by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Penang on Monday, May 16, 1994:
Hamid should ask Cabinet on Wednesday for a government decision to sue the Australian media for alleging that Government and UMNO politicians have been bribed by Australian spies
The Law Minister, Datuk Syed Hamid Jaffar Albar, was quoted in Muar yesterday as urging “opposition leaders who were accused by the Australian media of selling secrets to Australia’s intelligence service, to challenge the accusations”.
Hamid Albar said that “unless they cleared their names, the public have to accept the allegations as true and would regard them as traitors to the country”. (Star 16/5/94)
Hamid Albar seems to have become a very confused Minister, for it is now the Government and UMNO leaders and politicians who had been accused of selling secrets to Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) and being traitors of the country -.and not Opposition politicians.
The Canberra Times report on February 3 had cleared Opposition politicians in Malaysia of having been bribed by Australian spies, and pin-pointed Government and UMNO politicians as the ones which were bribed by ASIS.
As the Canberra Times reported on February 3, the earlier Australian report in the Sydney Sunday Telegraph that ASIS had bribed opposition politicians in Malaysia was wrong as there was no point, in cultivating people in the Opposition.
The Canberra Times went on to report in some detail the ASIS operation among UMNO politicians, particularly in “sponsoring UMNO politicians who were seen as potential contenders for powers”.
If Hamid Albar is sincere and serious in his Muar statement, then at the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, he should ask the Cabinet for a decision to sue the Australian media for alleging that Government and UMNO politicians had sold secrets to AS1S and had been traitors to Malaysia!
If the Cabinet is not prepared to accept the recommendation of Hamid Albar that the Government sue the Austra¬lian media to vindicate the honour and integrity of the Govern¬ment and UMNO politicians, Albar should resign from the Cabinet as a matter of principle and honour.