[ Laman Ehwal Semasa ReformIS ]
Date: 24 Aug 1999
Time: 21:21:05
Remote User: -
How do you respond to Malays who say it's "un-Malay" to humiliate a public official in this way? It is part of the Islamic religion that you don't humiliate them. But I have been forced into a position of either humiliating a friend, a single person or letting the whole country be humiliated. If this country is led by a man who, later on, we discover is a homosexual and all that, it would bring shame to the whole country. There's no conspiracy. I wanted to hand power over to him. I'm now 74. I didn't want to be saddled to this desk for the rest of my years.
Many Malaysians fear that if it can happen to Anwar, it can happen to them. It has happened only to Anwar. Before, it happened to other ministers. At that stage, if you had asked me if the courts were biased I would have agreed. But it is biased against the government. Recently ministers and chief ministers who have been investigated have all been from my party.
Are you concerned that your antiforeign rhetoric gives Malaysia the wrong image? You know we were building the economy of this country; we were succeeding very well. We were growing at 8 percent every year. It's been hard work. Somebody comes along and just smashes everything to pieces and I'm expected to keep quiet and not say anything? Who are they? I mention the people. They just happen to be Europeans and Americans. I say it. That doesn't mean I'm anti-American. If we had gone under, and the IMF takes over, we would have lost our independence. The IMF approach is to take over control of the economy. That, to me, is colonialism. You see, when you take over the economy, you must eventually take over the politics. This is what happened to neighboring countries. As you know, when the economy went down, they had to change their leaders, change their system.
You're referring to Indonesia? That is your guess, not mine. But you can see, here is [IMF chief Michel] Camdessus, standing up over the president of 250 million people. To me that is very humiliating. I will not stand for Camdessus standing there while I sign away my authority.
Was IMF reform a threat to the New Economic Policy [an affirmative-action program for Malays]? Yes. When they start saying you must have no discrimination, you must do away with subsidies, you must not help anybody to come up, then all this work that we have done to give indigenous people a share will be undone. In fact, it is undone. Most of them have now collapsed. The IMF and currency traders have done all that. Am I supposed to be thankful? Others cannot say it because they borrow from the IMF. Their mouths are shut. They have no freedom.