EU officials use gangster police on protest in Malaysia

On 25 June 2007, EU officials from the EU Commission office in the Tan & Tan building in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, used the Malaysian gangster police force and private security officers from Tan & Tan Tower to abuse, harass and intimidate a lone female Indigenous anti-war activist during a peaceful protest.

The protest was to condemn simultaneously the EU Commission's attack on Indigenous rights in Malaysia and the extreme hypocrisy of both EU and the UN in not bringing US-Israel and UK leaders to The Hague for Genocide and the current Muslim Holocaust in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and Afghanistan.

Especially now that they are trying to elect the war criminal, Blair, for the role of a "peace envoy" – where is the UN or even a woman envoy for such role, since it's usually men who created these barbaric wars? Or even for the EU and UN to bring NATO generals responsible for the genocide of innocent civilians including many women and young children in Afghanistan under War Crimes in The Hague and in the European Court of Human Rights (for European NATO leaders). This clearly shows the hypocrisy and arrogant disregard for democracy and human rights in the Third World by these European officials. They regard such abuse toward democracy and human rights as fair game in the "Third World", far away from the knowledge of most ordinary European population.

The macho-sadistic police force came with their automatic machine guns and about five police cars, including plain cloths Special Branch officers, to hassle and intimidate this lone woman activist and the peaceful protest (as allowed in a democracy). They were rude verbally and took many photos of the activist. Many of the Special Branch officers refused to give their names (even though they were supposed to have name badges) and to disclose under whose order of the police force they were disrupting the protest. One high-ranking, non-uniformed officer by the name of Inspector Jeyarajan even snatched posters from the activist even though she argued and demanded to know which section of the law could be applied toward such gangster action. This truly shows that in Malaysia, the reality is that despite such a glossy surface, we actually still have a highly uncivilized, primitive and sexist justice system.

Furthermore, the anti-war activist was also protesting against Thierry Rommel's condemnation of Indigenous/Bumiputera Rights as formulated under Malaysia's New Economic Policy. The policy allows affirmative action, which has been recognized by the UN's declaration on the protection of Indigenous Human Rights but also blamed as an obstruction toward (capitalist-) globalization as part of the free trade agreement currently being negotiated between the EU and South-East Asia's nation-states (Asean). Further, affirmative action was negotiated during the process in gaining Malaysia's independence as part of the social contract in achieving fair distribution of wealth and education, including nationalization strategy and special rights (not privileges) which were denied during British rule toward the Indigenous population. Such discrimination by the British, which was also racist, was based on the strategy of "Divide and Rule" in order to keep animosity between the settlers population, mainly from India and China and the Indigenous population, by maintaining the poverty, which included non-accessibility to education for the majority of the ordinary Indigenous population.

This activist suspected that Rommel's condemnation was due to his effort to distract attention from the revelation very recently that EU officials from the EU Commission are complicit with Malaysian logging and plantation corporations and corrupt politicians that have and are still destroying millions of years-old forest reserves and traditional Indigenous ancestral land rights and customary forests (plantation products that are exported to Europe).

Despite affirmative action, many Indigenous people, especially traditional villagers, have been impacted unjustly by the onslaught of capitalist modernization brought initially by British colonization. Further, the affirmative action unfortunately does not cover the continuous protection of ancestral Indigenous land rights and forests. The affirmative action's policy envisioned by the Social Democrat second Prime Minister, Tun Razak (who mysteriously died with his deputy not long after at young age), would probably have included more significant and permanent protection had he and his deputy, Tun Ismail, lived.

Moreover, Rommel, coming from one of the most capitalist nation-states in Europe, ie Belgium, probably would not have felt both individual and social conscience nor consciousness toward the significance of protecting Indigenous human and environmental rights. If the significance had been realized even by the capitalist Malaysian government (since Tun Razak's death), our ancestral forests and land rights would have been saved long ago. In addition, if Rommel had come down to earth from his pathetic arrogance toward Indigenous rights, he would have remembered and learnt from the past history of his own Belgium's brutal, capitalist colonization, when many Indigenous Congolese were mass murdered in a Genocide or had both their arms hacked by their colonial ‘master'.

Nevertheless, another reason for Rommel's consistent attack on affirmative action during the free trade agreements was mainly to obstruct the Malaysian national oil & gas corporation, Petronas, from having the upper hand in the future tender for the very significant discovery of massive oil deepwater reserves in Malaysia, especially in Borneo (see The Star, M'sia set to be global deepwater oil player, 25 June 2007). Such a discovery also provides a very significant reason why the EU Commission and US-UK are pushing Malaysia very aggressively toward immediate free trade agreements.

Lastly, since the Malaysian government has been following mainly the capitalist path being manufactured by the EU Commission and the US-UK capitalist powers, such abuses of the ordinary population's human rights, exemplified by the disruption of the peaceful protest above and the special protection for the capitalist or elite class, would continue and expand even. That is why it is so important that western NGOs and the ordinary population, especially in Europe, prosecute their leaders and official representatives if these leaders are abusing their powers and practicing double standards of human rights and democracy in the ‘Third World'. That will be exemplary to all including ‘Third World' leaders and also the highly pro-US UN Secretary General to follow the paths of truly modern (not capitalist) democracy and true social justice. At least we would have a common true humanity (despite our cherished diversity) and a new history of just peace.