The Water Fight: Malaysia vs Singapore

This water-supply dispute between these two neighbours, once part and parcel of one nation, is getting hot, or rather, getting very wet for both sides of the Causeway. It is now being played out by the news media in both countries, mainly by the Malay press in Malaysia and the Straits Times of Singapore.

How bad is the dispute?

Pretty bad, if you are to hear the speech of Singapore's Foreign Minister, Mr. S. Jayakumar. He told the Singapore Parliament, "The water issue is critical to Singapore because it has grave implications for our survival.....They now even talk of war." This is heavy stuff between two countries separated by a Causeway used by citizens of both countries to visit each other's relatives most of the time.

As in all things human, it bores down to two pieces of paper signed by the two countries when they were bonded together, and the other is the divorce paper called the Separation Agreement registered with the United Nations when the marriage broke down in 1965. The two papers were the Water Agreements of 1961 and 1962 , signed by the Johor State Government and the Singapore City Council in 1961 and 1962 respectively. By then, Malaya was already an independent and sovereign nation, and Singapore had achieved self-government. It seems there is another supplementary water agreement made in 1990 relating to the building of the Linggiu dam on the Johor River and the purchase by Singapore of treated water in excess of the 250 million gallons per day (mgd) from this river.

So, what's the problem, then?

According to the Singapore Foreign Minister, the 1961 and 1962 Water Agreements were enshrined in the Separation Agreement which was registered at the United Nations.They are fundamental to the very existence of Singapore as an independent nation. Neither Singapore nor Malaysia can unilaterally change them. In Singapore's view, this is the root of the dispute.

Did the leaders of both countries sit down together like grown men to talk and try to resolve these problems, using the "bertolak ansur" approach ie compromise, which we Asians are so proud of?

Evidently they did. As early as1998, all through to end of 2002. It involved Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Dr Mahathir, Tun Daim Zainuddin, the Foreign Ministers on both sides and their ministry officials.

They did talk... and talk... but the end result after all the talking was that each side accused the other of breaking their word, upping the ante, and the other did not live up to the agreed compromise, and so forth .

Malaysia through its Foreign Minister, Syed Hamid Albar, says Singapore Government is dishing out a bunch of lies. In return, Singapore through S. Jayakumar, says Malaysia is not telling the truth.

The latest showdown is the release of a series of letters by the Singapore Government about 11 of them to the Singapore Straits Times, plus a blow-by-blow account of the water dispute by Jayakumar in Singapore Parliament on 25th January 2003.

You would not expect Malaysia's Foreign Minister, Syed Hamid Albar to take this sitting down on Jayakumar's latest salvo.

So, Syed Hamid Albar told the Malaysian Press, as quoted by Star newspaper: "They can put out as many documents as they like. Not everything they say is the gospel truth. Facts (that are) not fully represented do not necessarily represent the true situation. The 1962 agreement will not be extended, (so) there is nothing to discuss. The only thing in dispute now is the price of water. We will look at the agreements again to see what is the status, actions and laws applicable. When we write letters, we write in confidence. It is not Malaysia’s way to publicise correspondences between leaders. I am not surprised (with Singapore’s move). We have all the time acted in good faith. "

He also said both parties must look at it in a transparent way rather that misrepresenting and quoting out of context.

We, the readers, would like that to.

After all, BOTH countries have to learn to live with each other, whether they like it or not.

So this column by Anak Malaysia will, through a series of coming postings, attempt to bring out the issues, identify the grouses from both sides, then skin out the propaganda language, and try to squeeze out the facts.We make our own informed judgement of the contending positions of the two countries.

While the two fight over water, the US President is about to go to war with its massive fire power with Iraq and against anybody who he says " If you are not with us, you are with the terrorist".

Clipping the wings of ANOTHER daily newspaper

Oriental Daily News is a Chinese language newspaper owned by a Sarawakian timber tycoon Lau Hui Kang, who also controls three other dailies - See Hua Daily, Utusan Borneo and Borneo Post. This one is not internet base - you get it from the street vendors and newsagents.

It started operations just about a month ago. An addition to the community of news providers in the country.

But that's not the big news hitting the internet yesterday.

It was the bad news for its 50-odd columnists. They were told by their Editor that the newspaper from yesterday will have NO opinion of any sort i.e its 5-column opinion page, including the daily cartoon column, had been asked to be removed by the Malaysian Home Ministry.

The polite message from the Home Ministry must have been along this line: " Your paper is the new boy on the block. Just report the news, and leave out your opinions from the columnists. Let the others who had been around in the game to do that. We already got other newspapers, all giving opinions in their columns. We got the MCA-owned Nanyang Siang Pau and China Press, and the Sin Chew Jit Poh and Guangming Daily, the last two owned by our honourable MCA President's close friend, Mr. Tiong Hiew King; all of them are giving opinions all over the place in their newspapers. It can be a bit confusing for our Malaysian citizens with too many opinions. By the way, the election is coming soon, if you are not aware of it. The people need more news about the election, rather than opinions on the election. Tolonglah sikit, jagan buat susah, towkay. Sama-sama cari makan." Sounds reasonable?

How did the Editor-in-Chief, Puah You Lai, pull up the surprise on his reporters? It seemed he said with a straight face, "The removal of the page was due to an 'adjustment' " . Simple as that. No need for further comment o­n whether the daily was forced to do so due to pressure from the authorities.

Now you ask: what's wrong with these columnists in the Oriental Daily News? You see, these are the guys who had boycotted major Chinese dailies following MCA's acquisition of Nanyang Press Holdings in 2001. It seems they must be taught a lesson by the powers-that-be. (Where did I hear that before?)

According to Mr.Yong Kai Ping, one of the columnists and who is also an editor-in-chief of the Chinese magazine Perspektif Pedas, "We have faced pressure from the ministry since the very first time we wrote for Oriental Daily.Our readers also know that we write very carefully and do not criticise the government and its policies. "

No, Mr. Yong, the Home Ministry knows that you had been careful not to criticise the government. That is not the point. There are some people with strong political connections who just didn't like the idea of journalist -upstarts boycotting their newspapers and now writing for your upstart newspaper.

Here is a parallel to the malaysiakini saga. Malaysiakini is internet-based. No licence involved. Not to be seen too harsh on the poor guys in the Malaysiakini Bungsar office, the most merciful thing to do is to first teach them a lesson, like a friendly warning, by confiscating all their computers, even for a few days, and then twist the landlord's arm to boot them out of their operating premises. If that doesn't help... well, there is always the free-food and lodging option in Perak.

For the Oriental Daily News, removing their licence after barely a month in operation, is really harsh, no religion would tolerate that level of harshness. This strategy by forceful persuasion for the newspaper to ONLY report news with no Opinion Pages is ingenious.

Why don't they do that to all other newspapers in the country?

Don't ask that silly question.

Scandals in Malaysia -Movie Version:

They say in America or in UK, if you want to read juicy scandals involving big time or small time politicians and celebrities, go get yourself a tabloid newspaper, like the National Enquirer or The Sun. In Malaysia, it seems such news or gossips, depending how you look at it, are premium items, only available among the teh-tarik chattering class (the equivalent of the cappucino chattering class of the west) in the rich suburbs of Kuala Lumpur's Damansara or Ampang.

Well, if you can't get the real thing, it seems now you can get the next closest thing, ie a movie based on a combination of true-life happenings but with fictitious characters. According to the Singapore Straits Times, under its headlined piece, "Dishing the dirt on local affairs", a new magazine is out in the streets in Malaysia packed with a 74-minute VCD movie called SKANDAL.1, with Malaysian actress Nasha Aziz playing a social escort who gets involved in scandalous pursuits with VIPs and corporate figures.

This magazine and VCD package costs RM 18, produced by EXCELLENT STATUS, an outfit that started some 3 months ago. At least 14,500 copies of the magazine and VCD have been circulated.

Executive producer Azamuddin Abdul Rahim promised a sequel called Skandal.2.

The continuing saga of Malaysiakini - the online news website

The saga of malaysiakini, the online news website caused by the concern of the youth wing of the major political party, UMNO, of an apparently racially-sensitive letter to editor, began with a report to the Malaysian police by the Youth wing of UMNO. It led to the raid of the website office premises, and the confiscation of 19 computers. Adding salt to injury, the online news website was given the boot to leave its premises by end of February, 2003 , through an eviction notice by the landlord, PC Suria, a computer-product company. It is believed PC Suria is under political pressure to boot out malaysiakini from its premises.

This saga gave plentiful of commerical advertisement to malaysiakini, and to UMNO Youth's ultra-sensitivity to anything spoken about Malay special privileges and rights, in whatever form.

All in about in a week's work. Meanwhile the Prime Minister of Malaysia was out of the country in the Middle East, concerned about the coming war in Iraq.

The international media had quite a field day on the issue while the local media in Malaysia see this as a side event to the Malaysian government's priorities.