A meeting with Dr Mahathir

Last Friday, a group of us from malaysiakini went to interview former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad at his office at the Perdana Leadership Foundation in Putrajaya.

It was an excellent session. He spoke about the war crimes conference he was organising. Most of the time he also spoke passionately about bringing war criminals to trial (read: Bush and Blair).

Apart from that the old man simply couldn’t stop talking about how Malaysia’s economy was being mismanaged, on how the government was sidelining Proton and Langkawi and the purchases of a new plane and super yacht.

Of course, he also spoke about his health and his new vegetarian diet. He also confirmed that he is now on doctor’s orders to stop eating thosai and chutney as coconut milk is bad for him.

It was a revealing interview and malaysiakini carried the first part today (read here and here). The second part, on local politics, will be published on Wednesday.

Below is a short interchange I had with him during the interview:

We note that there are no government representatives at the conference. Is that done purposely?

We don’t want the government to be involved because this is an NGO effort. Government ministers are bound to speak in support of government’s policies, we don’t want them to be embarrassed by the kind of stand that we take. So it is far better if they don’t get involved.

Is this initiative going against the government? We have (Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi) as the OIC and NAM chairperson (at the same time). In this sort of situation, for us to have this conference in this place, will it be perceived as something to embarrass the government?

No. This government accepts freedom of speech and accepts criticism. It is an open government.

You seriously subscribe to that?

That is what the government claims so the government must be prepared to listen to voices of dissent but if they don’t want, of course they can put a stop to this meeting. You can’t do anything (about that).

What will happen if something - as during your rule - such as Apcet II, the government comes knocking down the door to say you can’t do this (conference)? How would you react to that?

During my time, there were lots of complaints and campaigns against me, even people who stood against me, I didn’t put a stop to that. They campaigned, they said nasty things about me, even in papers, even malaysiakini, you were not very kind to me before, did I close you down? I told you don’t attend my press conference, that’s all.

But you did call us a traitor which we think was quite unwarranted.

That was my feeling at that time. You were saying something that was not fair.

There was also the police raid.

That’s my freedom of speech. As much as you can criticise me, I can criticise you.

p/s: I am not in the by-line in the story, although I wrote it, as mkini policy stipulates editors from not being named.