Two-day event commemorates 30 years after Ops Lalang

A two-day event is being held today and tomorrow to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Operasi Lalang.

This includes a poster exhibition chronicling the events in the run-up to the infamous crackdown, the operation itself, and its aftermath, as well as correspondences to and from those caught up in the operation.

The events are being held at the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (KLSCAH) in Kuala Lumpur.

The events today included the launch of the book ‘Autocrats vs The People: Authoritarian Populism in Malaysia’ by Anne Munro (second from left in photo), while former detainees and their family members shared their experiences of the Operasi Lalang.

At 8PM tomorrow, several other former detainees are also expected to speak at the event.

Meanwhile, at the launch of the two-day event, former detainee Kua Kia Soong again urged former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad to apologise for Operasi Lalang, and said that the late DAP chairperson Karpal Singh would have demanded the same as a matter of principle.

Kua said former detainees won’t even have bothered asking Mahathir for an apology if he was still an active Umno member, but they expected differently of him now that he is the chairperson of the main opposition coalition.

“In the 14th general election, we are voting for the opposition front against the BN. If Mahathir is going to lead Pakatan Harapan, show us that you are a born-again democrat. Otherwise, why should I bother voting for Harapan?” he said at the launch of the event.

Operasi Lalang took place starting in October 1987, when Mahathir was the prime minister. Over 100 dissidents were detained without trial under the Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA) in the swoop, including academics, activists, and politicians.

Former detainees and their families sharing their experiences of the crackdown, related fear and anger they felt, even to this day.

One of them, the Kota Melaka MP Sim Tong Him (photo), said that his wife that told him not to speak when she found out that he was about to speak at today’s forum.

“She said, ‘Mahathir cannot arrest you now but he can sue you until you become bankrupt.’

“Imagine that. After 30 years, my wive’s fears are still there, thinking that today if I walk out of my house, I am not coming back,” he said.

The ex-wife to the former detainee Nasir Hashim, Anizan Iskak (photo), said she was angry and indignant about Nasir’s arrest.

She said that even a thief would know how long he would be imprisoned, but an ISA detainee would not because the two-year ISA detention orders could be renewed indefinitely.

She and several others on the panel also spoke on how the next-of-kin of ISA detainees had attempted to form a support group amongst themselves, and the polices’ attempts to disrupt their meetings.

In one incident, she said she hit a male plainclothes police personnel in the thigh following a chase around the Lake Gardens in Kuala Lumpur. She said would do it again, but ‘aim in the middle’ this time.

Another member of the panel David Anthony reminded that although the ISA has been repealed, there are still other draconian laws such as the National Security Council Act 2016.

“If BN feels that it is about to lose, this enactment may be invoked,” he warned.

The law grants emergency-like powers, include the power to designate an area as a ‘security area’. Deaths caused by security personnel in such areas do not require an inquest.

Munro meanwhile said her new book was based on her 1993 PhD thesis, which she wrote as a form of catharsis following her husband Kua’s arrest during Operasi Lalang. It is now republished after being urged to do so by Kua and others because its contents are still relevant.

It gives her a framework for understanding the events that took place during Operasi Lalang, she said.

Economist Edmund Terence Gomez, who wrote the book’s foreword, said authoritarian populist rhetoric can still be seen today – 30 years after Operasi Lalang. 

These include the rhetoric from both BN and Harapan, even in 2018 federal budget tabled yesterday.

“We don’t want such discourses. That is the point. (Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s) address is clearly a response to the 2013 (general election).

“He did badly in 2013. When 1Malaysia was discredited, he came up with this policy of bumiputera economic empowerment. His agenda: I must secure bumiputera support.

“Yesterday he said it. He is going to use the government-linked companies and government-linked investment companies to support bumiputeras.

“That is not the way to bring the country forward, and it is based on this kind of rhetoric. We can do without it because we are all in bad shape if we continue to have political discourses shape our economic policies. That is the message of this book,” he said as he launched the book today.

END -Mkini