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DAP proposes a Select Committee on Nation Building and National Unity to review the national service training programme and another on human rights to monitor Suhakam and human rights developments in the country   Media Comment - after calling on the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak by Lim Kit Siang (Putrajaya, Friday): I met the Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak for half an hour and we discussed fhe agenda for the new Parliament which will meet on Monday.  At the meeting, DAP proposed a Select Committee on National Building and National Unity to review the national service training programme and another on human rights to monitor Suhakam and human rights developments in the country.  Najib was positive in his response to both proposals, promising to give them serious consideration.  On the national service training programme, I raised with Najib the indiscipline, defects, flaws, crimes and tragedies of the trouble-plagued national service training programme, including:  Efficiency,  accountability and transparency of the programme; Welfare and safety of the trainees which is fundamental to the question of public and parental confidence in the programme; Problems faced by female trainees,  as illustrated by the fact that out of 1,000 national service trainers, only 15 per cent are women when the ratio of male and female trainees  are almost equal; and the DAP’s proposal to make the national service training programme voluntary for girls; Trainers not yet received their pay and allowances. “Special camp for bullies”  - I raised the  long-standing injustice of six trainees from Teluk Rubiah camp in Manjong who had been assaulted but  were sent together with two alleged offenders to the “special camp for bullies” in Jugra, Selangor for over a month – despite the assurance given by the authorities three weeks ago that the victims would be sent back to their original camp in Perak. Najib said he would personally look into the case. The question whether the RM500 million budget for the national service training programme could not be better spent in the earlier stage of the education system to more effectively inculcate the values of national unity, discipline and patriotism in the new generation of Malaysians.   As Suhakam is now under the portfolio responsibility of Najib, I suggested  the establishment of a Select Committee on Human Rights to exercise parliamentary oversight over Suhakam in the discharge of its statutory responsibility to promote and protect human rights – and to ensure that Suhakam reports are given serious attention and full debate, and not completely ignored by Parliament as in the past four years. As Malaysia has just been elected to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, Parliament must give greater priority and importance to human rights as we must not be in the company of  countries whose membership on the UN Human Rights Commission is remarkable because of their  dismal and even grisly human rights record. (14/5/2004) * Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman & Member of Parliament for Ipoh Timor