interview

When the United States came under terrorist attacks on Sept 11, all knew that the map of international relations would be redrawn. The question was how, and would Malaysia be affected?

On the one hand, Malaysia as a predominantly Muslim country has been in the media's spotlight - both foreign and local - over the issue of terrorism. On the other, observers note that Malaysia has begun a warmer relationship with the US over the past few months.

The United States Ambassador to Malaysia, Marie T Huhtala, in this exclusive interview with malaysiakini shed some light on a number of key issues including Malaysia-US ties, regional economics and local politics to name a few.

The interview will be carried in three parts starting today. The first part deals with key areas for both countries to work on this year and the US' impression of Malaysia:

Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad on New Year's eve expressed his wish to improve the relationship with the US. What are the areas to work on?

Of course I share his wish to improve the relationship but I have to say I think it improved a great deal in the year 2001. And it never was a bad relationship. We have always had many different ties in areas like investment, education, trade, and cooperation on a whole range of issues.

We had a few political disagreements in the past but that is normal between countries. And certainly over the past year we have seen some very great events and the fact that our new president and your prime minister were able to start a relationship this year I think it is a very good sign.

My priorities obviously are to cooperate on counter-terrorism with this government and the cooperation here has been excellent. We would like to continue to see trade flows going well and to continue to have a good environment for our businessmen. I don't see any real problems in that area but it is something that we will always work on.

As you know, we are always watching the area of human rights. It is always an area of concern for us and in that regard, we are going to be following the court appeals of former deputy prime minister Anwar (Ibrahim)'s cases.

We are following most closely to see if there has been improvement in the judiciary system in this country. So we will be looking at that this year.

You are aware that there will be an appeal on Monday?

Yes. I heard that the next date is Monday. (Editor's note: Anwar's appeal at the Federal Court against his corruption conviction has since been postponed).

Can you tell us the differences between the Bush and Clinton administrations and why do you think Mahathir said that he feels more comfortable with President Bush?

I think we had some high-level direct communication this year which is something we haven't had in a few years.

President Bush and Prime Minister Mahathir have spoken on the telephone. They have had several exchanges of letters. These were good letters, they weren't just formal letters. They were nice, substantiative exchange of views.

Then they had a good meeting in Shanghai. So obviously, wherever you can have this kind of personal contact between leaders, it leads to a much greater understanding and a real sense of cooperation and cooperative spirit.

Did this communication begin after Sept 11 or did it start before?

There were preliminary contacts at a lower level. There are always contacts at the lower level all year long so we have always had contacts and we have had a steadily warming relationship.

You may remember we had the visit from Senator (Christopher) Bond in summertime and a number of things that had improved the tenor of the relationship.

The president and prime minister began directly speaking to each other after Sept 11 and of course I won't deny that it had something to do with it (the Sept 11 attacks). Also we had a new president in a new administration. It takes time for him to reach out to all of his counterparts in different countries.

Malaysia-US relationship was soured a few years ago because of former American vice president Al Gore's remarks when he visited Malaysia. Last year, during the presidential election in the US, Mahathir said he would rather have Bush as president.

Did he? Oh ... I wasn't here so I don't know about that. Of course the prime minister is always entitled to his opinions and what happened when Gore came over here is well known and I don't need to go over that again.

But I always tell people that the actual change from one administration to another has a lot less impact on foreign affairs than people imagine because the fundamental goal of our foreign policies don't change greatly from one administration to another.

Certainly with Malaysia we have the same objectives now as we did a year ago or a year and a half ago.

All of the things that I outlined - cooperation on counter-terrorism, transnational crime and stopping of narcotics, facilitating open markets and keeping this wonderful bilateral flow of trade going, human rights - all of those issues were there before, and they are there now.

How has Malaysia done compared to neighbouring countries in the war against terrorism?

Malaysia has done an outstanding job on cooperating with us on counter-terrorism.

I have been extremely satisfied with the cooperation from the very beginning. The day of the attack, it was night-time here, the police immediately came over to help us at the embassy. We didn't have to ask them, they just came with armed police and you may have seen that we still have a heightened level of protection here.

We have had excellent cooperation on locating and freezing any assets that might be in your banks that belong to terrorists, and particularly cooperation with your police forces in tracking down terrorists.

This is just invaluable. Malaysia has done a fantastic job.

Now, I have seen some press articles that link Malaysia together with other countries in an unfortunate way. But believe me, that's not the view of the US government. And I remind them periodically of what a good job Malaysia is doing, and they are very well aware that in many ways we are getting excellent, concrete cooperation.

While Malaysia is lending a helping hand to the US, local media coverage especially those in Bahasa Malaysia, seem to have fanned anti-US sentiments. One minister even said that the US should be hauled before the International Court of Justice ...

[Laughs] Although that was not officially the government policy, I was told. I'm glad you have free speech in Malaysia like we do.

You cannot equate what you hear in the press with the policies of the government, not in any country except those who have rigid control of the press by the government; but we don't have that here.

We have a fair amount of free press and free expression of views. Now, we did have a difference with the government over the conduct of our war in Afghanistan. The prime minister himself came out and said he didn't think that it was the right thing to do.

I understand it because he was concerned about the accidental killing of civilians. I respect that. He had his position, we had our position. We very strongly felt that we had to retaliate for the terrible, terrible terrorist attacks that we suffered in September.

We had to put this organisation out of business - the Taliban and the al-Qaeda - which had been behind the attacks. We have been largely successful in doing that but we respect the right of another government to disagree with us on certain things. That has not in any way affected the excellent cooperation that we are getting on the ground in fighting terrorism.

In my mind, it is easy to differentiate between those two things and I don't see any real conflict here. You have not seen the government fanning the flames of hatred against the US.

So the anti-US stand as it is reported in the local media is not really reflective of the government policy?

I don't see that as the government policy at all.

That's not what I hear when I go in and talk to members of the government and that is not the kind of communication that we are getting from the government. It's a matter of individuals saying things like that to the press.

If you look at the American press, you can see a whole range of views too which do not reflect official US government policy. So you have to make that distinction between the view of the press and what the actual policies are. That's part of our job here at the embassy it is to interpret that for our government as well.

A lot of Malaysian newspapers and television stations are controlled by individuals closely linked to the ruling party. When issues, such as the anti-US sentiment, are aired and published, people would assume that they are done with the blessings of the government.

I don't make that assumption. I have been in so many different countries where there is a lot of dissonance between what the papers are saying and what the government policies are.

It is not our assessment that the papers here are mouthpieces for the government even though there are some ownership ties. I think there is a fair amount of freedom of speech in this country and that is to be encouraged.

Part 2 will appear tomorrow.