By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung. Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Monday, Sept. 28, 1987:
DAP condemns second coup in Fiji to forestall restoration of constitutional government after the first coup
DAP condemns the second coup by Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka to forestall and sabotage the restoration of constitutional government after the first coup d’etat in Fiji 19 weeks ago.
The Malaysian Government should send a strong protest nato to declare Malaysia;s abborence of the second coup which destroyed the return of Fiji to constitutional government.
Democrats in Malaysia and throughout the world must be very concerned about the military take-over in Fiji, and make their condemnation know to the Fiji military rulers in no uncertain terms.
Ghaffar Baba should tel the Vice Chancellors that they must not aggravate racial polarization in the campus by extremist pronouncements.
Deputy Prime Minister, Ghaffar Baba and Education Minister, Anwar Ibrahim, are to meet vice chancellors of universities this week to discuss the problem of racial polarization among students.
This follows the public concern expressed by Ghaffar Baba last Friday about the worsening racial polarization in the university campuses.
There is no doubt that racial polarization in the universities have reached its worst stage in the last 30 years of Malaysian history.
There are many reasons for this, one of which is the bad example set by some of the Vice Chancellors themselves, who make extremist and chauvinist pronouncements which erode the confidence of a multi-racial student population.
For instance, at the recent Universiti Technologi Malaysia (UTM) Convocation, the UTM Vice Chancellors Tan Sri Ainuddin Wahid, challenged the 45% ratio for non-Bumiputrera university student intake as an obstacle to the achievement of 30% Malay graduate objective, in particular in the technocratic field, by the year1990, and wanted the 45% ratio for non-Bumiputera students to be reduced.
If the university campuses have become Vice Chancellors who want to make ‘political’ speeches and strike ‘political’ posture, which results in greter polarization of the under-graduates. Tan Sri Ainudin Wahid, for instance, should resign ot be removed as UTM Vice Chancellors if he wants to enter into the ‘political’ arena, for he can then join UMNO and become either Deputy Education Minister or Parliamentary Secretary to pursue his ‘political’ ambitions.
I hope that in the meetings with the Vice Chancellors, Ghaffar Baba and Anwar Ibrahim would make clear to Vice Chancellors that they must conduct themselves in a model and exemplary fashion to unite rather than to divide the multi-racial under-graduate population, whether by speeches or actions. The meeting should also learn from the lesson of the University of Malaya Senate decision on the optional subjects, for there is no doubt that such insentive and shot-sighted decision has contributed greatly to the raising of ethnic temperatures, both inside and outside the campus.
If racial polarization in the university campuses are to be checked and brought under control, then the University of Malaya Senate decision on optional subject should be immediately repealed, and other incidents in the various universities worsening inter-ethnic relations reviewed.