by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Thursday, 23.1.92:
MCA leaders should not panic over DAP delegation’s visit to Kelantan and meeting with Kelantan Menteri Besar, Nik Aziz Nik Mat
MCA leaders should not panic over DAP delegation’s visit to Kelantan and meeting with Kelantan Menteri Besar, Nik Aziz Nik Mat. As a result of their panic, MCA leaders are making wilder and wilder allegations against the DAP.
For instance, the MCA Deputy Education Minister, Dr.Fong Chan Onn said that I should apologise to the Kelantan Chinese for the loss of their basis rights under the PAS-led state government as I had promised the Chinese in Kelantan in the 1990 general election that their future would be greatly enhanched by the PAS-led Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah government.
Fong Chan Onn is becoming quite in telling lies. Can he produce proof to subtantiate his allegation that I had called on the Chinese voters in Kelantan to vote for PAS or made any promise to them on behalf of a PAS-led Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah state government?
MCA leaders are hoping that by sneer repetition of a lie, they could make the lie become a truth. DAP had never co-operated or had any relations with PAS in the 1990 general elections, but MCA leaders hoped that the constant repetition of the lie in the mass media that the DAP co-operated with PAS and brought PAS into power in Kelantan would turn it into a truth.
I had been asking the MCA leaders to spell out all the ‘basic rights’ which had been lost by the Kelantan Chinese under the PAS government, but up to now, no MCA national leader has been able to produce a list.
When I invited the MCA President, Datuk Ling Liong Sik, to come to Kelantan to verify and confirm all the basic rights which had been lost by the Kelantan Chinese, the MCA President did not have the courage to accept.
I can understand why the MCA leaders are in a panic over the DAP delegation’s visit to Kelantan and meeting with the Kelantan Mentri Besar. There are at least three reasons:
Firstly, the MCA leaders cannot substantiate their allegations which they had repeated constantly in the past few months about 62 Islamisation measures in Kelantan in the first year of PAS State Government which had driven the Chinese in Kelantan into ‘deep waters and furnace heat’ by depriving them of their fundamental rights and interests.
Secondly, the MCA leaders dare not meet with the Kelantan State Government leaders to take up measures of the PAS Kelantan State Government which had infringed the rights and interests of non-Muslim Malaysians. Unlike the MCA, DAP leaders are prepared to meet with leaders from any party in government, whether UMNO, MCA, Gerakan, MIC or PAS to fight for rights and interests of the people.
Thirdly, MCA knows that its criticism of the PAS Islamisation measures is unprincipled and highly opportunistic, for MCA leaders had supported and continue to support the Islamisation measures of UMNO, not only in the national, but in other state governments as well.
MCA leaders are treating the whole issue as a political game, and not as a serious political issue which must be dealt with seriously, honestly and responsibly.