ECRL ‘most likely’ to cover up 1MDB scandal, says Jomo
Hence what Jomo said is ‘most likely’ the scenario going by kelazimannya. Anyway, Jomo said he can’t reveal any details because they need to keep some secrets which they can use in the negotiations with China and try to get the compensation China is asking for reduced to a more reasonable level such as RM20 billion or RM30 billion.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
Memali was a smokescreen to cover the split in Umno
In 1985, Umno was in trouble. Deputy Prime Minister Tun Musa Hitam and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah were clashing and Umno was badly split, threatening go drag Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad himself into the fray.
Hence Mahathir asked Musa to trigger the Memali crisis that killed 18 people.
Operasi Lalang was yet another smokescreen
Two years later in 1987, the Umno crisis got worse. This time Musa and Razaleigh teamed up against Mahathir and Umno was split into Team A and Team B.
So Mahathir triggered Operasi Lalang and arrested 119 people.
In the 1990s, Bank Negara was in trouble because it had lost RM31.5 billion gambling on the foreign exchange market. So, Mahathir arranged for Tajuddin Ramli to buy over MAS to create ‘paper profits’ to camouflage Bank Negara’s disastrous losses.
That was why Jomo Kwame Sundaram said it is most likely the ECRL was started to cover 1MDB’s losses (READ HERE: ECRL likely an attempt to cover up 1MDB scandal, says Jomo). This is because this is what Malaysia usually does and is what Mahathir would have done.
For example, Mahathir had known for many years that Anwar Ibrahim is an arse-bandit. Mahathir himself said he had known about it for years. But he only raised the issue on 1st September 1998 and not, say five years earlier, because Anwar was about to make his move to oust him and take over as Prime Minister.
Hence what Jomo said is ‘most likely’ the scenario going by kelazimannya. Anyway, Jomo said he can’t reveal any details because they need to keep some secrets which they can use in the negotiations with China and try to get the compensation China is asking for reduced to a more reasonable level such as RM20 billion or RM30 billion.
