Kit Siang throws a ‘piss’ dare to Najib

The DAP veteran wants the PM to reveal historical evidence of an alleged urinating incident which provoked the May 13 racial riots.

KUALA LUMPUR: With tension and desperation mounting as the clock ticks down to the still elusive general election, the battle between the ruling coalition and the opposition has descended to the groin level.

An enraged Lim Kit Siang issued a 48-hour deadline to Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to unzip historical proof to substantiate, what the DAP veteran termed as an incendiary and seditious figment of the imagination.

He was referring to the controversial movie Tanda Putera, which reportedly contained a scene of a group of Chinese youths urinating on the flagpole bearing the Selangor flag of the then menteri besar’s residence and thus provoking the May 13 racial riots in 1969.

“I challenge Najib to produce the historical evidence…. The prime minister must assume full responsibility for this most racist and unhistorical slur in the May 13 film as it was Najib, according to Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Ahmad Maslan, who instructed that the film be exclusively screened to some 3,000 Felda settlers during a meeting at the Putra World Trade Centre on Monday.

“Only the Felda settlers were allowed to watch the film, which was screened after the journalists present in the hall were asked to leave,” he said.

Lim noted that Tanda Putera’s spokespersons had claimed that the movie was based on exhaustive research such as studying documented materials and photographs, to ensure that the scenes were backed by historical facts.

“Where are the documented materials and photographs of such an urination incident?” he asked.

‘I was not even in KL’

The veteran politician said he was defamed by the movie’s publicists and Umno cybertroopers as the person urinating on the flagpole.

This, Lim added, was a “dastardly and contemptible lie as no sane, rational or responsible person would have committed such an irresponsible and unthinkable deed.”

The DAP leader reiterated that he was not even in Kuala Lumpur between May 11 and 13 as he was in Kota Kinabalu to help in the election campaigning of the then Sabah slate of independent candidates.

“I first came to Kuala Lumpur after the May 10 general election on May 18 as an Internal Security Act detainee, after I was arrested at the Subang International Airport,” he said.

Lim said since the Tanda Putera official Facebook entry about the urinating incident, he had asked around but none had heard of such a thing.

He added that neither the White Paper issued by the National Operations Council on Oct 9, 1969 entitled “The May 13 Tragedy” nor Tunku Abdul Rahman’s book “May 13 – Before and After” made any reference to such an incident.

“Where is the historical evidence of such a scene or is it just pure figment of imagination of the film producers?

“It is only fair that Malaysians give the prime minister 48 hours to produce historical proof of the urination incident as depicted by the May 13 film, before drawing any conclusions,” he said.

Meanwhile, national laureate A Samad Said stated that the movie was shown to the Felda settlers in order to rope in the Malay votes for Barisan Nasional.

In its campaign, Umno often labeled DAP as a Chinese chauvinist set-up masquerading as a multiracial party and that it aims to dismantle the special rights of the Malays and undermine Islam.

Umno leaders also claim that DAP wielded the real power in Pakatan Rakyat and that even the Islamic-based PAS was subservient to it, and therefore voting the opposition coalition into federal power would be detrimental to the Malays.