OCTOBER 24 ― The Federation of Malaya became a member of the United Nations (UN) within three weeks of Merdeka, and later Malaysia was recognised as its successor state.
In a royal address to the Federal Legislative Council in September 1957, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Abdul Rahman said: “My government ... does not propose to dissipate the resources of the country by building up an elaborate foreign service... in the field of external affairs [we will be] on the most friendly terms with all countries in the world.”
The then External Affairs Ministry secretary-general (Tun) Ghazali Shafie (later foreign affairs minister) confirmed that “towards the maintenance of international peace and security the federation government is pledged to uphold the Charter of [the] United Nations.”
The Alliance Party’s manifesto for the 1959 elections stated the same.
Tunku Abdul Rahman was the first external affairs minister, while (Tun) Dr Ismail Abdul Rahman was ambassador to both the US and the UN (where he became the first person to bring a keris into the general assembly).
In 1959, the latter returned to Malaya and took over as external affairs minister.
The two men were soon to have a spat over recognition over the People’s Republic of China, and Dr Ismail became internal security minister instead.
The world has changed since those two men forged our foreign policy, and so have the natural sympathies of our leaders: they were unapologetically pro-West and anti-communist, while subsequent leaders have proved less ideological and more malleable to public attitudes.
Throughout, however, engagement with the UN has grown.
The UN in Malaysia website describes the local context of seven of its agencies or programmes — UNDP, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNHCR, WHO, UNU and WFP — but UNDSS, UNAIDS, UNIDO, UNESCO, UN Women and OHCHR also have agency heads in Malaysia.
Additionally, we’re a member of UNCTAD, UNCITRAL, FAO, ICAO, IFAD, ILO, IMO, ITU, UPU, WIPO, WMO and UNWTO.
Many of these come under the UNDG and most of them are coordinated by ECOSOC (which a Malaysian headed in 2010).
We’re also a member of the IMF and WBG, which are technically part of the UN system, as well as CTBTO Prep Com, OPCW, IAEA and WTO which maintain strong relations with the UN.
Don’t confuse UNHCR with UNCHR (where Dato’ Param Cumaraswamy served as a special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers from 1994 to 2003), which was replaced by UNHRC in 2006, of which Malaysia was a member 2009-2012.
This new body is supervised by OHCHR, where a Malaysian serves as a member of one of the working groups.
No Malaysian judge has ever sat in the UN-established ICJ nor the ICC (which is separate but cooperates with the UN) — we are not a signatory of the Rome Statute that established the latter.
However, the Malaysian Armed Forces have participated in 30 UN peacekeeping operations (each with its own acronym of course) involving 29,000 personnel since 1960.
At the highest levels of the UN system, Malaysia supplied the president of the UN General Assembly in 1996 through Tan Sri Razali Ismail, who later served as the UN secretary-general’s special envoy for Myanmar from 2000 to 2005 (and whom I have since had the pleasure of working with in Yayasan Chow Kit’s Board of Trustees).
Malaysians served as president of the UN Security Council five times during the three periods when Malaysia was a non-permanent member — 1965, 1989-1990 and 1999-2000.
Despite this extensive engagement with the UN since Merdeka, the recent victory in being elected as a non-permanent member of the Security Council for 2015-2016 on Oct 16 was squeezed for political capital. (Yes, we got more votes as compared to past elections, but Angola still beat us! Of course there are also criticisms of structural weaknesses within the UN and the innovative ways in which member states secure votes).
Foreign analysis tempering the vote was also downplayed — international opinion only counts when it’s friendly.
Wisma Putra worked hard in its campaign, which included our prime minister’s speech at the UN general assembly last month.
He ended with a denunciation of the Islamic State, and furthermore: “an international conference of scholars of Islamic law, convened by my government to define the true meaning of an Islamic state, agreed that for a state to be called ‘Islamic’, it must deliver economic, political and social justice; and it must protect and further the six objectives of Islamic law: the right to life, religion, family, property, dignity, and intellect — the same universal rights enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights.”
If only our domestic policy was as self-assured, and invoked such unequivocal references to our foundational documents.
*This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
