Peranakan are the descendants of the very early immigrants to the British Straits Settlements of Malaya and the Dutch-controlled island of Java, who have partially adopted Malay customs in an effort to be assimilated into the local communities.
Assimilation is what lies at the base of what’s now Malaysia. And that’s how we expats are bombarded with Malaysian Tourism Ads on TV at home: Malaysia: where all races live in peace and harmony.
So why is UMNO youth putting Khairy in power who’s dagger obviously doesn’t point to peace and harmony amongst the races?
Are we expats in danger of living in a country that’s getting less and less tolerant, knowing that we are much more "unassimilated immigrants" as the other races who have were born Malaysian?
We are alarmed of the say one thing and do another. That’s our fear when we see just before the change of power to Najib our MM2H visa holders from 5 years are now allowed to extend it to 10 years. Is this for real or will it change as soon as Najib takes over?
Anyway, no need to run ahead of history: the cards will be reshuffled when Najib takes over, and then we will know.
In Ulan Batur, Mongolia, Altantuya’s eldest son Mungunshagai, 12, is traumatized by his mother’s death.
Altantuya’s youngest, Altanshagai, 5, is mentally handicapped and has not understood that he will never see his mother again.
“He asks for her all the time, sitting in wait on his chair the whole day,” says Altantuya’s father Sharibu Setev. “
Every evening, I bring him sweets and tell him that his mother gave it to me for him.”
Altantuya’s father, is trying to control his anger. To him and his family, Baginda’s acquittal and release depict Malaysia’s unjust judicial process.
“The Malaysian government is not even answering letters from the Mongolian Foreign Ministry,” he says.
When Sharibu went to Malaysia’s Parliament House to meet Najib Razak, the deputy prime minister sneaked out a back door to avoid embarrassing encounter…
1001 tears and 1 laughter …
…As for Baginda, he resettled in the United Kingdom with his family. He never uttered a word of regret about the deadly fate of the one who shared his life for two years.
The French Newspaper Liberation
…Things turned dramatic Oct. 2006. Altantuya Sharibu got word that the “commission” from French-Spanish company Armaris had arrived at a Malaysian bank account. It had been paid to Perimekar, a company owned by Abdul Razak Baginda, intermediary of deputy PM and defense minister Najib Razak.
Altantuya rushed to Kuala Lumpur to claim her share of the “commission” from Baginda; she said she was entitled to $500,000. Baginda and Altantuya had broken up prior to this. A jealous Rosmah Mansor, the feared businesswoman-wife of Najib Razak, objected to any payment to Altantuya.
Altantuya had arrived with two other Mongolian women, one of them a shaman tasked to put a spell on Baginda if he refused to pay up.
For days Altantuya harassed her ex-lover. On Oct. 18 Baginda could no longer tolerate the daily scenes she made in front of his house. He contacted Musa Safrie, the director of the Special Branch and Najib Razak’s aide de camp.
On Oct. 19 just before 9 p.m. two Special Branch agents, Azilah Hadridan and Sirul Omar, were sent to Baginda’s house where Altantuya was gesticulating and yelling outside. They had the order to “neutralize the Chinese woman.”
They kidnapped and drove her ten kilometers away and shot her several times. Then they destroyed her body with C4 explosives, a type that can only be obtained from within the Defense Ministry.
Her entry into Malaysia was erased from immigration records. It would appear that Altantuya had never come to Malaysia; no trace was left of her.
There is no perfect crime. The taxi driver hired by Altantuya for the day did not relish that his passenger was abducted before his eyes without payment for the fare.
He took note of the abductors’ car plate and filed a complaint at the local police station. Within days the
police identified the car as government-owned.
Events unfolded that even a deputy prime minister could not impede. Najib Razak tried to cover up.
A few hours before Baginda’s arrest, he sent him an SMS: “I will see the Inspector General of Police at 11 a.m. today… The problem will be solved. Stay calm.” Still Baginda was arrested, along with the two Special Branch officers, Azilah and Sirul.
After a trial considered dubious by many observers, Baginda was acquitted of ordering the murder, and released in Nov. 2008. Accused of committing the murder, Azilah and Sirul appeared in court last month. If convicted, they face death. The verdict is due on Apr. 9.
Murder or Sodomy?
The Altantuya case has become a key element of the Malaysian political game between Najib Razak and opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.
So far Najib Razak has steered around the obstacles, but the murder of the young Mongolian remains a sword hanging over his head.
Meanwhile Anwar Ibrahim has to appear in court for allegedly having sodomized a former aid of… Najib…
We all live in a yellow submarine…
An obscured facet of the Altantuya case is the role of Armaris.
In Oct. 2007 Malaysian deputy defense minister Zainal Abdidin Zin acknowledged in Parliament that Armaris had paid 114 million euros in “commission” to Baginda’s Perimekar. It was not a bribe, he maintained, but payment for “support and coordination services.”
Was there corruption as in the Taiwanese frigates in which the French DCNS firm was also implicated?
DCNS, a private company with public financing, has declined our request for a meeting. “Nobody can comment on this case,” was the curt reply of the DCNS press officer in Paris.
A document that could prove a link between Altantuya and the French company is the guarantee letter written by Baginda so that his mistress could obtain a visa to enter the Schengen zone (of which France is a member-country).
The French embassy could not refuse this favor to a man decorated with the Legion d’Honneur.
But the role of Altantuya in the submarines negotiation is still unclear. Intelligence agencies find her background intriguing and the Russian FSB (ex-KGB) is following closely the case.
As far as I understood Pak Lah before, he was going to change the power to his DPM at the end of this month.
Seems I need to improve on my Bahasa Malaysia skills, as today Pak Lah said he will have his last day in office April 2nd.
What’s the difference you might ask? Well, maybe he could change his mind again (or maybe I could have misunderstood he is going to resign in April).
Further on nothing much will change: his handpicked successor will become the next Malaysian PM and let’s just hope Abdullah did a beter job in handpicking his successor than Mahathir did.
Mahathir openly explained he had made a mistake putting his DPM in power. Well, he is to blame for his mistake.
If the people where to decide in a popular vote who would be the next PM of Malaysia, at least the people are to be blamed when they make the wrong decision.
Now the future of an entire nation is in the hands of one person: the PM – Pak Lah – to chose a DPM.
Since actual Malaysian PM is kind of sacked of his post, blamed for the terrible loss of his party at the recent elections, what makes you believe he can’t make yet another mistake by pointing to the wrong successor?
Only the future can tell, just that there is already a lot of rumbling in the political clouds before this new DPM takes over the helm of Malaysia.
In Ulan Batur, Mongolia, Altantuya’s eldest son Mungunshagai, 12, is traumatized by his mother’s death. 
As far as I understood Pak Lah before, he was going to change the power to his DPM at the end of this month.
