Anwar Ibrahim, darling of the West

  

Monday, June 18, 2012

Once the former US Secretary of Defense, William Cohen gave Anwar Ibrahim a red carpet welcome at Pentagon.  The Vice President, Al Gore, during a dinner held in honor, rebuked Malaysian Government for sending him to Prison for gross abuses of power.  He was rude with no respect for the distinguished guests, who included the then Prime Minister, Dato Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed.

Worse, Al Gore abruptly left immediately after making the speech. That was the extent of support of USA to Anwar Ibrahim.  Generally, the West, with no respect to the local laws, regarded Anwar’s prison sentence as part of the political intrigue to keep him out of power.

Clearly, Anwar Ibrahim then as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance and now as the de-factor leader of the Opposition, is the darling of the West.  They will not believe that he is a man with ultra ego with strong inclinations to abuse the power that had been vested upon him.  

His three – year stint as the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance was a classic example of him   abusing his power, using his power and authority to enrich his cronies, his family members  and people, who he believed could  be of help to him.  His father rose from an ordinary religious teacher to become a corporate figure with millions worth of share in blue chip companies.

As the Minister of Education, he gave the main contract works worth hundreds of millions to a friend to repair schools in Sarawak. Of course, the people in Sarawak are still very sore with him for removing the allocation of about RM300 million to build the permanent campus of University Malaysia Sarawak to Sabah, which did not have a university.  It took Dr. Mahathir Mohamed to make a fresh allocation for the purpose.

Even a small allocation of RM 1.4 million that he approved for the urgent construction of a temporary dam to store water for Kuching city, which had been experiencing a long spell of draught, never came. Then the people were facing a real threat of dry pipes in their houses as the water level at Matang treatment had dropped to a dangerous low level.  Those were some of the examples of him abusing his power and lying to promises.

And yet he remains the darling of the West and hero of evil and mercenary writers, who do not have standards in appraising their man.  Clearly their blind loyalty must be motivated by money, which Anwar had plenty, for their work on the pretext of fighting for fair and just society and other good virtues.  Who are they trying to bluff?

    

Sarawak Monitor

June 18, 2012