‘Mahathir want send to veto, anti-poor policies: Resurgence of imperialism’ slammed
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 25: Veteran Malaysian leader and Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad lashed out at Western critics of his rule on Thursday, delivering a stinging attack on globalization and its effect on poor countries.
In addition, Mr Mahathir demanded that the United Nations’ most powerful members restructure the UN Security Council as a demonstration of their commitment to freedom and fairness by moving to eliminate veto power.
The Malaysian leader, making his final address to the UN General Assembly before stepping down next month, accused the United States and Europe of seeking to re-colonize the world with excessive and unwarranted demands on countries that have gained independence since World War II.
“As independent nations we believe we have a right to manage our internal affairs ourselves without foreign interference,” said Mr Mahathir.
“We admit that there are abuses in the management of our countries by some of our governments,” he said. “But our detractors should remember that they have also abused their government’s power when they seized land belonging to the indigenous people and exterminated them, claiming that it was their ‘manifest destiny,’ ‘the white man’s burden’ to bring civilization,” Mr Mahathir said.
He said the world was now witnessing a “resurgence in European imperialism” aimed at the physical occupation of countries as well seeking their financial ruin.
“Today, we are actually faced by the old physical occupation by foreign forces, puppet regimes are installed dancing as puppets,” he added. He said the United Nations had been eviscerated by powerful states bent on controlling the world.
“It’s organs have been cut out, dissected and re-shaped so they preform the way the puppet masters want,” the prime minister said, adding that the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization had been “turned into instruments of hegemony to impoverish the poor, to enrich the rich.”
Mr Mahathir, who has had a running battle with famed international financier George Soros since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, also renewed attacks on currency traders and other speculators, calling them “brigands” and “highwaymen.”
He called for the creation of an international commission to set exchange rates and a ban on all but nominal commissions for currency traders.
The Malaysian leader then said it was time to begin a radical structuring of the Security Council.
“If we want to have democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights, the powerful must demonstrate their commitment to all these noble ideas and they can begin by restructuring of the United Nations,” he said.
In particular he said the current system in which the five permanent Security Council members wield veto power should be abolished in favor of a scheme in which two permanent members would have to secure the support of three elected members to block a resolution.
“The veto powers vested on countries which had won a war 50 years ago should be removed,” Mr Mahathir told reporters after his address.
In time, though, even that revised system should be scrapped in favor of majority votes, he said.—AFP
US WAR ON IRAQ: Muslims around the world have turned against the United States because of its war on Iraq, Mr Mahathir said on Wednesday, adds Reuters.
He also rejected a suggestion he might be the next secretary-general of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.
“I think they have done the wrong thing. They have aggravated matters,” the outgoing leader of the predominantly Muslim country told the Financial Times newspaper in an interview, referring to the United States.
“There is a great deal more anger today in the Muslim world than after the 11th of September. After the 11th of September, there was quite a lot of sympathy for what happened to the US, but now it’s all vanished,” he said referring to the 2001 attacks on the US.
Mahathir, long a critic of the US-led war on Iraq, is due to step down later this year and hand power to his deputy, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
He said he would not take a role as a senior minister. He also rejected a suggestion he might be the next secretary-general of the OIC.
“I don’t want to escape from the frying pan into the fire,” he said. “I’ve had enough of boiling, cooking in the last 23 years, and I’m not going to involve myself in that.”
UNITED NATIONS, Sept 25: Veteran Malaysian leader and Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad lashed out at Western critics of his rule on Thursday, delivering a stinging attack on globalization and its effect on poor countries.
