Political corruption in
pre-election Malaysia By Nile
Bowie
KUALA LUMPUR - In Malaysian Borneo,
home to some of the world's oldest rainforests and
an array of biodiverse plant and animal species,
logging will always be a sensitive issue.
Controversy has recently surrounded Sabah's Chief
Minister Musa Aman over allegations of embezzling
US$90 million (279 million ringgit) from years of
illegal logging operations in the state.
The Bruno Manser Fund (BMF), a Swiss-based
rainforest advocacy group, has filed a criminal
complaint against UBS bank over its ties with Aman
through a number of bank accounts he holds with
UBS in Hong Kong and Zurich. [1] BMF claims that
Michael Chia, an associate of Aman, organized
large cash payments from timber companies with
logging interests in Sabah to UBS bank accounts in
Hong Kong, which were used to send
money to Aman's sons in
Australia and a senior official in Sabah. The
funds are alleged to be kickbacks from Malaysian
timber operators paid to the Chief Minister in
return for being allowed to exploit tropical
hardwood logging concessions.
Sarawak
Report, a London-based whistleblower website,
published alleged bank statements and other
documents implicating Chief Minister Aman and his
brother, Malaysia's Foreign Minister Anifah Aman,
with corruption and money laundering. [2] The
report, which cites anonymous sources, leaked
documents, and "insider claims," accuses Attorney
General Abdul Gani Patail of blocking further
investigation by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption
Commission (MACC) and highlights the close family
connections between Gani and Aman.
Swiss
authorities have declared their readiness to
freeze the illicit assets of both Musa Aman and
Sarawak Chief Minister Taib Mahmud (also accused
of embezzlement and misconduct) if Malaysia
requests legal-assistance in investigating the
case. [3] Amid calls for Aman to resign from his
post, the Sabah Forestry Department has called
allegations of widespread illegal logging in the
state "wild and baseless," adding that the
dissemination of such allegations would cause a
drop in timber sales and cause Sabah's forests to
lose economic value:
"We have reason to believe the
unfounded allegations are politically motivated
and not driven by any love for the environment.
The allegations are therefore baseless and made
with bad intention to discredit the sacrifices
made by the state government to achieve good
forest governance and sustainable forest
management in the shortest time possible,
despite the economic, financial and social
challenges. Short-term licenses that cause
tremendous damage to the environment are being
drastically phased out and Sabah's forest
management credibility is at its highest - an
open-book philosophy whereby logging and forest
management areas are all open to third-party and
NGO scrutiny. [4] [5]
While the Sabah
Forestry Department has come to the defense of
Aman, it has acknowledged small-scale cases of
illegal logging within its forests, which are in
no way near the scale and extent as allegedly
reported. Press statements issued by the Sabah
Forestry Department claim that if allegations by
the Bruno Manser Fund and Sarawak Report were
indeed accurate, it would imply that at least one
million cubic meters of timber were illegally
felled, representing a land mass of 50,000 acres,
or 50% of the timber produced from Sabah's forests
in 2011. [6]
Given the enormity of the
illegal felling allegedly taking place in Sabah,
it is bewildering that satellite images have
failed to corroborate these claims. One would
assume that local environmental groups and
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) would surely
take notice of plunder on such a massive scale.
Interestingly enough, Sabah-based NGOs have
supported the Sabah Forestry Department in its
moves to increase the amount of protected areas in
its territory, namely the northern section of the
Gunung Rara Forest Reserve, to safeguard a secure
habitat for Malaysia's largest orangutan
population. Bernama's August 2012 article "Sabah
NGOs Support Protection Forest Move" states:
Founder of LEAP (Land Empowerment
Animals People) Cynthia Ong added that
"nationally and regionally, Sabah was emerging
as a leader in pushing the boundaries in
management of natural ecosystem services, and
for treating forests as stores of water, carbon
and biodiversity rather than just as timber
sources." She added that there are still a
number of issues that the NGOs want to address
with the Department, "but this is the sort of
change that we do want to see."
[7]
Sabah's Forestry Department argues
that since Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) has been
introduced, third-party auditors who have overseen
the issuance of long-term logging licenses since
2010 would have detected such large scale illegal
felling. The department points out that Musa Aman
led Sabah's participation in the Great Apes
Succeed Project (GRASP) in accordance to UNESCO,
which halted logging to protect the natural
habitat of several thousand orangutans at the loss
of approximately 4 billion ringgit in potential
revenue.
Sabah also boasts 1.3 million
hectares of Totally Protected Area Reserves
(TPAS), accounting for approximately 20% of the
state's total landmass. Under the administration
of Musa Aman, the issuance of short-term logging
licenses have begun to be phased out in accordance
with a deliberate drop in forest revenue to ensure
that ecosystems are given a chance to recuperate
from industrial felling. The press statement
issued by Sabah's Forestry Department additionally
states:
At least 800,000 hectares of Sabah's
forests are partially or fully certified under
various internationally recognized systems such
as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC),
Malaysian Timber Certification Scheme (MTCS), or
the Pan European Forest Scheme (PEFC). This also
covers the Sabah Foundation with at least
250,000 hectares of fully certified and 150,000
hectares partially certified forest. Many more
forest areas are being earmarked for
certification as Sabah has set 2014 as the year
for all long term licensed areas to be fully
certified. The process of certification means
independent third party auditing on the ground.
If such an allegation was true, why does Sabah
continue to attract the attention of certifying
bodies and NGOs, who want to be our partners and
to assist us in obtaining verifiable and
certifiable good governance? It is not lost to
the world that Sabah is the first tropical
region in the whole world to have a tract of
rainforest certified under the Gold Standard of
the FSC in 1997 ie Dermakot Forest Reserve. This
is a model area not just for Malaysia but the
tropical world. [8]
If these
statements prove to be accurate, then it would
mean Musa Aman has actually overseen an overall
increase in areas of Totally Protected Area
Reserves (TPAS). Logically, if these allegations
are baseless, then the alleged $90 million in
embezzled funds have either not originated from
the illegal felling of timber, or are simply
non-existent. Other confirmed cases of corruption
and embezzlement have led to many Malaysians being
quite susceptible to disinformation, however it is
irresponsible to deny the possibility.
Chief Minister Aman would regain public
trust by making every effort to be transparent and
cooperative with any investigations to prove his
innocence; any attempts to deflect inquiry will
likely be publicly interpreted as suspicious.
Indeed, cases of illegal felling of timber do
exist and corruption is one of the main drivers of
deforestation in Sarawak, which directly threatens
the fragile ecosystem and delicate way of life in
indigenous tribal communities.
The claims
and statistics provided by Sabah's Forestry
Department indeed prove that the state's leaders
recognize their responsibility to maintain the
necessary balance between economic development and
ecological preservation. In the increasingly
globalized world, development has often come at
the expense of uprooting indigenous communities
with little respect for biodiversity and the
spiritual significance of designated land areas
held by indigenous tribes.
In this
respect, Malaysia is not without its shortcomings,
but it is important to recognize that state
leadership has begun taking steps in the right
direction. The impressionability of the Malaysian
middle class has become self-evident by the
conduct of those seeking a change in government,
who are keen to display their willingness to
condemn the political establishment in Putrajaya
without scrutinizing the (often foreign) sources
of their claims.
Upon visiting the website
of Swiss-based NGO Bruno Manser Fund, one finds it
quite curious that the organization has not
provided its financial statements or a list of its
sponsors, which it states are "private
individuals, foundations and selected businesses"
- ironic for an organization set on exposing
environmental institutions that lack transparency.
Upon visiting the website's news portal, the
organization's status as a "rainforest advocacy
group" is also curious, as it clearly endorses
non-environmental campaigns such as Ambiga
Sreenevasan's Bersih Movement - in addition to
"condemning" the trial of political opposition
leader Anwar Ibrahim.
Additionally, the
site links to Malaysiakini, the nation's most
pro-opposition political news website and an
annual recipient of $100,000 (317,260 ringgit)
from the US-based National Endowment for
Democracy, funded by the United States government.
[9] As Malaysia approaches an upcoming general
election, political mud-slinging has become a
component in every issue, with each side
attempting to use any opportunity to discredit
each other.
Sarawak Report and its
affiliate Radio Free Sarawak are dissident media
outlets based in the United Kingdom founded by
British investigative journalist Clare Rewcastle
Brown, and are openly hostile to the Barisan
Nasional-led state governments of Sabah &
Sarawak. Brown has demonstrated a clear bias by
negligently exaggerating various claims, alluding
to isolated incidents of timber workers raping
tribal women, which Brown outrageously insinuates
is the systematic policy of Prime Minister Najib
Razak's government. [10]
It is some
measure of folly that while Brown and her
organization focus on discrediting the leadership
in Malaysia, her own brother-in-law, former
British prime minister Gordon Brown was a senior
UK government minister when it partnered with the
United States to invade and occupy Iraq at the
expense of over a million civilian lives.
In conclusion, the Malaysian officials
accused of laundering money must make all efforts
to be transparent and continue to deliver the kind
of environmental policy that respects ecosystems,
biodiversity, and indigenous people. Barisan
Nasional have long regarded Sabah & Sarawak as
their loyal political stronghold, and it would
appear that members of the opposition and their
affiliates are attempting to use all means to
discredit the ruling governments of those states
prior to the highly anticipated general elections.
While the political component behind
allegations of corruption and resource grabbing
must not be ignored, if authentic corruption does
exist, then diligent efforts must be taken to
investigate the accused individuals. If these
individuals are innocent, then their exoneration
is a preordained conclusion.
Nile Bowie is a Kuala
Lumpur-based American writer and photographer for
the Centre for Research on Globalization based in
Montreal, Canada. He explores issues of terrorism,
economics and geopolitics.
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