Who's fighting corruption?

Yesterday I posted He's a bastard, but he's our bastard!, with my title borrowed from Harry Truman’s infamous description of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza.

Truman was basically acknowledging Somoza was an unmitigated bastard of a dictator but nonetheless required defending/protecting because he was America’s stooge.

We Malaysians (I dare say on both sides of the political fence) know that many officers of our public institutions (Police, MACC, EC, civil servants, and even the judiciary) work NOT as neutral unbiased public servants but as if they are paid staff of the current ruling federal government, effectively UMNO*.

* the rest of BN are insignificant - just look at that pathetic Murugiah desperately looking for a BN component party to join after he was expelled from equally pathetic PPP

We have witnessed and experienced clear indications and cases of these unprofessional and unethical relationships – eg. the tarnished and very biased Perak police and civil servants, police harassment of peaceful and harmless candlelight vigils while UMNO-BN rallies such as the cow head agitation and Perkasa bigoted activities were tolerated, MACC ignoring obvious cases of obscene and ostentatious show of unexplained wealth while harassing DAP politicians for cases involving a couple of thousand ringgits (and unfounded cases as such), harassment of non-BN party newspapers while UMNO mouthpieces have been getting away with gross sedition and reckless bigotry, top judicial decisions that went from white one day to black the next that 'miraculously' were in favour of UMNO, etc.

Worst of the lot, there has been no action on cases involving unexplained deaths in Police and MACC custody - yes, lives of Malaysians were lost while in the custody of these so-called guardians of society - nor will there be any explanation/accountability as I predicted, .....

..... for the reason these institutions are UMNO's 'Anastasio Somoza' which require defending/protecting - to do otherwise would be to cut away the party's own appendages.

Malaysiakini reported that MACC Commissioner Abu Kassim Mohamed appealed to the Malaysian public: Don't fight us, fight corruption where he stated “All efforts in combating corruption would only be fruitful if there was continuous awareness and support from society”.

Well, my dear Commissioner, we are in fact continuously aware of the need to combat corruption, the bane of our society. And we are equally aware that your MACC has done nothing substantial to combat REAL corruption (other than to pick on a few ikan bilis for show).

Tell me, my dear Commissioner, are you BLIND? Even blind Malaysians know of the corruption going on, not only in the public institutions, but among the politicians and their supporters. Perhaps you are deaf?

The only significant event that has been ‘achieved’ by MACC thus far has been the unexplained death of Teoh Beng Hock who was in your custody, your care and thus your responsibility. And your organization came up with the ludicrous explanation that Teoh who was to have married the following day, who took the trouble on his wedding eve to ring up his best man to remind him of the wedding, committed suicide on that very wedding eve?

And you want us to work with you? Will we be safer than Teoh was?

Trust has to be earned, cooperation likewise. But how will we achieve these? You see, my dear Commissioner, we don’t see you as an anti-corruption agency, but as an apparatus of the ruling clique to harass, intimidate and bugger non-BN parties and their supporters.

To put it simply, to work with you while your organization is still in its current state of allegiance would be to effectively work against ourselves.

To paraphrase Ralph Nader’s criticism of Microsoft: "If MACC's (and its predecessor’s) long record of deception and untrustworthiness is to be ended, the public remedies must be as bold, sweeping, and effective as the organization's power."

As my previous post suggested, we cannot ever dream of the UMNO government doing so because the MACC is after all its 'Somoza'.