SCORPENES THE LANGUAGE OF SILENCE: FRANCOIS HOLLANDE SAID “THE JUSTICE SYSTEM VERY SEVERE FAIR AND INDEPENDENT”

A motion concerning the nation’s security is not important enough to be debated in Parliament? Mr Speaker, what is imporant then?

It is the responsibility of the lawmakers to see to it that our servicemen are out of harm’s way. Now the Navy’s secret are allegedly sold, it is of utmost important that the culprits be identified and brought to justice.

This is no time to show your loyalty to the political masters. Your loyalty is to the nation and the king, who is the commander-in-chief.

 The selling documents such as these constitutes an act of treason. Rejection of the emergency motion means nothing more than the speaker’s granting of the subject matter zero importance.

This, in turn, means that all the talk about national security and such amounts to nothing more than meaningless sounds emanating from the mouths of hypocritical, untrustworthy imbeciles.

Yet these same imbeciles prohibit the use of the word ‘Allah’ in non-Islamic publications. In countries run by civilised people, the speaker, as are all the rest of his fellow-imbeciles, would be charged. ’What is the Parliament for if important issues cannot be raised there? Why bother then? Might as well go to the streets.’

Two of the biggest scams to wipe the exchequer’s faces off completely have come from the times of the UMNO,Chirac was president of France between 1995 and 2007 and enjoyed legal immunity while in office. He denied all the charges, but the case is only one of many corruption scandals to have dogged him in a long public career

KENYATAAN MEDIA
8 Jun 2012

KESELAMATAN PENERBANGAN DALAM MALAYSIA TERANCAM

Kami telah difahamkan bahawa para pegawai kawalan trafik udara di Pusat Kawalan Trafik Udara Nasional (NATCC) Lapangan Terbang Subang telah memberi laporan kepada Pengarah Jabatan Penerbangan Awam mengenai penambahbaikan sistem Malaysian Air Traffic Control Network yang dilaksanakan syarikat-syarikat berikut: SELEC Sistemi Integrati dan Advanced Air Traffic Systems (M) Sdn Bhd (AAT).

Kami difahamkan penambahbaikan ini merupakan fasa kedua dalam Malaysian Air Traffic Services Modernisation Program (MATSMP) Improvement Project (MIP), yang pada awalnya dibangunkan SELEX. Dilaporkan bahawa kos fasa pertama berjumlah RM160 juta, manakala fasa kedua adalah RM120 juta.

Semua sedia maklum bahawa tugas seorang pengawal trafik udara (Air Traffic Controller, ATC) amatlah mencabar dan banyak tekanan oleh sebab nyawa ribuan penumpang kapal terbang terletak dalam tangan mereka. Apa pun sistem atau penambahbaikan sistem yang diguna bukan sahaja wajib selamat dan harus membantu memudahkan kerja-kerja lebih 950 ATC di Malaysia.

Penambahbaikan sistem ini telah diberi kepada SELEX secara “tender rundingan tertutup”, yang menyukarkan pemilihan sistem terbaik melalui proses bidaan kompetitif.

ATC di NATCC Lapangan Terbang Subang telah menerima latihan dalam fasa kedua MIP2 sejak September 2011. Kami difahamkan wujud banyak kecacatan dan kekurangan yang dikenalpasti ATC-ATC ini, yang seharusnya diperbetul sebelum sistem Human Machine Interface (HMI) digunapakai. (Lampiran 1)

Namun kami difahamkan SELEX gagal melaksanakan permintaan tersebut.

Berdasarkan dokumen yang ada dalam tangan kami, sistem HMI ini telah beroperasi sejak 13 Disember 2011. Namun sistem tersebut mengalami pelbagai masalah sejurus bermula operasi, yang menyebabkan keselamatan kesemua penerbangan dalam ruang udara Malaysia pada waktu itu terjejas. Para pengawal trafik udara HMI tidak stabil dengan banyak kelemahan, langsung menyebabkan Pengarah NATCC menghantar satu memo kepada semua pengawal trafik udara, membangkitkan isu “inconsistency in cleared flight level”.

Sepucuk surat yang ditandatangani sebelas orang, yang termasuk timbalan-timbalan pengarah pengawal trafik udara di NATCC bertarikh 4 Januari 2012 telah dihantar kepada Pengarah NATCC untuk menyuarakan rasa kecewa mereka terhadap ketiadaan maklum balas dari pihak berkuasa tentang kecacatan-kecacatan dan kekurangan-kekurangan dalam MIP2. (Lampiran 2)

Pegawai-pegawai tersebut turut menyatakan peningkatan tekanan yang dialami para pengawal trafik udara akibat masalah-masalah yang timbul dari MIP2. Mereka mendesak HMI digantikan dengan sistem yang dahulu, yang mereka anggap lebih boleh dipercayai.

SELEX, yang merupakan sebahagian dari kumpulan Finmeccanica Spa dari Itali, terbabit dalam pelbagai dakwaan rasuah di Itali, Cyprus, Panama dan Namibia. SELEX memiliki 30 peratus AAT, manakala Tirai Variasi Sdn Bhd memiliki 50 peratus dan baki 20 peratus dimiliki Tahap Harmoni Sdn Bhd. Pemilik Tirai Variasi adalah Dato’ Zolkipli bin Abdul dan Ikhwan Hafiz bin Jamaluddin, manakala Tahap Harmoni dimiliki Dato’ Mohamed bin Munip dan Datin Puteh binti Mohamed. (Lampiran 3)

Cukup jelas dari dokumen-dokumen yang cukup memeranjatkan ini bahawa ruang udara Malaysia dan penerbangan-penerbangan di dalamnya mungkin berada dalam keadaan bahaya. Kami dengan ini mendesak Kementerian Pengangkutan dan Jabatan Penerbangan Awam (DCA) untuk:

a) Menjawab pertuduhan-pertuduhan di atas secepat mungkin. Surat pertanyaan berkaitan isu ini telah dihantar kepada DCA dan Kementerian Pengangkutan. Adakah pihak DCA mengeluarkan sijil penyiapan praktikal (certificate of practical completion) sebelum SELEX dan AAT memperbaiki kecacatan-kecacatan yang telah dikesan?

b) Memperinci masalah-masalah yang dihadapi sistem kawalan trafik udara negara yang meletakkan penerbangan-penerbangan dalam ruang udara Malaysia dalam bahaya. DCA harus mengesyorkan rakyat Malaysia bahawa tahap keselamatan sedia ada mencukupi dengan mengadakan satu audit bebas, yang wajib dilaksanakan pihak International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), yang kemudiannya akan diserah kepada semua ahli-ahli Parlimen.

c) Perjelas dan berikan sebab mengapa AAT dan SELEX telah diberi kontrak sebanyak RM280 juta untuk membangunkan MATSMP Improvement Project (MIP) ini.

Kontroversi ini, yang merupakan sebuah lagi kes bidaan tidak kompetitif dan tender rundingan terus telah membelakangkan keselamatan negara dan rakyat Malaysia, seharusnya mendesak kita melaksanakan reformasi parlimen yang membolehkan wujudnya jawatankuasa tetap suatu desakan yang tidak boleh ditolak.

Kami sekali lagi menyatakan perlunya diwujudkan suatu jawatankuasa tetap parlimen bagi perolehan pertahanan termasuk isu kawalan udara, seperti jawatankuasa-jawatankuasa keselamatan negara dan perkhidmatan tentera di Amerika Syarikat.

Nurul Izzah Anwar
Ahli Parlimen Lembah Pantai, merangkap
Naib Presiden KEADILAN

Tian Chua
Ahli Parlimen Batu, merangkap
Naib Presiden KEADILAN

N Surendren
Naib Presiden KEADILAN

“This is a strong message from the court – a message to all politicians of responsibility. It’s also proof of a mature and transparent democracy that is today able to make a distinction and try a former president,”

“The justice system has been very severe, but this is a fair and independent justice system. For the family, it’s a great pain we have to accept,” said Anh Dao Traxel, her voice cracking with emotion outside the courtroomA career politician, Chirac was a debonair master of the workings of public office. He modeled himself after de Gaulle, and was nicknamed “Le Bulldozer” early in his career for his determination and ambition.Chirac’s 54-year-old Vietnamese-born adopted daughter Anh Dao Traxel said the ruling had been “too, too harsh”.”Justice has spoken, it must be respected but it’s unfortunately a great pain for our family and for Jacques Chirac,” she told reporters.
Thursday’s sentence was a surprise. Even state prosecutors had called for Chirac — who still polls as one of France’s most popular figures — to be cleared, and France has largely forgiven his long history of corruption.

“I hope this judgement won’t change the profound affection that the French people still rightly have for Jacques Chirac,” defence counsel Georges Kiejman said, adding that Chirac would decide later in the day whether to appeal.

Chirac’s 54-year-old Vietnamese-born adopted daughter Anh Dao Traxel said the ruling had been “too, too harsh”.

“Justice has spoken, it must be respected but it’s unfortunately a great pain for our family and for Jacques Chirac,” she told reporters.

The opposition Socialist Party’s candidate for next year’s presidential race, Francois Hollande, said “justice has been done” but added that he “had a thought for a man who has more health problems”.

Members of Chirac’s right-wing UMP party expressed regret.

Prime Minister Francois Fillon said the case had taken too long to resolve, with the ruling falling two decades after the crimes.

“I don’t think this decision will alter the personal relationship that exists between Jacques Chirac and the French people,” he said.

Chirac was president of France between 1995 and 2007 and enjoyed legal immunity while in office. He denied all the charges, but the case is only one of many corruption scandals to have dogged him in a long public career.

Doctors say he has “severe and irreversible” neurological problems including memory loss and dementia linked to his advanced age.

While he still makes occasional public appearances as a respected centre-right elder statesman, he was unable to attend the trial.

He was tried alongside nine alleged accomplices. Two were cleared, but the rest were convicted of helping Chirac run a system at Paris city hall under which political allies were paid municipal salaries for fake jobs.

The city of Paris, which is now run by a Socialist mayor, dropped a case for damages over the case after Chirac and the UMP agreed to pay 2.2 million euros to cover the embezzled funds.

Chirac — who lives in a luxury Paris flat overlooking the Seine near the Eiffel Tower paid for by the family of the assassinated former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri — repaid 500,000 euros out of his own pocket.

He was convicted of hiring members of his political party, then known as the Rally for the Republic (RPR) for non-existent municipal jobs, using the civic payroll to employ his own campaign staff.

In all, 19 fake jobs were created in Paris between 1990 and 1995, ahead of Chirac’s successful presidential bid. Veil said: “With 40,000 workers at city hall, it’s not that many at the end of the day.”

Several people were convicted in connection with the ghost worker case in 2004, including Juppe, who was found guilty of mishandling public funds but was  a key figure in Sarkozy’s government.

Foreign Minister Dato Seri Anifah Aman is walking on thin ice when he says the Scorpene probe is “not a serious matter that we need to follow”.

Firstly, he should tell us how much he knows about the probe and how he has come to know those details given the fact that Malaysia is not currently participating in the probe in France.

It is refreshing to hear that the Minister seems to know the issues in the probe. But his remarks don’t add up.

On the one hand he says its not a serious matter that we need to follow. On the other hand, he says Malaysia will “make the necessary preparations to face the trial when they are needed”

With respect, the Minister must make up his mind. If Malaysia will participate, why are we not there to assist to begin with?

A video by MEDIA RAKYAT featuring Suaram director Cynthia Gabriel and PKR Selayang MP (also a lawyer) William Leong.

How poisonous is the “scorpene” sting?

“There’s always a pretty girl, a dead body, ministers involved and huge kickbacks,” says William Leong in the interview with Adrian Yeo, when describing the modus operandi of a French naval giant.

From Paris, to Karachi, Taipeh and Kuala Lumpur, this company, which sold two scorpene-class submarines to Malaysia in 2002, is being investigated and alleged to have paid huge amounts of commission (illegal in France) to top French and Malaysian officials.

The gruesome murder of Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu by two bodyguards of then deputy prime minister Najib Razak (now prime minister!) is said to be related to the deal.

How closely related or linked, the case filed by Suaram against the company, will reveal all, when the case is heard in France.

The duo, whose faces have been covered all through the trial and would never be recognized by any of us if we were to see them without cover, is appealing their case in August.

Najib who was then Defense Minister when the deal was done has denied ever knowing Altantuya. He has even sworn on the Quran to convince people to believe him.

As always, as is the usual case, some do and some don’t, despite whatever he says. Poor man!

William Leong says when the case is heard in Paris, we will all know whether Najib really knows this woman or not.

I, too, have written extensively on the issue, and the latest news story in here in Malaysiakini.com.

Perhaps the Minister should, and I call upon him to brief Parliament in detail over what the probe has revealed to date and to what extent evidence has been obtained and whether it reflects any wrongdoing on part of our officials in the said transaction.

The Minister must tell us why it is he thinks this is not a serious matter. It is a matter of public concern. He must give us reasons in full.

The Minister is also quoted as saying “so far we have not received any information from the French Embassy. But if necessary, we are ready to defend ourselves”.

This defies logic. There is a probe which is on going which involves the nation. Surely we cannot just sit back and wait for the French Embassy to brief us?

A-G must intervene

The Attorney General should, as first legal officer, intervene. He should and must advise the Minister that the proper approach to take especially in a case like this where the country’s reputation is at stake, is to take from the very outset, stock of the situation.

We should and must participate and have our own representatives defending us and regularly updating us as to the findings of the inquiry. We should be on top of things.

Anything short of this would appear to be an obviously negligent handling of the matter for which the government must in the end be fully prepared to account for.

Gobind Singh Deo is the DAP MP for Puchong

AFTER ANWAR IBRAHIM, WHO?

“It was unanswerable because Pakatan is a work in progress. It would not be the going concern it is today without Anwar’s ability to weld Pakatan’s divergent components, theocratically-inclined PAS and secularism-steeped DAP, in a pact aimed at replacing BN at the seat of federal power. Absent Anwar, Pakatan would stutter from ideological incoherence and would likely stall because of the seemingly unbridgeable chasm that separates theocrat from secularist”.–Terence Netto

COMMENT by Terence Netto: At the Foreign Correspondents Club of Malaysia dinner for guest speaker Anwar Ibrahim the other day, the Opposition Leader was asked who would be his replacement as Pakatan Rakyat leader should anything happen to him.

The question was one of those good but complex ones that can stymie even the most nimble of politicians. The query had a sound basis because Anwar will be 65 soon. Though in good health, his longevity cannot be assumed.

It was unanswerable because Pakatan is a work in progress. It would not be the going concern it is today without Anwar’s ability to weld Pakatan’s divergent components, theocratically-inclined PAS and secularism-steeped DAP, in a pact aimed at replacing BN at the seat of federal power.

Absent Anwar, Pakatan would stutter from ideological incoherence and would likely stall because of the seemingly unbridgeable chasm that separates theocrat from secularist.

With him at the helm, Pakatan’s trajectory towards Putrajaya is both compelling and believable enough to dispel legitimate doubts over the ideological cohesion of the opposition coalition.

The plain answer to the question about a successor which Anwar skirted is that there is not now an individual who could credibly replace him simply because there is not yet in the Pakatan cohort a leader of comparably adhesive qualities and with Anwar’s connection to a world-historical issue: Islam’s compatibility with democracy.

Few would contest the point that this issue is the early 21st century’s paramount political one, just as the battle between fascism and democracy, and then communism and democracy, were the pivotal issues of the early and later parts of the twentieth.

Religious pluralism

There is an indirect link between the question of who can replace Anwar as Pakatan supremo and the issue of whether a non-Malay could be prime minister of Malaysia, the latter concern thrusting up in the national consciousness by the scaremongering of Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the Malay right wing who paint the rise of Pakatan as perilous to Malay political dominance (Ketuanan Melayu).

It is not so much that Anwar is irreplaceable as Pakatan supremo; it’s just that there has yet to emerge within its ranks a leader with his gift – the special ability to diffuse around him the belief that the urgent needs of Malaysia’s democratic restoration must prevail against all obstacles of rationality posed by allies with divergent ideologies.

It is the nature of this gift that its fulfillment will foster emulation. Several would be the collateral benefits therefrom.

The most significant would be the point that Islam would be seen to be compatible with democracy. Islamist critics of Anwar have upbraided him for promoting religious pluralism.

His invariable response is to cite the maqasid al-syariah, a 12th century postulates of the jurist Al-Shatibi which hold that the preservation of life, protection of property, establishment of justice, and the maintenance of peace and harmony are the higher goals of Islamic law.

In the rhetorical formulations of Anwar before international and domestic forums in recent years, the maqasid al-syariah sounds like a precursor of the ideals of the Enlightenment, not the French variety that attacked religion but the English version that did not attack religion, promoted liberty and self-study, and valued common sense.

More significant and instructive about the political thinking of Anwar was his lauding, at the FCCM dinner, of the merits of ‘Democracy in America’, the classic work of the French diplomat and historian Alexis de Tocqueville, who wrote the book in 1835 after a nine-month tour of America during which he learned about democracy from the experience of ordinary people.

Anwar said he always recommended the book to the younger set of leaders in his party, PKR, for their edification. Tocqueville’s central point was that democracy would sweep the world, though it has taken nearly two centuries for that to happen to most countries of the world.

The reason the French noble said that democratic revolution would be inevitable in the world was the system’s conferment of equality on the people.

He said equality was preferred by people because it was immediately available; if people were equal – or could be made equal – then they would appreciate it immediately.

There are several other points Tocqueville made in his seminal book, but the one about the ordinary people’s preference for equality was, he observed, strongly held.

If Anwar’s and his followers’ understanding of Tocqueville’s emphasis on equality is well founded, it would follow that a non-Malay leader of requisite calibre can become PM of Malaysia.

Suharto’s downfall

It is democracy’s emphasis on the equality of all that would militate against traditions which promote class, ethnic, religious or gender superiority.

One recalls that in the waning years of dictator Suharto’s rule in Indonesia, there was wide speculation on who would succeed him.

It was suggested that a successor would have to be Javanese and Muslim, thereby ruling out able presidential presumptives like Benny Murdani, who was Javanese but not Muslim.

Fourteen years on from the liberalisations that began with Suharto’s downfall in 1998 and are continuing under current President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the prospects of a contender, Jusuf Kalla, becoming president are not discounted on the grounds that he is not Javanese. Jusuf is Bugis. Or for that matter, Golkar’s Aburizal Bakrie whose comes from a respected and successful Sumatran family.

With time and adequate experience of emollient democratic rule, restrictions of race, religion, and gender, unless embedded in the constitution (and if so, these won’t last), would wither in the face of democracy’s inexorable egalitarian ethos.

That is why the Pakatan goal of Malaysia’s democratic restoration, marshaled by Anwar, is vital to the country’s well-being.