KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 ― Utusan Malaysia's sudden revival of claims that opposition party DAP is funding a group of cybertroopers, dubbed the Red Bean Army, to discredit pro-government forces is part of the paper’s “desperate bid” not to lose out on Umno's cyberwar funding, Lim Kit Siang alleged today.

The DAP veteran claimed the Barisan Nasional (BN) lynchpin has embarked on a new cyberwar battle plan to discredit its foes in Pakatan Rakyat (PR), which will be spearheaded by a new group of young, IT-savvy “geniuses”.

“In this new scheme of things, there will be little room and role for the erstwhile Umno mercenaries, particularly those who have waxed rich beating the fictitious DAP-funded RBA war-drums,” Lim said in a statement here.

“And this is the backdrop as to why Utusan editors, who have always regarded themselves as the patron of the Umno cyber-mercenaries, is fighting a desperate last-ditch battle to remain relevant in the Umno/BN cyber battle plans by reviving the discredited DAP-funded RBA fairy tale,” he added.

In its weekend edition, Utusan Malaysia accused government agencies of “strengthening” extremist cells in the country by letting the opposition DAP and its alleged RBA run free.

The Malay broadsheet's editors also attacked the authorities for failing to haul up and prosecute DAP leaders or members of its alleged band of cybertroopers for insulting Malays, Islam, security forces, civil servants, and the country as a whole.

“Awang would like to congratulate our authorities because in some things, they have strengthened the extremists,” the paper said in its Awang Selamat column, using the collective pen name for its editors.

Umno-owned Utusan had first front-paged a report on the RBA in May last year, alleging that DAP is paying RM3,000 monthly to some 200 RBA members, and has spent around RM1.5 million to fund the operation over the past six years.

The newspaper claimed that part of the RBA’s duties was to attack any politician, businessman or entertainer seen as pro-Barisan Nasional (BN) via social media sites, operating from two centres nationwide ― Concorde Hotel and Komtar in Penang, which is currently under Pakatan Rakyat administration.

But Lim immediately rubbished claims of RBA's existence, and said that it was merely a figment of Utusan Malaysia’s imagination and that of its owners.

The DAP man, along with other party leaders even visited the hotel in Kuala Lumpur to prove there was no truth in Utusan Malaysia's allegation.

In July last year, Lim alleged that Umno cybertroopers were conspiring to milk the party or taxpayers of some RM350 million in a campaign to fight the fictitous RBA.

The DAP adviser had said then that certain events proved that Umno and its cyber warriors were deliberately keeping the story of the RBA alive as they have “vested interests” in a ploy to convince their party of the need for funding.

Today, Lim repeated his allegation, expressing suspicion over the sudden revival of the RBA story when there was no mention of it for the past six months.

“The latest Utusan revival of the RBA fairy-tale is again caused by lucre or money ― as it is clearly a desperate bid by Umno mercenaries not to be excluded from the  Umno cyberwar funding running into hundreds of millions of ringgit,” he said.