THE ROLE OF MACC AND PDRM IN MALAYSIAN POLITICS

So why the fook are all these people from MACC, the police, Bank Negara, the AGC, and so on complaining? This is how it has always been. The only difference is this time the intended victim turned the tables on them whilst all this while they managed to kill off their victims successfully. This time the sword was stuck into their chest and they do not like the taste of their own medicine.

THE CORRIDORS OF POWER

Raja Petra Kamarudin

There is an ongoing brouhaha surrounding the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and, now, the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM), the Special Branch in particular, regarding their involvement in Malaysian politics.

Are these two agencies — plus Bank Negara Malaysia, the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC), etc. — getting involved in politics or, more importantly, taking sides in the political tussle within Umno plus that between Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat?

If you can remember the details of Anwar Ibrahim’s two trials in 1998-1999, one for abuse of power and the other for sodomy, you will remember that the Special Branch at that time played a crucial role in Anwar’s downfall.

Two very senior Special Branch officers — the Director, Mohamed Said bin Awang, and the Second Deputy Director, Amir bin Junus — testified during the trial that they had been instructed by Anwar to ‘turn over’ the witness.

During the trial, Mohamed Said explained some of the Special Branch’s practices regarding what he called a ‘turning-over operation’, meaning they coax the witnesses to retract or change their testimony.

Mohamed Said described the operation as a ‘great secret’ and refused to elaborate beyond his explanation that: “Basically we do a quick assessment on our target, then we see how the possibilities are to turn over their stand and that if it is a certain political stand, we may neutralise the stand if it is a security threat.”

Mohamed Said later responded to the question, “If someone higher than the deputy prime minister were to instruct you to come and lie to the court here, would you do it?”

Mohamed Said replied: “Depends on the situation.” After being pressed for a clarification by the judge, he said, “I may or I may not.”

The defence argued that Anwar had never instructed the Special Branch to ‘turn over’ the witness but he was nevertheless found guilty of abuse of power (by using the Special Branch to ‘turn over’ the witness) and was sentenced to six years jail even though Anwar’s ‘corrupt act’ did not involve any monetary gain.

That conviction and six-year jail sentence was actually very controversial and will most probably be used as a case study for law students for years to come.

Since 1998, Malaysians were convinced that government agencies were being used for political purposes. And now, with the revelation by the ex-Deputy Director of the Special Branch, Abdul Hamid Bador, this belief has been strengthened even more.

That was what happened in 1998. More than ten years before that, however, back in the 1980s, I already saw this happening. At that time I was in Kuala Terengganu.

In the first incident, the head of the Anti-Corruption Agency or ACA in Terengganu (now called the MACC) had opened a number of files on a few key Umno politicians. His plan was to arrest these Umno warlords (the Menteri Besar included) just before the general election and charge them for corruption.

(I know the name of this ACA chap plus the names of the Umno politicians but I don’t think I should name them as some are now deceased and I do not want to shame their families).

Anyway, this ACA man was a PAS supporter and his aim was not so much to seek justice but to assist PAS in the general election.

The Menteri Besar contacted the Prime Minister’s office (and you know who the PM in the 1980s was) to complain and this ACA man was immediately transferred out of Terengganu and was sent back to Kuala Lumpur.

The ACA chap was so pissed that he took one week leave and came back to Terengganu to campaign for PAS during the general election. It was quite amusing to see the ACA chap’s Volkswagen Beetle donned with PAS flags going into the kampungs.

In the second incident, also in the 1980s, I was summoned to the KCK’s (Ketua Cawangan Khas or Special Branch Chief) office where he showed me a thick file. The file, which was almost overflowing, contained many reports about my ‘opposition activities’. Opposition here, of course, meant PAS.

The KCK warned me that I was one step short of detention under the Internal Security Act and that if I continued to support PAS I would find myself under detention without trial.

I found out later that they had, in fact, intended to detain me but because my aunty (the sister to the late Agong) was the Tengku Ampuan Terengganu they decided to talk to me first (one of the judges in Terengganu told me this).

So the KCK talked to me. And he suggested I meet the Terengganu Menteri Besar to make peace, or what the Chinese would say ‘table talk’. At 7.00am the following morning the KCK picked me up and brought me over to the Menteri Besar’s residence to have that table talk.

The Menteri Besar advised me to tone down my anti-government activities and to stop financing PAS. If I wish to donate money then donate it to Umno instead. But giving money to PAS would get me into trouble. And the Menteri Besar said they know I have spent more than RM250,000 so far.

Actually I did not give any money to PAS directly except during the general elections. Most of the money was spent to expand a number of mosques and to buy land for these mosques (maybe five or six mosques in all). But then these mosques were PAS mosques so it was seen as financing PAS.

I explained this to the Menteri Besar and he replied that if I wanted to donate any money to the mosques then do it through Umno.

Of course, to avoid the possibility of detention without trial I stopped openly financing these PAS mosques and gave them money through proxies. So yes, I too had to resort to proxies to hide what I was doing.

So I know what was going on even 30 years ago back in the 1980s because I was directly affected by it. So I am not in the least surprised or shocked by the current developments since last month. It is how things are done in Malaysia. And this had been going on since the 1980s.

So why are you all foaming at the mouth and screaming? It is the nature of the beast in Malaysian politics. And do you think replacing Najib Razak with a new Prime Minister is going to change this? This has been going on for a long time and will continue for a long time even if Najib is no longer the Prime Minister.

To see changes we need to change the system, not the Prime Minister. If not it does not matter who becomes the Prime Minister. It will still be the same old shit but on a different day. And Anwar Ibrahim knew about all this because we told him. But did he attempt to do anything about it when he had the power to do so when he was the Deputy Prime Minister?

No, Anwar did not lift a finger to change it. In fact, he exploited that corrupt system for his own political gain. Why change that corrupt system when you can benefit from it? And that was why many of us abandoned him when he became the Deputy Prime Minister and laughed when eventually that same corrupt system triggered his downfall in September 1998.

When news first emerged about Anwar’s fall from grace, my wife said, “Those who live by the sword die by the sword.”

So why the fook are all these people from MACC, the police, Bank Negara, the AGC, and so on complaining? This is how it has always been. The only difference is this time the intended victim turned the tables on them whilst all this while they managed to kill off their victims successfully. This time the sword was stuck into their chest and they do not like the taste of their own medicine.