Students want Taib Mahmud’s name removed from university building
Students at Australia's University of Adelaide will demonstrate tomorrow to force the university to rename a facility that was named after Sarawak Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud (pic).
The building was named Taib Mahmud, Chief Minister of Sarawak Court in December 2008 after Taib made a multi-million-dollar bequest to the university.
Taib, who studied at the university under a scholarship of the post-war Colombo Plan, is considered one of Malaysia's most controversial politicians. Critics allege he had used his position to further family businesses and displace indigenous communities for illegal logging.
A report in The Australian newspaper today said while low-level criticisms have persisted for years, students this time were backed by the student representative council and outside groups.
In the protest tomorrow, students will demand that vice-chancellor Warren Bebbington remove Taib's name from the building.
Protest organiser Lizzie Taylor said she hoped the management would respond once they saw that students were passionate about the issue.
"Regardless of how much money he has given, naming the court after him honours a man whose family's businesses are responsible for the displacement of the indigenous Penan people in Sarawak," the Australian quoted her as saying.
"These companies are responsible for the deforestation of 85% of Sarawak.
"We know what his name stands for and we don't want to be part of that in any way."
A spokeswoman for Adelaide University said the university accepted gifts from Taib in good faith many years ago but added no gifts have been accepted from him for more than seven years now.
The spokesman said the scholarships and facility were named following Taib's gifts, which involved permanent trust obligations and agreements with which the university was bound to comply.
Though an investigation into Taib's alleged corruption had reportedly been carried out by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, as has one by Swiss authorities, The Australian said a visiting fellow at the Australian National University's department of political and social change, Gregore Lopez, described Taib as "untouchable".
"He has not taken any of (the allegations) to court because it isn't a political liability for him," he said.
Taib and his family were alleged to have amassed enormous amounts of land at low prices, while authorising the destruction of hundreds of thousands of hectares of rainforest.
A video secretly recorded and released in March this year showed Taib's cousins and a couples of lawyers detailing what mechanisms were used to move land and reduce tax.
But Taib had said he was framed by the Global Witness recording.
British investigative journalist Clare Rewcastle-Brown, who has spent years following Sarawak politics, said “there was clear evidence Mr (Taib) Mahmud privatised large chunks of state businesses into CMS Berhad, a company whose largest shareholders are his dead wife and four children".
"CMS Berhad and other family businesses including Naim Cendara, run by his cousin (Datuk Amar) Hamed Sepawi, are benefiting from contracts for the construction of a mega-dam," she added.
Dr Lopez said that despite the protests, it was inevitable that Australian universities would continue trying to build ties with leaders in Asia, no matter how dubious the activities of these leaders in their home countries. - September 18, 2013.
