KUALA LUMPUR, May 17 — Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad will launch Volume Two of a book on a selection of his letters to world leaders during his 22-year premiership at his Perdana Leadership Foundation office in Putrajaya tomorrow.
Dr Mahathir’s Selected Letters to World Leaders is a sequel to Volume One published in 2008, which was a best seller and reprinted nine times, according to the book’s editor, Tan Sri Abdullah Ahmad.
Abdullah told Bernama today that the new book with 73 letters never before published, two more than the first edition, highlighted the 1987-2003 period of Malaysian diplomacy and international, especially between Malaysia and Singapore.
They included the correspondence between Dr Mahathir and three United States presidents George H. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush; three British prime ministers Margaret Thatcher, John Major and Tony Blair; General Pervez Musharraf and Benazir Bhutto (Pakistan), Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, Fidel Castro of Cuba and Nelson Mandela of South Africa.
But of all these letters, Abdullah described those between Dr Mahathir and his Singapore counterparts Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chong Tok as the most “astonishing and insightful”, given the long history of antipathy between both countries.
Dr Mahathir in his prologue to the book wrote that as prime minister, he tried to enlarge Malaysia’s international space and diplomacy.
“Our sovereignty and independence must remain secure so that Malaysians will have more than a decent place in the world pecking order.
“In the process of seeking a brighter future, we must not subordinate our interests to any power, big or small, and certainly not become their lackey,” he said. — Bernama
