A great hero emerges to save Malaysia

One shudders to think what might have become of the nation if not for the Melanyi revelations

COMMENT

By Iskandar Dzulkarnain

Recent revelations by Lester Melanyi, one of the most prominent and respected journalists in Malaysia, have left the whole country reeling in shock and disbelief at the sordid conspiracy engineered to unseat a democratically elected Prime Minister. It is perhaps the biggest scandal ever to hit our shores.

Melanyi’s credibility is proven beyond the shadow of a doubt by the unquestionable fact that he met the Swiss crook Xavier Justo in England. Furthermore, he has given evidence of his mastery of investigative skills by identifying a master forger by the name of James Steward (not to be confused with James Stewart of vintage Hollywood cowboy fame).

Unlike those goons at Sarawak Report (SR), who thrive on sensationalism, Melanyi is a responsible journalist who speaks the unvarnished truth. Indeed, his integrity in refusing to doctor documents for his bosses has cost him his RM6,000-a-month job. To keep his job and to achieve even greater fame, he could have easily distorted facts and reported half truths and whole lies. After all, the truth is usually unbearably boring. That is in fact why SR manufactures fake reports, as attested to by MCA chief Liow Tiong Lai.

Broke and jobless, Melanyi at first lied low as he tried to nurse his miseries. But his conscience and patriotism soon got the better of him, and he emerged to reveal the gospel truth of an intricate conspiracy to destabilize the nation. But all this would not have been possible without the help he got from Barisan Nasional Strategic Communications Director Abdul Rahman Dahlan and a certain Special Officer to Prime Minister Najib Razak. Thank God for them.

The London-based hit-and-run website called Sarawak Report was founded in 2010 by Clare Rewcastle, a British journalist who achieved fame by churning out fake news on alleged deforestation in Sarawak. She even claimed that at the rate Sarawak’s trees were being chopped down, there would not be a single tree left in Sarawak in five years’ time. And guess what? That claim was made five years ago.

Despite SR’s biased reports, Sarawakians have continued to thrive under ex-Chief Minister Taib Mahmud and his successor, Adenan Satem. Sarawak is now one of the richest states in the country.

Claims that fall flat

All of Rewcastle’s allegations have fallen flat. Taib has gone on to become the Governor of Sarawak despite rumours spread by the likes of Rewcastle that he had amassed nearly billions of ringgit upon his retirement. What these dishonest journalists have failed to mention is that the money came from Taib’s hard earned savings, pensions and wise personal investments.

SR, knowing better than to continue flogging a dead horse, then started training its sights on poor Najib with sensational allegations of bribery and financial mismanagement linked to 1MDB.

Melanyi told Rahman Dahlan that 90 percent of the 1MDB documents on Sarawak Report were “created by Malaysian people and the opposition people”. This piece of incriminating evidence itself has certainly cleared 1MDB of any suspicion.

Melanyi may have admitted being paid for spilling the beans, but can you blame a jobless person for accepting a couple of hundred ringgit? Besides, he has reiterated that it was never about the money, but the satisfaction of seeing justice served.

Our stubborn opposition politicians have refused to acknowledge Melanyi’s message, bent as they are on silencing the messenger. They have called him a fraud and threatened to sue him. They have even branded him as mentally challenged, describing his eloquent statements as the incessant ramblings of a person in a hallucinatory state.

But Melanyi will always be remembered as a true hero of the nation. His untainted credibility is vouched for by no less than a federal minister and a special officer in the PMO.

Rahman Dahlan’s famous words of wisdom will go down in the annals of history: “It takes a scum to know a scum.” He didn’t really mean that Melanyi was a scum. He just got carried away in his eagerness to show that there was “solid evidence of a mission to criminalize and topple the Prime Minister”.

Rahman truly deserves a Nobel Prize for this ingenious scoop, which clearly shows that he is more than capable of replacing Jamaluddin Jarjis and Lim Kok Wing.

With explosive videos to back Melanyi’s allegations, how can anyone in his right mind still have any doubt that Najib is the best man to lead this nation forward?

Tour consultant, sports pilot and naturalist Iskandar Dzulkar