The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) marked its 6th anniversary and Human Rights Day in Malaysia recently by holding a forum in the capital city, with former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad giving the opening address.

A group of 30 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) had initially written an open letter to Suhakam urging it to 'close the door' on Mahathir for a simple reason that he had committed a host of 'human wrongs' with regard to human rights at home.

They had provided Suhakam a list of human rights abuses in Bolehland by Mahathir and pointed out that it would be wrong to invite 'a leader who perpetrated extensive human rights violations' during his 22-year political reign.

Surely Suhakam was familiar with Mahathir's record. Its very own findings on his abuse of human rights, especially through the ISA, made it very telling. The revelations of the Royal Commission on the Police Force provided further evidence most compelling.

But Suhakam was keen on reading everyone their rights. The NGOs had the right to protest and pull out, Dr M had the right to be present, the commission had the right to press on with whom they wanted. Strangely though, no one had the right to walk out half way.

Suhakam commissioner Chiam Heng Keng questioned the late protest of the NGOs, probably hoping that everyone would be naive enough to believe that Suhakam would actually change its mind if an early protest had been made.

Late or early, the point is that Mahathir should not have been invited in the first place. But Chiam, who appeared rather charmed by Mahathir chimed that he was 'the best choice of a speaker to deliver a knowledgeable discourse on the subject at hand'.

Perfect camouflage

As it turned out Mahathir was predictable. After 22 years, the citizens of Bolehland can guess who he is going to laud and/or lambast and what he has to say. Quite typically he roasted the West, rapped the media, and of course ranted on 'gullible' NGOs.

He quite expectedly and rightly too highlighted the hideous and horrible crimes against humanity by the West, especially in Iraq and Palestine. He harped on and hammered away at their 'sheer hypocrisy' in portraying themselves as champions of human rights.

His daring and descriptive account of the lowdown West in terms of human rights was meant to raise him on higher ground. He portrayed himself as a hero of the Third World or at the worst a much 'lesser evil' compared to the West.

Mahathir preached that "the more advanced the society the greater should be the capacity to think, to recognise and evaluate between right and wrong and to choose between these based on higher reasoning power and not just base feelings and desires."

Yet the 22 years of his tenure saw what former MP and writer Sim Kwang Yang (left) calls "the politics of depolitisation" the closing of the Malaysian mind, based on the assumption that Malaysians cannot handle political liberties without killing each other.

Important political decisions were taken away from the people. Public participation a core democratic right was discouraged and even denied. Decision making was concentrated in the hands of the ruling elite and became the sole monopoly of the great leader.

The colonial white supremacy which we once had to endure was taken over by Mahathir's executive supremacy which showed contempt for the people. Those who ruled under his reign believed that once elected they had the prerogative to pontificate and decide for all - and do what they like. In Malaysia the democratic process dies after each general election.

Growing executive dominance reduced the political representation of the people, as embodied in Parliament, to nothing more than a rubber stamp, a symbol shorn of substance, stripped of essence, sidelined and side-stepped by the executive.

Mahathir was right when he said: "We have gained political independence but for many the minds are still colonised". This is especially true of the undergraduates on campus most of whose minds are not only closed, but cowed and colourless.

Mahathir, had, especially in the last years of his reign, stifled intellectual freedom and political activity amongst academics and students in the universities especially by resorting to the Universities and University Colleges Act.

In October 2001, 61 university lecturers accused of having engaged in anti-government activities were warned, transferred or fired. It was very obvious who the new 'coloniser' was. The very sad state of affairs in our universities today is part of the legacy left behind by Mahathir.

Harmful hegemony

Mahathir also spoke of globalisation resulting in the 'world (being) totally hegemonised'. Yet he chose not to mention the BN-Umno hegemony he had created - a system which had spawned so much abuse of power, injustice, corruption and inequality.

Mahathir's political hegemony proved to be highly detrimental to the healthy growth of democracy. It subverted the independence and integrity of important democratic institutions such as Parliament, the judiciary, the office of Attorney-General, the police, the Election Commission, etc.

It was a hegemony that promoted an ideology that ultimately benefitted 'dominant interests' - the ruling elites and the unscrupulous cronies of the powers-that-be and which left no place for the small man or woman who had no cash, 'cable', clout or connection.

Mahathir's political hegemony also thrived on the cult of secrecy. It hid the misdeeds of leaders, and penalised whistleblowers. It was a brute majority used to push through many constitutional amendments at its whim and fancy - and not to strengthen rule of law and basic rights - but to erode and erase constitutional checks and balances in order to consolidate and perpetuate the hegemony.

Muzzled media

When it came to the media, Mahathir made it known to his audience that Malaysians 'can read newspapers, which support or oppose the government.no one is prevented from watching or listening to foreign broadcasts which are mostly critical of the government.'

Mahathir was mum on the increasingly tight controls he had imposed on the press through coercion, ownership changes, verbal bullying, and backroom personnel moves, and that his government owned virtually all major media, either through the Barisan Nasional parties or his allies.

He was particularly silent over the meeting of more than 70 local journalists with Suhakam on World Press Freedom Day in May 2002 to urge the body to call for the repeal of repressive laws, especially the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA), the Official Secrets Act, the Broadcasting Act and the Sedition Act.

In fact in 1999, a memorandum carrying the signatures of 581 local journalists calling for the repeal of the PPPA was presented to the then home minister. The signatures of another 370 journalists who had endorsed the memorandum were forwarded to him the following year.

As for Mahathir's 'freely available' foreign publications - a special office in the Home Affairs Ministry censors all foreign publications and has repeatedly delayed publications deemed critical of the government.

"Then there is the Internet which no one seems able to stop even if libelous lies are screened", Mahathir added with a tinge of helplessness. Yet, news websites such as malaysiakini have been subjected to constant government pressure and childish threats.

Malaysiakini reporters were barred from attending government press conferences on the grounds that 'their credibility is doubtful' and that they did not carry government-issued press cards. Parliament was told that the government was monitoring 'every article' published by malaysiakini to ensure that its writings did not upset public order.

Side show

Mahathir's high praise of Suhakam on its anniversary as 'a body dedicated to overseeing and ensuring that there are no abuses of human rights within its borders' smacked of hypocrisy. As PM, he had ignored the recommendations by Suhakam especially its call to scrap the ISA.

He had also ignored Suhakam's call on his government to liberalise rules surrounding the right to freedom of assembly. He had said that the commission "did not understand 'national security' considerations".

Mahathir had even accused Suhakam of being 'influenced by Western thinking' and of 'not thinking in the interest of Malaysia' in his response to Suhakam's censuring of the police for human rights violations at the Kesas Highway-Jalan Kebun gathering in 2000.

In April 2002, Mahathir erminated the services of half of the members of the then 'dedicated body'. They included Prof Mehrun Siraj and Anuar Zainal Abidin, who were exemplary in their commitment to the protection of human rights and civil liberties in this nation.

Alas, to Mahathir, Suhakam was just a show, a side show not to be taken seriously - a 'dedicated body' at which he would take an occasional dig or dismiss completely or even launch a diatribe against.

Cloned colonialist?

Mahathir issued the same warning as he would in any talk he had given in the past in relation to globalisation. He warned his audience of the danger of re-colonisation. But one does not have to wait for a Bush or a Blair to re-colonise this nation.

The 'British' have not actually left our shores. Re-colonisation began when through a gradual process executive supremacy under Mahathir donned the mantle of British supremacy and had even outdone it in many ways.

The very leaders who once fought against and detested the oppressive laws of the British now brandish a gamut of harsh executive powers - which are deeply and undeniably derivative of authoritarian colonialism.

Most of the laws left behind by the British were amended and made even more draconian by Mahathir to contain, cripple and crush legitimate dissent by the citizens of this country. We are not short of examples.

British 'propaganda' is now replaced by a powerful broadcast media, owned by the government and allied companies, and regulated by the Broadcasting Act, 1987, which gives the Information Minister vast powers of control and manipulation.

The Sedition Act (1948) was a British law used to stifle Malay nationalists (especially those in Umno, which was born two years before the Act came to be). The Act was amended for selective prosecution of political opponents and to protect Umno.

The Internal Security Act (1960) meant to combat the then communists, was amended 20 times (most of them during Dr M's tenure). It is now more repressive than the original, and its powers have been abused by Dr M to protect his own "security" and that of Umno.

Described as 'white terror', the ISA is used by Malaysians on Malaysians. Rais Yatim (left) once wrote that "the ISA is an anti-human rights legislation..." and that "(t)hat there are clear violations of human rights by invoking the ISA and other draconian legislation is an understatement".

The Printing Presses and Publications Act (1984) originated from the Printing Press Act (1948). Amended in 1987 (Mahathir's tenure) to exclude judicial review of the executive's action vis-a-vis publications, it serves as a stranglehold on the press and opposition publications.

The Official Secrets Act (1972) was based on the British OSA of 1911. Amended in 1986 (Dr M's tenure) to provide for mandatory jail sentences, it was used by Mahathir to reinforce the cult of secrecy, hide the misdeeds of leaders and to penalise whistleblowers. It also resulted in self-censorship by the press.

The Police Act (1963) was amended in 1967, 1981 and 1987 (during Mahathir's tenure) to further enhance the wide array of police powers, thus making the constitutional right of assembly quite "irrelevant". The late Tunku Abdul Rahman died a disillusioned man on seeing his independent Malaysia become, in his very own words, a 'police state'.

Even the Special Branch was a creation of Britain in 1887. It was meant as a direct response to Irish anarchist terrorism. It was perfected during Mahathir's tenure by the Royal Malaysian Police to 'trace', threaten, torture and 'turn over' political dissidents.

Every trick employed by Mahathir during his tenure - 'divide-and-rule', purveying a 'culture of fear' or a 'siege mentality', manipulating ethnic fears, trotting out a bogey (the latest being the 'Militant'/ 'Terrorist' bogey) - were tools of British Colonialism.

About Abu Talib Othman

Mahathir must have been very encouraged by the supportive presence of Suhakam chairperson Abu Talib Othman who was a former attorney-general during his (Mahathir's) tenure. Surely the latter could empathise with and share wholeheartedly in the hypocrisy of his former boss.

The present head of 'a body dedicated to overseeing and ensuring that there are no abuses of human rights' once played a major role in Mahathir's conspiracy to get rid of the then Lord President Mohamed Salleh Abas in 1988 which ultimately resulted in a crisis in the judiciary.

Rais Yatim in his book Freedom Under Executive Power in Malaysia highlights this for a fact: "It is significant to point out that the attorney-general, Abu Talib Othman, who was completely relied upon by the prime minister during the crisis, played an outstanding role in the removal of Salleh (Abas). Subsequently he also played a similar role in the removal of two other Supreme Court judges in his capacity as 'assistant' to the Tribunal."

"In the first place, the attorney-general who is at all material times the legal advisor to the prime minister and thus an officer of the executive should not have been involved in the Tribunal's work at all," Rais commented.

What Rais had written was confirmed by Salleh in May Day For Justice in which he would recall how he had groomed Abu Talib only to be betrayed by him one day: "I have known this man Abu Talib Othman for a long time...I chose Abu Talib, who was then a comparatively junior officerI took him to Geneva ... I also took him as my junior in the prosecution of some memorable casesNever did I entertain the thought that one day he would turn against me, and in the way he did."

In a very sad and tragic line, Salleh would add: "And it was to emerge, subsequently, that it was none other than the attorney-general himself who had actually framed the charges against me!"

The removal of Salleh (right) was an event that has "sullied the fair name of this country...it struck a terrible blow, not only to the independence of the Malaysian judiciary - and ruined the careers of at least three honourable men - but to national pride itself.... It has severely damaged the people's faith in the law and brought several judges into disrepute. It will take a long time for us to recover from the horror and shame of this episode."

These words, if Mahathir would care to take note, are not by an editor of a foreign journal or part of report of a foreign human rights NGO - they are from the foreword of May Day For Justice written by the late Tunku Abdul Rahman, the first prime minister of Malaysia.

What a great bash Suhakam had organised on its sixth anniversary!