Speech by Parliamentary Oppostion Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Petaling, Lim Kit Siang, at the DAP Secretary/ Federal Territory election seminar held in Petaling Jaya on Sunday, March 28 at 7 p.m.
Call on UMNO, MCA, Gerakan and other Barisan Nasional component parties to disband their ‘dirty tricks department’ and to conduct a clean, honest and fair general election campaign.
From pass experience, the Barisan Nasional component parties like UMNO, MCA, Gerakan and others would set up a ‘dirty tricks department’ during every general elections to mastermind under handed campaigns aimed at smearing the reputation of Opposition parties and their leaders.
The UMNO has shown its hand early this time, with the ill-advised publication I the UMNO monthly organ, ‘Merdeka’, March issue, which carried a cartoon revealing the various ‘dirty tricks’ the UMNO would resort to in the 1982 general elections. It was because of this ill-advised disclosure that the March issue of Merdeka was quickly withdrawn from sale.
Among the ‘dirty tricks’ this cartoon revealed would be the conducting of a smear campaign against the DAP on issues like ‘Foreign agents’, ‘The 3M issue’, ‘Cultural chauvinism’, and ‘Malaysian Malaysia’.
By ‘Foreign agents’, it is clear that the UMNO is referring to the allegations by the DAP turncoat, Chan Teck Chan, that I am a KGB agent. The UMNO and Barisan probably would launch a whispering smear campaign to paint the DAP as a proxy of a foreign power.
I would advise the UMNO leaders to conduct a clean, honest and fair general elections campaign and not to resorts to such a whispering campaign of falsehoods.
On the KGB allegation, I had in fact supported the establishment of a Special Select Committee by the Malacca Assembly to investigate the whole truth of the matter on Oct. 1 last year, but although this is a very serious allegation, nothing was done in these six months.
As I revealed in the December meeting of the Malacca Assembly, the MCA President, Datuk Lee San Choon, has put pressure on the Special Select Committee to delay investigations until the whole matter lapses with the dissolution of the Parliament and State Assemblies. Although the Chief Minister of Malacca, Adib Adam, vehemently denied this at that time, my information that the MCA President had applied pressure on the Select Committee had been confirmed.
The reason is simple, If the Select Committee is serious about its investigations and findings, then if must come to one of two conclusion : one that I am indeed a KGB agent, which would mean my arrest and prosecution in court for high treason, involving the capital punishment of death sentence. On the other hand, if the Select Committee found that the allegation is completely baseless, then Chan Teck Chan would have committed a gross breach of privilege, the gravity of which would justify expulsion from the Assembly – the first time in Malaysian history.
The Barisan Nasional government had never hesitated to take action against me if it has the slightest excuse, so that first finding that I am a KGB agent if they could get substantiation would be exactly what they want. But if they know that there is no truth in the allegation, then to delay and drag out the matter until it lapses by dissolution of the Assembly will be the only way to prevent having to come to the second conclusion that Chang Teck Chan is a downright liar and completely without the character or moral qualifications to be an Assemblyman.
Yet now, for the sake of the character-assassination of DAP leaders, the UMNO is prepared to stoop so low as to conduct a whispering campaign based on this lie.
I do not know whether this particular ‘dirty trick’ of the UMNO has got the specific approval of Dr. Mahathir and Datuk Musa Hitam, but for the sake of a clean, honest and democratic and just elections, I call on Dr. Mahathir and Datuk Musa to immediate order the disbanding of the ‘dirty tricks’ department in UMNO, and also in other Barisan component parties, especially in MCA and Gerakan.
Instead of conducting whispering smear campaigns against the DAP based on falsehoods on so-called matters like ‘The 3M issue’, ‘Malaysian Malaysia’ and ‘Cultural chauvinism’, the DAP propose to the UMNO and the other Barisan component parties that the competing political parties in the 1982 general elections should have a series of television debates on the se issues.
We in the DAP have nothing to hide, and whatever we believe in, we speak out publicly. Only those who know they are spreading falsehoods have to resort to whispering campaigns, like the various subjects planned by the ‘Dirty Tricks’ Department of UMNO.
Call on the MCA to stop misleading the people about the truth of the 3M
I have received information that the MCA have been sending out teams of propagandists on house-to house visits in Petaling and other parts of the country to mislead the people about the 3M.
What is noteworthy is that although these propagandists are in the pay of the MCA, they pretend to be independent and politically neutral people who are only interested in explaining to the people why they had been misinformed about the 3M.
I ask the MCA leaders why is it they are ashamed to let their propagandists admit that they are MCA workers out to explain and justify the implementation of the 3M in Chinese primary schools?
I would call on the MCA to stop misleading the people about the 3M.
In the coming elections, the MCA, with the vast financial resources at their command, would be using more tricks to deceive the people, but I am sure the people are not so easily misled by so-called ‘neutral’ people out to ‘white-wash’ the MCA.