WikiLeaks: 463 embassy cables from KL released

UPPERCAISE

WikiLeaks released 463 US diplomatic cables from its embassy in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, together with thousands of others from US embassies around the globe. Among those is a racy account of the sex scene in Hanoi in 2002, interesting for its historical valueas well as its journalistic style of writing (“Relax — the ‘Thai’ way” is one headline in the report).

The KL cables date back four years from last year, covering the two years before and after the 2008 general election. The breakdown by year: 2010 (21); 2009 (150); 2008 (136); 2007 (101); and 2006 (55).

Some of the more recent ones on Malaysian politics, Raja Petra Kamarudin, the Altantuya Shaariibuu case and the Najib Tun Razak government have been published at Malaysia Today, though an arrangement between Raja Petra and Julian Assange, main person behind WikiLeaks.

The 463 cables give a picture of the US State Department’s main concerns. These fall broadly into four categories:

• politics (assessments of the overall political situation and discussions with various politicians)
• human rights — religious rights (Islam and relations with other religions); press freedom; women’s rights, trafficking in human persons
• economics and business — the state of the economy; intellectual property rights, free trade agreements, regional trading arrangements
• security — arms exports; money laundering; nuclear non-proliferation; military co-operation

In addition, Anwar Ibrahim, Raja Petra Kamarudin and other bloggers, received individual attention.

» 11 pages of KL embassy cables at WikiLeaks

Last week we also published here several extracts from US diplomatic cables relating to the political situation of Malaysia’s Chinese-based parties. These reports were:

» US diplomat foresaw DAP gains but not Pakatan success
» How tough guy Kit Siang made Gerakan’s gentleman Koh look like a wimp
» Guan Eng unwanted, moves to Penang
» How to beat the DAP at elections
» Ong Tee Keat admits Chinese marginalised
» How weak Umno leaders resort to racism

• MalaysiaKini today also published a report on a 2008 cable describing how the Selangor state government faced difficulties with “recalcitrant state civil servants” months after Pakatan Rakyat parties took over the state administration in the 2008 elections. An embassy cable quotes state executive councillor Dr Xavier Jayakumar describing “difficulties in dealing with recalcitrant state employees”. » The 2008 cable | » The MalaysiaKini report