Press conference statement by Parliamentary opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Penang on Tuesday, 8th May 1990 at 12 noon
DAP to demand explanation from Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, how he could keep a liar as a member in his Cabinet when Parliament meets next month
Since April 22, 1990, when the Gerakan President, Datuk Dr. Lim Keng Yaik, started telling lies about the so-called secret DAP-PAS meeting in Jakarta, I had issued four challenges to Keng Yaik.
My first challenge was to Keng YAik to produce proof within 48 hours to substantiate his allegation of the secret DAP-PAS meeting in Jakarta.
When this did not elicit any response from Keng Yaik, my second challenge went out to the Gerakan President to meet me at Chan’s Clansmen Association in Kuala Lumpur on May 3,1990 to produce his proof, or I would publicly call him a liar and invite him to sue me for slander and defamation against him.
My Four Challenges to Keng Yaik
IN my third challenge, I gave him 24 hours to announce that he was going to sue me for publicly calling him liar, and when again, there was no response from Keng Yaik, I announced that the DAP will print and put up posters throughout the country with the words: ‘Keng Yaik-You Are A Liar!’
On Saturday, I gave Keng Yaik my fourth challenge where I gave him72 hours to publicly apologise for telling lies about the secret DAP-PAS Jakarta meeting.
This deadline for this fourth challenge has expired, and I am spelling out another serious consequence to Kang Yaik.
When Parliament meets for two weeks next month, from June 11 to 22, the DAP will demand an explanation from the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, how he could keep in his Cabinet a person who had been publicly called “an inveterate and defamation to clear his own name, character and reputation?
After the Chan’s clansmen Association episode on May 3, where Keng Yaik dared not turn up with his Gerakan brain-trust, namely Gerakan Deputy President, Kerk Choo Ting, Gerakan National Youth Leader, Dr. Koh Tsu Koon, and Gerakan Director of Publicity Bureau, Dr. Kang Chin Seng, I had wanted to end the whole matter.
However, Keng Yaik and the Gerakan leaders came out with more lies with every new day, and this has forced me to keep exposing their lies and falsehoods.
Kit Siang denies that he had ever called Keng Yaik “stupid pig”
The DAP is keeping a record of the new lies that are being told by Keng Yaik and the other Gerakan leaders since the Chan’s Clansmen Association episode on May 3.
The latest is the speech made by Keng Yaik to the Johore Gerakan Assembly in Batu Pahat on Sunday, where he alleged that I used personal attacks on him by calling him “foolish doctor, big liar and stupid pig’. (Tong Bao 7/5/90, p. 17)
I confirm that I have called Keng Yaik “foolish doctor and big liar” , but I deny that I had called the Gerakan President a “stupid pig”.
DAP leaders are honourable men and me will never stoop to the level of Gerakan Leaders of telling lies or making personal attacks or going for character-assassination.
I call Keng Yaik a ‘big liar’ because of his lies as bout the secret DAP-PAS meeting in Jakarta.
Why didn’t Keng Yaik wait for the Jakarta secret meeting to be held and then expose it, when DAP and PAS leaders are still in Jakarta
I call Keng Yaik a ‘foolish doctor’ because if what the Gerakan ‘star witness’, Yusop Mohamed Yusop, said is true, that the DAP and PAS leaders were to meet in Jakarta for secret talks (with Yusop as one of the DAP representatives), why didn’t Keng Yaik wait until the secret Jakarta meeting was held, when he would have all the evidence for his expose? Why didn’t Keng Yaik commission Yusop to go to Jakarta for the secret DAP-PAS meeting, and come back with photographs and other documentary evidence, as flight tickets, hotel boolings, etc. could’nt Keng Yaik and the Gearakn brain-trust think of the masterstroke, to publicly announce and expose the secret DAP-PAS meeting in Jakarta when the DAP and PAS leaders are in secret conclave in Jakarta, himself leading a troop of Malaysian reporters and cameramen to Jakarta? This would have been the Scoop and Expose of the Century, and Keng Yaik would have dealt both DAP and PAS a fatal blow and would have removed DAP and PAS as serious contenders against the Barisan Nasional in the next general elections? If Keng Yaik could not think of all this, he is indeed a ‘foolish doctor’!
But I never call Keng Yaik a ‘stupid pig’. Probably, this is ehat Keng Yaik meant when he said in Batu Pahat that he ‘pretends to be a pig to eat the tiger’ (Sin Chew 7/5/90 p.4).
Keng Yaik should know that in concocting the lies about the secret DAP-PAS meeting in Jakarta, designed to destroy the credibility of DAP leaders by painting them as dishonest and dishonourable leaders, Keng Yaik had forced me to publicly call him an “inveterate, compulsive and incorrigible liar”.
Keng Yaik has only himself to blame (or may be, he should blame the Gerakan brain-trust and in particular his Political Secretary, Dr. Kang Chin Seng), for he should know that he could not get away with such lies about the DAP.
I publicly called Keng Yaik “an inveterate, compulsive and incorrigible liar” not because I love to do so, but because I was compelled to do so out of self-defence, as there is no other effective way to counter such lies about the Jakarta secret meeting.
I must warn Keng Yaik and the other Gerakan leaders at all levels, national, state and local, that if they continue with their lies about the Jakarta DAP-PAS secret meeting, then they should expect more DAP reactions, and I will have then to spell out more ‘serious consequences’ to Keng Yaik.