by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Sunday, February 12, 1995:
Tanah Putih land issue has become a MCA Tanah Putin land scandal
The DAP is prepared to take over from the MCA and fight for the rights of the MCA members in Tanah Putih, Gua Musang if the MCA national leadership admits that the Tanah Putih farmers do not have legal rights and claims.
At present, the MCA national leadership is only interested in making political propaganda and not prepared to go to the help of the Tanah Putih farmers, 98 per cent of whom are MCA members – and this is the only reason why the MCA President, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik and other MCA Ministers had never visited the Tanah Putih MCA members and farmers in the past three years.
The MCA national leadership’s claim that the Tanah Putih MCA members and farmers have legal rights and status to their land is mere ’empty talk’ as it is not prepared to defend and uphold their legal rights in the courts.
Yet the MCA national leadership does not want the DAP to fight for the socio-economic rights of the Tanah Putih MCA members and farmers, claiming that the DAP would be betraying the legal rights and claims of the Tanah Putih MCA members and farmers.
The MCA national leadership should not leave the Tanah Putih MCA members and farmers in a limbo.
Either the Tanah Putih MCA members and farmers have legal rights and claims to the Tanah Putih land or they do not have, and if the MCA national leadership maintains that they have, then the MCA leadership should not delay any further by taking legal action to defend and uphold these rights.
The MCA national leadership should realise that issuing one thousand statements claiming that the Tanah Putih MCA members and farmers have legal rights to their land does not create any legal right at all.
If the Tanah Putih MCA members and farmers have no legal rights and claims, but only socio-economic claims, then they should also act without delay to press these rights and claims on the Kelantan State Government, as demanding that the Kelantan State Government cancel its plan to take back the Tanah Putih land from the MCA members and farmers for low-cost housing scheme for resettlement of squatters in Gua Musang and choose another piece of land for such resettlement, or give fair compensation in terms of alternative land or monetary recompense.
The whole country is watching and waiting how the MCA national leadership is conducting itself on the Tanah Putih land issue, which is becoming a MCA Tanah Putih land scandal – as the MCA national leadership refuses to defend and uphold the legal rights of the Tanah Putih MCA members and farmers and yet does not want the DAP to fight for their socio-economic rights.