Stitch, I know you've been pre-occupied recently, but I thought you might find today's William Safire column interesting. (I'm not a big Safire fan...I wish he had been this preachy about Pinochet, among others)
ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE
Malaysian Malaise
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WASHINGTON -- The dictator of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, long ago figured out how to intimidate the local and world press: appoint compliant judges to stifle free expression and financially ruin or jail political opponents.
Such misrule of law is not really an "Asian value"; Hitler and Stalin used obedient judges to give legal coloration to tyranny. But another Asian autocrat -- Malaysia's Mahathir Mohamad -- is following the Singaporean pattern in crushing dissent while wooing investment from U.S. business.
Last year he unleashed his lapdog prosecutors on his deputy, a budding political rival. His former ally is now in custody accused of "unnatural sex." Mahathir, emboldened by his ability to harass opposition and to jam BBC coverage, has also sent a message of intimidation to any in the world press who dare to report on excesses of his captive judges.
The reporter chosen to be the example is Murray Hiebert, a Canadian who is Malaysia bureau chief of The Far Eastern Economic Review, a Dow Jones publication. He is the first journalist in any nation of the British Commonwealth to be jailed for his writing in a half-century.
The Asian Wall Street Journal gutsily reprinted "The Story That Got a Reporter Jailed." It seems the wife of one of Mahathir's judges sued a school in Malaysia for dropping her son from the debating team. When Mr. Hiebert noted how the silly case whizzed through the usual legal labyrinth, Judge Low Hop Bing ordered the reporter incarcerated for "scandalizing the court." Mahathir's appeals court fixed the jail term at six weeks.
What's been the world reaction? Canada mutters it will complain; President Clinton issued a little whimper of "concern"; and a few newspapers have dutifully registered their indignation. Nothing to give the Malaysian malaise.
On the contrary, Mahathir will soon be welcomed to the U.S. by the U.S business and foreign-policy establishment. Stimulated by the likes of Maurice Greenberg, whose amoral insurance interests in Asia shape the mind set of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Asia Society and the Nixon Center, many of our ever-engaging friends of "order" will kowtow.
Who will have the temerity to ask embarrassing questions of Mahathir? Will not one lonely elitist rise to protest his abuse of the judicial system or politely to deride -- as evidence of his popular weakness -- his harassment of anyone daring to write the truth?
Why is he jailing opponents who criticize judges protecting a crony from rape charges? What twisted mentality relies on accusations of "sexual misconduct" of political opponents to bolster his archaic charges of "sedition"? Why won't the U.N. back up its own Special Rapporteur's report on Mahathir's corruption with a resolution of condemnation?
Whenever some of us urge the use of economic muscle and heavy diplomatic suasion on the world's remaining despots, we are assailed as "preachy pundits" by this generation's ultra-pragmatist Cliveden set. But we soldier on, confident that in the end the free human spirit will prevail.
I do not suggest that activists organize a boycott of black peppercorns, a Malaysian contribution to the global economy too painful for gourmands to give up. But it might be sensible for investors to consider the shakiness of any regime that shakes in its jackboots at implied criticism from a mild-mannered Canadian journalist. And after witnessing what corruption did to Indonesia, apostles of accommodation might want to reconsider the wisdom of betting on future political losers in Asia. Absolute power corrupts honest business.
The jailing of Murray Hiebert is not just another blip on a faraway screen. The lack of meaningful world response has meaning. That is why, when unruly judges bow to dictators and subvert the rule of law, we in the unfettered press are duty bound to slam back with our weapons of exposure and derision.
Asserting freedom of expression everywhere is not imposing "our" values, as despots induce their Western lackeys to proclaim. Nor will it weaken "connective tissue," as weak diplomatists whine. Nor is it impractical, as business executives who prefer government-protected corruption to private competition aver.
Welcome to the U.S.A., Prime Minister Mahathir, where preachy pundits are free to hold tinpot tyrants in unconcealed contempt.
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