http://www.freeanwar.com/updates/../facnews/facnews290801b.htm

FAC News - 29 August 2001

Malaysia the Pariah of Washington

Malaysia is so predictable. It would ignore something if it is false, and deny it if it is true. And it uses the government-controlled media to do this.

On Sunday, 27 August 2001, the New Sunday Times published a denial by Amy Ridenour - President of the National Center for Public Policy Research - that the Malaysian government had paid her to write a report uncomplimentary to Anwar Ibrahim. Amy's report was featured in the Washington Times of 15 August 2001 and carried by all the Malaysian newspapers the following day.

According to Free Anwar Campaign (FAC) contacts in Washington, the National Center for Public Policy Research was unknown and nobody knew who they were until the report came out on 15 August. The center is merely a hole-in-the-wall, husband and wife, operation that would publish anything it is paid to - even that smoking is good for you if the price is right.

Our contacts added that, between October to December 2000, the Malaysian Embassy frantically approached a few media consultant firms to negotiate their services to conduct a media campaign against Anwar who has wide support in the US, especially from amongst the Muslim community. This campaign was meant to retaliate against the disaster that Mahathir faced at the hands of ISNA in August 2000.

None of the firms approached, however, would take the assignment and, out of desperation, Malaysia was forced to turn to the National Center for Public Policy Research and prayed no one would notice they had no track record to speak of. But Washington is not as big as some people think - in fact, it is quite small - and they were immediately exposed, much to the embarrassment of the Malaysian government.

According to the talk in Washington, none of the media firms in the city wanted to touch the Malaysian government on a project it saw as doomed from the start. Mahathir's anti-Semitic remarks have also not gone unnoticed and none of the firms approached wanted to risk antagonizing the Jewish community by taking Malaysia on as its client.