What Malaysian secretly hope to hear from Ms. Condoleezza Rice.
SINGAPORE: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday urged Malaysia to be transparent and follow the rule of law in dealing with the sodomy accusation against Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
“The United States has long spoken and will continue to speak up about cases that we think need to be thought about in terms of the political circumstances,” said Rice, who is here to attend a regional security conference.
“We want to see transparency and for rule of law to be completely followed there,” she told reporters just before going into the 27-nation meeting. “We are always going to speak up on human rights cases, political cases, but we do so in a spirit of respect for Malaysia.”
Rice said “part of the comfort level or the confidence that states need to bring to the international system is that their judicial systems are indeed responsive to rule of law and (are) transparent and fair.”
She also rejected Malaysia’s claim that the Anwar case is an internal affair.
“The United States doesn’t recognize this very firm barrier that it is simply internal affairs when a case of this kind comes up, but we are going to continue to work with Malaysia,” she said.
Rice’s comments were the first public remarks in response to a protest letter that Malaysian Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Dr Rais Yatim said he sent to her earlier this month. Rais also attended Thursday’s meeting.
In the letter, he expressed regret about the earlier US comments, which he said were “uncalled for” and tantamount to interference in Malaysia’s affairs. - AP
With stinging comments like that from the United States, we can expect the warlords in UMNO to start beating their ‘hollow’ war drums and the queue to start condemning the US will start from Rembau to Jerlun! The other component parties in BN, namely MCA, MIC and Gerakan seems to be dead quiet on this. I wonder if they still exist or they have come to accept the fact that their voices will always be ignored by UMNO. So it’s better to take a stance of SEE NO EVIL, SPEAK NO EVIL & HEAR NO EVIL.
Tags: anwar ibrahim, Condoleezza Rice, Malaysian Politics, Rule of law, US Secretary of State
