KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — Putrajaya must set up a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the Low Yat incident to deal with racial issues that have been simmering for four decades since the bloody May 13, 1969, riots, Lim Kit Siang said today.
The DAP parliamentary leader said the accounts of the May 13 incident have ended up being distorted because there had been no attempt then to set up a formal inquiry to probe the clash.
“In my first speech in Parliament in February 1971 when Parliament reconvened after a 20-month suspension, I had called for a Commission of Inquiry into the causes of the May 13 racial riots and to propose a blueprint to reconcile the different races and build a united Malaysian nation,” he pointed out in a statement today.
“But this proposal was rejected and up to today, there had been conflicting, divergent and even fictitious accounts about the causes of the May 13 riots 46 years ago,” he added.
Lim said he fully agreed with earlier statements by former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad and former senior minister Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz, who denounced the violence that rocked Low Yat Plaza on Sunday and urged Malaysians not to undo the work of past leaders in rebuilding the country after May 13.
Lim suggested that Rafidah be made chairman of the RCI and also named several other candidates to be members, including Perlis mufti Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin, former Cabinet Minister Tan Sri Dr Rais Yatim and former Attorney-General Tan Sri Abu Talib Othman, as well as activists like Datuk Seri Ambiga Sreenavasan and Datuk A. Samad Said.
He said the RCI on the Low Yat incident should investigate five key issues including whether the police had acted pre-emptively to prevent the petty crime of mobile phone theft from turning into a race riot, the role of social media, as well as the attacks on journalists.
Lim added that the inquiry should also look into whether the incident was a result of incessant incitement of hatred through irresponsible politics of race and religion, and whether it was proof of a failure in the nation-building policies, specifically courses by the National Civics Bureau and the 1Malaysia policy.
“We must take the Low Yat Mob Incident seriously, with the emphasis on finding its causes, especially the macro ones, to prevent a recurrence of any racial riot in Kuala Lumpur or any part of Malaysia as we must prevent any recurrence of a petty crime transforming into a race riot in our multi-racial nation as it will have far-reaching and adverse impact on our investment and socio-economic climate for the future,” he said.
The Low Yat incident on Sunday saw surrounding roads closed off by police after a riot was sparked following an attempted theft of a mobile phone the day before.
