By : JOE FERNANDEZ
THE PAINFUL truth is slowly
emerging at the ongoing Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the extraordinary
population increase in Sabah since it became a Nation in Malaysia in 1963.
There’s little doubt that
former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is the biggest culprit of the lot in a
MyKad scam and should be held for High Treason and hanged.
Mahathir should be held
accountable since so many of his people have been implicated. It’s unlikely
that they would have acted in this vile, despicable manner without his
directives, oversight and supervision.
Shocking revelations from
ex-Sabah National Registration Department (NRD) sources including an
ex-director confirm that the electoral rolls were packed with illegal
immigrants under Ops Durian Buruk to ensure that Umno won in the state
elections.
The state of affairs is even
more rotten than was imagined.
Putrajaya NRD released
thousands with fraudulent MyKads from detention
It appears that many illegal
immigrants were issued with MyKads just for the purpose of voting and nothing
else. The MyKads, in a truth being stranger than fiction scenario, carried the
names of other voters who were on the electoral rolls and generally didn’t turn
up to vote.
This explains the
oft-reported stories in the local media of voters turning up to vote, only to
be told that they “had already voted”.
The names of former Deputy
Home Minister Megat Junid, Abdul Aziz Shamsuddin the political secretary to
then Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Sabah NRD Chief Abdul Rauf Sani and his
successor Ramli Kamarudin, former Sabah Election Commissioner Director Wan
Ahmad, and former Sabah Chief Minister Osu Sukam have all featured prominently
in the RCI hearings.
Ex-Prisons Department (PD)
officials, when summoned before the RCI, are likely to spill even more beans.
An ex-PD official estimates
that his Department held 10,000 illegal immigrants between 1985 and 1994 for
“fraudulently obtaining MyKads by furnishing false information to the
authorities”.
NRD Putrajaya, in all these
cases, allegedly advised the Immigration Department to drop charges against the
detainees on the grounds that “they were Malaysians”.
No illegal immigrant or
other foreigners were detained by the PD after 1994 for obtaining MyKads
fraudulently. That is the year the PBS Government, holding a razor-thin
majority of two in the state assembly; fell on the back of massive defections
from the party engineered by Mahathir.
The official, who hopes to
be called before the RCI, confided that the PD’s investigations revealed a
different story: the detainees were all born overseas but furnished the NRD
with false Statutory Declarations (SD) stating that they were born in Sabah.
They were then issued MyKads
for voting purposes. No birth certificates or citizenship papers – as citizens
by registration -- were issued to these MyKad holders.
The stories of Majid Kani
and Salman Majid
Lawyer J. P. Perira once
defended Chennai-born Indian restaurant keeper Majid Kani – Google the story –
who was facing a deportation order for claiming to be born in Papar, Sabah to
obtain a MyKad.
Majid was hauled to Court by
the authorities after it was discovered that he voted for the opposition in
protest against being blackmailed over his status by all and sundry. The
authorities dropped their attempts to deport Majid after Perira reportedly
wrote to the Prime Minister and the Home Minister on the case.
Another lawyer in Sabah
claims that he was approached in recent days by the head of an Indian
association to help secure declarations from the High Court that 65 Indian
nationals with the Bunga Raya IC should be recognised as Malaysian citizens and
given their MyKads. All were born In India but had claimed in their SDs that
they were born in Sabah.
Lawyer Karpal Singh once
defended Pakistani carper seller Salman Majid – Google the story – against
deportation. Salman had the same story as Majid Kani. Salman was born in
Pakistan but claimed in a SD to have been born in Ranau, Sabah.
Salman, who claimed that he
was milked by authorities in Malaysia, was released from detention after former
Sabah Chief Minister Harris Salleh turned up in Court on his behalf and declared
that “Salam had always been a loyal BN supporter and voter”.
Under the Federal
Constitution, foreigners are only eligible to apply for naturalization to be
citizens; their children born in Malaysia will have to apply to be registered
as citizens while the third generation, born in Malaysia, is automatically
citizens by operation of law. Except for the last category, the other two will
be issued citizenship papers.
Federal Government not above
the law or Sabah Government
Those born overseas can still
be considered as registered citizens or citizens by operation of law provided
they are the offspring of naturalized and registered/citizens by operation of
law respectively that had their births registered at the nearest High
Commission or Embassy, Malaysian, within three months.
So what Harris virtually
implied as a witness at the RCI, of the Federal Government being above the law,
is not true. The Federal Government has no power to issue MyKads to any Tom,
Dick and Harry in Sabah.
Also, contrary to Harris’s
extraordinary claim, it’s not the work of the state government to fill up forms
for illegal immigrants. Thirdly, the Federal Government has no right to issue
permanent residence or citizenships to foreigners in Sabah or Sarawak without
the recommendation of these state governments as the initiating party.
Based on what little has
been revealed so far at the RCI, there’s no reason for the 13th General
Election to go ahead in Sabah without the electoral rolls being made squeaky
clean.
Public awaiting testimony
from five witnesses
It would not be surprising
to learn that Prime Minister Mohd Najib Abdul Razak had deliberately chosen
this late juncture for the RCI to strike back at Mahathir for going about in an
underhand manner to remove him from office.
Ops Durian Buruk or Projek
IC Mahathir may just be the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
There are others, more
Indonesians than Filipinos, who are holding MyKads that they are not eligible
to hold under the Constitution.
Blogger M.D. Mutalib and anti-illegal
immigrant activist Dr Chong Eng Leong – author of Lest We Forget – Issues of
Sovereignty in Sabah – have amassed volumes of material on the illegal
immigrant phenomenon in Sabah. It’s said that they are on the RCI witness list.
Three other key witnesses
are Parti Bersatu Sabah secretary-general Radin Malleh, former Upko Deputy
President Wilfred Mojilip Bumburing and Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) Batu Sapi
division chief Hassnar Ebrahim who was once held under the draconian Internal
Security Act (ISA) for spilling the beans on illegal immigrants on the
electoral rolls.
The likely stories of all
three witnesses can be Googled.
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