DAP HQ’s reply to Captain Reinu Balakrishnan’s Letter dated 29 March 2010 entitled “DAP is Racist”
By Foo Yueh Chuan, Chief-of-Staff DAP National Headquarters
My attention was brought to a Letter published in Malaysia Today on 29 March 2010 entitled “DAP is Racist” by one Captain Reinu Balakrishnan. Since the DAP National Headquarters has been implicated in a negative light by the said Letter, it is my duty as Chief-of-Staff to present our side of the story for the record.
An email from Captain Reinu Balakrishnan was sent to the DAP HQ email address on Saturday, 6 March 2010. Captain Reinu followed up with a phone call to the DAP HQ on Monday, 8 March 2010 to enquire about our response to his complaints.
An HQ staff tasked to handle the complaint studied the email, did some verifications with DAP branches in Selangor, and confirmed that a fund raising dinner organised by the DAP Paramount Branch on 17 April 2010 in Sg Way, Petaling Jaya was the target in Captain Reinu’s complaint.
While carrying out his “investigation”, the HQ staff made three telephone calls to Captai Reinu in order to:
ascertain that Captai Reinu is the person making the complaints;
verifying various facts not stated clearly in Captai Reinu email;
report to Captai Reinu the result of his investigation, including the rational for two types of ticket, venue of dinner etc.
All the above were done on 8 March 2010, ie the day Captain Reinu called the DAP HQ.
I believe the DAP HQ had dealt with Captain Reinus complaint with due diligence, promptly and as professionally as we can. It is not for us to change his mind if he insisted that by selling two types of ticket, DAP Paramount Branch is practicing “class classification”, or that by having a dinner in Chinese schools, the DAP is racist. (please refer to Emmanuel Joseph’s deliberations on these points in his Letter “DAP is Racist?” dated 30 March 2010)
The public may be interested to be informed that, according to the dinner organiser, DAP Paramount Branch has sold all the dinner tickets – both the expensive ones and ordinary ones– within two weeks of their sale and is now looking for ways to put in more tables into the school halls so that more people can join the function. Halal food will be served for Muslims participants, and PR leaders from PKR and PAS are expected to attend, a norm in all DAP and PR functions.
As to Captain Reinu’s claim that the DAP representative who sent him the sms soliciting his support had gone on a personal attack on him, for the record, the relevant representative has also retained Captain Reinu’s various sms replies and a police report has been lodged accordingly. There is no point dwelling into the details, and I shall leave it at that.
Before I end, on Captain Reinu’s accusation that DAP HQ staff’ were rude and substandard in their response, I wish to apologise for any shortcoming in our service. We will improve on them in time in order to serve the people better. To rebut point by point every details claimed by Captain Reinu will be an exercise too trivial to deserve the attention of this forum.
