Watching from a distance, it is difficult to believe anyone capable. Hearing daily talk of honor, truth, desire to serve their fellow man, one hesitates to lay at another's feet the facts. Yet the facts stare. They weigh heavy on the heart. Someone is accountable. But let the facts speak for themselves.

In Malaysia, in the northeastern state of Kelantan, is Tumpat, nestled near the Thailand border. Just to the south, on the main road to Kota Bharu, one finds a roadblock, where vehicles are routinely inspected for rice smuggling. Two uniformed officers are on duty, aided by a large stop sign, with a few bags of confiscated rice stacked beside the giant umbrella to give them some protection from the blistering sun. An awning erected at the roadside provides a place of respite. It is not impressive, rather lonely looking, with wide vistas of rice fields and coconut trees in each direction.

The road forks a few meters beyond the inspection station, and there are houses not far away, amid a scene of serenity. All is tranquility and peace. There is nothing to mark the violent events that took place on the night of October 3, 1998. Nor the next morning, when the cordoned area was carefully cleaned of glass and debris, then splashed with gasoline and scorched black by the police. What happened here, you ask, and why was the ground burned by the police? The residents are constantly reminded by the presence of the officers, as though they are under constant surveillance. The inspection station was not there prior to the event.

It was a dark and moonless night. If one wished to do something dreadful outdoors unseen, this was the night to do it. And this night such a deed was done. There are three versions to the story. One was told by the Tumpat police to reporters the next morning, after the earth was scorched. Another is the story told by the two Tumpat police officers who testified in the lengthly Coroner's Inquest. And then there is the story of the eye witnesses who saw and heard, and have courage to relate the truth.

There is some correspondence between the two police stories, and it is possible to combine them in a general way. The Tumpat police say that in response to an anonymous telephone tip, they set out to intercept a van carrying men and guns from Thailand. To accomplish this, they took two vans to a Petronas station in Netting and waited there until the suspect vehicle passed.

They gave chase, and after ten minutes of high speed driving, interspersed with an exchange of gunfire back and forth, the suspect vehicle was forced to the side of the road. Further gunfire from the van made it necessary to kill all of the occupants of the van, who turned out to be the six Indians returning to the Kerala Estate. The Tumpat police took credit for the heroic deed, showing no regret that male members of six Indian families were killed.

Pictures taken at the time show four handguns. They are arranged between the bodies like flowers placed to decorate a grave. Two of the guns were inoperable. The other two were not fired. There were no holes in the van to indicate that any bullets had been fired from inside the van. Yet the police reported that it was such gunfire that justified the killing of the six men.

The photographs, along with the pathologist's report, show that all of the men were shot multiple times. Some were shot with their hands raised, as though in surrender. All six were shot in the head, some more than once. The facts indicate that an execution took place, not an arrest. At the inquest the Tumpat police gave a description of the events at the scene, strangely inconsistent with the physical evidence.

The villagers in the nearby houses tell a different story. A large contingent of policemen on motorbikes came to Netting after dark, establishing roadblocks on each of the three roads to the Petronas station in Netting. No cars were allowed to enter. Then the van came. It was first stopped, then allowed to proceed to the area across the road from the Petronas station. Because there was too much light, and too many witnesses, the van was escorted a little further down the road to the site of the killings.

The men in the van placidly obeyed the police. There was no sign of resistance. All lights were extinguished. The police and the van waited in the dark. Soon a large unmarked van came down the road and pulled over behind the van with the Indians, who were not allowed to leave their seats. The second van was an extended one, capable of holding ten or more men. A number of men got out of the van and surrounded the van with the suspects.

The villagers could hear the victims pleading for their lives, loudly proclaiming their innocence. There was gunfire. The flashes of the guns were clearly visible. The men in the van screamed out for mercy. After the first flurry of gunfire, in which the Indians were shot through the windows of their van, there was a period of silence. Several of the Indians were pulled from their van. Then a series of singular shots were heard, as though each man was being shot to make certain of death.

The men who came in the extended van came from the direction of Kota Bharu, and it was toward Kota Bharu they returned. The motorbike police continued to maintain a cordon around the scene, keeping the villagers at a distance. After about ten minutes a white police car arrived from Tumpat. The Tumpat police took charge of the scene, setting up lights and taking pictures. The villagers state that it was at this time the faulty guns were placed among the bodies. The guns were not in the hands of the dead. They were not under the bodies. The guns were not covered with blood. There were no empty shells from bullets they might have fired. The villagers say the van was ambushed, that the guns were planted by the police to justify pre-planned killings.

The bodies were taken to the Kota Bahru hospital morgue, where the pathologist wrote his report. They had been shot between the eyes at close range. They had been shot when their arms were raised. The bullet wounds were consistent with the pleas for mercy heard by the villagers. But there was no mercy. This was an execution. It was a carefully planned operation. There were many men involved, and it must have had sanction "from the top." There was an element of timing. How were the men to be at the right place at the right time?

There was a Judas goat. The van left Kerala Estate in the early evening, headed for a town in Thailand to buy fireworks and alcohol to celebrate the Deepavali holiday. In the little village there was a strange new couple. They came from Thailand, they said, joining the isolated estate about July. The man set up a coffee shop, and became friendly with the Kerala Estate workers. He had a wife, who lived with him in a small house in the Kerala Estate workers village. They worked to gain the confidence of their new neighbors.

Three relatives of Kerala Estate workers came home from Pahang to visit their friends and families for the holidays. The man from Thailand insisted that they all accompany him to buy the fireworks. No one wanted to go, but after a period of insistance, they reluctantly agreed. It was a fatal mistake. All six got into the van, waiting for the man from Thailand. At the last minute he gave an excuse, saying that he would meet them later, that they were to wait for him at a Chinese tea shop in Tanah Merah.

They drove to the tea shop and waited. He did not appear. They left without him, and continued on. On the return trip they were stopped by the police roadblock in Netting. The man from Thailand had disappeared. He has never been seen again. When news of the shooting reached the families at Kerala, it was noticed that the wife was nowhere to be found. Somehow she managed to find a ride away from the remote kampung, and along with her husband, has not been seen or heard of since.

It gives the impression they arrived for a purpose, and once that was accomplished, they were anxious to leave. Their job over, they didn't want to answer any questions asked about their role in the horrid affair. No one knows their identity for certain, and they have never returned to Kerala Estate.

Why was this operation planned and executed in the Fall of 1998? The date gives a clue. In early September of 1998 Anwar Ibrahim was sacked as DPM and Finance Minister. In the third week of September masked and armed men entered his home, breaking windows and doors when entry was free and open. They arrested him with guns drawn, even though he had given written assurance that he would voluntarily submit to arrest if requested to do so.

Another clue is the strange matter in Taman Intan, where five Indians were shot to death by masked members of the Special Police Squad. It was said there was a kidnapping, involving the child of a politician. The circumstances surrounding the kidnapping suggest the kidnapping story is just another police-political sandiwara. The high-level politician has been named in several court cases involving large bribes and illegal money transport.

A news report several days ago stated that four masked men jumped a fence and kidnapped a child from the home of their father, who is involved in a custody battle with their mother. The mother is now wife to the politician. Since no police report has been filed by the mother, it is assumed that the four masked men are acting as her agents (and her husband's) and that the child has been returned to her care. The identity of the four masked men, along with their methods, raises interesting questions.

The five victims at Taman Intan, Sungai Besi, included a woman who was eight month's pregnant. Why it was necesary to shoot this woman in the head is beyond explanation, and the appearance is that she is dead as a matter of policy. The policy is a brutal one. Dead people cannot tell their side of the story. Only the police story is heard. They can say whatever they like, and generally their story becomes the official history. But not always.

The killing of five Indians in Sungai Besai (no Muslims, no Chinese) occurred on October 2, 1998, just two weeks after the infamous arrest of Anwar Ibrahim. The killings in Netting (no Muslims, no Chinese) occurred the next night. Anwar Ibrahim was kept from public view at this time because he was seriously injured at the hands of the head of the Malaysian police. The head of the police planned and supervised the operations in Sungai Besi and Netting. He, in turn, answers to the prime minister, who, acting as minister of home affairs, supervises the police and especially the Special Squad. The Special Squad is known for wearing ski masks and and their unerring marksmanship.

In retrospect, these killings appear to have been ordered in an effort to divert public attention from the arrest of Anwar Ibrahim. If taken as such, a sinister side of the prime minister and his lieutenants is revealed that none have dared to admit openly, though most have long entertained a suspicion the full-blown capability exists. The leaders of Malaysia have strayed far from the path of truth and justice.

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