Chinese greed for ivory is taking its toll on the African elephant. Credit: Richard Ruggiero/USFWS/CC By 2.0

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR , Aug 12 2013 (IPS)

A distance of nearly 9,000 kilometres separates Malaysia from Africa, but that hasn’t stopped the Southeast Asian nation from becoming a key staging post in the illegal trade of ivory from Africa to China.

“Between June 2011 and March this year, we managed to seize over 10 cases of smuggled ivory,” Khazali Ahmad, director-general of the Malaysian customs department, told IPS.

Close to 50 tonnes of elephant tusk, for which 1,500 elephants would have been killed in Africa, have been recovered in the country since June 2011.

The biggest such haul took place in September of that year, when 695 elephant tusks weighing close to two tonnes were seized in Port Kelang, one of Malaysia’s busiest container ports, 38 km southwest of the capital, Kuala Lumpur.

Two other seizures in January this year from the ports in the northern state of Penang and the southern state of Johore yielded 1.4 tonnes and 492 kg of ivory respectively.

The tusks come hidden under a variety of shipments, be it crates of salted fish, sawn timber or even peanuts. Marked as ‘Export to Malaysia’, local agents, knowingly or unknowingly, declare that the cargo is bound onward to China, making it difficult for the authorities to trace the eventual recipient there. The caches are also accompanied by multiple documents, obfuscating the trail even further.

“All the ivory comes from Africa and is headed towards China,” said Ahmad.

Traditionally, ivory is used to make intricate, expensive collectibles like chopsticks, bookmarks, Chinese cultural figurines as well as ornaments. These find enormous favour with the neo-rich in China as well as among the significant minorities of wealthy people of Chinese descent in outlying countries like Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines. They are willing to pay a considerable price for the objects of their desire.

Consequently, ivory sells at more than 10,000 dollars per tonne in some markets. The humongous profits from the trade go towards sustaining several wars waged by military or rebel groups in central Africa like the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which are compounded by freelance poachers, smugglers and organised crime syndicates across the continent.

“It’s very disheartening,” WWF-Malaysia executive director Dr Dionysius S.K. Sharma told IPS. “The price of ivory is making the situation insane.”

The greed for ivory is taking its toll on the African elephant, whose numbers are declining steadily, so much so that scientists fear the species is becoming close to endangered.

Concern over Malaysia’s role as a transhipment hub for illegal ivory was highlighted for the first time at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in July. Ivory trade is banned under CITES.
The country, a party to the convention since 1975, was asked to report on what action it has taken to address the issue.

Within Malaysia, there is a growing realisation that the recorded seizures could just be the tip of the iceberg. “How much more African ivory is slipping through our ports?” said Kulasegaran Murugesan, a Malaysian lawmaker and a vocal campaigner for wildlife protection.

The question is, he told IPS, “Do we let this happen and blame others for the illegal trade or do we act proactively and decisively to arrest the ivory trade?”

Murugesan is determined to raise the subject in Parliament, and also intends to apply pressure on port operators, customs and wildlife officials to deny international traffickers the use of Malaysian ports.

The officials say there is little they can do, besides tough action at ports and airports, including the use of scanners. Malaysia’s porous borders allow people and goods to come and go as they please, making the country a preferred outpost for traffickers.

Commending the customs department on its vigilance, William Schaedla, the Southeast Asian director of wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC, said they hoped “to see it pursue all leads towards finding the criminals that are using Malaysia as a transit point for ivory.”

“We also urge authorities to ensure proper systems are in place to catalogue and stockpile the seized ivory,” Schaedla told IPS.

Seized ivory must be destroyed publicly, but activists say this has not been done yet. It could well have found its way back into the market.

“We are in the midst of doing an inventory of the ivory seized,” said Malaysian environment minister Palanivel Govindasamy. He added, however, that it was a new thing for them. “We have to develop internationally accepted protocols,” he told IPS. “It will take some time, but we are working on it.”

Malaysia had not had a single ivory seizure in nearly a decade till the middle of 2011. This did not mean there was no ivory passing through its ports and airports, but it did not have the demand that it does today.

There is no demand for ivory in Malaysia itself. “Our people are not willing to pay so much for ivory and the country is absolutely against the illegal trade,” said Ahmad.

So, while Malaysia too has elephants in its jungles and its zoos, there is no trade in elephant tusk. If elephant numbers are dwindling here, it is because of loss of habitat to oil palm, deforestation and the growing hunger for land to cultivate food crops.

Ahmad called for an international initiative, led perhaps by regional trade block ASEAN, to combat ivory trafficking. “We need the best efforts of other countries as well.”

Recently deforested peat land intended for oil palm plantations in Borneo, Indonesia. Credit: glennhurowitz/CC-BY-2.0

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 22 2013 (IPS)

With a propensity to devour everything in their path and spiral quickly out of control, leaving behind swathes of scorched earth, forest fires are considered a hazard in most parts of the world. In Indonesia, however, fires are the preferred method for clearing large areas of land for massive plantations of commercial crops.

In the first half of 2013, research studies have already recorded 8,343 forest fires, a higher number than has been recorded in preceding years.

While some blazes occurred naturally, igniting in the country’s vast rainforests that are transformed in the dry summer months into an expanse of kindling, experts say that many fires were created by plantation companies and, to a lesser extent, by local communities, to clear millions of hectares of jungle land needed for oil palm plantations.

According to the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), oil palm plantations “covered 7.8 million hectares in Indonesia” in 2011, and produced roughly 23.5 million tonnes of crude palm oil that year.

The cheapest and easiest way to clear enough land to yield these huge quantities of oil is to set fire to acre upon acre of rainforest and let the wind and the flames do the work, including reducing the acidity of peat soil.

This soggy, organic matter is anathema to palm trees, which explains why about two-thirds of forest fires in Indonesia occur on peat lands.

Unfortunately, peat soil becomes extremely toxic at high temperatures, emitting greenhouse gases and creating haze and smog. Peat fires can burn on for weeks, even months, endangering wildlife and human communities far from the site of the actual fire.

For years, palm oil-producing companies in Indonesia and Malaysia, which together account for 85 percent of the world’s palm oil production every year, have come under fire from activists and scientists who say the ‘forest fire method’ poses serious environmental and health risks for the entire region.

While most of these fires originate in Sumatra, changes in wind direction mean that smoke travels to nearby countries.

Last month, for instance, the international community pilloried Indonesia for fires that choked parts of neighbouring Singapore and Malaysia.

The haze that enveloped the latter was so bad that the government in Kuala Lumpur declared a state of emergency in parts of the country where air pollution index readings reached a critical 750 on Jun. 23, well above the “hazardous” level of 300.

Malaysian citizens were advised to stay indoors, while Singaporean authorities cancelled outdoor summer activities as panicked residents emptied stores of their supply of protective masks.

The average air pollution index rating in both Malaysia and Singapore now hovers at over 100, a dramatic increase from the preceding decade, which “could contribute to climate change and is seriously detrimental to the health of people in the region,” Gurmit Singh, a renowned Malaysian environmentalist, told IPS.

Blame has been bandied about, with governments, corporations and even local communities named as culprits, but public censure has failed to prompt concrete action.

Environment ministers representing five members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) flew to Malaysia’s capital last week in search of a lasting solution to what has become a predictable, annual crisis, but the talks concluded on Jul. 17 with no firm agreement on the table.

All that officials from Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand approved was a plan for Indonesia to refer ASEAN’s 2002 Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution to its parliament by 2014 – hardly a promising solution, since the accord appeared before Indonesia’s legislature in 2009 but was not mentioned once during the entire session.

The outcome of the high-level meeting comes as no surprise to T. Jayabalan, a public health consultant and adviser to Friends of the Earth-Malaysia.

“For almost 20 years these governments have adopted a lackadaisical attitude towards resolving the problem (of forest fires),” he told IPS.

“No concrete measures have been taken because any measure imposed will impact the profits of palm oil companies,” he added.

A quick look at the stakes involved in palm oil production support Jayabalan’s claim: according to CIFOR, crude palm oil brought in 12.4 billion dollars in foreign exchange in 2008, while the government bagged another billion dollars in export taxes alone that same year.

The sector employs some 3.2 million people every year – no mean feat in a country where 30 million people live below the poverty line.

Earlier this year, the Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association unveiled an ambitious plan to grow the sector by 5.4 percent by the year 2020, adding another four million hectares to existing plantations around the country.

With such zealous plans in the pipeline, a solution is urgently needed, “rather than more talk and postponement of key decisions,” Jayabalan stressed.

He and other experts believe the first step must entail recognising the role palm oil companies play in creating fires.

Data published last month by the Washington-based World Research Institute (WRI) shows that the number of fires per hectare is “three to four times higher within…oil palm concession boundaries than outside of them.”

The research also suggests that there are significant discrepancies between maps issued by the ministry of forestry and those being used by oil palm companies.

According to WRI, “Company ‘Business Land Use Rights’ licence boundaries (in Indonesian, Hak Guna Usaha or HGU)…are generally nested within, and are smaller than, the concession boundaries the government is using. This is creating confusion about responsibility for fires found on land thought to be within concessions but outside areas the companies fully control and are directly developing.”

With more fires expected in the months between August and October, environmentalists are urging governments to “come to terms with the haze and its root causes because people in the region suffer from the pollutants,” Singh said. Various studies have shown that haze pollution leads to an increase in the number of people suffering from upper respiratory tract infections, asthma and rhinitis.

Countries in the region are also being called upon to cooperate in the development and implementation of prevention mechanisms, monitoring and early warning systems, information-sharing networks and other channels for providing mutual assistance.

But these steps have currently been stalled by Indonesia’s refusal to ratify the ASEAN Haze Pollution Agreement.

Youth are protesting high costs of living, unaffordable fuel prices and the continuing reign of the Barisan Nasional party in Malaysia. Credit: Udey Ismail/CC-BY-2.0

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 6 2013 (IPS)

They had voted for “ubah” or change. What the youth of Malaysia got instead seems to be more of the same.

“I am deeply disappointed,” said Alex Lee, a 24-year-old student at the Kuala Lumpur campus of Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR), a private institution run by the Malaysian Chinese Association, one of the main parties in the current ruling coalition.

“All my friends, relatives and everyone I know said we could vote and change the government - but even though all of us voted for Pakatan Rakyat, we could not." -- Samantha Yow
“We thought people’s power would bring about change. Instead we see the same old government taking office and the same old policies are in place,” Lee told IPS during his shift at a warong (eatery) in the upscale Bangsar suburb of Kuala Lumpur, where he works part time.

Lee is giving voice to the widespread resentment among Malaysia’s urban youth, who, comprising 60 percent of the country’s 13.5 million voters, had thought their numbers would be large enough to bring about the change they so desperately sought at the recent elections.

They had pinned their hopes on the Pakatan Rakyat, a coalition of three disparate parties, as the vehicle of that change. As it happened, though, Barisan Nasional (BN), a coalition of 13 parties that has held the reins for 56 long years, returned to power yet again.

BN went on to form the government on the basis of securing 133 seats in the 222-seat parliament, its poorest showing to date. Despite bagging 52 percent of the larger national vote, PR had no choice but to occupy the opposition benches, given the country’s first-past-the-post electoral system.

In the May 5 election Barisan Nasional won 133 rural seats but lost the popular vote.

Alleging a “theft” of this election, PR leader Anwar Ibrahim has been staging rallies across the country, which dejected youth are attending in droves, numbering well over 50,000 at any given time.

“I had rushed to register as a first-time voter along with my friends in college, and we all supported the Pakatan,” said Lee, who just last week was in the nearby town of Petaling Jaya to attend one such rally that drew an estimated 70,000 people, most them of youth.

“We thought we would have a new beginning. But it’s the same old problems again: high university fees, high cost of living.”

While Malaysia enjoys full employment and provides employment to many foreign workers, opportunities consist mostly of low-paid factory jobs.

Transport, rent and other living expenses account for most of the average monthly salary of roughly 970 dollars. Young people have little to look forward to after they leave school besides working hard just to make ends meet.

Thus, Pakatan Rakyat’s campaign of free education, improved public transport, reduced fuel prices and cheaper cars struck a chord among urban youth.

“This country is for a few rich people,” Margaret Lam, who works with Lee at the warong, told IPS, referring to corrupt practices like granting government cronies Approved Permits to import luxury cars at reduced tax rates, while placing heavy duties on imported vehicles under the guise of “protecting” the local car manufacturer, Proton: the first indigenous-owned and operated automobile enterprise in the country that has long enjoyed government support.

In fact, the Pakatan Rakyat had announced plans to revamp the National Automotive Policy (NAP) if it came to power, by slashing duties on what many people here see as cheaper, better quality cars from abroad. The reforms would have forced Proton to get competitive, rather than rely on the government’s protectionist policies that have buoyed it up for three decades at a huge cost to ordinary people, experts say.

This promise by PR was yet another reason for youth to throw their lot in with the opposition, since many young people were already fed up with the government’s preferential treatment of natives (called bumiputras, or ‘sons of the soil’).

Alan Rajasooriya, who spoke with IPS at a recent rally in Seremban, a city about 60 km south of the capital, said he wants more than anything to see an end to policies that discriminate against descendants of Indians and Chinese.

“There should not be any preferential treatment to natives over non-natives,” he said, lashing out at policies that favour bumiputras by giving them priority in major business deals and government contracts.

According to him, this view finds echo among thousands of other youths who have been taking to the streets. They are also demanding an end to corruption and cronyism.

Rajasooriya and scores of others like him also firmly believe Ibrahim’s accusation that the country’s election commission allowed Bangladeshis, who come to the country as guest workers, to vote, in order to beef up the government’s numbers.

This is something that the election commission denies. However, as a gesture of reconciliation, the new government, under the prime ministership of Najib Razak, has offered to place the body under a parliamentary select committee.

Neither Ibrahim nor the youth are appeased. “All my friends, relatives and everyone I know said we can vote and change the government,” Samantha Yow, another youth protester, told IPS. “But even though all of us voted for Pakatan Rakyat, we could not.”

Now she feels she has no choice but to attend rallies, where she and other frustrated youth “share their aspirations and let off steam.”

The wave of popular discontent has also highlighted the rural-urban divide, with protesters articulating the desires of primarily urban youth.

Ibrahim Suffian, director of programmes at the Selangor-based Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research, attributes this partly to the level of government-controlled media in the Malaysian countryside, where about 30 percent of the population resides and where most people rely on national newspapers and television stations for their information.

Internet penetration of the country is just over 60 percent, and most rural youths have been left out of the digital revolution, unlike in urban areas where social media is a mainstay both for information and entertainment.

While rural voters, mostly farm labourers, along with small rubber and oil palm holders, remained staunchly loyal to Barisan Nasional, young urbanites were forming their own opinions about politics and governance and questioning their own role in the country’s future.

Sadly, this change did not happen fast enough for the PR, as the urban vote bank failed to match the landslide of ballots cast in the rural hinterland.

Experts say youth will most likely play a big part in the major opposition rally planned for June 15 in the capital, but whether or not their protests will amount to change remains to be seen.

It has been over a fortnight since Malaysia held its 13th general election that saw the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition returning to power and continuing its 56-year rule. However, instead of joyous celebration, there are widespread protests on the street.

Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak may have won another electoral battle on May 5, but he is fast losing the war.

Opposition candidate Anwar Ibrahim is seeking to harness the discontent in post-election Malaysia. Credit: Udeyismail/CC BY 2.0

The wave of demonstrations is led by Anwar Ibrahim, leader of the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (PR) alliance, who disputes the election results and claims wholesale fraud. “If not for the electoral fraud on May 5, we would be in Putrajaya today,” he said, referring to the federal administrative centre, 25 km south of capital Kuala Lumpur.

He alleges that “planeloads of Bangladeshis” voted illegally, accounting for the reported record turnout at the elections in this Southeast Asian constitutional monarchy.

Vowing to reclaim the democracy that he says has been denied to the people, Ibrahim has been holding rallies around the country. People are turning up in the tens of thousands at these rallies, a testament to how deep popular disenchantment with the election runs. It is too early to say if this will lead to an Arab Spring in Malaysia, but there is no denying the overwhelming desire for change.

The first such rally, dubbed ‘Black 505’, kicked off in the west peninsular state of Selangor. Held at night at the Kelana Jaya stadium outside Kuala Lumpur, it attracted a crowd of nearly 120,000, comprised mostly of urban youth gathered through social media networks.

It has been followed by several others, the latest being on Friday May 17 at Seremban, capital of the neighbouring state of Negeri Sembilan.

The atmosphere at these rallies is almost festive. The dress code is the black of mourning, broken often by colourful umbrellas as people gather despite the rain. Cries of ‘reformasi’ or reform rend the air, reinforced by the honking of vuvuzelas.

“My family and I had hoped and prayed that all the young people had come out and voted to topple this oppressive government, but instead we were cheated of our victory,” Angelina Tan told IPS at the rally in Seremban, 60 km from Kuala Lumpur.

The 34-year old graphic designer was at the venue with her three-year-old son. “I am here for my son, it is his future we are fighting for,” she said, visibly angry at what she called a “sham democracy”.

Prime Minister Razak and the Election Commission have denied any fraud. The BN, a coalition of 13 parties, won 133 of the 222 seats in the bicameral Malaysian parliament.

The PR emerged the winner in the popular vote, cornering 52 per cent of the total, but ended up the loser given the country’s first-past-the-post system of voting. A legacy of British colonial rule, it ensures that the party with the largest number of seats forms the government.

Hopes had been riding high this election. The BN’s grip over the country seemed to have come loose in the last election in 2008, when it won just 140 seats. For the first time since the 1969 elections, the coalition had failed to win a two-thirds majority – a weapon with which the BN had long been running roughshod over people, according to government critics.

The opposition parties – the secular Democratic Action Party (DAP), the Islamic PAS party and the nominally secular Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), led by Ibrahim’s wife Wan Azizah Ismail – had won 82 seats in 2008.

It was an achievement they were hoping to consolidate this election, for which the three dissimilar parties had come together under the umbrella of the Pakatan Rakyat, which loosely means “people’s alliance”.

However, the opposition managed to increase its tally only by seven more seats, as the BN retained much of the rural vote. It became the deciding factor since the rural-urban weightage in seat distribution is skewed in favour of the former: there are three to four rural seats to each urban seat. And given the BN machinery in rural Malaysia – money, patronage and affirmative action policies – rural voters stayed with the party unlike many of their urban counterparts.

The BN thus won the mostly rural eastern states of Sabah and Sarawak. Together these two states account for 56 seats in parliament, of which the BN won 45. It also did well in the big peninsular states of Johor, Pahang and Kedah and bagged a smattering of seats in other smaller states. It also managed to recapture, with slim majorities, the two states of Perak and Kedah, which had gone to the opposition in 2008.

The marginalised, disillusioned, angry urban voter, however, stayed with the PR. While some of this urban vote went to DAP, a mostly Chinese-based political party with multi-racial representation, urban Malays disenchanted with the BN’s long rule delivered their votes to the PR.

Yet it did not prove enough for the BN to be voted out, something urban Malaysians tired of rising crime, drug culture and corruption were desperately hoping for. Many people are convinced that the May 5 poll was hijacked and there was widespread fraud.

It is this continuing urban discontent that Ibrahim, a former deputy prime minister and finance minister, is hoping to tap into.

“I would have reduced fuel prices, ordered free education and abolished road tolls,” he told the rally at Seremban. These were the promises the PR coalition had made in its election manifesto.

“We will not suffer under the escalating cost of living,” he thundered, to lusty cheers from the crowd.

PAS leader Rosli Yaakob, who was also present at the Seremban rally, told IPS that voters firmly believed that were it not for fraud, the PR would have won the elections. The PAS itself has done poorly compared to the other PR member parties.

He also wanted the Election Commission disbanded because he believes they were party to the alleged electoral fraud. (One prominent charge against the Election Commission is that the indelible blue ink it provided to ensure that no one voted twice was found to rub off quite easily.)

“We also want a royal commission of inquiry, as there was blatant abuse in some of the areas,” Yaakob said, referring to the allegations of vote-buying and use of government machinery for campaigning.

However, despite people’s misgivings, there is thin evidence of outright cheating or ballot box stuffing so far. Dr Jeyakumar Deveraj, MP for the Sungai Siput constituency in Perak state and the only socialist in parliament, conceded as much.

“We were not able to find conclusive evidence of significant cheating during the political process,” he told IPS.

But the “sheer volume of complaints” from the public goes to show how little trust they have in the Election Commission, he added.

He sees hope in the churn that has come in the wake of the election results. “There is a much higher level of citizen activism to preserve the sanctity of the polling process,” he said. It is good for democracy, he added.

And Ibrahim is wasting no time in harnessing this resentment.

Malaysian conservationists are urging a ban on the trade of endangered marine turtles’ eggs. Credit: Mauricio Ramos/IPS

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 14 2012 (IPS)

Age-old customs and traditions that allow licenced traders to collect and sell marine turtle eggs to locals and tourists alike are driving the creatures to extinction, Malaysian conservationists charge.

Citing the extinction of the leatherback and Olive Ridley sea turtles, which in the 1960s nested on beaches here by the thousands but today have all but disappeared, environmentalists have now called for a ban on the collection, sale and consumption of turtle eggs.

Others highlighted the precipitous decline in the number of nesting hawksbill turtles, a critically endangered species, and called attention to the disappearance of green sea turtles, in an effort to urge authorities to take strict action.

The authorities, meanwhile, are caught between determined traders and the widespread belief that turtle eggs cure asthma and promote male virility.

In Kuala Terengganu, the east coast capital of Terengganu state, popularly known as the country’s ‘turtle town’, traders are vehemently defending their livelihoods.

“There is a market for (the eggs), so we sell them. It is not illegal either except for leatherback turtle eggs,” said Abang Dok, who pays a mere five-ringgit (1.5-dollar) annual fee to collect and sell turtle eggs.

Traders have been selling turtle eggs for decades and argue that the eggs have not run out.

“As long as we eat only the eggs and not the turtle, the species will continue to come and nest…I see no reason why the turtle will not survive,” said Dok, who earns 25 ringgits (roughly 7.8 dollars) for every 10 turtle eggs sold.

When told that several species have become extinct and no longer nest on the beaches due to human activity, another trader calling himself Ismail Wok said that other species would soon “replace” the disappearing ones.

“It is a big ocean and the turtles come and go as they please…we should not be blamed if they don’t come anymore. Maybe they like other beaches,” he said.

“It is a question of our livelihood…our survival,” he said.

Though conservationists are fighting hard to educate local communities and tourists, the state government allows the practice under the pretext that livelihoods are at stake – but recent studies show otherwise.

A 2010 study of a village in Terengganu, which faces the South China Sea, conducted by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) found that only a few villagers actually rely on the trade for their monthly income.

Roughly 200 villagers are licenced to collect eggs but some of these traders are inactive or have sold their licences to others.

“The question of livelihood is irrelevant because turtle eggs are also imported from elsewhere for sale in Terengganu,” Rahayu Zulkifli, head of the WWF’s Terengganu Turtle Conservation Programme, told IPS.

Still, illegal collection and sale of eggs is rampant. Collectors earn up to 200 ringgits a month but traders can earn as much as 2,000 ringgits monthly through sales to tourists.

Turtle conservationists and other concerned members of the public are up against the age-old belief that turtle eggs cure asthma despite the fact that numerous medical experts have refuted the claim.

Numerous people also believe that turtle eggs, if eaten twice daily, enhance male virility.

Zulkifli, who is working round the clock to save turtles from extinction, has urged tourists who visit Terengganu not to buy turtle eggs and respect the ban that locals are pushing for. She believes if there is no market for the eggs, then traders will be forced to stop collecting them.

Terengganu state, which ironically exploits the turtle population to attract international tourism, is also a football-crazy region, where football stars have a huge public impact. The WWF has successfully tapped into their popularity for the conservation effort.

“They (the footballers) are our partners…we have to create greater awareness among villagers, officials, state authorities and tourists,” Zulkifli said at the launch of the first ever World Sea Turtle Day celebration last week.

The campaign theme, ‘Telur penyu, beli jangan, makan pun tidak’ (‘Don’t buy or eat turtle eggs’) was promoted among the 1,000 attendees, who joined together with famous footballers to urge the public to respect and protect the turtle population by leaving the eggs alone.

While the leatherback and Olive Ridley species are nearly extinct, green turtles still nest on a 20-kilometre stretch of beach at Rantau Abang, averaging about 2,000-2,500 nests a year.

Weak legislation

Turtle species are also threatened by the destruction of their feeding and nesting grounds, turtle-snaring fishing gear, pollution and illegal trapping by foreign fishing vessels.

Other hurdles to conservation include inadequate national laws – currently turtle protection falls under the jurisdiction of the country’s 13 individual states, some of which have no laws concerning turtle conservation.

Turtles are excluded from the purview of the recently enhanced Wildlife Protection Act of 1972, while the 1985 Fisheries Act only protects turtles found more than three nautical miles offshore.

WWF Director, Dr. Dionysius Sharma, has been pressing for holistic federal legislation that would streamline all state legislation into one special law for turtle conservation.

“The current laws are not conservation-oriented,” he told IPS. “They don’t ban egg consumption but focus (solely) on licencing egg collection. There is little emphasis on habitat protection and penalties for offences are minimal.”

In most states, the fine for killing a turtle is a paltry 100 ringgits.

Sharma stressed that if turtles are to survive, their nesting habits and offspring must be protected and licenced trade must be banned immediately. The prevailing attitudes of authorities and many local actors have remained unchanged since colonial times – but with an endangered species at stake, they will be forced to seriously rethink their customs.

“As long as we eat the eggs, we’ll create an imbalance and cause the decline of the species. There will be no juveniles to grow into mothers,” Sharma warned.

(END)

Kunasekaran Krishnan (43) is a member of the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) who hopes his newly released CD of 10 “revolutionary songs” will help convince voters to back the Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance) in the general election that is widely expected to be held this year.

“We have always known only one government, the Barisan Nasional (National Front). My CD of songs is an attempt to convince voters to see the Pakatan Rakyat as an alternative…give them a chance to rule,” he said.

“It is also an effective way to break the stranglehold the government has over mainstream media,” he told IPS. “The CD is cheap, enjoyable and an effective form of communication.”

As Malaysia prepares for a fiercely competitive election, the opposition, which is largely barred from mainstream media, is resorting to alternative methods to reach voters, from rallies to social media campaigns to the dissemination of hundreds of thousands of CDs that could influence wide swathes of the urban and rural populations.

Besides music, the CDs also contain rarely heard political speeches by leaders like Anwar Ibrahim, head of the People’s Alliance, who is daily lambasted in the mainstream media. His recent speech, promising free education up to tertiary levels in the event of a Pakatan Rakyat victory at the upcoming polls, was ignored by most major media until a truncated version of it surfaced several weeks later as the subject of government ridicule.

Targeting the youth

Pakatan Rakyat is offering voters the first viable political alternative in over 50 years. Many voters are intrigued by the possibility of a change in government, a dream they had hitherto written off as impossible.

The 2008 general election, in which the People’s Alliance came close to unseating the 13-party National Front, winning five states and denying the ruling coalition a two-thirds majority in parliament, was the best showing by the opposition since independence in 1957.

Five years later, an intense “return match” is on the cards, in the words of Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin, that will decide which coalition is left standing.

“It is a life or death struggle for us (the National Front),” he told national television on Monday.

In addition to producing CDs, the Democratic Action Party (DAP), a member of the Pakatan Rakyat, has also posted video clips on YouTube with one overriding message – ‘ubah’, or ‘complete change’, which is the party’s theme song and central message for the general election.

The Malay and Mandarin CDs are targeted at young urban voters who tend to be anti-establishment in their political leanings.

“The songs in the CD bring a message of hope for a better tomorrow under a Pakatan Rakyat government,” DAP socialist youth chief, Anthony Loke, told IPS. “We are projecting a young image for our party to target the young voters.”

Pakatan Rakyat also utilises its own bi-monthly newsletter, ‘Harakah’, to carry it’s message to the younger generation.

Universiti Sains Malaysia academic Sivamurugan Pandian believes that 40 percent of the country’s 12.9 million registered voters are aged between 21 and 39 years.

“All political parties are actively wooing them. They (could) decide the outcome of the general election contest,” he told IPS, adding that the most tech savvy coalition will have an edge.

“They cross over questions of race, religion and ethnicity. They are the true ‘Bangsa Malaysia’ or Malaysians as opposed to native Malays, Chinese or Indians,” he said. “The future is in their hands.”

Both the opposition and the ruling coalition have deployed armies of ‘cyber troops’ against one another to post songs and political messages on YouTube and Facebook, turning the social media landscape into a veritable battleground.

Wooing voters with song

Kunasekaran, the mastermind of the revolutionary music, also said that songs are a powerful way to win the hearts and minds of Tamil working class voters.

Tamils in Malaysia are the descendents of indentured labourers brought by British colonials at the turn of the 19th century to clear jungles and plant and tend to rubber trees. The community now numbers about two million, a population that can make or break either of the political coalitions in about 50 of the 222 parliamentary constituencies in the country.

Both Prime Minister Najib Razak and opposition leader Ibrahim have been assiduously courting the community for months.

“In India songs are used to convince Tamil voters. Here in Malaysia, I try to emulate the Indian politicians,” Kunasekaran said, referring to the late M. G. Ramachandran, chief minister of Tamil Nadu state who made movies and Tamil songs to influence voters.

The government too has entered the battle for hearts and minds, producing its own CDs and hiring young and popular artistes to sing about its theme ‘continuity and progress’.

“Trust the National Front, we have delivered for 50 years,” the government CDs proclaim.

(END)

Despite a wave of reforms washing over the country, the Malaysian government-controlled media remains muzzled, mostly because ruling elites fear a free press will erode their iron grip on society.

All print, electronic and radio media are, in one form or another, controlled by the ruling National Front, which buttresses its hold with a repressive publication law that activists say should be repealed.

Online and social media and blogs, on the other hand, are thriving, as people reject mainstream news sources as biased mouthpieces of the regime.

As a result, the new government proposal to set up a Media Council, designed to monitor online and offline media and its practitioners, has run into stiff opposition.

There is deep suspicion that the proposed Council, over which the Attorney General has held several rounds of discussions with selected editors, would simply add another layer of control in an already heavily regulated industry, where the government is omnipresent and single-handedly directs the national news agenda.

“The proposed Media Council would only curtail media freedom further instead of liberating it,” said Masjaliza Hamzah, executive director of the Centre for Independent Journalism.

“As long as the PPPA (the Printing Presses and Publications Act) is not repealed, journalism here will not be free or independent,” she told a press forum here on Jun. 1

Prime Minister Najib Razak has proposed an amendment to the PPPA that will remove the Home Minister’s absolute authority to grant and withhold printing licenses, but only in return for the formation of the self-regulatory Media Council to oversee the industry.

Editors and leading journalist are wary of any such initiative coming from the government, which, they see as the primary threat to press freedom.

‘Cosmetic changes’

Though real social reforms have recently taken root – like the repeal of laws allowing for detention without trial, the arrest and jailing of political opponents and the banning of public protest – activists say only “cosmetic changes” to media laws have been introduced thus far.

The PPPA, first introduced to counter a communist insurgency, has, for years, required all newspapers and printing presses to obtain an annual publishing licence.

The law was revised in 1971, after the race riots of 1969, to ensure that ‘racial sensitivities’ would not be provoked by inflammatory reporting.

The government was handed sweeping powers to revoke licences of newspapers that were seen to be aggravating national sensitivities or publishing material considered ‘detrimental to national development goals’.

The Act was amended in 1984 to grant more power to the government to seize or revoke printing press or publication licences at will.

In its current form today, the law gives the Home Minister absolute authority to grant and refuse licences. The amended Act not only regulates the press and local publications, but also books, pamphlets and the import of publications from abroad.

The possible reasons for a ban are extensive but vaguely defined, covering any publication going against so-called ‘national interests’.

Universiti Teknologi Petronas (UTP) professor Ahmad Murad Merican said a Media Council to regulate the industry is a good idea, but it should not have been initiated by the government.

“It is best if the idea comes from the press fraternity and not the government,” said Ahmad Murad, a senior lecturer in communications.

It should be established as a statutory body through a Private Members Bill and funded by Parliament; furthermore the PPPA should be repealed, he said.

He added such a council should be led by a retired judge and should consist of eminent members of society who are also independent of the authorities.

The idea for the Media Council was first mooted in the 1970s but had always been rejected by industry players who saw it as a government initiative to further choke press freedom.

Opposition

Malaysiakini, a successful online news website with a large following, has already opened a court case to force the government to issue a publishing licence for a newspaper that it intends to publish.

Members of the political opposition and the election monitoring group Bersih also want equal access to media in the run-up to general elections, that many expect to take place at the end of the year.

In a last desperate attempt to expose the extent of government suppression of the media here, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim pointed out that even the repressive regime in Myanmar allowed democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi equal access to address the country on national television.

“Why not in Malaysia?” he asked. “We less claim we are less repressive but we don’t allow equal access,” he said.

Gobind Rudra, a correspondent with the news website Free Malaysia Today, declared on May 29 that the embryonic idea for the Media Council is actually a government plan to restrict press freedom.

“A new regime of media control is taking shape and journalists are being co-opted into this process by being part of the government’s consultations…on how to control, whom to control, and (whom) to punish,” he said.

(END)

Foreign workers, mostly from Indonesia, now make up just over 10 percent of Malaysia’s workforce of 14 million people, both in the formal and informal sectors, according to the latest government statistics.

A recent series of incidents has highlighted the shocking conditions in which these labourers toil and exposed the lengths to which the Malaysian government will go to keep the press quiet on the plight of immigrants in the country.

Prominent human rights activist and long-time champion of exploited foreign workers, Irene Fernandez, has come under severe attacks from government ministers and employers for an interview she gave a Jakarta newspaper in which she condemned poor governance and alleged that migrant workers felt “unsafe” in Malaysia.

In the Apr. 30 interview Fernandez, president of Tenaganita (Women’s Force) and winner of the Right Livelihood Award in 2005, said that apart from low wages and rampant exploitation, migrant workers were also subjected to unfair labour practices and often stopped and harassed by uniformed personnel, in a country that has no legal framework to protect, regulate or ensure the safety of immigrants.

Immigrants’ housing, wages and welfare were left to market forces, she told the English-language ‘Jakarta Post’, causing a chaotic situation that enabled rampant exploitation of vulnerable workers.

The interview came on the heels of rising anger in Indonesia against the reports of exploitation of its nationals in Malaysia.

The wave of immigration, which began in Malaysia in the 1990s, coincided with a construction and commodities boom that saw vast swathes of the jungle-cloaked country transformed into oil palm plantations.

As countless skyscrapers popped up and rapid urbanisation made the construction sector hungry for cheap labour, Indonesians were lured into the country en masse, quickly growing to be the biggest group of foreign workers, numbering nearly two million last year.

Others – Indians, Bangladeshis, Nepalese, Vietnamese and Africans – followed to work on plantations and in the construction, manufacturing and service sectors whose rapid expansion left the top 10 percent of Malaysia’s 28 million people, along with foreign investors, extremely wealthy.

The middle class also expanded but the bottom 60 percent of the country suffered, competing ferociously for the manufacturing sector’s four million jobs.

According to the Malaysian Investment and Development Authority (MIDA), a government agency, from 2011 the government expanded foreign employment to include 11 sub-sectors such as restaurant jobs, cleaning services, cargo handling, launderette services, golf club caddies, barbers and so forth.

As high demand pushed wages down, the ‘3-D’ jobs – dirty, dangerous and demeaning employment that most Malaysians no longer want to do – became almost exclusively associated with Indonesian immigrants.

‘Sedition’

To counter Fernandez’s allegations now circling around Jakarta, the mainstream media here is running daily stories of happily employed Indonesian workers with no complaints about the system.

The interview is seen as a “betrayal of Malaysia” by Fernandez and has sparked vociferous calls for action against her.

She has been accused of everything from unpatriotic behaviour to being a traitor and has been held responsible for spoiling an otherwise “excellent” relationship between the two countries.

Under pressure from the government, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and the police announced this week that Fernandez is being investigated for ‘sedition’, a catch-all law that many civil rights activists have described as “archaic” and used against human rights defenders.

Fernandez, who for the last two decades has been virtually the lone voice in the country decrying the plight of foreign workers, said she is unfazed by the attacks.

“I will not be cowed. I will continue to speak up for voiceless migrants and the oppressed poor people of Malaysia,” she told IPS.

“I have no regrets. I want to highlight the sorry plight of thousands of migrant workers,” she said, adding that she stands by everything she said in the ‘Jakarta Post’ interview.

This is Fernandez’s second run-in with the law.

Back in 1996 she was charged with publishing false news to all the foreign missions in the capital about the deplorable living and working conditions of immigrants in detention centres.

After a marathon trial that lasted 13 years the court acquitted her.

She was given the Right Livelihood Award for her “outstanding and courageous work to stop violence against women and abuses of migrant and poor workers.”

Fernandez has a long history of activism – she organised the first textile workers union, was instrumental in setting up trade unions in the country’s free trade zones and focused on development of women leaders in the labour movement.

Tenaganita aims to secure the rights of foreign workers who, according to a government census in December 2011, number nearly 3 million, documented and undocumented.

The hysterical reaction against Fernandez for speaking the truth is typical of the government, said Arulchelvam Subramaniam, the secretary-general of the Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM).

“The country has a first world infrastructure and a booming economy but remains immature intellectually,” he explained.

“At a signal, everybody jumped on the bandwagon and lashed out at her (Fernandez) including the mainstream media”, in the process forgetting the real issues involved such as the exploitation of workers, low wages and corruption in the legal system.

According to Subramaniam Sathasivam, the Human Resources minister, all labour laws are equally applicable to locals as well as foreign workers.

“We are fair in that,” he told IPS.

But the laws are weak and easily surmounted by employers, while law enforcement and persecution of offenders is weak and ineffective. Some laws look good on paper but are impractical to implement.

While seeking to deflect criticism on its handling of foreign workers, the government is now toying with a Foreign Workers Act, which will regulate immigrants’ working and living conditions.

(END)

Malaysia’s new internal security law is as draconian as the colonial law it has replaced, but has the saving grace that it will not target political opponents of the government, say critics.

After a 52-year history of serious allegations of abuse that included the targeting of political opponents, the dreaded Internal Security Act (ISA) was replaced by the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act passed by parliament on Apr. 17.

“The new law is one of those extraordinary examples where the executive has voluntarily surrendered its powers to the judiciary,” said Chandra Muzaffar, academic and president of the Malaysia-based International Movement for a Just World.

“The power to detain a person without trial is the ultimate expression of unfettered authority and now that power has been relinquished,” Muzaffar told IPS, describing the major point contained in the new Act.

Prime Minister Najib Razak proposed repeal of the ISA in a speech delivered on Malaysia Day, Sep. 15, 2011, as part of major reforms ahead of possible snap elections this year.

The new law seeks to strike a balance between citizens’ civil liberties and the state’s need to curb terrorism, espionage and possible breakdown in racial relations in this multi-ethnic society built by British colonials who imported Chinese and Indian indentured labourers in the 1850s.

While racial and religious conflagrations cannot be ruled out, Malaysians have shown signs of being ready to bury ethnic differences and stand up for principles first, going by recent voting patterns. The new law was passed without amendments, ignoring opposition demands for better checks and balances during the debate, and the government extolling its virtues secure in the knowledge that it enjoyed a majority in the legislature.

Unlike the ISA where government critics could be detained without trial, the new law specially states that no person can be detained merely for his political beliefs. Further, it abolishes the home ministry’s powers to detain anyone without trial for any number of years.

It states that no detention without trial can extend beyond a period of 28 days, and adds a “sunset clause” for detention to be reviewed every five years and approved by three-fourths majority in both houses of parliament.

Police must also inform the detainee’s next of kin within 48 hours of the arrest, and detentions can be challenged in a court of law.

The repeal of the ISA will not benefit about 50 people at the notorious Kamunting detention centre. Nor will the centre be closed down.

Arguing in parliament, opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim welcomed the changes and the repeal, saying that opposition to the ISA had reached a very high level. But, the new bill was not much better, he added.

“Provisions in the new bill are against the spirit of democracy and contravene human rights principles,” Anwar said. “A special court will be formed for this purpose…detention is still detention whether court orders it or the (home) minister decides,” he said.

Most people, while thankful that the old ISA has been repealed, are undecided whether they should express support for the new Act when they get to vote in the general elections.

Najib is banking on reforms, that the opposition claims merely scratch the surface without making real and fundamental changes, to fetch him votes.

The 13-party National Front government lost badly in the 2008 general elections and all eyes are on a return match that will decide who rules the country for the next five years – the Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition led by Anwar or the Najib-led ruling National Front.

Anwar, once a senior leader of the National Front, was himself the victim of a political vendetta which saw him spending several years in jail.

Voters had, out of frustration with the slow pace of reforms under former prime minister Abdullah Badawi, voted for the opposition in large numbers.

Opinion is also divided among former ISA detainees with some saying they became more radicalised while under detention like Uthayakumar Ponnusamy, a lawyer and Hindu Rights activist and others like Ibrahim Ali, a parliamentarian who was detained twice, who says the ISA did a lot of good to the country.

The ISA was first enacted to fight communist insurgency in the 1950s and 1960s, but its wide “catch-all” provisions were turned against political opponents especially under the long 22-year-rule of Dr Mahathir Mohamad as prime minister.

The worst case of ISA misuse was in 1987 when Mahathir had over 100 parliamentarians, critics, and opposition lawmakers arrested and incarcerated in detention camps.

One worrying aspect of the new law is the role of a judge when detaining a person – all it takes is for police to make an oral request.

But the government says detentions can be challenged in court. “Earlier there was no judicial review (under the ISA) but now you can turn to the courts,” Najib said in parliament on Apr. 16.

As Prime Minister Najib Razak prepares to dissolve parliament for snap polls, Malaysia’s socialists are seeing an opportunity to make a comeback after nearly five decades in the political wilderness.

Socialists, an important part of the political landscape in the 1960s, were eclipsed by extensive state action against left-wing groups. Internal bickering and infighting among leftists took care of the rest, leaving people without an important voice in this Muslim majority country.

“We will contest in four constituencies,” said Arulchelvam Subramaniam, secretary-general of the Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) – a party registered in 2008 after 15 years of struggle to gain recognition – in an interview with IPS.

After the ruling party rejected PSM’s application to register as a political party, saying the party was represented a threat to national security, the matter went before a court of appeal which, on Aug. 16, 2006, ruled that security was a bad reason to deny the constitutional right to form a political party.

“Winning in the elections is not the sole criteria for us,” Arulchelvam said. “The more important task is to sensitise opposition colleagues to the plight of the masses and empower them in meaningful ways.”

In the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution Islamism expanded tremendously in Malaysia and became a new political ideology promoted by the National Front, which has ruled the country since independence from Britain in 1957.

By the 1990s Islamism had become entrenched and became the main ideology of the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) party, the bedrock of the ruling, 13-party National Front government.

The opposition Malay party, PAS, directly uses Islam as its ideology and campaigns for an Islamic theocracy. While UMNO professes secularism using Islam as a tool for mass mobilisation, PAS is openly theocratic.

The PSM is not a member of the three-party opposition People’s Alliance or Pakatan Rakyat coalition that is challenging the National Front’s monopoly on power. It does, however, support the coalition in parliament and outside on issues and policies that benefit the working class and peasants.

“We support them (People’s Alliance) but we are not beholden to them. We chart our own independent course in parliament and outside,” said Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj, the PSM’s sole legislator in parliament told IPS.

Socialists hope to double their standing in parliament and state assemblies in the general elections, which must be called before May next year but are widely expected before September.

Socialists have to battle their own colleagues who often mirror National Front MPs in their thinking and in the “handout mentality” that runs deep in the political system.

Currently, the Prime Minister and his deputy are crisscrossing the country announcing new local projects like the building of a mosque, upgrading old schools and handing out cash to voters.

Patronage is an effective political tool not only for the National Front but also for the Pakatan Rakyat, which uses the same methods to influence voters in the states where it is in power.

“We socialists are opposed to it (patronage) and want to educate the people that such handouts are temporary and do not solve problems in a permanent and effective manner,” said Arulchelvam.

Last week, parliament was informed that close to Malaysian ringitt 650 million (212 million dollars) in “urgent allocation” were given out in the form of small local projects by the Prime Minister and his deputy in the ten weeks to Mar. 15.

PAS leader Mohd. Firdaus Jaafar has criticised the government for spending “profligately” in the short term without regard to the rising cost of living and high inflation in the country.

“They just want to win the elections at any cost,” he told IPS.

“Part of the job of a socialist politician is to sensitise opposition colleagues in the Pakatan Rakyat against handout policies,” Arulchelvam said. “At the same time, socialists have to be clean and above suspicion to educate and empower the masses while campaigning to win elections.”

Unlike many opposition politicians who have not declared their assets, socialists declare their assets annually and maintain a frugal lifestyle in keeping with an image of being the people’s champions.

“What we need are long-term, fundamental changes in policies that benefit the workers, not the employers,” said Arulchelvam. “We tell our colleagues to ‘give if you have to give’ but educate the masses as well.”

Political analyst Ong Kian Meng said the handout policies of the National Front are having a big impact on the masses who are expected to vote for the National Front. “Handouts have an immediate and direct appeal to the people,” he told IPS.

Prime Minister Razak is openly using a direct “I help you, you help me” approach with voters.

“I can improve your lives if you vote for me,” he says in his almost daily public meetings, where he announces funds for small local projects or hands out cash, bags of rice and other food materials or cement and material for house construction.

Socialists have a tough job countering such tactics and the brave band of leftists that has emerged after the long struggle for acceptance has little to offer but an alternative political voice.

By Baradan Kuppusamy and - -
KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 25 2012 (IPS)

Malaysia plans to introduce a national minimum wage for its workers against stiff opposition from employers and manufacturers who warn that such a policy would shut down nearly 200,000 small and medium enterprise (SME) units.

Human resources minister Subramaniam Sinnapan has dismissed the manufacturers’ claims as “false and alarmist,” but Prime Minister Najib Razak appears rattled and has delayed an announcement until May 1.

“I will study the matter in-depth and make an appropriate announcement on Labour Day,” he was reported as saying by the ‘The Star’ daily on Mar. 20.

The government is caught between having to shore up votes in an election year and meeting the demands of manufacturers.

Najib cannot ignore warnings by Malaysia’s Employers Federation that the closure of 200,000 SME units would mean the loss of four million jobs in a population of over 28 million people.

Adding to the pressure, the opposition-ruled state of Selangor declared a Malaysian ringitt 1,500 (487 dollars) minimum wage for its employees, starting Jan.1.

But, Selangor has had to set aside 97.5 million dollars to assist state-owned companies that are unable to pay the new wages.

“Four million of them earn less than 162.5 dollars a month,” said Arulchelvam Sinnaiyan, secretary-general of the Parti Sosialis Malaysia, a small but vocal party that has two lawmakers in parliament.

According to a UNDP country report, Malaysia is one country in Asia that has a wide income gap, with the top 20 percent people enjoying 70 percent of the wages and the bottom 60 percent earning 20 percent.

A middle class of 20 percent struggles to pay off loans on houses, cars and credit cards.

In the 2008 general elections, the bottom 60 percent of voters, many of them SME workers, rebelled, choosing the opposition Pakatan Rakyat over the ruling National Front (NF) in the biggest upset since independence from Britain in 1957.

The ruling NF government wants to fix minimum monthly wages at 292. 60 dollars for SME workers, but manufacturers say they are already struggling to stay afloat on a profit margin of three to six percent and will lose out to competitors in Asia, especially China and India.

The country is trapped in a low-cost economy and has to move out to higher skills and higher cost manufacturing as neighbouring Singapore did in the past two decades.

But the biggest hurdle is the upcoming general election whose outcome can go either way. While Najib is popular, he has a lot of baggage carrying the NF, especially corruption issues.

In the latest of a series of scams, a minister was forced to resign after her family diverted funds meant to make the country self-sufficient in beef production into buying plush condominiums and expensive cars.

Najib sees the four million SME workers as potential voters, many of whom are struggling on wages that are way below the official poverty line of 247 dollars a month.

“A minimum wage of 293 dollars is great news and shows how desperate they are to win. It shows the power of our votes,” said factory worker Muniandy Ramasamy, 42, of Kajang, a city about 30 km south of the capital Kuala Lumpur.

“I can now take home a decent wage with that,” he said, adding that while his basic pay is low, he earns more by working overtime.

He also gets other incentives to take home 390 dollars, barely living wages in Malaysia.

Najib has been giving ‘One Malaysia’ aid to low-income families totalling nearly 650,300,764 dollars and has promised more doles if the economy improves.

“Giving minimum wages is a smart move considering the opposition from employers…it forestalls potential protests and wins him votes in the crucial election,” says Denison Jayasooria, head of the Social Strategic Foundation, a government-funded entity.

“Employers have said before that they would rather die than agree to a minimum wage policy, but Najib has to win them over,” he told IPS.

Jayasooria said having a minimum wage policy would also help lift the economy out of a low-cost morass.

Many of Malaysia’s neighbours have minimum wage packages and use them as a social safety net to help lowly paid workers manage in tough times.

These countries, including Thailand and Indonesia, plan to raise wage levels to counter the widening income gaps and prevent possible political upheavals.

Labour advocates are already calling for minimum wage deals in Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

China, the world’s manufacturing hub, is raising its minimum wage by 13 percent in stages over the next five years.

A minimum wage policy is one of Najib’s most important reform planks. He needs to convince SME workers that the government stands for them and not just for the rich, powerful and well connected.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy and - -
KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 15 2012 (IPS)

Ideally, Malaysia’s affluent households could meet their need for domestic help by tapping on Indonesia, a large country with linguistic and cultural similarities – but Jakarta has placed a ban on its nationals working as domestics in the neighbouring country.

Indonesia imposed the ban in June 2009 following a spate of horrendous abuses perpetrated on its domestic workers by Malaysian employers, including serious assault and rape.

With Indonesia transforming into a rising economic power in recent years that is able to feed its people and provide them employment, there is little chance of it lifting the ban.

That leaves Malaysia with little choice but to turn to other impoverished countries in Asia to meet a current need for 500,000 live-in domestic workers, though there is little sign that the abuse is going to stop.

An attempt to import workers from Cambodia ran aground last month after Cambodian opposition legislator, Mu Sochua, exposed an alarming rise in abuse and exploitation of Cambodians already working as domestic workers in Malaysia.

Mu Sochua, a former minister for women’s affairs, had sought to engage the Malaysian government on the issue, but failed. She then successfully persuaded the Hun Sen administration to freeze the sending of young Cambodian women as domestic workers to Malaysia.

Mu Sochua highlighted the case of a 15-year-old Cambodian domestic worker, Choy Phich, who is alleged to have died from abuse at the hands of her employers while working on Penang Island, last November.

“Malaysia has become known as a dangerous place to work for domestic workers,” says Irene Fernandez, executive director of TENAGANITA, a non-government organisation (NGO) that works with migrant workers.

“Recent media reports of domestic workers being beaten, raped and locked away for days without food and severely abused have reinforced this belief,” she told IPS.

“There is no legal framework for employing domestic workers in the country…the crux of the issue is that the Employment Ordinance treats them as servants and in a master-servant relationship with their employers and not as workers,” she said.

“As workers in a legal framework they have many rights, as servants they are at the mercy of employers,” she said.

The Malaysian government has not remained a mute spectator. In 2009, it booked employer Hau Yuan Tyng, 45, with assaulting Indonesian domestic worker Siti Hajar, allegedly with a hammer, scissors and boiling water.

But the damage had been done and passions that rose in Indonesia over Siti Hajar’s case, and that of other battered women, proved to be the last straw for Jakarta.

An editorial on Mar. 11 in the semi-official New Straits Times newspaper urged its readers to forget about getting domestic workers from Indonesia.

“After nearly three years of a supply cut of Indonesian domestic workers…one would have thought Malaysians would accept the reality by now: Indonesian maids are not coming anymore,” the editorial said.

“Stop day dreaming, live in reality and find some other solutions,” the editorial said.

But, instead of improving living and working conditions and providing a legal framework to protect migrant labour, the Malaysian government is looking to countries like China and Sri Lanka for cheap and pliable domestic helpers.

The vast majority of Chinese and Malay families that need domestic helpers are reluctant to hire Sri Lankans because of language and cultural differences.

Workers from China are plenty but Malay families are squeamish about hiring them. Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese families are reluctant for fear of developing complicated relationships with workers from China.

Women from China generally work as bar hostesses, masseuses and even as sex workers. Many are known to be entering the country in the guise of language students.

Malaysians prefer Indonesians as domestic workers and are willing to pay unscrupulous agents, in both Malaysia and Indonesia, as much as Malaysian ringgit 10,000 (3,290 dollars) for a suitable worker.

Last December an attempt was made to bridge differences through a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to be signed between Malaysia and Indonesia that seeks to hike monthly wages to 350 dollars with a day off every week.

The two countries agreed to improve conditions for Indonesian maids, but Jakarta said it would revoke the ban only after a minimum-wage increase, among other things, was negotiated.

But, the MoU states that the passports of Indonesian domestic workers may be “held” by employers for “safe keeping” and employers may withdraw money from a jointly-operated bank account.

“These are sticking points why Indonesia refuses to lift the ban,” said Jeffrey Foo, president of Malaysian Association of Foreign Maid Agencies known as PAPA.

“Until these issues are sorted out we just have to wait for Indonesian maids to arrive,” he told IPS. “The cost structure in the MoU is still disputed by Indonesian agents.”

Fernandez says it is indicative of Malaysian “arrogance and impunity” to always want the upper hand in “employer-domestic workers” relationships.

As Malaysia haggles and waits, Indonesia announced this week a ‘Domestic Worker Roadmap 2017’ under which it wants to ensure its young women are treated like other workers while working abroad.

The Indonesian government wants to ensure that its workers, about 500,000 of whom leave its shores each year on average, earn a minimum wage, get a day off and work only fixed hours.

“Malaysians, on the other hand, want slaves to do their household chores, look after their children and clean their houses, among other things,” Fernandez said.

“Unless they are willing to treat domestic workers as human beings and respect their right to decent work and adequate rest, they will always be looking to the next vulnerable country to exploit,” she said. For now, Indonesia has opted out of that list.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUANTAN, Malaysia, Mar 7 2012 (IPS)

Malaysians protesting against an Australian-owned rare earth refinery, that will generate radioactive waste, are determined to agitate until the project is abandoned.

“It is time to shut down the Lynas plant,” said Wong Tack chairman of the Himpunan Hijau (Green Gathering Malay) or HHC that is leading a mass movement against the controversial refinery.

On Feb. 26, the HHC organised its biggest ever mass protest in this coastal town, capital of Pahang state, attracting 15,000 ordinary Malaysians as well as prominent public figures, including Anwar Ibrahim, leader of the opposition Pakatan Rayat coalition.

Wong Tack told IPS that if the government “continues to dither” the HHC would organise an even bigger protest at Gebeng, site of the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP). The HHC proved its strength in October 2011 when it organised a 2,000-strong rally at the Taman Gelora beach.

According to Wong Tack, Malaysia is seeing a “green revolt” as people truly feared that the plant will produce radioactive thorium waste that would seriously harm the environment and endanger people’s health.

Ibrahim told the gathering in Gebeng that his opposition alliance plans to seek an emergency motion in Parliament to urge the cancellation of the project. “We won’t sacrifice our culture and the safety of the children.”

Rare earth minerals, used in the electronics industry, find their way into anything from laptops and mobile phones to missiles. Their prices shot up after China, the world’s biggest producer, restricted exports last year.

But processing the rare earth ores mined in Australia will result in the concentration of radioactive elements such as thorium and uranium, which if not properly disposed can prove hazardous to environment and health.

Dr Michael Jeyakumar, a legislator belong to Parti Sosialis Malaysia, a small opposition party Malaysia was already suffering from the dangers of indiscriminate dumping of industrial waste as a result of uncontrolled and rampant industrialism.

“The people have given notice they will be not a dumping ground for radioactive waste by this Australian company,” he told IPS. “This Lynas project is going to lay waste our land and our health and the health of future generations for mere profit,” he said.

“The government has to listen to the protesters…there is no way the government can justify this act of madness,” he said.

The LAMP plant is due for completion in June and start shipping in ore from the Port Weld mine, in Australia. LAMP hopes to break China’s near monopoly on world’s supply of rare earth metals.

Once production starts LAMP stands to generate profits in excess of three billion dollars a year because of the demand for rare earth metals. LAMP has already having signed agreements to supply Japanese firms.

Lynas, which is listed in the Australian stock exchange, saw its stock prices tumble when protestors filed for court action in the Kuantan High Court against government for giving LAMP a temporary operating licence.

Prime Minister Najib Razak, reacting to the Gebeng protests, said the LAMP plant is harmless and that the project is subject to review by a government panel.

Razak said the government was looking for an “isolated region” in the country to store the radioactive waste, thereby admitting that there was a problem.

Thorium, which is radioactive, is already being used to power experimental nuclear reactors in India, where it occurs naturally and in abundance.

Friends of The Earth president S. M. Mohamed Idris said Lynas chose Malaysia to site its plant is because of lax radioactive control laws and the distribution of responsibility among four different ministries and an atomic energy regulatory agency.

“Our Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) is in no position to handle the Gebeng plant, its mechanics and the technology involved as also the waste produced,” he told IPS.

In June last year the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) undertook a safety study of the Gebeng plant and recommended numerous measures for Lynas to take including the submission of plans for a permanent disposal facility for the radioactive waste.

While Lynas is yet to follow several of the IAEA recommendations it has managed to obtain a temporary operating licence from AELB and has been given a generous 18 months from start of operations – expected in June – to come up with disposal plans.

The current plan is to contain the waste in special drums that are to be placed in trenches, at the Gebeng plant.

For many Malaysians the plan brings back memories of the Japanese Mitsubishi-owned Asian Rare Earth plant in the 1980s that was closed down following spirited public protest.

The Mitsubishi rare-earth plant was ordered shut, after an increase in birth-defects and leukaemia cases in children of former workers. The radioactive waste, contained in drums had to be dug up and interred in a hilltop site.

Member of parliament for Kuantan, Fuziah Salleh, told IPS that the public is strongly opposed to the LAMP plant out of fear of radioactive poisoning.

“After the Fukushima disaster, last year, they fear damage to their health from radioactive waste,” she said. “Even if the radioactive waste is shifted to a remote, unpopulated site it will remain dangerous for many years. Why bring it here in the first place?”

Excerpt:

Malaysians protesting against an Australian-owned rare earth refinery, that will generate radioactive waste,  are determined to agitate until the project is abandoned.

“It is time to shut down the Lynas plant,”  said Wong Tack chairman of the Himpunan Hijau (Green Gathering Malay) or HHC  that is leading a mass movement against the controversial refinery.

On Feb. 26, the HHC organised its biggest ever mass protest in this coastal town, capital of Pahang state, attracting 15,000 ordinary Malaysians as well as  prominent public figures, including Anwar Ibrahim, leader of the opposition Pakatan Rayat coalition.

Wong Tack told IPS that if the government “continues to dither” the HHC would organise an even bigger protest at Gebeng, site of the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (LAMP). The HHC proved its strength in October 2011 when it organised a 2,000-strong rally at the Taman Gelora beach.

According to Wong Tack, Malaysia is seeing a “green revolt” as people truly feared that the plant will produce radioactive thorium waste that would seriously harm the environment and endanger people’s health.

Ibrahim told the gathering in Gebeng that his opposition alliance plans to seek an emergency motion in Parliament to urge the cancellation of the  project. “We won’t sacrifice our culture and the safety of the children.”

Rare earth minerals, used in the electronics industry, find their way into anything from laptops and mobile phones to missiles. Their prices shot up after China, the world’s biggest producer, restricted exports last year.

But processing the rare earth ores mined in Australia will result in the concentration of radioactive elements such as thorium and uranium, which if not properly disposed can prove hazardous to environment and health.

Dr Michael Jeyakumar, a legislator belong to Parti Sosialis Malaysia, a small opposition party Malaysia was already suffering from the dangers of indiscriminate dumping of industrial waste as a result of uncontrolled and rampant industrialism.

“The people have given notice they will be not a dumping ground for radioactive waste by this Australian company,” he told IPS.  “This Lynas project is going to lay waste our land and our health and the health of future generations for mere profit,” he said.

“The government has to listen to the protesters…there is no way the government can justify this act of madness,” he said.

The LAMP plant is due for completion in June and start shipping in ore from the Port Weld mine, in Australia. LAMP hopes to break China’s near  monopoly on world’s supply of rare earth metals.

Once production starts LAMP  stands to generate profits in excess of three billion dollars a year because of the demand for rare earth metals. LAMP has already having signed agreements to supply Japanese firms.

Lynas, which is listed in the Australian stock exchange, saw its stock prices tumble when protestors filed for court action in the Kuantan High Court against government for giving LAMP a temporary operating licence.

Prime Minister Najib Razak, reacting to the Gebeng protests, said the LAMP plant is harmless and that the project is subject to review by a government panel.

Razak said the government was looking for an “isolated region” in the country to store the radioactive waste, thereby admitting that there was a problem.

Thorium, which is radioactive, is already being used to power experimental nuclear reactors in India, where it occurs naturally and in abundance.

Friends of The Earth president S. M. Mohamed Idris said Lynas chose Malaysia to site its plant is because of lax radioactive control laws and the distribution of responsibility among four different ministries and an atomic energy regulatory agency.

“Our Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) is in no position to handle the Gebeng plant, its mechanics and the technology involved as also the waste produced,” he told IPS.

In June last year the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) undertook  a safety study of the Gebeng plant and recommended numerous measures for Lynas to take including the submission of plans for a permanent disposal facility for the radioactive waste.

While Lynas is yet to follow several of the IAEA recommendations it has managed to obtain a temporary operating licence from AELB and has been given a generous 18 months from start of operations – expected in  June – to come up with disposal plans.

The current plan is to contain the waste in special drums that are to be placed in trenches, at the Gebeng plant.

For many Malaysians the plan brings back memories of the Japanese  Mitsubishi-owned Asian Rare Earth plant in the 1980s that was closed down following  spirited public protest.

The Mitsubishi rare-earth plant was ordered shut, after an increase in birth-defects and leukaemia cases in children of former workers. The radioactive waste, contained in drums had to be dug up and interred in a hilltop site.

Member of parliament for Kuantan, Fuziah Salleh, told IPS that the public is strongly opposed to the LAMP plant out of fear of radioactive poisoning.

“After the Fukushima disaster, last year, they fear damage to their health from radioactive waste,” she said. “Even if the radioactive waste is shifted to a remote, unpopulated site it will remain dangerous for many years. Why bring it here in the first place?”

(END/IPS/AP/IP/IF/EN/HE/CS/CU/NU/AW/CR/HD/BK/RDR/12)

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 26 (IPS) – A plan by the Malaysian government to privatise its public healthcare system and get consumers to pay for it through salary cuts is rapidly turning into a major election issue.

Whistleblower doctors let the cat out of the bag this month by sharing details of ‘Icare’ that the government had shared with doctors and select stakeholders.

Currently, the government pays Malaysian ringitt 34 billion (11.2 billion dollars) annually for a healthcare scheme that it wants to pass on to consumers under ‘Health Care Financing’ that the public and conscientious doctors are opposing.

These doctors are fundamentally opposed to any scheme that requires citizens to pay a part of their earnings – in this case 10 percent of net monthly wages – if the cost of health financing is passed on to consumers.

The existing system, which consists of a network of government hospitals and clinics and caregivers throughout the country, provides cheap, affordable and effective healthcare.

“Why fix something that is working reasonably well,” said Dr. Ng Swee Choon, deputy president of the Private Medical Practitioners Association, a group of doctors opposed to Icare.

“Malaysia has excellent healthcare coverage as nearly 90 percent of the people stay within a five km distance from a government-run clinic or hospital,” he said.

Ng told a Feb. 18 forum that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had acknowledged in its annual report of 2007 that Malaysia had an effective and efficient healthcare system and had rated the service “excellent”.

Currently, 4.7 percent of the GDP is set aside for healthcare, way below the WHO recommendation of eight or nine percent.

“It’s more important to increase the bill of healthcare as a percentage of GDP than to go and change the system,” said another activist doctor T. Jayabalan.

The government is moving away from providing nearly free healthcare to a financing scheme that will be paid for by all citizens, he said.

 The government, however, says healthcare is getting more expensive by the day and believes that a better option is one that is financed by citizens.

“Everybody is entitled to equal healthcare…there won’t be a private or government distinction,” said health minister Liow Tiong Lai of a scheme in which people contribute monthly in return for getting best medical care available.

Currently, those who can afford it patronise the expensive, well-equipped private hospitals that have sprung up all over the country while others make do with crowded government hospitals that are under-equipped and under-staffed.

 Icare is expected to pool resources under the National Health Corporation (NHC) that will foot the medical bills, assign the sick to a doctor and regulate treatment according to a fixed schedule.

Many people are not confident about giving a part of their wages to a government-managed NHC and fear it will be mismanaged and overtaken by cronyism and nepotism, like other public sector outfits.

 “We fear pilferage and that other forms of corruption would overtake the scheme,” said Dr. Michael Jeyakumar, a lawmaker from the small Parti Sosialist Malaysia.

“Right now the government is simply telling the people to wait quietly for them to tell what is best for them,” he said. “This type of top-down policy does not work anymore,” he said.

Health minister Liow came forward last week to say the opposition is spreading “false” details to confuse the public about Icare.

He said the assertion that 10 percent of salary would be mandatory to finance Icare is false. “I myself will oppose the scheme if that is the case,” Liow told The Star daily on Feb. 19.

But neither the health ministry nor Prime Minister Najib Razak have accepted a challenge from the opposition to release all the details.

The government has asked Malaysians not to speculate about Icare and reserve judgment for when the system has been given a chance to develop.

The opposition Pakatan Rakyat has urged the people to vote out the ruling Barisan Nasional or National Front. “The Front cannot be trusted with the people’s money,” said Jeyakumar.

The opposition has rejected Icare as exploitative and is using the issue as campaign fodder for elections that are due by April 2013.

A top-down planning system is the hallmark of the National Front which has ruled the country since independence in 1957 and is dominated by the powerful United Malay National Organisation party.

Moves to privatise state-run public healthcare can damage the National Front which has projected itself as the protector of the socio-economic interests of its main constituency, the rural Malays.

Voters rejected the Barisan Nasional’s hold on power in the 2008 general election when nearly 49 percent abandoned the Front in favour of the incipient Pakatan Rakyat opposition coalition led by Anwar Ibrahim, a former deputy prime minister in the Front government.

The Pakatan Rakyat and the National Front are nearly equally matched for a return match in their contest for state power in a general election that is widely expected to be called mid-year.

“Many members of the public are unaware of the implications of the scheme,” opposition legislator Charles Santiago told IPS.

“The federal government argues that Icare will make healthcare more affordable and its delivery more efficient to the public,” said Santiago.

“But they are actually privatising our healthcare services through a social health insurance scheme that will only further burden the people, especially the poor,” said Santiago who has started an awareness campaign in his constituency of Klang, 30 km west of the capital.

With the 83-million-dollar ‘cowgate’ scam refusing to die down, a shadow hangs over Prime Minister Najib Razak’s plans to call elections ahead of April 2013, when they are due.

What may hurt electoral prospects for Razak’s United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) is the fact that the auditor-general (AG) has taken a dim view of the National Feedlot Centre (NFC) project, that was supposed to make Malaysia self-sufficient in beef production.

In its report last year, the AG said the NFC was nowhere near meeting its mandate of setting up a network of farms to produce beef.

Najib, who came to power in 2009 on a reformation plank, has been forced to freeze the assets of NFC, thanks to relentless allegations of corruption in the media and on popular Internet sites.

While Najib is not directly involved, family members of Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, minister for women, families and communities, have been accused of milking 250 million ringgit (83 million dollars) from the project for personal luxury expenditure, including buying plush condominiums.

NFC is said to epitomise crony capitalism between the UMNO, well-connected families and businesses. Its chairman, Mohamad Salleh Ismail, is Shahrizat’s husband and all three of their children are directors.

The scandal has implications beyond the status of the minister. Whether she is sacked or not, the scandal is bound to adversely impact rural Malay voters, the bedrock of the UMNO.

Najib’s UMNO-led Barisan National coalition government has shown inability to take effective measures to combat corruption and promote accountability and transparency as promised.

“This is an issue which has great presence. The opposition can take it to the ground and to the rural areas in their campaigns, and effectively too,” said Ong Kian Ming, political analyst and lecturer at the University College Sedaya International (UCSI).

“The absurdity of cows and condos is much easier to explain (to rural voters) compared to the intricacies of the Port Klang Free Zone,” said Ong, referring to an even bigger scam which has seen court action against two former ministers.

Ong, who is on the faculty of economics and politics of UCSI, told IPS that the country’s anti-corruption agency, ‘MACC’, must get cracking on the scandal. “If MACC does not take concrete action it will raise questions about Najib’s seriousness in tackling corruption.”

The scandal has been picked up by opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim’s People’s Justice Party or Parti Keadilan Rakyat, which effectively turned the report into a national scam with daily revelations of misuse of NFC funds by Shahrizat’s family members.

Anwar was only last month acquitted of sodomy charges, said to be trumped up by UMNO of which he was once a leading member.

The opposition wants UMNO’s ‘bumiputras’ policy – by which native Malays get preferential treatment in businesses, education and property purchases – to be extended to all races on the basis of need.

UMNO’s monopoly on power since 1957 took a hit in the 2008 polls when the Barisan National coalition suffered its worst-ever defeat, losing five state governments and a two-thirds majority in parliament to a resurgent three-party opposition coalition.

That defeat came about because of minority Chinese and Indian voters joining hands with the urban Malay poor to favour the opposition coalition.

The opposition wants the well-connected – like Shahrizat and her family – not to take advantage of preferential treatment given to bumiputras. Malays form about 50 percent of Malaysia’s 28 million people while 24 percent is of Chinese descent and 7.1 percent is ethnic Indian.

The NFC scandal adds to the difficulties that Najib faces in recapturing the Barisan National coalition’s once impregnable two-thirds majority and winning a mandate to keep up with announced reforms

Corruption has only worsened under his watch, with the country sliding to 60th in Transparency International’s global ranking of graft perceptions last year, compared to 33rd in 2002.

Najib, the son of a former prime minister, has been working assiduously since taking over to build his own mandate and was preparing to call a ‘do or die’ election, when the NFC scandal broke.

The unwillingness of Shahrizat’s family to come to answer the serious allegations suggests backing from powerful members of the UMNO.

Shahrizat has already been questioned by MACC, but the outcome has not been made public.

Besides having powerful UMNO backers, Shahrizat heads the women’s wing of UMNO, which has nearly two million members and is crucial for Najib’s poll plans.

Denison Jayasooria, a University Kebangsaan Malaysia academic and former commissioner of ‘SUHAKAM’, the national human rights organisation, says there is an “impression that there is weak monitoring and supervision.

“The Prime Minister should take steps to restore confidence in public institutions and ensure that if there was abuse of power, it is checked,” he told IPS.

“He (Najib) may be waiting for various internal investigations to be completed. But there seems to be a lack of decisive action,” Denison said. “However, in Malaysia there is a tendency not to treat reports by bodies like the human rights commission with the gravity they deserve.

“Ministers often belittle them,” he said. “This is unacceptable in a serious democracy as these institutions act as checks and balances and disregarding them undermines the very essence of good governance,” Denison said.

“The criticism in the AG’s report is being seen as an attack on a government minister, although such criticism ensures transparency and accountability,” he lamented.

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUANTAN, Apr 18 2011 (IPS)

Fears of radioactive poisoning have fuelled a protest against an Australian mining company building the world’s largest rare earth processing plant outside China.

The protest is directed at Lynas Corp., which will ship rare earth ore from its mine in Port Weld, Western Australia, for processing in the plant in Gebeng outside this city, a fishing port some 250 kilometres north of capital Kuala Lumpur.

Protesters said the plant would produce high amounts of the radioactive waste thorium that will endanger them and future generations.

Lynas Corp. and Malaysian government officials however said thorium content in the waste would be low and entirely manageable, and that there would be no health issue because high technology and state-of-the-art radiation monitors will be used to control emission.

The company said it is planning to store the waste in “safe and hardened containers” at a 12-acre site close to the processing plant until a permanent solution is found.

Kuantan City lawmaker Fuziah Salleh, who is leading the protest, refused to support any decision to store the waste within her constituency or anywhere else in Malaysia.

“Malaysia should not be the dumping ground for radioactive waste. We reject the waste and we want Australia to take back the waste,” she told IPS.

Lynas director of communication Matthew James said in a statement that radiation fears were unfounded because the Port Weld oxide is naturally low in thorium content.

“The Lynas raw material is safe, non-toxic and non-hazardous,” James said.

But Salleh rejected James’ assurance. “The thorium content is high,” she said in a statement, adding Australian officials had confirmed this to her.

Rare earth minerals are used in precision equipment like laptops, flat screen television, mobile phones and missiles.

Demand has been high since China, which controls 95 percent of the production, imposed export controls last June to conserve resources and supply the domestic market.

Lynas plans to start production at Gebeng in September after getting a final processing permit from the government. The company expects to export rare mineral worth an estimated 4 billion ringgit 91.3 billion dollars) annually starting 2012.

What is further fuelling the protest against Lynas is Malaysia’s experience with another rare earth plant, this time in northern Perak state, some 30 years ago.

That plant near Bukit Merah Township was ordered shut down after higher than normal incidences of birth defects and leukaemia surfaced among babies born to residents in the area.

Protesters said the thorium waste at Bukit Merah that were stored in drums in shallow holes in the ground is still being cleaned up three decades later, underlining the long-term dangers of thorium.

“Lynas might come and go but we will be left to deal with the waste for many, many decades,” said Salleh.

Lynas Corp. said it would be using raw materials with thorium content 50 times lower than that used Bukit Merah. “This is due to the unique geology at Mount Weld,” James said.

Government and Lynas officials have been trying to allay residents’ fears by holding several town hall meetings in March and April to explain and clarify issues.

Residents – among them fisherman, farmers, small businessman, teachers and government employees – said they were open to expert testimony that the plant would be safe, but they were adamant that the thorium waste be shipped out.

“The waste must not be stored here or anywhere in Malaysia,” said fisherman Yusuf Ahmad. “Why not process the ore in Australia and keep the waste there,” he told IPS, echoing a widely held belief that Lynas came to Gebeng because it failed to get all the production licences in Australia.

“We want jobs, we want progress but we don’t want the nuclear (sic) waste. See what’s happening in Japan,” Yusuf said referring to the nuclear disaster there following a devastating earthquake and tsunami on March 11.

Salleh said Lynas probably moved to Kuantan because of Australia’s tough environmental law and powerful Green party, two elements missing in the Malaysian context.

Lynas, however said the plant, which cost 220 million dollars, had all the necessary approvals to operate in Australia but moved to Kuantan to take advantage of good port facilities, a skilled workforce, and abundant water and other resources.

The government is keen to allow Lynas to start operations because it needs foreign investments, and to promote a whole new range of manufacturing in the state using the rare earth minerals produced at the plant.

The growing public protest is a major headache for the government, which suffered major reverses in the 2008 general election, and is on a drive to win back public support with numerous populist measures.

There is also fear that the Gebeng plant would impact on the well-established tourism industry along the east Malaysian coastline which enjoys some of the most breathtaking scenery in the country.

“Tourism earnings will also take a beating once the news spread overseas that a plant producing thorium waste is in operation near the coast,” Vincent Lau, a local resident who lives 30 kilometres from the plant, told IPS.

Residents are unconvinced there is a “safe and manageable side” to thorium unless a permanent solution is offered to the still open question of where to store the waste. Until then, the protest is expected to continue.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 4 2011 (IPS)

A government plan to control online media has sparked widespread protest from journalists and lawmakers who say the move is a sign of the ruling party’s desperation as it prepares for a “do or die” general election.

The plan, announced mid-January, is to apply strict publication laws to online news media for “national security” reasons.

“This plan is the final nail in the coffin for press freedom. The little freedom of expression that Malaysians have enjoyed online over the past 16 years will end,” said Steven Gan, founder and chief editor of the online publication Malaysiakini, a premier online news provider. “They are changing the rules out of political desperation.”

Online journalists see the sudden announcement as a prelude to a crackdown ahead of the general elections. Prime Minister Najib Razak recently described the elections as a “do or die” battle for the ruling 13-party National Front coalition he heads.

Unlike mainstream media, Internet-based news has earned credibility and following for its speedy and accurate reporting. Online news organizations freely report on political developments that take centre stage in a country divided by race and religion.

Much of the anger and criticism against the National Front government’s excesses and race-based politics is found in online news reporting. The mainstream media, on the other hand, carefully packages the news as upbeat and proactive to support the official view.

Unlike Malaysian newspapers and broadcast networks, Internet-based media is freer and openly challenges the official line, in part because Internet technology itself is difficult to control and contents hard to censor. There is also a 15-year-old government guarantee, still in force, not to muzzle the Internet and its contents.

This guarantee was put in place to invite and encourage foreign investment in the information technology sector and is still respected by the government, but critics say it would be violated if the new rules to control Internet news were enforced.

Under the government plan, tough new guidelines similar to that applied on mainstream media would be set against online news reporting, ostensibly to prevent libel, sedition and, more importantly, to curb what is termed as “anti- national reporting.”

Officials say online reporting is endangering the “peace and harmony” of Malaysia’s multi-ethnic society.

Law minister Muhammed Nazri Aziz said national security takes “definite” precedence over the right of publication and vowed to combat the “intrusion of digital” news.

“It is a death blow to online reporting if rules are made to censor Internet news reporting,” said Gan, a pioneer online journalist.

The law that currently applies to mainstream media is the draconian Printing Presses and Publication Act (PPPA) in which government loosely and arbitrarily defines sedition to discourage criticism of political leaders.

Reporting that crosses the official line can be easily punished under the catch-call “national security” clause in the PPPA.

Also under the PPPA, inaccurate news is termed “false news” and is punishable with a one-year imprisonment. In addition, mainstream news organizations must secure annual licences that expire automatically at year end and need to be applied for again to be able to continue publication.

These provisions ensure that print and broadcast editors remain at the beck and call of authorities. If they ignore or refuse friendly advice, the authorities can terminate licences or refuse applications at year end, ensuring direct and indirect control over the contents of publication.

The government also indirectly owns, through friendly third parties, chunks of media shares, which guarantees government the final say on all matters considered “sensitive”, including corruption exposés.

The plan to extend the mainstream media curbs to online media is seen as a pre-emptive strike to curb online content ahead of the general election.

The People’s Alliance or Pakatan Rakyat coalition, led by the charismatic Anwar Ibrahim, is challenging the National Front for state power in elections widely expected later this year.

In the 2008 general elections, the Pakatan Rakyat won five state governments and, for the first time in 53 years, denied the National Front two-thirds majority in the 222-seat bicameral parliament.

Since then, however, the Pakatan has been hit by internal strife, defections and disagreement over how to manage Islam in public life.

Information and its dissemination is a key component in the next big electoral battle between the two coalitions seeking to influence voters. While the National Front is stressing peace, stability and progress, the Pakatan Rakyat is building its strategy on change for a better society.

Who will ultimately emerge victorious depends largely on who wins the information war that has started between the two coalitions with the authorities trying to manage online news dissemination, a major conduit of the Pakatan Rakyat to reach voters.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 15 2011 (IPS)

Muslim engineer Azman Ismail has sparked a huge storm of criticism, invited official censure and even death threats by going on YouTube.com and confessing that he is a gay.

The two minute post under the title, ‘I am gay, I am Ok’ is probably the first such public announcement by a Malay Muslim in Malaysia – where any open display of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) behaviour invites immediate censure, condemnation and punishment under both Islamic and outdated secular laws that criminalise sexual conduct other than heterosexuality.

“I am receiving death threats, I don’t know what to expect next,” Azwan told local media after he started receiving dead threats days after posting the nearly three-minute clip in December.

In the clip, Azwan related how it is very tough being gay in Malaysia because of religious and cultural norms that criminalise LGBT behaviour.

He argued for equal rights and argued against norms that “defined our lives, telling us who we can be and who we can’t be.”

“My intention was not to insult Islam,” Azwan told local media. “I just wanted to represent gay Malays in this project. I hope these videos will help to create a more open society and more discussion.”

The LGBT campaign on YouTube that Azwan participated in is inspired by the similar “It Gets Better Project” in the United States, which last year responded to a string of gay youth suicides.

The video series is run by Seksualiti Merdeka that organises an annual human rights festival on sexuality, especially the human rights of LGBT people.

Until Azman made his video, the people in the public video series have been non-Muslims.

What’s shocking to many Malaysians is not the fact that there are LGBT persons or LGBT behaviour, which is common but never in your face, said Michael Lam, an openly gay accountant who had just returned from Australia.

“It is the open admission of being gay and the defence of homosexuality by a Malay Muslim,” he told IPS. “It is the openness that is inviting adverse reaction.”

“LGBT is generally tolerated, but as long as it is not flaunted,” he said.

Even behaviour like hugging, holding hands and kissing in public among the sexes are forbidden and can be punished by local council rules or strictly interpreted Islamic law.

Police regularly raid entertainment outlets, bathhouses and massage parlours looking for gay sexual activities; often, possession of even a condom is regarded by officials as a sign of homosexual behaviour among males.

Anal intercourse is an offence under the penal code and is punished by up to 20 years in jail as an “unnatural” act against the “order of nature” – a provision that many former British colonies are repealing, but Malaysia has not yet.

In extreme cases, even non-Muslims have been fined or taken to court for holding hands in public.

Originally LGBT people and others were exhilarated by Azman’s statement – seeing it as a daring attempt to lift the covers off a forbidden subject and encourage discussion and discourse and put LGBT concerns on the national agenda.

However, Azman’s action also sparked condemnation in the government- controlled media; and the subject was also taken up on the Internet and on blogs, Facebook and in chat groups where Azman was condemned as a deviant and an animal.

“We thought this is the turning point, the one event that would break the shroud and open LGBT issue for public discussion,” a playwright who asked for anonymity for fear of censure told IPS.

“The confession was so daring and so open. We felt exhilarated. But now I feel fear, I want to hide,” she said. “We all had to take down his confession from our sites.”

Despite the support from a few daring individuals and organisations, the overwhelming message is one of censure; and Azman, who declined to be photographed or interviewed because of the death threats, also removed his YouTube post.

Many sites that had supported his pioneering effort also removed his post, largely because of the persistent death threats against Azman. “We are normal people, citizens and voters,” said a journalist who also requested anonymity. “We oppose bigotry in any form but are totally against violence.”

Cabinet Minister for Islamic Affairs Jamil Khir Baharom told national television on Jan. 6 that “appropriate action” would be taken against “gay activists” who were trying to promote homosexuality.

“Azwan Ismail is not the first gay Muslim man in Malaysia nor will he be the last,” said the Joint Action Group for Gender Equality, an influential NGO. “Being gay is not a crime; however, hate speech is.”

“We are deeply concerned with the culture of hatred and intolerance bred in our society and against those who are different, be it on the basis of race, religion, gender or sexual orientation,” said JAG, one of the several activists groups that defended Aswan.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 14 2010 (IPS)

As the tabling in Parliament of a proposed law affecting their ancestral land draws near, Malaysia’s Orang Asli or ‘original people’ are gearing up anew for moves to challenge it.

Earlier this year, about 5,000 Orang Asli, who make up only 0.5 percent of Malaysia’s 27 million people, marched in protest against the pending legislation in Putrajaya, which is this South-east Asian country’s administrative capital.

Instead of softening their stance, however, proponents of the proposed law – which would have the Orang Asli renouncing their ancestral rights over vast tracks of forest and semi-forest land – seem to have ramped up efforts to get it approved.

Copies of the proposed legislation have also yet to be shown to the public, even though lawmakers say it is likely to be scheduled to be tabled in Parliament this December, approved in January, and then enforced by March 2011.

Experts say that once this happens, the country’s indigenous people would lose nearly 80 percent of their customary land acreage, which would be used for new townships, as well as for industrial and recreational development, including factory sites and golf courses.

“There is an unholy haste in enacting this law,” says Ragunath Kesavan, president of the Malaysian Bar Council, which has adopted the Orang Asli and is providing them free advice and extensive legal assistance in their land rights struggle.

“We don’t understand the need for secrecy unless they intend to nullify Orang Asli protest,” adds Kesavan.

“We want to know why we (have not been) consulted before this law is enacted,” prominent Orang Asli leader Tijah Yok Chopil also tells IPS. “If enacted, this law would (take away) our land, destroy our culture and our heritage. We would be forced to eke out a living on small plots of unsustainable land.”

“We live in symbiosis with our forest,” she explains. “The forest sustains us and we in turn take only what we need. Under the new scheme the forest will come under the chainsaw.”

The Orang Asli are considered to be the original inhabitants of peninsular Malaysia, antedating the arrival of ethnic Malays. They comprise 18 tribes, half of whom are still based in or near forests, while some live a semi-nomadic lifestyle.

Nearly 77 percent of the Orang Asli live below the poverty line. According to the government, this is why there is a need for the new law, which will give each of the estimated 30,000 Orang Asli households between 0.8 to 2.02 hectares of land that would be planted with oil palm trees.

Government officials say the proposed law would help Orang Asli settle down in land with cash crops to help them feed their families.

“They can enjoy a modern life, enjoy all the amenities with their own house, cars and television with income from their oil palm,” said Rural Development Minister Shafie Apdal in a recent television interview. “Our policy is for them to be part of mainstream society and enjoy all the benefits of development.”

But the Orang Asli and their supporters are up in arms, describing the move as yet the latest bullying tactic by the government.

In fact, for the last few years, the Orang Asli, in alliance with prominent rights activists, lawyers, and academics, have been pressing the government on several fronts for recognition of their distinct culture and heritage.

They have also been demanding respect for their rights to worship in the way they see fit as against official pressure on them to embrace Islam in this majority Muslim country. In addition, they want the right to manage their own lives instead of being “administered” by the Department of Orang Asli Affairs, which was set up in 1954.

When they staged their protest in Putrajaya in March, the Orang Asli had used the event to deliver a memorandum to Prime Minister Najib Razak asking for a new and fair deal that would include the protection of their ancestral land from destruction, and recognition and perseverance of their culture and heritage.

To the Orang Asli, large areas of the country’s forest land is theirs under their unwritten and uncodified customary law, having been handed down to them by their ancestors.

The government, however, says the forests are state land and open for commercial exploitation, in accordance with common laws inherited from Malaysia’s former British colonial masters.

Yet even though the government continues to refuse to recognise customary rights, Malaysian courts have been siding with the Orang Asli in several cases involving the forced repossession of land by the state.

In September, the High Court in Johor Baru ruled in favour of a local Orang Asli community that the state government had evicted in 2003 from land the indigenous people had occupied for generations.

Just in February, the Court of Appeal handed down a landmark judgement that held customary law as valid, even as it said that the government’s repossession of Orang Asli land in 2001 to build a highway is invalid.

The court also ordered the government to pay the Orang Asli some 35 million ringgit (11.31 million dollars) in damages.

Observers now say the proposed new law might be intended to circumvent the court declaration recognising customary rights, which activists and lawyers want the government to support and translate into a law passed by Parliament.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 6 2010 (IPS)

As Malaysia gears up for what is expected to be a crucial general election in 2011, the government is tightening up against widely popular political cartoons and blogs that the ruling party fears will translate into voters’ support for the opposition.

Satire is the new weapon of choice in the fight against government control over freedom of expression. Creative critics invite citizens to laugh at authority and comment on issues, using cartoons, blogs, and video clips uploaded on YouTube.

Ironically, satire is allowed under Malaysia’s Internet laws. The Communications and Multimedia Forum bars contents that is false but allows satire and parody “where it is clear to an ordinary user that the content is fiction”.

But, despite the legal protection, police action has been swift.

On Sep. 2, Irwan Abdul Rahman, executive editor of the ‘Malay Mail’ daily, was charged with publishing falsehoods after lampooning the country’s biggest power producer Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) in a clearly tongue-in-cheek Internet posting entitled “TNB to sue WWF (World Wildlife Fund) over earth hour”.

A week later, a blogger called ‘Namewee’, who has close to a million followers on popular Internet websites YouTube and Facebook, was arrested and is expected to be charged with sedition for allegedly questioning special privileges enjoyed by native Malays, or ‘Bumiputra’, who make up about 65 percent of Malaysia’s 28 million population.

Malaysia’s minority groups decry the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party for its decades-old policy of giving the ‘Bumiputra’ privileges including land ownership, and access to business licences and scholarships.

Some see the tough measures against political satire as signs of desperation among the ruling political elite within UMNO, which fears it could be losing its grip on power.

UMNO president and Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is under attack from within his party for being “too liberal” with political opponents, especially the Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance) coalition.

At the same time, the right-wing Malay group PERKASA is criticising Najib for conceding to minority group demands for political equality with native Malays.

Amid these pressures, Najib is trying to revive Malaysia’s struggling economy in time for elections expected in 2011 but only due in 2013.

The last election in 2008 saw the UMNO-led Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition lose power over five state governments to the Pakatan coalition. More significantly, Pakatan’s headway at the polls meant that the ruling coalition was denied – for the first time since Malaysia’s independence in 1957 – a two-thirds majority in parliament.

“It is clear the ruling elite is shaken and finds satire intolerable because it damages their image and gives the public an opportunity to laugh at them,” said lawmaker Kulasegaran Murugesan. “Satire is a powerful weapon for change and democratisation,” he added.

In the most recent action against satirical criticism, prominent cartoonist Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, known by his pen name ‘Zunar’, was arrested and jailed for a day – just hours before the launch of his latest book, aptly titled ‘Cartoon-o-phobia’, on Sep. 24.

Malaysian authorities slapped a ban on his newest offering, as they had with all three of his earlier political cartoon books.

Authorities have called Zunar’s cartoons “detrimental to public order”, and the cartoonist is likely to be persecuted under the Sedition Act of 1948.

“They can imprison me, but cannot imprison my mind,” Zunar said in a text message to his wife, Fazlina Rosley. Police action “will not hinder my efforts to expose corruption and abuse of power,” Zunar said. “The arrest and banning of the book only shows that the government fears cartoons,” he added.

Police also ransacked the office of ‘Malaysiakini’, an alternative news website that publishes Zunar’s cartoons, in a move that its editor Steven Gan said is clearly an attempt to intimidate the online publication and its employees.

“We will continue to publish cartoons by Zunar,” Gan told IPS.

Lawyers, journalist and activists rallied on Sep. 26 to demand freedom and justice for Zunar.

“We send a clear message to the government that the public will not accept nor tolerate such draconian dictates like the arrest and harassment of cartoonists and others,” said political commentator Josh Hong. “Such action creates an atmosphere of terror.”

“This level of tough action is unprecedented,” said Bar Council president Ragunath Kesavan. “If the intention is to silence Zunar and others and make examples of them to cow the population, then it is definitely not working.”

“In fact people are shocked by the action against satirists. Officials should just laugh and not see satire as criminal offences,” Kesavan said.

Helen Ang, a researcher with the Centre for Policy Initiatives who was herself investigated under the Sedition Act, described the police action as a “systematic harassment” of people who voice their honest opinions. “This has got to stop,” Ang said.

“It reflects and shows poorly on the authorities that they are absolutely paranoid,” former Bar Council president Ambiga Sreenevasan said of Zunar’s arrest. “The action is outrageous; he is a gifted artist and tells it just as it is.”

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 28 2010 (IPS)

After years of losing the war against animal traffickers and poachers, Malaysia has finally responded with the passage of a new wildlife conservation law. But experts say it might be too late for some of this South-east Asian country’s endangered species.

They say that some species like the Sumatran rhinoceros, orang-utans, Malayan tigers and clouded leopards, are fighting a losing battle for their survival, so that all eyes are now on how this new law will be implemented.

“The tough new measures are probably four decades overdue,” said conservationist Mohamed Idris. “Official neglect and corruption is fuelling the international trade in threatened species and the tough new law and action against corrupt officials may be too late for some endangered species.”

The bill, which provides for significantly higher penalties and mandatory jail terms for a wide range of wildlife crimes, is expected to come into force as law in December 2010, following its approval by the Malaysian parliament in August.

“The apathetic official attitude (in the past) is a tragedy of unimaginable proportion for our wildlife,” said one conservationist working for a government agency that preserves wildlife habitat at a forest reserve in East Malaysia, who declined to be named. “Even the rare and endangered tapir are found dead on the roadside, killed by speeding vehicles,” she said.

“It all depends how seriously and effectively the government implement the new law,” she added. “If effectively enforced, the law can give wildlife a respite against open and blatant poaching.”

Critics point out that the Wildlife Department and other agencies given the power to arrest and prosecute potential offenders are understaffed, poorly paid and ill-trained. “They are not modern, don’t have modern equipment, they don’t use modern technology and their budget is minuscule compared to the challenges they face in protecting wildlife against poaches,” lawmaker Kulasegaran Murugesan said. “The law is fine but the implementation part is wanting.”

“We have neglected our rich wildlife heritage to the extent that many rare species like the clouded leopard and orang-utans are endangered and will soon disappear,” Murugesan said. “We have the law but without the budget, the battle is lost.”

The new law will replace the country’s 38-year-old Protection of Wildlife Act – considered obsolete because the maximum 15,000 Malaysian ringgit (5,000 U.S. dollar) fine for any wildlife crime is paltry by today’s standards.

The updated wildlife conservation law will increase the minimum fine to at least 33,000 dollars and provide for a mandatory jail sentence for offences such as setting snares. It will also close loopholes in the current law, including by imposing penalties for selling products claiming to contain parts of protected species or their derivatives. Zoos will not be allowed to operate without permits.

The new law will add to the number of agencies empowered to enforce wildlife laws, roping in police and immigration customs officers. Those convicted of wildlife crimes will be barred from holding any licence, permit or special permit for five years from the commencement of the case.

“Finally, Malaysian agencies have a solid wildlife law that they can wield against poachers and smugglers, who have had little to fear from the paltry fines and jail sentences of the past,” said William Schaedla, regional director of TRAFFIC South-east Asia, a wildlife trade monitoring network.

The wildlife conservation bill has widespread support among Malaysians, a number of whom had written members of parliament and asked them to support the bill during the parliamentary debates in July and August. In 2009, thousands signed a petition seeking better protection of the country’s wildlife.

“The new law has given Malaysia the means and the opportunity drive home the message that it is serious about curbing this menace,” Schaedla said. “So we hope the new law will be the catalyst for an all-out war against wildlife crime and that it will result in more prosecution of such criminals in the courts.”

Yet, some fear that political realities might get in the way of the new law’s implementation.

A case in point is wildlife trafficker Anson Wong, also known as ‘Lizard King’, who was arrested at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Aug. 18 while on transit from Penang to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

Said to be one of the biggest animal dealers in the world, Wong pleaded guilty to the illegal export of 95 boa constrictor pythons but was sentenced to only six months in jail and fined 60,000 dollars.

Following an international outcry by conservationists, state prosecutors appealed the verdict and sought heavier penalties.

Malaysian Animal Rights Society president Surendran Nagarajan described the light sentence as a “big embarrassment for our country”.

“Malaysia has allowed him (Wong) to use Penang as a base and although reports were lodged with the police and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, nothing was done,” Nagarajan, a lawyer, said in an interview.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 17 2010 (IPS)

Genetically modified ‘terminator’ mosquitoes are the latest weapons that the Malaysian government wants to use against the deadly dengue fever, but activists and environmentalists say the public health risks of introducing a new ‘artificial’ strain of mosquito are far too high.

The government has discussed plans to release in December male ‘terminator’ mosquitoes with ‘killer’ genes that would lead to a reduction in the population of the Aedes mosquito, which carries and transmits the dengue virus to humans.

Under what would be a pilot project devised by British and Malaysian scientists, the genetically engineered male Aedes mosquitoes would pass on – when they mate with the wild female of the species – lethal genes that would kill the larvae of the female.

This is supposed to lead to an eventual fall in the number of dengue-carrying mosquitoes, especially the females that are the ones that transmit the dengue virus.

“There are more safe and benign ways to fight dengue” than introducing an altered species whose impact on the environment is unknown, argues Mohamed Idris, president of the Consumers Association of Penang, which campaigns to protect the environment and public health.

“There are alternatives like biological controls to check mosquito population to curb the spread of dengue infections,” Idris said in an interview. For instance, plant extracts, oils and biological larvicides to control mosquito population are cheaper, safer and as effective, he said.

“Releasing genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes from the laboratories into the wild has potential for grave consequences,” Idris added, echoing public concern over the joint undertaking of Malaysia’s Institute of Medical Research and British biotechnology company Oxitec Ltd.

Gurmit Singh, chairman of the non-government Centre for Environment, Technology and Development, warned: “Once you release these GM mosquitoes into the environment, you have no control and it can create more problems than solving them.”

Strong sentiments against the field release of GM mosquitoes abound as well in online chatrooms and other social media, where discussions have been uninhibited compared to the government-controlled mainstream media in the country.

“It (the experiment) could unleash a Pandora’s box. It can go out of control. Laboratory conditions cannot be supplanted in the wild,” said a popular commentator known in the online community as ‘Flyer168’. “Can the government guarantee the safety of its citizens?”

Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai announced earlier in September that the experiment with GM mosquitoes at the “clinical level” was “very successful.” But he said the government was awaiting independent reports from the Genetic Modification Advisory Committee and the National Biosafety Board before deciding on the field release of the ‘terminator’ mosquitoes.

“If both the committee and the board approve the project, the final decision would be made by the Cabinet,” Liow told ‘The Star’ newspaper on Sep. 10. The ministry, which is overseeing the project, has “very stringent” measures to ensure public safety, he assured.

If the feedback from the two agencies is favourable, the GM mosquitoes could be released in a remote area of central Pahang state, health ministry sources said.

Dengue fever is commonly found in the tropics and can cause deaths after people are bitten by female Aedes mosquitoes, usually during the daytime. Dengue cases are often mistaken for the usual fever, and failure to diagnose and treat on time can lead to dengue shock syndrome, which causes death.

Public campaigns in many Asian countries call on residents to avoid letting stagnant water accumulate and to identify early symptoms of dengue fever.

The World Health Organisation (WHO), which has identified dengue as a major international public health concern, estimates that there are 50 million dengue infection cases annually, resulting in about 22,000 deaths, mostly children.

In March, U.S. National Academy of Sciences (NAS) published a study that suggested GM mosquitoes could help fight dengue fever. Although the Malaysian health ministry has vouched for the benefits of the GM mosquito project and cited international studies like those of the NAS, doubts have persisted among locals in past attempts to introduce the mosquitoes.

For instance, an initial plan in December 2009 to release the GM mosquitoes in Pulau Ketam island off the port city of Port Klang, 30 kilometres south of the capital, was aborted because of strong opposition from the 30,000 islanders, mostly fishers.

Together with local politicians and activists, they organised protests and wrote to the health ministry, asking it to avoid using the island as a laboratory to test the effectiveness of the GM mosquitoes.

“We strongly oppose this experiment,” said villager Liew Kam in a letter to the Health Ministry in October 2009. “This experiment could expose us and our children to bigger risks.” Liew complained that the islanders were not informed of field trials beforehand, much less consulted about their participation in them.

Pulau Ketam councillor Tee Boon Hock said field trials were called off soon after the islanders began their protests and threatened to vote for the opposition if the administration persisted with the experiment.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Jul 27 2010 (IPS)

The freedom of information bill pending in opposition-ruled Selangor state may be just at the state level, but it throws a direct challenge to the federal government of Malaysia and its strict controls on the media.

The bill’s tabling by the state government led by the opposition Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance) coalition, done on Jul. 15, is unprecedented in this South-east Asian country, where much of mainstream media are under government control and where independent media are often suppressed or harassed.

The contrasts are sharp between the media environment that the Selangor bill proposes and that which currently exists in the country.

While the federal government employs restrictive laws like the Official Secrets Act, Printing Presses Act and Internal Security Act, the Selangor information bill aims to do the opposite, and return to the public their right of access to information.

“It is a landmark bill and gives bite to the people by recognising they have a right to demand information from the state,” said Elizabeth Wong, a democracy activist-turned- legislator, who is the prime mover of the bill.

The incumbent United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party and its Barisan Nasional (National Front) coalition, which forms the majority in the Malaysian federal government, have opposed the bill on political and legal grounds, dismissing the proposal to allow public access to state information as “unconstitutional”.

Opposition lawmaker Tian Chua believes actions to block the bill are counterproductive, as it is an integral part in the democratisation process already gradually taking place in the country. “Only governments that have things to hide would oppose,” Chua said.

The freedom of information bill has been referred to a select committee for public feedback and will come up for final reading in April 2011, following further debate by the Selangor state legislative assembly and public consultation. With the Pakatan coalition enjoying a majority in the state assembly, the bill is expected to pass easily into Selangor law.

The bill is generating much enthusiasm and public support, especially on Internet platforms.

“This bill is long overdue and recognises the citizen’s rights to demand information held by the state,” wrote Ben Farid, in a comment on Malaysiakini, a popular independent online news portal.

Another Internet commentator described it as “democracy advancing and (the) pushing back (of) authoritarianism”.

“Freedom of information laws are in operation in over 80 countries… It is long overdue in Malaysia,” said Chua. “We hope that the law is the start of a process of free and legitimate flow of information from government to the people.”

If passed, the law will only be applicable within Selangor, some 54 kilometres north-east of capital Kuala Lumpur. It will not cover federal matters, but could pave the way for other states and the federal government to enact similar laws guaranteeing access to information.

“We have shown the way to greater democratisation, we have shown it can be done,” Wong told IPS. “The other states and federal government will now come under pressure from the electorate to make similar freedom of information laws.”

The proposed law will allow citizens to approach an Appeals Board, comprising former judges and lawyers, if government agencies refuse their requests for the release of official documents within 30 days. Government officials also need to explain if they deny a citizen’s request for information.

However, the Selangor bill does not cover documents that come under the Official Secrets Act – a draconian law often employed by the government to harass students, activists, opposition politicians, and media professionals.

What currently constitutes an “official secret”, Chua pointed out, is very loose and wide. “Anything ranging from waste management contracts to toll concession agreements and even blueprints of water treatment plants are considered secrets,” he said. “There is much that the government does not want the public to know.”

“People have a right now to get information held by the government. They have a right to know what’s going on, how decisions were made and so forth,” Wong told IPS.

Interestingly, the introduction of the bill coincided with a crackdown by authorities against media units owned by all three opposition political parties in the Pakatan coalition.

The Malaysian government suspended publication permits and questioned the editors of several Pakatan-owned publications, which in recent weeks had run articles exposing government mismanagement and alleged corruption within federal agencies.

The government denied these allegations, and charged that the opposition-owned publications had breached the conditions of their permits by publishing such “lies”.

Led by reformist leader Anwar Ibrahim, Pakatan won 82 of 222 seats in Malaysia’s bicameral parliament as well as control of five state governments in the 2008 elections. It had campaigned with promises of a freedom of information bill, egalitarian redistribution of wealth and resources, and affirmative action for all Malaysians to replace the policy of favouring the ‘bumiputra’ or native Malays and indigenous people.

More significantly, Pakatan’s headway at the polls meant that the ruling Barisan coalition was denied – for the first time since Malaysia’s independence in 1957 – a two-thirds majority in parliament.

The fulfilment of its campaign promises, such as the enactment of the information bill, should stand Pakatan in good stead with voters when the two coalitions face off again in the next elections, expected in mid-2012.

“This freedom of information law empowers the people in ways they had not imagined before and it’s all because of the 2008 revolt at the ballot boxes,” said Wong.

*The Asia Media Forum (http://www.theasiamediaforum.org) is a space for journalists to share insights on issues related to the media and their profession. It is coordinated by IPS Asia-Pacific.

Excerpt:

The prospect of motherhood filled 17-year-old Fatimah’s heart with dread.

This, the Muslim youngster told the magistrate she appeared before in March, is why she left her newborn baby to die in a garbage bag here in the Malaysian capital four months ago. “I feared punishment and condemnation from my family and teachers in college,” said Fatimah (not her real name).

The teenage mother was charged with abandoning her baby – a crime in this moderate Muslim-majority country, whose public has been increasingly worried by a spate of media reports police finding dead or alive newborn babies in trash bins and public places, including convenience stores.

“I had nowhere to go. I hid the pregnancy by wearing loose clothes,” Fatimah told the court when her case came up for trial in May. In the end, Fatimah, whose relationship with her boyfriend had ended, delivered a baby girl on the stairs of a shop, alone.

Under Section 317 of Malaysia’s Penal Code, the crime of intentionally abandoning a child below the age of 12 is punishable by up to seven years’ imprisonment. But the magistrate took her youth and other mitigating factors into consideration and placed her on a good behaviour bond.

Based on police reports, over 100 babies were abandoned in 2006, many of them left by teenagers and young adults, students and desperate foreign migrant workers. This figure could have risen in subsequent years, since many such incidents go unreported, police say.

The phenomenon is tragic, activists say, noting that Malaysia has a First-World information infrastructure that could be readily harnessed to educate the youth on reproductive and sexual health, especially in secondary schools.

But religious opposition has stalled the integration of sex education in school curricula.

Echoing the views of the conservative sector, prominent cleric Nik Aziz Nik Mat said that sex education in schools would encourage teenage sexual promiscuity. “The best way to resolve this phenomenon is to instill greater Islamic values (in young people),” Nik Aziz was quoted as saying in May.

Even former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has said that sex education was unnecessary because students are already getting Islamic and moral education. “We keep hearing about newborn babies found in garbage cans, which is a sad matter,” Mahathir has said.

The government’s policy on sex education is far from clear. But amid a debate on unwanted teenage pregnancies, it has formed a committee to look into whether to teach sex education in classes. While some aspects of reproductive system are taught in science classes, there is little or nothing on sex, much less safer sex.

The government has also announced plans to set up an interactive portal in schools.

This is part of attempts to educate students about sexuality, abstaining from premarital sex, and the consequences of unsafe sex, said Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, the minister for Women, Family and Community Development.

“The portal will also equip them with necessary skills or tips on how to fend off sexual advances,” she told IPS. “The root of problem is that they (teenagers) do not know the risk involved. Most of the cases of abandoned babies are the result of unwanted pregnancies.”

But others point out that a judgemental approach that focuses on penalties, more than a frank, accurate and educational one, does not really reach young people effectively. Malaysian society is “more focused on condemning and punishing (sexual behaviour among youth) and not on understanding and helping,” lamented Ragunath Kesavan, president of the Malaysian Bar Council.

“It’s a severe form of incongruity that we must face up to and resolve – teach or to ignore (sex education),” he said, because ignorance is behind the number of unplanned pregnancies and abandoned babies.

As a result, young people are turning to their peers or the Internet for information about sexuality. But “such information is sketchy at best, probably romanticised and does not help young people make the right and safe decision,” lawmaker Chong Eng, who has frequently raised the issue in Parliament, told IPS.

“We cannot to ignore the challenges young people face. We have to teach, guide, and help them to make the right decisions,” he added.

A study by Fatimah Abdullah of the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia shows that young women in their 20s, not just teenagers, abandon their babies, a fact that reflects the severe lack of knowledge about sexuality even among young adults.

Most young mothers did not even know they were pregnant even after they stopped menstruating, she said. Her research also showed that some girls could not even distinguish between their urethral and vaginal openings.

The study, the only one available in the country so far, noted that there was no specific policy or programme in place to help teenagers deal with unwanted pregnancies.

Yet there are clearly implications for the future of girls and young women. “There is a lot of social stigma against unwed mothers that may lead young girls to unsafe abortions, to backdoor practices that can threaten their lives,” said a spokesman for United Nations Children’s Fund in Malaysia. “It can have a huge emotional and psychological impact on a girl who feels she has no other choice but to destroy her baby or give the baby up at birth.”

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 28 2010 (IPS)

As Rajoo, 27, makes tea at a rundown shed in Brickfields, a depressed suburb of the capital inhabited by hundreds of Tamil immigrants from Sri Lanka, he evinces no sign of anxiety and a deep yearning for something.

He dreams of returning to his village in war-ravaged Sri Lanka except that it had been razed to the ground by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – an armed group that had waged a decades-long bloody insurgency against the government on the country’s north-eastern coast, home to its largest ethnic minority.

The LTTE was finally defeated by military troops in May 2009.

Despite the war’s end, Rajoo says he is scared of returning to his home country. “My village is gone and my relatives are either dead or in camps,” he says. “At the height of the battle, I left my wife and son with an uncle and fled to South India by sea and flew to Malaysia.”

Rajoo is one of an estimated 100,000 refugees currently living in Malaysia and who risk arrest by the highly feared People’s Volunteer Corps (RELA), a paramilitary group which has the power to apprehend refugees and undocumented migrant workers and have them jailed or deported.

Rajoo, who declines to give his real name for fear of arrest by members of RELA, says he has an identification card issued by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), “but authorities don’t give it much respect,” he tells IPS.

The UNCHR card entitles refugees like him to basic rights such as freedom of movement within the host country in line with the international agreements on refugees.

Resettling former Sri Lankan refugees like Rajoo in their homeland is an uphill struggle even if the war has ended, says opposition lawmaker and human rights activist Kulasegaran Murugesan, who is of Tamil descent and is campaigning in the Malaysian parliament to improve the Tamil refugee conditions in Malaysia.

Refugees are not allowed to work under Malaysian law, but most do anyway to supplement the UNHCR monthly assistance of 300 Malaysian ringgit (around 93 U.S. dollars) that they are getting, says Murugesan.

Malaysia has not acceded to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.

The Convention is an international agreement that defines who is a refugee and establishes their rights and the legal obligations of the states parties.

Although the government has agreed to cooperate with the UNHCR in addressing refugee issues on humanitarian grounds, Malaysian authorities often do not differentiate between refugees and economic migrants, says Murugesan. Such migrants comprise around three million documented and undocumented individuals from poor countries who are trying to make a living in this South-east Asian country

“Malaysia is a dangerous place for refugees who are often abused, arrested and treated like criminals,” Ragunath Kesavan, president of the Malaysian Bar Council, tells IPS.

“Refugees and asylum seekers, particularly women and children, are often at risk of arrest, prosecution, detention and deportation. In some cases, they are trafficked upon deportation.”

These observations confirm the findings of international human rights group Amnesty International (AI). Instead of finding comfort and protection, the refugees in Malaysia end up “abused, exploited, arrested and locked up,” said the AI in its report released this month.

“The abusive way we treat refugees and our refusal to sign the U.N.’s refugee protocols is a shame,” says prominent lawyer and rights activist Surendran Nagalingam. “Our human rights record is deplorable among the family of nations in the region.”

Murugesan believes Malaysia refuses to sign the Convention and the Protocol for fear it would be swamped by migrants who can easily claim to be refugees such as what happened when Indonesians from Aceh province flocked to Malaysia at the height of the conflict in this northern Indonesian province.

But the Aceh conflict in neighbouring Indonesia is effectively over, he says. “There is no fear of being swamped now,” he adds.

“We must sign these protocols and play our part as responsible citizens of the world,” he says. Otherwise, “we forfeit our right to decry abuse in other places like the Middle East.”

Refugees seeking safety in Malaysia also come from war-torn Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. The majority are natives of military-ruled Burma, who fled their country only to be subjected to a litany of abuses upon reaching Malaysia, since the government does not recognise their status.

The refugees’ lack of legal status for refugees in Malaysia means they can be punished with imprisonment of up to five years and whipping for illegally entering the country, says the AI.

To deflect mounting criticism of its alleged violations of the rights of refugees under international treaties, Malaysia has announced that it is considering certain measures to improve the plight of refugees within its borders such as allowing refugees to work while awaiting resettlement abroad.

But a senior home ministry official, who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity, says these measures are still at a planning stage. “The government has not given the green light to implement (them),” he says.

Until such measures are in place, Rajoo and other refugees like him will live in constant fear of arrest.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 15 2010 (IPS)

A Malaysian youth is languishing in death row awaiting hanging after Singapore’s judiciary found him guilty of possessing heroin weighing 47 grams, lawyers fighting to save him tell IPS.

Two human rights activists in Singapore hold up a poster expressing support for death row inmate Yong Vui Kong. Credit: Ravi Madasamy/IPS

“We will mobilise public opinion against the death penalty, against the bid to kill Yong for such a paltry offence,” said human rights lawyer N. Surendran. “If need be, we will protest outside the Singapore mission here and organise boycott of anything that is clearly Singapore,” he said, adding the aim is to pressure Singapore to be “humane.”

Yong Vui Kong, 21, a Malaysian from the South-east Asian country’s eastern state of Sabah, was only 19 years old when he was sentenced by the Singapore High Court to death in November 2008.

Yong and his family of nine were abandoned by his father when he was only three years old. As a young boy he left his village in Sandakan, Sabah for the bright lights of Kuala Lumpur and later Singapore.

Like hundreds of thousands of other people displaced by rural-urban migration, Yong was chasing the same dream – work hard, save and strike it rich. But his life took an unexpected spiral.

His clemency petition for the death sentence to be commuted to life was rejected and he was scheduled for hanging on Dec. 4, 2009. But he was saved by an unprecedented stay granted by the Singapore Court 24 hours before the hanging.

His lawyer, Ravi Ramasamy, a prominent human rights champion in Singpore, rushed to court and argued that mandatory death sentences were unconstitutional, citing numerous decisions of famous judges in Commonwealth countries, including India.

The mandatory element of the death penalty removes discretion from judges and grants it to the state, and this is unconstitutional, Madasamy told IPS in an interview in this capital. “The state is the judge and executioner.”

“The power to hang has been given to the state by taking away the discretion from the judges. Mitigating circumstances are ignored,” said Malaysian Bar Council (MBC) president Ragunath Kesavan.

A higher court has overturned the stay and re-imposed the death sentence, and Yong is again facing the hangman’s noose.

Madasamy, who has battled the Singapore criminal justice system on numerous occasions, has only until about August this year to keep Yong alive.

“I have asked Yong, his mother and siblings to expect the worst because the system in Singapore is merciless,” Madasamy said. “They want to make a point and they might want to do it not by mercy but by hanging,” he added. “We are racing against time to safe Yong.”

It usually takes about three months between submission of a clemency petition and its rejection and immediate execution of the victim, said the lawyer.

Activists in Malaysia and Singapore have argued that even top lawyers in London are involved in challenging the constitutionality of the mandatory death penalty provision in Singapore.

“We are mobilising public opinion in Malaysia to show the inherent injustice in mandatory sentences. We want our parliament to repeal this provision from Malaysian laws,” said MBC’s Kesavan, urging Singaporeans to do likewise.

Both Singpore and Malaysia have mandatory death penalty for certain offences, particularly murder and possession of a certain amount of illegal drugs.

Both countries have hanged scores of people of different nationalities for drug possession, which is punishable by mandatory death by hanging, which human rights groups say is a primitive way of killing, because it causes agony and sufferings to its victims.

“Singapore has world-class facilities but not world-class humanism,” lawyer Surendran said, adding it was time the city-state showed its human side by giving Yong a chance to live. He has urged the Malaysian government to speak up for Yong by pressuring Singapore to grant clemency and commute the death sentence to life.

As Yong awaits his execution, he hears others being dragged from their cells to the execution chamber, crying, wailing and begging to be freed and to be forgiven, his family said.

Yong was 12 years old when he ran away from a “life of pain,” said his brother Yun Leong. At 15, he made his way to Kuala Lumpur, hoping to find a better job but faced discrimination because of his “rural” origins. He found work in a Chinese restaurant but was paid far less than his colleagues.

“He told us while work was hard and the pay was low, there was always ample food to eat,” Yun Leong said. “He was always looking for better-paying jobs.”

Later, a local gang recruited him to hawk pirated video compact discs or VCDs. From hawking he moved into “helping out” at collecting debts.

An unnamed ‘Big Brother’ came into his life for whom he felt compelled to do anything. According to friends and family, Yong soon started delivering small packets of heroin to people in the city. In May 2007 he was caught by Singapore police with 47.27 grams of heroin with him.

Lawyer Madasamy said his client has come to terms with his impending death. He has also embraced Buddhism, waking up early to meditate and seek advice from Buddhist monks, who visit him regularly, the counsel said.

Yong continues to hope for a miracle.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, May 11 2010 (IPS)

Instead of going nuclear, the Malaysian government should be harnessing alternative energy resources, which are adequate in supply, says the country’s anti-nuclear lobby.

In a move that surprised many, among other reasons for lack of public consultations, minister for energy, green technology and water Peter Chin Fah Kui announced on May 3 that the government had approved plans to build a nuclear power station to produce electricity and have it up and running by 2021, citing the country’s growing energy needs.

Chin’s statement that the country’s depleting fossil fuel alongside its expanding energy needs warranted the use of inexhaustible nuclear power was dismissed as rubbish by environmentalists and energy experts alike.

Malaysia had long argued that nuclear power was unnecessary in a country blessed with ample alternative energy sources.

Mohideen Abdul Kader, a senior adviser to the environmental group Friends of the Earth Malaysia, expressed anger at the sudden announcement.

“We are upset and angry that the government does not want to engage with stakeholders. It is shocking news. Under ex-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the government said it was not going nuclear. There is now a total U-turn on our policy,” he said.

Chin told IPS the government weighed “all available” options for long-term energy needs before it decided to go nuclear. “We have to look at energy security. No country can grow without energy, no gross domestic product can progress without energy,” he said in an interview.

“Clearly, Malaysia has more energy than it needs. Without any economic grounds or energy security justification, why is Malaysia going nuclear?” asked Lim Guan Eng, secretary general of the Malaysian Democratic Action Party and chief minister of the opposition-ruled Penang state, situated north of West Malaysia.

“Alternative sources of energy are the way (to go) and Malaysia is rich and blessed in these areas,” prominent environmentalist Gurmit Singh told IPS. “We should exploit these alternative sources before even thinking of going nuclear.

“Malaysia must be ready to develop energy-efficient technology and brave enough to invest in solar, hydro and wind power,” he added. Singh, who heads the Center for Environment, Technology and Development, a local think tank, warned that nuclear power was capital-intensive and very risky, because it generates radioactive waste that has to be discarded.

“Malaysians wonder what assurances can be given in relation to safety and environment following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant accident in Ukraine that claimed 56 lives and resulted in 4,000 cancer deaths,” he said in a statement. “There are obvious and real concerns over nuclear power.”

Singh added that the cost of nuclear waste disposal is expensive. “Once a country enters the nuclear path, it faces a mountain of bills,” he said. He urged the government to instead bolster energy efficiency and turn to other renewable sources like wind and solar power.

The size, composition and foreign partner that will be involved in the construction of the planned nuclear plant are still unknown.

In 2008 state energy corporation Tenaga Nasional, which has private shareholdings, said it had the capacity to build the country’s first 1,000- megawatt nuclear power plant at a cost of 3 billion U.S. dollars using foreign technology and capital assistance.

The government had asked Tenaga to study the nuclear option because oil prices were surging then and oil and coal-fired power plants were becoming too costly to maintain.

“There is a strong undercurrent of Malay nationalism behind the urge to go nuclear,” charged opposition lawmaker Murugesan Kulasegaran, adding it is part of same macho ‘Malaysia Boleh’ (Malaysia can!) culture that sent a Malaysian into space on a Russian rocket.

In October 2007, a Russian Soyuz spacecraft launched Malaysia’s first astronaut into space, Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor, a university lecturer and orthopedic surgeon.

Malaysia’s south-east Asian neighbours, namely, Thailand and Vietnam, have already unveiled plans to operate their first nuclear power plants by 2020 while Indonesia has plans to build its own on Java Island by 2015.

But unlike these countries, critics say Malaysia has a 40 percent energy reserve margin, double the government’s target of 20 percent reserves, making the construction of a nuclear reactor unnecessary.

Malaysia’s power usage is about 14,000 megawatts now out of a total national capacity of 23,000 megawatts. Several giant dams with additional 7,000-megawatt capacity are coming on stream on Borneo Island, partly occupied by the Malaysia states of Sarawak and Sabah, with plans to ship the energy across the South China Sea using undersea cables.

Malaysia uses coal and natural gas to generate most of its electricity supply. The government has repeatedly warned that the cost of relying on both commodities is expected to spiral in the decades ahead as supply diminishes and demand increases.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, May 5 2010 (IPS)

Aminulrasyid Amzah was just a normal 15-year-old schoolboy who hung out with friends, watched football and occasionally took his sister’s car for a spin.

On Apr. 28 his life came to a sudden and tragic end – shot dead by police after a short, high-speed chase in his hometown of Shah Alam, about 30 kilometres south of the capital. His death has sparked a huge public outcry against the police and rising demands for an independent panel to investigate the incident and also for the creation of an independent oversight committee to monitor police conduct.

"We need an independent authority to watch over the police, to bring them to reign and punish them when they abuse their powers," said prominent human rights activists and opposition lawmaker Charles Santiago.

"This tragic death is a case of rampant abuse of police power," he told IPS. "They shoot first and ask questions later."

"People are angry the police killed him [Amzah] in the prime of his life…. people see the callous cruelty behind the killing," said human rights lawyer Karpal Singh.

Santiago said he and other lawmakers concerned over the rising cases of human rights abuse involving the police force would move a motion in parliament for an urgent debate on the incident.

"We want the police held accountable for each and every death connected with them. This is an absolute must," said opposition lawmaker Kulasegaran Murugesan.

According to human rights lawyer Uthayakumar Ponnusamy, who closely monitors the police force, about 50 people are shot dead annually but accurate figures are hard to get.

"But the figures are rising and some of the deaths are questionable like the case of student Aminulrasyid Amzah," he told IPS. "How can anybody justify his death? It’s simply impossible."

A proposal to set up an oversight committee watching over the police force was extensively discussed and debated during the administration of former Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, who set up a Royal Commission to inquire into the police force and check abuse in 2004. It came up with numerous recommendations in 2005.

The high powered panel’s most important recommendation – the creation of an oversight committee, an independent body to watch over the police force and check abuses – was never implemented, largely because of strong opposition from the police force.

At one point police even threatened to pull out their personnel from the streets and abandon policing if the proposed oversight committee was implemented. The move to set up an independent panel to oversee and check the police force was subsequently abandoned.

"The reason why an oversight committee was not set up until today to check a rampant police force is a lack of political will," prominent human rights lawyer N. Surendran told IPS.

"The government benefits from unfettered police action against the legitimate opposition and as a reward, the government allows police a free hand to manage themselves," he said.

"It’s a trade-off and one that works against the people, human rights and democracy," he told IPS.

Public anger at the shooting is palpable and demands to check the police force have been mounting following the death of Amzah.

A Facebook account titled ‘We hate the cruelty of Malaysian police, Justice for Aminulrasyid’ attracted over 100,000 fans within a week of his death, with many people slamming the police.

"We want to show how sick the police institution is; this is not the first case," said a statement on the account.

The government of Prime Minister Najib – which is wooing alienated, younger voters after a drubbing at the general election in 2008 – has quickly responded to the rising anger with an eight-member panel of mainly establishment figures to probe the shooting.

"I promise a fair and transparent probe," Najib said in a statement issued on May 4. The panel will also review the standard operating procedures on the use of firearms by police and make changes, if necessary.

But there is no mention of an oversight committee to check abuses in the police force, something the police still strongly oppose and the government is reluctant to implement out of regard for the police, lawmakers said.

"There is no point in (creating) a panel consisting of establishment figures probing the shooting. I fear they might even whitewash the whole affair," said lawmaker Murugesan.

"What we need, what the people desire is a strong, independent and fearless authority to check the police force … to watch over the watchers and punish the abuse of police powers. This is what we urgently need," he told IPS.

The influential Malaysian Bar Council also said it was "sceptical" that the eight-member panel, headed by Deputy Home Minister Abu Seman Yusop, is "sufficient and effective to uncover the truth regarding the death of the student."

"An independent and credible external mechanism for oversight of the police like the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission suggested by the 2004 Royal Commission is urgently needed to watch over the police force," said Ragunath Kesavan, president of the Malaysian Bar Council.

"The establishment of an ad hoc panel each time there is an incident cannot be a substitute for an institutionalised, transparent and competent entity that is fully focused on police operations and policies alone," he told IPS.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 23 2010 (IPS)

For many Malaysian journalists these days, it has become very tricky to draw a clear line between commenting critically on an issue and offending a particular community and thus threatening social order.

It has also become a risky matter after print journalists and columnists have come under fire for criticising aspects of ‘shariah’ law in this mainly Muslim country.

Coming from a powerful political family provided little protection for Marina Mahathir, the daughter of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who writes a column for the English-language daily ‘The Star’. On Mar. 3, her ‘Musings’ column – which questioned the caning of three women after a sentence given by ‘shariah’ court – was censored.

Mahathir posted the piece on her blog under the title ‘The Column that Wasn’t’ the next day. She questioned the transparency, fairness and wisdom of some ‘shariah’ laws and the February sentence. “Who knew until recently that people could get caned for drinking, or for having a baby out of wedlock until the recent cases of Kartika (Sari Dewi Shukarnor) and the three women?” she asked.

The three women were caned on Feb. 9 for engaging in ‘illicit sex’, news reports said. They were the first women in Malaysia to receive such punishment under ‘Shariah’ law in this traditionally moderate Muslim country of more than 28 million people. Controversy surrounds these cases because Malaysian federal law excludes women from being caned.

Kartika’s sentence, which was for being caught drinking beer, has not yet been carried out.

Mahathir said that ‘shariah’ laws whose intent, processes and enforcement were unfair “only give the impression that Islam is unjust and discriminatory,” she wrote. “Surely to give such an image of Islam is a sin.”

Apart from Mahathir, ‘The Star’ daily columnist and managing editor P Gunasegaram also wrote about the caning sentence and was questioned by the police for his article that came out on Feb. 19.

The English-language daily, which was banned for about six months in the late 1980s for reporting news that reportedly caused racial animosity, was issued a ‘show cause’ letter by government authorities. This letter compels a media organisation to justify why its publishing permit should not be revoked.

“Oppression and suppression of media and free speech is a growing phenomenon in the country,” human rights advocate Nasir Hashim said in an interview.

A day after Gunasegaram’s column came out, ‘The Star’ published an apology saying that it “will be more strict with the columnist” and “there was no intention to insult or offend Muslims” through his article.

Senior Home Ministry official Abdul Razak Abdul Latif, however, said the ministry has found that the column “threatened public order”. No final decision has been made on the case.

Political analyst Khoo Kay Peng said, “The columnist (Gunasegaram) was merely speaking the obvious. He stated that women were exempted from caning under the civil law and Islamic law must comply with the exemption.”

Some see the government’s moves as the result of pressure from Muslim conservatives and its desire to score points with its political base among the Malays, who make up some 55 percent of the population and are mostly Muslim. Twenty-five percent of Malaysians are Chinese, 12 percent indigenous peoples, and nearly 8 percent are Indians.

Many officials of the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional (National Front) also endorsed the caning sentence.

“The entrenched classes are shaken by recent political losses. Increased oppression indicates they are trying to regain control,” said Hashim, the president of the Socialist Party of Malaysia. He was referring to the fact that the Barisan Nasional government has been losing key figures in recent months to opposition parties.

“They (authorities) seem to want to whip up Malay anger against political moderates,” added a political scientist with the National University of Malaysia, who requested anonymity. “They are restraining moderates and seem to encourage extremists for political gain.”

The academic said the strategy is to get the majority of Malays to think that they would lose status and privileges unless they support the Malay- dominated government. Governments have usually used the affirmative- action ‘bumiputra’ policy toward ethnic Malays as a way of keeping this support.

“They don’t want to see the different races coming together in moderation and mutual understanding,” the academic told IPS. “The entrenched classes fear losing their grip on society.”

Even articles by moderate thinkers have come under fire.

The Malay-language daily ‘Utusan Malaysia’ (‘Malaysian Courier’) dropped the popular weekly column of moderate Muslim cleric Asri Zainal Abidin for no apparent reason. Known for his independent views on Islamic issues, Abidin’s last column appeared on Feb. 28 and was replaced by a columnist known for his ultra-conservative views.

Abidin was quoted in local papers as saying that many of his opinions of late “have been different from theirs”, referring to the newspaper’s owners.

Apart from using legal provisions that bar the publication of material that incites hatred in this multi-ethnic country – a very sensitive matter in Malaysia – the government has media laws it can use against publications.

Carried over from the country’s colonial past, the Printing and Publication Act 1948 requires all forms of media, except online news portals, to have a publishing permit issued by the Home Ministry. These permits expire at the end of the year and need to be renewed before publishing can resume.

“It’s like a Damocles sword hanging over the head of the publishers,” said Ennalini Elumalai, a coordinator with Suaram, the country’s best-known human rights group. “Publishers are faced with the prospect of permit cancellation. It is either behave or lose the publishing licence,” she said.

Activists and opposition lawmakers have long called for the law to be repealed but without success.

“We stand to lose millions of dollars if our publication is suspended for even a month,” said a senior manager of a major publishing group that also controls radio and television stations. “Publishing is a big business involving millions in investments and no publishing company is willing to be brave and lose their investment by angering the authorities,” he said, asking not to be identified.

The online media are freer than the print media. But even there, the government applies influence by co-opting editors or journalists and controlling funding sources.

“(Despite the odds), there is still room for courage, to stand up for freedom of speech. If we capitulate every time, then why bother publishing at all?” said Mahathir on her blog, ‘Rantings by MM’.

*The Asia Media Forum (http://www.theasiamediaforum.org) is a space for journalists to share insights on issues related to the media and their profession, as well as stories and opinions on democracy, development and human rights in Asia.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Mar 14 2010 (IPS)

A Malaysian government scheme to create commercial ‘private wings’ in major government hospitals has come under fire from critics, who say it will add to the burden of people who need public healthcare the most.

S Arulchelvam (right) at a protest against privatisation of health services at a government hospital in Kuala Lumpur. Credit: Baradan Kuppusamy/IPS

The government is determined to fully implement the Full Paying Patients (FPP) programme in all major general hospitals within the year, saying that the pilot phase it carried out in two big hospitals over the past six months has been successful.

But “it is a clever way of privatising health care,” said Nasir Hashim, leader of a protest movement against the scheme and president of the Socialist Party of Malaysia. “The poor who already suffer from high cost of health care and rising food and living cost will suffer even further.”

“Not only will desperate patients further excluded but they will be forced to rely on precious savings to fund their healthcare needs,” he said in an interview. “This is a form of backdoor privatisation.”

“Such a scheme is fundamentally flawed and will only serve to deprive the low-income (groups) and poor of their right to specialist care,” added S M Idris, president of the Consumers’ Association of Penang. “Their basic human right is being taken away.”

They also fear that the creation of the private wings will move the focus of government hospitals and specialist shifts to paying customers instead of needy patients.

“Private healthcare in principle is to complement public healthcare and not assume the role of the public healthcare sector as the principle guardian of the people’s health,” opposition lawmaker Charles Santiago said.

Right now, major general hospitals have sections that are open to all patients who enjoy equal access to bed, medicine and specialists’ care. But the new scheme would mean that specialists’ care, operating theatres and other facilities would be open only to full-paying patients after 5 p.m. every day.

The government of Prime Minister Najib Razak, who came to power in April 2009, is on a major drive to remove subsidies in order to accelerate free- market measures and make the country more attractive for foreign investors.

He is eager to cut back on deficit financing that has plagued the country since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, undertaking measures such as removing subsidies on oil and other petroleum products and introducing a new goods and service tax.

Making the egalitarian health care system, which is heavily subsidised, a self-paying one, is one of his goals.

Social activists, lawyers and opposition lawmakers, including the Socialist Party of Malaysia, organised numerous protests against the FPP scheme this month.

Nasir, who led a large protest in several big hospitals and submitted memoranda listing the flaws of the FPP scheme, say that the despite Malaysia’s wealth, nearly 60 percent of the country’s 28 million people are considered to be in the lower-income groups.

Another four million foreign migrant workers – documented and undocumented – also depend on the same stretched and outdated health system and would feel the impact of the FPP scheme.

“The FPP scheme ignores quality foster care and treatment of patients who depend on regular public hospitals for their needs,” Nasir said. “We want the scheme cancelled.”

Santiago argued, “This abrogation of duty of the government to citizens is seen in the corporatisation privatisation schemes under the Najib administration. The scheme is the first step in the eventual privatisation of the public healthcare sector.”

Critics fear that poor patients might end up paying services and charges that are now provided free in government hospitals, such as medicines, board and lodging, surgical procedures, nursing, use of equipment and administrative costs.

“All these charges when added are exorbitant and beyond the means of many Malaysians,” Santiago said.

In a country already suffering from perennial shortages of medical personnel, the FPP scheme could well be an additional push factor that encourages doctors, nurses and specialists to move to the private sector.

There are 6,400 medical vacancies in the public sector, with a 2008 doctor- patient ratio of one to 1,105 patients.

As a result, medical officers in the public sector are heavily overworked and doctors often see up to 150 patients a day, Idris says. “With FPP, doctors will come under additional pressure.”

S Arulchelvam, secretary general of the Socialist Party, says that the FPP would result in discrimination in treating paying and non-paying patients. “The public-private mix would lend itself to corrupt practices as in the case in some countries where health care is a mix between public and private care,” he added. “The net benefit for the poor will be less access and a further erosion of equity.”

“Those who cannot afford to pay full rates should be given discounts or, in the poorest cases, free treatment. Patients in the second-class and those in first-class should pay a large percentage of the costs of treatment,” Arulchelvam said.

“This way, the primary role of public hospitals to offer equitable and accessible healthcare to all citizens is maintained. There will be a conflict of interest if the already overburdened public healthcare resources are further diluted to cater for private wings,” Idris explained.

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 22 2010 (IPS)

The confiscation and banning of books by Malaysian authorities is sending alarm bells ringing among activists, who want the repeal of laws that the government is using to suppress freedom of expression.

Home Ministry officials last week continued to raid numerous bookstores to confiscate books and publications by ‘Malaysiakini’, an independent news website that has been critical of government policies.

The ministry says it needs to “study and review” these books for content deemed to be against national security. But for ‘Malaysiakini’ chief editor Steven Gan, the action amounts to harassment of writers and booksellers.

Two publications by Malaysiakini, ‘1Funny Malaysia’ and ‘Where is Justice’, have virtually been banned because bookstores are afraid to sell them and people are afraid to buy because of official harassment, he said. Thus far, a dozen bookstores across this South-east Asian country have had their stocks of the two publications seized for “study and review.”

“According to Home Ministry officials, the books were suspected to cause harm to public order, morality, public safety and international relations,” Gan told IPS. “The books are not banned, but they want to seize the books for review purposes.”

“They can get the books from us,” he said. “There is no need to harass the bookstores.”

This follows the banning by the publication division of the Home Ministry of books that include works written by human rights activists and Muslim feminist academics.

Even the use of particular phrases like the word Allah, the Arabic word for God, is banned in some publications, with officials arguing that these words are exclusive to Islam.

“These works (Malaysiakini publications) are about current issues and written to arouse critical thinking and encourage healthy debates,” said political humourist Zunar, author of ‘1Funny Malaysia’, a collection of his best-known political cartoons that lambast the ruling power elites.

The title is a pun on the ‘1Malaysia campaign’ by Prime Minister Najib Razak, who is hoping to recoup political losses by convincing the public that the government is for all of them and not just for the ruling elite.

“It is a violation of press freedom, freedom of expression and the principles of democracy,” Zunar told IPS. The spate of raids and confiscations is being done under the Printing Presses and Publications Act, a law enacted to defeat a communist insurrection in the late 1940s.

While it remains in the books, opposition lawmaker Murugesan Kulasegaran said: “The law is outdated. It has no place in a liberal and progressive county. It should be repealed entirely.”

The mere possession of a banned book can lead to a jail term and fine of 5,000 Malaysian ringgit (1,470 U.S. dollars).

Meantime, the judiciary, which media and civil society hope to turn to for redress, has given mixed signals on the issue.

While some judges have ordered the government to lift the ban on books, others have supported the home minister in their judgements, arguing that the minister knows better and has the power to use his discretion to preserve “public safety and national security”.

In two conflicting judgements in the first two months of 2010, one judge lifted a ban on the book ‘Muslim Women and the Challenges of Islamic Extremism’ by Muslim feminist academic Noraini Othman and another confirmed a ban on ‘March 8’, a book by lawyer K Arumugam about the origins of a 2001 riot between Hindus and Muslims in the city.

Deputy Home Minister Fu Ah Kiow justified the ban as “just ordinary procedure”. “We have to act to because some books are unfavourable for the public, cause ill feelings among the races,” the English-language daily ‘The Star’ quoted him as saying.

Discussions of race and ethnicity are sensitive in this country, where racial tensions have simmered under its multi-ethnic surface since independence in 1957 and where laws discourage inflammatory statements and publications.

Some 55 percent of Malaysia’s more than 28 million people are Malay, most of them Muslim, while 25 percent are Chinese, 12 percent indigenous peoples, and nearly 8 percent Indians.

Records in the past two decades show that some 7,000 books have been banned, the bulk of them from abroad. “Most of these books never enter the bookstores because they are vetted first on arrival,” said a senior manager of a leading publishing company, requesting anonymity. “We simply follow the Home Ministry orders.”

The current crackdown on books and publications comes after a lull during the 2003-2008 tenure of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi. During that time, there was greater tolerance for dissent, arbitrary arrests were suspended and media enjoyed greater freedom although none of the repressive laws that curb free speech and assembly were repealed.

The Kuala-Lumpur based Centre for Independent Journalism says the government is abusing the Printing Presses and Publication Act to harass the legitimate political opposition.

“Publications that challenge views propagated by the government are targeted. Writers whose books are banned are often not informed,” said the centre’s executive director Gayathry Venkiteswaran. “Publishers are vulnerable and the public and civil society are kept in the dark over what can be read and what is banned. This law needs to be repealed entirely.”

But the government has no plans to repeal the law and is in fact tightening its clauses administratively, political analysts said.

“Free speech and freedom of expression are under attack,” Kulasegaran said, adding that the government is more insecure following the massive losses that the ruling party Barisan Nasional suffered in the 2008 polls. “They are shaken and hope to recover political losses by curbing free speech. Intolerance is on the rise and they want everyone to toe the line. Alternative views that can undermine their status are strongly discouraged,” he said.

Often, books stay in limbo for months or even years and are officially classified as “being evaluated” by the Home Ministry until it is no longer economical to place them in bookstores.

One such book under ‘evaluation’ is ‘Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times’, written by Australian journalist Barry Wain.

The book arrived at the customs’ warehouse on Dec. 24, 2009 and is still “under evaluation”, even though former prime minister Mahathir himself has appealed to the authorities to release it. He has said he is not “afraid” of anything in the book, which accuses him of mismanagement on a grand scale during his 22 years as prime minister.

Mahathir’s own book, the controversial ‘The Malay Dilemma’, was banned in 1968. The ban was only lifted years later, after he became prime minister.

*Asia Media Forum (http://www.theasiamediaforum.org)

Excerpt:

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 9 2010 (IPS)

Malaysia’s reputation as a progressive, tolerant and moderate Muslim state is now at stake as the country’s best known democratic leader Anwar Ibrahim stands trial for alleged sodomy and risks being jailed for many years if declared guilty.

Civil society groups, both in Malaysia and abroad, worry that without the reformist leader whose political championing has fuelled significant democratic changes in society since his expulsion from the ruling United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) party in 1998, the South-east Asian country’s transformation would suffer serious setbacks.

Such transformation is expected to usher in a freer media, more accountable state governments, a once lame-duck parliament flexing its muscles and a reenergised judiciary, all of which all at risk as Anwar’s political future hangs in the balance.

While world leaders have openly expressed concern about the need for and the fairness of the trial that has put Anwar under siege, within the country opposition to the trial is being led by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, a former finance minister, a senior leader of UMNO and an outspoken government critic.

He said the trial of Anwar, which began early this month, poses a serious challenge to public confidence in the government. “Public confidence is essential to the basic functioning of government,” he told IPS.

Razaleigh has been increasingly critical of the government, which he said is unable to lead the transformation of Malaysian society.

“The trial is being conducted in an overwhelmingly politicised environment. We no longer live in an insulated world,” he said, adding the pre-trial publicity in the local, government-owned, mainstream media is “blatantly unbalanced.”

“Many Malaysians believe that sections of the executive and political establishment have an interest in this trial. There does not seem to have been any attempt to remove this suspicion,” he added, echoing the widespread suspicion that the trial is politically motivated and designed to derail the resurgent opposition by removing its charismatic leader.

“In such circumstances the principle that justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done is breached. We as Malaysians suffer when our government loses credibility domestically and internationally,” he said.

In its editorial on Feb. 7, the ‘Washington Post’ newspaper said that the prosecution of Anwar matters to the world, responding to criticisms from Malaysian officials that “outsiders” were meddling in the country’s legal system.

Deputy Foreign minister A. Kohilan Pillay had urged foreign missions to respect Malaysia’s legal system and not to interfere in the conduct of Anwar’s sodomy trial. He assured the international community that the judiciary was free from political interference and that Anwar would get a free and fair trial.

Malaysia had always been a one-party state, stated the ‘Post’, but in the past two years it had made “remarkable strides toward becoming a democracy,” and credited Anwar for the change.

“The fact that Mr. Anwar went on criminal trial last week should deeply concern the democratic world. The outcome could determine whether one of Asia’s most economically successful countries preserves its stability and embraces long-overdue reforms,” the editorial said.

A former deputy prime minister, Anwar was deposed and jailed in 1998 by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

What followed was what many construed as a manifestly unfair trial, in which Anwar was convicted of homosexual sodomy, a crime in Malaysia punishable by up to 20 years in jail.

The country’s highest court, the Federal Court, overturned the verdict six years later, which allowed Anwar to resume his political career, this time as a courageous champion of democracy in Malaysia and other Muslim countries.

Anwar soon forged a coalition of opposition parties, including his own multiracial People’s Justice Party, an Islamic party, and a secular party. He has campaigned against the government unwritten policy promoting racial discrimination, which funnels economic favors to well-connected members of the ethnic Malay majority.

In the past two years, his coalition has pulled off a string of stunning victories in state and parliamentary by-elections. It now controls four of 13 state governments in federal Malaysia.

It is widely believed that a revitalised opposition under Anwar’s leadership would have a fair chance of winning the next national election, slated before 2013, seize federal power and rewrite what in critics’ view is a deeply racist history of the country.

If convicted and even fined 2,000 ringgit (582 U.S. dollars) or more, or jailed even for one day, the 63-year-old beleaguered opposition leader will be barred by election laws from running for parliament in the next five years.

If this happens, it may sound the death knell for Anwar’s bid to become prime minister, derail an otherwise sterling comeback and damage the political fortunes of the multi-ethnic, broadly secular Pakatan Rakyat coalition that he leads.

“In short this is a make-or-break event for Anwar,” political scientist Sivamurugan Pandyan told IPS. “Everything is at stake … his ambition to become prime minister, his political career, the future of his Pakatan Rakyat. It’s over for Anwar if he is found guilty and jailed for even a few years.”

“If Anwar is imprisoned or barred from contesting (the result of the trial), it would be a blatant human rights violation and (a disservice to) the interest of Malaysia,” said Ramon Navaratnam, former president of Transparency International Malaysia.

“Such an eventuality will significantly damage the democratisation process (of Malaysia),” he told IPS.

By most accounts, Malaysia, too, is on trial.

The judiciary, which had shown some independence in recent years, has once again come under attack for its perceived bias and for pandering to political masters.

Neither the attorney general nor the police are widely seen as independent or impartial institutions, having been constantly accused by opposition lawmakers of selective persecution.

“The public perception is that the trial is politically motivated,” said Transparency International’s Navaratnam. “Most people think this trial is unnecessary and it is selective persecution.”

The growing momentum that Anwar had enjoyed in the aftermath of the 2008 general election, in which his coalition won five states and took 82 seats in the 222-seat bicameral parliament, has been gradually dissipating.

The Pakatan Rakyat coalition has been hit by defections, internal squabbles and major differences over how to deal with Islam, Malay special privileges and, more recently, the deep division over the use of the word ‘Allah’ by Christians.

The differences are shattering unity in the coalition.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Najib Razak, who still enjoys majority Malay support, is on a major charm offensive to steal away the minority Chinese and Indian voters, who together make up about 35 percent of the electorate totaling 13.7 million.

The minority voters had strongly backed Anwar in 2008 but opinion polls shows some of them are having second thoughts about the Pakatan because of its inability to get its act together.

“Najib is winning the hearts and minds of the people with his ‘One Malaysia’ (slogan),” said Pandyan, referring to the former’s ‘We are One Malaysia’ campaign, a platform based on mending the nation’s fractured race relations.

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Reformist leader Anwar Ibrahim, 63, who has been inflicted with various harms in his four-decade-old campaign to build ‘a just, prosperous and democratic Malaysia’, is facing probably the final battle of his epic career.

On Feb. 2 Anwar will stand trial for allegedly sodomising his political aide Saiful Bukhari, 26, a charge he said was trumped up to foil his plans to mobilise the people and seize state power in the next general election.

“They want to derail my plans to become prime minister, to rewrite the history of this country, to end the injustices and violence against the people,” Anwar told IPS on the sidelines of a rally outside the capital.

“I am facing a horrendous ordeal…. It’s all politics, a conspiracy to derail the reformation of society,” he said as scores of supporters mobbed and hugged him.

Anwar is attracting thousands of people to his rallies across the country ahead of the trial that political analysts say can “make or break” his political career.

“The trial can adversely impact his political career and that of the Pakatan Rakyat coalition that he leads and even the reformation struggle he has led for so long,” said Dr Sivamurugan Pandyan, a political scientist with the University Science Malaysia.

“It all depends on what happens at the trial and how the case is handled,” he said, adding that the 1999 sodomy trial was a public relations disaster, with many people rejecting the guilty verdict that the court handed down.

In 1998 Anwar figured in a political power struggle with then strongman Dr Mahathir Mohamad for control of the country and the direction it should take.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis was the backdrop of their power struggle and Anwar was sacked as the economy shrank and the Malaysian currency, the ringgit, plummeted.

Mahathir declared Anwar was unfit to be a leader because of alleged “homosexual tendencies” and promptly sacked him as deputy Prime Minister, removed him as finance minister and later had him arrested under the security laws that allowed for detention without trial. Subsequently, Anwar was charged with corruption and sodomy and convicted to a total of 15 years in jail.

The trial was universally rejected as biased. Anwar then launched a political party, ‘Parti Keadilan Rakyat’ (People’s Justice Party), and a reformation movement from inside the jail.

He spent six years in prison and was released after the country’s Federal Court, the highest court in the multi-racial South-east Asian country, held that he was innocent and acquitted and freed him of the sodomy charges.

In 2008 Anwar put together a coalition of dissimilar political parties – his own PKR, the Chinese-majority secular Democratic Action Party and the Pan-Malaysian Islamic party – into the formidable Pakatan Rakyat coalition and rode to sterling victory, seizing five states and ending the two-thirds majority in parliament that the ruling Barisan National’s had enjoyed for half a century.

That victory brought him one step closer to Putra Jaya, the purpose-built political capital of the country. In March 2008 shock waves hit the country after Anwar was arrested, questioned and subsequently charged with sodomy against his aide, setting the stage for the Feb. 2 showdown.

Under Malaysian laws, sodomy is punished with 20 years in prison. If Anwar is found guilty and jailed, the resulting setback would seriously damage an otherwise impressive comeback and his unremitting ambition to be Prime Minister of the country and pursue his reform agenda.

But notwithstanding the trial, the country is gradually changing under the leadership of Prime Minister Najib Razak, who, in the view of many people, has by most counts done an admirable job in a short time since taking over the country in April 2000.

“He has co-opted the change agenda from the Pakatan…. He is making the changes that the country needs and he is gaining political mileage with his reform agenda,” said Dr Denison Jayasooria, a political scientist with the National University of Malaysia.

“The government is gradually reforming itself and society under the ‘One Malaysia’ concept,” he told IPS, referring to Najib’s idea of uniting the different races in Malaysia and distributing national resources in a just, fair and egalitarian manner.

Although this goal pertains to the future, ordinary people are already warming up to the ideal, as shown by numerous opinion polls.

But Anwar has promised dramatic reforms in his political agenda for change. His coalition party released a Common Policy Platform document in December 2009 outlining the major reform measures they would take if they were voted to power in the next general election, which many expect to happen next year although the government’s term ends in 2013.

A key pillar of the document is affirmative action for all Malaysians, who prefer it to the current policy of helping only the ‘bumiputra’or native Malays and indigenous people.

The Pakatan agenda also promises to reduce federal power and grant the states more freedom to manage their resources, including offering higher oil and gas revenues.

“Taken together, the Pakatan is offering in form and substance an alternative vision of how to build a new Malaysia, starkly different from what the Barisan has offered in five decades of misrule,” said former parliamentarian Sim Kwan Yang.

“It is a far superior, just and urgently needed vision,” he told IPS. “We need a new Malaysia.”

The upcoming sodomy trial is just one dimension of the four-decade-long struggle between Anwar and the entrenched forces in the country, political analysts said. Although the trial would have a significant impact on the political future of individuals, the reform process will continue.

“We are very worried about what will happen to Anwar. We do not want to see him jailed again on trumped-up charges,” said veteran parliamentarian Lim Kit Siang, who was first elected to the legislature in 1969.

“But as a united Pakatan coalition, we are ready to struggle on for reform and democracy. We will battle on.”

By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 16 2010 (IPS)

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to our people … what our future will be?”

Tribal leader Kelak Ubin worries over plans to build a dozen dams in the pristine, interconnected river ecology of Sarawak, home to many ethnic tribes in Malaysia and located north-west of Borneo Island.

Considered the third largest island in the world, Borneo occupies an area the size of Singapore and lies at the centre of Maritime South-east Asia. It is divided among three countries, namely, Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia. At its north lie Sarawak and the disputed Malaysian state, Sabah.

The proposed Sarawak complex of hydroelectric dams is expected to lead to a forced resettlement of the affected tribal communities to an unfriendly place as well as to inundation of the state’s vast tracts of rainforest, said to be the earth’s oldest tropical rainforest.

“Our life … our tradition is all connected to the land. Our way of life is inherited from our ancestors,” Ubin told IPS. “We don’t know any other way of life.”

“Our very existence is under threat. “They (government officials and private entrepreneurs) have promised to resettle us and pay us some money, but I fear our traditional way of life will die with the forest.”

The proposed massive dams are intended to generate cheap electricity and feed China’s rapidly expanding economy on top of Malaysia’s energy- consuming manufacturing industries that are intended to be relocated to the state. The complex is expected to have a combined power-generating capacity of 7,000 megawatts (MW) by 2020, or at least 600 percent more than the current capacity of the island.

A state official, speaking to IPS on condition of anonymity, explained why exploitation of Sarawak’s rivers makes economic sense and moving industries to the island is a better option: “Sarawak’s interconnected river system is unique and unlike any in the world. The system is the state’s greatest wealth and, if tapped intelligently, will feed industries that need cheap power like aluminum smelters,” he said.

On Jan. 11, the government announced plans by China and Malaysia to pursue joint venture energy projects amounting to 11 billion U.S. dollars in Sarawak. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak unveiled the plans involving the government-owned development and investment firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) and China’s leading power grid operator, the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC).

“In a short period of time 1MDB and SGCC, which is China’s leading power and distribution company, will be collaborating to identify and plan a number of multi-billion-dollar projects,” Najib said in his speech during the announcement. He did not identify, however, the projects that would be undertaken under the joint venture.

But government officials, who also declined to be named, said dams and power plant constructions were among the huge joint projects of the two firms.

“Sarawak is slated for huge growth and will be transformed within 20 years,” a senior official involved in financial development and planning told IPS. “The focus is on energy sector.”

The Malaysian daily, ‘Star’, has reported that 1MDB and SGCC will establish hydropower plants similar to the controversial Bakun Dam – located on Balui River in Sarawak – and a massive aluminum smelter in the same state.

The Bakun facility is the forerunner of this huge and ambitious plan to tap Sarawak’s power for power-intensive industries, state officials also admitted to IPS.

Anti-dam groups said the two-billion-dollar Bakun Dam, which is scheduled to come online later this year, would engulf a huge tract of the Borneo jungle in water. Approved by the government in 1986, the project is nearing completion after more than two decades of controversy, opposition and financial constraints triggered by the 1997 Asian crisis.

During intermittent construction of the hydroelectric dam, thousands of indigenous people were uprooted and moved out of the construction and immediate catchment area. Large tracts of rainforests, where natives of the several tribes lived, were cleared to make way for the dam.

When completed, Bakun’s reservoir will cover 695 square kilometres and power eight turbines. But for the displaced indigenous people of Sarawak, Bakun is nothing but endless misery. Used to a life of farming, fishing and limited hunting, the tribal people have great difficulty adapting to a cash economy.

“The government must clarify the development plans for Sarawak and give all details, especially their impact on the indigenous people,” said Meenakshi Raman, a senior official of Friends of the Earth Malaysia, a member of an international grassroots environmental network from which it derives its name.

“Our primary fear is that these projects involve hugely dirty industries like aluminum smelters and dams and coal power plants, which all degrade the environment in Sarawak and threaten the economy and livelihood of the indigenous people,” she said.

The Bakun dam has an estimated generation capacity of 2,400 MW, considered ambitious for Sarawak’s small, agriculture-based economy, which has no use for such huge generated power.

The original Bakun plan was to ship the generated power through undersea cables across the South China Sea to Peninsular Malaysia. But those opposed to the project said it did not make sense because Peninsular Malaysia was already experiencing a power glut, with numerous independent power producers queuing up to sell power.

Peninsular or West Malaysia, located on the Malay Peninsula, accounts for the majority of the South-east Asian country’s estimated 28 million population and economy.

Environment activists also argued that the option to lay cables would be expensive, was fraught with technical uncertainties, and could raise sovereignty issues if they passed through Indonesian waters.

This ambitious and, in the words of some experts, “foolhardy plan” to use undersea cables across 1,000 kilometres of open sea appears to have been abandoned for an equally ambitious plan to bring power-hungry industries to Sarawak.

Senior government officials, who also declined to be named, said the undersea cable plan is “all but abandoned.”

But even before the turbines of the Bakun hydro-electric facility begin to turn later this year, environmentalists and activists continue to sound the alarm bells on plans to build 12 more mega-dams in Sarawak, which the government sees as a major injection into the sluggish economy and an investment that will deliver political capital as well.

Foreign investment in Malaysia plummeted in 2009 as a result of the global financial crisis. The 1MDB, which was created in 2008, is aimed at forming global partnerships to drive Malaysia’s economic growth.

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