ANTIDOTE Sarawak Chief Minister Abdul Taib Mahmud has won an apology from the lawyers of two state PKR leaders, See Chee How and Wan Zainal Abidin Wan Senusi, over a political incident in 2007.

NONE Wan Zainal ( right ), a chartered accountant and See, a lawyer, had distributed leaflets to the public, alleging that Japanese timber importers had paid RM32 million worth of kickbacks to a company connected to Taib’s family.

In exchange for this apology, Taib withdrew his libel lawsuit against See, a state PKR vice-president, and Wan Zainal, its deputy chairperson for communications.

Taib, reported by the Bruno Manser Fund, a Swiss NGO, to be Malaysia’s wealthiest man , did not claim any costs. High Court judge David Wong Dak Wah allowed Taib’s application to end the libel action yesterday morning.

NONE See ( left ) and Wan Zainal had distributed leaflets in three languages in central Kuching on April 11, 2007, repeating news reports in Malaysiakini and Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun , that had alleged corrupt kickbacks in the imports of Sarawakian timber into Japan.

According to the reports, Regent Star, a shell company registered in Hong Kong, and said to be linked to Taib’s brother Onn Mahmud, had received sweetener payments from a Japanese timber import cartel, in order to ease the importers’ tax burden.

Inexplicably, the Tokyo Regional Tax Bureau then reversed its decision that these enormous payments amounted to corruption and tax evasion.

“That is a mystery. It was (the Tokyo tax office’s) decision at first that the kickbacks were not legitimate expenses, but should be paid out from profits. The next moment, they decided that kickbacks were, in fact, an expense!” See said.

A bemused Malaysiakini had to apologise in January for publishing its articles linking Taib to timber graft, following the Tokyo tax authorities’ U-turn, and the death in 2009 of Tony Thien, the writer of the articles. In return, Taib dropped his libel action against the news portal.

‘Anathema to Taib’

“We defendants, Wan Zainal and myself, made an agreed statement in court which contained no apologies, but immediately after the agreed statement, our lawyers made an apology - this was intentional,” See explained, with a trace of a smile.

See, the PKR state assembly representative for Batu Lintang, is anathema to Taib and his business coterie.

Together with state PKR chairperson Baru Bian, See has won a string of native customary land rights cases against Taib’s government. These widely publicised victories of peasants over gargantuan plantation and timber companies have somewhat weakened the traditional support of rural voters for Taib’s ruling BN coalition.

See and Wan Zainal stated in court that that the offending leaflet had been based purely on the articles published in Malaysiakini , which were in turn based solely on the reports published in several Japanese newspapers at the time.

“Basically, the reversal of the decision of the Tokyo tax office rendered me defenceless,” See stated candidly. “But I will not be deterred from continuing to comment or publish reports on any corrupt practices and wrongdoings of any BN leaders, and I’ll be ready with a full exposé on these issues, coming soon.”

All the same, the apologies from Malaysiakini and the two PKR leaders will do little to restore Taib’s credibility, following relentless revelations of his unseemly wealth and dubious land deals.

Amidst the waves of embarrassing financial scandals swirling around Taib, winning this libel campaign over the Regent Star affair may resemble shifting deck chairs on the Titanic .

Moreover, the protracted libel action has drawn further media attention to Taib, and the international allegations against him of corrupt practices - attention he would rather avoid, with parliamentary elections approaching in the coming months.

Taib’s victory recalls the ancient quote attributed to Pyrrhus, after the king of Epirus had lost a vast, irreplaceable part of his army in winning a brutal battle over the Romans: “Another such victory and I am undone.”

KERUAH USIT is a human rights activist - ‘ anak Sarawak, bangsa Malaysia ’. This weekly column is an effort to provide a voice for marginalised Malaysians. Keruah Usit can be contacted at keruah_usit@yahoo.com