http://www.feer.com/2001/0111_22/p010intell.html

Malaysian Academics Avoid Politics

Malaysia wants to improve relations with the United States, but it isn't interested in any help from academia. In the weeks leading up to a November 8-9 conference on Malaysia at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, the Foreign Ministry in Kuala Lumpur telephoned about a dozen Malaysian academics and politicians and urged them not to accept invitations to attend the meetings in Washington. In the end most buckled under the pressure and only one academic attended: the independent-minded economist, K.S.Jomo, of Kuala Lumpur's University Malaya. Still, the conference went ahead and one of the highlights was a wide-ranging debate between members of two prominent Malaysian opposition parties and Khairy Jamaluddin, an aide and son-in-law to Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi. Why the hostility to a rare conference on Malaysia organized by a prominent foreign policy school? Malaysian officials point the finger at Malaysia's ambassador to Washington, Ghazzali Sheikh Abdul Khalid. "Who does Bridget Welsh think she is?" officials quote Ghazzali as telling Kuala Lumpur about the American Malaysia specialist who spearheaded the conference and had invited him to give a keynote address. He hastily refused and led a boycott of the event by Malaysian diplomats. Washington's relations with Kuala Lumpur soured after the imprisonment of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on conviction for s*d*my in 1998, but they have warmed since the September terrorism attacks in the United States.