I'M READY TO WHACK SOMEBODY (updated)

It's only been hours since three Malaysian Appeals Court judges - Balia Yusof Wahi, Aziah Ali and Mohd Zawawi Mohd Salleh - overturned Anwar Ibrahim's 9 January 2012 acquittal and sentenced the Opposition Leader to five years' imprisonment on a 2008 charge of sodomy.

Everybody who's been observing the political soap opera unfold knows Anwar Ibrahim is our best hope for non-violent regime change. That's why he has been singled out for the dubious honor of being the only public figure ever to have been publicly accused of sodomy - not once, but twice since his unceremonious sacking in September 1998.

As finance minister and deputy prime minister under Mahathir Mohamad, Anwar came within an inch of succeeding the long-reigning despot as Umno president (and therefore the fifth prime minister). But in the end he was forced to openly rebel with his battle cry of "Reformasi!" which brought out close to 80,000 street protesters demanding Dr M's resignation, in the turbulent days before Anwar was arrested in his own house on the evening of 20 September 1998 by a balaclava-clad police commando team.

Beaten black-and-blue in police custody by none other than the then Inspector-General of Police, Rahim Noor, Anwar was paraded before a kangaroo court presided over by the late unlamented Augustine Paul, before being sentenced to 15 years in jail on trumped-up charges of sodomy (and abuse of power, just to add salt to gross injury).

Upon his April 2004 release after 6 years languishing in Sungai Buloh prison (and nearly succumbing to arsenic poisoning), Anwar swiftly resurrected his political career by weaving together a formidable opposition coalition comprising his own Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Party Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS), and the Democratic Action Party (DAP) which rode a political tsunami of discontent on 8 March 2008 to deprive the (mis)ruling coalition Barisan Nasional of its uninterrupted two-thirds parliamentary majority. Anwar then crowned that achievement by declaring that the newly resurgent opposition coalition (now known as Pakatan Rakyat or the People's Alliance) would dismantle Ketuanan Melayu (Malay Supremacy) and replace it with Ketuanan Rakyat (Supremacy of the People) if voted into power.

For the vast majority of decent, law-abiding Malaysians, Anwar Ibrahim's idealistic vision of Ketuanan Rakyat was the promise of a political golden age. But for those who had, during Dr M's overlong tenure, fattened themselves off the riches of the land (at the expense of the uninformed masses), the notion of social equality, justice and greater participatory democracy sounded like their own death knell.

Get Anwar, Part Two

Behind the scenes a pernicious plot had been hastily hatched. Even before the fateful election of 8 March 2008, a secret weapon had been planted within Anwar's inner circle in the person of a winsome young man named Saiful Bukhari Azlan who volunteered his help at PKR headquarters in the hectic period leading up to the election. Saiful insinuated his way into Anwar's confidence by serving as his "coffee boy" and personal aide.

It was later revealed (by Malaysia Today) that Saiful Bukhari Azlan was, in fact, godson to Mumtaz Jaafar - former Malaysian athlete and a close associate of Rosmah Mansor. Saiful's estranged father, Azlan Mohd Lazim (Malaysia Today reported) was a long-time Umno go-between with a wide network of political connections. Indeed, Azlan Mohd Lazim was allegedly part of a high-powered Umno mission dispatched immediately after the March 2008 election to woo ambitious members of PAS into teaming up with Umno against PKR and DAP. This devious scheme had the financial backing of the Umnoputra elite - Malay entrepreneurs who had made billions with a little bit of help from Dr M and his finance minister Daim Zainuddin.

Even more shocking, the controversial blogger Raja Petra Kamarudin asserted (again in Malaysia Today, in an article titled "The Real Dalang Behind The Anwar Sodomy Allegation") that it was Shafee Abdullah who masterminded the slimy and sordid 2008 sequel to Anwar's 1999 sodomy trial. 

If that turns out to be true, then Shafee Abdullah gets the award for Greatest Slimeball Of All Time. Imagine the ruthless cunning it takes to set up Anwar even before the March 2008 election - and then six years down the line to get himself appointed freelance prosecutor by nefarious arrangement with another contender for the same award, Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail - the chief prosecutor who sent Anwar to jail in 1999.

With all the dramatic shifts happening around the world since 2008 when Pluto entered Capricorn - financial meltdowns and devastating hurricanes and regime change occurring wherever you look - the indefatigably evil Attorney-General Gani Patail persists in pursuing the non-issue of whether Saiful Bukhari Azlan had his anus enlarged by Malaysia's popular PM elect. If only he had shown the same zeal in bringing to justice the cold-blooded killers of "that Mongolian woman" Altantuya Shaariibuu.

Well, I'm telling you, Mr Pink Lips: it's no use keeping up pretenses. You just don't cut it - not even as a crime minister - you are totally uninspiring and are saddled with way too much karmic baggage (especially in the grotesque shape of your obnoxious, witchy wife). And as for Dr Mahathir's Umno Baru... it has already transformed itself into Umno Basi (stale) and/or Umno Busuk (stinky).

Meanwhile, vile and pernicious maneuvers by ultrarightwing Umno-sponsored NGOs and religious goon squads like Jakim have issued oppressive decrees in the name of Allah, about the name of Allah.

Ultra-jingoist Utusan Malaysia goes unchecked, unreprimanded, and unpunished when it willfully goes on an orchestrated rampage in an attempt to reactivate dormant racial and religious tensions.

And provincial Umno loudmouths like Nazri Aziz, Abdul Rahman Dahlan, and Khairy Jamaluddin continue to swagger around in their own swiftly evaporating mudholes, making laughing-stocks of themselves and accelerating the inevitable extinction of race-based political parties.

Add to the mix the ritual slaughter of chickens in public places, the smearing of sacrificial blood on a poster of Chinese opposition leaders; the hurling of pork into mosque compounds; threatening critics with tiresome displays of wagging buttocks. Outsourcing the dirty work to rabid abnomalies like Ibrahim Ali and Ridhuan Tee, Umno regresses into the abysmal depths of depravity, falling back on feudal arrogance, anachronistic tyranny, and violent territoriality. .

More than five years ago Anwar handed the Anti-Corruption Commission documentary evidence that former IGP Musa Hassan and AG Gani Patail were involved in falsifying evidence to convict him of sodomy in 1998. So what has become of the investigation? We don't hear a thing. Nobody has been sacked and both have disappeared into their wormholes.

How about private investigator Balasubramaniam Perumal and his family? How convenient that Bala died of a heart attack just as he was ready to embark on a road show to tell his version of the macabre Altantuya saga. Are Bala's widow and their children still living in constant fear of secret police harassment? Who paid for their upkeep in Chennai? - and what did it take to silence Deepak Jaikishan, Rosmah's erstwhile "fixer"? Anyone remember Lingamgate? I certainly do... but I don't see anything being done about the terrible shape the judiciary is in, after Mahathir turned it into a weapon against his political opponents.


I'm not the only one who would love to throw a whole bunch of banana peels in front of Zahid Hamidi, archnemesis of Ultraman. And I'm sure I could raise a posse to capture Taib Mahmud and tar and feather him. I'd like to see Najib Razak led away in handcuffs for being such a terrible liar and hypocrite.

As for all those Status Quoists who still insist Umno/BN was "given a mandate" to rule for another four years - and who think Anwar should concentrate on strengthening the Opposition Coalition from behind bars - nothing short of the Japanese bamboo torture will suffice.

[First posted 29 September 2008; updated 8 March 2014]

Investigate the Whistleblower, of course!

This is how I ended my post of 5 September:

I'm half expecting a visit from the Special Twig any moment now. Indeed, they might even assign an entire Branch to this case.

Prophetic words! Tuesday afternoon, 15 September, three Special Branch officers paid me a surprise visit. Somebody had lodged a police report against me, alleging that I was conspiring with environmental activists to block Umno's illegal roadworks project in Kg Pertak. Foreign interference, no less - since the police report stated that three "Mat Sallehs" had been harassing the excavator and tractor operators, demanding to see their permit.

Déjà vu. When loggers encroached in 1996 the same sort of shit had happened. The loggers, working through the Orang Asli Affairs Department (JHEOA) had persuaded the batin (headman) to put his signature to a petition for my eviction from Kg Pertak as I was deemed "a security threat." As a result the matter was raised at the Selangor state exco level and the Special Branch were instructed to investigate.

Fortunately, the SB in KKB appear to be fairly exemplary in that they dealt courteously and very reasonably with the situation. After interviewing me for about 20 minutes, the SB chief decided I was perfectly in my right to continue living in Kg Pertak. I remember him as an urbane, intelligent man who didn't resemble a cop at all.

Well, the three officers who dropped in on me were pleasant and attentive as I explained why those who love this area do not favor "the road to nowhere" (as ecowarrior Mary Maguire calls it). The most positive outcome of this incident was that I felt a certain rapport with these SB officers - they were entirely human and likeable. In fact, one of them had recently been transferred to KKB and he revealed that he occasionally plays guitar in a band.

If only the rest of the PDRM was as polite and professional as these three...

That was the good news. The bad news is that work started in earnest again early Monday morning. When I heard the heavy equipment going down the road I had assumed it was a JKR crew assigned to clear the fallen tree and reinforce the collapsed slope. It wasn't till the afternoon that I found out it was Mr Tan Mok Seng's workers again, eager to finish what they started and collect the balance of payment from YB Wong Koon Mun. As I suspected, some Umno members were behind the whole scheme to gain access to the goodies while justifying the environmentally ruinous project as "bringing development to the Orang Asli."

The Selangor state government, in effect, had been completely bypassed in the initiation of this ad hoc project, which threatens to seriously mar the peace and tranquility of this recovering forest - once regarded as sacred (hutan keramat) to the Temuan tribe since it lies within easy reach of Gunung Raja, the Temuan's pusat negri (spiritual umbilicus).

I guess old habits die hard. Read all about it here!

NEWSFLASH!
This morning (16 Sept) district councillor Chua Yee Ling showed up with Majlis Daerah Hulu Selangor enforcement officers and instructed the workers to stop work until they obtain a KM (Kebenaran Merancangan or Project Approval). Obviously, the federal government is channeling unknown amounts of money through its agents on the ground, facilitating all sorts of spurious "development projects" to maintain the corrupt status quo and show their utter contempt for the Pakatan Rakyat state government. After so many years under Mahathir and Khir Toyo, unaccountability and squandering of public funds to enrich cronies is the only modus operandi they understand.

My apologies to the canine kingdom

Those of you who have been reading recent posts on this blog will know I've been poking fun at Malaysian home minister Syed Hamid Albar by comparing him to a bullmastiff. And when MP Teresa Kok complained about being served "dog food" during her week in ISA detention, I extended the canine metaphor to the entire police force - who appear to be so limited in intelligence they can't distinguish between a political party and the government of the day.

And so they end up carrying out the criminal orders of their corrupt political masters in Umno, even when these orders are detrimental to the interests of the nation and utterly ruinous to the professional reputation of the police force itself.

Case in point: two members of the Unit Tindakan Khas (Special Action Unit) have been on trial for over a year, accused of murdering the 28-year-old Mongolian paramour of both Abdul Razak Baginda and Najib Abdul Razak. Despite the latter's vehement denials that he ever met "the Mongolian woman" (he has never dared to utter her name in public, not even when swearing in a mosque during the Permatang Pauh by-election campaign), the facts indicate otherwise.

After all, Altantuya Shaariibuu was in Paris with Razak Baginda during negotiations on the French submarine deal which earned his company, Perimekar Sdn Bhd, a staggering RM534.8 million commission. It has been established beyond doubt that Najib Razak, in his capacity as defence minister, was also present in France at the time and was personally involved in the 1.4 billion euro deal. To deny that he knew Altantuya stretches the boundaries of credibility.

Especially when Najib has been caught out on more than one occasion telling a bare-faced lie: for instance, when he initially denied knowing Anwar's accuser, Saiful Bukhari Azlan, and subsequently admitted to having invited Saiful to his residence several days before the police report alleging sodomy was lodged.

Now there is absolutely no way any member of the police force will undertake to murder a foreign national in cold blood - unless acting on specific instructions from their superiors. In this instance, the commanding officer could only be DSP Musa Safri, ADC in charge of security to DPM Najib Razak. In his affidavit (which has yet to be admitted in court as evidence), Razak Baginda states that Musa Safri was assigned to assist him in resolving the Altantuya "nuisance." Musa then introduced Razak Baginda to Inspector Azilah Hadri and Korporal Sirul Azhar Umar, which led to the UTK officers staking out the hotel where Altantuya Shaariibuu was staying with her cousin and friend. Altantuya was last seen alive entering a car driven by Insp. Azilah Hadri on the evening of 19 October 2006.

The fact that DSP Musa Safri, Rosmah Mansor and Najib Razak have managed to avoid being subpoenaed as key witnesses in the Altantuya murder trial incriminates the entire Umno/BN government as accessories to a cover-up of gargantuan proportions.

This is where our rebel prince Raja Petra Kamarudin comes in, both guns blazing, to blow away their cover. He puts his own neck on the chopping block by signing a statutory declaration on 18 June 2008 and publishing it on Malaysia Today for the whole world to read. Raja Petra minces no words in his SD: Rosmah Mansor, wife of deputy prime minister Najib Razak, was present at the crime scene along with others named as Lt. Col. Aziz Buyong and his wife Lt. Col. Norhayati Hasan. Both parties named are attached to Mindef's Engineering Corps and Aziz Buyong is an explosives expert, while Norhayati Hasan is reportedly a personal aide to the defence minister's wife.

What are the police doing about this explosive information? Right now they are busy grilling 25-year-old rapper Wee Meng Chee aka Namewee, producer of Negarakuku, the satirical video more than a million Malaysians have seen on YouTube. Earlier today, they were busy transferring Raja Petra to Kamunting to begin a two-year detention under Section 8(1) of the Internal Security Act.

I APOLOGIZE TO THE CANINE KINGDOM FOR HAVING ASSOCIATED DOGS WITH THE HOME MINISTER AND HIS POLICE FORCE.

Dogs are loyal and serve as watchdogs, we all know. But some dogs are capable of great courage, nobility and intelligence. They are also very lovable and make excellent companions. Such qualities, alas, appear to be completely absent from Syed Hamid Albar and the PDRM. Indeed, judging from their recent behavior, it may be more appropriate to compare them with carrion-eating, cowardly hyenas.


[Dissected hyena images from Ask Doctor Vector]