Instant karma for Najib’s harassment of Suaram

It’s amazing how quickly ‘Instant Karma’ has caught up with Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak after his attempt in 2012-13 to demonise Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) as a “foreign agent” and unleashing no less than six government agencies, including Bank Negara, to investigate Suaram.

This was done, upon accusations by the government, that Suaram, among other things, was involved in money laundering. Bear in mind that Suaram has only five staff and an annual budget of around RM300,000!

It was clear to all that it was Suaram’s application to the Paris courts to inquire into suspected corruption in the Scorpene deal that had led to the Najib government going berserk and launching the witch-hunt against Suaram.

Needless to say, the year-long investigation produced not a sausage of evidence against Suaram.

The rigorous Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigations included many days of one-to-one questioning of at least 20 people, including former Suaram staff who had left years ago.

Even the Registrar of Societies (ROS) got in on the act and it was made a laughing stock when their Wikipedia source of information meant that even the deceased Fan Yew Teng was also summoned to the ROS office to make a 112 statement!

Did Bank Negara uncover any whiff of money laundering by Suaram? It certainly did not!

But did Bank Negara protest that it was beyond its remit to waste time on a tiny NGO like Suaram? It did not.

I am surprised that all the Harvard-trained economists in Bank Negara did not protest against the preposterous presumption in government circles that there could be such a possibility. But Bank Negara did not say a word.

Nevertheless, the well-oiled propagandists in the mainstream press continued to spin merrily for the same idiotic thinking in government. They had to pay for their indiscretion when New Straits Times was ordered to make the “mother of editorial apologies” to Suaram after we sued their pants off.

What is fascinating aboput this irony is the fact that all the shit that Najib piled on Suaram only recently has so quickly hit the fan and it has splattered all over him…

So, who has been money-laundering?

There are now several on-going international investigations into entities related to 1MDB and the alleged transfers of US$700 million into Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s personal bank accounts.

The 1MDB fund is dogged by controversies revolving around its hefty $11 billion debt and missing funds.

What has Bank Negara to say?

If Bank Negara was prepared to investigate Suaram for money laundering and whether Suaram was a “foreign agent” (well, it didn’t protest against the government’s order!), why didn’t the central bank alert MACC or the police, since it must have known that more than RM2 billion was sitting in the prime minister's personal bank accounts?

If Bank Negara didn’t know, then it is guilty of a gruesome negligence.

If Bank Negara could be bothered with a tiny NGO like Suaram, surely the onus is on the central bank to report Najib’s RM2.6 billion to the appropriate authorities for an investigation to be launched immediately.

Who is a 'foreign agent' now?

It was only after The Wall Street Journal exposed the scandal of the RM2.6 billion deposited into the Prime Minister’s personal account that he made the claim that it was a Middle Eastern "family" who had donated the largesse, adding that the donation was for the Barisan Nasional and Umno’s 13th general election fund.

Newly-minted Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi added that they were helping BN because of “the government's commitment to counter terrorism” and “to maintain Malaysia's status as a Sunni country”.

However, Zahid refused to reveal the donor;s identity nor did he explain why Najib had not disclosed this humongous donation earlier.

Imagine, if Suaram had been discovered, during Najib’s 2012-13 “siege of Suaram” to have received even one million ringgit from a foreign “family” and the money had been deposited in the Suaram director’s personal bank account!

So remember all racists, corrupt and oppressors:

“Instant Karma's gonna get you

Gonna knock you right on the head…”

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KUA KIA SOONG is adviser to human rights organisation Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram). Mkini