HOME Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail should be commended for his instruction for fresh investigations “on an urgent basis” into the claim that the National Registration Department (NRD) had seized the MyKad of an elderly cancer patient in Sarawak, Lina Samuel, and his undertaking that he would expedite reissuing a MyKad to Lina if she is able to prove that she was born in Malaysia.
Also worthy of commendation is the special task force that Saifuddin has set up to resolve issues of citizenship, especially in Sarawak, where the NRD has gathered 948 cases of children without citizenship.
The NRD has also formed a special team to assist residents in rural Sarawak who face documentation issues and will go house to house to assist those who are unable to visit the NRD office.
There is another 45-year-old wrong waiting to be immediately rectified by Saifuddin following the declassification of the 1976 Double-Six Nomad crash investigation report.
The declassification of the investigation report of the Nomad Crash in Kota Kinabalu on June 6, 1976, which killed the-then Sabah chief minister Tun Fuad Stephens and three Sabah state ministers Tan Sri Salleh Sulong, Datuk Peter Joinod Mojuntin and Chong Thien Vun had raised the question not only among the next-of-kin of the 11 deceased but among Malaysians as to how such a straightforward account of the Nomad Crash could have been kept under lock.
Today was exactly the day 47 years ago of the 1976 Sabah state general election when the newly-formed Berjaya defeated USNO and Tun Mustapha Datuk Harun to form the new Sabah state government, but the rejoicing for a new era for Sabah lasted for only 52 days before the Double-Six Nomad crash, which changed the history of Sabah.
Bernard Sta Maria wrote a biography of the major architect of the New Sabah after USNO rule, but his book ‘The Golden Son of the Kadazan” was banned.
I urge Saifuddin to read Bernard’s book, for he would find nothing in it to justify the ban, just as there is no reason or justification for classifying the 47-year-old investigation report of the Double Six Nomad Crash under the Official Secrets Act.
In fact, Bernard has rightly described Peter as an exemplary Malaysian who was inspired by the original nation-building principles of Malaysia as entrenched by the nation’s founding fathers in the Constitution and the Rukun Negara to become a world-class Malaysia and not a failed, divided, and kleptocratic state — where Malaysia is a role model to the world of inter-ethnic, inter-religious, inter-cultural, and inter-civilisational understanding, tolerance and harmony instead of a land of religious persecution and discrimination. — April 14, 2023
Veteran lawmaker and retired DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang is the incumbent MP for Iskandar Puteri.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
