By Mariam Mokhtar Mar 28, 2011
Umno has served up a red herring in the shape of a sex video which was meant
to make us take our eyes off the ball. They wanted us to forget about
Sarawak and its Chief Minister, Taib Mahmud.
The end game of the latest sex video is not an attempt by Umno to hide its
failures or an attempt to bring down opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim. The
true intention of Umno is to preoccupy us and bombard us with the details of
this sex scandal so that we lose our focus - Sarawak.
Umno's attempts to discredit Anwar are getting clumsier and cruder by the
day. It is a deliberate attempt at character assasination by people whose
own reputations are themselves sullied.
Abdul Rahim Thamby Chik is one of the people behind this sex video. He
is allegedly a child rapist and child molester. He is sore that in
1994, his ticket to millions was cut short by his sexual
indiscretions. Instead of being prosecuted, Umno kept him firmly in
the fold, possibly as a "sleeper" to do its dirty work in the future.
Perhaps this is what that sex video is all about.
Rahim had allegedly raped a minor. It was Lim Guan Eng, a DAP MP, who was
jailed for sedition when he tried to seek justice for this girl. The girl's
grandmother had pleaded with Lim to help her family. She did not go to the
Umno Malays to help her. That must say a lot about what ordinary Malays
think of the political party which is supposedly theirs. The Umno Malays
maintained an unhealthy silence to protect one of their own.
We do not know if Rahim was put up to this latest scandal by Prime Minister
Najib Abdul Razak. Two decades ago, Rahim escaped a heavy jail sentence by
doing a deal with Mahathir. Now, it is time to return the favour and come to
the defence of Umno.
It is quite possible, that if Rahim had refused to help Umno, new
incriminating evidence from the rape of that girl in 1994 would have
materialised. Who says new material cannot be unearthed at such a late
stage? They did it for Teoh Beng Hock, didn't they? The supposed 'suicide
note' appeared months later, when the inquest into his mysterious death was
nearing its conclusion.
This plan which was hatched by Umno is one of several that surfaced in the
last few months. We had Saiful's personal 'sperm bank' and we've been
entertained by Umi Hafilda Ali's failure at passing the virginity test. Now
we have this sex video.
Getting the people titillated
This red herring, the sex video, has been planned with little games in
place. It has got the people titillated. Is it Anwar in the movie or is it
not? Is it Anwar's doppelgänger or is it the despicable Shazryl Eskay
Abdullah? Why was Carcosa selected? Why were the police slow to act? This is
what Umno wanted - to distract us from Sarawak.
The reality is that Najib wants to hide the problems of Sarawak from us.
Taib Mahmud is in trouble. He is suffering from a two pronged attack by
Clare Rewcastle Brown and her weapons of mass deliverance (WMD) - the
Sarawak Report website which details all of Taib's corruption and crooked
business dealings, and Radio Free Sarawak which broadcasts interviews with
ordinary people who have suffered at the hands of Taib.
The white-haired Taib, dubbed 'The Termite', has attracted much criticism
over his unwillingness to step down or to groom his successors. He has also
been hit by successive waves of accusations of corruption and nepotism. The
anti-graft body Transparency International Malaysia has added its voice in
asking the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the
allegations.
The problem that Najib faces in Sarawak is Taib's reluctance to hand over
the reins. There are some who believe that Taib should not contest the
polls; others feel that only he is capable of holding the coalition together
and delivering the resource-rich state to Putrajaya, which considers Sarawak
and Sabah as its "fixed-deposit" vote bank.
Umno/BN are afraid of Anwar and Pakatan. There is no doubt of that. One has
only to see the police intervention when Anwar was at a gathering in Gombak
last Friday. The more Najib sends the thugs to silence Anwar, the more
moderate Malaysians will end up supporting Anwar.
Anwar has become a symbol of oppression - his own, and ours. He has been
pilloried and punched by the police before. And yet he has managed to drag
himself up from the floor and become stronger.
Anwar being preoccupied with defending himself against this sex video was so
that he would not be able to concentrate on Sarawak.
Taib running scared
Taib is running scared. He has attempted to enter the cyber-world with
disastrous results. One victim of his foray into this cyber-war was the
proofreader at the Borneo Post. He corrected what he thought was a spelling
error and inadvertently directed online readers to the original 'Sarawak
Report' of Clare Rewcastle Brown. He has been sacked. This is Taib's
desperation and ruthlessness at work.
The battle-lines in Sarawak are already drawn. A few days ago, Snap was
exposed as potential political frogs and would have damaged Pakatan in
Sarawak, just like the political frogs which damaged Pakatan in Perak three
years ago.
Sarawak is causing sleepless nights in Putrajaya and also for Mahathir. Even
Daim, who milked Malaysia dry, has now come out of the woodwork to defend
Umno/BN and Najib.
Sarawak has never experienced a more formidable opposition. In the past,
Taib would have been able to intimidate, imprison or eliminate his
opponents, if necessary. Najib's sex video has backfired but there will be
other dirty tactics up BN's sleeves.
Anwar has galvanised Pakatan to such a degree that trying to topple him has
become an impossible undertaking; a string of bounty hunters will get their
shoulders to the task, to repay favours owed to Mahathir.
We can expect more fireworks in the run-up to Sarawak polling day.
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MARIAM MOKHTAR is a non-conformist traditionalist from Perak, a bucket
chemist and an armchair eco-warrior. In 'real-speak', this translates into
that she comes from Ipoh, values change but respects culture, is a petroleum
chemist and also an environmental pollution-control scientist.
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