The billions in Saudi money that Mahathir and Anwar also received
Saudi Arabia financed 20% of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In fact, Saudi Arabia has always financed both sides, the Republicans and the Democrats. And the US is not the only country that Saudi Arabia pours money into while Najib is not the first Malaysian Prime Minister to receive Saudi money. It is just that Mahathir is not also telling us how much he received when he was PM while Anwar, too, received a lot of money even before he joined Umno in 1982.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Anwar Ibrahim has been closely linked to Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Youssef al-Qaradawi since his pre-Umno days
Back in 2015 Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said he does not believe that the Arabs would be so generous as to donate RM2.6 billion to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak. Actually the Arabs are more generous than that and they have been so for 40 years since the 1970s. In fact, Mahathir himself has benefited from such donations, as has Anwar Ibrahim even before he joined Umno in 1982.
Saudi Arabia has a policy of buying friends all over the world and it spends billions doing this. It especially needs friends like Malaysia, Sunni countries that are anti-Shia. The Saudis would spend whatever it costs to promote Sunni Islam and to isolate or demonise Shia Islam. And Malaysia fits that bill perfectly.
Let us review some of the reports that have been published about this matter.
Mahathir and Anwar built this with Arab money
In November 2004, Leo Barasi from Oxford University wrote a paper titled ‘Saudi Arabia’s humanitarian aid: a political takeover?’, where he said:
Saudi Arabia has one of the largest humanitarian aid budgets in the world. The three most prominent Saudi charities, the Saudi Red Crescent (SRC), the IIRO and al Haramain, are closely linked to the royal family. Other charities have greater financial independence, but still remain associated with the royal family. The General Supervisor of each of these committees is Prince Naif, the Interior Minister and another full brother of King Fahd.
The full scope of the work of Saudi charities is difficult to trace accurately since they do not have a tradition of formally reporting their activities. However, anecdotal evidence indicates that both IIRO and al Haramain were active throughout Africa and Asia until 2003. At least until the mid-1990s, the IIRO was seeking to be impartial in its aid provision. More recently, it has worked principally in Muslim-dominated countries.
“Be that as it may, the kingdom is one of the top donors in the world and has been so since the 1970s. In fact, and according to the UN Statistical Report for 2014, Riyadh was the sixth largest donor worldwide. More than 90 countries benefited from this largesse, including Sri Lanka and India,” said Dr Joseph A. Kechichian on 31st August 2016, author of the just-published book From Alliance to Union: Challenges Facing Gulf Cooperation Council States in the Twenty-First Century (Sussex: 2016).
Saudi Arabia financed more than 20% of the cost of Hillary Clinton’s campaign for presidential elections, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was quoted as saying in a news report by the Jordanian Petra News Agency on 13th June 2016.
“Saudi Arabia has always sponsored both Republican and Democratic Parties of America and the kingdom also provides with full enthusiasm 20% of the cost of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in the U.S. presidential elections despite the fact that some influential forces within the country don’t have a positive look toward supporting the candidate because she is a woman,” the agency’s report quoted Prince Mohammed as saying.
Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman
As recently as two years ago, Saudi Arabia’s half century-long effort to establish itself as the main power among Arab and Islamic states looked as if it was succeeding. A US State Department paper sent by former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, in 2014 and published by Wikileaks spoke of the Saudis and Qataris as rivals competing “to dominate the Sunni world”. (Independent UK, 7 Jan 2017)
On Thursday, the US administration offered Saudi Arabia $115 billion in arms sales. The proposal, which includes training, weapons, tanks and other war equipment, is the highest during Washington’s decades-long alliance with the monarchy. Jatras says the arms sales figures show the level of corruption in the United States, adding that the Riyadh regime spends money on a lobbying campaign to “buy political influence” among American policy makers. (Press TV, 9 Sep 2016)
Saudi Arabia’s monarchs are “bestowing” lavish gifts upon US President Barack Obama and his associates in a bid to buy more influence in the White House, an American political analyst says. According to the latest annual accounting report by the US State Department, the former Saudi Arabian King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and other high-ranking Saudi officials showered the Obamas with more than $1.3 million in gifts throughout 2014. (Press TV, 30 Nov 2015)
Faisal bin Hassan Trad, the permanent representative of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations Office in Geneva, said the Kingdom has been the most generous country in the world in the field of development and humanitarian aid over the past four decades. “Saudi Arabia donated, during this period, more than $115 billion to more than 90 countries all over the world,” said the Saudi ambassador to the UN. (Arab News, 5 Oct 2015)
