Mahathir absolves Soros of financial crisis
Malaysiakini.com
Dec 15, 2006

"I accept Soros is not responsible for the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis,” said former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad today.

He said this after a one-hour meeting with US billionaire philanthropist George Soros at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur this morning.

Speaking at a joint press conference attended by about 50 journalists, Mahathir said the ringgit crash was a result of speculations by other currency traders.

"Soros said he was not involved in the devaluation of the Malaysian currency and that other people were involved. And I have accepted that," Mahathir said.

On his part, Hungarian-born Soros said Mahathir did the right thing in pegging the ringgit in the wake of the financial crisis, which helped stabilise the situation.

Mahathir also said he had wrongly been portrayed as anti-Semitic.

During the financial crisis he noted that Soros was Jewish, and suggested that the crisis was the result of a plot by Jews who "are not happy to see Muslims progress".

"I would like to say this - that I have Jewish friends and many of my Jewish friends don't think I'm anti-Semitic but the press only pick on what I say against Israel and make it sound as if I'm against all Jews."

Relaxed and cordial

Both of them also agreed that they share common views on a host of the global issues, especially on the war on terror, Iraq and the Palestinian struggle for statehood.

"We really did agree ... our view of the world is really very similar," Soros said.

"And after we cleared up this misunderstanding of anti-Semitism, our views about the errors of the Bush administration (in its response to terrorism are) very similar," he said.

The two men, however, maintained their opposing views on currency speculation, with Mahathir saying he is still against the practice which "destroys economies".

Soros said he is "no longer" active in currency trading but defended currency speculators as traders who operate within the rules of financial markets.

"My view is that the responsibility doesn't belong to speculators but to the authorities. The authorities should decide how markets should function," he said.

Both men appeared relaxed and cordial towards each other in their first ever face-to-face encounter.

Soros is in town as part of a regional tour to promote his new book, 'The Age of Fallibility'.

The billionaire will also be addressing Malaysia's London School of Economics Alumni Society tonight. Last night, he met with several leaders of local non-government organisations.

Moron and menace

Mahathir, 81, and Soros, 76, had once locked in a public bitter dispute which escalated to name-calling during the East Asian financial crisis of 1997-98.

The ex-premier, who in 1997 referred to Soros as a "moron," blamed him for undermining the Southeast Asian economies by destabilising their currencies, and later established capital controls to prevent currency speculation.

Soros retorted that Mahathir was a "menace to the country" and subsequently called on him to step down amid fierce controversy over the 1998 sacking of deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim.

Just prior to his first visit to Malaysia, Soros told malaysiakini in an exclusive interview that he had been exchanging letters with Mahathir.

Soros is founder of a network of philanthropic organisations that have in total donated more than US$5 billion over the past two decades.

The self-made billionaire, whose net worth is US$7.2 billion, is ranked number 28 in Forbes' list of 400 richest Americans in 2005.

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