Kit Siang: DAP clueless about Icerd and Rome Statute, Muhyiddin knows

 

The DAP leadership was clueless about the Pakatan Harapan government’s proposed ratification of Icerd (International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination) and the Rome Statute, according to Lim Kit Siang.

The DAP veteran revealed this in dismissing PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang’s tall tale that DAP had pressured Harapan over the ratification.

Lim said despite being in the dark about the matter, the blame was pinned on DAP.

“(Bersatu president) Muhyiddin (Yassin) should know this or has he become a liar like Hadi?” he asked in a statement this afternoon.

DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang

Muhyiddin, who is Hadi’s partner in Perikatan Nasional and a fellow architect of the Sheraton Move which led to the collapse of the Harapan government, had served as the home minister during Harapan’s brief reign.

Lim also pointed out that none of the DAP leaders in the Harapan administration oversaw portfolios concerning the ratification of Icerd and the Rome Statute.

“And I was as surprised as everybody else when the then prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad spoke at the UN General Assembly in September 2018 about the ratification of UN covenants and treaties.

“This was why I had repeatedly asked the foreign minister at the time, Saifuddin Abdullah (who is now part of PN), to state that the ratification fiasco in 2018 was solely the fruit of his own making and had nothing to do with DAP,” he added.

PAS president Abdul Hadi Awang

‘Hadi poised to tear Malaysia apart’

Last Friday, Hadi revealed that he had initiated the Sheraton Move because PAS felt that the Harapan government was headed in the direction of eradicating the special rights of the Malays in approving Icerd and the Rome Statute.

However, Lim noted that the PAS president appeared unaware that 99 percent of the 1.9 billion Muslims in the world live in countries which have ratified Icerd, as 55 of the 57 countries in the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) have done so.

“Is this the reason why Hadi, though the prime minister’s special envoy to the Middle East, is banned from Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries?” he asked.

Lim also cautioned that Hadi looked set to be a prominent force to “make GE15 full of toxic politics of lies, hatred, race and religion, seeking to tear plural Malaysia of many races, religions, languages and cultures apart.

“We must not allow the extremist and soulless practitioners of toxic lies, hatred, race and religion to succeed,” he added. - Mkini