Noh! Ops Lalang was orchestrated - Dr Kua Kia Soong

Barisan Nasional's Tanjung Karang MP Noh Omar has been quoted as saying that Malaysia would not be a country at peace if Operation Lalang had not been carried out in 1987.

He was speaking in the debate on the amendments to the Security Offences [Special Measures] (Sosma) in the Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday.

The amendment seeks to place organised crimes as an offence punishable under Sosma. He said that there was a threat of racial riots in 1987 before the dragnet which saw more than a hundred innocent Malaysians arrested and detained without trial under the ISA.

I was one of those detained and I happen to be one of the few Malaysians who have been documenting and monitoring Umno and the way they orchestrate “sensitive issues” whenever there is a crisis facing the party.

Yes, like the May 13 pogrom, Operation Lalang was also orchestrated by Umno. Unlike May 13, we have the benefit of more media coverage and more witnesses among the present generation regarding Operation Lalang.

Umno facing a break-up

We know that 1987 was a time during Dr Mahathir Mohamad’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 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 orchestrated a tense situation in the country by creating various “sensitive” issues involving the sending of non-Mandarin qualified administrators to the Chinese schools, conversion of Muslims to Christianity and even threatened to organize a 500,000-people Umno rally in the capital.

All this was to justify unleashing Operation Lalang to deal with the so-called “threat to national security”.

The Tunku, at the time in his twilight years had more perception and integrity than Mahathir in his prime and certainly more political nous than the Tanjung Karang MP.

He, like many other perceptive democrats at the time could see how Operation Lalang was orchestrated. This is how he described the situation:

“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 judgment 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.”

Gangsters now the new “threat to national security”?

The Internal Security Act was at the convenient disposal of the government-of-the-day ever since its introduction in 1960.

When it was first introduced in Parliament, Tun Razak tried to justify it by saying it would only be used against “communist terrorists”.

Through its grisly career, the ISA has been used most blatantly by the ruling coalition to cripple its political opponents, most notably the arrest and detention of practically the entire leadership of the Socialist Front, the main threat to the Alliance during the sixties.

This sham democracy was the main reason for the Socialist Front’s boycott of the 1969 general elections.

Since then, “threats to national security” have included Members of Parliament, trade unionists, environmentalists, educationists, Christian evangelists, Islamic practitioners, document forgers, the list goes on…

Since the repeal of the ISA, detention without trial now comes in the guise of the Security Offences [Special Measures] Act, SOSMA. With the latest amendments to SOSMA, we are told that gangsters are the new “threat to national security”.

All this points not to any threat to the nation but to the machinations of a very insecure regime which orchestrates “sensitive issues” whenever any crisis to the ruling party necessitates it.

* Dr Kua Kia Soong is the adviser to Suaram.