US Government Knows of Taib Mahmud

Wow! Secret US Government documents have validated Sarawak Report's allegations about the rampant corruption in Sarawak. 

A dossier of US Embassy dispatches to Washington compiled by the Bruno Manser Foundation from the Wikileaks site, tells us that the US Government has been well-informed about the extent of Taib Mahmud's wanton abuse of power in the state. 

One confidential cable from the US embassy in Malaysia to the State Department in Washington, dated October 13, 2006, noted that: “Taib and his relatives are widely thought to extract a percentage from most major commercial contracts – including those for logging – awarded in the state. …Embassy sources outside the government uniformly characterize him as highly corrupt”. [Bruno Manser Foundation Report].

In a further passage that will embarrass some of Taib’s key political cronies, including the two most prominent Dayak leaders, Alfred Jabu and James Masing – although, I for one don’t believe they will be embarrassed at all because they are impervious to this sort of thing – the report had highlighted the fact that a source had told the US embassy that Taib appointed “compliant local leaders” from various tribes into “financially rewarding” government positions as a means of stifling potential opposition. In other words, these people have been gamely bought. And the Sarawakian natives suffered because Taib has failed to safeguard the human rights of his most vulnerable fellow-citizens after 30 years in power.

Another US Embassy dispatch in November 2009 showed that BN (UMNO actually) have allowed Taib to run roughshod over the state in return for providing the ‘safe deposit’ of seats that have enabled the cursed coalition to cling to power for more than 50 years. 

The cable explains: “Chief Minister Taib Mahmud remains unchallenged after 27 years in office, his government dole out timber-cutting permits while patrolling the under-developed state using 14 helicopters, and his family’s companies control much of the economy”.

The above only demonstrates how important it is for Malaysians (including Sarawakians) to realize that only they can stop this nefarious epidemic of jobbery that is rampaging in this country. The ballot box represents our only chance at redemption.

This morning the MIM Toastmasters of Kuala Lumpur met and I counted twenty-four of us who were there – despite the long Raya-Merdeka holiday break. 

As befitting a ‘great club”, it was a good meeting and I am happy to give it a score of 8 over 10. 

I launched the meeting proper with a rousing invocation as well as being one of four speakers. 

I was glad I accepted Yeow Honn’s invitation to take up the last remaining speaking slot because I was meaning to start my Advanced speeches since last month. August was just too difficult to do any speeches because of the endless club contests and hopefully, now that I have started, I can complete two Advanced manuals of speeches this month. It will still be challenging since there are still contests – both at club and area levels – but I am going to try anyway! 

This time around, I attempted the Public Relations manual and did the "Goodwill Speech”. Although I was voted the Best Speaker of the meeting, Geoff Andrew who was my evaluator was thorough and meticulous in his assessment of my speech and he was unrelenting with good suggestions on how I can improve further. 

Certainly, those tasked to evaluate the advanced communicators should be as critical as possible because the latter are expected to strive to reach even higher standards of speech-making. 

Anyway, it's really nice to be back – I have been missing in action for two months now!