Kit Siang highlights Police bias in investigations and Bakun project in his Parliamentary questions next month

By DAP Hqrs Information Office on Saturday, September 30, 1995:

Kit Siang highlights Police bias in investigations and Bakun project in his Parliamentary questions next month

Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang, has made Police bias in investigations and the RM15 billion Bakun dam project as the two main highlights in his Parliamentary questions for next month.

He has submitted three oral questions each on Police bias and the Bakun dam project.

The three oral questions on the Police are:

1. To ask the Home Minister whether the Government would establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Police bias when conducting investigations into government leaders and police officers as compared to opposition leaders as contained in an Indictment of Charges which I presented to the Inspector-General of Police at Bukit Aman on Thursday, September 28, 1995; and the reasons for the government position.

2. To ask the Home Minister why the DSP Suleiman responsible for the FRU squad and other FRU members of the squad who brutally and publicly assaulted and injured DAPSY National Secretary, Ronnie Liu, at Taman Aman, Petaling Jaya on September 18, 1995 has not been interdicted, arrested and charged in court; why the Police had not dissociated itself from such police brutality, which is even more inexcusable as Ronnie Liu was asking DSP Suleiman what legal authority the FRU had to enforce the demolition of squatter houses in the area; and whether the Ministry is aware that this incident had given the public a bad image of the Police as not respecting the rule of law as a high court injunction was issued a few days later to halt the demolition.

3. To ask the Minister of Home Affairs what is being done to change a police philosophy which is marked by increasing incidence of complaints by the public of police brutality as well as insensitivity to their rights – such as the complaint that on August 9, 1995 at about 12.15 a.m., 15 people at a teh tarik stall at Taman Cuepacs, Kuala Lumpur were rounded up by four policemen, taken to the Batu 9 police station, where they were finger-printed and photographed like common criminals, and after four hours told to walk back to their homes at 4.30 a.m. over a distance of 3 km in the dark when there was no public transport service available.

The three questions on the controversial Bakun dam project are:

1. To ask the Minister for Energy, Telecommunications and Posts to state what is Ekran’s Bakun Biomass Removal Plan, when it was submitted to the Government, whether it would be tabled in Parliament and to give details as to the different phases and zones for the relocation of the 10,000 indigenous people, stating for each phase and zone, the number of people affected, the time schedule for relocation of the people and the salvage, clearing and burning for each zone, and what compensation terms would be paid.

2. To ask the Minister for Energy, Telecommunications and Posts why the present Bakun Dam design could only withstand earthquake tremors of up to five on the Richter scale, when the ETA Report requires it to withstand up to six on the Richter scale, and what are the responses to the other technical objections and reservations on the Bakun dam which had been made by dam analyst, Dr. Wang Weilou.

3. To ask the Prime Minster what is the financial arrangement for the RM15 billion Bakun dam project, whether all financing required had been secured, giving details as t sources of funding and amounts; and to specifically outline the financial proposals whether made by Ekran or by kWSP with regard to committing KWSP funds in the Bakun project and the progress of each such proposal.