Clare Rewcastle Brown, founder of whistleblower site Sarawak Report and its sister radio station Radio Free Sarawak, has been under intense public scrutiny of late, thanks to her website’s hard-hitting exposés of alleged corruption and misconduct surrounding sovereign development fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) – and also because she herself has been accused of tampering with leaked documents relating to the case.
In an exclusive interview with Esquire Malaysia‘s Emily Ding, Rewcastle Brown defends her journalistic chops and her reasons for wanting to speak truth to power. The daugther of a police officer in Sarawak during colonial times, the 56-year old sister-in-law of former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown describes herself as a “dreadful old do-gooder who’s got a bit between my teeth”.
She also fully acknowledges the dangers behind exposing the (alleged) wrongdoings of Malaysia’s rich and powerful: “I’ve learned that if you piss off rich Malaysians in positions of political power, they are ruthless and unscrupulous in what they are prepared to do to get their own back.”
In the article published yesterday, Rewcastle Brown stressed that styaing honest is paramount to what she’s doing with Sarawak Report, lest she be accused (as she already has been) of having an ulterior motive.
“I think if you’ve seen something that’s a crime you shouldn’t just report it as if you have no opinion of it. Also, as an investigative journalist, you don’t publish something unless you’ve caught somebody out doing something naughty; and once you do, you’ve got a certain amount of licence to give him a hard time. That’s the job,” she said.
She had unflinching words about Malaysian corruption in general as well: “The corruption in Malaysia is blatant. You don’t have to do that much research to see it. They got lazy and weren’t bothering to cover it up.”
She also expressed hope to interview former PM and harsh 1MDB critic Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who she described as probably being “furious” at how his political legacy has been used by current Prime Minister Najib Razak to pull off “a fairly blatant heist on public funds”, and not very smartly at that.
You can’t say she seems daunted by the allegations being thrown her way, that’s for sure.
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