FAR EAST CORRESPONDENT — For decades, critics have politely pointed to Malaysia as a country of parallel universes. Laws separate race and religion, and people who live and work side by side are forced to coexist within different worlds as defined by successive UMNO coalitions and at times enforced by the courts, civilian and Islamic.

Prime Minister Najib Razak has attempted to change this. He has announced a series of political and economic reforms that he and the reformers in his United Malays National Organization (UMNO) hope will make Malaysia a fairer and more competitive place.

The initiatives, however, haven’t stopped protestors like the Bersih movement from campaigning for free and fair elections. They also fear Malaysia won’t change, and will instead slip back to its autocratic ways, which found real traction under Najib’s predecessors, in particular former premier Mahathir Mohamad. His style of autocracy has never been far from the surface of Malaysian political life and was again on display in Kuala Lumpur in recent weeks when political mischief went on show in the guise of putting Western leaders in the dock through a court with no jurisdiction or legitimacy other than it being backed by Mahathir, who attended the hearings.

As an eye witness to war in Afghanistan and Iraq and the wanton destruction caused elsewhere by the War on Terror, I can testify to the sheer ferocity of the conflicts. There’s little doubt that a legal case against Western leaders for their behavior throughout the first decade of this century could be made. But the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT) is certainly not the answer. Read more in The Diplomat.