The following is the text of a controversial address
by Mahathir Mohamad (Dr Mahathir Mohamad is a former prime minister
of Malaysia) at Suhakam's Human Rights Conference on 09/09/2005,
which led to the walkout of a number of diplomats and made news all
over the world:

I would like to thank Suhakam for this honor to address you on a
subject that you have more knowledge and experience than I do. You
are concerned with human rights or hak assai manusia. And it is only
right that as a civilized society and nation we should all be
concerned with human rights in our country and in fact in the world.
But human rights should be upheld because they can contribute to a
better quality of life. To kill 100,000 people because you suspect
that the human rights of a few have been denied seem to be a
contradiction. Yet the fanaticism of the champions of human rights
have led to more people being deprived of their rights and many
their lives than the number saved. It seems to me that we have lost
our sense of proportion.
With civilization advances it is only right that the human
community try to distinguish itself more and more from those of the
other creatures created by God which are unable to think, to reason
and to overcome the influence of base desires and feelings.
Submission to the strong and the powerful was right in the animal
world and in primitive human societies. But the more advance the
society the greater should be the capacity to think, to recognize
and evaluate between right and wrong and to choose between these
based on higher reasoning power and not just base feelings and
desires.
The world today is, in the sense of the ability to make right
choices, still very primitive. For example those who claim to be the
most civilized still believe that the misfortune which befall them
as a result of the actions by their enemies are wrong but the
misfortune that they inflict on their enemies are right. This is
seen from the concern and anger over the death of 1,700 US soldiers
in Iraq but the death of a hundred times more of Iraqis as a result
of the military invasion and occupation of Iraq and the civil war
precipitated by the imposition of democratic elections are not even
mentioned.
There is no tally of Iraqi deaths but every single death of a US
soldier is reported to the world.
These are soldiers who must expect to be killed. But the Iraqis who
die because of US action or the civil war in Iraq that the US has
precipitated are innocent civilians who under the dictatorship of
Saddam Hussein would be alive.
You and I read reports of the death of Iraqis with equanimity as if
it is right and just. You and I do not react with anger and horror
over this injustice, this abuse of the rights of the Iraqis to live;
to be free from terror including state initiated terror.
Prior to the invasion of Iraq on false pretences, 500,000 infants
died because sanctions deprived them of medicine and food/ Asked by
the press, Madeline Albright, then US secretary of state, whether
she thought the price was not too high for stopping Saddam Hussein's
dictatorship, she said it was difficult but the price (death of
500,000 children) was worth it.
At the time this was happening where were the people who are
concerned with human rights? Did they expose the abuses of Britain
and America? Did they protest against their own governments? No. It
is because they, the enemy, are killed. That is acceptable. But
their own people must not be killed. To kill them is to commit acts
of terror.
Yet what is an act of terror. Isn't it any act that terrifies
people? Are not the people terrified at the idea of being bombed and
killed? Those who are to be killed by exploding bombs know they
would have their bodies torn from their heads and limbs. Some will
die instantly no doubt. But many would not. They would feel their
limbs being torn from their bodies, their guts spilled on the ground
through their turned abdomen. They would wait in terrible pain for
help that may not come. And they would again experience the terror,
expecting the next bomb or rocket. And those who survive would know
the terror of what would, what could happen to them personally when
the bombers come again, tomorrow, the day after, the week or month
after.
They would know that they could be next to having their heads torn off
from their bodies, their limbs too. They would know that they would
die violently or they would survive in horrible pain, minus arms,
minus legs, maimed forever. And yet the bombings would go on. In
Iraq for 10 years between the Gulf War and the Iraq invasion, the
people lived in terrible fear. They were terrorized. Have they any
rights? Did the people of the world care?
The British and American bomber pilots came, unopposed, safe and
cozy in their state-of-the-art aircrafts, pressing buttons to drop
bombs, to kill and maim real people who were their targets, just
targets.
And these murderers, for that is what they are, would go back to
celebrate `Mission accomplished'.
Who are the terrorists? The people below who were bombed or the
bombers? Whose rights have been snatched away?
I relate this because there are not just double standards where
human rights are concerned, there are multiple standards. Rightly we
should be concerned whether prisoners and detained foreign workers in
this country are treated well or not. We should be concerned whether
everyone can exercise his right to vote or not, whether the food
given to detainees are wholesome or not, indeed whether detention
without trial is a violation of human rights or not.
But the people whose hands are soaked in the blood of the innocents,
the blood of the Iraqis, the Afghans, the Panamanians, the
Nicaraguans, the Chileans, the Ecuadorians; the people who
assassinated the presidents of Panama, Chile, Ecuador; the people
who ignored international law and mounted military attacks, invading
and killing hundreds of Panamanian in order to arrest Noriega and to
try him not under Panamanian laws but under their own country's law,
have these people a right to question human rights in our country,
to make a list and grade the human rights record of the countries of
the world yearly, these people with blood-soaked hands.
They have not questioned the blatant abuses of human rights in
countries that are friendly to them. In fact they provide the means
for these countries to indulge in human rights abuses.
Israel is provided with weapons, helicopter gun ships, bullets coated
with depleted uranium to wage war against people whose only way to
retaliate is by committing suicide bombing. The Israeli soldiers
were well-protected with body amour, operated from armored tanks
and armored bulldozers, to rocket and bomb the Palestinian and
demolish their houses while the occupants were still inside.
Israel has nuclear weapons but it was provided with bombers to bomb
so-called nuclear research facilities in other countries. And as
with American and British actions, the Israeli bombs and rockets
tore up the living Palestinians, Iraqis and soon Syrians and
Iranians, without the slightest consideration that the people they
killed have rights, have human rights to their lives, to security
and peace.
Then there are other friends of these terrorist nations who abuse
the rights of their own people, deny them even the simplest
democratic rights, jailing and executing their people without fair
trial but are not criticized or condemned.
But when countries are not friendly with these great powers, their
governments claim they have a right to expend money to subvert the
government, to support the NGOs to overthrow the government, to
ensure only candidates willing to submit to them win. Already we are
seeing elections in which candidates wanting to stay independent
being rejected while only those ready to submit to these powers
being allowed to contest and to win.
There was a time when nations pledged not to interfere in the
internal affairs of other countries. As a result many authoritarian
regimes emerged which committed terrible atrocities. Cambodia and
Poll Pot is a case in mind. Because of the principle of non-
interference in the internal affairs of countries, two million
Cambodians died horrible deaths.
There is a case for interference. But who determines when there is a
case? Is this right to be given to a particular superpower? If so,
can we be assured the superpower would act in the best interest of
the country concerned, in order to uphold human rights.
Saddam Hussein was tried by the media and found guilty of oppressing
his people. But that was not the excuse for invading Iraq. The
excuse was that Iraq threatened the world with weapons of mass
destruction (WMD).
Specifically Britain was supposed to be threatened with WMD capable
of hitting it within 45 minutes of the order being given by Saddam.
As we all know it was a lie. Every agency tasked with verifying the
accusation that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction could not
prove it. Even the intelligence agencies of the US and Britain said
that there was no weapon of mass destruction that Saddam could
threaten the US or Britain or the world with. And today, after
months of thorough search without Saddam and his people getting in
the way, no WMD has been found.
Yet the US and UK took it upon themselves to invade Iraq in order to
remove an allegedly authoritarian government. The result of the
invasion is that many more people have been killed and injured than
Saddam was ever accused of. Worse still, the powers which are
supposed to save the Iraqi people have broken international laws on
human rights, by detaining Iraqis and others and torturing them at
Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.
So can we accept that these big powers alone have a right to
determine when to interfere in the internal affairs of other
countries to protect human rights?
Malaysia is concerned about human rights within its borders. It does
not need the interference of foreign powers before it sets up
Suhakam, a body dedicated to overseeing and ensuring that there are
no abuses of human rights within its borders.
People in Malaysia seem to be quite happy. They can work and do
business and make as much money as they like. There is no
restriction on the freedom to move about, to go abroad even.
They have political parties that they are free to join, whether
these are pro-government or anti-government. They can read
newspapers, which support or oppose the government. While the local
electronic media is supportive of the government, no one is
prevented from watching or listening to foreign broadcasts which are
mostly critical of the government.
Foreign newspapers and magazines are freely available. In fact many
foreign papers, like the International Herald Tribune and Asian Wall
Street Journal are printed in Malaysia and are freely available to
Malaysians. Then there is the Internet which no one seems able to
stop even if libelous lies are screened.
Periodically, without fail there would be elections in Malaysia.
Anyone and everyone can participate in these elections. The
campaigns by both sides are vigorous and hard-hitting. And the
results show quite clearly that despite accusations against the
government of undemocratic practices, many opposition candidates
would win. In fact several states were lost to the opposition
parties. Not one of the winning opposition candidates has been
charged in court and found guilty of some minor breaches of the
election procedure and prevented from taking his seat in Parliament
as happens in a certain country.
But all these notwithstanding, Malaysia is accused of having a
totalitarian government during the 22 years of my premiership. That
I had released detainees on assumption of office as prime minister
and I had used the ISA sparingly does not mitigate against the
accusation that I was a dictator, an abuser of human rights.
And not using the ISA, not detaining a person without trial would
not help either. And so when a former DPM was charged in court,
defended by nine lawyers and found guilty through due process, all
that was said was that there was a conspiracy, the court was
influenced and manipulated and the trial was a sham. So you are
damned if you use the ISA, and you are damned if you don't use the
ISA.
In the eyes of these self-appointed judges of human behavior
worldwide, you can never be right no matter what you do, if they do
not like you. If they like you, a court decision in your favor,
even on laughable grounds, would be right.
Those are the people who now seem to appropriate to themselves the
right to lay down the ground rules for human rights and who have
appointed themselves as the overseers of human rights credentials of
the world.
And now these same people have come up with what they call
globalization. In the first place who has the right to propose and
interpret globalization? It is certain that globalization was not
conceived by the poor countries. It was conceived, interpreted and
initiated by the rich.
The globalize world is to be without borders. But if countries have
no borders surely the first thing that should happen is that people
would be able to move from one country to another without any
conditions, without papers and passports. The poor people in the
poor countries should be able to migrate to the rich countries where
there are jobs and opportunities.
But it has been made clear that globalization, borderless ness are
not for people but for capital, for currency traders, for
corporations, for banks, for NGOs concerned over so-called human
rights abuses, over lack of democracy, etc. The flow is, as you can
see, only in one direction. The border crossing will be done by the
rich so as to be able to benefit their business, banks, currency
traders, their NGOs, for human rights and for democracy.
There will be no flows in the opposite direction, from the poor
countries to the rich, the flow of poor people in search of jobs,
the NGOs concerned with human rights abuses in the rich and powerful
countries where the media self-censors to promote certain parties,
where dubious voting results are validated by tame courts. There
will be no flow of colored people to white countries. If they
succeed they would be apprehended and sent to isolated islands in the
middle of the ocean or if they manage to land, they would be
accommodated behind razor-wire fence. It is all very democratic and
caring for the rights of man.
If we care to look back, we will recognize globalization for what it
is. It is really not a new idea at all. Globalization of trade took
place when the ethnic Europeans found the sea passages to the West
and to the East. They wanted trade, but they came in armed
merchantmen with guns and invaded, conquered and colonized their
trading partners.
If the indigenous people were weak, they would just be liquidated,
shot on sight, their land taken and new ethnic European countries
set up. Otherwise they would be made a part of empires where the sun
never sets, their resources exploited and their people treated
with disdain.
The map of the world today shows the effect of globalization, as
interpreted by the ethnic Europeans in history. There was no US,
Canada, Australia, Latin America, New Zealand until the Europeans
discovered the sea passages and started global trade.
Before the Europeans, there were Arab, Indian, Chinese and Turkic
traders. There was no conquest or colonization when these people
sailed the seas to trade. Only when the Europeans carried out world
trade were countries invaded, human rights abused, genocide
committed, empires built and new ethnic European nations created on
land belonging to others.
These are historical facts. Would today's globalization not result
in weak countries being colonized again, new empires created, and
the world totally hegemonies. Would today's globalization not
result in human rights abuses?
In today's world 20 percent of the people own 80 percent of the
wealth. Almost two billion people live on one US dollar a day. They
don't have enough food or clothing or a proper roof over their
heads. In winter, many of these people would freeze to death. The
people of the powerful countries are concerned about our abuses of
human rights.
But shouldn't we be concerned over the uneven distribution of wealth
which deprived two billion people of their rights to a decent
living, deprived by the avarice of those people who seem so
concerned about us and the unintended occasional lapses that has
resulted in abuse of human rights in our country.
We should condemn human rights abuses in our country but we must be
wary of the people who want to destabilize us because we are too
independent and we have largely succeeded in giving our people a
good life, and despite all the criticism, we are more democratic
than most of the friends of the powerful nations of the world.
The globalization of concern for the poor and the oppressed is sheer
hypocrisy. If these people who appears to be concerned are faced
with the situation that we in Malaysia have to face sometimes, their
reactions and responses are much worse than us. At Guantanamo
detention camp the detainees, some of whom are not even remotely
connected with terrorism, are tortured and humiliated. At Abu
Ghraib, the most senior officers actually sanctioned the inhuman
treatment of the detainees.
When forced by world opinion to take action against those
responsible for these reprehensible acts, the
culprits were either found not guilty or given light sentences. They
were tried by their own courts under their own laws. Their victims
were not represented. The countries where the crimes were committed
were denied jurisdiction. Altogether the whole process was so much
eyewash. Yet these are the countries and the people who claim that
Malaysian courts are manipulated by the government, that abuses of
rights are rampant in Malaysia. And Malaysian NGOs, media and others
lapped it up.
We must fight against abuses of human rights. We must fight for
human rights. But we must not take away the rights of others, the
rights of the majority. We must not kill them, invade and destroy
their countries in the name of human rights. Just as many wrong
things are done in the name of Islam and also other religions, worse
things are being done in the name of democracy and human rights. We
must have a proper perspective of things. Two wrongs do not make one
right. Remember the community has rights too, not just the
individual or the minority.
We have gained political independence but for many the minds are
still colonized.

__________________
نہ تیرا پاکستان ہے , نہ میرا پاکستان ہے , یہ اس کاپاکستان ہے , جو صدرپاکستان ہے