Picking on the right to choose

Malay Mail 
by Terence Fernandez and Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani

Bersih 3.0 co-chairman Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan tells Terence Fernandez and Asrul Hadi Abdullah Sani that the people were punished on April 28 for voicing a simple request for a clean electoral process.

THE MALAY MAIL: It’s a dirty job but why do you do it? And when was your foray into activism?

DATUK S. AMBIGA: When I became the president of the Bar Council, that is not so much activism but advocacy for causes. So, it seems a short step before that, to do what I am doing now. But I never for one minute imagined that electoral reform would be such a hot issue. To me, it was a no brainer. Free and fair elections can’t possibly get anyone excited. But I could not have been more wrong!

When I took it on, civil society came to see me. I wasn’t involved in Bersih 1.0. I didn’t even attend Bersih 1.0. It took place in September 2007, then you had the elections.

Bersih 1.0 was driven very much by political parties and NGOs. So, obviously a lot of people won elections and became MPs, like those who drove Bersih 1.0. Then, things went quiet for Bersih for awhile.

I was approached end of 2009 after I finished my term at the Bar Council. I said “yes”, provided that it is purely a civil society movement.

TMM: Who’s “they”?

AMBIGA: Civil society advocates like Wong Chin Huat and Maria Chin Abdullah. We started by trying to engage the Election Commission (EC) and very quickly realised that they were humouring us. They were listening to us but they were not changing and the Sarawak state elections proved it: the amount of fraud and obvious vote buying that was taking place and a lot of other instances if irregularities.

That is when we decided to have Bersih 2.0. Of course the rest is history. I suppose I don’t consider myself so much as an activist but as an advocate still. However, I do think that we have had some positive results, setting up of the Parliamentary Select Committee on electoral reform and so forth.

TMM: What is your take on how Bersih 3.0 was handled and what’s happening now?

AMBIGA: I think the government is making a big mistake. I do not know what its end game is because it is not winning any hearts or minds. I cannot understand this, you see. Is this really what it wants?

TMM: One supposes, if you look at what happened on the streets, the message is that, if you are going to push the authorities to the limit, this is what is going to happen.

AMBIGA: Yes.

TMM: Were you surprised at how much the public has embraced the message?

AMBIGA: I am overwhelmed actually. This is the difference between Bersih 2.0 and Bersih 3.0. The demonisation in Bersih 2.0 took place before that rally. Again targeting me.

That actually moved quite a lot of the middle ground because we were wondering how we were going to get people interested in free and fair elections. But when the government came down so hard, I think a lot of people were horrified that it could go so far. And I think that was one of the reasons why we had the numbers that we did the first time around.

This time, the demonisation is taking place after. The first thing the home minister said was, there was no issue, there was no traction and so on but then why come down hard on the demonstrators?

Because they were … even I was, surprised at the numbers. And people came there not for violence. They came there peacefully. It wasn’t even on their minds ... for any untoward incident to take place. And as long as we were in control, there was no violence.

The violence occurred after the tear gas was shot, then mayhem ensued.

TMM: Did you send out a message to disperse?

AMBIGA: That was about 2.40pm, after the barriers were breached and the tear gas was shot. The barriers being breached is something that requires more investigation because it was reported that the barriers were already being moved and people were given the impression that they could go into Dataran Merdeka. We are getting those reports.

If you are looking at the issue of the barriers, we just don’t look at that incident where Azmin Ali was alleged to have instigated people to breach them. You need to look at the whole scenario because there was a lot going on and it’s clear to me that there were agent provocateurs.

I think the authorities had a different plan which was executed eventually and I think the ultimate plan was to teach the people a lesson. That was my reading to it.

TMM: We were told the main concern was the overwhelming numbers of Malays?

AMBIGA: There was this other issue, a rumour that a policeman was killed. Many people heard this and when Chin Huat was beaten up, he was told that they are angry because a policeman was killed.

That was the reason given to many people as to why they were beaten up. So who was responsible in spreading that rumour? That seems to have been used as reason for the anger shown by the police. Is that why the cops went on a rampage? There is no doubt a full investigation has to take place. If we have made mistakes, we are prepared to own up.

But there cannot be any reason for the violence. Unfortunately, the mainstream media only show the violence purportedly by Bersih supporters.

TMM: What measures were taken by Bersih to ensure safety on both sides that day?

AMBIGA: We had about 6, 000 people doing security and crowd control. Actually Unit Amal did a very good job. The question that needs to be asked is, if they say the intention was violence, there was no violence until after 3pm, after the tear gas was fired.

However, everyone seems to think that crowd control is entirely our responsibility. That is not the case. We are a group of NGOs. It is shared responsibility.

We have a responsibility to some extent but the major part of the responsibility has to be by the police because they are responsible for security.

They are the ones who have the means for crowd control.

But that day felt like we were left on our own. The police were taking a “wait and see” approach. You know, wait for them to make a mistake. To be fair to the cops, initially they were fine. They were standing in the periphery and not interfering, neither were they helping. And that was fine but suddenly something changed drastically after the tear gas was fired. They were different police all together.

It was like Jekyll and Hyde. So what brought that on? Just a few people breaching a barrier, whom they could have arrested?

The barrier was not guarded at all. The barbed wire was removed, which I think was the right thing to do because you don’t want people to get hurt. But if you really want to stop people going in, you just have to stand there and have a police cordon. So I am not sure what the intention was.

As far as we are concerned, the steps we took was there and we issued guidelines and in every place whoever spoke to the crowd, emphasised it had to be peaceful and orderly.

Quite frankly the people were wonderful because they were absolutely wellbehaved.

People came there to sit actually; in fact they were having fun. It was like a carnival. The food businesses were roaring that day.

TMM: Can you enlighten us on what steps you took to ensure that there was no breach of the Peaceful Assembly Act. Street protests are not allowed in the Act.

AMBIGA: It was not a street protest; people were moving to get to a place where the assembly was supposed to take place.

But here is the thing, they were all operating under different legislations. City Hall was operating under local council laws. The police got a court order under the Penal Code. I don’t know where the Peaceful Assembly Act came in actually.

The rally was on April 28 but the Act was brought into force on April 30. So, the way I look at the court order, it only said you cannot go into the green area. Therefore, anywhere else is fine. If you recall, the police said we could gather at the meeting points the day before.

So what breaches were we committing? And don’t forget they served us the order only on April 27, so we could not get the message out to everybody that we will not breach the court order.

When you say Peaceful Assembly Act, we gave notice to the police more than 10 days before the rally, but before the Act was enforced.

Under the Act if you give a notice, the police cannot reject. They can only impose conditions. They never imposed any conditions. If no conditions exist, it means we can proceed as planned. It is not so clear-cut that we fall under the Peaceful Assembly Act at all and if we did fall under the Act, why get the court order? Each authority seemed to be handling it under different legislation.

TMM: Was the choice of April 28 an attempt to circumvent the Act?

AMBIGA: Oh no! But the police although it was not brought into force, was more or less acting in accordance with the Peaceful Assembly Act. There were many rallies before this and the police handled them very well.

TMM: Critics say Bersih has too many generals and not many soldiers that is why there are allegations that Pakatan Rakyat had hijacked Bersih?

AMBIGA: In my view, there were 250,000 soldiers. You cannot hijack the agenda of Bersih or the agenda of 250,000 people.

TMM: But you can’t dismiss it completely as there is an association with the Opposition.

AMBIGA: They support us but we invite everybody. It’s like having a party, you invite group A and group B. Only group B comes. Group A stays out but whinges about group B being there.

TMM: Did you send out invites?

AMBIGA: No, we openly and always invited everybody. In fact, on that day if a Barisan Nasional (BN) MP had been there, we would have allowed him to speak as well.

When people talk about the Opposition, they forget that they are the elected representatives and these are people that the public had voted into office.

They have a right to hear them. But as far as we are concerned, our programme that day did not include any political leaders. It was entirely NGOs who were going to speak. Our programme didn’t have a speech by any politician.

Yes, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was at Masjid Negara. They were all over the place that day but they were talking to their supporters. That is something we can’t control.

But that was not our aim at all. The main stage where I was, there weren’t supposed to be any politicians speaking.

TMM: But there were!

AMBIGA: No, that was when Anwar came in later. I wasn’t aware he was coming to speak and I couldn’t stop him. As I mentioned earlier, even if a BN MP had been there, he would have been given the opportunity to speak.

TMM: But there lies the problem because of your association with Pakatan Rakyat. You seem to be one-sided and have your own political agenda.

AMBIGA: Look at the numbers. Look at the people.

Again, don’t look at that one moment when they were all on the stage. My own view is look at the 250,000 turnout.

There may have been some Pakatan supporters but look at the rest of the people. The huge number of aunties, uncles and youths who came there just for free and fair elections.

My own view is look at the crowd and judge for yourselves whether you think this an Opposition thing.

Also, it is no surprise that they support free and fair elections. They feel they are hard done by the system. It is a way of demonising Bersih. I mean if BN was there, there wouldn’t have been any complaints.

TMM: Do you think you should consciously disassociate yourself from all political parties to maintain neutrality?

AMBIGA: We think that is what we are doing but if political parties support us, I welcome their support.

I have no issue with that, which is why BN should support us because they could reach 250,000 people if they did. At the end of the day, it would have been wonderful if they came and walked with the rakyat.

I honestly thought that it would be different this time. That they would say they are coming and hear the rakyat out. Instead, people were beaten and tear-gassed.

The supporters were punished that day. If the supporters were violent — and I don’t condone it — it’s because they saw the manner in which their friends were being treated. So that was their response. In fact, the tear gas itself was an act of violence because of the way it was shot. I was caught in that. It was shot straight into the crowd and the crowd was shoulder to shoulder. And it was tear gas after tear gas.

TMM: There were children in Bersih, you condone parents bringing children to rallies?

AMBIGA: I know it is in the Public Assembly Act but I don’t know we have an issue as long as the parents are responsible for them. We don’t have an issue with children.

TMM: Shouldn’t there be some guidelines or advisory because being a veteran of two rallies, you would have known what can transpire on the streets.

AMBIGA: The responsibility lies with the parents ultimately but I wouldn’t encourage small children. You see, a lot of people came out treating it like a carnival.

TMM: But you saw what happened in Bersih 2.0.

AMBIGA: But this time the authorities said it was going to be different and that was the impression given. As long as you don’t step into the green part of Dataran Merdeka, it was fine. They were laughing and joking with the public which is why we cannot understand when it turned.

I can understand if they shot one tear gas because of the breach and that was it. People would have moved. What was the need to go after them in the way they did? They had tear gas, gliders and pulled people out of shops.

This went on till 7pm. And nothing makes the people angrier than the Government pretending all of that didn’t happen.

You downplay injuries when the fact is that people suffered. They were only interested in the reporters who were injured because it is not good press.

TMM: Were you hit?

AMBIGA: Tear gas, yes. But beaten, no. I ran into Masjid India. I was with a group of women and we couldn’t come out because we could hear violence. I could hear people getting beaten up out of shape but I didn’t see it. The truth has to be told!

TMM: Let’s talk about the legal suit. Can a government sue its citizens?

AMBIGA: I have no issue with the government taking whatever action deemed fit. It is something you expect. You may be charged but I didn’t expect a civil suit.

So, they have to do what they have to do and we have to do what we have to do, defend it vigorously. A government can sue (its citizens) but whether it should, is a different thing altogether.

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ON MONDAY: In the concluding part, Ambiga shares her thoughts on the worrying trend of political violence, rule of law and Bersih 4.0.