The Third Force
The Confederates of the Fifth Column… sounds freakish, doesn’t it? It almost sounds like a syndicate of men in grey suits who sit on plush red chairs and run the show from the House of Masons. But that’s not quite right, actually. The Confederates of the fifth Column has nothing to do with secret societies or invincible men who call the shots from the House of Masons.
The Fifth Column
The ‘Fifth Column’ gained popular coinage back in 1936 following a coup d’état that was orchestrated by a Nationalist General against Madrid. It was the onset of the Spanish Civil War, fought between the right-wing Nationalist bloc and the left-wing Republican government. General Emilio Mola Vidal marched four columns of troops to Madrid, with the express understanding that a ‘fifth column’ of sympathizers would undermine the Republican government from within the city.
Notwithstanding, Vidal’s troops were forced a retreat several days later in the face of stiff Republican resistance. Soon after, the Republican bloc became apprehensive and scratched the ‘fifth column’ off as groups of saboteurs who had conspired with the enemy to subvert government. Legitimate suspicion gave way to rampant paranoia as the Republicans began mass executions of over 4,000 civilian and military supporters, some of whom were charged solely based on intuition.
There is a point to all of this.
The term ‘Fifth Column’ may suffer a usage problem that has never been addressed before, in that its essence may be derived on a scale that corresponds to political slants. For example, if you’re a member of the established order or a supporter thereof, you’re likely to refer to a ‘Fifth Columnist’ as a saboteur. Likewise, rebel factions opposed to government are inclined to liken ‘Fifth Columnists’ to factions of sympathizers. Saboteurs or sympathizers, they are really two sides to the same coin; both allude to persons who act traitorously and treasonously against the established order.
The Confederates of the Fifth Column
Over the years, the usage of the term expanded to involve clandestine factions that sought to subvert a nation’s solidarity by any means at their disposal. In a sense, Fifth Columnists are persons who betray your trust and engage with the enemy to undermine your authority.
On that note, Dato’ Seri Najib Razak’s post-electoral honeymoon was shortened abruptly by a libellous and seditions group of rebels who began to charge him of moral and doctrinal lapses. A bizarre conspiracy of the astute and dolt, the group was delegated by Pakatan Rakyat (PR) and Barisan Nasional (BN) apologists, all of whom appeared to evince an anarchic bent.
The group conformed to a multilayered and complicated confederacy that consorted with foreign nationals in terms of reciprocity. Contrivances that were hatched by the pro-opposition and pro-Barisan Nasional (BN) blocs were not necessarily collusive, although, neither one faction conspired against the other to serve a common agenda.
They ‘brokered’ a ceasefire on the commonality of subversion and architected several distinct plots to effect regime change in Malaysia. In some cases, the acts of subversion were whispered to be at the patronage of the Soros foundation and several other foreign agencies from the US and the UK. There have been rumours swirling of a French connection, although, the validity to that claim remains uncertain.
Led by Clare Rewcastle Brown of the Sarawak Report, foreign media chieftains who conspired to topple Najib belong to either one of the four channels (columns) listed below herein:
1. Sarawak Report
2. The Wall Street Journal
3. The New York Times
4. The Soros Foundation
Local factions to the confederacy constitute a fifth column, hence the Confederates of the Fifth Column. Key players include:
1. Tun Dr. Mahathir (mastermind)
2. Tun Daim Zainuddin (advisor)
3. Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim (accessory)
4. Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail (accessory)
5. Tan Sri Rashpal Singh (accessory)
6. Senior Management of the Edge Media Group (accessory)
Several key players who are yet suspect include:
7. Tan Sri Zainuddin Maidin (spokesperson)
8. Dato’ Seri Khairuddin Abu Hassan (spokesperson, effectively)
9. Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin (since denied being an accessory)
10. Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz (accessory)
11. Jessica Gurmeet Kaur (accessory)
12. Tony Pua (accessory)
13. Nurul Izzah (accessory)
* Several names of those suspected as complicit with the Confederates of the Fifth Column were withheld
It is plan ‘UMNO destruct’ now…
The Confederates of the Fifth Column engaged Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Razak on the 18th of August 2014. Ever since then, they ran the gamut of conspiracy against the Prime Minister with falsified and exaggerated information that was delivered to one or more of the foreign media channels mentioned above.
Clare was instrumental in giving the stories a plausible heft by churning editorials that were heavy on innuendo and insinuations. Her mission, it seems, was to put the kibosh on every plan or initiative that had Najib written to it, with the aim of hasting a regime change in Malaysia.
On the local front, Mahathir had his henchmen sprawled all over the internet with allegations that simmered tensions to a flashpoint. They accused Najib of engaging in a witch-hunt to silence his detractors following the arrests of Tan Sri Rashpal Singh (a former advisor to the Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission, or MACC), Jessica Gurmeet Kaur (an official from the Attorney General’s Chambers, or AGC), and Sazilee Abdul Khairi, a Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) with the MACC. The arrests followed several others that were linked to probes into 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
But that was then.
Today, the Confederates of the Fifth Column are running the bush telegraph wild with rumours of a felonious compact that was recently entered into by Mahathir and Tun Daim Zainuddin. The whisper is of a conspiracy to trigger a colossal flow of ringgit beyond Malaysian borders. As the story goes, a weaker ringgit would exert inflationary pressure on a people, who in turn, would denounce the Najib administration and seek for a regime change.
And being cognizant of Najib’s firm footing in the party, the Confederates of the Fifth Column have hatched a new plot as a measure of contingency. It is said that the plan is no longer to dislodge Najib from power, but to destroy UMNO and supplant the Malay based party with another multiracial affair, one that will be helmed by a certain well known corporatist.
Is plan ‘UMNO destruct’ for real?
Cries of joy were complicit with bewilderment immediately after UMNO concluded its supreme council meeting last Wednesday, the 9th of September 2015. Amid speculation of liaisons with the Confederates of the Fifth Column, Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin cheated political death during the meeting when he conceded knowledge of a plot to topple the Prime Minister by artifice.
Conspiracy theorists were perhaps the hardest hit following Muhyiddin’s confession. They were rudely shaken out of complacency when they discovered that it was Muhyiddin and not Dato’ Seri Najib Razak who had waved the white flag during the meeting. But what caught my attention most was the manner in which Lim Kit Siang reacted to the outcome of the said meeting.
A seemingly infuriated Kit Siang was quick to denounce the sitting, calling it a failure for not addressing controversies that implicated Najib of impropriety and fraud. But the paroxysm of annoyance that appeared to seize Kit Siang may have been nothing but a diversion after all.
It is believed that Kit Siang bemoaned the death of Mahathirism at the hands of Najib, whose UMNO is now the force that may cart a certain ‘west coast agenda’ to the brink of a collapse. By this token alone, it is plausible to fathom why Kit Siang needed to drive public perception astray from a breakthrough that may occasion some arrests in the weeks to come. But I’ll get back to the Kit Siang story in due course, in another article.
For now, let us get one thing straight and into perspective; it’s no longer ‘Mahathir’s UMNO’ we’re talking about, but ‘Najib’s UMNO’. As of last Wednesday, Mahathirism was consigned to the same watery grave the doctor once buried ‘the Tunku’s UMNO’ in following an internal party strife in 1987.
Back then, Mahathir ran rings around the judiciary before he destroyed UMNO and got the ‘nationalist’ party supplanted with a new affair. ‘UMNO Baru, as it was called, denied entry to Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and several of his apologists, who Mahathir saw as threats to his leadership (refer www.malaysia-today.net/the-khairuddin-abu-hassan-story-how-it-all-began/)
In any event, investigators probing the leak of top secret information to foreign nationals may soon commit to paper the names of persons who criminally conspired against the Prime Minister in greater detail. The breakthrough follows confessions that were made by Xavier Andre Justo and Tony Pua, whose names were seen littered all over media in recent days.
By and large, Justo and Pua pieced together parts of a jigsaw that made public a nefarious plot to depose of the Prime Minister. With Muhyiddin on board, Najib may already be in possession of missing pieces to the puzzle and may soon be capacitated to ink the charge sheets on treason.
But the questions we ought to be asking ourselves now is this; will Muhyiddin hold up his end of the bargain and strip the Confederates of the Fifth Column bare to reveal each and every member who had conspired against Najib? Will Muhyiddin confirm if a plot to destroy UMNO exists, and if the plot was indeed contrived by Tun Dr. Mahathir and Tun Daim Zainuddin?
And most importantly, is the Tun the kind of guy who would destroy UMNO just to get his son lodged as Prime Minister by 2021?
Yes, he is. But rest assured, the Tun is not working alone.
THE CORRIDORS OF POWER
Raja Petra Kamarudin
