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Call on Nazri to make ministerial statement on why Pornthip “pressured” not to testify at TBH inquest

The Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz should make a ministerial statement in Parliament tomorrow on the scandalous and outrageous development in the Teoh Beng Hock inquest with the renowned Thai pathologist Dr. Pornthip Rojanasunand “pressured” not to come to Malaysia to testify.

In an exclusive interview with Malaysiakini, Pornthip said she would not appear for the Teoh Beng Hock inquest when it resumes on April 20 citing “political pressure” from the Malaysian government.

Pornthip told Malaysiakini that she was “advised” by high-ranking officials from the Thai Justice Ministry – where she is director-general of the ministry’s Central Institute of Forensic Science – not to go to Malaysia next week for the inquest.

She said the Justice Ministry had received information from the Thai Foreign Ministry that she may face problems should she go, including the possibility of being stopped from entering the country.

According to her, the Thai Foreign Ministry had received “signals” from the Malaysian government through “informal channels” suggesting that her presence at the inquest later this month would not be welcomed. Continue reading “Call on Nazri to make ministerial statement on why Pornthip “pressured” not to testify at TBH inquest”

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I will submit an urgent motion to Speaker tomorrow to debate the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry to conduct full investigations on whether Israeli agents had infiltrated Bukit Aman

(Speech by DAP Parliamentary Leader and MP for Ipoh Timor Lim Kit Siang at the launching of the DAP Tebing Tinggi mobile service centre in Ipoh on Sunday April 11, 2010 at 10 am)

I will submit an urgent motion to the Speaker, Tan Sri Pandikar Mulia Amin tomorrow to debate the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry to conduct full and comprehensive investigations on whether Israeli agents had infiltrated Bukit Aman – to replace four redundant and overlapping investigations announced by the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein on Friday.

For the past four weeks, the parliamentary strategy of Najib government had been to totally stonewall any accountability on the RM28 million public funds spent on APCO and the international consultancy agency’s role in the conception of both 1Malaysia and One Israel until the debate on April 22 to refer the Parliamentary Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim to the Committee of Privileges for misleading the House on the issue.

I fully agree with the general consensus in the country, as expressed by one letter to Malaysiakini, asking: “What’s wrong in saying 1Malaysia is a carbon copy of One Israel when there are similarities” and warning that suspending an MP just because the BN government does not agree with him is “a blatant abuse of power”. Continue reading “I will submit an urgent motion to Speaker tomorrow to debate the establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry to conduct full investigations on whether Israeli agents had infiltrated Bukit Aman”

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Robert Fisk’s World: Malaya 1948: another shameful episode in Britain’s colonial past

THE INDEPENDENT
April 10, 2010

Some 24 innocent villagers were killed by Scots Guards in a pre-Vietnam My Lai

Tham Yong died 11 days ago. I bet there’s not a single reader who remembers that name, unless they happen to live in Malaysia or, like me this week, happened to be in Kuala Lumpur and to read the disgracefully weak-kneed report of Tham Yong’s demise in the capital’s equally disgraceful daily newspapers. A more grovelling, politically neutered, slovenly form of journalism outside Malaysia it would be difficult to discover, and it was typical that The Straits Times, once a serious journal of record (albeit of the colonial variety) decided to report the 78-year-old woman’s death from advanced cancer on page 18.

A bit odd. Because Tham Yong was the only surviving adult witness to the massacre of 24 innocent Chinese Malay villagers by 14 soldiers of the Scots Guards during what the British called the “Malayan Emergency”. This was when, in one of their very few successes in a guerrilla campaign, the British crushed the fighters of the Communist Party of Malaya who were struggling for 12 years to win what they called the “Anti-British War”.

The slaughter at the village of Batang Kali – the victims were rubber tappers and tin mine labourers – took place on 12 December 1948. Our colonial authorities insisted that the unarmed Chinese Malayan men were guerrillas who had tried to escape their captors and, in the giveaway words of a British police officer in Singapore, “the Scots Guards had been well placed, and the bandits just ran into their guns. Everyone was killed”. Continue reading “Robert Fisk’s World: Malaya 1948: another shameful episode in Britain’s colonial past”