Malaysian Maverick: Mahathir Mohamad in Turbulent Times, Barry Wain [best mystery novels of all time .txt] 📗

Soviet Union, through its embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Moreover, the article was published in a government sponsored magazine, which reported in the same issue that Razak intended to open diplomatic relations with China.

The extent of Hussein's naivete, not to mention the depth of his anti-Soviet paranoia, was apparent when he asked Abdullah Ahmad to understand he had no choice but to detain him. He said he would tell the police to hold Abdullah under house arrest for only six months. Placed in a detention camp and cut off from powerful friends, however, Abdullah was unable to defend himself against increasingly incriminating — and doctored — Special Branch reports. He spent most of the next five years locked away, two of which were in solitary confinement.[51]

Dr. Mahathir and Musa, who sat next to each other at weekly Cabinet meetings chaired by the prime minister, were aware of Ghazali's manoeuvrings. Said Musa: "When Hussein Onn says, 'This is from neutral sources', we'd nudge each other and say, 'Special Branch, Special Branch'. That's all. We knew what was going on, yes."[52] Musa said that "if Ghaz had his way, all of us would have been in" detention. It was to Hussein's credit, Musa said, that he had resisted Ghazali's recommendations that Dr. Mahathir and Musa join the others behind bars.

It was not for want of trying on Ghazali's part, though. Syed Husin Ali, a political prisoner for 19 months at a camp at Taiping in Perak state, was suddenly transferred without explanation to Kuala Lumpur in mid-1976 at the height of the anti-communist hysteria. An associate professor of anthropology and sociology at the University of Malaya, he had been detained since late 1974 for supporting protests by farmers at Baling in Kedah. Held at an unknown location in the capital, he was questioned, threatened, cursed, slapped, punched, kicked and deprived of sleep around the clock for nearly three days and nights, with only brief breaks, by teams of Special Branch officers who focused on his socialist leanings and possible communist links. One officer spat on his face repeatedly. Then, when his head ached and he was at his most vulnerable, a fresh interrogator switched subjects. "Syed," he said. "We know that you have connections with the underground. We know that you were the intermediary between underground elements with Dr. Mahathir and Musa Hitam. You must tell us about this."[53]

At the time, Syed Husin Ali was puzzled why the police wanted him to implicate Dr. Mahathir and Musa. Only much later, after he had spent six years in detention accused of helping the Communist Party and disseminating subversive ideas among students, did he figure it out. If he had been tempted to take the bait of an early release and falsely confirm their part in subversion, Ghazali Shafie would have been a giant step closer to the prime ministership.

Although the anti-communist campaign fizzled after the death in early 1977 of Syed Jaafar Albar, Dr. Mahathir lived in "constant fear of being arrested on the orders of his hidden enemies" and his succession "remained uncertain even when he was very nearly there", according to an associate.[54] Ghazali made one final attempt to discredit Dr. Mahathir. Three days before he was to be installed as prime minister, his political secretary for seven years, Siddiq Mohamed Ghouse, 43, was arrested for allegedly spying for the Soviet Union, and three Soviet diplomats were expelled from Malaysia. Ghazali said Siddiq, a journalist by training and head of an UMNO Youth branch, had sold secrets for money to KGB agents, who supplied him with cameras, bags with secret compartments and a radio they used to contact him. Siddiq had not damaged security because he did not have access to top-secret documents, Ghazali said. But Ghazali did not explain why Siddiq had been picked up only in 1981 when he had been suspected of spying since 1979. Long after, Dr. Mahathir agreed that the dramatic arrest could have been timed to stop him taking over as prime minister. "The action against Siddiq might have [had] that intention," he said. "So it would seem he was another agent of influence who has been placed in my office, and therefore I might be subject to this leftist influence."[55]

As his political allies and others were being rounded up, Dr. Mahathir had told journalist friends repeatedly he did not believe they were guilty.[56] Two weeks after becoming prime minister, with Musa as his deputy and home affairs minister, Dr. Mahathir released 21 people being held under the Internal Security Act, including those sacrificed in Ghazali's desperate bid for power. Some were broken in health, spirit and financially by the time they were freed. Others who survived incarceration in better shape, notably Samad Ismail and Abdullah Ahmad, returned to prominent positions. Samad worked as editorial adviser to his old newspaper group, received an honorary doctorate from a university that lauded him as a "champion of the Malay language, and a political activist and genuine nationalist", and was knighted by Malaysia's king.[57] Abdullah resumed his political career as a member of parliament and later was appointed editor-in-chief of the New Straits Times publishing group.

Dr. Mahathir had a fairly miserable five years as deputy prime minister, quite apart from dodging Ghazali's bullets. Although Hussein Onn had chosen Dr. Mahathir as his deputy, he did not seem to like him personally and often ignored him. In Dr. Mahathir's assessment, Hussein treated Ghazali Shafie and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah as de facto deputy premiers, consulting Ghazali on defence and security, and Tengku Razaleigh on economics, finance and party affairs.[58]

Theoretically the second most powerful man in Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir found his title counted for almost nothing with Number One. Under the impression that "I had influence with him", Dr. Mahathir went to see Hussein to persuade him not to proceed with the prosecution of Harun Idris for corruption. "He took out the file from his safe and banged it on the table," said Dr. Mahathir. "Then I realized that, although I may