Statement by DAP Secretary-General and Member of Parliament for Bandar Melaka, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, at a press conference held at 86, Jonker street, Malacca, on Monday, 21st December 1970 at 10.30 a.m.
Alliance masterplan to buy over DAP MPs and State Assemblymen
The Alliance has a masterplan to buy over DAP MPs and State Assemblymen to defect to the Alliance.
Alliance intermediaries are approaching DAP MPs and State Assemblymen with offers of money, position, office and economic inducements to persuade them to cross over to the Alliance. In some cases, these material inducements are not so direct and blatant, the approach made seemingly on an intellectual level. But underlying these approaches even, the material inducements is held out indirectly.
A case in point is the approach Alliance officials in Malacca made to our State Assemblymen for Kota Timor in Malacca, Bernard Sta Maria.
On December 15, at 6.30p.m., three Alliance officials visited Sdr. Bernard in his house and offered him, on behalf of high Alliance quarters “with powers exceeding even that of the Chief Minister of Malacca”, to give him a State Executive Councillor position in the Malacca State government, a trip overseas and favourable economic transactions if Sdr. Bernard would defect from the DAP and join the Alliance.
To Sdr. Bernard’s great credit, he spurned such mercenary offers, because he, like others in the DAP, are in politics not to find the shortest cut to personal riches, position and influence, but to serve a noble and sacred cause – to establish a just and equal, a genuinely multi-racial Malaysian Malaysia.
We are prepared to name these three intermediaries if necessary. Their aim is to tarnish DAP national image, damage the DAP and also to paint the DAP as a solely Chinese party. Malacca Bernard Sta Maria is not the only DAP elected representative who have been approached by Alliance Intermediaries to defect to the Alliance with a host of inducements and temptations.
I advise the Alliance leaders to stop their contemptible campaign to corrupt and subvert the loyalty of DAP MPs and State Assemblymen.
Just as it is to the national interest to eliminate corruption among government servants, it is equally vital to eradicate corruption among politicians, who will sell their political principles and public trust for money, position and other material inducements.
I seriously call on the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, as leaders of the Alliance Party, to call a halt to this contemptible campaign to buy over DAP MPs and State Assemblymen, if they are sincere in their profession that they are opposed to unprincipled and unscrupulous forms of political behavior.
Allegations of religious persecution in Sabah
We are dissatisfied with Tun Abdul Razak’s statement that h could not guarantee that Peter Mojuntin, State Assemblyman in Sabah, will not be arrested under the Internal Security Act for writing to him and raising serious allegations of religious persecution in Sabah.
Religious freedom is one of the fundamental liberties enshrined in Clause 11 of the Malaysian Constitution.
If for raising allegations of serious violations of the Malaysian Constitution, one can be arrested, then the fundamental liberties in the Malaysian Constitution means nothing but empty professions.
Allegations of religious persecution in Sabah has not been made by an ordinary citizen, but by a responsible elected representative of the people of Sabah.
It is just not good enough for Tun Razak to dismiss the allegations off-hand as “too far fetched.”
I have seen Mr. Mojuntin’s letter to Tun Razak on his allegations of religious persecution in Sabah. The letter is not a general letter of allegation, but contain over a dozen specific instances of religious persecution.
We maintain that the government must hold an independent commission of inquiry into these allegations to show the country and the world as to whether there is any truth, or no truth whatever, in those allegations.
If Mr. Peter Mojuntin cannot substantiate his allegations of religious persecution with specific instances before an independent commission of inquiry, then he should be taken to task for making wild unfounded allegations.
On the other hand, if Mr. Peter Mojuntin can substantiate his serious allegations, then the Central Government must step in to uphold the fundamental liberty of religious freedom in Malaysia, and take urgent steps from letting religious disharmony and conflict rearing its ugly head in Malaysia.
1971 budget
Despite public protests, Tun Tan Siew Sin is going ahead to present his 1971 budget tomorrow without parliamentary debate and consent.
He has ever the cheek to say in Ipoh yesterday that it is up to people to decide whether the DAP and PPP, which have decided to boycott his speech tomorrow, are discharging our responsibilities by not attending the Budget speech.
Can Tun Tan explain how we can discharge our responsibilities by going to Dewan Bahasa dan Pustaka to hear him give his budget speech, when we cannot criticise any of his unjust, unequal and anti-labour fiscal policies and measures?
This is time for opposition parties to unite, and stay away from the budget speech tomorrow to show Tun Tan that he has violated a fundamental principle of democracy of ‘no taxation without representation.’
I again call on the Gerakan Ra’ayat Malaysia not to split united opposition action against the government’s unparliamentary, undemocratic action, by breaking opposition boycott and giving support to Tun Tan’s action by attending his budget speech.