The cat and mouse game with the Royal Malaysian Police

When I was about 11 or 12 years old, I was made to sit for an IQ test. I just enjoyed these tests because I had already done many before that. You see, my parents subscribed me to the Junior Readers Digest and every month, whenever I received my copies, I would relish reading them from cover to cover. One of my favourite chapters was the one on IQ tests.

Some questions were in text format and others in graphics form. Invariably, you are asked to solve puzzles and problems and how to get over sticky situations. My favourite question was the one about the bridge closing at 7.00pm and a guard being placed in the middle of the bridge to prevent anyone from crossing it. Those on the left bank would not be allowed to cross over to the right bank and vice versa.

The question was: you arrived at the bridge at 11.00pm and found the guard asleep in the middle of the bridge. If you crossed the bridge the guard would wake up and catch you trying to cross and will force you to go back the way you came. So how are you going to cross the bridge to get home?

Hmm….this was one tricky question. I pondered for a while and my reply was I would quietly creep across the bridge and just before I reached the guard I would turn around and walk back the way I came. I would then make a lot of noise, which would wake the guard up. The guard, seeing that I was trying to sneak across the bridge, would chase me and catch me and force me to return to the opposite direction. And the opposite direction is where I actually wanted to go in the first place.

So that would be how I would get to cross the bridge and go home. But this would mean the guard would have to be not too bright and can be easily fooled. He sees you heading back from where you came and he would think that you came from the other direction. So he would force you back to the opposite direction, thinking this is where you came from rather than this is where you actually wanted to go in the first place.

Confusing? Not really. All you need to do is to create the impression that you are coming from one direction whereas you are actually coming from the opposite direction. And when they force you to return to the direction they thought you were coming from, you end up, with their help, heading for the direction you really wanted to go.

And this is the cat and mouse game that one has to play with the officers in blue from the Royal Malaysian Police.

The officers in the Malaysian police force rejoice when they think they have got you covered and have figured out your every move. They monitor your movements, your phone calls, those of your friends, and whatnot. If they don’t get what they want they will dig deeper. And maybe, in the end, they will find what they want to know. So you need to give them something to work on. Let them think they have got you, whereas it is you who have got them.

For example, on 10 April 2001, the police picked up four people under the Internal Security Act -- Tian Chua, Saari Sungib, Hishamuddin Rais and Ezam Mohd Nor. The police had been following me for three days and I knew I was also about to be picked up.

I got into my car and with my wife driving we went to our daughter’s apartment. My wife noticed we were being followed.

That evening, my wife went out to buy some ice cream and she saw a bunch of police officers loitering at the entrance. She knew they were waiting for me.

The next morning, we left the apartment, and about one kilometre down the road, they stopped our car and took me in. I could have sneaked out the back and would have been able to give them the slip, but it was crucial that we find out what their game plan was.

To cut a long 54-day story short, Anwar was facing nine criminal charges and was already convicted for the first and was facing trial for the second. He was eventually found guilty for both and his jail sentences were made to run consecutive rather than concurrent. The first conviction attracted a six-year jail sentence and the second nine years. Together with the seven months remand period during the trial, Anwar was given a 15 years and seven months jail sentence. And he still had seven more trials to go through.

Anwar was probably going to be in jail for at least 100 years, which meant he was going to die in jail.

My interrogation took 54 days and my signed ‘confession’ was more than 200 pages. There was a lot they asked me and a lot I told them. The most crucial piece of information they wanted was how did Anwar manage to run the Reformasi Movement from behind the high walls of the Sungai Buloh Prison? They knew the Reformasi Movement was being guided and run by Anwar. They just did not know how it was being done.

I was posed this question and I spilled the beans. I could not hold anything back. The information just flowed.

We meet Anwar in court during his many trials and that is when he dishes out his instructions. In fact, not only the Reformasi Movement, but also the party itself is run in this manner. We look forward to his trial dates because that is when we are able to meet Anwar and receive instructions from him.

Three days later, the Special Branch officers came to see me, bringing a copy of a newspaper. “Read this,” they told me.

It was the newspaper headline about the government dropping the balance seven charges against Anwar.

“So, now there are no more trials. Anwar will no longer be going to court. So how are you people going to meet him now?”

“Aiyah,” I said, with a very disappointed and dejected look on my face. “Now the link to Anwar has been severed. There would be no way we can continue meeting him to get further instructions from him.”

I sat back and looked my Special Branch officers in the face. They had this very pleased look, as it they had pulled off the coup of the century. These are five very happy Special Branch officers. They even offered me a cigarette and ordered some Kentucky Fried Chicken for my lunch. They had broken the link of communication between Anwar and the outside world. That is the end of Anwar’s communication network.

The Special Branch officers were probably made to sit for a course where they studied how Chin Peng communicated with his guerrillas in the Pahang, Perak and Kelantan jungles, plus those along the Malaysian-Thai border. I, in fact, discussed this with them and knew of the ‘dead letter boxes’ and all such primitive communication methods of 50 years or so ago.

The Special Branch knew that I knew. And I knew that the Special Branch knew that I knew. So they wanted to know how much of these tactics were being used to enable Anwar to communicate with the outside world and thereby organise his Reformasi Movement and other political activities.

Well, I could not hold anything back. I spilled my guts out and told them everything. And the result of that was they dropped the balance seven charges against Anwar so that he can be cut off from the outside world and can no longer direct things from behind the high walls of the Sungai Buloh Prison.

But that was not really how it was done. And of course I can’t tell you how it was done in case we need to do it again. But what matters is that they believed this was how it was done and they dropped the seven charges against Anwar to ‘plug the holes’.

They were one happy bunch of Special Branch officers the day they broke the news to me that they had dropped the balance seven charges against Anwar. And I had to pretend I was so disappointed and unhappy that they had outsmarted us.

Yes, I bet those Special Branch officers did not have to sit for IQ tests when they were 11 or 12 years old. If not they would have had to figure out how to cross the bridge after 7.00pm when the guard is sitting right in the middle of the bridge to stop anyone from crossing. And then they would have figured out you need to fool the guard by pretending that you are crossing from one direction whereas you are actually crossing from the opposite direction. Then they would have known that, if you can successfully fool the guard, he would actually assist you to cross to the side, where you actually wanted to go.

Yes, there is more I want to reveal. But let this suffice for today. In the next article we shall talk more about how to play cat and mouse games with the Malaysian police. No, nothing that has happened thus far is anything we did not want to happen. They think they have us on the run. They think they have sent us underground. Is that so? Lt Col George Armstrong Custer also thought he had the Indians on the run. By the time he realised it was the other way around, it was too late. Little Bighorn was Custer’s last stand and where the Seventh Calvary met its doom.

More later, and stay safe till then.

Malaysiakini.com : Dr Mansor calon PKR di Penanti

Seperti yang diduga, Timbalan Pengerusi PKR Pulau Pinang, Datuk Dr Mansor Othman, 58, tahun dipilih sebagai calon PKR bagi pilihanraya kecil DUN Penanti bulan depan.

anwar ibrahim dr mansor othman pkr candidate for penanti state seat by election 280409 03Pemilihannya diumumkan oleh Ketua Umum PKR, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim di hadapan lebih 1,000 penyokong yang memenuhi Yayasan Aman, di Penanti malam ini.

Antara pemimpin Pakatan Rakyat yang hadir ialah Ketua Menteri Pulau Pinang yang juga setiausaha agung DAP, Lim Guan Eng; Presiden PKR, Datin Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail; Pengerusi PKR negeri yang juga ahli Parlimen Bayan Baru, Zahrain Mohd Hashim; pengerusi DAP negeri dan exco kerajaan negeri, Chow Kon Yeow dan bekas timbalan ketua menteri, Mohammad Fairus Khairuddin.

Sejak Fairus mengosongkan kerusi tersebut pada 16 April lalu, tercetus spekulasi menyatakan bahawa Anwar akan memilih Dr Mansor bertanding di kerusi tersebut.

Dr Mansor, bekas profesor di Universiti Sains Malaysia, merupakan setiausaha politik Anwar ketika beliau menjadi timbalan perdana menteri dalam kerajaan pusat BN.

Suruhanjaya Pilihanraya (SPR) telah menetapkan 23 Mei sebagai hari penamaan calon manakala pengundian pada 31 Mei depan.

anwar ibrahim dr mansor othman pkr candidate for penanti state seat by election 280409 01Pada 8 April lalu, Fairus meletakkan jawatan sebagai timbalan ketua menteri 1 selepas beliau disiasat berhubung dakwaan rasuah membabitkan operasi kuari di Pulau Pinang.

Bagaimanapun, Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia (SPR) menyatakan tidak cukup bukti untuk mendakwa Fairus terhadap tuduhan tersebut.

Minggu lalu, Fairus mengulangi keputusannya untuk meletak jawatan wakil rakyat DUN Penanti.

Baca berita penuh

History of RPK's Malaysia Today

source - http://mt.m2day.org/2008/content/view/21109/84/

Soon after that, Anwar Ibrahim was released from incarceration. There was jubilation all around. My wife, Marina, and I stood on the steps of the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya, quite amused at the chanting and cheering going on. My phone rang but I could not hear properly because of the noise. I handed the phone to Marina, who has better hearing than me. “It’s the BBC from London,” she told me as she handed me back the phone.

“Hold on,” I shouted into the phone. “It’s so noisy here. Let me move to a quieter place.”

Marina and I quickly walked to the side of the Palace of Justice where it was quieter and I spoke to the chap from the BBC.

“We heard Anwar has just been released. Can we get your statement?”

“Sure, but why me?” I asked.

“Well, you are the Director of the Free Anwar Campaign and you run the freeanwar dot com website. I suppose you are now out of a job since Anwar has just been released. What do you plan to do now?”

“I suppose you could put it that way,” I laughed. “I must be the only Director who got retrenched from his job because he is successful.”

The BBC chap laughed and asked, “So what do you intend to do now, now that you have been retrenched?”

“I am going to now focus fulltime on the new website I just started three weeks ago.”

“Oh, what is it called?”

“Malaysia Today. It’s at malaysia dash today dot net.”

“You said you started this website three weeks ago? Does this mean you anticipated that Anwar would be released?”

“Yes, I did. In fact, that was one of the first articles I wrote on Malaysia Today. I said that Anwar would be released with a two-one verdict and that the lady judge would be the sole dissenting voice.”

“How did you know? Do you own a crystal ball?”

“It’s my business to know. That is what I do. I find out what people don’t know or try to hide and publish the story, while crossing my fingers in the hope that I am right.”

“So what do you hope to achieve with your new website?”

“Let me put it this way. It took us six years to free Anwar from jail. But only Anwar is free. Malaysians are not yet free. And Malaysians will never be free until they can be allowed freedom of expression and freedom of choice. It may take us 60 more years to free Malaysians, I don’t know. I may even never see that happen in my lifetime. But that is the mission and vision of Malaysia Today, to free Malaysians by allowing them freedom of expression. Freeing Anwar was phase one. Phase two is to free Malaysians.”

“Thank you Raja Petra. And I wish you luck in your new endeavour. Can we call you again if we need anything further?”

“Sure, no problem. Bye.”

That was my ‘interview’ with the BBC on the steps of the Palace of Justice on the morning of 2 September 2004. Malaysia Today was then only 20 days old. But Malaysia Today was created with a vision and a mission. It is not, as the government said, a hobby of bored and unemployed housewives. Malaysia Today was created to gain back the territory that we lost in the March 2004 general election when Barisan Nasional performed its best ever in the history of Malaysian elections.

“What do you think we are going to see?” Marina asked me. “This is going to involved a hell of a lot of work. And you are going to suffer all sorts of hassle from the police. Is it going to be worth it?”

“Hun (we call each other Hun, which is short for honey, not hantu),” I told Marina. “Come the next election, in 2008 or 2009, Malaysia Today is going to be the weapon we use to hit Barisan Nasional where it hurts most. We are going to engage Barisan Nasional in the cyber-world and use hit and run guerrilla tactics. They will be running around in circles trying to duck our hit and run attacks but they will not be able to do anything about it. By then the Internet will be the most powerful ‘terrorist’ weapon in the elections. And we will be there, ready to take on Barisan Nasional in 2008 or 2009.”

Yes, in 1998, when we first started using the Internet to fight Barisan Nasional, there were only 280,000 Internet subscribers against 8 million registered voters. Today, ten years on, there are almost 16 million Internet subscribers against 12 million registered voters.

Over the last ten years, the number of registered voters increased only 50%. However, in that same period, the number of Internet subscribers increased 328.9% (according to the official statistics). Today, the Internet reaches 62.8% of the Malaysian population. Malaysia has more Internet subscribers than it has voters. (See the statistics below).

Yes, that was our plan back in 2004 when we launched Malaysia Today. No, Malaysia Today is not a newspaper. And it is not in the same league as Malaysiakini and The Malaysian Insider. Malaysia Today is a guerrilla outfit. We are cyber terrorists. Our job is to hit the government whenever and wherever we can. And if hit and run is what it takes, then hit and run is what it will have to be.

We almost succeeded in meeting our aspirations in March 2008. But, in our books, that is a job only half done. We have to finish the job. We have to complete what we started back in 1998. And the completion would be when Barisan Nasional has been brought down from its high horse and made to eat humble pie. We will consider to have met our objective when the government admits that it serves the people, and not the people who serve the government.

On a slight digression, when I was in Kamunting from September to November last year, Marina sent me loads of books to read and one of those books was The Art of War by Sun Tzu. It was a most interesting book and took me only a day to finish. I must say that book gave me new insight into guerrilla warfare.

The government calls the Barisan Rakyat Bloggers cyber terrorists. Actually, I had never thought of it that way. I suppose, under the circumstances, since we have been classified as cyber terrorists, then we have no choice but to act as one. And terrorists must master the art of hit and run.

Malaysiakini.com : Hari mengundi DUN Penanti 31 Mei

Hari mengundi bagi kerusi DUN Penanti ditetapkan pada 31 Mei dan hari penamaan calon jatuhnya pada 23 Mei, umum Suruhanjaya Pilihan Raya (SPR).

Kerusi itu dikosongkan oleh bekas timbalan satu ketua menteri Pulau Pinang, Mohammad Fairus Khairuddin pada 16 April lalu susulan siasatan Suruhanjaya Pencegahan Rasuah Malaysia (SPRM).

Bekas ADUN PKR itu bagaimanapun tidak diseret ke mahkamah kerana SPRM tidak mempunyai cukup bukti untuk berbuat demikian.

Pengerusi SPR Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof berkata ia melarang penggunaan pondok panas dan perayu undi dalam pilihanraya kecil kali ini.

Ditanya sebab suruhanjaya itu melewatkan pengumuman tarikh-tarikh tersebut walaupun bermesyuarat Rabu lalu, beliau berkata ia tidak kena-mengena dengan mesyuarat Majlis Tertinggi (MT) Umno, Jumaat lepas.

Malaysiakini.com : PKR pecat 16 ahli lawan calon parti

PKR memecat 16 ahlinya di Kedah dan Sarawak yang terlibat mencabar calon-calonnya pada pilihanraya DUN Bukit Selambau dan DUN Batang Ai awal bulan ini.

Keputusan itu yang berkuatkuasa serta-merta dibuat sebulat suara dalam mesyuarat Majlis Pimpinan Tertingginya semalam, kata Timbalan Presiden PKR Dr Syed Husin Ali.

"Mereka ini bertanding sebagai calon menentang calon parti, menyokong calon yang menentang calon parti, mengkritik parti melalui media dan mengisytiharkan diri keluar dari parti dalam ceramah atau melalui media," katanya.

"Mereka melakukan kesalahan-kesalahan tersebut dalam pilihanraya kecil Bukit Selambau dan Batang Ai baru-baru ini."

Nama (dan bahagian) mereka seperti berikut:

1. Moganakumar Subramaniam (Merbok)
2. Jayagopal Andaikalam (Pokok Sena)
3. Abdul Hamid Othman (Padang Serai)
4. Roslan A Hamid (Padang Serai)
5. Abu Bakar Din (Baling)
6. Abdul Wahab Mat Isa (Sik)
7. Mustafa Hassan (Sik)
8. Kalaivanar Bala Sundram (Jerai)
9. Deivanai Krishnan (Jerai)
10. Abu Bakar Hamid (penaja Pendang)
11. Ahmad Ayub (penaja Pendang)
12. Azhar Ahmad (penaja Jerlun)
13. Dr Ambrose Labang (Julau)
14. Wong Kee Kai (Julau)
15. Rajang Unau (Julau)
16. Kudik Untung (Julau)

Anwar, jangan urus PKR sebagai "kedai runcit", nasihat Raja Petra

Editor Malaysia Today terus menulis walaupun dalam buangan kendiri

(mStar Online) - Editor Malaysia Today, Raja Petra Raja Kamarudin, yang telah dikeluarkan waran tangkap oleh mahkamah kelmarin, terus memuatkan tulisan beliau sambil menggesa pengunjungnya agar memberi komen yang konstruktif, bukannya ulasan yang boleh 'memusnahkan' laman web tersebut.

Malah, Raja Petra yang kini berada dalam "buangan kendiri" di luar Selangor ekoran perselisihan dengan Kerabat Diraja negeri itu menekankan, Malaysia Today bukan merupakan laman web yang propembangkang ataupun antikerajaan semata-mata.

Selain itu, dalam tulisannya semalam beliau menggesa Penasihat Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR), Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim supaya tidak menguruskan parti itu seakan-akan sebuah kedai runcit.

Beliau mengemukakan pandangan itu bagi mewajarkan bahawa Malaysia Today bukan laman web yang memuji atau mengecam satu-satu pihak sahaja.

"Tidak... Malaysia Today bukan propembangkang dan antikerajaan semata-mata.

"Apatah lagi bukan kesemua negeri berada di bawah Barisan Nasional (BN). Beberapa negeri berada bawah Pakatan Rakyat.

"Jadi, Pakatan Rakyat juga kerajaan. Dan, kita juga mengkritik kerajaan-kerajaan negeri, bermakna Paktan Rakyat," katanya.

Walaupun Pakatan Rakyat hanya berusia setahun, berbanding BN, terdapat aspek yang sudah cukup untuk dikritik.

Sebagai contoh katanya, Anwar, yang juga Ketua Umum Pakatan Rakyat, mengendalikan PKR sebagai 'entiti kawalan peribadinya'.

"Kemungkinan 10 tahun lalu, pada 1999, ia mungkin boleh diamalkan. Ketika itu, Parti Keadilan seperti kedai runcit. Jadi anda boleh kendalikan parti seperti kedai runcit," katanya.

Bagaimanapun menurut beliau, sepanjang satu dekad yang lalu PKR telah berkembang daripada sebuah "kedai runcit menjadi pasar raya besar."

"Tetapi Anwar masih menguruskan parti ini seperti kedai runcit, bukan seperti pasar raya besar yang ia telah berkembang sehingga sekarang," katanya lagi.

Beliau tidak merujuk kes-kes khusus bagi menggambarkan amalan "kedai runcit" di pihak Anwar, bekas Timbalan Perdana Menteri dan Menteri Kewangan sehingga 1998.

Sambil menekankan ia sebagai satu kegagalan Anwar, Raja Petra menulis lagi, "beliau (Anwar) menganggap beliau sebagai pemimpin seorang yang bagus."

"Seorang pemimpin yang bagus bukan hanya mengendalikan partinya seorang diri. Seorang pemimpin yang bagus adalah pemimpin yang menguruskan orang dalam parti," jelas Raja Petra yang pernah digambarkan sebagai penyokong kuat Anwar dan PKR serta Pakatan Rakyat.

Oleh itu tambah beliau, Anwar mesti belajar untuk menguruskan orang-orang di bawahnya dengan baik.

"Terdapat ramai yang berbakat dalam partinya. Turunkan tanggungjawab kepada mereka dan biarkan mereka menguruskan parti menggunakan kebijaksanaan dan pertimbangan masing-masing," katanya.

Mahkamah Sesyen di sini mengeluarkan waran tangkap terhadap Raja Petra selepas beliau tidak hadir untuk perbicaraan kes hasutannya kelmarin.

Hakim Rozina Ayob juga mengeluarkan surat tunjuk sebab kepada isteri Raja Petra, Mable @ Marina Lee, selaku penjamin.

Peguam Raja Petra, J. Chandra memberitahu mahkamah bahawa beliau tidak dapat menghubungi anak guamnya dan tidak dimaklumkan mengenai sebab penulis blog itu tidak dapat hadir.

Bagaimanapun, katanya, Raja Petra menulis alasannya pada blognya pagi kelmarin dengan menyatakan bahawa diri dalam buangan daripada negeri Selangor kerana ada isu dengan Sultan Selangor.

Raja Petra, 59, didakwa menerbitkan satu artikel bertajuk ""Let's Send Altantuya Murderers To Hell" yang mengandungi ayatayat menghasut di laman web http://www.Malaysia Today.com.Dia didakwa melakukan perbuatan itu dirumahnya di No.5, Jalan BRP 5/5, Bukit Rahman Putra, Sungai Buloh, pada 25 April tahun lepas.

Rozina menetapkan 22 Mei untuk sebutan kes.

Najib wajib bersihkan jika mahu sokongan rakyat!

Razak Baginda terlepas.
2 org UTK bakal diC4kan.

Tapi 2 soalan masih belum terjawab.
1. Siapa yang arahkan untuk membunuh?
2. Siapa yang arahkan rekod kemasukan ke Malaysia dihapuskan?

Jika Najib boleh jelaskan kepada rakyat berserta dengan bukti kukuh. Beliau akan mendapat semula sokongan rakyat!

Hukuman bunuh untuk 2 org UTK ini tidak akan menghilang rasa sangsi rakyat. Najib belum membersihkan kredibilitinya selagi 2 soalan di atas belum dilangsaikan.

Selagi teka-teki tak dijelaskan selagi itu politik negara ini akan bergolak.