UMNO/BN strategists and propagandists think that the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak forthcoming visit to the White House and meeting with President Trump next month is a great “coup” for Najib before the 14th General Election.

I do not agree. I think it will deepen and aggravate Malaysia’s international infamy and ignominy by showing that Malaysia’s government and leadership have ceased to know the meaning of “shame”, as honest and rational Malaysians – or anyone in the world – will regard it as a great national shame and dishonour for Najib to go to the White House as Malaysian Prime Minister to meet President Trump when he has not cleared himself of the indictment of a kleptocrat and “MO1” in the US Department of Justice (DOJ)’s largest kleptocratic forfeiture suit of US$1.7 billion of 1MDB-linked assets.

Najib should only visit the White House with honour, pride and rectitude as Prime Minister of Malaysia when he had cleared or cleansed himself of the infamy and ignominy of a “kleptocrat” and “MO1”.

I shudder to think of the shame and dishonour of a Malaysian Prime Minister visiting the White House with the indictment of a kleptocrat and “MO1” hanging over his head, which placed Najib in the inferior and dishonourable position as a supplicant.

Is President Trump going to apologise to Najib for the US DOJ kleptocratic suit to forfeit US$1.7 billion 1MDB-linked assets and indicting him as a kleptocrat and “MO1”, or even going to the extent of informing Najib that the US DOJ was withdrawing the kleptocratic suit and all criminal investigations into the international multi-billion dollar 1MDB money-laundering scandal?

Malaysia’s honour and reputation are at stake. Najib should not go to the White House to meet with President Trump unless Najib has cleared or cleansed himself of the American indictment as a kleptocrat and “MO1” – but sadly and to Malaysia’s eternal shame, Najib has taken no action whatsoever to clear or cleanse himself of the indictments in the US DOJ kleptocratic forfeiture suit against 1MDB-linked assets.

The least Najib should do before leaving for the United States next month would be to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the 1MDB scandal to demonstrate to Malaysians, the United States and the world that he is not a kleptocrat and that the US DOJ’s indictment of him as “MO1” has completely no basis whatsoever.

Najib cannot know deny that he is “MO1” as his Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department in charge of Economic Planning Unit, Abdul Rahman Dahlan, had told the world in a BBC interview last September that only an idiot would not know that the US DOJ reference of “MO1” was none other than Najib.

It really confounds reason and common sense that we have UMNO leaders who could only add “salt” to the national wounds of our international infamy and ignominy as a “global kleptocracy”.

Today, an UMNO leader and a former Cabinet Minister claimed that Bank Negara’s foreign exchange (forex) losses a quarter of a century ago and over which a Royal Commission of Inquiry had been set up, are real but the 1MDB losses are only on paper.

I am shocked beyond words by this claim by the UMNO Information Chief, Datuk Seri Annuar Musa today.

Is Annuar really suggesting that the infamous US$27.3 million (RM117 million) 22-carat rare pink diamond gifted to “wife of MO1”; the billions of ringgit worth of jewelleries, art pieces and luxury properties misappropriated by Jho Low from 1MDB and including those gifted to Leonardo Di Caprio and Miranda Kerr, and Jho Low’s US$250 million (approximately RM1.069 billion) world’s 54th largest mega yacht in existence are just “phantoms on paper” and not real at all?

American actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Australian supermodel Miranda Kerr have handed over their multi-million US dollar gifts from Jho Low which were misappropriated from 1MDB funds to the US Department of Justice (DOJ).

Are these valuable properties just exist on paper and not real at all?

In the kleptocratic forfeiture cases, the US DOJ alleged that between 2009 and 2015, more than US$4.5 billion belonging to 1MDB was diverted by high-level officials of the state investor and their associates.

Are these all just paper losses?

Unlike PAS President, Datuk Seri Hadi Awang, Annuar does not make the best apologist for Najib over the 1MDB scandal.

(Speech at the Kelantan DAP General Elections Preparation Dinner held in Kota Bahru on Friday, 25th August 2017 at 9 pm)