Finally the TRUTH that lies behind Ops Lalang
KTemoc Konsiders
FMT – World jurists condemned Mahathir for sacking Tun Salleh:
By Kua Kia Soong
Dr Mahathir has tried in vain to wriggle out of the responsibility for Operation Lalang. Now he is attempting to put the blame for the sacking of Lord President Tun Salleh Abas and three other Supreme Court judges on the Agung.
As I have pointed out often enough, these two outrages against Malaysian democracy in 1987 and 1988 respectively are inextricably linked.
I am surprised that the opportunist politicians and crypto-Mahathiristas in Pakatan Harapan and the lawyers who were outraged in 1988 have so quickly forgotten recent Malaysian history or have lost their tongues. Let me remind them of Lord Denning’s words:
“Silence is not an option when things are ill done.”
We know that 1987 was a time during Dr Mahathir’s term when he was faced with the biggest threat to his rule, with Team B under Tengku Razaleigh challenging the results of the Umno elections. A Supreme Court decision in Team B’s favour would have meant the end of Mahathir’s grasp on power.
Thus, in the run-up to Operation Lalang and before the assault on the judiciary resulting in the sacking of the Lord President and several other Supreme Court judges, the ruling party catalysed a tense situation in the country by creating “sensitive” issues involving the sending of non-Mandarin qualified administrators to the Chinese schools, the conversion of Muslims to Christianity and even threatening to organize a 500,000-people Umno rally in the capital.
All the ensuing tension was to justify unleashing ‘Operation Lalang’ to deal with the so-called “threat to national security”.
The Tunku, at the time of his twilight years, had more perception and integrity than Mahathir in his prime and certainly enough political nous to see how Operation Lalang was orchestrated:
“Umno was facing a break-up. The Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s hold on the party appeared critical when election rigging was alleged to have given him a very narrow victory over Tengku Razaleigh. The case alleging irregularities brought by Umno members was pending in court. If the judgement went against him he would have no choice but to step down. So, he had to find a way out of his predicament.
A national crisis had to be created to bring Umno together as a united force to fight a common enemy – and the imaginary enemy, in this case, was the Chinese community.” ( K.Das/ SUARAM: ‘The White paper on the October Affair and the Why? Papers’, SUARAM Petaling Jaya 1989: 10)
In the Foreword to ‘May Day for Justice’ written by Tun Salleh & K. Das after the sacking of the Lord President, the Tunku further wrote:
“I do not know how any honourable government can stay in office after this book has been published. It constitutes a denunciation which cannot be answered without confessing to the most dishonourable conduct in public life…it struck a terrible blow, not only to the independence of the Malaysian Judiciary – and ruined the careers of at least three honourable men – but to national pride itself.”
In another Foreword, the Hon Justice Michael Kirby CMG Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) had this to say:
“Singled out for particular mention was the concern of the ICJ about the campaign of attacks on the judiciary by the Prime Minister of Malaysia, the inducements made to the Lord President to resign his office quietly, the apparently biased constitution of the tribunal set up to enquire into his removal, the inclusion in the tribunal, as its chairman, of a judge who succeeded to the Lord President’s office, the unprecedented action of that judge in securing the removal and suspension of Supreme Court judges who provided a stay to allow the constitutionality of the tribunal to be tested in the Malaysian Supreme Court, and the “unpersuasive” report of the tribunal following which the Lord President was removed.”
The highly respected former Lord President Tun Mohamed Suffian Bin Hashim had this to say on the sordid affair and he pointed his finger squarely at PM Mahathir:
“The disgrace brought to Malaysia by the Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in dismissing the Lord President, Tun Salleh Abas, and two senior Supreme Court judges will long hang around his neck like an albatross. What the PM did astound the nation and the appalling news was swiftly spread to all four corners of the globe…Tun Salleh has since revealed all the facts leading to, and regarding the so-called inquiry into his alleged misbehaviour. Facts which because of the Prime Minister’s total control of the mass media he was able at the time to keep from public knowledge and which were also kept out of the knowledge of the two foreign members of the Tribunal who came from Sri Lanka and Singapore.” (K. Das, ‘Questionable Conduct over that May day Caper’, 1990)
