People with blood-soaked hands

The following is the text of a controversial speech by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, a former prime minister of Malaysia, at Suhakam's Human Rights Conference on September 9, 2005, which led to the walkout by a number of diplomats and made news all over the world.


I would like to thank Suhakam for this honour to address you on a subject that you have more knowledge and experience than I do.

You are concerned with human rights or hak asasi manusia. And it is
only right that as a civilised society and nation we should all be
concerned with human rights in our country and in fact in the world.

But human rights should be upheld because they can contribute to a
better quality of life. To kill 100,000 people because you suspect
that the human rights of a few have been denied seem to be a
contradiction. Yet the fanaticism of the champions of human rights
have led to more people being deprived of their rights and many their
lives than the number saved. It seems to me that we have lost our
sense of proportion.

With civilisational advances it is only right that the human community
try to distinguish itself more and more from those of the other
creatures created by God which are unable to think, to reason and to
overcome the influence of base desires and feelings. Submission to the
strong and the powerful was right in the animal world and in primitive
human societies. But the more advance the society the greater should
be the capacity to think, to recognise and evaluate between right and
wrong and to choose between these based on higher reasoning power and
not just base feelings and desires.

The world today is, in the sense of the ability to make right choices,
still very primitive. For example those who claim to be the most
civilised still believe that the misfortune which befall them as a
result of the actions by their enemies are wrong but the misfortune
that they inflict on their enemies are right. This is seen from the
concern and anger over the death of 1,700 US soldiers in Iraq but the
death of a hundred times more of Iraqis as a result of the military
invasion and occupation of Iraq and the civil war precipitated by the
imposition of democratic elections are not even mentioned.

There is no tally of Iraqi deaths but every single death of a US
soldier is reported to the world. These are soldiers who must expect
to be killed. But the Iraqis who die because of US action or the civil
war in Iraq that the US has precipitated are innocent civilians who
under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein would be alive.

You and I read reports of the death of Iraqis with equanimity as if it
is right and just. You and I do not react with anger and horror over
this injustice, this abuse of the rights of the Iraqis to live, to be
free from terror including state initiated terror.

Prior to the invasion of Iraq on false pretences, 500,000 infants died
because sanctions deprived them of medicine and food/ Asked by the
press, Madelene Albright, then US secretary of state, whether she
thought the price was not too high for stopping Saddam Hussein's
dictatorship, she said it was difficult but the price (death of
500,000 children) was worth it.

At the time this was happening where were the people who are concerned
with human rights? Did they expose the abuses of Britain and America?
Did they protest against their own governments? No. It is because
they, the enemy, are killed. That is acceptable. But their own people
must not be killed. To kill them is to commit acts of terror.

Yet what is an act of terror. Isn't it any act that terrifies people?
Are not the people terrified at the idea of being bombed and killed?
Those who are to be killed by exploding bombs know they would have
their bodies torn from their heads and limbs. Some will die instantly
no doubt. But many would not. They would feel their limbs being torn
from their bodies, their guts spilled on the ground through their
torned abdomen. They would wait in terrible pain for help that may not
come. And they would again experience the terror, expecting the next
bomb or rocket. And those who survive would know the terror of what
would, what could happen to them personally when the bombers come
again, tomorrow, the day after, the week or month after.

They would know that they could be next to have their heads torn off
from their bodies, their limbs too. They would know that they would
die violently or they would survive in horrible pain, minus arms,
minus legs, maimed forever. And yet the bombings would go on. In Iraq
for 10 years between the Gulf War and the Iraq invasion, the people
lived in terrible fear. They were terrorised. Have they any rights?
Did the people of the world care?

The British and American bomber pilots came, unopposed, safe and cosy
in their state-of-the-art aircrafts, pressing buttons to drop bombs,
to kill and maim real people who were their targets, just targets. And
these murderers, for that is what they are, would go back to celebrate
'Mission accomplished'.

Who are the terrorists? The people below who were bombed or the
bombers? Whose rights have been snatched away?

I relate this because there are not just double standards where human
rights are concerned, there are multiple standards. Rightly we should
be concerned whether prisoners and detained foreign workers in this
country are treated well or not. We should be concerned whether
everyone can exercise his right to vote or not, whether the food given
to detainees are wholesome or not, indeed whether detention without
trial is a violation of human rights or not.

But the people whose hands are soaked in the blood of the innocents,
the blood of the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Panamanians, the
Nicaraguans, the Chileans, the Ecuadorians; the people who
assassinated the presidents of Panama, Chile, Ecuador; the people who
ignored international law and mounted military attacks, invading and
killing hundreds of Panamanian in order to arrest Noriega and to try
him not under Panamanian laws but under their own country's law, have
these people a right to question human rights in our country, to make
a list and grade the human rights record of the countries of the world
yearly, these people with blood-soaked hands.

They have not questioned the blatant abuses of human rights in
countries that are friendly to them. In fact they provide the means
for these countries to indulge in human rights abuses.

Israel is provided with weapons, helicopter gunships, bullets coated
with depleted uranium to wage war against people whose only way to
retaliate is by committing suicide bombing. The Israeli soldiers were
well-protected with body armour, operated from armoured tanks and
armoured bulldozers, to rocket and bomb the Palestinian and demolish
their houses while the occupants were still inside.

Israel has nuclear weapons but it was provided with bombers to bomb
so-called nuclear research facilities in other countries. And as with
American and British actions, the Israeli bombs and rockets tore up
the living Palestinians, Iraqis and soon Syrians and Iranians, without
the slightest consideration that the people they killed have rights,
have human rights to their lives, to security and peace.

Then there are other friends of these terrorist nations who abuse the
rights of their own people, deny them even the simplest democratic
rights, jailing and executing their people without fair trial but are
not criticised or condemned.

But when countries are not friendly with these great powers, their
governments claim they have a right to expend money to subvert the
government, to support the NGOs to overthrow the government, to ensure
only candidates willing to submit to them win. Already we are seeing
elections in which candidates wanting to stay independent being
rejected while only those ready to submit to these powers being
allowed to contest and to win.

There was a time when nations pledged not to interfere in the internal
affairs of other countries. As a result many authoritarian regimes
emerged which committed terrible atrocities. Cambodia and Pol Pot is a
case in mind. Because of the principle of non-interference in the
internal affairs of countries, two million Cambodians died horrible
deaths.

There is a case for interference. But who determines when there is a
case? Is this right to be given to a particular superpower? If so, can
we be assured the superpower would act in the best interest of the
country concerned, in order to uphold human rights.

Saddam Hussein was tried by the media and found guilty of oppressing
his people. But that was not the excuse for invading Iraq. The excuse
was that Iraq threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction
(WMD). Specifically Britain was supposed to be threatened with WMD
capable of hitting it within 45 minutes of the order being given by
Saddam.

As we all know it was a lie. Every agency tasked with verifying the
accusation that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction could not prove
it. Even the intelligence agencies of the US and Britain said that
there was no weapon of mass destruction that Saddam could threaten the
US or Britain or the world with. And today, after months of thorough
search without Saddam and his people getting in the way, no WMD has
been found.

Yet the US and UK took it upon themselves to invade Iraq in order to
remove an allegedly authoritarian government. The result of the
invasion is that many more people have been killed and injured than
Saddam was ever accused of. Worse still, the powers which are supposed
to save the Iraqi people have broken international laws on human
rights, by detaining Iraqis and others and torturing them at
Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.

So can we accept that these big powers alone have a right to determine
when to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries to
protect human rights?

Malaysia is concerned about human rights within its borders. It does
not need the interference of foreign powers before it sets up Suhakam,
a body dedicated to overseeing and ensuring that there are no abuses
of human rights within its borders.

People in Malaysia seem to be quite happy. They can work and do
business and make as much money as they like. There is no restriction
on the freedom to move about, to go abroad even.

They have political parties that they are free to join, whether these
are pro-government or anti-government. They can read newspapers, which
support or oppose the government. While the local electronic media is
supportive of the government, no one is prevented from watching or
listening to foreign broadcasts which are mostly critical of the
government.

Foreign newspapers and magazines are freely available. In fact many
foreign papers, like the International Herald Tribune and Asian Wall
Street Journal are printed in Malaysia and are freely available to
Malaysians. Then there is the Internet which no one seems able to stop
even if libelous lies are screened.

Periodically, without fail there would be elections in Malaysia.
Anyone and everyone can participate in these elections. The campaigns
by both sides are vigorous and hard-hitting. And the results show
quite clearly that despite accusations against the government of
undemocratic practices, many opposition candidates would win. In fact
several states were lost to the opposition parties. Not one of the
winning opposition candidates has been charged in court and found
guilty of some minor breaches of the election procedure and prevented
from taking his seat in Parliament as happens in a certain country.

But all these notwithstanding, Malaysia is accused of having a
totalitarian government during the 22 years of my premiership. That I
had released detainees on assumption of office as prime minister and I
had used the ISA sparingly does not mitigate against the accusation
that I was a dictator, an abuser of human rights.

And not using the ISA, not detaining a person without trial would not
help either. And so when a former DPM was charged in court, defended
by nine lawyers and found guilty through due process, all that was
said was that there was a conspiracy, the court was influenced and
manipulated and the trial was a sham. So you are damned if you use the
ISA, and you are damned if you don't use the ISA.

In the eyes of these self-appointed judges of human behaviour
worldwide, you can never be right no matter what you do, if they do
not like you. If they like you, a court decision in your favour, even
on laughable grounds, would be right.

Those are the people who now seem to appropriate to themselves the
right to lay down the ground rules for human rights and who have
appointed themselves as the overseers of human rights credentials of
the world.

And now these same people have come up with what they call
globalisation. In the first place who has the right to propose and
interpret globalisation? It is certain that globalisation was not
conceived by the poor countries. It was conceived, interpreted and
initiated by the rich.

The globalised world is to be without borders. But if countries have
no borders surely the first thing that should happen is that people
would be able to move from one country to another without any
conditions, without papers and passports. The poor people in the poor
countries should be able to migrate to the rich countries where there
are jobs and opportunities.

But it has been made clear that globalisation, borderlessness are not
for people but for capital, for currency traders, for corporations,
for banks, for NGOs concerned over so-called human rights abuses, over
lack of democracy, etc. The flow is, as you can see, only in one
direction. The border crossing will be done by the rich so as to be
able to benefit their business, banks, currency traders, their NGOs,
for human rights and for democracy.

There will be no flows in the opposite direction, from the poor
countries to the rich, the flow of poor people in search of jobs, the
NGOs concerned with human rights abuses in the rich and powerful
countries where the media self-censors to promote certain parties,
where dubious voting results are validated by tame courts. There will
be no flow of coloured people to white countries. If they succeed they
would be apprehended and sent to isolated islands in the middle of the
ocean or if they manage to land, they would be accommodated behind
razor-wire fence. It is all very democratic and caring for the rights
of man.

If we care to look back, we will recognise globalisation for what it
is. It is really not a new idea at all. Globalisation of trade took
place when the ethnic Europeans found the sea passages to the West and
to the East. They wanted trade, but they came in armed merchantmen
with guns and invaded, conquered and colonised their trading partners.

If the indigenous people were weak, they would just be liquidated,
shot on sight, their land taken and new ethnic European countries set
up. Otherwise they would be made a part of empires where the sun never
sets, their resources exploited and their people treated with disdain.

The map of the world today shows the effect of globalisation, as
interpreted by the ethnic Europeans in history. There was no US,
Canada, Australia, Latin America, New Zealand until the Europeans
discovered the sea passages and started global trade.

Before the Europeans, there were Arab, Indian, Chinese and Turkic
traders. There was no conquest or colonisation when these people
sailed the seas to trade. Only when the Europeans carried out world
trade were countries invaded, human rights abused, genocide committed,
empires built and new ethnic European nations created on land
belonging to others.

These are historical facts. Would today's globalisation not result in
weak countries being colonised again, new empires created, and the
world totally hegemonised. Would today's globalisation not result in
human rights abuses?

In today's world 20 percent of the people own 80 percent of the
wealth. Almost two billion people live on one US dollar a day. They
don't have enough food or clothing or a proper roof over their heads.
In winter, many of these people would freeze to death. The people of
the powerful countries are concerned about our abuses of human rights.

But shouldn't we be concerned over the uneven distribution of wealth
which deprived two billion people of their rights to a decent living,
deprived by the avarice of those people who seem so concerned about us
and the unintended occasional lapses that has resulted in abuse of
human rights in our country.

We should condemn human rights abuses in our country but we must be
wary of the people who want to destabilise us because we are too
independent and we have largely succeeded in giving our people a good
life, and despite all the criticism, we are more democratic than most
of the friends of the powerful nations of the world.

The globalisation of concern for the poor and the oppressed is sheer
hypocrisy. If these people who appears to be concerned are faced with
the situation that we in Malaysia have to face sometimes, their
reactions and responses are much worse than us. At Guantanamo
detention camp the detainees, some of whom are not even remotely
connected with terrorism, are tortured and humiliated. At Abu Ghraib,
the most senior officers actually sanctioned the inhuman treatment of
the detainees.

When forced by world opinion to take action against those responsible
for these reprehensible acts, the culprits were either found not
guilty or given light sentences. They were tried by their own courts
under their own laws. Their victims were not represented. The
countries where the crimes were committed were denied jurisdiction.
Altogether the whole process was so much eyewash. Yet these are the
countries and the people who claim that Malaysian courts are
manipulated by the government, that abuses of rights are rampant in
Malaysia. And Malaysian NGOs, media and others lapped it up.

We must fight against abuses of human rights. We must fight for human
rights. But we must not take away the rights of others, the rights of
the majority. We must not kill them, invade and destroy their
countries in the name of human rights. Just as many wrong things are
done in the name of Islam and also other religions, worse things are
being done in the name of democracy and human rights. We must have a
proper perspective of things. Two wrongs do not make one right.
Remember the community have rights too, not just the individual or the
minority.

We have gained political independence but for many the minds are still
colonised.