Wain’s Book Soros’ Letter

THE FLICKER OF A DYING CANDLE 

The recent spate of circular emails purporting to be the work of Dr. George Soros and crafted in a most pathetic of styles appears to have all the hall marks of a Singaporean style campaign of ethnic chauvinism directed at their Bette noir, one Dr. Mohammed Mahathir the former Prime Minister of Malaysia.

The so called ‘Soros’ letter has an unmistakable Chinese (Chinglish) character to it. Soros does not engage in such low quality public spats ‘shooting from the gutter’, less still write in the manner and grammar in which this ‘letter’ is crafted which its author claims to be Soros’ work.

Soros holds a Phd in economics. Alumni of the prestigious London School of Economics, he has little time for the Lee Kuan Yew brand of bullying, tormenting or race politics Soros is  purportedly expressing in the ‘Soros’ letter.

He, Soros has more productive things to do than to bad mouth Dr. Mahathir, a man long gone from his radar. He dislikes Mahathir and that is common knowledge. But to attribute such Chinglish rubbish to the man, a highly celebrated academic, economist and articulate public speaker and orator is to take things beyond credibility.

The Soros founded ‘open society’ out of interest, encourages right thinking people to act to bring about change and social to justice through legal means, removing where possible  dictators and brutes the world over rather than to side with them. That noble objective has not always worked. It has in most instances been hijacked by right wing zealots and evangelical Christians whose politics is inextricably intertwined with the rich, the pro western and the  “one size fits all” western educated privileged and upwardly mobile of the developing world.

WHERE AND WHY? THE LETTER

Background to a Pampered Singapore

Badawi (Arabic for Idiot, more accurately Bidwi) was the stalking horse of that clique in Singapore that sees it as their ascriptive right to ‘regain’ Malaysia to finish what Lee failed to achieve when he withdrew (as opposed to his version of being kicked out) of the federation.

There is ample evidence the man Badawi was cultivated by the same forces that bought Anwar Ibrahim long before he Badawi left the UN where he served as Malaysia’s representative for many years. And his appointment to the position of Prime Minister of Malaysia was of itself  a coup for the anti Mahathir anti Malay pro world bank neo con forces operating in the region by stealth.

Britain had always felt insecure about its prized fortress island port and gateway to the far east remaining legally in the hands of Malay nationalists.  The Westminster government at that time prior to Malaysia’s independence felt the Malays had the potential to carry out what Nasser’s Egypt did with the Suez canal using it as political leverage to force recognition of a greater pan Malay grouping, much like Nasser’s pan Arab vision focused against Israel.

Forces within Singapore are without doubt the sentient mind behind the anti Mahathir coalition and the spate of scurrilous emails and rumours circulating in a disinformation campaign to discredit a re emergent Mahathir in politics of Malaysia.

Badawi’s destruction of the mainstream of Malay economic development and the ascendency of Malay economic power, politics and industry is now legend. The Habibie of his era.

Tun Najib Razak appears to have little of the charisma of his predecessor Mahathir or the will to bring to heel the destructive elements of opposition who are clearly behind the Raja Petra Kamaruddins and the elements of the Malaysian bar who randomly and without proof sow the seeds of instability with their support if not direct involvement in rumour mongering and racial division.

Foreign based NGO’s and Malaysian groups have all joined in the cacophonic chorus in whats being described by some sources as the build up before another “orange Revolution” type gathering towards the next general election in Malaysia.

THE BARRY WAIN BOOK 

To add to the divisions being sown in Malaysia’s main racial groups, a carefully cultivated mass movement is being groomed for an event designed to culminate in street protests prior to and leading up to the next general elections. An element of that build up is the propaganda of the Singapore think tank of which Barry Wain is a member.

Today the government of Singapore remain deafeningly mute when Barry Wain, the former Asian Wall Street Journal coloumnist since converted to a Singporean think tank operative, publishes scurrilously inaccurate accounts of Mahahtir’s financial management of Malaysia during his tenure as Prime Minister.

He, Wain singles out the Tin debacle of the 1980’s whilst conveniently failing to source relevant material that would prove him and his analysis to be wrong and distorted to the core. Yet Wain places this solitary event in its distorted form at the heart of his arguments against Mahathir.

A man with little credibility and even less journalistic independence he sets out to further add to this myth of the Malay who in the Chinese view only succeeds through sleight of hand. This view of the Malay now adopted by Wain is a theme the Chinese of Singapore love to perpetuate  driven by their insecurity in a seamless world.

And here’s why Wain must be not simply condemned but also exposed as being part of that cowardly group that fire their shots from the safety of an oppressive island state where the right to speak freely is anathema if it offends the ruling philosophies of the anti Malay government.

THE MARC RICH FACTOR

A. Craig Copetas a trader who worked with Marc Rich the rogue trader from Phillip Brothers during that period of the tin debacle, names and admits to a plant being placed close to Dr. Mahathir by Rich with Singapore’s knowledge at that time. It was the ‘plant’s’ job to spy on Malaysia and its tin plans. Copetas says the ‘plant’ was placed there to pave the way for the eventual engineered collapse of the tin stockpile to benefit Marc Rich.

Marc Rich is an opportunistic and ruthless trader of commodities. The only difference between Rich and others in his game is that Rich is a criminal and has been a fugitive from US justice for over two decades. He was an insider trader. That is someone who applies commercial price sensitive information unlawfully obtained and who then benefits from trading on that insider information.

It is a system used by many of the south east Asian Chinese traders to be successful. How could anyone forget Tan Khoon Suan a former leader of the peak political body of the Chinese the MCA being jailed for his role in the Pan Electric collapse? Khoon Suan was and is not alone in this regard.

Marc Rich felt at home in such an environment and was tolerated by Singapore in achieving his aim of insider trading using banks in Singapore and in Switzerland.

THE TIN PLANT- AN INSIDER TRADING JOB 

SINGAPORE’S AND  RAZALEIGH’S ROLE

Copetas outlines the role that Rich played by placing David Zaidner a Swiss National of Egyptian Jewish heritage within Mahathir’s inner sanctum.

The Phillips Brothers trader Copetas says it was “Rich’s  ultimate decision to hire Zaidner a senior executive of the corporation” because of “his expertise in the Singapore-Thailand- Malaysia tin concentrate scam”. It was a scam and Singapore was in the thick of it.

Wain conveniently fails to mention this aspect of the tin market collapse. His book is silent on the point lest he end up like all other journalists with courage to write the truth in Singapore. He instead prefers the easy way out being as yellow livered and yellow bellied as his new masters in the Singapore government.

To further quote Copetas “Since the Lee Kuan Yew government collects revenue on the material, dock inspectors always look the other way when it comes to concentrate”.

Wain remains equally silent on these issues as he does on the following: “Tengku Razaleigh then finance minister was also close to Zaidner“. Clearly Razaleigh is left out of Wain’s book for reasons of convenience. Tengku Razaleigh was more than once in the thick of a scam which nearly bankrupted his country. The Bank Bumiputera Carrian scandal being the other event he had involvement in which he cleverly and mysteriously managed to avoid being investigated.

Razaleigh too is believed to have been cultivated by outsiders who saw Malaysia as a potential factory and supplier of materials to the west via the mechanisms of a foreign controlled ring in Singapore. That too did not work as expected thanks to Mahathir’s so called “arrogance” and his “prickly character”.

Razaleigh too it appears was in on the Singapore and Marc Rich plan which, of itself was nothing out of the ordinary. When one considers the ultimate aim of it was to get better prices on a so called free but heavily manipulated commodities market it was no sin all round. The Tin Council would not get into the act to stabilize low tin prices inspite of Malaysia’s pleas for them as is largest member to intervene to do so.

When the Mahathir government decided to stockpile tin sending prices spiralling upwards, the Tin Council decided to act. By then it was the US government that got into the act and did what it did on a prior occasion to rubber and other materials it stockpiled like oil. The US government unleashed its stockpiles when convenient creating a glut on world markets and a disaster at the source of the commodities.

In this instance the damage was to a producer country like Malaysia. Bolivia was under the spell of the late Sir James Goldsmith (cricketer Imran Khan’s former father in law) another consumate rogue trader. He too had the ear of Washington and Thatcher both allies of Rich and Goldsmith.

The US released their tin stock pile  in the full knowledge that Malaysia was buying. They sold to drive down prices and make obscene profits in the process in what was clearly a case of insider trading. But who would bell the cat? Marc Rich had greater connections in the US state department than Jimmy Carter former president had at the time.

Good luck to Marc Rich some would say. Except that Rudolph Guilliani had a price on the mans head and warrants (or several of them) were issued for his arrest on a myriad of charges.

Rich fled to Switzerland where he remained a fugitive from US justice but was nonetheless welcomed to use Singapore as a base to ply his illegal trade outside the rules and international law and commerce.

FAIR WEATHER FRIENDS

The Chinese in Malaysia who control tin production at this time said nothing when prices skyrocketed. They enjoyed the benefits of its rise and Mahathir was their hero. They now as they did then slandered him crying foul and now serve to undermine his achievements like they always do as opportunists. And when tin prices collapsed they ended up blaming Mahathir instead of the US who did the same thing to them a few decades earlier with rubber.

MARC A CRIMINAL- RICH IN SINGAPORE

What Rich did was criminal. It is called insider trading. Rich used accounts and shelf companies, operatives and schemes out of Singapore which Singapore’s economic police intelligence  units were fully aware of yet allowed to flourish under their “squeaky clean noses”.

Zaidner was a Rich plant who played both sides of the market with Rich till Rich burned him and he was forced to moved on. He informed on the Malaysia tin “scam” to US authorities turned state witness against Marc Rich. And by all accounts the silent Tengku Razaleigh may have been more complicit in this “scam” than Dr. Mahathir was. And if stockpiling tin was an offence then all the trading world is as guilty as sin.

Was Singapore’s state owned investment apparatus a direct beneficiary of that insider trading scam by Mar Rich? Well we do not need another set of Tehran embassy document revelations to show Singapore’s role as a willing nest of foreign intelligence agencies who use the island republic as a base to destabilize the region.

For those who slavishly support Singapore’s campaign of fear and destabilization of Malaysia it may be worth remembering that they tend to sue all and sundry for criticisms of the first family whilst unashamedly instigating dissent and allowing themselves to be a base for anti Islamic and anti Malay activity in the region.

Marc lived as an exile in Switzerland for over a decade. His wife sought and obtained a pardon for him from a departing President Bill Clinton in his last days as President of the USA. Rich turned out to be a huge benefactor of the Republicans as he was of the Democrats. Wain remains conveniently mute about the role of his countrymen who fit the Singaporean type of success model. Ruthless with the lives of others for a buck.

MAHATHIR’S FORESIGHT- LEE’S FEET OF CLAY

Dr. Soros as a trader did a similar job as Marc Rich did to Malaysia’s tin but in his case it was also to Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and other countries currencies in the  region in the 1990’s. Except that Hong Kong and Singapore lacked the courage Mahathir had to attack Soros during the onset of the Asian economic crisis at the time for the damage his speculation did to their economies.

The response that Mahathir’s criticism of Soros drew from Tung Chee Hwa and Singapore’s government were words to the effect “that if a countries fundamentals were strong, it would withstand and ride out the speculation of the Soros’ of this world” . Famous last words of sycophants. Terribly wrong. Tung would be permanently scarred and hanged out to dry by China.  Lee would go the way his money did.

Not long afterwards Singapore and Hong Kong’s currencies too were attacked by Soros’ hedge funds and their currencies suffered a similar fate to Malaysia’s in differing degrees. So much for the slavish adherence to free market policies and the theory of economic fundamentals.

MAHATHIR’S FORECASTING OF THE BANKING CRISIS

The recent banking crisis would put paid to the validity of the so called theories of economic  fundamentals and theories of the free market of the west. Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew’s family’s guardianship of its economy suffered a humiliating blow to their manufactured credibility during the recent international banking crisis.

Under the stewardship of the Lee’s, was billions of dollars in hard earned savings of harder working Singaporeans. They lost those billions of of dollars when Ho Cheng Lee’s daughter in law and head of Tamasek with Lee as advisor invested these precious savings of Singaporeans in shaky and rotten to the core American and Swiss Banks and their mountain of financial debt instruments.

It was Ho’s and Lee’s view that these were gilt edged investments into which Tamasek had invested billions of dollars of workers pension money. The Singapore government’s response to this failure; “Work longer, work harder, retire later”.

Mahathir is a self trained economist with the benefit of empirical evidence to prove his theories more correctly than even Friedman and Lee’s entire MAS (monetary Authority of Singapore) foreign Ivy League educated straight A’s over paid nerds could do in a 100 years. That was a bit hard to swallow for a Chinese chauvinist whose entire existence has been to denigrate the Malay as a lazy un inspiring by product of government hand outs.

Like his former political secretary Mathias Chang (a firebrand) these men warned the world against the greed and the unchallenged might and myth of ‘hot money’ of the hedge funds who like vultures immorally and unscrupulously attacked poorer and weaker nations for a quick profit leaving untold disasters in their wake.

No one listened. Least of all the USA. Singapore baulked and poked fun at him.  The world is now witness to one of the greatest man made economic tragedies and disasters of all time. The plundering of national treasuries in unregulated markets championed by Thatcher, Lee and Bush. No one gives Mahathir credit for his foresight because many in the east like the Lees still cling to the belief  that they are lesser beings than their white counterparts of this world.

MATERIAL WAIN MAY HAVE BEEN FORCED TO OMIT

Wain would have done himself and his pathetic reputation some good by writing about this. But in a dictatorial and undemocratic Singapore thats not possible. Wain’s leash in Singapore is as long as Lee’s memories of the truth like how he escaped the Japanese whilst his comrades, all young Chinese men taken with him by the Japanese were shot and killed.

Unlike Lee Mahathir was able to bring true liberal political, social and economic change to Malaysia without the attendant fall out of raising a dumb nation of “kow tow coolies” in better clothes and larger bank balances than their neighbours.

Mahahtir brought change with dignity, gradually and with a responsible hand over those elements seeking to create chaos then benefit from its consequences like Habibie allowed himself to be bought into in Indonesia. A lesson and an experiment which Anwar tried unsuccessfully to repeat in Malaysia.

Mahathir enraged Lee. He challenged Lee’s hollow intellect and Lee found little to counter his nemesis across the causeway other than through attempts to undermine his success.

Mahathir’s conduct encouraged Malays in commerce and embolden the UMNO and all of its institutions just when the Chinese felt the time was ripe to get rid of UMNO’s monopoly in politics (less fanatical than Singapore’s tackily dressed in white Chinese school uniform brigades in the PAP) and overrun the place like Robert Menzeis former Australian Prime Minister warned of the ‘yellow hoards’ invading the place.

However politically incorrect that statement of his may have been, it has proved to be prophetic in South East Asia and now in the Pacific and especially in Australia where anti Chinese sentiment is on the boil once more.

Singapore cultivated a Chinese dominated opposition party in Malaysia under the monopolistic chauvanistic Lim Kit Siang who runs that party it in much the same way Lee Kuan Yew ran Singapore. Full of rhetoric, slogans, bitterness against the Malays and rabid jelousy at a Malay at the helm. Yes Mahathir did get rid of a number of opponents none of whom it would appear did not deserve their incarceration.

What Mahathir did not do was, to jail all and sundry who expressed their dissent in a civilized way. He did not stack the courts (Francis Seow) which elements of the legal fraternity in Malaysia in their desultory and unconvincing way try to establish as fact. Lee punished his constituents who chose a candidate other than his own (late Ben Jeyaratnam) or anyone who wrote about his past life truthfully.

Lee though as special minister has allowed the free and unfettered use of Singapore as a base to defame Dr. Mahathir and to denounce Malays who are commonly referred to as racists by his supporters operating from both Malaysia and Singapore using the anonymity of the internet as their cowardly tools in this campaign to destabilize the UMNO.

When the Malays rise the Singapore of today will be a thing of the past. It is folly to take for granted the generosity and silence of so many whose generosity is often mistaken for stupidity.

Syed Ali Khan