KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10: Former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has been urged to issue an apology for masterminding Operation Lalang in 1987, which saw more than a hundred dissenters arrested under the Internal Security Act.
WASN'T ME ... Mahathir says he did not order the arrests
DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang made this call in response to a claim by Mahathir that he had met opposition leaders and assured them that they would not be detained, days before the infamous swoop.
Mahathir made the claim in journalist Tom Plate's book, Doctor M: Operation Malaysia – Conversations with Mahathir Mohamad, blaming the police for the arrests which earned him international condemnations, and which many saw was a prelude to his interference in the judiciary and other institutions.
“Well, I would have handled it differently, except that the police wanted to do these things because they say it is necessary," said Mahathir. “I actually met all of the opposition members (beforehand) and assured them that they would not be arrested. And you know what the police did? They arrested them. My credibility is gone,” said Mahathir.
Lim (left), one of those arrested, maintained that he had never met Mahathir nor given any assurance that he would not be arrested.
Saying Mahathir was suffering from "selective memory", Lim challenged him to name the leaders he claimed to have met.
“Mahathir is not only suffering from selective memory and faulty memory but is spinning untruths about his misdeeds in his 22 years as prime minister,” he said.
Lim reminded that Mahathir had defended the police's action and as the Home minister had approved two-year extensions for 49 detainees, including seven DAP members of parliament accused of "stirring racial unrest".
The DAP MPs include DAP chairman Karpal Singh, current Penang CM and DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, Tan Seng Giaw, P. Patto, V. David and Lau Dak Kee. Other opposition leaders were then PAS youth chief Abdul Halim Arshat, Pasir Mas MP Ibrahim Ali, current PAS central committee member Mohamad Sabu, as well as rights activists Kua Kia Soong, Irene Xavier and Dr Chandra Muzaffar.
Mohamad Sabu in his response said the arrests had nothing to do with curbing racial tension, and pointed out that BN leaders had been exempt from the swoop despite their public statements calling for 'bloodshed'.
L-R: Mohamad Sabu and Mujahid
“The prime minister Najib Razak who at that time was the UMNO youth chief had in a speech at the TPCA stadium in Kampung Baru called on Malays to soak the keris with Chinese blood. The former Perlis Menteri Besar Shahidan Kassim had urged Malays to come to Kuala Lumpur bringing at least a match stick. [MCA president] Lee Kim Sai had demanded that a Chinese be appointed as the deputy prime minister.
"All of them had not been arrested," Sabu told PKR's online organ Keadilan Daily.
PAS's Parit Buntar MP Mujahid Yusuf Rawa meanwhile described Mahathir’s latest claim as "shameful and irresponsible", saying any ISA arrest required the signature of the Home minister, a post held by Mahathir in 1987.
“How could Dr Mahathir say he didn’t know about it and the police had gone against his plan?” asked Mujahid.
http://en.harakahdaily.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2251:dr-m-told-to-apologise-over-ops-lalang&catid=36:headline&Itemid=70
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