PERIKATAN Nasional (PN) chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s recent tirade against the DAP was uncalled for.
His accusations that the DAP was against national interests speak volumes of his desperation and intolerance.
If he did not agree with Perak DAP chairman Nga Kor Ming that if PN comes to power, it would be Taliban in nature, then his response should have been directed at Nga. There was no need to drag and grand slam the entire DAP.
Muhyiddin, by dragging the DAP on the question of national security, had laid bare his own nefarious role in the arrest of 12 Indians, some of them DAP members, including two state assemblymen in 2019, for alleged links with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The LTTE, a Tamil national liberation movement in Sri Lanka that fought for a separate homeland for Tamils, was completely destroyed in the civil war in 2009. However, Malaysia took some years to gazette the LTTE as a terrorist movement in 2014.
The 12 Indians were arrested and detained under the dreaded Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (SOSMA).
Those of us in Pakatan Harapan (PH) were bewildered as to why the government we brought to power would make such uncalled arrests against those who were sympathetic to the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka – a community that was subjected to more than three decades of discrimination under the Sinhala racist governments.
It was during the time of their arrests that there was much talk about the notion of the deep state; there was a belief that the security apparatus was working independently of the government in power with the ultimate intention to bring down the legitimate PH Government.
A few days after the arrests, a meeting chaired by then-prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad was held in Putrajaya to discuss the arrests and expedite their release. Muhyiddin, the then home affairs minister, and senior PH leaders attended the meeting, as did I.
Mahathir, whether genuine or not, expressed sadness over the arrests. Muhyiddin, on the other hand, did not say much but merely expressed his opinion that the police could have acted on the basis of evidence.
The principal architect
Coming back to Muhyiddin’s recent attack against the DAP for sacrificing national interests, it is clear that he was the principal architect of the arrest of the 12 Indians.
Earlier, some of us engaged in endless speculations that the deep state in the security establishment was behind the arrests. It was also believed that some forces were independently working hand in hand with some in the government to bring down the DAP.
Now, it is clear without any reasonable doubt: the notion of the deep state was a ruse to shift the attention from the government in general and Muhyiddin in particular to the imaginary forces of the deep state.
The cat is finally out of the bag now: Muhyiddin was the architect of the arrests. He worked closely with the anti-terrorism squad of the police to orchestrate the arrests.
Muhyiddin’s argument that the DAP was against the interests of national security is a completely nonsensical hogwash – if there were LTTE members from Sri Lanka operating in the country, then the attention should have been directed at them.
It is not that the Malaysian security establishment did not deport a number of suspected LTTE operatives to Sri Lanka. But the question remains: why arrest ordinary members of the Indian community, including some DAP members, for terrorist activities?
Was there a serious national security threat from the 12 persons, some of whom were ordinary contract workers and odd-job labourers? And if the police had evidence, why were they not arrested under other existing laws apart from the dreaded SOSMA?
The point is that the police did not have the evidence to charge them in court.
And the fact that a few members were from the DAP and all 12 were subsequently released by former attorney-general Tan Sri Tommy Thomas is enough to illustrate the point that the arrests were politically motivated.
It is also clear that the arrests were aimed at dampening the spirit of the DAP and smearing its name.
Muhyiddin is not a saint; he was primarily responsible for the attempt to weaken the DAP.
The arrest of the 12 Indians also bears testimony to how Muhyiddin colluded with the police to arrest innocent Indians.
I am not going to say that PN, if it comes to power, might take the political line of the Taliban in Afghanistan. However, it is suffice to say that if the Muhyiddin-led-PN coalition comes to power, it will pose a danger to all Malaysians.
With the desperate mercurial PAS in PN, what kind of rational government could we accept? – Nov 15, 2022
Prof Ramasamy Palanisamy is the state assemblyperson for Perai. He is also deputy chief minister II of Penang.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
Main photo credit: Reuters
