Malaysia, 1999

Mr. President, allow me

first to congratulate you on your election to the

presidency of the General Assembly at its fifty-fourth

session. It gives me great pleasure to see the international

community honour both you and your country through your

election to this high office. I am confident that, given your

vast experience and diplomatic skills, you will be able to

steer the proceedings of the Assembly to a successful

conclusion.

I join other speakers in expressing our gratitude to

your predecessor, His Excellency Mr. Didier Opertti, for the

dedicated and effective manner in which he had guided the

work of the General Assembly at the last session.

I would also like to take this opportunity to commend

the Secretary-General for his great dedication to the

Organization and the many contributions he has made in the

service of the international community.

Malaysia would also like to join other Member States

in welcoming, most warmly, the Republics of Kiribati and

Nauru and the Kingdom of Tonga as new Members of the

United Nations. We look forward to working closely with

them, particularly on issues of common interest to the Asia-

Pacific region whence we come.

The twentieth century is coming to an end. Before we

enter the twenty-first it is useful to review the events of this

century so that we may learn from our experience and

hopefully we will know how to conduct the affairs of the

twenty-first.

This century saw the most destructive wars which

destroyed billions of dollars of property and killed millions

of people. It saw the most inhuman dictatorship in Germany

where six million Jews were tortured and killed. It

witnessed the first nuclear bombs that killed hundreds of

thousands instantly and many more due to the after-effects.

When the greatest war in human history ended, this

body, the United Nations, was founded. We thought there

would be peace as the great Powers worked together in the

United Nations. But that was not the case. Immediately the

victors divided themselves into two camps and initiated the

cold war. However, it was the threat of a hot war that kept

the war cold. Each side built huge arsenals of nuclear and

non-nuclear weapons and glared at the other across deep

chasms of misunderstanding as they threateningly fingered

their nuclear triggers.

For the colonies of European nations there was an

up side. Fear of defections to the other side forced the

two camps to relax their grips on their colonial territories.

Countries gained independence, but their survival

depended on their skills in playing the Western bloc

against the Eastern bloc.

Unfortunately this choice to defect to the other side

did not last. Suddenly the Communist side collapsed.

Lured by the apparent wealth of the Western free-market

liberal democracies, the Eastern bloc jettisoned their

authoritarian centrally planned economies and adopted the

liberal democratic free market overnight. They thought

that since they would now have a system similar to that

of the Western bloc they would get the friendship,

cooperation and help from the Western countries.

They were naive enough to think that after 70 years

of command economy and dictatorship they could

overnight switch to the free market economy under the

liberal democratic system. They soon found out that they

knew nothing about how to make the system work and

that they would get no help from the Western nations.

Instead the Western nations saw in their incompetent

floundering an opportunity to destroy the Eastern bloc, in

particular the principal flag-bearer, forever.

Even as the inability to manage a free market

resulted in galloping inflation, destruction of State

enterprises and massive unemployment, the hedge funds

and the Western financial institutions moved in to devalue

the currencies and make debt defaulters of this once

powerful enemy. Despite knowing that these people could

not manage a free market liberal democracy

at all, they were nevertheless urged and threatened into

continuing anyhow. There was no going back for the

Eastern bloc countries.

The destruction of the Eastern bloc was complete. It

could never again militarily challenge the Western liberal

democratic free marketeers. Now there would be only one

choice for the world, and no defection would be possible

for the countries of the world, big or small. With this the

liberal democratic free market capitalists saw no more

need to be gentle in spreading their systems or in

profiting from them. No one would be allowed any other

political or economic system except what was prescribed

by the sole dominant bloc. The true ugliness of Western

capitalism revealed itself, backed by the military might of

capitalism's greatest proponent.

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For the small countries, the demise of the Eastern bloc

is a major disaster. Now they are exposed to pressures

which they cannot resist, and very quickly they learned that

the free marketeers intend to milk them dry. As for their

politics, the instability of the liberal democratic system,

which comes with a lack of understanding of its intricacies

by the leaders as well as the people, meant that they would

stay in a state of continuous turmoil, verging on anarchy.

A few countries apparently managed to grow and

prosper, but not for long. The currency manipulators and

short-term investors of the rich soon impoverished these

countries through devaluing their currencies and share

prices. Impoverished and politically unstable, they were

forced to borrow from the International Monetary Fund

(IMF). Whether by design or through sheer lack of

understanding, the economic regime imposed by the IMF

further destroyed their economies. Soon their political

freedom was also subverted, and many had to accept

political direction by the IMF, or the loans would not be

made available. For practical purposes, there was no more

independence.

So for the small independent countries of the world,

the future looks bleak. They are now being told that the

world should be borderless, that capital, goods and services

should flow freely between countries. There should be no

discriminatory taxes to protect local industries or products.

Local banks, industries and products must compete on the

same footing as imported products, and their banks and

industries must compete with foreign banks and industries

set up in their countries. No conditions must be attached to

foreign banks and businesses which want to set up

operations in their countries. They must have national status

like those given to local businesses. This way, it is said, a

level playing field will be created and competition will be

fair.

But can competition between giants and dwarfs be fair

even if the playing field is level? The giant banks,

corporations and industries from the rich countries, with

huge local markets, can afford to lose money in a small

foreign country when they make huge profits at home and

elsewhere. The small businesses in the small countries will

go bankrupt if they lose money repeatedly. In the end they

will have to sell to the giant foreign companies or close

down altogether. There will be no more big local

companies; there will be only branches of large foreign

companies who will indulge in transfer pricing and will

repatriate most of their profit.

The efficient may produce better and cheaper goods,

but if a country does not export its own products to earn

foreign exchange it will not be able to pay for imports.

Cheap high-quality goods mean nothing if you have no

money to pay for them.

The markets of the poor countries may not be big,

but impoverishing them would result in lost sales for the

rich. That was what happened when the currency traders

impoverished the countries they attacked. These countries

could not buy the products of the rich; that is, the rich

lost their markets, and world trade contracted. Free,

unrestricted flow of goods and services across borders

may be good for a while, but eventually it will destroy

markets and result in contraction of world trade. The

world would actually become poorer because of free

trade.

After the last war, the confrontation between East

and West led to most of the colonies being liberated and

becoming independent countries. Being independent

meant the right to govern their countries themselves.

Unaccustomed to wielding so much power, many of these

Governments failed. They became hopelessly indebted to

the banks of the rich countries. Their people suffered

from incompetent and frequently oppressive rule. But the

principle that prevailed in the third quarter of the

twentieth century was that no one should interfere in the

internal affairs of a nation. That, in fact, was the essence

of independence.

As long as the world was divided into Eastern and

Western blocs, this principle was respected. But then a

president decided that his country had a right and a duty

to see that human rights were not abused anywhere in the

world, irrespective of borders and the independence of

nations. No one conferred this right on this crusading

president. But small things like that were not going to

stop him.

The claim to victory of the West in the Gulf War

was regarded as a moral endorsement of the right of the

powerful to interfere in any country’s internal affairs.

Soon, it was not just human rights. Systems of

government and of the administration of justice and the

financial and commercial systems came under scrutiny of

the powerful countries. They insist that there must be

only one way of administering a country, and that is the

liberal democratic way. They insist that there can be only

one economic system for the whole world, and that is the

free market system. They insist that there must be

openness in everything, transparency, separation of the

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private from the public sectors, non-discrimination between

ethnic groups, and no discrimination against foreigners in

favour of nationals.

All these and more sound very good. They have

apparently worked for the developed countries of the West,

making them rich and powerful, giving their people high

standards of living. But will they work for everyone? They

seem to have forgotten that they took centuries to make

their system work. Their transition from feudal oppressive

rule was based in copious blood. Both rich and poor were

massacred as reforms were forced by a succession of

uncaring tyrants, many elected by the people.

Even today their system has not brought freedom and

equity to large segments of their people, yet they insist that

all the countries of the world, new or old, must

immediately adopt the only system of government — their

system, their liberal democratic system. The newly

independent countries, which knew only the authoritarian

system of government, cannot but fail. The former

Communist countries in particular found themselves unable

to cope with the destabilizing challenges directed at

government authority in a liberal democracy.

But the new countries are not going to be allowed

time to learn and operate the system. They must change

now, immediately. If their countries are destabilized, if their

people suffer, if they regress economically, that is

irrelevant. The important thing is that they must

democratize and liberalize. If they fail to do so, they will

be forced to do so through arm-twisting, trade sanctions and

military action, if necessary.

That these measures are more oppressive than those of

the disapproved regimes and systems does not matter. The

adoption of the approved system would destabilize the

countries further and cause further suffering. All this does

not matter, because the most important thing is the adoption

of the system, not the benefit to be derived from it.

It is the same with economic management. There must

be liberalization and deregulation. The Government should

not help the business sector, should not give it any

protection. If businesses are attacked by outside forces,

fairly or unfairly, and they lose, then let them die. They

must be inefficient if they lose, and the world has no time

or sympathy for inefficient losers.

And so giant currency traders, their funds leveraged

one hundred times or more, are pitted against central banks

with limited reserves and without leveraging rights. The

economies of whole countries and regions are destroyed,

but the cries for protection by these countries are ignored.

The fields are level, and the free movement of capital is

a part of the secret free trade. Everyone must accept

whatever happens because it is free trade. All the

currency traders are doing is to discipline Governments so

that they conform to the system and do away with their

bad old system.

In the financial crisis, Governments may not help

businesses to recover. To do that means a bail-out of

cronies. Let them die; let there be blood. Only then will

Governments be considered serious in wanting to reform

their systems, to adopt best practices, world standards and

the only proper way to administer the economy. If the

Government becomes bankrupt in trying to do this, that

is all right. The important thing is to do things correctly,

even if the country is destroyed, the people starve to

death, anarchy reigns and the Government overthrown.

There is a touching concern on the part of the West

over human rights. But the definition of human rights

seems limited to an individual’s right of dissent against

the Government. Millions of people in a country will be

made to suffer through sanctions and even bombings in

order that a few dissenters may enjoy their rights of

dissent. Apparently the rest of the population, hundreds of

millions of them sometimes, have no rights. Their rights

are not considered human rights. Thus depriving millions

of the right to work as a result of currency trading is not

considered as a violation of human rights. In the Western

perception only individuals have rights; the masses do

not.

The concern over child labour and sweatshop

factories is expressive of a sense of caring. Unfortunately

the concern is shown only when the products of child

labour and sweatshops compete successfully with the

products of highly paid, high-living four-day-a-week

workers in the developed countries.

Child labour and sweatshops are not something

which anyone would defend, but consider the extreme

poverty of the people in some countries. They have no

capital, no technology or expertise, no markets at home,

no Harvard-trained managers. All they have is low-cost

labour. For the workers, the tiny wages that they earn are

far better than starvation and death. If we really care, then

invest and pay high wages. The sweatshops will disappear

and adults will earn enough to feed their children. Forcing

them to stop child labour and sweatshops will only cause

more suffering for their people. Telling them to stop

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producing children is not a solution either. We know that

the poor have a higher birth rate than the rich. To stop the

population explosion which the West is worried about,

enrich these people. Closing their sweatshops and stopping

their children from working will only impoverish them

further and cause them to have more children.

With the end of the East-West confrontation, conflicts

have increased instead of decreased. The Palestinian

problem is still not resolved, but the sanctions against and

the bombing of Iraq, the sanctions against Libya, the

conflicts resulting from the break-up of the Soviet Union,

and the stirring up of unrest and rebellions, or near-

rebellions, by open support for insurrection go on. Before,

it was the Communists who stirred up rebellion everywhere,

including in Malaysia. Now we have the liberal democrats

doing exactly the same in the same manner, complete with

supply of arms. Whether it is a communist or a liberal

democratic insurrection, the people suffer not one bit less.

The United Nations seems helpless. Indeed, it is often

bypassed by the big and the powerful. Now groupings of

powerful nations or even one nation by itself seem to

decide when to step in and when to step out. While they

like to wield power, they are inordinately unwilling to pay

the price. “Tele-wars” are conducted using high technology,

such as the so-called pinpoint bombings, in order to avoid

body bags coming home. This unwillingness to face the

enemy often results in the unnecessary killing of innocent

people and the destruction of the wrong targets.

Unfortunately, no one should expect any change for as

long as the United Nations belongs to the permanent five.

The structure of the United Nations will continue to reflect

the glorious victory of these nations 50 years ago. For the

small countries, yearly speeches and various anniversary

speeches will be allowed. Occasionally there will be

membership in the Security Council. But despite the fact

that at least three of the permanent five are vociferous

advocates of democracy, there will be no democracy in the

United Nations. The only saving grace is the agencies and

their good work.

Unfortunately, some in the United Nations have rather

unusual principles. Normally a neutral or unbiased person

would be chosen to study, report on and give an opinion or

pass judgment on something. But the United Nations chose

a person well-known for his virulent attacks against the

Malaysian judiciary to report on that institution. The United

Nations then conferred on him total immunity with respect

to the laws of his country without reference to or consent

by the country. This immunity apparently extends beyond

his task of reporting his findings to the United Nations.

He may publish his opinions and defame people and the

subject of his study anywhere and everywhere. Is there no

limit to a United Nations Commissioner’s or Rapporteur’s

immunity?

We are told that Governments must not interfere

with the judiciary. Yet in this case the Government is

expected to instruct the judiciary not to act against this

United Nations Commissioner for breaking the laws of

the country. I am not blaming the Secretary-General for

this. It is the peculiar system and principles which guide

the choice of the United Nations Commissioner or

Rapporteur that I find unacceptable. Nor do I think it

proper to hint at dire consequences for the Malaysian

nation if this man is not freed from court action for open

contempt and defamation. There is something not right

here which the United Nations needs to look into.

But small countries lack a public forum to air their

views freely. The Western media distorts everything that

they say or do. Again we are expected to give immunity

to western journalists; they may break our laws, but no

legal action may be taken against them. I would like to

point out that in Malaysia not even the King and the

hereditary Sultans are above the law.

This then is the scenario in the last quarter of the

twentieth century. We will carry this baggage into the

twenty-first century and the new millennium. For the poor

and the weak, for the aspiring tigers and dragons of Asia,

the twenty-first century does not look very promising.

Everything will continue to be cooked in the West. Just

as communism and socialism came from the West, liberal

democracy, globalization, a borderless world,

deregulation, unfettered free flows of capital and their

flights to quality, the disciplining of Governments by the

market and by currency traders, and a host of other ideas

all come from the West. And what is from the West is

universal. Other values and cultures are superfluous and

unnecessary. If they remain, there will be a clash of

civilizations. To avoid this clash there should be only one

civilization in the world. Everything should be

standardized according to Western best practices. They

may change only if the West changes. Thus the globalized

world will be totally uniform. Variety is equal to

intransigence and must therefore be eliminated.

Malaysia has just gone through a very traumatic

experience. In a matter of weeks, 42 years of hard work

to develop the country was destroyed, in particular the

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affirmative action to reduce the enmity between races in

Malaysia.

We have devised our own formula for recovery. With

the blessings of Allah, we have turned around and are on

the road to recovery. But we are being pressured to

abandon our currency control. We do not understand why.

It has done us a lot of good. It has done no harm to

anybody except a few thousand rich currency manipulators.

Foreigners doing real business in our country have profited

from the so-called controls. But we are still being urged to

conform to an international financial system which has

enabled the unscrupulous to destroy the wealth of many

nations.

No serious attempt is being made to change the

international financial system. So far there is only talk

about intentions. But the threat of financial, economic and

political destabilization remains.

Malaysia wishes only to be allowed to manage things

in its own way, in the interests of its own people. We will

not harm others. We are not turning our backs on the

world. We have always cooperated with the rest of the

world, in particular with the United Nations. We will

continue to do our bit for world peace. Just as we accept

criticism, warranted and unwarranted, we hope others will

also tolerate our criticism of them. Free speech would be

meaningless if criticism could be directed only at the poor

and the weak and never at the rich and powerful. In

criticizing others, we are only exercising our right to

freedom of expression.

We are not too enchanted by the prospects we foresee

for the next century. But I can assure the Assembly that we

will be a responsible nation, friendly towards all who are

friendly towards us and harbouring no bad intentions

towards anyone.