[APEC sudah menjadi budak Bush.... dan Mahathir begitu seronok sekali menemui Bush padahal saat-saat sebegini Bush tidak layak dihormati langsung. Dengan menemui Bush, Mahathir telah menghormati seorang pengganas yang langsung tidak berperi kemanusiaan dan sanggup membunuh kanak-kanak kerana marahkan Osama Bin Laden seorang.
- Editor]

malaysiakini

24 October 2001

APEC encourages state terror and undemocratic behaviour

CHIAROSCURO
MGG Pillai

The Malaysian government is ecstatic the United States at last heeds its advise that only third-degree methods under the most odious and unconstitutional of laws could fight terror. This is what we are told to explain away Malaysia's closeness to the United States in recent months, especially since September 11.

President Bush and Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed are now the best of pals, so Malaysia's mainstream newspapers tell us, with a common agenda to fight terror. In practice, this means: "I shall deal with my terrorists as I please, and you yours; and don't you dare question my tactics!" This is how it was before. After the APEC summit in Shanghai this week, this is with Washington's blessings.

The Shanghani meeting saved Dr Mahathir's face, if not skin. He had wanted to meet President Bush over tea and scones -- or as the Americans say, English muffins -- at the White House. He could not. Nor, at first, at Shanghai. Then comes, September 11, and he does. But at what cost? President Bush could not flinch and refuse to come, as previous presidents have, since he needs their "support" in this "war against terror".

Dr Mahathir has neutralised the opposition in Malaysia yet again, this time making them run in circles, with the threat, should the need arise, of detention under the Internal Security Act, this time with the gloves off. Kuala Lumpur can all but ignore State Department concerns about all this, as it once could not. And more important, in his view, the near irrelevance now of the fate of his nemesis, Anwar Ibrahim.

The APEC meeting became an open sesame for leaders in the Asia Pacific, including the United States, to be as autocratic as they could get away with. The "September 11 attacks" is a convenient shorthand to restrict public debate, threaten opponents, stay on in power in the name of a national emergency. In Singapore, lunch time rallies in the city centre during the electoral campaign are banned in its name.

Terror hysterial

The US, as leader, finds it must adopt some of the harsher laws of its fellow members to prove it is on top on this made-for-the-US-drama called "The War Against Terror".

For all the support the United States mustered against the bombing of Afghanistan, curiously only Britain and its colonial staff-sergeant, Australia, committed troops.

The terror hysteria Washington drummed up has reached the four corners of the world. Instead of trade, which is what APEC was set up for, it discussed terror; not how to overcome it, but how to spread it around amongst its citizens and those each determines are enemies of the state.

Since Washington exhorts the world to adopt democratic and human rights practices it believes should be the norm, and are quick to reaction when they are not, these countries can now look to the US to justify torture and other disagreeable methods to extract confessions and rein in an otherwise determined political and other opponents. Especially when Washington adopts these measures.

The FBI now wants to apply third-degree methods on those arrested after September 11. That would be music to many a leader's ear in the region and else where. If the US can beat a suspect to submission, then why not Ougadougou?

In global policies, the United States, as the sole super power, has a one-track mind. Globalisation is desirable, and any who challenges it is, to use the current phraseology, "evil". But the downside of any good proposal is ignored.

The virus that attack computers is the dark side of information technology; it is deigned to be bad and evil, and heavy punishments exist, even in Malaysia, for spreading viruses. When a sole super power decides what the rest of the world should do in its interest, it would be opposed.

It does not matter who, but someone would. During the Cold War, it was the Soviet Union. In 2001, it is terrorism, especially, or so we are led to believe, Islamic terrorism.

A dangerous precedent

For the catchword now is just that. This is not a war against Muslims or Islam; yet Canada would not allow Malaysians in if he has a "bin" or a "Mohamed" to his name. Dr Mahathir would have understood it if he was still a medical doctor in private practice in Alor Star and planned to visit Toronto: he would be faulted on two counts.

Hong Kong immigration hauls up any with a "bin" to his name, and demands to know why. Any Muslim travelling in Europe face hassles. One world renowned economist, not a Caucasian nor a British subject, was made to look like a criminal when leaving New York after Sept 11 for his residence in England, and it appeared to him they wanted to trip him so he could be detained under the new terrorism laws in the United States.

The APEC precedent is dangerous. But precedents were not what APEC leaders sought in Shanghai. They created one. It is equally important, they decided, that with globalised trade must come globalised terror.

It is one every member of APEC is comfortable with. If we must listen to Washington when it calls for democracy, then surely we must also listen to Washington when it calls for unconstitutional and brutal third degree methods to winkle out "terrorists".

It matters not that your terrorist is my freedom fighter, and vice versa. It only matters that what he fights for upsets your equanimity. That is enough to finish him. That is the rule of democracy and goodwill we are now asked to follow, and accept.

It is not a good sign. For when recourse to the courts is not allowed, and guardians of the law not answerable or questionable, excesses must occur. Ask anyone who has been locked up in the course of investigations for a crime, and released when the culprit is caught.

One need go no further than what happened in 1998 to the just-detained former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Anwar Ibrahim. That the former Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Rahim Noor, got off so light, after he lied about it and admitted only when a royal commission gave him no choice is what happens when no checks and balances exist when terror is the preferred mode of interrogation.

The APEC meeting, more than the hype we are fed about what it achieved, restricts democracy and the interests of citizens in ways that few regional pacts dispensed. With the United States agreeing to it, it gives terror a respectability when it is governments which dispense it.