Ops Lalang: Dr M insists he met Kit Siang before crackdown

SHAH ALAM, Feb 11 — Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has disputed Lim Kit Siang’s claim that he was re-writing history over events leading up to Ops Lalang — the mass detentions under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in 1987

This comes after the former prime minister was quoted in a new book by American journalist Tom Plate as saying he had met all opposition members before Ops Lalang and assured them they would not be arrested.

In a reaction to the book, Lim said in his blog on Wednesday that he had never met Dr Mahathir and the former prime minister never gave any assurances that the former would not be arrested .

“I met Kit Siang and his friends,” said Dr Mahathir in a press conference today when asked about Lim’s assertions.

The former prime minister has been criticised for using ISA during the crackdown which is widely regarded as a black mark on his legacy but today appeared to shift part of the responsibility for the arrests to the police.

“I thought they would not be detained but the police thought they were dangerous, that their actions were dangerous.

“The police took the action to detain them. I cannot counter their decision because I depend on the police for security. I had to accept it. This is the first time I ever told anybody about that,” he added.

Dr Mahathir claimed that Lim and the rest of the group were afraid they would be detained but he said that he felt detention was not warranted.

“In my opinion, they didn’t need to be detained,” he said. “But as the police are my security advisors, I could not just reject what they feel is important.”

Asked about why he kept Lim and others under ISA beyond the initial 60 day detention period if he did not feel they should have been detained in the first place, Dr Mahathir said that he could not reveal the reasons.

“They were released as soon as the police felt they should be released,” he said. “But what I talk to the police, I cannot tell the public even now.”

Asked about who else was with Lim when they had met, Mahathir simply replied: “I met them as a group”.

Following Mahathir’s remarks in the book titled ‘Dr M : Operation Malaysia — Conversations with Mahathir Mohamad’, Lim blogged that the now retired former Umno leader was “spinning untruths” and accused him of “passing the buck” to the police for the crackdown.

Lim said that “the personal, petty and vindictive nature in the misuse of the ISA” was highlighted by the fact that he and his son Lim Guan Eng were the last to be released from detention.

“Mahathir cannot shirk responsibility by passing the buck to the police,” said Lim. “He must come clean and apologise for masterminding Ops Lalang, the darkest chapter of human rights in Malaysia.”