[asia-apec 901] Re: Naomi Klein on APEC 98

[Jomo]

Many Malaysians opposed to the Mahathir regime resent your easy claims
that Anwar was a 'free trade poster boy'.  Admittedly, he was more
'neo-liberal' in his rhetoric compared to Mahathir, who has been tough
in his rhetoric, but often compliant otherwise.  As Mahathir himself
has noted, their differences were not primarily over economic policy,
etc. It is a straightforward power struggle precipitated by Soeharto's
fall and some Anwarists hoping that Mahathir would go after a nudge;
Anwar and the rest of his camp were in two minds about this, but the
attempted nudge gave Anwar's enemies the chance to win over Mahathir
to move decisively against Anwar.


Gatt Watchdog wrote:

>               November 19, 1998   Toronto Star
>
>   Chretien dons the crusader's cape, for now
>
>   At this week's Asia      [By Naomi Klein]
>   Pacific Economic
>   Co-operation summit, Jean Chretien is
>   busily transforming himself from the
>   traveling salesman we have all come to
>   know into a principled crusader for human
>   rights.
>
>   Is it possible that Chretien has finally
>
>   learned his lesson? Maybe. Or maybe he is
>   still shilling the same half-empty
>   package, only this time spruced up with a
>   new high-minded pitch.
>
>   Don't get me wrong: I think it's wonderful
>   that our government is speaking out
>   against Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir
>   Mohamad's outrageous imprisonment of his
>   former deputy, Anwar Ibrahim. That said,
>   the practice of imprisoning or exiling
>   political opponents on trumped up charges
>   is par for the course in the APEC crowd
>   and Canada never seemed to mind before.
>
>            ------------------------
>            Flaws like corruption
>            are politely overlooked
>            ------------------------
>
>   Chretien's commitment to human rights was
>   nowhere to be found when - to name but one
>   example - former Indonesian President
>   Suharto engineered the ouster of his major
>   political opponent, Megawati Sukarnoputri,
>   before she had a chance to beat him in the
>   1997 elections.
>
>   It's possible that Chretien's defense of
>   Anwar proves he is turning over a new leaf
>   after last year's APEC debacle.
>
>   It is also possible, however, that
>   Canada's inconsistent response to
>   political ousters has less to do with
>   democratic principles than with which
>   politicians are doing the ousting.
>   Suharto, for all of the blood on his
>   hands, was always a committed free trader.
>   Mahathir, on the other hand, has become
>   the thorn in the side of the Asia Pacific
>   liberalization master plan.
>
>   In the era of APEC-means-business, all
>   politicians are measured by their
>   willingness to embrace free trade. If they
>   are willing, little flaws like corruption
>   are politely overlooked until well after
>   the revolutionaries have lit the match in
>   the presidential palace. However, if the
>   politicians are unwilling to embrace the
>   agenda, all tools available - including
>   phony concern for human rights - are
>   marshaled to marginalize them.
>
>   It must be said that Mahathir is no hero.
>   He is afraid of his own people's freedom,
>   intolerant of dissent, megalomaniacal and
>   anti-Semitic to boot. But make no mistake:
>   all of that has nothing to do with
>   Chretien's grandstanding in Malaysia.
>
>   Of course Anwar should be released and
>   Canada's pressure could well prove
>   helpful. Still, we should be realistic
>   about why his has become a cause cilhbre.
>
>   Western governments have wanted Mahathir
>   out since he started going on about how
>   vampiric foreign currency traders like
>   George Soros were drinking the blood of
>   the Third World.
>
>   They also didn't like it much when he
>   suggested that the financial crisis was a
>   conspiracy orchestrated by corporate
>   America to send Asian companies into
>   bankruptcy, then buy their assets at
>   fire-sale prices.
>
>            ------------------------
>            They have no choice but
>            to follow IMF reforms
>            ------------------------
>
>   What makes Mahathir so dangerous to the
>   West is that he is insufficiently
>   desperate.
>
>   The governments of South Korea, Thailand
>   and Indonesia have borrowed so heavily
>   from the International Monetary Fund that
>   they now have no choice but to follow the
>   rigid, IMF-proscribed free-trade reforms.
>
>   Malaysia, on the other hand, managed to
>   avoid an IMF bailout, freeing Mahathir to
>   find his own way out of his country's
>   crisis.
>
>   At first, the Malaysian Prime Minister
>   went along with the IMF austerity plans
>   but when he failed to see positive results
>   elsewhere in the region, he had the gall
>   to change course. Now he is committing the
>   cardinal sin against capitalism: trying to
>   spend his way out of the recession and
> placing new controls on foreign investors.
> And that's where the current trouble
> began.
>
> Anwar Ibrahim - who has always been
> something of a free trade poster boy -
> refused to go along with Mahathir's plan.
> He wanted Malaysia to swallow the IMF
> medicine and reform its banking system to
> meet foreign standards.
>
> There is no doubt that with Anwar in power
> instead of Mahathir, Malaysia would be
> back on board APEC's free-trade bandwagon
> - which is precisely why he attracts so
> much Western sympathy.
>
> In Anwar, Chretien has found the perfect
> post-Peppergate issue: a human rights case
> that is really about trade.
>
> What is happening in Kuala Lumpur this
> week is not a victory for the forces that
> protested at APEC in Vancouver last year.
> Rather, Chretien and his aides are
> co-opting the language of human rights as
> a mask to disguise the same goal as
> always: A road to global free trade,
> uncluttered by all obstacles and
> naysayers.
>
> Last year, they had to remove the human
> rights protesters. This year, the target
> is Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir
> Mohamad.
>
>            -------------------
>
> Naomi Klein writes on Thursdays.