Malaysian sues Britain over ethnic Indians' woes

By Clarence Fernandez

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - An ethnic Indian in Malaysia is using an audacious strategy to highlight the plight of his mostly impoverished community by suing Britain, the country's former colonial ruler, for $4 trillion (1.9 trillion pounds).

The Malaysian government dismisses the case as baseless, but lawyer Waytha Moorthy is determined to pursue it, even vowing to appeal to the Queen to appoint lawyers for the Indian community, which he says is too poor to find its own.

Moorthy wants Britain to pay damages of 1 million pounds to each of Malaysia's 2 million ethnic Indians for rights abuses he traces to colonial-era labour schemes that brought their ancestors to Malaysia as indentured workers.

"We are seeking compensation because we were permanently colonised during British rule, and now, under the government of the ethnic Malays," Moorthy told Reuters.

"We have lost touch with our roots and have been suppressed so far," said Moorthy, who accuses British officials of failing to honour their responsibility to protect ethnic Indians when they granted independence to Malaysia in 1957.

In colonial times, many impoverished Indians and Chinese flocked to work and settle in Malaysia, drawn by government schemes meant to attract cheap labour for the country's then lucrative rubber estates and tin mines, he added.

RUN FOR HIS MONEY

Some might feel that Moorthy, who paid court fees of more than 2,000 pounds to file his case in London's Royal Courts of Justice, has already got a run for his money from the Malaysian newspaper headlines that have trumpeted his story.