Apartheid in Malaysia: Eye-opener for UN sec-gen when he arrives, Hindraf to submit memo

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon will be acquainted with the “most disturbing face of Malaysia” when he arrives on Wednesday on his first visit to the country apartheid.

Ban, like the US and many other First World nations are beginig to realize that friendly multiracial Malaysia is not really that warm at all. It has now become critical for Malaysia to adopt a needs-based policy to replace a de facto apartheid-like structure existing in the country since the British departed in 1957.

Malaysian Indian rights group Hindraf Makkal Sakthi plans to hand over a stiff Memorandum on Human Rights Violations in Malaysia to Ban when he touches down. The Memorandum is being billed by Hindraf as the “Mother of All Memorandums” on Malaysia and relates to Article 153 of the Federal Constitution, the New Economic Policy (NEP) and the allegedly racist Biro Tata Negara or National Civics Bureau.

"The Memorandum will draw the attention of the United Nations to the all pervasive and insidious Apartheid-like structure that continues to govern the country," said Hindraf chairman P Waythamoorthy in an exclusive curtain raiser via Skype from political asylum in London.

“The Memorandum is a preview of the Class Action Suit pending in London against the United Kingdom Government, and by extension, the Malaysian Government.”

Apartheid in Malaysia is real and serious

Waytha's call was also to clarify and reiterate Hindraf’s total, complete and unswerving stand against Article 153 of the Federal Constitution in response to an ongoing email debate with and among activists in Sabah and Sarawak on the issue. He has been working arrangements with these activists as part of a broader agenda to ensure the emergence of a bipartisan 3^rd Force in the Malaysian Parliament.

Hindraf, an ad hoc apolitical human rights NGO working across the divide, will not however make public the Memorandum until the UN Secretary-General has received his copy and an opportunity to study it.

Waythamoorthy, a human rights lawyer who recently picked up an award from the Indian diaspora for his work, was nevertheless willing to sketch a broad outline of the specifics in the Memorandum.

Apartheid may have been dismantled in South Africa brick-by-brick, stressed the Hindraf Chief, "but it's alive, well and kicking in Malaysia under the Umno Government".

“The thrust of it is that the non-Malay communities have no rights in Malaysia but only a pledge on their legitimate interests. Interests are not rights.”

Send a Special Rapporteur

He wants the UN Secretary-General to send a Special Rapporteur to Malaysia on a fact-finding mission to probe Hindraf’s memorandum and to advise the Federal Government to take the necessary remedial measures “to dismantle Apartheid”, failing which, “economic and other sanctions should be imposed”. He cited the white minority Apartheid regime in South Africa as an example of the fate that should be in store for Malaysia for defying the international community.

An added reason for sanctions would be Malaysia’s refusal to sign at least ten Universal Conventions and Declarations, dated 1948 to 1992, for fear they would specifically target the Apartheid structure in the country. These include those on human rights; economic, social and cultural rights; civil and political rights; fundamental freedoms, intolerance and discrimination; education; and development.

“If white-ruled South Africa can be held accountable by the UN and international community for Apartheid and if India, a great power, taken to task by the Durban Conference over lingering aspects of the caste system, Malaysia should not and cannot be an exception,” fumed Waythamoorthy.

Racist indoctrination programmes by the BTN

Elaborating on Apartheid in Malaysia, he said that besides Article 153, Hindraf saw the NEP and the existence of the BTN-run “racist indoctrination programmes” for civil servants as the two other most unacceptable features under the label.

He rejected outright any suggestions that Article 153 and the NEP were, essentially, drawn up in good faith but observed more often than not in the breach as a result of politically-motivated deviations and distortions in their implementation. He hastened to add that the Memorandum covers these aspects as well so that the UN would not be persuaded by any government propaganda.

“Good faith is the false belief, the no hopers that 3^rd Force activists in Sabah and Sarawak cling to whenever Article 153 and the NEP are mentioned,” said Waythamoorthy. “The non-Muslims in these two states, as the Memorandum makes it clear, have never benefited from the Article and the economic policy.”

The litmus test, according to Waythamoorthy, would be the absence of Article 153 in Sabah and Sarawak if the two states had not agreed to Malaysia, or in future, break away.

“Why would they need Article 153 when they are already one country, one people each in their own way?” asked Waythamoorthy rhetorically. “Similarly, after more than half a century of the Brutish leaving, Malaysia is one country, one people, and there’s no place for Article 153 and related mechanisms.”

1Malaysia just a political slogan, not a plan or solution

There’s no need to harp on 1Malaysia, reiterated Waythamoorthy, when Malaysia is already one country, one people after nearly half a century.

Claiming that Article 153 was in fact founded with evil intentions, Waythamoorthy belaboured the point that the Federal Constitution clause doesn’t mention the Orang Asli at all while it was extended to Sabah and Sarawak, after Malaysia, “to be used as a divide-and-rule tactic in Borneo”. He went on to point out that even if the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia were allowed to maintain the fiction that they were Natives, “it still doesn’t mean that they merit Article 153 in any manner”.

Asked how sure he was that Ban will accept the Memorandum, Waythamoorthy disclosed that the necessary arrangements have already been made. He added that "we know how the UN system works. Ban is not in Malaysia just to meet with Umno leaders and lap up their propaganda".

Hindraf, he continued, will not let up in its efforts to bring “the apartheid situation in Malaysia to the attention of the world”. He assured that his organisation had no sinister motives on the issue and rejected any notion that the country would be embarrassed and rendered vulnerable if the issue is continually flogged abroad.

“No change is possible within Malaysia on the question of Apartheid although the Opposition and activists are openly debating the necessity of not only a regime change in the country but a system change,” said Waythamoorthy.

NEP

The NEP is partly an extension of the 4^th special position under Article 153 and pledged to ensure that the Malay-speaking communities own, control and manage 30 per cent of the corporate economy – i.e. that publicly-listed – within a twenty-year period (1970-1990). The target, the Government claims, was not reached, and the NEP has been continued indefinitely.

The NEP also pledged to eradicate poverty irrespective of race and creed; and eliminate the identification of race with economic function and place of residence.

Article 153, under the 1^st prong, reserves a reasonable proportion for the Malay-speaking communities in Peninsular Malaysia and the Natives of Sabah and Sarawak by way of a Special Position in four specific areas viz. intake into the civil service; intake into institutions of higher learning owned by the government and training privileges; government scholarship; and as seen in the NEP, opportunities from the government to do business.

Article 153, under its 2^nd Prong, is a pledge on the legitimate interests of the non-Malay communities.

Malaysia Chronicle