By Ida Lim
The Malaysian Insider
Jun 03, 2013
KUALA LUMPUR, June 3 — A Malaysian entrepreneur has denied accusations that he is funding or linked to the “Red Bean Army”, a “cybertrooper” group named by Umno’s Utusan Malaysia as being allegedly financed by the DAP to attack the government via social media.
Taiwan-based Pua Khein Seng, whose company Phison Electronics Corp was behind the world’s first single-chip USB pendrive, has rebutted what he described as a fabricated report in Utusan Malaysia last week and has not ruled out legal action against the Umno-owned newspaper.
“Firstly, this is a fabricated, baseless and malicious allegation and I honestly do not know how I should respond since it is an unfounded accusation,” Pua said in a statement that was read out by DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng today.
Pua, who was reportedly campaigning for DAP leaders in Johor during the recent general election, said he is ready to provide co-operation to those probing allegations on the online group of cybertroopers.
“Secondly, I hereby urge the authorities who are investigating this allegation to contact me as soon as possible for the truth to be revealed. I will fully co-operate with the authorities.
“I will not hesitate to take legal action against Utusan Malaysia when the investigations are completed by the authorities,” the Phison chief executive officer wrote in the brief statement.
According to Lim, Pua was responding to Utusan Malaysia’s report last Saturday about “Penglibatan Syarikat Elektronik Taiwan disiasat” (Involvement of Taiwanese electronic firm being investigated) and other articles last Sunday.
Utusan Malaysia had reported that a Malaysian-owned electronics firm in Taiwan was under investigation for allegedly funding the “Red Bean Army”, citing an unnamed source who said a photograph of the company’s founder with Lim had been published online.
The source also reportedly said the unnamed firm had opened a branch in Penang, with the daily saying that the firm is allegedly believed to have close ties with the Penang state administration.
Today, Lim (picture) said that Malaysia has been working to attract foreign investments, but expressed his disappointment over what he said was a “different approach” when the investments come to Penang.
“Investments should not be politicised especially foreign investments, because if you politicise for investment, then I think the final loser will be the country,” said Lim, who is also the Penang chief minister, in a recording of the press conference that was made available to The Malaysian Insider.
Lim reiterated the DAP’s denial that it knew of the existence of the “Red Bean Army”.
“Yesterday, I and Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim denied any involvement in the ‘Red Bean Army’,” he said today, referring to Anwar, who heads the federal opposition Pakatan Rakyat.
“Number one, we don’t know if there’s such a thing called the ‘Red Bean Army’,” he said, adding that they lack the money to fund such organisations.
On May 26, DAP veteran leader Lim Kit Siang had similarly said the “Red Bean Army” was merely a figment of Utusan Malaysia’s imagination, and that he had never come across it until the Malay-language daily reported it.
On May 25, Utusan Malaysia front-paged a report on the Red Bean Army (RBA), alleging that some 200 RBA members are on the DAP’s payroll earning up to RM3,000 a month and that the party has been spending some RM1.5 million over the past six years to fund the operation.
The report also claimed that the duty of the RBA was to attack any politician, businessman or entertainer who is seen as pro-BN via social media sites.
But Lim Kit Siang said his party would not have the financial muscle to pull off such an expensive operation, noting that if it had spent RM1.5 million monthly over the past six years to run the RBA, it would have spent an overall sum of 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,” he had said.
The paper need to maintain, repeat rubbish & lie to keep their motto
Have they managed to find a single ‘red bean’ yet? No? Not even in one of the many alphabet soups ? Strange-h.
Let me try again, Mahathir and the Mahathrist are not Machiavellian, diabolical, scheming etc. they are CLASSICALLY SOCIOPATHS – blaming someone else for what you are gulty of doing – classic sociopath behaviour..
utusan meloya,aku askar kacang merah bila malam menjelang,kacang hijau bila fajar menyinsing.tapi aku tak dibayar aku tak disuap aku tak ditaja. aku rela. bahkan aku bayar talian internetku dengan wang titik darahku. mengapa? aku mengenangkan agar aku dapat selamatkan Malaysia tanah tumpah darahku..
Done, those monkeys be greatly rewarded banana from the bAnAnA party
It looks like publishing lies and falsehoods has become Utusan Malaysia’s daily fix which it can’t go without. I think Phison’s Pua should take up legal action against Utusan. Utusan must be made to pay for engaging in totally irresponsible and despicable journalism.
Haha… Utusan is Msia’s National Enquirer, but at least Enquirer is quirky & gossipy & somewhat fun. Utusan is boring, stupid & full of shit!
No red bean found… but reliable sources say that the umnoputras are building WMDs in Sabah… that’s why they were stopping any opposition leaders from visiting… shall we ask Bush to go in for the sake of world peace???
Had I knew of its existence then, I would have gladly volunteered my services. Afterall, 3K will come in handy when the economy is bad. But all I could remember was each time I attended a DAP ceramah it left a hole in my pocket. Strangely, from the BN, I got free foods, drinks and even beers on the house. The DAP couldn’t even afford to offer me a bottle of mineral water! How do you like that?
Who will they think of next? Bill Gates? What a piece of gutter journalism!
RBA is Red Barisan Army like utusan, star, and the rest. Why not investigate them?
Notice something? Chengho and cintanegara have gone all quiet. Know why? Most probably because election’s over and so umno has stopped paying them each 5000 ringgit/month to post nonsense here.
If they are truly moved by their concern for national issues like those raised in this blogsite then like the rest of the visitors they would continue to post their views here even now, when election is over.
They are, I think, motivated by money and not national interest. Typical umno mentality! Greed.
Hello, mr immigration man. Now is your chance to revoke the passport of this world famous pendrive man. Make an example out of him. This will surely frighten the hell out of all pakatan people and supporters.
Utusan must have come out with this wild allegation based on what UMNO has done. Utusan must have thought since UMNO does such things, others also does the same.
If BN does not know where to draw the line with these wild and baseless allegations, they are just hammering more nails into the coffins of the investment deaths in this country. PHison is a major player in the Taiwan electronic industry and such gutter journalism will not do Malaysia any favours to attract investment from Taiwan, or China for that matter. This is because Taiwan and China are closely connected and will perceive such acts as anti Chinese. Even way back in the 80’s when I asked some Taiwanese investors why they chose Thailand instead of Malaysia even though there are more Malaysians who read and write Chinese, they replied that they view Thailand as more friendly to Chinese.
what do one expect from such paper as ‘hutu hutu, ‘ or hotosian? read in Taiwanese, then Pua should know better,
Maybe govt should just act on this paper news, and kick that Pua out of Malaysia,