Statement by DAP Secretary-General, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, at a press conference held in Ipoh on Saturday, May 20, 1972 at 10.30 a.m.
An MCA plot exposed
Last night, I attended a meeting of members and supporters of the Sitiawan DAP Branch at Pekan Gurney and received an unqualified reaffirmation from our members and supporters in their dedication and commitment to the cause of the DAP for a democratic socialist, a genuine multi-racial Malaysian Malaysia.
I wish here to expose a plot of the MCA in trying to subvert the Sitiawan DAP Branch, through their most recently-acquired instrument, Richard Ho.
Having decided to betray the DAP and the people of Sitiawan who wish a Malaysian Malaysia, Richard Ho was sent down by the MCA to Sitiawan to try to persuade Sdr. Pang Teik Hwa, our DAP Assemblyman for Lumut, and the DAP Sitiawan members to join him to defect to the MCA.
When Sdr. Pang Teik Hwa angrily and without a thought rejected the offer, Richard Ho went down to Pekan Gurney to try to subvert the DAP committee members and ordinary members.
Richard Ho promised the DAP committee members and members that if they all followed him into the MCA, he would secure land for them.
All the DAP members rejected his offer with contempt, and hold him in no uncertain terms that they have entered into politics not for self-gain, but to seek a better future for the people, and even more important, for the new generation of Malaysians.
And old member of the Sitiawan DAP Branch, Sdr. Lim Chit Ho, was so indignant at the treachery of Richard Ho that he told him that although he is old and poor, no amount of money, land or other temptations can make him sell his soul. He said he is prepared to die than to go against his own conscience. This old stout member left the meeting and wept.
Richard Ho’s former political secretary, Sdr. Seow Kow Mee, pleaded with Richard Ho to delay his defection at least until after the Ulu Selangor by-election. Richard Ho’s reply was that if he defected to the MCA after the by-election, then he would have no more value.
Richard Ho then asked Sdr. Seow to join him and continue to be his political secretary, and promised him high salary. Sdr. Seow told him “I do not want your dirty money!”
In the event, Richard Ho failed to induce a single DAP member to join him in the act of betrayal of the people’s rights and interests.
The people of Malaysia should know how the MCA operates, how Richard Ho had operated, to try to find companions in betrayal.
The people of Malaysia should also know the deep convictions and dedication of Sdr. Pang Teik Hwa and the Sitiawan DAP members to the DAP cause for a Malaysian Malaysia.
Our DAP members of Sitiawan are all poor people, and very few had more than elementary education. Yet though poor, and not highly educated like Richard Ho, they had an honesty of purpose, steadiness of conviction, decency and a conscience which forbade them to betray their ideals for self-gain.
When compared to the uprightness of our Sitiawan DAP members, Richard Ho is a shameless example of a soul-less, mindless, spiritless human specimen, despite the fact that he had acquired a professional education and is a lawyer.
I want to publicly salute our Sitiawan DAP members, and it is men like them who give the ground strength and dynamism to the DAP movement, not political opportunists and parasites like Richard Ho.
The MCA president, Tun Tan Siew Sin, said in Klang yesterday that MCA leaders are men who are prepared to make short-term sacrifices for the long-term interest of the people.
Tun Tan and his MCA colleagues are adept in the art of double talk, and nobody on the ground believes them anymore.
The Richard Hos, the Walter Lohs, the supreme political opportunists and parasites, who are prepared to sacrifice the people’s hopes and wishes, and their long-term future, for short-term personal gain and profit, have found their proper place in the MCA under Tun Tan’s leadership.
The DAP has no place for the Richard Hos and the Walter Lohs. Their places are with Tun Tan in the MCA.
Despite Richard Ho’s betrayal and defection, Sdr. Pang Teik Hwa and the Sitiawan DAP Branch have pledged to continue their service for the people and to champion the people’s rights and interests.