Pulau Batu Puteh: An International Black Eye

Occupied as I was with matters within Malaysia, I must admit that I paid little attention to the contention between Singapore and Malaysia in regards to who possesses the rights of sovereignty over Pulau Batu Puteh, which is also called Pedra Branca by the Singaporeans. That is, until recently.

Curious, I read through the various articles in Malaysian and Singaporean dailies, and I must say that it is indeed a confusing morass of missing documentation, claims of breaches in territorial agreements, aged historical texts and last but not least accusations of purposely misplaced letters, all packaged with snide remarks and false smiles.

I have even read through the opening statement made by Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Mohamad, who represents Malaysia, and Deputy Prime Minister S Jayakumar, who represents Singapore; and I must say that these statements did indeed raise my eyebrows. While unfamiliar with international litigation, I personally disapprove of Malaysia's highhanded manner in asserting its claims over this island.

The fact that both sides have points to contemplate is true, but any debate that starts off with a statement that one's closest neighbour - with whom one dearly loves and have continued good ties with - has been lying through their teeth isn't quite the way to go.

As such, it was not much of a surprise to read Deputy Prime Minister S Jayakumar's opening statement in second round of oral pleadings, which is as follows:

"During Singapore's first round oral pleadings, we have focused our presentations purely on legal and factual issues in dispute between the parties. We have carefully avoided mentioning extraneous matters that may affect the integrity of the proceedings before this honourable Court. In view of the good relations between the two countries, we had expected Malaysia to do likewise.

"We are therefore surprised and disappointed that Malaysia has in her oral pleadings, made a series of allegations and insinuations against Singapore. These are of a nature which, unless rebutted, would impeach or diminish Singapore's integrity or could impress on the minds of the Members of the Court that there could be dire consequences for relations in the region if the dispute were decided in favour of Singapore."

The fact that the Singaporean government would stoop at nothing to lay claim over land is of course a foregone conclusion to any decent - or indecent - Malaysian. But on reading the opening statements of each representative, I unfortunately have to agree with Deputy Prime Minister S Jayakumar that our opening statement was perhaps rather unwisely said.

Through the eyes of the NST, most Malaysians are reassured that we have indeed sealed our claim over Pulau Batu Puteh through prominent headlines like "No evidence from Singapore to support claim of sovereignty over Pulau Batu Puteh", "Islands part of Johor Sultanate", "S'pore 'failed to show it has sovereignty over islands", "Malaysia optimistic of success", and capped with the more subdued "S'pore: Malaysia had zero activities".

However, I would personally be more reassured if our Malaysian representatives had not kindly decided to first put one foot, and then the other foot in our nation's mouth, landing us squarely on our internationally battered bums.

For while our Singaporean counterparts - being the 'backward' and 'untrustworthy buggers' that they are - have been scouring 'unlikely' sources of evidence like libraries, upending rusted file cabinets looking for dusty documents and crackling old newspapers, Malaysia - being the 'modern' and 'sophisticated' gentlemen that we are - have turned to online sources to introduced new 'evidence' to back up our claims to the island.

And the new evidence introduced? An picture taken from an blogs site.

That our country has to resort to quoting from blogsites for reasons other than to invoke the ISA or the OSA is reassuring, but surely there are some out there who know that while blogs are to some point valid sources of opinions and information, there are limits, especially when that evidence is to be produced at the International Court of Justice at the Hague!

As you would have it, the picture was - to be gently said - proven to be inaccurate.

Given the amount of sweat and spittle that has been produced from these proceedings in front of the International Court of Justice through historical texts and political maneuverings, to have it all beggered by an unsubstantiated, uncorroborated picture that was ever so lightly taken off the world wide web from some anonymous blogspot created less than a month ago, is painful beyond belief.

Given the fact that Malaysia had a 50-man legal team headed by adviser for Foreign Affairs to the Prime Minister, Tan Sri Abdul Kadir Mohamed (The Star, Monday, August 20, 2007), I would have thought we could have come up with something more concrete than this, but sadly that is not the case.

The fact that the Malaysian delegation to the International Court of Justice have added greater substantiation to the claims of Singapore that our nation is using underhanded tactics - when they themselves would not be above doing so - to lay claim over Pulau Batu Puteh is undeniable, and a blow to our national pride.

Detractors point to this international faux pas as exemplifying the typical attutides of the ruling coalition in its internal governance of Malaysia. Regardless, lets all shout hurrah!, for Malaysia is once again in the international eye, albeit with a black one we gave ourselves. :(