May 13 (1969). Mention May 13 and every Malaysian would know of the racial riots. According to "official" historians, it was the DAP (Democratic Action Party)'s party victory parade and racial taunts after the 1969 General Elections that triggered the unrest and the cold blooded killing of non-Malays, mainly Chinese. But we have unconfiremed reports that it was actually a plan by Tun Abdul Razak, then Deputy Prime Minister, hatched to overthrow the then Prime Minister Tengku Abdul Rahman and install his deputy as the Prime Minister of Malaysia.
But if the "senior" lawyer who had a conversation with Haris M Ibrahim (People's Parliament) while waiting for his trial for Sedition is true, then the second scenario above is the correct version (source: Judging Najib and Umno with the wisdom of Solomon)
Haris wrote: "I was joined in the court canteen by a legal practitioner who is senior in age but relatively junior at the Bar. We started to talk about the recent slew of sedition charges and what might be the motivation behind them. After I had offered my two sen on the matter, he gave his.
He told me that some 40 years ago, when Harun Idris was ordered to enter his defence in his corruption trial, Harun spilled the beans on the May 13 incident as he gave his evidence. Harun had apparently said in the witness box that, at the instigation of Tun Razak, Najib’s father, and upon the promise from the same that he would be appointed Deputy Prime Minister, Harun had orchestrated the incidents that had triggered the whole May 13 saga, with a view to toppling Tunku Abdul Rahman. The whole business of race riots, according to Harun, was stage-managed in order to seize political power."
Then of Operation Lalang in 1987: "when Dr M faced a challenge within UMNO and needed to neutralize the judiciary and the media, Lee Kim Sai and Najib obliged with racist exchanges.
The two were never dealt with. Instead, 106 voices that represented the conscience of the nation were detained under Ops Lallang, to enable Dr M to go about his dirty deeds without any resistance."
And now when UMNO/BN felt insecure, losing popular support and apprehensive about losing the 14th General Election, at the UMNO General Assembly where Najib showed clippings of the May 3 bloodshed: "Yesterday, as Najib conducted his history lesson for the Umno delegates, RTM carried in their news reports the ongoing UMNO Assembly proceedings, accompanied by the most vile of visuals intended to sow deep hatred in the hearts of Malay-Muslims towards their non-Muslim fellow citizens.
In a sense, what we, the nation, witnessed yesterday was the culmination of a relentless agenda by Umno, its cohorts inside and outside of BN, since the 13th GE, to demonise the non-Malays in the eyes of the Malays, with a view to instilling in the former a fear of the return of the ghost of May 13, 1969 to haunt the present generation."
Is Haris correct? You be the judge.
