Ops Lalang was Dr M’s diversion tactic, says Kit Siang
By Shannon Teoh, The Malaysian Insider
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 20 — Opposition figures and activists swept in the 1987 Ops Lalang dragnet were scapegoats in Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s move to consolidate his power base, said Lim Kit Siang in his biography released today.
The DAP parliamentary leader claimed that Dr Mahathir had needed a diversion due to Kelantan prince Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah’s challenge for the Umno presidency in 1986 that split the party in half and other “scandals.”
“Operasi Lalang was not so much about us being a threat to national security as it was about his need to consolidate his power base in Umno,” Lim said in academician Ooi Kee Beng’s The Right to Differ.
The Ipoh Timur MP has been at odds with Dr Mahathir recently over whether the then prime minister had ordered the 1987 Internal Security Act (ISA) crackdown.
Dr Mahathir has claimed that he did not want Ops Lalang and gave opposition figures including Lim his word that they would not be detained but had finally given in to police demands.
Lim has denied that Dr Mahathir, who was also home minister at the time, had ever given him any such assurance and disputed the fact that Dr Mahathir “at his most powerful” could not control the police.
In the book, Lim said that Dr Mahathir started his assault on various institutions such as the judiciary, election commission and parliament because “people could see that his promises had not been fulfilled.”
“In those days, some of the cases ended with judgements which Mahathir found unacceptable. Finally, he feared that the judiciary might take a decision that would lead to the downfall of Mahathir and Umno.
“Operasi Lalang, the sacking of Salleh Abas and Supreme Court judges came about in that context. That was the point when Mahathir decided that the independence of the judiciary and the integrity of the institutions, were secondary to his position of power,” Lim said, referring to the dismissal of five apex judges including chief judge Tun Salleh Abas.
He said that Dr Mahathir needed a diversion after scandals such as the loss of RM3.6 billion due to mismanagement by cooperatives and the dubious award of RM2.5 billion in loans by Bumiputra Finance Berhad as well as sensitive issues of allegations of mass conversions to Christianity and the posting of school administrators and principals to Chinese schools who were not well-versed in Mandarin.
