now? Because Dr Mahathir tells you should?
Winifred Poh, BlogTakes
I am rather worried by those who would wish to ban or block Clare Rewcastle-Brown and her Sarawak Report. Her writings and those of her colleagues at the Bruno Manser Fund are an entertainment and an education for Malaysians. Buy that book by the Bruno Manser Fund (well, borrow a copy… and read it carefully). You need to decide whether this very slick team is to be trusted. And the answer is there.
Admittedly, I don’t think Ms Rewcastle intends to be as funny as she is. But when you look hard enough, you can see the joke. My only concern is that the joke is probably on us. You see, thanks to Dr Mahathir and his BN colleagues, we have not been afforded the privilege of an evolving free press, so we choose between the easy-chew soft nonsense served up to us by Malaysia’s traditional press, or the unrelenting attacks by a rabid Internet campaign that pretends to be objective.
I don’t yet know what to make of the 1MDB scandal, except that it shows up a government unpractised in political crisis management. And until we hear a full, unbiased, professional analysis from the Auditor General, I would reserve judgment. It is obvious that the attackers cannot wait for this report, and are baying for the removal of the Government NOW. Why the hurry, when the matter is clearly so complex that the accusers don’t understand much of what they write? Why not let the matter play out and watch BN write its own epitaph? I am sorry, but the attackers are people who mislead when they ask for clarity, who confuse and distort when they act for honesty. So I don’t trust them.
But it is legitimate now to look at the integrity of the people baying for blood, as we are asked to take on trust so many unsubstantiated rumours and “sources”.
Well, let’s deal with Dr Mahathir first. I know he is wildly popular with many of my countrymen, but it is an enthusiasm that I can’t share. The idea that he should lecture anyone on corruption in government is comic, and yet the Western press that has loathed him for years, largely lets him off the hook. Why haven’t the opposition condemned him? Why are they not howling with contempt? Why so shy? Why, when for once we have an opportunity, do we fall back on the crude morality of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend?” The Malaysian people deserve a better government. But we deserve a much better opposition.
Now let’s look at Clare Rewcastle. It is a disgrace to our illusion of an integrated nation that most Malaysians barely know that she has a track record of years of peddling vicious personal attacks on the Sarawak government. We barely focus on the fact that she ran a national radio station in the run up to GE13. And most of all, we barely focus on her record for abusing the truth because of her political aims. I don’t see, incidentally, any reason to believe that she is doing it for the money. I think the current phrase is for “personal gain”. But her bitter response to Raja Petra Kamarudin recently concentrated on her house finances, not on the question we should be asking: Who funds and directs her campaigns? If she is as poor as she makes out, well, we know that she can’t afford to do it herself.
Ms Rewcastle Brown seems to be rather bitter about me, too. This is because I have studied her campaign that she ran with the Bruno Manser Fund, and have found that they diverted a legitimate debate on the future of Sarawak into a vendetta against Taib.
They have achieved nothing for Sarawak. Taib’s chosen heir is in power, with most of his government and all of his policies, and doing so well in public opinion that we are constantly told he would run an early state election. Why – after this unprecedented onslaught, did this happen?
Why does the FBI continue (according to BMF) to lease space from a company controlled by Taib’s sons? Why did the Japanese tax authorities investigate and reject the claims they made about a multi-billion timber corruption ring? Why did the Swiss government twice investigate the Taib’s ‘holdings’ in Switzerland on the basis of accusations by Sarawak Report and Bruno Manser Fund, and twice declare the allegations baseless. Why does the Canadian financial giant Manulife continue to operate, unhindered by law enforcement, when Rewcastle released documents that she said so clearly showed that they were money launderers?
