Engineers studying the rock surface of the Penchala Tunnel before drilling began. Work on the tunnel was completed in 2004.
July 4, 2011 | By Allan Koay
Tunnelling can be addictive – just ask those who have been working underground and can’t seem to get enough of it.
THE next time you travel through a tunnel, whether by motor vehicle or by train, spare a thought for those who laboured for years to bore through the hill or mountain. They toiled in the soil to help you get to your destination by the quickest possible route. Spare a thought also for the fact that the tunnel you just went through was probably designed and created by a wholly Malaysian team of engineers and experts.
We may have built the tallest or the largest or the most advanced, with the help of foreign talent, but tunnelling is one thing for which we can proudly say, we have among the best and the brightest that are fully home-grown.
The one tunnel project that can be said to have brought the country to the forefront of the construction industry is the Stormwater Management And Road Tunnel (SMART), an award-winning, world-class engineering feat achieved by a Malaysian team. SMART, the brainchild of former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, is the world’s first dual-purpose flood mitigation and motorway tunnel, created using the largest Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) in South-East Asia.
And you would never guess that working underground, sometimes practically for years, is an experience which some just cannot get enough of.
“Life on-site can be addictive,” said Maslan Othman, MMC-Gamuda’s head of project management. “Life in the office and life outside are different. People who have been on-site, usually would not want to work in an office.”
This is far from surprising; it is a fact that when a team of people work together for a long period, they form a bond or camaraderie which is difficult to break even long after the work is over. For a team to spend years working on a huge project like a tunnel, it is only natural that once the project is done, those involved cannot wait to get together and start all over again. Then there is the big sense of achievement at the end of years of challenges and obstacles.
“The tunnelling job itself is addictive,” said Maslan. “Every project is different, the soil conditions are different. When you drive your car through a tunnel, you’d always want to see the light at the end of the tunnel. So it’s the journey. You want to reach your destination, and that is the challenge.”
Before SMART, the Gamuda team had built the Sungai Selangor Dam Diversion Tunnel (2000 to 2003) and was working on the Penchala Tunnel (2001 to 2004) and the Kaohsiung Metropolitan Mass Rapid Transit System in Taiwan (2003 to 2008).
The MMC-Gamuda Joint Venture team is currently at work on the Twin Bore Tunnels at Bukit Berapit and Bukit Larut for the Electrified Double-Tracking Project (EDTP), expected to be completed by 2012.
The challenges they faced were numerous – tunnelling under an existing highway for the EDTP; tunnelling under a city for SMART. But always, it is the geological formations ahead of them that are the biggest obstacles. Sometimes they are faced with hard rock formations, other times material too soft for blasting. Then there are the cavities that can spell trouble for the Tunnel Boring Machine.
“For the Bukit Berapit tunnel, we needed to strengthen the alignment to allow the (train’s) speed of about 140kmph,” said Maslan.
“Currently the train cannot reach that speed because the Berapit area is a mountainous and hilly terrain. So in order to cross from one point to another, the only way is through a tunnel. Because the gradient allowed is only 1%, we had to cut through the hills with a 3.3km tunnel.”
Said Adil Putra Ahmad, MMC-Gamuda’s general manager of approval management: “You can actually bore through anything. You just need to employ the right method. For us, we have done many tunnelling projects in various kinds of geological formations, so we know what method is needed for a certain formation.
“Because we have been doing tunnelling for more than 10 years, we have gone through the learning curve. The people we have are experienced in this sort of thing. So we know best what method is needed for what kind of conditions.”
Sometimes drilling right through is all that is required. At other times, it is the blast-and-drill method that is used. Then there is also the fact that one could overblast or underblast, both of which require corrections that cost time and money. So tunnelling is really about precision.
According to Adil, the blast-and-drill method was used for the Bukit Berapit tunnel.
“We drilled, and put in the explosives and blasted it,” he said. “Then a machine removed the debris. We repeated the process until we reached the other end.”
Bukit Berapit is very rocky terrain, so drilling and blasting was suitable. For SMART, the terrain was karstic limestone, so the TBM was used. The blast-and-drill method is more time-consuming.
“We dig up a pit of 30m, then we lower the TBM into it and start tunnelling,” said Maslan. “That machine works 24/7 and it cannot stop. If it stops, it might get stuck. It’s like when you drill through anything.”
“It acts to balance the pressure,” said Adil. “It keeps on moving and exerts pressure there. If it stops, everything will start coming down.”
According to Ismail Hassan, Gamuda Engineering’s senior project manager, tunnelling is not just a specialist’s job that requires precision; a project simply does not stop once it gets moving. Geotechnical experts would give their input every step of the way and on-site decisions have to be made on the design. There is no waiting overnight for a decision as the drilling goes on.
Ismail said of his experience on the Kaohsiung project: “As the TBM was boring through, we sent a probe ahead of the machine which collected samples so we could determine the properties of the material. The probe could tell us whether the material was soft or hard, or whether it was empty in front. If there was a cavity, we would pump cement (also known as grout) to fill up the space before we continue.”
A cavity would cause the TBM to dip and fall into it. The machine needs to bore in a steady, straight line, so the probe is very important. Specialist engineers are on hand to interpret the information the probe sends back.
In their more than 10 years of tunnelling, the men still feel proudest of the SMART project.
“It is an enduring masterpiece,” said Maslan.
Adil added: “The tunnel itself is an engineering feat, due to its size and the fact that it had to pass through a geological formation which was karstic limestone. But we still managed to do it successfully. Ten years ago, we didn’t have the ability.”
The more-than-a-decade experience has helped MMC-Gamuda build a solid 260-member team of experts of various disciplines, and Maslan is confident that “at this moment, we can build any tunnel anywhere.” He would go so far as to say they could even build something like the famous Chunnel (English Channel Tunnel).
“Experience means that you don’t make the same mistakes,” said Maslan. “You improve on the way you do things … We even made some modifications to the TBM we bought from Germany. We know our soil conditions better than any other geotechnical specialist. So we made changes to the machine to suit our needs.”
Adil added: “Tunnelling is not a common method of construction. It is a very niche market, but one that is quickly gaining prominence and popularity because it is environment-friendly.”
In fact, he said, the first consideration in any tunnelling project is the environment. Tunnelling does little damage to the surrounding areas.
For the tunnellers, even the smell of fresh earth as excavators go to work, can be exhilarating. But contrary to what the layman may think, they do not live underground throughout a project.
There are mini trains to transport people and materials in and out, and tunnellers work normal eight-hour shifts. There has not been a fatality or serious accident on any of the project sites.
The next big project for the team is the Klang Valley Mass Rapid Transit project, which commences end of this year.
“In the last tunnel breakthrough in Bukit Berapit, the Transport Minister came to see the final blast-through and ‘opened’ the tunnel with the workers,” Maslan recalled. “The minister did the final blast and the people on the other side walked out of the tunnel. It was a very exciting day for me, and the buzz lasted for a couple of days.
“It didn’t matter whether they were engineers, supervisors or labourers – to them they had done something big.”
MMC-Gamuda projects since 2000
Sungai Selangor Dam Diversion Tunnel (2000-2003)
> Diversion cofferdam
> 431m (length) by 7m (diameter)
> Constructed by blasting through solid granite and drilling
Penchala Tunnel (2001-2004)
> Widest twin-bored tunnel on an urban Malaysian highway
> 720m twin tunnels (each 11.5m wide)
> Constructed using a combination of boring, blasting and drilling
Kaohsiung Metropolitan Mass Rapid Transit System, Taipei, Taiwan (2003- 2008)
> 4.8km bored tunnels for two-way tracks, three cross passages, 1km cut – and-cover tunnel, two underground stations
>The Tadung Station is 28.3m beneath road leve l
> Constructed using the Tunnel Boring Machine
Stormwater Management And Road Tunnel (SMART) (2003-2007)
> World’s first dual-purpose flood mitigation and motorway tunnel
> 9.7km by 13.2m
> Constructed using the Tunnel Boring Machine
Electrified Double-Tracking Project (2008-2012)
> Twin-bore tunnels at Bukit Berapit and Bukit Larut in Perak
> The Bukit Berapit-Larut tunnel is the longest railway tunnel in South-East Asia and hosts the world’s largest pipe arch
At the essay competition, the Guest of Honour, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad chose the occasion to remind the audience that followers are just as important as leaders. “A leader becomes a leader because there are people supporting them. Followers who are also voters must be quite knowledgeable in order for the country to remain prosperous. Followers must be intelligent and they must understand what they do when they choose their leaders.”
“Some followers tend to become fanatics and will vote irrespective of the candidates. This is because they think that they can get something out of (the selection of leader), despite not knowing if the candidates are corrupt to begin with. In my tenure, many people have often asked me ‘What makes a great leader?’. Not once, has anyone asked me ‘What makes a good follower?’”
He warned, “The quality of followers leads to the quality of the leader. If followers are corrupt, uneducated, fanatical and abusive, the leaders will turn out as bad. In a democracy, the number of votes matters and bad leaders will create a bad government. There will definitely be a high price for us all to pay, when followers make the wrong choices.”
Perdana Leadership Foundation and National Council of Professors had jointly organised a Round Table discussion on the Code of Public Governance on 17th February 2011. Emeritus Professor Datuk Dr. Shad Saleem Faruqi delivered his views on the topic, “The Legal Framework for Public Accountability” during the Plano Session.
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THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK FOR PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY
Shad Saleem Faruqi
INTRODUCTION
Commentators often distinguish between “responsibility” (by which they mean ethical and normative restraints) and “accountability” (by which they mean answerability to some normative agency). Others distinguish between “control” (which is ex ante, i.e. before a decision is made) and “Accountability” (which is ex post facto i.e. after a decision is taken).
I will avoid debate on these semantic issues. For purpose of this talk I propose the following description:
“Accountability (or Answerability) refers to the liability or obligation attaching to those invested with public powers or duties. Accountability’s primary ingredient is an obligation to explain and justify decision made or actions taken”.
Accountability means having to answer for, or render account of, the way in which one carries out one’s official tasks. The essence of accountability is discharging one’s responsibility at all time in accordance with established ethical norms, values and laws, and being willing to submit oneself to public scrutiny of every aspect of one’s conduct.
When acts of the administration affect individual rights or interests, accountability requires that appropriate compensation be given to the victim of illegal action or maladministration. Here accountability overlaps with the redress of grievances.
Accountability can be individual or collectable, explicit or implicit, positive or negative. It may refer to acts of commission or mission. It may involve responsibility for powers or for duties.
ENFORCING ACCOUNTABILITY
Controlling the government without crippling it is one of the foremost challenges of constitutional and administrative law. To prevent untrammeled exercise of power, a number of constitutional models, control mechanisms and institutions have been devised which divide and disperse governmental authority and seek to prevent tyranny.
Supreme Constitutions: In most countries the apparatus of control and accountability rests on written and supreme constitution. The Constitution supplies legal and political restraints upon the exercise of all state powers. Fundamental rights, especially free speech and right to assembly and association are guaranteed in democratic constitutions.
Check and balance: In the “check and balance” model of the Constitution of the United States. The executive, the legislature and the judiciary are institutionally separated. The powers of one organ are meant to check and balance the powers of the others.
Responsible Government: In the system of “parliamentary government” in the United Kingdom, the executive is made an integral part of Parliament and is required to be answerable, responsible and accountable to Parliament on day-to-day basis. Answerability to Parliament is enforced through question time, debates, parliamentary committees and service centers run by MPs.
Federal division of power: In federal systems executive, legislative, judicial and fiscal powers are divided and dispersed amongst general and regional governments. The existence and authority of each government is constitutionally safeguarded. Pluralism is given a territorial dimension.
Diarchy: In the diarchical set-up in France and Cyprus there is a division of governmental competence between two or more authorities in the state other than on regional basis so as to prevent its concentration in the same hands.
Constitutional review: The device of judicial review of legislative and executive action, first asserted by the American Supreme Court in Marbury v Madison 1 Cranch 137, 2l. Ed.60 (1803) enables the superior courts to use the Constitution as a touchstone on which to test every governmental action for its constitutionality.
Ultra vires and natural justice: Besides the principle of constitutionality, the doctrine of ultra vires and the principle of natural justice are also employed by the courts to keep the administration subject to the law.
Ombudsman: The office of the Ombudsman is charged with the responsibility of investigating complaints of maladministration against government authorities.
Other Constitutional agencies: Constitutional or legislative provision for independent Auditor-Generals, Attorny-Generals, Anti-Corruption Agencies and Commissions of Enquiry are some of the other means of calling the government to account.
Electoral process: The electoral process supplies a periodic test of the government’s acceptability to the people it seeks to serve.
Press freedom: Constitutional safeguards for a free media seek to ensure scrutiny of governmental action in the media. Newspapers can supply an informal, expeditions and inexpensive method for airing public grievances.
Participative process: Consultative processes including public participation in the legislative process can serve to restrain executive and legislative exuberance. In some political systems, the devices of Referendum, Plebiscite, Petition and Initiative are available to enable the electorate to assert its whishes in the legislative field.
Extra-legal checks: Such extra-legal checks as groups and even the humble departmental “complaint box” if taken seriously, can help to protect citizens against abuse of power by public officials.
Right to Information: A right to information Act, as in the United State is powerful device for ensuring openness and accountability in government. The counterpart of the Right to Information Act, the official Secrets Act, can be a hindrance to the enforcement of responsibility.
Whistle blowers: In a age of globalization, international standards are developing on such issues as human rights, good governance free elections, corruption, access to government and environmentalism. No nation is free of external scrutiny.
Internal checks: The public services are subject to legal proceeding in the courts. In addition, the bureaucracy has devised many means of internal control. Among them: hierarchy and organizational structures procedures, planning, programming and budgeting, management by the objective, in-service training, job evaluation and internal auditing.
In sum, it is observable in the public sector. But these control mechanisms are not always operating effectively. A wide gap exists between theory and reality and promise and performance. Institutions, principles and procedures do not always work well because a systems is a good as people who administer it.
Speech by Yang Amat Berbahagia Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad
Chairman, Perdana Global Peace Organisation
11 July 2010
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Honourable speakers, guests, ladies and gentlemen,
Firstly I would like to welcome all of you to this conference on the siege organised by the Perdana Global Peace Organisation backed by UMNO.
1. We are gathered here today not only to honour the Turkish martyrs who were brutally slaughtered by Israeli commandos on the Mavi Marmara, but also to counter the lies and propaganda by Israel and the Zionist controlled international mass media, that the passengers, specifically the martyrs, were terrorists and therefore the killings were justified.
2. More importantly, we must send a message of hope and solidarity to the Palestinians that the peace loving peoples of the world will never abandon them, come what may and that we will stand shoulder to shoulder with them in their struggle for liberation and for the State of Palestine.
3. Prime Minister Netanyahu has openly and unreservedly declared just a few days ago that Israel will not apologise for the brutal murders committed in international waters in contravention of all conventions and international laws because Israel was justified in the massacre of unarmed people in order to defend Israeli security.
4. Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 1:
“Israel cannot apologise for our soldiers being forced to defend themselves against the mob that almost slaughtered them.”
Yet, not one single Israeli commando was killed. In fact, from the testimony of Ken O’Keefe, a passenger on Mavi Marmara, which we have just witnessed from the multi-media presentation, it was the well-armed commandos who killed and injured the passengers. Far from killing or attempting to kill the commandos, despite their friends being killed, the Turkish passengers managed to disarm three of the commandos and after a doctor had washed away the blood caused by their faces being scratched, released them. Is this the behaviour of a mob bent in slaughtering the commandos?
5. In a speech to the Israeli parliament, Netanyahu elaborated:
“They want to strip us of the natural right to defend ourselves. When we defend ourselves against rocket attack, we are accused of war crimes. We cannot board sea vessels when our soldiers are being attacked and fired upon, because that is a war crime.”
6. But where is the evidence that the Israeli commandos were being attacked and fired upon? Such is the distortion of the truth! Even the UN Report chaired by Justice Robert Goldstone, a Zionist and a Jew who found that the Israelis committed war crimes when it invaded Gaza in 2008, was dismissed as mere propaganda, and the said report was not allowed to be tabled and debated in the U.N.
7. Self-defence can take place if there was an attempt at attacking or when actually attacked by the aggressor. Even the Israelis said that the passengers were armed with iron rods (railings) and scissors. Is Israel suggesting that people with scissors and iron railings attacked the fully armed commandos before they boarded the Mavi Marmara? It was to defend themselves after the commandos dropped from the helicopters and killed their friends that the unarmed passengers tried to defend themselves with scissors and iron railings, the only weapons they could lay hands on.
8. However, even without an Independent Inquiry and in spite of the fact that Israel had confiscated and destroyed incriminating videos of the massacre, the international mass media cannot ignore the overwhelming evidence provided by the survivors of Mavi Marmara – journalists and passengers who were able to evade the tight security measures and brought out videos showing that Israeli commandos had commenced firing at the passengers before boarding the Mavi Marmara. IHH, the organisers of the Mavi Marmara has just come out with their report and I am told that this is available in CD for all delegates.
9. Additionally, we cannot ignore the fact that the intent to attack the Freedom Flotilla was made well before the flotilla set sail for Gaza. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak declared that Israeli naval ships and commandos would be conducting naval exercises to prepare for the eventual attack on the flotilla and that Israel would do everything possible to prevent the flotilla from reaching Gaza. This was reported by Bloomberg, the Associated Press and even Israeli newspapers, and was affirmed by the Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren in an interview on June 2nd, 2010.
10. It came as no surprise that on 31st May 2010, in contravention of international laws, Israeli commandos as directed by the Israeli regime boarded the Mavi Marmara, and in the process shot and killed nine passengers and wounded many more and hijacked the entire flotilla to the port of Ashdod in Israel.
11. Rifat Audeh, a passenger on the Mavi Marmara gave an account of what happened before Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara. She said:
“The Israeli military was firing at us from their vessels which approached the sides of our ship and the helicopters from above as well, even before a single soldier landed on deck. Here we had fully armed Israeli commandos firing live rounds, tear gas, sound grenades and other types of ammunition at unarmed activists of a humanitarian ship at night in international waters, and once again the media has criminalised us and vindicated the perpetrators. Let me be clear: we had every right to defend ourselves and our ship against this illegal barbaric assault as our brothers were being wounded and killed.”
12. Just as Israel denied using white phosphorous and other banned weapons on the civilians of Gaza in the barbaric invasion in 2008 and the massacre of civilians in Jenin in 2003 until exposed by the Robert Goldstone report and independent observers respectively, Israel is denying again and hopes that this time, the war crimes would be lost with the passage of time.
13. But peace loving nations of the world condemned this wanton aggression and demanded that the siege of Gaza be lifted and a U.N. sanctioned Inquiry be established to investigate into the massacre of the passengers on the Mavi Marmara.
14. Knowing that the United States will not condemn its actions and veto any Security Council resolutions that demanded a full account for the incident, Israel ignored international condemnation and maintained that she has the right to do as she likes. Israel considers itself above international laws and common moral values.
15. This heinous murder of Turkish nationals and the confiscation of the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara seemed strange to many, as Turkey has been a close strategic ally of Israel for many years, having regular joint military exercises and shared strategic interests. Turkey is also a NATO member. However, it is evident that even an ally would not be spared the criminal behaviour of Israel whether there is justification or not.
16. Such is Israel’s arrogance and her confidence that she can get away with murder. And indeed Israel has been getting away with blatant murder since 1948.
17. Many may have forgotten that such betrayal by Israel of an ally is not without precedent. The ally that was previously betrayed by Israel was none other than the United States. That treachery needs to be retold, if we want to understand and appreciate the strategic implications of the attack on Mavi Marmara.
18. It was on the 8th of June, 1967, soon after the commencement of the six-day war by Israel against her Arab neighbours. President Johnson had given his consent to Israel to launch a limited war against Egypt on the condition that Israel would not widen the war to include any land grab against Jordan and Syria.
19. Egypt had closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships and the limited war was to compel Egypt to reopen the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships. But, the then Defence Minister Moshe Dayan had different ideas from what was agreed between President Johnson and the then prime minister of Israel, Levi Eshkol and his military Chief of Staff, General Yizhak Rabin. Moshe Dayan, the one-eyed war criminal wanted to use the opportunity to extend the borders of Israel to fulfil the aspirations of the Zionists for a “Greater Israel.” It was in the plan that after the capture of the Sinai Peninsula, Israeli military would be diverted to the Jordanian and Syrian fronts.
20. The USS Liberty was a “spy ship” and its mission was to listen to all Israel’s military communications so that Israel would abide by the agreement not to widen the war after she attacked Egypt.
21. The USS Liberty clearly stood in the way, as President Johnson would know through communication intercepts by the USS Liberty, if Israel reneged on its agreement for a limited war, and proceeded to wage a full scale war against all her immediate neighbours. Time was of the essence. If the USS Liberty was disabled, Israel would by her surprise attack against Syria and Jordan achieve her aims of a Greater Israel before President Johnson could intervene to stop the wider war.
22. General Moshe Dayan therefore ordered the attack on the USS Liberty that left 34 Americans dead and 175 wounded and severely damaged the ship. The captain of a nearby US aircraft carrier scrambled jet fighters to assist the USS Liberty but his orders were countermanded by President Johnson and Defence Secretary Robert McNamara. The excuse for the attack was that Israel made a mistake as to the identity of the USS Liberty. Moshe Dayan hailed the day of the attack, 8th June 1967 as a “Great Day” because the destruction of USS Liberty enabled Israel to extend its borders to encompass the Golan Heights and the entire West Bank and more! The fact that President Johnson had to cover up the murder of his own soldiers and accepted thereafter the fait accompli of a Greater Israel shows all too clearly that the United States was and is still subservient to Israel.
23. The international mass media propaganda at the material time accused the Arab states for starting the war and wanting to annihilate Israel. Once again, we have to ask, who is telling the truth?
24. We need only to examine some public statements of Israel’s military leaders at the given time. On 28th February 1968, Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli Chief of Staff in an interview with Le Monde, conceded that:
“I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which he sent to Sinai on 14th May would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.”
Menachem Begin, then Minister without Portfolio was quoted by the New York Times in 1982 as saying: “In June l967, we had a choice. The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”
25. Given this hidden agenda, how did Israel prepare the propaganda for war against the Arabs? The strategy was simple enough – portray Israel as the victim. In an interview with Al-Hamishmar in 1971, Mordecai Bentove, then Minister of Housing revealed:
“The entire story of the danger of extermination was invented in every detail and exaggerated a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territory.”
26. This deliberate lie was corroborated by General Haim Barlev, Chief of General Staff Branch, Israel Defence Forces and as reported by the Israeli newspaper Ma’ arrive in 1972. I quote: “We were not threatened with genocide on the eve of the six-day war, and we had never thought of such a possibility.”
General Chaim Herzog, Commanding General and first Military Governor of Israeli Occupied West Bank expressed similar views when he said: “There was no danger of annihilation. Israeli headquarters never believed in this danger.”
From these facts we can draw the following conclusions, namely:
Israel treats her allies no different from her enemies if its interests are threatened.
It is by deception and outright lies, that Israel wages war.
28. Not for nothing is, “by way of deception” the motto of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence unit. The attack against the Turkish ship and the Turks is thus typical of the Israelis. They knew and yet they shot to kill the Turks with live bullets. Given this sordid history, it comes as no surprise that President Obama chose to express regrets instead of condemnation of the murder of the nine passengers, one of whom was an American citizen of Turkish descent. He was only nineteen years old. Tony Blair, the war criminal and the so-called Special Peace Envoy for the Quartet for the Middle East declared that Israel was acting in self-defence when it attacked the passenger ship Mavi Marmara and hijacked the entire flotilla to the port of Ashdod.
A question remains to be answered – Did President Obama know in advance of the attack on Mavi Marmara and give his consent just as President Johnson did when Israel attacked Egypt in 1967 in the six-day war?
29. It is inconceivable that the intelligence services of the United States were unaware of such plans by the Israeli military. The President of the United States is briefed daily by the intelligence services. And given the special relationship between Israel and the United States, it would be naive to think that Israel would not share intelligence regarding what they consider their mutual security interests. In the just concluded visit by Netanyahu to the White House, the prime minister remarked that:
“There is a depth and richness of this relationship that is expressed every day. Our teams talk. We don’t make it public… What is not told is the fact we have an enduring bond of values, interests, beginning with security and the way we share both information and other things to help the common defence of our common interests. The President said it best in his speech in Cairo. He said it in front of the entire Islamic world, he said, the bond between Israel and the United States is unbreakable. And I can affirm that to you today.”
30. Yet, the Muslim world continues to be taken in by President Obama’s rhetoric that he is committed to change and he is for peace. His actions contradict his spoken words, for upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama then escalated the war in Afghanistan, a war started by President GW Bush. It is not surprising that the UN chose not to allow a debate on Malaysia’s resolution condemning Israel for its dastardly acts.
31. Given this reaffirmation by President Obama and Netanyahu, we must not be deluded into believing that there will be peace, genuine peace in the Middle East anytime soon. On the contrary, war preparations are in place. The same lies have been repeated. Have we not heard the same refrain, that Israel’s very existence is threatened by her neighbours? A thief shouting thief as he runs away with the booty is a most effective way of deflecting focus on his thieving. That is Israel’s strategy.
32. Iraq was accused of having weapons of mass destruction so as to appear to be a threat to Israel’s existence. Israel demanded that Iraq be invaded and its people subjugated. And so in 2003, Iraq was invaded. But as we now know Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was attacked because the plans for the invasion of Iraq were laid much earlier. In 1996, the then prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu commissioned the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies to prepare a blue print to enable Israel to be the dominant regional power in the Middle East. The report, A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm sets out the new paradigm for Israel. According to its authors, the centerpiece of the recommendations was the removal of Saddam Hussein as the first step in remaking the Middle East into a region friendly to Israel. Their plan also signaled a radical departure from the peace-oriented policies of former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a member of an extreme right-wing Israeli group.
33. One of the pillars of this new policy was the abandonment of the “comprehensive peace” with the entire Arab world. Israel’s new strategy would be to work jointly with Jordan and Turkey to “contain, destabilise, and roll-back” those entities that were regarded as threats to all three (i.e. Israel, Turkey and Jordan), firstly by destroying Iraq and then Syria and finally Iran. This is the significance of Turkey in the overall scheme of Netanyahu under the “Clean Break” master plan.
34. Now that Iraq and Saddam Hussein have been disposed, the target has shifted to Iran as Syria is seen to be a lesser threat. The world is made to believe once again the lie that Israel’s existence is being threatened by a nuclear armed Iran, notwithstanding that El Baradie, the former head of the IAEA had repeatedly stated that there is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapons program. President Bush had threatened Iran with tactical nuclear weapons. President Obama is no different for he has said that “all options are on the table” in confronting Iran.
35. And once again, the United States at the instigation of Israel has compelled the UN Security Council to impose crippling sanctions to weaken the resolve of the Iranians to resist Israel’s aggressive designs. We can observe a pattern in the war preparations from recent examples, namely Iraq and Gaza. Broad sanctions were imposed on Iraq and Gaza to starve and weaken the people before the military invasion in 2003 and 2008 respectively. If the past is a precedent, then it is a matter of time before the war criminals in Israel and the United States launch another war of aggression, once Iran has been weakened by sanctions.
36. However, Israel may have miscalculated the willingness of Turkey to be a partner in its grand design to contain Iran and Syria as envisaged in the Clean Break blue print. As it stands at the present moment, the encirclement of Iran – Afghanistan in the East, occupied Iraq in the West and Turkey in the North rests on shaky foundations. But this may not deter the warmongers from attempting to fulfill their design for a “New Middle-East”. There is already a map showing how the Middle East would be carved out to serve Israel’s strategic interests.
37. It is left to be seen whether Israel’s blood lust for wars of conquest can be accomplished without Turkey as part of the equation as stipulated in the Clean Break blue print. Turkey has demanded that Israel apologises for the brutal murder of its nationals, failing which Turkey would sever diplomatic relations with Israel. Presently, Turkey has ceased all military collaboration with Israel and a few days ago had declared that Israeli military planes are no longer allowed to enter Turkey’s airspace. It is early to say whether these are temporary misalignments or potential major paradigm shifts in the foreign policy of Turkey.
38. The recent actions of prime minister Erdogan provide grounds for hope that the forces for peace can forge a broad alliance to isolate Israel and thwart its grand design to wage wars of aggression to establish a Greater Israel and to be the undisputed regional power. The public dressing down of Shimon Peres, the President of Israel at the World Economic Forum by premier Erdogan was unprecedented as even the President of the United States has not dared to rebuke publicly any Israeli leaders.
39. It is in the context of this geopolitical matrix that we must applaud the courageous leadership of Prime Minister Erdogan in supporting the efforts of IHH peace activists on board the Mavi Marmara as part of the Freedom Flotilla to break the siege of Gaza. The supreme sacrifice by the nine Turkish peace activists will not be in vain, as by their deaths, the true nature of the Zionist regime, its barbarity and ugliness has been laid bare before the world:
Israel is…
A brutal regime that has no respect for international law;
A brutish regime that has no qualms in murdering unarmed civilians on a humanitarian mission;
A brutish regime that has created the largest open prison in the world, the enslavement of 1.5 million people within its borders, through blockade and economic sanctions of Gaza;
A brutish regime that brainwashes its young to be mindless killers of unarmed civilians, men, women and children;
A brutish regime that practices apartheid.
A brutish regime that wages wars through deception and lies.
A brutish regime that practices and fosters state terrorism.
40. When the Perdana Global Peace Organisation visited Cyprus in July 2009 to collaborate with the activists of the free Gaza Movement, we did not expect that our idea of a flotilla of cargo ships and passenger boats manned by volunteers from all over the world would have such an impact on the conscience of world leaders who before had stood aloof and cared not for the sufferings of the Palestinians. Following the invasion of Gaza in December 2008, more than 1,400 civilians, men, women and children, in fact mainly children were slaughtered, over 20,000 homes were destroyed, schools and hospitals were levelled to the ground. Many countries pledged billions in aid, but the pledges were not translated into concrete action to alleviate the sufferings of the Palestinians in Gaza. It was hypocrisy at its very worst.
41. While world leaders turned their backs on Gaza, peace activists the world over came together to challenge the might of Israel and expose their crimes. George Galloway started the Viva Palestina Land Convoy which smashed the land blockade and brought hundreds of truckloads of aid to Gaza. The Free Gaza Movement had more humble beginnings. They started by sending small fishing boats to break the sea blockade. On one occasion, their boat was rammed and the volunteers were thrown into the sea to drown. On another occasion, fully armed Israeli commandos boarded their boat, The Spirit of Humanity and hijacked it to Israel. The world took scant notice of these happenings.
42. We realised that small fishing boats would not do and that a flotilla of cargo ships and passenger boats would be needed to challenge Israel’s navy. And as they say, the rest is history. Malaysia’s contribution in this effort was the purchase of a cargo ship and two passenger boats, the former named after the courageous American peace activist Rachel Corrie who was crushed to death by an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) bulldozer when she acted as a human shield to prevent the demolition of Palestinian homes in 2003. She gave her life so that others could live in freedom and with dignity. Her country had forgotten her, but we were moved by her determination and sacrifice to free the Palestinians.
43. Imbued with the spirit of Rachel Corrie, our Irish colleagues – Jenny and Derek Graham nurtured and brought back to life the abandoned cargo ship MV Linda and appropriately renamed her MV Rachel Corrie. The ship was abandoned by her owners and was auctioned for 70,000 Euros. She set sail for Gaza on 14th May and immediately encountered problems. She had a broken propeller shaft and had to dock for repairs. She could not join the flotilla in time and so the flotilla led by the Mavi Marmara set sail for Gaza.
44. Following her repairs, the Rachel Corrie, determined as ever, headed for Gaza. On board were five Irish volunteers Derek and Jenny Graham and my good friend Denis Halliday, the former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations as well as the Nobel Peace Laureate, Mairead McGuire. There were six Malaysians, two representatives from the Perdana Global Peace Organisation, a Member of Parliament, a volunteer from the Ministry of Information and two TV3 journalists.
45. Rachel Corrie was all alone, sailing at a mere 8 knots but she never waivered in her resolve to reach Gaza. After the massacre of the nine Turkish nationals on board the Mavi Marmara, massive disinformation was initiated against Rachel Corrie. It was rumoured that she had turned tail and headed back for Ireland. Another report stated that she was heading for the safe haven of Cyprus and might even head for Turkey. This propaganda was made notwithstanding that the Captain and his crew together with all the activists on board had declared in a press statement that in honour of the martyrs they were more determined than ever to sail towards Gaza and bring badly needed aid, comprising of cement, medicine and equipment, toys and educational materials.
46. Knowing that Israel had just massacred nine passengers and wounded many more and that Israeli commandos may act similarly, Rachel Corrie and her passengers were not deterred and were ready to face Israeli brutality. Israel deployed four naval ships, two fast patrol boats and six zodiacs to intercept and hijack the Rachel Corrie to Israel. This was an act of cowardice by the Israelis – to deploy naval ships and armed commandos to hijack a small cargo ship with unarmed passengers and crew. By this single act of defiance, Rachel Corrie exposed Israeli cowardice to the world.
47. This is but a beginning in our collective efforts to bring peace to the long suffering Palestinians. Israel under tremendous international pressure declared that it would be easing the blockade and would allow more aid to enter Gaza. Israel must take us for fools to believe in her lies.
48. Let us not forget that Netanyahu is the prime minister of Israel, the same man who in 1996 commissioned the blue print, the Clean Break which rejected a comprehensive peace in the Middle East and opted for war – to be precise the destruction of Iraq, Iran and Syria so as to impose peace on its own terms. The present policy of Israel is but the continuation of the strategies laid down in that blue print.
49. Israel has succeeded in destroying Iraq and emboldened by this success is now moving to the next phase of the blue print, the destruction of Iran. The time tested modus operandi of imposing harsh sanctions followed by a vicious invasion has already started. In the just concluded visit to the White House, Netanyahu made the following remarks at the joint press conference with President Obama. He said with regard to sanctions on Iran:
“I think the sanctions the President signed the other day actually have teeth. They bite. The question is – how much do you need to bite is something I cannot answer now. But if other nations adopt similar sanctions, that would increase the effect.”
50. Let us be very clear. Sanctions amount to laying siege, to starve and weaken the enemy. It pays to remind ourselves of what Dov Weisglass, an Israeli aid to Prime Ministers, said of sanctions;
“The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet but not to make them die of hunger.”
The invasion would meet with little resistance after that. This is the US’ and Israeli strategy. It is a strategy based on cowardice.
51. But in spite of two years of sanctions against Gaza before the preceding invasion of December 2008 an invasion which lasted until mid-January 2009, the Gazans withstood the siege. The Palestinians were not so easily cowed.
52. Hence the blockade of food and medicine. It is not about preventing arms from reaching Gaza. The blockade of the food, medicine and cement convoy is about weakening the people of Gaza for the next orgy of slaughter. Israel and the United States have no intention to see a Palestinian State and for the Palestinians to live side by side with the Israelis. Netanyahu has not said since becoming the prime minister of Israel that he has abandoned the Clean Break blue print, and neither has President Obama demanded that he should.
53. The warmongers continue to propagate that the ideological enemy of the West is Islam and the Zionist controlled mass media have not ceased their efforts to demonise Muslims. In the circumstances, the path for all of us, the peace loving people of the world, is clear. We must be vigilant and be prepared to resist any attempt by the warmongers to unleash another war, be it with Iran, Syria and or any other country.
54. We must pursue with greater vigour our efforts to criminalise war. War is mass killing, is massacre and must be made a crime. It is heartening to note that recently, the International Criminal Court is also of the view that war of aggression is a crime, but the United States under the present leadership of President Obama opposed vehemently this noble initiative. So once again, we are being confronted with the inevitable conclusion – there is no change, the status quo remains and for these leaders war is their preferred option.
55. In the circumstances, we must strive to create a broad coalition for peace and to expose and resist the grand designs of these warmongers. Rachel Corrie and Mavi Marmara have shown the way. The NGOs and the volunteers have cleared the path. We must build on this momentum and surge forward. We must call upon all governments not to be hypocritical and stand up to this rogue State called Israel.
56. Israel cannot be allowed to continue in its present path and exist as an Apartheid state. Just as the world would not stand for a White South Africa, it should also not allow an apartheid state to continue its oppression of the Palestinians. We will struggle for as long as it takes.
We will break the siege.
Palestine will be liberated from Israeli oppression.
Mr. Piotr Stryzowski, Dato' Dr. Mahani Zainal Abidin and Professor Gunter Koch
Session 2, “What are the major challenges for Malaysia in making the transition?” started with Professor Pirjo Stahle who explained the Finland experience in early 1990s where the GNP contracted sharply and the economy crumbled. From this crisis, Finland built up their economy by identifying the electronics industry as a key driver to growth. She explained that pillars and drivers are different across different economies (developing, transitional and developed). Another key point is that drivers cannot function in the long run without the bases created by pillars.
For Finland, education is the most important pillar. In Finland, the concept is for equal options and free education for everyone. Pedagogics was also renewed from the 1990s, putting thinking skills and problem based learning at the forefront of childhood education. The child is also regarded and treated as decision maker and evaluator.
Presenting the case of Malaysia in terms of tertiary education, Malaysia had an upswing until mid-2000, then reached a plateau, whereas Singapore is still experiencing a continuous upswing.
A country needs to find sources of renewal to push its level of achievement to the next level.
Professor Mahindran Nair and Emeritus Professor Dato' Dr Osman Bakar
Professor Danny Quah in “batting for the Malaysian team” had to qualify that he had been in the UK since Britain itself pushed for innovation and a transformation of its own economy from industrialisation to information, from “metal bashers” and manipulating molecules to manipulating digital bits and bytes.
Lessons to be learnt:
“The Law of Unintended Consequences” comes into play (eg: Microsoft, Facebook began as a way for male Harvard undergrads to meet females).
New technologies come about when designed to solve problems. In the Malaysian context, we need to be concrete and clear on what is the problem that we need to solve. China became a giant when it moved its factors of production from low value production to high value production. If we compare China to Finland, Sweden, Israel, we find that China is the only country that has experienced doube digit growth despite its government system and huge population.
Facts for Malaysia:
Private investment is still 1/3 of what it used to be before 1997
25% of local graduates are unemployed
4/5ths of Malaysian workforce only have SPM qualification
Malaysia needs to discover how best to deploy the resources it has. For Professor Danny Quah, it is not ICT that is the next frontier for economic growth but climate change and renewable energy. ICT will play a supporting role but abundant opportunities for middle-income countries like Malaysia is in more down to earth frugal innovation useful to many more people around the world.
Professor Leif Edvinsson agreed with the practical insights provided by Professor Danny Quah. Prof Edvinsson highlighted that even Sweden is turning to China for some innovations in climate change and renewable energy. Professor Leif then asked all participants to write what they thought was the most powerful, energising question for the future of Malaysia. Some questions that arose:
“How important is national identity via 1Malaysia to the future of Malaysia?” (Professor Edvinsson: it’s still important to retain heterogeneity)
“How can the creative energy and capacity of Malaysian people best be nurtured, supported and exploited?” (Professor Leif recommends that Malaysia sets up a Ministry for the Future)
“Everyone is afraid to share knowledge, especially politicians,” Professor Leif pointed out. He then stressed the importance to create an environment that reduces this fear and encourages knowledge-sharing.
A study also found that fear of the future is greatest at the age of 40. Those with the highest propensity to change are the young and the CEOs, so an environment that connects these two populations together may be necessary.
Mr. Gerardo Rath Fingerl
During discussions, Mr. Sumita brought up the issue of development speed and its impact on human rights issues as well as societal breakdown (violence, suicides). Professor Quah pointed out that in relation to the whole population, the percentage of these breakdowns is pretty small, especially in China currently. He stressed that the most important human rights in the world is the removal of poverty.
Dr. Jomo KS posed the issue of Malaysia’s public spending, where Malaysia’s public spending on health and education has brought about different results.In public health, results have been positive but in education despite Malaysia’s high spending (one of the highest in the world in terms of percentage), the results have been mediocre. Why?
