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MCA and Gerakan Ministers should explain why they allow the RTM to carry out a most biased, unfair and distorted propaganda attack camouflaged as news on Dong Jiao Zong and DAP on the various television news programmes last nightMedia Statement by Lim Kit Siang (Penang, Sunday): MCA and Gerakan Ministers should explain why they allow the RTM to carry out a most biased, unfair and distorted propaganda attack camouflaged as news on Dong Jiao Zong and DAP on the various television news programmes last night. DAP has received widespread public complaints outraged by the latest abuse of government resources and machinery by RTM when a blatant political propaganda broadcast, entitled “Dangers of Chauvinism Part I” was slipped into prime-time news in the various television language channels last night, with Part II of the programme to be telecast in the various news programmes tonight.
The political propaganda programme painted Dong Jiao Zong and DAP as “chauvinists” which posed threats to the national well-being and distorted issues like the 1999 Suqiu Election Appeals, Sekolah Wawasan, Damansara Chinese Primary School relocation and the controversy of the use of English to teach mathematics and science.
What is even more shocking, the propaganda programme last night went as far back as 1959 to claim that it was the Dong Jiao Zong Chinese educationists who were responsible for the MCA-UMNO political showdown before the 1959 general election, when the MCA “Young Turks” led by the new MCA President, Lim Chong Eu demanded at least one-third allocation of the parliamentary seats and which was regarded as a “stab in the back” by the UMNO President Tunku Abdul Rahman and that Chong Eu later capitulated and apologized to Tunku and explained that his action was forced by the Chinese educationists.
Are the RTM television channels prepared to telecast the historical truth of the background leading to the UNMO-MCA confrontation in the run-up to the 1959 general election, allowing Chong Eu and the Dong Jiao Zong representatives the freedom to give their correct historical versions? If not, RTM is being doubly unfair to distort the present as well as the past.
Last night’s programme repeated the attack of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad on Dong Jiao Zong over Suqiu as “extremists and like communists”.
The 1999 Suqiu Election Appeals, which were fully endorsed by the Chinese-based Barisan Nasional parties and were even given approval in principle by the Cabinet before the 1999 general election, stand as an object lesson that pre-election promises of the Barisan Nasional parties and leaders cannot be trusted – supporting Suqiu before but denouncing it after the election!
If the RTM piece, “Dangers of Chauvinism”, is objective and serious, it should show Malaysians the real faces of chauvinism and extremism, such as the demand by the UMNO Youth Education Bureau chairman, Dr. Adham Baba on Thursday for the closure of Chinese primary schools or the August 2000 episode where UMNO Youth leaders demonstrated outside and threatened to burn down the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur because of the Suqiu election appeals which the Chinese-based Barisan Nasional parties and Cabinet had earlier endorsed
At a time when Barisan Nasional Ministers are talking about compulsory “national service” to foster patriotism and national unity, the telecasting of such divisive and biased propaganda programmes camouflaged as prime time news can only raise many questions – including the true purpose of the “national service” proposal.
DAP will decide on the course of action to take after studying the tendentious and mischievous political propaganda camouflaged as prime-time news over the various RTM television channels, including the second part of the programme tonight.
* Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman |