Any other mainstream media writing what has been written by Utusan Malaysia would have lost their licence to publish a long time ago. For some time now they have been writing inflammatory articles to incite the Malays to riot and perhaps cause another mayhem similar to the one that happened on May 13 1969.

But this Umno-controlled media seems to have a carte blanche right to publish articles that are seditious and inflammatory and yet does not even receive a warning from the Home Ministry.

This ploy to incite the Malays to hate the non-Malays on the one hand and to preach the ‘1Malaysia’ concept to the non-Malays on the other hand is a desperate strategy by Umno to unite the Malays against the perceived threats of the non-Malays while subtlety reaching to the non-Malays with their rhetorical concept of a ‘1Malaysia’ merely for electoral support.

One cannot imagine that Utusan Malaysia could have taken the bold step to write its inflammatory articles without the tacit support and agreement from the Home Ministry.

By condoning and allowing Utusan Malaysia a free rein to publish racist and inflammatory articles, the Home Ministry must bear full responsibility should any untoward accident occur as a result of their publications.

An impartial and responsible Home Ministry would have nipped in the bud this wanton act of sedition rather than allowing it to continue inciting hatred . By allowing Utusan Malaysia to continue fanning racial hatred through its publications, the Home Ministry is virtually encouraging a tragedy to happen.

I refer to your article How the Govt' looted ' US$100 billion.

And looking back at Dr Mahathir Mohamad's 22 years of tenure at the helm of the nation, it is not difficult to comprehend why we lost so much money through looting by his family and his cronies.

His favourite moneymaking trick was to launch mega-projects and privatisation of government companies. His many mega-projects were fronts to dish out negotiated tenders to his children and cronies whereby sweet deals were quoted with price many times its actual value.

The more projects he launched and the more expensive the projects, the higher and better the profits which were accrued by the beneficiaries. And when his son's venture in the shipping business failed, he unhesitatingly used a government vehicle - the Malaysian International Shiping Corporation (MISC) - to bail his son out.

Bank Bumiputra which was a government-owned bank gave millions of unsecured loans to Mahathir's cronies and in the end all of them ended up as non-performing loans (NPL). In the end Petronas’ oil money was used to bail out the bank. Similar bail-outs were later repeated for MAS, Bank Rakyat, Perwaja Steel and countless other GLCs.

His lack of business acumen saw the country lose heavily when he tried to corner the world tin market. It was conservatively estimated that his brief foray in the speculation on the tin market cost the nation a loss of RM20 billion.

There are still a lot of Malaysians who are foolishly ignorant of Mahathir's woeful tenure. He was not only a corrupt dictator who would not brook any dissent but he was also a racist too. Many of the instituitions which were created during his tenure had racist overtones. The Mara colleges (MRSM), UiTM and Biro Tatanegara were all his creations.

They all had one thing in common - they all catered for only one race with the exception of Mara colleges which later opened its door to allow a 10% non-bumi entry. The rest all had a racist agenda.

In short, time and history will not judge Mahathir favourably. His 22-year tenure saw the crumbling of all our government institutions which were once the pride of Asia. The judiciary, the attorney-general’s department, the police force, the ACA, the civil service and virtually every instituition which was the cornerstone of a democracy became subservient to the executive.

Not only did they lost their independence and became servant and slave to the executive but they also lost whatever shred of integrity that they had.

It would not be wrong to credit Mahathir as the PM who destroyed the very fabric of Malaysia’s democratic institutions which till today still bear the ‘hallmarks’ of his imprints.