By Hussein Hamid

I will not refer to the Police as PDRM – it is an affront to our Seri Paduka Baginda Yang di-Pertuan Agong to do so. There is nothing Royal about the Police.

PDRM is an instrument of the state. PDRM takes instructions from their political masters and what they do reflects the instructions given to them by their political masters who are the legitimate authority of our country (at least for the time being).

But I am getting ahead of myself here. Let us back up a bit.

Have you not seen a mata mata jump to attention when an Inspector comes into his peripheral vision? What about the Inspector jumping to attention when an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) casually walks by? Then you go past the Superintendent grade. When the mata-mata is privileged (and I use this term loosely…very very loosely!!) enough to come into the same rarified air as a Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police you will see him stand rooted to the spot standing at attention…not daring to breath, eyes front and just wishing that the earth would swallow him for having the nerve to be born on the same planet as the SAC in front of him….get my drift?

Were the mata mata baton hitting the demonstrators for personal gain? No. Were they doing it out of hatred or in defense? No. These mata mata had nothing against the demonstrators. It was a case of obedience to the orders given to them. They could not be faulted because they were simply following orders.

If he is instructed to contain a situation he will do so – if that involves tear gas, baton hitting a demonstrator – anything – he will do so because that action of his has been cleared by his superiors in the briefing before the act. The average mata mata simply do not have the capacity or ability to think further then the length of his nose and certainly incapable of promoting good governance by doing the right thing for the demonstrators who are simply exercising their democratic right to show that they do not agree with the ISA.

Now why would the Police allow themselves to be use as instruments of the state? Are they not drawn from the same stock – cultural and racial – as those that they have been asked to subjugate? At the least would that not make them unreliable instruments of state with the probability of them turning against the very people that is attempting to use them?

The answer is simple. Quid proco. For doing the bidding of their political masters against their masters domestic enemies their Political masters will turn a blind eye to what the Chairman of the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police describe as “ rampant corruption in the force’s traffic, commercial crimes, narcotics and internal investigation divisions” and “excessive use of force used against detainees” resulting in a number of deaths in police custody (an understatement to say the least!!). He also said that the commission inquiry into the Malaysian police has been inundated with allegations of corruption and brutality.

When all is said and done this has manifested itself in the failure to establish critical aspect of the commission’s recommendations: “An Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) aimed at dealing with complaints regarding the police and seeking to improve the professionalism of the force and to ensure that doctrines, laws, rules and procedures are observed and implemented by the police”.

The powers that be condones and turn a blind eye to the massive corruption that pervades all levels of the Police and in return the Police will rid the country of all organized opposition to the Government. Political opponents are held without trial and under conditions of cruelty – even death. You need only see what had happened to Anwar Ibrahim – a Deputy Prime Minister while under Police Custody and the perpetrator of that crime against Anway was the IGP himself. I shudder to think what could happen to others below the level of a Deputy Prime Minister.