In an interview with talantang.com editor Joseph Bingkasan, he speaks on his exciting life as an investigative reporter.
“I learn to be a journalist the hard way,” says James Ritchie.
If I were to write my memoir, I would have a million and one stories to tell, especially as an investigative reporter.
And I must mention a few iconic journalists who guided and honed my writing skills over the last 47 years, namely New Straits Times (NST) news editors Felix Abishiganaden and Philip Matthews and five NST editors-in-chief Tan Sri Lee Siew Yee, Tan Sri Samad Ismail, Tan Sri Dr Noordin Sopie, PC Shivadas and Datuk Abdul Kadir Jasin.
In 1972 when I joined the Straits Times (ST) before the creation of NST, the Malaysian counterpart of ST, I was the typical enthusiastic gung-ho crime reporter — always waiting for an exclusive or ‘scoop’.
It was in Kuala Lumpur that I discovered my forte when news editor Felix Abisheganadan formed NST’s Crime Desk under former Police Inspector Rudy Beltran.
Among the first batch of crime reporters was myself, the late John Fenandez (Johan Fernandez) who was married to the daughter of top Malay editor Hanim Melan, Kong Yee Peng and Harith Hashim to name a few.
Our Berita Harian “crime desk” counterpart included Najib Rahman the son of IGP Tan Sri Rahman Hashim who was assassinated in 1974.
Najib was the first reporter at the scene after he was shot and I was sent by news editor Philip Mathews to write a story for our sister paper Malay Mail—a morning daily.
The assassination made the MM headlines—I had to sprint up the steps to the old courthouse, several times to send the story by a public phone to Philip, blow by blow, until cut off time at 11 a.m.
On that day the Malay Mail broke the 40,000 copies sale record and both Harith and I had big by-lines!
My next big “scoop” was the raid by the Japanese Red Army on the American Embassy at Jalan Ampang where they took at least 40 hostages.
In the incident our pix man Tan Hong Kuan rescued a PFF constable who was shot was shot in the leg.
He was later awarded a “Guinness Stout” medal.
Weeks later I had an exclusive interview with the new IGP Tun Haniff Omar who was a colleague of my oldest brother Chief Inspector Richard Ernest Ritchie.
My first encounter with the police was when I was asked to divulge privileged information on two colleagues Tan Sri Samad and Berita Harian editor Samani Ahmad, whom some of the leading politicians wanted to jail under the Internal Security Act (ISA).
One day in 1976, I was asked to attend an interview with three Special Branch (SB) officers at Century Hotel, Kuala Lumpur to explain an article I had written on communist activities in Gua Musang, Kelantan.
Apparently, the SB wanted me to make a statement that Samad had influenced me to write against the government.
After the three-hour chit-chat, I told them I was responsible for whatever I wrote and did not want to implicate ‘Pak Samad’.
By then, the writing was on the wall and on June 23, 1976, both Samad and Samani were detained.
I spent several days with Samani in London before he returned to Kuala Lumpur before he was arrested.
Ten years ago I met Samani’s son who was a professor in UNIMAS.
In 1981 after his release, Samad was appointed editorial advisor to New Straits Times Press until his retirement in 1988.
During this time, I was sent to Kuching as NST correspondent and in 1986, found myself in trouble again with the SB when I arranged for renowned Swiss environmentalist and Bruno Manser Fund (BMF) founder Bruno Manser to be interviewed by RTM in the jungles of Long Seridan.
On the same day after my investigative report appeared in NST, the SB seized the three-hour long RTM interview footage.
As a result, the exclusive interview over RTM was scrapped while the SB continued to keep tabs on me.
In 1999, the SB head, a Kuala Lumpur man, held a meeting to charge me under the Official Secrets Act, but the police changed their mind.
In reality, a vote was taken among the group of 10 local SB officers whom I was familiar with as a few were my schoolmates at St Thomas’–my co-author of “Crimson Tide Over Borneo–Untold Police Stories” the late ACP Thoo Kim told me: “Tuan Maniam (the SB head) asked to take raise our heads if they agreed I should he charged under the OSA.
“None of us voted for your arrest because you are a journalist and we know you are innocent of the charges. Our boss was furious with us.”
My association with Manser was to have other implications as BMF attracted the attention of a British investigate reporter, Clare Rewcastle Brown, the sister-in-law of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
I first met Kuching-born Clare, the daughter of Sarawak Colonial SB officer John Rewcastle, when she arrived in Kuching to cover a seminar on the Orangutan in the mid 2000s.
She has heard that an Alpha male was named RITCHIE after me.
It was here that she heard the anti-logging blockades and about my 1993 book Bruno Manser — The Inside Story and may have thought about linking up with BMF.
In 2009, she failed to get an appointment to interview the chief minister on logging in Sarawak and so she was ‘smuggled’ into a timber concession by local environmentalists connected to SAM, SIPA where she wrote an exclusive on deforestation in Baram.
She returned to Sarawak for the Lubok Antu by-election and asked if I could arrange for her an interview with Pakatan Harapan’s Datuk Anwar Ibrahim but I was non-committal.
I eventually connected her to a retired police Chief Inspector from Lubok Antu and a relative “Lumong” who was the nephew of Sarawak’s sole George Cross recipient ASP Menggong anak Pangit!
Clare managed to interview Anwar in Lubok Antu but before leaving Kuching for Kota Kinabalu, she was tailed by the SB on the way to Kota Kinabalu and called me for help.
As a fellow journalist, I contacted a very senior Sarawak BN leader Tan Sri Dr James Masing who ‘called off the heat by contacting the SB in Kuching’, enabling her to return to London via Kuala Lumpur without any hassle.
A year later, she had formed the London-based NGO Sarawak Report, reporting on the welfare of indigenous people followed by exposé on corruption scandals in Sarawak and Malaysia in general.
Over the subsequent years, Clare went one step further when during her investigations on corruption, stumbled on the 1MDB network.
Her exclusive reports were so effective that the BN government blocked her website.
But it was a little too late because her allegations had initiated the momentum that led to the downfall of Najib and BN.
Clare did Malaysia another favour when she wrote the book The Sarawak Report: The Inside Story of the 1MDB Exposé.
However, she got involved with the wrong person in trying picking on the Sultanah of Trengganu and now could be in trouble with the law.
Even as the rest of the country awaits the outcome of the 1MDB scandal, I am still contemplating releasing my book on the mysterious disappearance of Manser in Ulu Limbang !
Is he alive and if so wheere is he? Is he dead and if so Who killed Bruno Manser? Where are his remains?
Hopefully, my story will unravel the 23-year-old unsolved mystery.
