An open letter to Sang-Hyun Song, president of the International Criminal Court, The Hague and other recipients:

For a mere RM 2,400 Mr Teoh Beng Hock, an aide to a DAP opposition politician was taken into custody by the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) and aggressively interrogated for about eight hours.

He was eventually found dead in their premises. The family refuses stoutly to accept the official explanation that he had committed suicide. Incidentally the MACC could not find anything criminal about the paltry sum of money.

The Prime Minister, Najib Razak is extremely rich and so is his brother Nazir Razak. Mahathir Mohamad, a former prime minister and his sons too are fabulously wealthy. It is not clear to us ordinary citizens how these people could acquire so much wealth legitimately seeing that the salaries of public officials do not leave much margin for savings.

Abdul Taib Mahmud the Sarawak chief minister is also a member of the exclusive billionaire's club. Many reports have been made against him but he seems to be as invincible to investigation and prosecution as Bokassa was.
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We know how the pariah emperors Jean Bedel Bokassa, San Abacha, Mobutu Sese Seko, Papa Doc Duvalier and Rlobert Mugabe got their wealth: they robbed their countries' treasuries in broad daylight.

Malaysia's oil revenue runs in excess of several billion ringgit but the body which manages it, Petronas does not disburse the funds transparently. So it is not surprising to learn that the national debt exceeds RM420 billion.

Nearly all of the Orang Asli - who unlike the recently arrived immigrants from Indonesia - are the real indigenous people of peninsular Malaysia, are made inferior to the immigrants, and many ethnic Indians live far below the poverty line as well.

Would your excellencies be so kind as to use the apparatus of the ICC/ the machinery of government and other resources to help us ordinary Malaysians identify the financial institutions worldwide where money stolen from the Malaysian state treasury are being kept and the multinationals in which some of it might have been invested. Here we would also welcome help from Ms Alyssa A Lappen

Alttantuya the Mongolian translator who helped defence officials close the stinking Scorpene submarine deal was murdered in cold blood in Malaysia. Kickbacks and commissions related to the deal total approximately RM 1 billion. Suaram an NGO which champions good governance and human rights, lacking faith in the Malaysian judicial system is attempting to unravel the deal in the French courts.

Umno the de facto government is always telling the people that only it can protect Islam but as you can see, corruption is rife among public officials nearly all of whom are Muslims. Is it thereby admitting that it practises a type of Islam which condones and encourages corruption? How they insult their religion!

We non-Muslim Malaysians work hard to contribute the bulk of the taxes but Umno and its cronies do not believe in hard work and the acquisition of entrepreneurial expertise. They prefer to be rent collectors i.e. economic parasites.

By allowing this state of affairs to continue we are saying that we accept the serfdom imposed upon us. No, we must do more than merely write letters to Malaysiakini.


This open letter is copied to:
  • Ruth V Aguilera, corporate governance, University of Illinoi
  • HD Vinod, Institute for Ethics and Economic Policy (IEEP), Fordham University
  • Alyssa A Lappen, Red Hen Blog