— Dr. Goh Chee Leong
The Malaysian Insider
Apr 29, 2012
APRIL 29 — I am proud to say that I was at Bersih 3.0 in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, along with my wife and other family members.
In the face of the media blitz from the Barisan Nasional press and blogs, I feel that as a first hand observer I need to make the following comments and observations:
Whose interest did the violence serve?
Let’s be clear. Think about the public relations side of things and you can conclude that it was in the “political interest” of BN to engineer the violence that occurred at the end of the rally. They knew that the organisers would not be able to control the angry crowds once it was sent helter-skelter by the tear gas and water-cannons — one of the reasons why it did not allow us to use the Dataran Merdeka, which would have been easier to control.
Look at the events in Penang where we were allowed to assemble in a single large open space. No problem at all because crowd control is much easier there. BN was afraid if we could demonstrate that a movement like Bersih can be peaceful, this will destroy their “fear message” to scare the middle classes to vote BN. Continue reading “Bersih 428: A personal perspective”