IGP SHOULD CHARGE DR MAHATHIR FOR TREASON

Johan Joe

Some time ago, the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) Deputy President, who is also the Federal Energy, Green Technology and Water Minister, Datuk Sri Maximus Jonity Ongkili, was quoted as saying that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad “by his own admission has ignored the Federal Constitution and the law by giving ICs and MyKads to illegal immigrants without citizenship. Such an act amounts to treason.”

I thought that that was a very strong statement and one that should have attracted the IGP’s attention. Alas, until now no questions have been asked or an investigation done, let alone action taken against Dr Mahathir by the authorities.

The people of Sabah are wondering what action the enforcement agency will take against a person who is alleged to have committed treason or an act of deliberate betrayal to a nation. Is this symbolic of George Orwell’s Animal Farm – ‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’?

Despite the fact that Dr Mahathir told the Sabah Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) hearing in Kota Kinabalu a year ago that he had never heard of Projek IC, most Sabahans believe Dr Mahathir did not tell the truth.

The RCI has concluded that, based on testimonies by several witnesses during its hearing last year the controversial ‘Projek IC’ citizenship-for-votes initiative may have existed. According to the report, the royal panel declared that five witnesses had spoken on the initiative, leading to the conclusion that there is a probability that the project was real.

The panel not only concluded that, based on the testimonies of five witnesses, there is a probability that ‘Projek IC’ existed, it also said that the five witnesses were former staff members of the Sabah National Registration Department (NRD) who were once detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for their alleged involvement in this crime.

‘Projek IC’ is said to be responsible for the abnormal spike in Sabah’s population, where foreigners comprise nearly 30 per cent of the state’s 3.12 million-strong population. ‘Projek IC’, which happened specifically in Sabah, is the systematic granting of citizenship to immigrants (whether illegal or legal immigrants) by giving them identity documents known as ICs, and subsequently, MyKads.

Another term for ‘Projek IC’ is ‘Project M’, where ‘M’ stands for Mahathir. Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who was in power from 1981 to 2003, has been repeatedly named as the man who spearheaded this initiative.

The former Dewan Negara Senator Dr. Chong Eng Leong alleged in 2012 that there were 700,000 ‘Project IC citizens’ and that 200,000 of them are on the state electoral roll. This project is suspected to have begun in the early 1990s after the entry of United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) into Sabah.

One of the activists of anti-‘Projek M’ was the late Mutalib Mohd Daud, the former Silam Umno Division Executive Secretary. Mutalib was from Peninsular Malaysia who migrated to Sabah in the 1970s. He had openly mentioned many times that among the 43,000 newly recruited UMNO members during his time, only 14,000 had genuine identity cards. Mutalib had written a number of books exposing the granting of citizenship to foreigners during the Dr Mahathir era.

Interestingly, in February 2013, Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim accused Dr Mahathir Mohamad of being responsible for ‘Projek IC’ or ‘Projek M’. He mentioned that the task force to oversee ‘Projek IC’ was personally headed by Dr Mahathir and later on was handed over to the then PM’s political secretary, Datuk Aziz Shamsuddin, and the former Deputy Home Minister, Tan Sri Megat Junid.

Dr Mahathir has admitted that the project was all done legally and even likened the exercise to the first premier Tunku Abdul Rahman’s granting of citizenship to Chinese and Indians. If these allegations were true and by Dr Mahathir’s own declaration that he knew of the existence of the project, he obviously committed a serious crime of treason by giving citizenship to many illegal immigrants. Furthermore, he should be impeached or charged for lying to the RCI when he said he did not know of the ‘Projek’ IC but later justified it.

Was the former Prime Minister privy to the underground exercise? According to Matswadi Awi, who is the 200th witness during the RCI inquiry, he believes the accusation was true. He told the inquiry that he was under instructions to source the names from illegal immigrants to make them ‘Malaysians’. He believes that the government was responsible for Sabah being flooded with thousands of immigrants, both legal and illegal.

In the name of justice, Sabah seriously needs to look into this allegation and consider the merits and demerits of initiating charges of treason against the former Prime Minister. The existence of the ‘Project IC’ or ‘Project ‘M’, which had inflicted great misery to the people of Sabah, is the greatest crime that Tun Dr Mahathir Mohammed had committed during his tenure as the prime minister of Malaysia.