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| Taib - time the FBI placed him under the microscope |
Secret US Government documents have stood up
Sarawak Report’s allegations about corruption in Sarawak.
A
dossier of US Embassy dispatches to Washington, compiled by the Bruno
Manser Foundation from the Wikileaks site, has now revealed
that the United States Government has
been well-informed about the extent of Taib Mahmud’s abuse of power
in the state.
For example,
one confidential cable from the US embassy in Malaysia to the State
Department in Washington, dated 13 October 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 Alfred Jabu
and James Masing, the report also says 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.
The
US embassy’s Political Section Chief, Mark D.Clark, concluded:
“the Sarawak state government remains highly corrupt and firmly in
the hands of its chief minister. The $82 million state assembly building now
under construction serves as perhaps the most obvious and extreme example of
the self-enrichment of the state’s chief minister and other senior government
officials.”
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| Self-enrichment - the US dispatch singled out the State Parliament building as a typical example of how Taib uses state contracts to enrich himself. He awarded the contract to his own family firm CMS |
The report also notes how the Chief Minister
and his government have failed to safeguard the human rights of its most
vulnerable citizens after 30 years in power.
It
outlines how the human rights group Suhakam told US officials
that 15,000 Penan tribe members lack electricity, water treatment and
schools and criticized the federal and state governments for not
fulfilling their promises to provide access to primary education for all
citizens.
Corrupt deal with BN
A
further US Embassy dispatch in November 2009 presented more damaging
evidence, describing how BN have allowed Taib to run roughshod over the
state in return for providing the ‘safe deposit’ of seats that have enabled the
coalition to cling to power for over 50 years.
The
cable explains:
“Chief Minister Taib Mahmud remains unchallenged after 27
years in office, his government doles out timber-cutting permits while
patrolling the under-developed state using 14 helicopters, and his
family’s companies control much of the economy.”
The
report relates how US embassy officials were received by then Deputy Chief
Minister George Chan “at his newly built mansion next to Kuching’s most
exclusive golf course“. Chan told them that the Federal Government had been
“pouring millions of ringgit” for development into Sarawak. He described
the allocation as a form of ‘gratitude’ to the Sarawak state government
for “delivering the seats to secure the BN’s majority at the Federal
level.”
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| Sarawak's off-shore oil wealth - syphoned straight to mainland Malaysia. |
To the contrary, Sarawak, in
fact receives a miserable allocation of federal resouces in comparison to
the rich revenues it provides to central government.
Of a
total of RM109 billion of state spending last year, only RM9 billion went to
the two East Malaysian States of Sabah and Sarawak, which had provided the bulk
of that revenue.
Likewise,
only 5% of the entire oil revenue from Sarawak and Sabah is allowed to be retained
locally. The remaining 95% is taken by KL.
As
these US dispatches make evident, as long as Taib has delivered
Sarawak’s safe seats and the oil revenues, BN has been willing to allow the
local dictator to take what he wants and exert absolute power.
This includes the blatant election rigging for which Taib has become notorious.
Growing series of questions for the FBI
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| FBI's North Western Headquarters, the Abraham Lincoln Building in Seattle, is owned by Taib. |
The result of these latest revelations will
be to further intesify pressure on America’s top law enforcement and
anti-corruption agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to
investigate its own connections with the Taib family.
Last
year Sarawak Report exclusively reported that the Abraham Lincoln building in
Seattle, Washington State, which houses the agency’s North Western Headquarters,
is owned by Taib and his family.
To enter the top secret
facility requires the highest level of security clearance and
it handles counter-terrorism and South East Asian affairs. Yet
according to our information, confirmed by California Superior Court
depositions in 2008, the shareholders of the company Wallysons Inc,
which owns the building, are three of Taib’s children, Jamilah, Rahman
Sulaiman and Abu Bekir Mahmud Taib, as well as two of his brothers Onn and Arip
Mahmud (now deceased). [See our reports on Sakti US,
andTaib's US
foreign properties , also documents provided by former Taib
aidRoss
Boyert]
Despite
this evidence the FBI has ignored requests that they review
their tenancy.
This
further evidence that the US Government’s own records
have long since made clear that the Taib family are indeed corrupt
and that their wealth and properties are the proceeds of an illegal abuse
of power, can surely not be so easily ignored?
Over
the past several months, even Malaysia’s own Anti Corruption Commission has
launched its own investigation into Taib’s affairs. Our own reports have
illustrated that there are no legitimate means by which the Chief Minister
could have legally acquired the multi-million dollar building, since neither he
nor his family had independent sources of wealth.
Time to investigate
Under
these circumstances Sarawak Report now challenges the FBI, as the US’s top
law enforcement agency, to launch an immediate review into why one of
its main headquarters is located in a building that is the
likely product of money laundering.
It is
time the FBI also reviewed why no investigation has so far been launched
into the Taib family’s extensive string of assets in North America? With
Malaysia already investigating the Chief Minister and an investigation already
underway in Switzerland, it is high time the United States acted on its own
evidence and led by example.
The
Bruno Manser Foundation in Switzerland has launched a petition this week
to stop the FBI supporting corruption in Sarawak. You too can sign
by clicking below:
have
been requesting that the FBI conduct an immediate enquiry for the past year
Source : Sarawak Report
EmpireMoney.com
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