Press Conference Statement (2) by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Kota Melaka, Lim Kit Siang, at the Subang International Airport on Thursday, 19th June 1986 at 9 am before leaving for Sarawak for a five-day political tour
Call on PUSAKABUMI not to adopt a racialist policy which discriminates against Malaysian citizens in favour of illegal Indonesian immigrants
When I was in Temerloh last night for a DAP dinner-ceramah, I was informed of a case where PUSAKABUMI – Pusat Penyelerasan Khidmat Kontraktor-¬Kontraktor Bumiputera – of Jabatan Perdana Menteri seems to be adopting a racialist policy which discriminates against Malaysian citizens of Chinese origin in favour of illegal Indonesian immigrants.
I saw a letter by PUSAKABUMI terminating the ‘Bumiputeras Kelas F’ status of one bumiputera contractor, refusing to extend recognition, on the ground that the bumiputera contractor had used ‘Chinese workers’ to paint the house of the Temerloh District Officer’.
The bumiputera contractor admitted employing three Chinese workers to do the painting work out of necessity.
I understand that the PUSAKABUMI had not objected to the bumiputera contractors having on their employ illegal Indonesian immigrants as workers. This tantamounts to discriminating against Malaysian citizens in favour of illegal Indonesian immigrants, which is not supportable on any public policy grounds.
I call on the Prime Minister to direct PUSAKABUMI to stop such anti-national policies, which will only end in greater racial polarisation in the country.
MTUC’s revelation of 1.5 million illegal foreign nationals, mostly illegal Indonesian immigrants, shows the total lack of seriousness and sincerity on government’s part to deal with the problem
In this connection, the revelation by the MTUC President, Zainal Rampak, that there are 1.5 million illegal foreign nationals, mostly illegal Indonesian immigrants, in the country, which constitute 10 per cent of the Malaysian population, should be a subject of acute national concern.
It shows the complete lack of seriousness and sincerity on the government’s part to deal with the problem, to bring it to an end once and for all, for the illegal Indonesian immigrants and other illegal foreigners not only destroy the rice-bowls of Malaysians, pose and represent a serious strain on the country’s public service budget, as hospital, health and welfare services; but also constitute a grave medium and long-term threat to the political, economic and national stability of the country.
Clearly, the Labour Minister, Datuk Lee Kim Sai, was only engaged in play-acting when he created the impression of government seriousness to deport the illegal Indonesian immigrants, when it is open knowledge that the overwhelming majority of the deportees would turn back in the high seas to return to Malaysia, sometimes on the very same day!
The only sure way to safeguard government seriousness in deporting all illegal Indonesian immigrants – and not just statistical deportation which are nullified by returns of the illegal Indonesians on the same day – is the establishment of a Task Force to deal specifically with the illegal Indonesian immigrants and which comprise opposition parties and private interested bodies. The Government should realise that the people are not impressed with its regular announcements of how many hundreds and thousands of illegal Indonesian immigrants being rounded up and expatriated, when it represented only an infinitesmal fraction of total illegal population in the country, but that most of them returned to Malaysia either the same evening or day after.