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ON HIS MAJESTY’S SERVICE

Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad. Yemen even invited Tun Dr.
Mahathir to be its Special Economic Adviser.

T e Sana’a crisis in September 2014 prompted the Malaysian Government
to evacuate most Malaysian students there. T e evacuation did not include
our students in Hadramawt and other provinces such as Aden and Hodeidah
as the situation there was relatively calm and safe.

T ere was a great future for Yemen. It saw a peaceful transition to a new
Yemen and took several baby steps towards national reconciliation and
dialogue. T e country, which had a strategic plan until 2025, began a series
of National Dialogue with a strong roadmap to bring law and order to the
country. T e country has enormous potential, not only in terms of natural
wealth and resources, but also in its well-educated, young population.

What was a promising start to a “new nation” and the progress made in the
political transition led by the United Nations, ended three years later – a
month after I left the post in February 2015 – in a turn of events which
changed the course of Yemen’s history back to square one. To date, the
regional proxy war in Yemen which is into its sixth year continues unabated
and is seeing no end.

T e Republic of Chile
My posting to Chile, which lasted four years, was my longest ambassadorial
posting, and the f rst to a Latin American country. T e f rst thought that
came to mind when I was being reassigned from Timor-Leste to Chile in
2006 was the distance from home.

Chile was ruled by a military strongman Augusto Pinoche Ugarte after a
military coup which toppled democratically elected President Salvado
Allende. It was estimated that about 3,000 people died or disappeared
during his reign of terror lasting almost 30 years. Coincidentally the military
coup took place on 11 September 1975, on the same date as the attack on
the World Trade Centre Twin Towers in New York on 11 September 2001,
26 years later. Chile has been ruled by a democratically elected Government
since.

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