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MALAYSIAN DIPLOMATS: OUR STORIES

Diplomacy Generally
As I rose through the ranks of the service and became an Ambassador, I came
to appreciate every single moment of my experiences either in Malaysia or
abroad. As a diplomat for the country one could sense that we are always
at the forefront of developments overseas and getting used to the ups and
downs of diplomacy. As said by Sir Harry Nicolson (1939, 1988), diplomats
are those enjoying the travails of being “diplomatic” at what we are doing
and we were never ourselves. I am afraid I would have to disagree with this.
Frankly speaking wherever we are and whenever we are at our job, we never
ever felt we were just acting or worse, pretending or having thoughts of
being ‘sent abroad to lie for the country’! We were serious in carrying out
our duties. After twenty-four or so years at being ‘seriously’ diplomatic I
considered myself as being more adept at the job, moved really by the love
of King and Country.

Bombed out of Cambodia
I nearly lost my life one f ne morning in my house situated not far from the
Independence Monument in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital. On that
fateful morning the Khmer Rouge had planted a whole cartload of home-
made explosives right in front of my house. It came to pass that these were
meant for the United States Ambassador who would usually use the route
on his way to the US Embassy. But the cache of bombs went of too early
that morning and had missed the target. I could have become the unwilling
victim, but I had instead taken a longer toilet break!

A week later I got on a f ight and returned to Kuala Lumpur. I had survived
my f rst ordeal without a scratch. It was whispered in my ears sometime
later that the incident was staged-managed in front of my house to register
a Khmer Rouge protest over the perceived Malaysian position of siding with
the United States in the Cambodian Civil War.

A Neutral Forever?
For a time in the early 70s up until the mid-80s we prided ourselves as being
‘neutralist’ and very much non-aligned in our international diplomacy.
We took a middle road in the Cold War and stood strong in the Group of
77. While this may be benef cial in multilateral fora such as at the United
Nations, it has the downside of putting us in the corner whenever we are

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