When Dr M’s ‘shoot’ became ‘shoo’ – and story on boat people got shot down

 

The ‘Shoot on Sight” report by Rajan Moses which made headlines worldwide. (Facebook pic)

PETALING JAYA: The biggest news story of 1979 – “shoot on sight” new Vietnamese boat people landing on Malaysian shores – was breaking but the budding journalist responsible was restless.

Rajan Moses told the world about the stinging threat by then deputy prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad as Malaysia was caught up with one of the world’s biggest humanitarian crises.

The story by the rookie journalist of the national news agency, Bernama, shook the globe on June 15. Widespread condemnation erupted.

Moses reported Mahathir threatened new arrivals would be shot; the estimated 75,000 refugees in camps would be put back to sea; and Malaysia was building a fleet of boats to facilitate their expulsion.

Moses’s opening paragraph stated the authorities planned to shoot refugees if they did not stop coming into Malaysian shores.

It was followed by: “If they try sinking their boats, they will not be rescued, they will drown’, Mahathir said. “Their drowning will be because they sank their own boats, not anything else.”

Moses was baffled when then home minister Ghazali Shafie said Mahathir did not say “shoot” at a news conference.

Ghazali said Mahathir had explained to journalists that there was no legal authority to shoot refugees even if the government wanted them shot.

Former Bernama journalist Rajan Moses says his career came to a thudding stop after his “shoot on sight” report was denied. (Rajan Moses pic)

Days later, Hussein Onn, who as prime minister at the time, rushed to reassure former United Nations secretary-general Kurt Waldheim that there was no such policy.

A baffled Moses, then a 28-year-old reporter on ministerial beat, was transferred to Bernama’s translation desk as punishment for stating “shoot”.

“My career came to a thudding stop and the denial caused me anguish.

“There was no way of setting the record straight as journalists then did not tape record interviews,” said Moses, who had to spend two years translating Bahasa Malaysia copies to English after having covered hot issues.

He said there were other newsmen when Mahathir spoke after an event at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) in Bangi, “but I was the only one who wrote the ‘shoot on sight’ story based on what he told us.”

Moses suggested editors at the other media might have toned down the reports from their reporters because the government then controlled the media and information tightly.

“The Bernama story made world headlines and was played up well but it was later re-edited to take out the sting in the original story,” he said.

Moses was speaking to FMT in the wake of Mahathir’s daughter, Marina, erroneously attributing the “shoot on sight” comments to the “home minister” in her column in the latest edition of the Sunday Star.

A copy of Rajan Moses’s re-edited version of the Bernama story in June 1979 that caused international uproar. (Rajan Moses pic)

A photo of the print version of her column, Musings, went viral, with many Malaysians accusing her of trying to rewrite history. Meanwhile, the online version of her opinion piece has seen the words “home minister” changed to “deputy prime minister”.

“When I read her article, I couldn’t fathom it as there was a direct contradiction and a terrible mix-up of facts,” said Moses by phone from Ireland where he is visiting his grandchildren.

Ironically, his “punishment” was the start of an illustrious career in journalism that lasted some three decades.

Moses, who left Bernama’s economic service desk in 1985 and went on to serve Reuters as an international correspondent, said: “We can’t have columnists distorting history or dressing it all up.”

Marina has since apologised for the error in her column but many felt an apology to Ghazali’s family was in order.

Humanitarian crisis

Moses, the first Malaysian to work as a foreign White House correspondent during the US presidential reign of Ronald Reagan and George Bush in the 1980s and 90s, continues to command the respect of both the local and international media.

He said he was disappointed at not having covered the Vietnamese boat people humanitarian crisis to the fullest.

Malaysia was the first post of most of the Vietnamese refugees who left home since the Vietnam War ended in 1975.

Thousands of refugees called Pulau Bidong home in one the largest mass migrations in modern history. (oneroadtolondon.com pic)

Most of them were ethnic Chinese fleeing Vietnam but they also included many escaping the war in Cambodia.

It was one of the largest mass migrations in modern history and placed an enormous strain on neighbouring countries that had to quickly respond to ceaseless tides of hungry, desperate people arriving on their shores.

More than 800,000 took to rickety, overcrowded vessels to sail the dangerous South China Sea in search of asylum in Southeast Asian nations and resettlement in developed countries. They became known as the Vietnamese boat people.

The Malaysian government refused to accept any of them as permanent settlers.

As the numbers swelled, the Malaysian govern­ment decided to set up a refugee camp on Pulau Bidong off Tereng­ganu in 1978.

By June 1979, Pulau Bidong was said to be the most heavily populated place on earth, with 40,000 refugees cram­med into a 13ha area in the south corner of the island.

Pulau Bidong was closed on Oct 30, 1991. The remaining refugees were moved to the Sungai Besi transit camp and the process of repatria­ting them to Vietnam began.

By the time the Sungai Besi camp was closed in June 1996, Malaysia had sent 248,194 refugees to third countries and repatriated 9,592. - FMT