Marina apologises for gaffe attributing Dr M's threats to rival Ghazali Shafie

 

Marina Mahathir has issued an apology following an error in a column in which she wrongly attributed a 'shoot to kill' threat made to Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s to the home minister at the time.

The controversial statement was not made by then home minister Ghazali Shafie but actually issued by Marina's father, then deputy prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad.

"Dear folks, I'd like to thank all those who pointed out the major factual mistake in my last column in the Sunday Star. It seems that I'm capable of making my own gaffes, so I stand corrected and sincerely apologise.

"It was not meant to revise history, as some have alleged, it was wholly the weak memory of something that happened when I was barely out of my teens and still trying to make sense of the world.

"I unreservedly apologise to anyone I have hurt or offended by this mistake," said Marina in a Facebook post today.

The column "We need the leaders we truly deserve" was published on Jan 30 in the The Sunday Star.

In it, Marina had written: "In the late 70s when we had many Vietnamese refugees landing on our shores, our then Home Minister announced that we would shoot any that washed up on our beaches."

In her apology today, she did not name either Ghazali or Mahathir.

Mahathir, Ghazali considered rivals

In the 1970s, following the end of the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees fled the country.

Many perished at sea while thousands of others were rescued and housed in squalid camps in Pulau Bidong off Terengganu.

According to a Washington Post article dated June 19, 1979, then prime minister Hussein Onn was forced to deny Mahathir's words.

In a letter to then UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, Hussein Onn declared: "I wish to state that our measures to prevent further inflow of the boat people do not include shooting them."

The Washington Post article said Hussein contradicted the words of Mahathir, who had earlier threatened that new refugees would be shot and that the estimated 75,000 in camps here would be put back to sea.

He also was reported to have said that Malaysia is building a fleet of boats to facilitate the refugees' expulsion.

At that point, Mahathir and Ghazali were considered rivals in the contest to succeed Hussein as prime minister. Ghazali passed away in 2010.

Marina's gaffe comes on the heels of a book entitled "The Apple and The Tree", which courted flak for the alleged whitewashing and sympathetic portrayal of her father's role during such events as the Sheraton Move and Operation Lalang. - Mkini