OPEN
SECRET.....It is an open secret that the former Prime Minister was directly
involved in illegally granting citizenship to immigrants, says the DAP.
Oleh : ATHI SHANKAR
GEORGE TOWN: A DAP MP has
called the Sabah Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on illegal immigrants to
also investigate former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and others for
treason and abuse of power.
Senator S Ramakrishnan said
it was an open secret that Mahathir, Umno and several government agencies were
directly involved in illegally granting citizenship to immigrants.
He said the 'Project IC' was
done with Umno’s blessing so that the political party of its choice would rule
Sabah.
He said Umno implemented the
project to neutralise, split and politically weaken Kadazan-Dusuns and Chinese
in Sabah.
He alleged the project had
also involved certain other political parties, various government agencies
including the Election Commission, departments of national registration and
immigration, which all came under the Home Ministry.
“If the RCI fails to probe
into all those responsible for unlawfully issuing citizenship to illegal
immigrants, it would be just another [Prime Minister] Najib Tun Razak’s
initiative to pacify Sabah’s political rumblings,” said Ramakrishnan.
He noted that Mahathir had
recently justified his “Project IC” to issue identity cards to illegal Muslim
immigrants from the Philippines and Indonesia.
Mahathir claimed that the
illegal immigrants were qualified to be citizens based on their length of stay
and mastering of the national language.
He questioned why the
immigrants could not be accepted as citizens when they have all the
qualifications.
Political
appeasement
In his blog posting, he
claimed that choosing not to naturalise migrants in Sabah was racist and
objection against giving citizenship to them was political.
He said Malaysians should
accept that their fellow citizens may come from different backgrounds.
In 1960, Sabah population
comprised 32% Kadazan-Dusuns, 23% Chinese, 15.8% other Muslims, 13.1% Bajaus,
5.5% Indonesians, 4.9% Muruts, 1.6% Filipinos and 0.4% Malays.
But in 2006, the state’s
ethnic composition changed drastically, comprising 25% non-citizens, 17.76%
Kadazan-Dusuns, 14.62% other Bumiputeras, 13.4% Bajaus, 11.48% Malays, 9.6%
Chinese, 4.8% others and 3.3% Muruts.
Disclosing the statistics,
Ramakrishnan said the demographic pattern changes showed that the project had
altered Sabah’s ethnic composition to favour the ruling Umno government and its
political allies.
“Will the RCI investigate
and take Mahathir and others responsible to court?
“Unless the RCI investigates
the culprits responsible for treason and abuse of power, the whole effort would
be a political appeasement,” he said.
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