Yesterday, the UMNO “lies-paper” Utusan Malaysia front-paged “Perangi Red Bean Army – Pelbagai pihak gesa kerajaan pinda Akta Komunikasi dan Multimedia” while today another UMNO mouthpiece New Straits Times headlined “’Anwar using Red Bean Army to incite hatred’”.
Suddenly, the “Red Bean Army” has become the vogue of attack of the gutter press of UMNO/BN.
Even the truculent and belligerent new Home Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was roped into the propaganda “circus” with him declaring that the Home Ministry, via the police, will work together with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) as well as Malaysian CyberSecurityj to check immediately the channelling of contents by certain cybertrooper groups which violate social media laws.
How much I had wished that the police, the MCMC and Malaysian CyberSecurity had identified the culprits and cleaned up the racism and poison spewed by UMNO/Barisan Nasional cybertroopers on the Internet during the 13th general elections, in particular those which had targetted me and the DAP as either having caused the May 13 riots in 1969, or all the lies and falsehoods to paint a picture that I am anti-Malay, anti-Islam and anti-Malay Rulers.
But absolutely nothing had been done.
Now they are pointing their fingers at DAP for spending RM15 million a year to employ a 200-strong Red Bean Army of cybertroopers to attack Umno/BN leaders on the cyberspace, which is a total figment of the imagination of Utusan Malaysia and failed Umno/BN propagandists.
Yesterday’s Utusan, for instance, alleged that the DAP employs 200 Red Bean Army (RBA) cybertroopers who are paid RM3,000 a month since six years ago; that the DAP expenditures for the Red Bean Army (RBA) is some RM1.5 million a month, split into two parts with one operating from a hotel in Kuala Lumpur and the other based in Komtar in Penang – all these are modern-day fairy tales completely without one iota of truth in them!
According to the Utusan report, the modus operandi of the Red Bean Army cybertroopers is to attack any politician, businessman or entertainer who are seen as pro-BN via facebook, tweet, YouTube in order to arouse racial hatred of Chinese voters against them.
Let me state clearly and categorically that until a few days ago when I came across the Utusan Malaysia series of write-ups on the so-called “Red Bean Army”, I have not heard of the term before.
If Utusan and the Umno/BN propagandists are right, that DAP has under its wing some 200 cybertroopers who are paid RM3,000 a month for the past six years – this would mean a monthly outlay of some RM600,000 a month, RM7.2 million a year or a total budget of RM43.2 million in the past six years!
Further, if DAP spends RM1.5 million a month on the cybertroopers, in six years the budget would have come to a shattering RM108 million!
DAP just does not have this type of money although to UMNO/BN, this is just a drop in the ocean of their funds!
DAP does not pay a single sen to any cybertroopers, unlike UMNO/BN which used hundreds of millions of ringgit of public funds to organise Social Media Conventions all over the country to raise an army of 10,000 Umno/BN cybertroopers in the run-up to the 13th general elections.
Should we call this 10,000 Umno/BN cybertroopers the Belachan Army, Ikan Bakar Army or Cincin Army?
Let Zahid or the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak give Malaysians a full and proper accounting of the Umno/BN “Belanchan, Ikan Bakar or Cincin” army of cybertroopers!
** Speech (2) at the opening of the Johor DAP MPs and SAs workshop at Johor DAP State premises in Nusajaya