Needed – massive public awakening

That's the only way to put an end to the occurrences of sudden deaths of citizens or citizens getting beaten up for nothing.

COMMENT

Ever since 1Malaysia came into being, there has been a number of casualties which have not been properly accounted for.

Among the injured are Jensen Chia Buang Hing (Malaysian citizen) and S Mogan (Malaysian citizen).

Among the dead are Ahmad Sarbaini (Malaysian citizen), A Kugan (Malaysian citizen) and Teoh Beng Hock (Malaysian citizen).

In December 2010, Chia claimed that he was beaten up by policemen for no apparent reason although he was driving a car with an expired road tax. Is that enough reason to get beaten up by law enforcement officers?

As for Mogan, he had the great misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time only recently in February this year. He claimed that he was beaten up by Rela officers.

Both have been accused of making false police reports and if this is so, they would certainly deserve the Academy Award for Best Actor as their “acting” was very convincing indeed.

For Ahmad Sarbaini, his visit to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) office in Kuala Lumpur on that fateful day – April 6, 2011 – was to be his last. He did leave the building but in a body bag.

Kugan died in police custody and Teoh died on the premises of the MACC office in Plaza Masalam, Shah Alam, on July 16, 2009.

What does all these deaths of Malaysian citizens mean? Simply that the Barsian Nasional federal government has lost the plot and is an indictment that something is very wrong with the administration of the nation. And who is the chief administrator if not the Prime Minister, Najib Tun Razak himself?

Najib and the BN federal government seems to treat these victims as faceless statistics – nothing but an inconsequential number. Where is justice for the victims, especially for those who have died and have no means to fight for justice anymore?

Senseless deaths

Special mention must also be made of Baharuddin Ahmad who died on the battlefield itself – on the streets during the Bersih 2.0 rally on July 9, 2011. According to his cousin, Azhar Kassim, the deceased only had a slight high blood pressure but during the rally he had sustained physical injuries including broken bones in his chest and broken teeh.

Azhar added that Baharuddin was not a rich man and had died leaving behind three children, two of them still young while his family leaves in a flat. Baharuddin is the face of the average Joe Public. His was a noble cause. Has the first spark of change been ignited?

The senseless deaths of Malaysian citizens is a strong indicator that Malaysia has veered off tangent in its quest to become a first world nation.

It is the responsibility of the prime minister himself to provide answers for all these cases of ill-treatment that Malaysian citizens have suffered. But no such thing as the thoughts of these victims do not exist in Najib’s mind. His focus now is on winning the upcoming 13th general election as he goes about touring the nation in his bid to woo support for BN.

The government of the day must be transparent in all its dealings with the rakyat. As it is now, accountability is almost non-existent. The government must be made to answer for the suffering of all these victims. The government cannot and must not keep mum by sweeping the rakyat’s questions under the carpet. Sadly, this the Malaysia of today.

How far has Malaysia progressed? Far enough as far skyscrapers are concerned but in terms of human capital and human development, nil.

Even after the plight of the deceased victims were brought up in Parliament by Pakatan Rakyat, the BN MPs have the audacity to ignore the Pakatan MPs with impunity. They displayed sheer arrogance which only served to cause further heartache to the families of the deceased victims who had asked the Pakatan MPs to highlight the plight of their kith and kin in the House.

There was also the case of three teenage youths who were shot by policemen in the Glenmarie area in Shah Alam in late 2010. This columnist has seen the parents of the teenage youths in Parliament lobby in October last year as they have asked the Pakatan MPs to raise the issue in Parliament by asking the Home Minister what actually happened and why they were shot.

The Home Minister’s answer was only a one-liner saying, “all was done according to the standard operating procedure”. At a press conference later in the Parliament lobby, Puchong DAP MP Gobind Singh Deo said that this one-liner was unacceptable as the parents of the victims have endured much grief only to be given such an arrogant and abruptly dismissive one-liner.

Wicked regime

Yes, the BN government is feeling very superior indeed after 54 years of being in power, 55 years this coming Aug 31. After all, it always think that it can buy the rakyat’s support for a mere RM500. Each time the rakyat complain about the ever-rising cost of living, the BN government treats the citizens as beggars by throwing crumbs to placate the poor and the low-wage earner.

The prime minister has even once mentioned (when he was overseas) that giving subsidies to the rakyat is akin to getting the rakyat addicted to opium. This reveals that the prime minister and the BN government are fakes in that they are only putting up a show pretending to care for the rakyat when they are back home.

Even the 1Care health scheme is a scheme to burden the poor citizens in order to enrich BNputras’ own pockets and those of their cronies as the 10% deduction to be made from the low-wage earners’ salary is tantamount to daylight robbery. A person can only benefit from this scheme by falling ill but who wants to fall ill to benefit?

A government that can offer no proper explanation for the mysterious deaths of its citizens is not a government but a Third World rogue regime which overstays its welcome due to manipulation of the electoral rolls; in short, electoral fraud.

Only a massive awakening from the rakyat can kick out such a wicked regime and put an end to the occurrences of sudden deaths of citizens or citizens getting beaten up for nothing.

But the problem is compounded further when the citizens themselves are kept poor via a BN-perpetuated system so that they will need to depend on the government for cash handouts, thus enslaving them by making them beholden to the government. And the rich cronies are kept rich so as to make them depend on the government for projects and contracts.

Therefore, all bases are covered as both the poor and the rich continue to depend on the BN government which will in effect guarantee the continuance of the vicious cycle which holds the nation in captive.

Only the brave, the bold and the noble at heart will dare to stand up for justice but do we have enough number of such Malaysians?