Masing’s tall tale about flight of village chieftains

YOURSAY | ‘I am an old soldier and they don't look anything like having fought the communists.’

'Military ferrying village chiefs was an appreciation for fighting communists'

Vijay47: It is extremely difficult for me to find the appropriate words to describe your efforts to defend and justify a blatant abuse of public property for party politics. Pathetic, contemptible, or shameful barely scrape the surface.

That you, James Jemut Masing, a state deputy chief minister at that, are reduced to this depth in a desperate attempt to cover an illegality obvious to anyone with even some basic self-respect and intelligence only reveals that you acknowledge that the use of the plane has flown into a storm that warrants immediate action by the MACC, not that we expect that fire and brimstone body to take any effective measures against Umno underlings.

You first said that the trip to Putrajaya was to show the headmen's gratitude to PM Najib Razak, now you claim in reverse that it was for the Air Force to show appreciation for Sarawak's valiance against the communists. To use your famous words, make up your mind, which is it?

It is strange that you mention only the communists, Sarawak was equally heroic against the Indonesians when they launched their Konfrontasi against a newborn Malaysia. Did you forget that or was that war not worthy of appreciation?

Just to digress, if the Sarawak Rangers had been allowed to continue their firm and fair operations during May 13, Malaysia would have been a much better place today. To return to your "display of indebtedness" fable, is it the practice of air forces anywhere in the world to use military aircraft to offer joy rides to civilians visiting their political masters?

But the cherry on your icing is that such gratitude is being shown 40 years later by persons not born then towards persons long dead now.

Perhaps this is not unusual in the Malaysian context, after all, we did have the Bank Negara Forex Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) after 30 years and the ill-fated idea of a similar one for Memali.

In their misery and backwardness, Sarawakians perhaps deserve leaders like you with your ‘Return to Back to the Future’ fairy-tale.

Slumdog: Sarawak DCM and Parti Rakyat Sarawak (PRS) president Masing makes a good fiction writer and story-teller.

First, we were told that the village chiefs wanted to thank Najib for what he had done to develop their villages. Then he said it was a way to show appreciation for their efforts in fighting communists in the past. Indeed, which is it?

It appears coincidently just before GE14 to thank these village chiefs for their alleged contribution to fighting the communists more than 40 years ago. What next? A show of appreciation to all those who fought for independence from the British in the 1950s.

When will this kind of generous and repulsive displays of fake appreciation using taxpayers’ money stop?

Bo Kia: I am from Peninsular Malaysia and served in the Rajang Area Security Command (Rascom), Sibu, Sarawak as a military officer in Ranger Battalion when the communist insurgency was at its height.

I am now in the 60s and I don't see many ‘tuai rumah’ or ‘apai’ of my age in the photo.

Gen. Half Track: I, too, am an old soldier and as far as I can see they (village chiefs) are all young men who don't look anything like having fought the communists.

Headhunter: Masing, tell us how many of the village chiefs were chiefs when the communists were around? And how many of them have to deal with communist insurgency at the time?

Stop embarrassing yourself and apologise to all the chiefs for treating them like cattle. Some of them may have been excited to travel in an airplane for the first time in their life but that's no reason to treat them with so little respect. They are, after all, BN safe deposit.

Anonymous 1607021442717254: If only one-third of the chiefs were fighting the communists, what is the reason for flying the other two-thirds?

We should only have flown those chiefs we want to reward and there should have been an award ceremony to go with that.

I wish Masing would be more honest and transparent about the real reasons why these chiefs were flown to see Najib.

Rocky: After two days of cooking up an excuse, and yet he still comes out with something so ridiculously stupid. I hope not all Sarawakians are as dim-witted as Masing,

Justice: When they arrived back home in Balleh, Kapit, Pelagus, Song and Kanowit, they still can't recover their lost ancestral lands which the Sarawak government of which Masing is its DCM had signed away to the BN cronies, the big logging and oil palm plantations tycoons.

Okay, we fully agreed with Masing that the Ibans from these areas had helped fought and defeated the communists and brought peace to Sarawak.

But we ask: So why penalised, mistreated or deprived these Ibans who had sacrificed so much for the country's peace and security by taking away their source of livelihood - their ancestral lands - and give them to your cronies, some of whom were themselves once members or supporters or sympathisers of the communists.

Gerard Lourdesamy: Masing, what nonsense is this? Fair enough, the village chiefs could not be flown on commercial flights from their remote villages and towns in Sarawak but they could have been flown on Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) aircraft to Kuching, Miri and Sibu and then put on commercial flights paid for by the government for their trip to Putrajaya to meet Najib.

Why treat them like cargo if they deserve recognition and respect? If VIPs can crisscross between the peninsula and Sarawak on private jets and chartered flights, why treat these brave warriors in such a manner?

Airplayer: If Najib has truly been grateful, he would have built good roads in the interior of Sarawak without the village chiefs requesting them. Basic amenities like electricity and clean water should also have been provided 50 odd years ago.

I hope these village chiefs are not easily conned.

Anonymous 2460851488616887: We are really going back in time - a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) on forex loss 30 years ago, and now rewarding village chiefs for fighting communists 50 years ago…- Mkini