From Din Merican

Attention: Datin Rose Ismail
For the record, I am highlighting the views regarding the RM3 billion caper (see Hafiz Yatim’s report in Malaysiakini below) of former US Ambassador to Malaysia, John Malott ,which appeared in my blog under comment. In the interest of respectable and responsible journalism, Rose Ismail should respond to them.

I also wish to remind her and others like her in the NST and other mainstream media that sycophancy comes at a price. You should report with integrity since the media serves to inform not mislead the Malaysian public.–Din Merican

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She claims that she based her article on another article called “Pacific Whim” in the American magazine, The New Republic. The truth is, she wanted to write a smear on Anwar, so she left out anything in the New Republic article that did not support the allegations she wanted to make. For example, the New Republic wrote:

“Roughly once a year from late 1994 to early 1998, in conjunction with two government- affiliated Malaysian think tanks, the center organized elaborate three-day conferences that brought together the prime minister and deputy prime minister of Malaysia, various government ministers from other East Asian countries, and a delegation of U.S. senators and American CEOs.”

In other words, the article clearly explained there was a connection to ISIS and Mahathir. The article also said bluntly, “Anwar’s trial was a thoroughly political affair, and Murad’s own credibility is suspect.”

You can be certain that sentence would NEVER be printed in the NST. Anyone who wishes to read the article can find it on-line at http://www.tnr.com/article/pacific-whim

I do not believe that Rose Ismail left out these important parts by accident. She knew exactly what she was doing — she was not a low-level reporter but an experienced and senior editor at the NST — so Anwar is well within his rights to sue the NST for libel”.

In response to the comment of my frequent interlocutor, Mr Bean, Ambassodor Malott had this to say:

…these conferences were co-sponsored and organized by ISIS, a Malaysian Government think tank then headed by Noordin Sopiee (who was very close to Mahathir and also wrote many of Mahathir’s speeches), and that Mahathir opened each conference and met privately with the high ranking US participants who came to Malaysia.

The problem with the NST article is that it ignored all of this and made it sound like it was totally Anwar’s doing, that Anwar was a US agent, and that only Anwar had a connection to the American think tank and Douglas Paal. The reality is, while Anwar took a leadership role, there were many people involved in these conferences on the Malaysian side. And in any event, what is wrong with holding international conferences that bring Malaysians, Americans, and Asian leaders and intellectuals together? It sounds like a good thing to me. The NST article made it sound like there was something sinister about it.

Also, please note that the paragraph you quoted says “In Malaysia, it was believed (sic) that these conferences…..” The New Republic article does not say that IN FACT the conferences were a vehicle for Anwar or were funded by him and his associates. It simply says that is what some Malaysians believed. Rose Ismail took a Malaysian “belief” and tried to turn it into a “fact” that was reported by an American magazine.

Finally, I know Doug Paal well. He is a very decent and respected person who today heads the international studies program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. The NST article tried to make Paal sound like he is some kind of Jack Abramoff, surrounded by scandal. He is not.

But isn’t it ironic that Jack Abramoff, who really did engage in scandalous and illegal behavior, and who is in jail today, was on the payroll of the Mahathir Government, via the Malaysian Embassy in Washington? That is the article that Rose Ismail should have written, but didn’t.

John Malott