Kit Siang: Najib must explain his “crushed bodies, lives lost” “ethnic cleansing” speech

Lim Kit Siang

What reaction does Najib expect to elicit when he used the language of “crushed bodies, lives lost” for Umno to defend power at any cost in Putrajaya and even talked about “ethnic cleansing”?

Any doubts about the lack of political will and leadership of the Najib administration to spearhead political, economic, social and government transformation which must be the pillars for Malaysia’s economic and national salvation are banished by the recent Umno General Assembly and Najib’s Presidential Address and Closing Speech.

What reaction does Najib expect to elicit when he used the language of “crushed bodies, lives lost” for Umno to defend power at any cost in Putrajaya and even talked about “ethnic cleansing”?

How can the Malaysian Chronicle editor Wong Choon Mei be harassed and victitmised of publishing a report using these terms, when this was exactly what Najib said, regardless of the English translation issued byBernama?

This was what Najib said in his Umno Presidential Address last Thursday:

"Walau berkecai tulang dan juga badan, walau bercerai jasad dari nyawa. Saudara dan saudari, walau apa pun yang gerjadi, Putrajaya mesti kita pertahankan!”

Pakatan Rakyat parties of DAP, PKR and PAS are also prepared at any cost to capture power in Putrajaya in the next general election and end the long decades of BN/Umno misrule and misgovernance, but we are fully committed to achieve this objective by peaceful and democratic means through the ballot box and we do not talk about “crushed bodies, lost lives” or “ethnic cleansing”.

The Prime Minister must come to Parliament to explain what he really meant when he used these terms as there is more than a threat that he would not accept the electoral verdict of the people for a change of Federal government from BN to Pakatan Rakyat and that he is prepared to abandon the democratic process and subvert the rule of law to perpetuate himself and Umno in power.

The leaders of the Barisan Nasional component parties were asked to give their reactions to Najib’s speech after his Umno presidential address and Malaysians are very disappointed that not a single one of them, whether MCA President, Gerakan President, MIC President or president of the other BN component parties dare to express their disagreement or concern with Najib’s use of the language of “crushed bodies, lost lives” and “ethnic cleansing”.

Not even now, after more than a week! Does this imply that they all fully agree with Najib’s implicit threat or are they so impotent and irrelevant that they dare not speak up what is in the minds of ordinary Malaysians?

There is however another side to the coin of Najib’s “crushed bodies, lives lost” speech – for it reflected a realization that Umno and BN could be voted out of power in Putrajaya in the next general election by the Malaysian electorate. - http://blog.limkitsiang.com/

(Lim Kit Siang is the DAP adviser and MP for Ipoh Timur)