by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Petaling, Lim Kit Siang, on Saturday, 4th April 1981:
Lim Kit Siang declines post of Adviser to Pertubuhan Gerakan Belia Bersatu (PGBB) Cawangan Petaling Jaya because of the blatant anti-DAP campaign by PGBB President, Tee Ann Chuan, through the Kin Kwok Daily News since the take-over of the paper by the PBGG in January this year.
My letter declining the post of Adviser to Pertubuhan Gerakan Belia Bersatu PJ Branch reads as follows:
“Mr. Lee Cheok Kuan,
Setiausaha GBBM,
Petaling Jaya.
Dear Mr. Lee,
I refer to your letter dated 22nd January 1981 informing me that the Petaling Jaya branch of GBBM has decided to extend my appointment as Honorary Adviser for the year 1981/ 1982.
I am indeed most honoured by your branch’s offer, and also by being adviser of your branch for the previous two years although I had not been able to make much contribution to your branch’s most active progress.
For reasons completely unrelated to your branch, I have had given your renewed appointment of advisership the most thorough deliberation, and I have finally come to the conclusion that much as I would like to continue to be associated with the GBBM PJ Branch, I have to regretfully decline the appointment as adviser so that I would not be put in a most invidious position.
As you are aware, the DAP and I myself in particular in the last five months was the target of a sustained, deliberate and vicious campaign aimed at character-assassinating DAP leaders and destroying their image, credibility and public respect.
This campaign was initially started within the Party by the Gang of Four, namely Chan Teck Chan, Chin Nyuk Soo, Seow Hung Khim and Goh Lim Eam, through the use of ‘professional cultural assassin’. in small Chinese newspapers.
In January, after the GBBM’s acquisition of the majority share in Kin Kwok Daily News, the Kin Kwok Daily News, under the stewardship of the GBBM President, Tee Ann Chuan, orchestrated this campaign against the DAP leaders and the DAP in Kin Kwok Daily News. The foremost ‘professional cultural assassin’ was given the fullest freedom to write a series of article containing lies, half-truths and down-right character assassination of DAP leaders. I was variously labeled as anti-Chinese educated, Special Branch agent, and even anti-Chinese by this ‘professional cultural assassin’. In fact, only recently, I was described in the Kin Kwok as ‘lacking the spirit of the descendants of Huan Ti’ (the first Chinese Emperor), in fact suggesting that I am no more a Chinese!
The Kin Kwok Daily News’ handling of news is another example of the its campaign against the DAP. For instance, even the statement by a branch committee announcing that they were leaving the party was given front-page banner headlines!
Let me make it clear that I am not attacking the right of the press to comment and even criticise public leaders and events. In fact, what Malaysia lacks sorely is a critical and independent press, caused by authoritarian press laws.
However, character-assassination of DAP leaders, based on a tissue of lies, distortions and half-truths, is not a substitute for fair comment and criticism, such but a perversion of the sacred duty of the press as the country’s Fourth Estate.
Various forces were mixed up in the campaign in the last five months to character-assassinate DAP leaders and destroy the DAP – namely the MCA, Gerakan and UMNO: all in the Barisan Nasional.
I know that Tee Ann Chuan is not working for the MCA, having been expelled by Datuk Lee San Choon. Is he working for the Gerakan, or more likely, working for the UMNO, in joining forces with those since January inside and outside the DAP to destroy the DAP?
It is public knowledge that when Chan Teck Chan was sacked from the DAP, Chan Teck Chan called a Press Conference in Kin Kwok Daily News blatantly anti-DAP, there was published an article, purportedly to be by a DAP member, defending me against all the accusations and lies.
I have no doubt that this article, purporting to be from a DAP member, is again the work of the ‘professional cultural assassin’ who had make it his profession to character-assassinate DAP leaders.
In view of the above, I cannot but wonder what are the political motives of Tee Ann Chuan and even GBBM. If Tee Ann Chuan wants to be a politician, the he should not hide behind the Kin Kwok Daily News and the GBBM.
If the Kin Kwok Daily News and the GBBM President want to be anti-DAP to paint the DAP in the worst possible light to gain favours with the UMNO, then let the Kin Kwok Daily News and Tee Ann Chuan to so and admit it openly, publicly and manfully.
I have no quarrel with the GBBM Petaling Jaya Branch, or even with the GBBM, but in view of Tee Ann Chuan’s role in the DAP Gang of Four’s campaign to disrupt and destroy the DAP, I find it very invidious to continue to act as Adviser to a GBB< branch, unless and until the GBBM’s political role and motivation, if any, is clarified, and in particular that if the GBBM President. Yours faithfull Yours sincerely, (Lim Kit Siang )”.