Sabah RCI: What next? — Kim Quek
January 24, 2013
http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/sideviews/article/sabah-rci-what-next-kim-quek
JAN 24 —
Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad finally admitted — in the face of
overwhelming evidence — that he granted citizenship to the illegal immigrants
who have flooded Sabah, but quickly added that the citizenship was granted
legally.
He said:
“Many of them in Sabah were not there for a day or two, but 20 or 30 years and
can speak Malay. They have the right to be citizens”.
Is that all
there is to the infamous “Project M” (M stands for Mahathir) that has brought
untold miseries to Sabahans: the mere granting of citizenship to qualified
immigrants in the normal legal way?
To get to
the truth, let us hear some top officials of the Sabah National Registration
Department (NRD) who gave evidence to the Royal Commission of Inquiry looking
into the population explosion of Sabah.
Incontrovertible
evidence
Sabah NRD
assistant registrar Kee Dzulkifly Kee Abd Jalil said the special unit he was
working in, illegally issued some 100,000 blue identity cards (IC) to the
immigrants (blue cards are meant for citizens only), in addition to issuing
200,000 letters of approval for birth certificate for the children of
immigrants. With these approval letters, they would get their birth
certificates from the hospitals or district offices. These immigrants,
who are all Muslims, are mainly from southern Philippines and Indonesia.
Kee
Dzulkifly, together with some of his fellow officers who also gave evidence
collaborating Kee Dzulkifly’s evidence, was subsequently detained under the
Internal Security Act (ISA) for two years from 1995 to 1997, for engaging in
these illegal activities.
Tamparuli
NRD chief Yakup Damsah said that upon instruction from then Sabah NRD chief
Abdul Rauf Sani, he and his colleagues were flown from Sabah to Kuala Lumpur,
where they operated a clandestine operation in the house of Mahathir’s then
political secretary Abdul Aziz Shamsuddin at Kampung Pandan to illegally issue
blue ICs to immigrants. Yakup said the purpose of the operation was to boost
Muslims voters and to ensure they vote for Umno in the Sabah state election.
His group issued 40,000 blue ICs within a month. Yakup was subsequently
detained under the ISA for his illegal act.
Sabah NRD
chief Ramli Kamaruddin, who succeeded Abdul Rauf, said that two weeks before
the 1994 Sabah state election, he met then deputy home minister Megat Junid
Megat Ayub (then home minister was Mahathir) at Hyatt Hotel in Kota Kinabalu,
where he was instructed to issue temporary IC receipts to immigrants. These
receipts, in the names of voters who never voted, would enable the immigrants
to vote on polling day, so as to ensure a Barisan Nasional (BN) victory. Also
present at the hotel was Osu Sukam, who later became Sabah chief minister in
1999. Ramli Kamaruddin was also detained under ISA for two years from 1995.
Sabah NRD
deputy director Mohd Nasir Sugip testified that the department carried out the
clandestine “Ops Durian Burok” from 1992 to 1995 under instruction from the
state Election Commission (EC) to provide unqualified immigrants with blue ICs
so that they could vote in an election. With the new ICs issued in accordance
with the details provided by the EC, these Filipino and Indonesian Muslims were
then planted as voters in strategic constituencies (classified as ‘black’ or
‘grey’ for BN) across Sabah to help BN win in elections. At one time, Sabah EC
director Wan Ahmad Wan Yusof handed over a list of 16,000 names and asked for
these to be converted into ‘Bumiputra Islam” voters. Mohd Nasir was later
detained under the ISA.
Blackout
by mainstream media
All this
evidence was presented to the Royal Commission on January 16, the third day of
the hearings; whereas Mahathir claimed his innocence on the next day, January
17.
Does it not
boggle the mind that in the face of such incontrovertible evidence of this
massive illegal operation, Mahathir would still deny its existence?
What gave
him the courage to do so, if not for the fact that the Royal
Commission’s
proceedings have virtually been blacked out by the mainstream media, while his
statement of defence would be given prominence?
Despite such
connivance from the mainstream media and Mahathir’s brazen denials, there is no
way that such staggering breach of law can be buried in this Internet age of
ubiquitous information.
Equally
impossible to deny is Mahathir’s link to these acts of treason.
The two key
political leaders featured in the evidence — Aziz Shamsuddin and Megat Junid —
were Mahathir’s closest confidantes, who were also well known for their roles
as henchmen to execute some of his more unsavoury schemes.
At their
level of political influence and status, these two henchmen would have neither
the courage nor the reason to embark on such a bold venture of high treason
that could easily have led their journey to the gallows, without the protection
of the highest political leadership.
It is as
clear as daylight that these two political minions were only carrying out the
wishes of their political boss.
Mahathir
irretrievably linked
Project M is
unparalleled in modern history in that it is a clandestine operation that has
succeeded in robbing the sovereign rights of a people by massive infusion of
illegal immigrants and pervasive contamination of the electoral roll with
illegal voters (known as the phantom voters).
The success
of Project M has ensured Umno’s hegemony in Sabah for almost two decades. And
the original Sabahans will continue to be subjected to such rule unless the illegal
immigrants and phantom voters menace is resolved.
What is even
more alarming is that the phantom voter cancer continues to grow right up to
this day, not only in Sabah, but there is ample evidence that its malignancy
has been spreading in Peninsula Malaysia, as exemplified by the thousands of
dubious registered voters that surface continually, particularly in the state
of Selangor.
The latest
evidence was uncovered by a survey carried out by the Selangor government. In a
house-to-house check on the half a million newly registered voters, 135,000 of
them could not be traced, for which the EC has not given any valid answer.
In fact, our
greatest problem is our EC, which has unabashedly acted as a political arm of
Umno.
Take the
case of the explosive expose’ uncovered by the Sabah RCI. In any
democracy, the election commission would have immediately swung into emergency
action, and in conjunction with other agencies such as the NRD, police and
attorney general’s chamber, would seek out the criminals and rectify the huge
damage to restore integrity and public confidence to the electoral system. But
not our EC. The latter has chosen not to react on the lame excuse that any
comment would be ‘subjudice’ and any action would also be premature, as the RCI
has not completed its findings.
Bonanza
for opposition?
The same
deaf and dumb tactic has also been adopted by Prime Minister Najib Razak and
the component parties of Barisan Nasional. EC and BN’s strategy seems to be: do
nothing until the next election which will be held in probably two months’
time. (Parliament stands dissolved on April 28, and polling within 60 days
thereafter.)
And
opposition alliance Pakatan Rakyat and civil society will have to decide
whether to stage another mass rally, both to force some urgent and basic
electoral reforms including cleansing of electoral roll, as well as to gain
political capital by swinging the middle ground further towards them.
Whatever the
decision on the mass rally, the opposition will certainly leave no stone
unturned to publicise the moral and political bankruptcy of the incumbent
political power in resorting to means most foul at perils of destroying our
democracy so as to cling on to power.
Thus, the
Sabah RCI is turning out to be a last minute gift to the opposition after all,
whatever its findings.
*
This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and
does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.
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