Not the first time…

By Hakim Joe

This might not have been reported in the Malaysian media but this is not the first time Malaysia is involved with illegal trading with the Communist North Korea. 

Please read the following report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies based on an investigation by Bertil Lintner, a writer with Asia-Pacific Media Services: 

“What is known, however, is that North Korea has bought, or has tried to buy, large quantities of sodium cyanide from China, Thailand and Malaysia. This toxic chemical can be used to make sarin nerve gas – or to manufacture fertilizer, or in industrial plating. North Korea is also known to have been shopping for phosphorus pentasulfide, a key ingredient in VX, a nerve agent that was invented in Britain in the 1950s.

On September 25, 2004, the South Korean Customs Service submitted a report to a lawmaker from the Grand National Party stating that South Korea had exported 73,925 tons of sodium cyanide to China and 3,540 tons to Malaysia since 1998. In both cases, some of the chemicals were reportedly re-exported to North Korea.

At the time, Malaysian authorities declined to name the Malaysian company that had acted as a middleman for North Korea. They only said they were "looking into an allegation that a Malaysian company had … shipped some 40 tons of the chemical substance, of which 15 tons came from South Korea". A total of 107 tons was alleged to have been shipped to North Korea via Chinese middlemen.

Since that incident in 2004, there have been no further reports of chemicals reaching North Korea via Malaysian middlemen or Malaysia-based companies.” 

I have tried searching in Google for any Malaysian newspapers that might have carried this article but came up blank. I might be wrong but I think that this issue was intentionally kept from reaching the Malaysian public by the Malaysian [beep].