Dr Mahathir challenges former WSJ editor to criticize Singapore leaders
December 25th, 2009 | 
Author: Written by Our Correspondent
Malaysian former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad had challenged the former Managing Editor of the Asian Wall Street Journal, Barry Wain to criticize Singapore leaders.
Wain, recently released his book “Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times,” in which he accuses Dr Mahathir of wasting RM100 billion in public funds during his tenure as Malaysian Prime Minister from 1981 to 2003.
In a posting on his blog chedet yesterday, Dr Mahathir made a point for point defence against the accusations leveled against him and said he welcomed opposition leader Lim Kit Siang’s call for the Malaysian government to set up a royal commission to probe whether he “burned” RM100 billion.
True to his combative style, Dr Mahathir poured scorn on Wain for criticizing him only and challenged him to take on the leaders of Singapore, where he now resides.
“Barry Wain was formerly with the Asian Wall Street Journal and Asia Week. Presently he is with the Singapore think tank, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. He knows that if he writes anything against Singapore leaders he would be dragged to the courts, sued and forced to pay huge indemnity. His colleagues have all been found guilty of defamation when they wrote something that was not approved by Singapore leaders.” Dr Mahathir wrote.
He suggested that journalists dare to do so as the Malaysian courts are “lenient” with them:
“It is safe for journalists to impute all kinds of misbehaviour by Malaysian leaders. There have been many cases where the courts have found in favour of the journalists,” he added.
Dr Mahathir was referring to a recent court case involving WSJ’s sister publication – Far Eastern Economic Review which was sued for defamation by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
The Singapore High Court had ordered the Review Publishing Company, publisher of the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER), and editor Hugo Restall to pay 200,000 dollars in damages and 30,000 dollars in legal costs to Premier Lee Hsien Loong.
His father, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, will get 150,000 dollars in damages and 25,000 dollars in legal costs.
The penalties were set after the Court of Appeal last month upheld a 2008 decision finding the defendants guilty of defaming the Lees in a 2006 article based on an interview with Chee Soon Juan, an opposition party leader.
The article at the heart of the case — entitled “Singapore’s ‘Martyr’, Chee Soon Juan” — described the opposition Singapore Democratic Party secretary general’s battle against the ruling People’s Action Party and its leaders.
Leaders from the Singapore’s ruling party have won numerous defamation suits against their political opponents back home and foreign publications such as The Economist, Time, Bloomberg, AsiaWeek and the International Herald Tribune.
Despite similar leadership style between him and Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, Dr Mahathir seldom sued those who opposed him for defamation.
The litigious nature of Singapore’s leaders have attracted international criticisms and opprobrium, especially from human rights organizations.
Singapore’s Law Minister Shanmugam defended its harsh defamatory laws lately to an American audience on the grounds that it is important to safeguard the reputation of its leaders from “scurrilous and baseless” accusations.
As one Malaysiakini reader puts it succinctly:
“And about Singapore, I bet my life, Barry Wain will never, never write anything about their ” Incorruptible Leaders ” Least he wants to be bankrupt. Just so you know, a very famous opposition leader in Singapore, spent donkey years getting out of bankruptcy, and died few months later.”
It will be interesting to see if Wain, Restall, or any other WSJ editor will write a fair, accurate and objective assessment of MM Lee when he passes on finally.
China’s Mao was a living god when he was still alive. Today, he is persona non grata in China and denounced as a mass-murderer outside China.
Lee will probably suffer a similar fate as Mao with few Singaporeans being remotely aware of his contributions or even existence long after his PAP is booted out of office.
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26 Responses to “Dr Mahathir challenges former WSJ editor to criticize Singapore leaders”
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Elementary dear Watson-
Should Mahathir sue a Pandoro’s box will open with so much worms its is impossible for him to close the lid.
Should LKY sue well………the rest is history
Dear People,
I have made a posting on Mahathir’s Che Det blog. Mahathir is a mischievous opportunist. Barry Wain is 100 % correct about Mahathir. In my posting there – I replied to accusations from Mahathir’s supporters that Singapore is destroying mosques etc. Its all very racial. While I am pro-Singapore – I am however NOT pro-PAP. Standing up for Singapore does NOT mean standing up for PAP. Singapore is NOT equal to the PAP.
Anyways – I defended Singapore to the best of my ability by demolishing all those racial attacks by Mahathir’s supporters. Check it out on Che Det weblog.
Regards
Dr Syed Alwi
Didn’t Madhatter called the old man “the little emperor”? guess the old man was not offended huh?
Anyway, the spear was pointed at Madhatter from this Barry bugger. He should fight his own war with the old man if he still buay song and not use a proxy like Barry to plant the dagger.
.
Dear Alwi,
I read your post in chedet countering an ex-Singaporean.Good for you and let me state here an now like you I am Pro -Sinaporean not proPAP or their sycophant.
Are you still thinking of migrating??please don’t we are going through a precarious stage and every rational thinking Singaporean is needed.Should the opposition fail to unseat the PAP per se,which I don’t think they can yet, at least with a better number in parliament will stop them from ramming policies down our throats.
This man Mahathir stands tall compared to any of our PAP leaders.Because he stood down voluntarily from power.No dictator in history has ever been known to have given up power voluntarily.Why?Because the skeletons that would be dugged up would finish them for sure.Or they run road in shame.But he quit and yet survived the onslaught of Abdullah’s administration for 6 years .Abdullah’s son in law Khairy’s sole aim was to destroy Dr.M’s legacy.
I would guess our PAP top dog had a hand in wanting to destroy Dr.M legacy too.Because PAP praised PM Abdullah to the hilt while every other Malaysian hated him as their economy crawled as Abdullah slept in cabinet meetings.
I would guess this book by Barry Wain is another attempt by our SG leaders to get at Dr.M….And I laugh at our PAP’s foolhardiness.Why?Because during the 6 years of Abdullah’s administration Dr.M went through hell.He was punched,man handled,ostrcized by UMNO,monitored by police,made to loose an election in his very own constituency,denied the freedom to speak and etc etc.Treated very much like our JBJ & Dr.Chee under PAP’s …Yet,he was the PM of Malaysia for 22 odd years.!
But he survived all that charachter assacination only to triumph with his legacy intact.Simply because when all the mainstream medias refused to give him the right of reply.He blogged.Thus he went to the Malaysians directly.He made history as the most read blog.Almost 2 million hits within a month.About an average of 500 comments for each and every of his article published.He took on his critics and published their criticism for any one in the world to see.
This is da man.
Not hide under some academic mummbo jummbo whom we cannot put on a stand of scrutiny and question.Will Barry Wain or LKY allow themselves to question by an average local?..Dr.M did.
A spate should be called a spate…so does mahathir.”a true great looser”.
Instead of suing Barry Wain, Mahathir Mohamad is challenging him to criticize Singapore leaders, typical MM style of sidestepping his mess and confusing the issues.
Mahathir attacks Singapore media
—————————————————————
Reuters. June 1, 1999.
MALAYSIAN Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Saturday hit back at a Singapore newspaper that hinted he had been in power too long, saying Singapore had been under the same rule for longer than Malaysia.
“You look at the team in Singapore, it hasn’t changed very much, has it?,” Mahathir told reporters in Malaysia’s capital.
“Somebody has been prime minister longer than I have been and I don’t have my son waiting for me to succeed,” he said in a clear reference to Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who has been prime minister for 31 years and whose son is deputy prime minister.
Singapore’s Business Times newspaper said in an editorial on Saturday that parties in Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s governing coalition had a “very low propensity for renewal” and that Mahathir’s party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), was having difficulty attracting young people. “Longevity looks good in the record books and allows for continuity and stability,” the daily said. “But it can also be counter-productive if it chokes off fresh ideas.” The paper also said Mahathir’s record after 18 years in power was “patchy.”
“I don’t like to say these nasty things, but Singapore papers have a habit of passing nasty comments on us and we keep quiet because we are very nice people,” Mahathir told a news conference on the sidelines of UMNO’s annual meeting.
“But if they like to pick a quarrel with us, we are ready to have a quarrel with them. Our aim has never (been) to make comments about them. I have always downplayed any differences with Singapore but sometimes one gets fed-up with them.”
http://www.singapore-window.org/sw99/90620re.htm
Dr Syed Alwi on Fri, 25th Dec 2009 5:51 pm,
You have my admirations, Dr!
sue sue sue.that’s what lau lee do.can sue in any other country or not?how come obama never sue anyone?nobody sue except lau lee and his gang and ONLY in sinkapoor courts.suing critics is to silence dissent.suing does not mean looser is wrong.nkf durai also sued his critics and won.but it was proved later his critics were right all along.stop this disease of sue sue culture.
25/12/09
The former Prime Minister of Malaysia Dr Mahathir, has much more dirt, worse corruption equvialent to Zimbawe than our Singapore leaders which have done a very good job since our Modern Singapore independence from Malaysia. Dr Mahather administered Malaysia for 22 years and when he stepped down, Malaysia’s standard of living are much worse than Singapore, China, Hongkong, Macau. Inshort, he bankrupted the nation’s treasury.
Regards
Andrew Chuah
One can search the internet on how mahathir tried to corner the tin market in the early 80s and almost succeeded, but got played out due to rule changes. he lost quite some money there. but he learnt in 1997 by changing the rules as well—a currency peg.
Why don’t Mahathir come to Singapore to criticize our government?
He is the only one our MIW wont dare to sue.
World Audit Organisation ranks Singapore 4th and Malaysia 34th in Corrupton rank.
Checkout this site -
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/gov_cor-government-corruption
Journalists therefore can only write about corruption in Malaysia (not Singapore) given the international statistics.
Malaysian leaders are always envious abt this little red dot outperforming them in all fields except in making baies.
Last month, Najib was screwed upside down on TV Indonesia in Jarkarta. Everytime, the host questioned him abt the alleged mistreatment of Indonesian immigrants or the shameless calling of Indonesian cuisine Malaysia’s his rehearsed answer was we are “sa rumpun” (one stock) and challenged Indonesia to also question Singapore like why it canes illegal immigrants and also Singapore’s adoption of Indonesian food. This is the hallmark of a brainless leader – pointing fingers at others to divert attention.
Don’t forget just recently Minister Nazri labelled Dr Mahathir the “Father of Racism” in Malaysia. Btw, Minister Nazri was also a Minister then in Mahathir’s cabinet. He says he is now troubled by people calling the Malays “lazy” and wants to come clean abt Mahathir’s role in his 22-year rule in formulating and reinforcing racist policies in Malaysia.
Mahathir is spent-and-out. He left nothing for the country and his party except trouble and cracks. He’s not even bumiputra, yet he promoted NEP. You guys know that he’s an ethnic indian? He dropped his “s/o” roots. Wonder if he’ll drop by here?
Mahathir is truely old fart. Nobody can fight with him over that for sure. Even Singapore Lau Lee will lose to him big time in this respect.
What will disappear next from Malaysia?Instead of jet engines, the Petronas Towers?
We laugh at Malaysia because they cannot hide their dirt under the carpet.When the shit hits the fan the whole world is going to laugh at us.For instance how much of money did Temasek Holdings lost?Anyone knows .
Ignorance in law is not an excuse.So don’t laugh too much over others spoilt milk.We have far too much shit in our own stomach.Shit must be shed one day.When it does come,perhaps after LKY’s death,the stench would be unbearable .
citizenofSG said: Why don’t Mahathir come to Singapore to criticize our government? He is the only one our MIW wont dare to sue.
That is SURELY VERY TRUE.
While M may be NOT in the system anymore, he still has his supporters and if Lee remotely DARE to arrest M in SInkapore, M’s supporters would drown Sinkapore just by spitting!
Citizen on Sat, 26th Dec 2009 8:56 am
Petronas Tower disappearing?
Huh,Petronas is doing VERY WELL INTERNATIONALLY NOW. Even David Copperfield would lose his bet and show if Petronas Tower “disappears” from your magical poor eye-sight and backward knowledge.
What happened to our NATIONAL petroleum icon – SPC??? Well that one certainly “disappeared” – some Chinese foreign talent organisation called ChinaPetroleum have them for dinner already and passed out as excrement waste.
Or is it not??
26/12/09
Hi Citizen-A good friend of mine told me “he heard that Malaysia’s Parliament House has just been sold to Dubai and the Prime Minister Najib was not aware yet”…….let us wait and see what his stand is.
Regards
Andrew Chuah
Intersting. LKY sues Mahathir in Singapore and Mahathir sues LKY in Spore. Both win!
Anyway, I respect Dr Mahathir more but not LKY, because 人格 also counts.
I agree with chow ah beng, how much money did TH lose, no one dare to ask, is she qualified person to lead TH. This is the only period that PM wife was involved in the administartion of the cty. other previous PM, no involvement from them.
Dr Alwi, u stated u are not pro pap, but pro s’pore, come on Dr.wake up, s’pore is pap and pap is s’pore. U must relised how pap handle it’s opposition after every election.
bye bye.
What ever written in Wain’s book is of public knowledge in
Malaysia.Only the quantum of loss is debatable as it is not easy to show proof and trace the money trail.Recently there were cases unearth by opposition where BN politicians laundered millions of ringgit overseas through money changer.Millions were also confiscated by Hong Kong Government
last year which was meant to shore up the BN in a by election
in Selangor.
It was true that in his haste to develope Malaysia,Mahathir
has neglected the wide spread corruption in tendem.This had an adverse effect and is showing now in almost all government instituitions,including judiciary and enforcement agencies.
It is not going to get better if politics continue to trend
along racial lines,unless there is a political will to initiate reform by the ruling party.