Speech by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP For Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, at the Malacca DAP State Committee meeting held at Malacca on 24th Dec.1985 at 8pm
All DAP State Committee told to submit draft State manifestos to Dap National General Elections Committee next month
All DAP State Committees had been told to submit draft state manifestos for the next general elections to the DAP National General Elections Committee next month.
This is because we expect general elections to be held in March after dissolution of Parliament and the State Assemblies after the Chinese New Year. There are those who even expect general elections to be held earlier, but I would expect Parliament to be summoned to a special one-day sitting in January to adopt the Election Commission’s proposals for the redelineation of new Sarawak parliamentary and state constituencies-which includes the addition of three new Parliamentary seats for Sarawak.
DAP calls for a three-prong strategy in the campaign against illegal Indonesians
A few days ago, the Deputy Home Affairs Minister, Datuk Sheik Radzi Ahmad, announced a two-prong strategy to stem the influx of illegal Indonesian immigrants.
The Deputy Home Minister said that to complement the action taken by police and Immigrantion Department to arrest and deport the illegals already in the country, the Marine Police and the Task Force VII have been given orders to stop and turn back Indonesian boats ferrying illegal immigrants in Malaysian territorial waters.
I am rather dubious that both prongs would be effective, without attacking the problem at root. For this reason, I call on the Government to adopt a three-prong strategy to wipe out the problem of illegal Indonesian immigrants by launching a campaign against Malaysians who provide employment, shelter and facilities for the illegal Indonesian immigrants to enter, stay and remain in the country.
I believe that if laws are enacted to make it a custodial offence where an offender would be compulsorily jailed if found to be guilty of aiding the entry, giving shelter or any other facility, or giving employment to illegal Indonesian immigrants in the country, it would be easy to break the back of this enormous problem.
Malaysians themselves must be blamed for the magnitude of the problem of illegal Indonesian immigrants, for there are syndicates which ferry the illegals into the country, and there are syndicates which provide them with shelter and employment. What is worse, there are also syndicates which provide them with identity cards, whether red or blue. There are also syndicate which encourage the illegal Indonesian entry for long-term political objectives.
The Government cannot close its eyes to the widespread and rampant practice of the issuing of red or blue identity cards to illegal Indonesian immigrants, who assume a whole new set of fictitious Malaysian identity with such identification papers.
Call on Dr. Ling Liong Sik to remove the new ban on Chinese Secondary School students from sitting for the SRP
Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik has brought shame and dishonour to Malacca, for his first job when he took over as Chairman of the Malacca MCA Liaison Committee was to justify the government’s ban on Chinese Secondary School students from sitting for the SRP, which they had been doing for 30 years, including the former LCE.
The Malacca MCA branches and leaders should pass a vote of no confidence and call for the sacking of Datuk Ling Liong Sik as their Malacca MCA State Chairman if he does not rescind the ban on Chinese secondary school students from sittiong for the SRP. Why is Tan Koon Swan, Lww Kim Sai, Chian Sung Sung, Kee Yong Wee, so silent on this issue?
But why is it that Ker Choo Ting dae to send a cable to the Prime Minister an such a small thing as the Chinese Telephone Directory, but dare not cable the Prime Minister on basic fundamental issues, which are one million times more important than the Chinese Telephone Directory, like:
(i) protest against the use of Dr. Mahathir’s ‘The Malay Dilemma’ as an STPM General Paper question to disseminate the assimilation ideas among students in schools;
(ii) protest against the repeated raising of bumiputra reservation quotas for public shares issues from 30% to 51%, and then to 69.5% and finally 76%, all in a matter of six weeks?
(iii) to ask the government to rectify the historic wrongs done to the foremost Chinese education fighter, Lim Lian Geok, by giving government recognition to him as a Malaysian patriot, restoring his citizenship and lifting the ban on Lim Lian Geok’s memoirs.
Thirdly, the Gerakan put out news that the Gerakan Minister, Datuk Paul Leong, will raise the Chinese Telephone Directory issue in Cabinet. This is good, although it is very late. But even more important, if the Gerakan Minister is prepared only to raise a small issue in Cabinet, but not fundamental issues like ‘one language, one culture, one religion’ policy directions, then the Gerakan is only trying to deceive the Malaysian people.
If the Gerakan is a responsible political party, then it should take disciplinary action against Au Howe Cheong for his incompetence and irresponsibility in allowing the Chinese Telephone Directory to be banned.
In any event, the Malacca Chinese Schools Old Boys’ Associations’ Federation should be commended for organising the first forum on the ‘Declaration of Chinese Guilds and Associations’ which ha achieved immediate results in getting the Gerakan to realize its shortcomings and failures.
There should be more of such forums, but I suspect Ker Choo Ting and the Gerakan leaders would be discouraging such a development or would themselves boycott such forums, sending at most their very junior members, for Ker Choo Ting would be afraid to attend another forum where he had to listen to the failures of Gerakan and in particular, the utter failure of the Gerakan- Tung/ Chiau Chung elements to ‘Attack into the BN to rectify the BN’.
Malaysia must be prepared to spend $100 million if necessary to send back and rid Malaysia of illegal Indonesian immigrants
Berita Harian reported today that the government would have to spend $1 million to repatriate about 20,000 illegal immigrants to their country of origin.
Money should not be a factor in the campaign to rid Malaysia of the menace of illegal Indonesian immigrants in Malaysia. The DAP will support the expenditure of $100 million if necessary to send back and get rid of the presence of illegal Indonesian immigrants in the country, as they have turned Malaysia into a ‘haven’ for illegal Indonesian immigrant crimes.
Such $100 million will be well spent compared to the $2.5 billion squandered away in the BMF loans scandal in Hong Kong. In any event, such expenditure would be made necessary by the irresponsibility of the UMNO, MCA and Gerakan leaders who have through their indifference to the influx of illegal Indonesian immigrants, done nothing to check their entry in the first place. The figure of 320,000 illegal immigrants repatriated, out of which14,000 are from Indonesia, is a ridiculously small figure, when they are.