Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu) may have asked Malaysians to talk about the US$27.3 million pink diamond of Malaysian Official 1's wife during balik kampung for Hari Raya, but the Umno propaganda machinery is bent on ensuring that does not happen, said DAP parliamentary leader Lim Kit Siang.
Lim said it is for this reason that the government has introduced an alternative narrative - that the damaging claims made by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) with regard to 1MDB was a case of "foreign intervention".
On June 16, The DOJ filed its third civil forfeiture suit in relation to 1MDB, claiming that among others, US$27.3 million traceable to 1MDB was used to purchase a pink diamond necklace. In total, it claimed US$4.5 billion was misappropriated from 1MDB and is seeking to seized US$1.7 billion in allegedly ill-gotten gains.
Subsequently, Bersatu Youth chief Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman urged Malaysians to tell their friends and family about this when they balik kampung for Hari Raya.
"Suddenly, Syed Saddiq’s call to Malaysian youths to return to the kampungs to share the scandal of the pink diamond necklace and 27 other jewellery items assumed greater importance and became a grave threat to the political future and survival of Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, Umno and BN, and hence the need to counter and neutralise it became imperative.
"Thus the escalation of the propaganda to spread the fairy tale that the DOJ kleptocratic suits were an unacceptable violation of Malaysia’s sovereignty and foreign intervention with the country’s domestic affairs.
"These were never the issues for the cabinet last Wednesday or it would not have ignored the subject or the Foreign Ministry failing to make any protests the US government in the past ten days," Lim said in a statement today.
Lim noted that even PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang had joined in to lend support for the "foreign intervention" narrative to counter the damaging claims by the DOJ.
People are smarter than propagandists
He also criticised Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Abdul Rahman Dahlan for accusing the DOJ of unfairly targeting the prime minister's wife Rosmah Mansor.
Abdul Rahman had previously told UK-based BBC that Malaysian Official 1 is Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.
Lim said ordinary people are "smarter than the propagandists" and will not be misled by Abdul Rahman's accusation against the DOJ.
Instead, Lim said the people are well aware of his refusal to deny whether the wife of Malaysian Official 1 really received the US$27.3 million pink diamond necklace and 27 other jewellery pieces.
Lim said it will be known soon whether the "pink diamond" or "foreign intervention" narrative this triumph during this Hari Raya.
"I am confident that Malaysians, including the overwhelming majority of Umno and PAS rank-and-file, do not support corruption or Malaysia as a global kleptocracy, while all Malaysians stand as one to oppose any foreign intervention into Malaysia’s domestic affairs," he said. - Mkini
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