Boo Su-Lyn and Emily Ding, TMIAbout 500,000 blue identity cards (ICs) were given to Filipino and Indonesian immigrants in Sabah in the early 1990s under the orders of then-Sabah Umno chief Tun Datu Mustapha Harun, a former Umno member said today.
Siti Aminah Mahmud, who worked voluntarily in the Umno office in Kota Kinabalu, said today that the now-deceased Mustapha, who was the third chief minister of Sabah from 1967 to 1975, had told her that the ICs were issued to overthrow the Parti Bersatu Sabah (PBS) government.
“Datu Mustapha said this is (Tun) Dr Mahathir (Mohamad)’s project. Don’t be afraid of getting caught,” Siti Aminah told a press conference at the PKR headquarters here today, relating Mustapha’s briefing to her and other Umno members in Kota Kinabalu in 1990.
“Datu Mustapha said it was to increase the number of Malay voters to take down PBS,” added the 62-year-old woman.
About 500,000 blue ICs were given to Filipino and Indonesian immigrants in Sabah in the early 1990s. Siti Aminah said that she and other Umno members worked together with the National Registration Department (NRD) and village heads to issue about 500,000 blue ICs to Filipino and Indonesian immigrants from 1990 to 1994 in several areas of Sabah, including Tawau, Sandakan, Lahad Datu, Kota Kinabalu, and Semporna.
She added that she was detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) from 1995 to 1997 for allegedly issuing fake ICs and falsifying NRD documents.
The 1994 Sabah state election saw PBS winning just 25 of the 48 state assembly seats.
But several PBS assemblymen defected to Barisan Nasional (BN) shortly after, causing the collapse of the PBS government.
Mustapha, who had founded the United Sabah National Organisation (USNO), is considered Sabah’s father of independence for his role in negotiating the state’s independence in 1963, before dying in 1995 at the age of 76.
USNO joined forces with former Sabah Chief Minister Tan Sri Harris Salleh’s Berjaya to form Sabah Umno after PBS defeated Berjaya in the 1990 state election.
Dr Mahathir, Malaysia’s longest-serving prime minister who was in power from 1981 to 2003, has been accused of spearheading the so-called “Project IC”, in which citizenship was allegedly given to immigrants for their votes.
Dr Mahathir told a press conference last month that foreigners in Sabah had indeed received citizenship, but stressed that it was “within the law”.
Harris, who administered the state from 1976 to 1985, has denied at the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on the illegal immigrant problem in Sabah of the existence of “Project IC”.
More than a quarter of Sabah’s population are foreigners, totalling a staggering 889,000 out of the 3.2 million-strong population in Sabah, or about 28 per cent, based on a 2010 census.
Sabah has 926,638 voters, according to a June report in English-language daily The Star.
Siti Aminah said today that one IC number would be issued to 20 or 30 people.
“One address is also used by 20 people,” she said.
“In one area, there’ll be a leader who will gather people. Once we reach, we’ll get their names. We don’t ask about their religions. We’ll see if they have Muslim names. If they don’t, we’ll change their names to Muslim names. Then we’ll take their pictures and thumb prints and send it to the Umno office,” she added.
Siti Aminah said the blue ICs would be processed in about a month and delivered in sacks to village heads.
“We’ll tell the village head, ‘Tok, please instruct the villagers to vote for Umno’,” she added.
Siti Aminah, who is now a PKR member, said she was unaware if the immigrants had paid for the ICs.
Senior Special Branch officer Supt Ahmad Fauzan Mohamad testified at the RCI last week that a syndicate involving then-Sabah NRD directors had made at least RM11 million from selling ICs to illegal immigrants in Sabah.
He also said that none of the 94 people, who were arrested under the ISA from 1995 to 2001 for their involvement in the syndicate, were ever charged in court.
Then-Sabah NRD director Ramli Kamarudin told the RCI last month that then-Deputy Home Minister, the late Tan Sri Megat Junid Megat Ayub, had ordered him to issue NRD receipts, which matched the names and IC numbers of registered voters, to immigrants.
Ramli had said that about 200 NRD receipts were issued in five or six state constituencies each, which the government considered difficult to win, before the 1994 Sabah state election.
Siti Aminah said she has not yet been called to testify at the RCI.
She also stressed that Opposition Leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who was then Dr Mahathir’s deputy, was never mentioned in “Project IC”.
“Anwar had fought with Datu Mustapha and Megat Junid over Project IC,” she said.
Siti Aminah also said that according to Mustapha, “Project IC” started during Harris’ administration and was codenamed “03”, as well as “04” and “05” during Mahathir’s administration.
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Menang 16 Kawasan Hanya Propaganda, Lima Faktor Kunci Kekuatan BN Sabah
- Setiausaha Barisan Nasional (BN) Sabah, Datuk Rahman Dahlan percaya pembangkang tidak mampu menggugat kekuatan BN di negeri itu walaupun mereka cuba melemparkan propaganda kononnya mampu memenangi 16 kerusi parlimen.
☀ keyakinan itu bukanlah satu retorik kosong tetapi berlandaskan kepada lima faktor.
☀faktor yang pertama adalah kerana pakatan pembangkang itu sendiri tidak mempunyai pemimpin berwibawa yang boleh meyakinkan rakyat.Mereka tidak ada pemimpin berwibawa melainkan pemimpin yang tidak ada prinsip perjuangan yang teguh.
☀☀ Keduanya pakatan pembangkang tidak mempunyai kekuatan jentera di akar umbi.
☀☀☀ etiga prestasi BN itu sendiri terutama Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Najib yang telah menunjukkan gaya kepimpinan yang mempunyai nilai tinggi dan menarik sokongan rakyat menerusi agenda transformasinya. Ini termasuk kepimpinan negeri di bawah Datuk Seri Musa Aman yang jelas telah membawa banyak pembangunan dan kemajuan di negeri sehingga kadar kemiskinan di negeri ini turun dari 19.6 peratus pada 2009 kepda 8.3 peratus pada tahun 2012.
☀☀☀☀ Faktor keempat adalah parti BN itu sendiri yang mewakili semua kaum di mana semua parti-parti bergabung menerusi pemuafakatan yang jitu di atas landasan kebertanggungjawaban bersama.
☀☀☀☀☀ Faktor yang KE-5 ialah jentera BN itu sendiri yang sentiasa bergerak, bekerja dan tidak seperti pembangkang yang hanya muncul ikut musim
Rahman Dahlan berkata:
☀kemelut yang melanda dalam pakatan pembangkang di negeri itu juga memberi kelebihan kepada BN.
☀ parti-parti pembangkang di Sabah sedang dalam perebutan untuk menjadi tuan dengan bertanding seberapa banyak kawasan yang boleh di negeri itu.
☀Apa yang berlaku di Sarawak pada pilihanraya negeri yang lalu akan berlaku di Sabah di mana PKR cuba menguasai untuk membolot kawasan pada pilihanraya umum akan datang. Kita lihat di Sarawak bagaimana PKR membolot dengan bertanding 49 kawasan tetapi hanya mampu menang tiga kawasan sahaja tetapi DAP menang 15 dan Pas kosong.
☀ Kita percaya dengan kemelut yang berlaku dalam pakatan pembangkang perkara yang serupa akan berlaku kerana rakyat khususnya di Sabah ini mampu menilai parti mana yang benar-benar boleh membela nasib mereka dan membawa kemajuan serta kemakmuran negeri
☀ pilihanraya umum akan datang bukanlah pilihanraya yang getir kerana BN Sabah telah melalui pilihanraya yang lebih getir sebelum ini.Namun ia bukanlah bermakna BN Sabah akan mengambil ringan tetapi tetap bersedia dari segenap sudut untuk pastikan Sabah kekal negeri biru buat BN.
Sabaans are able to assess which party can really safeguard them and bring progress and prosperity of the country.
BN is representing all the races in which all parties joined by a strong consensus on the path of mutual accountability.
The opposition parties in Sabah are in the race to host the contest as many areas that are in the state.
Secretary of the Barisan Nasional (BN), Datuk Rahman Dahlan believes the strength of the opposition is not able to subdue BN in the state even though they tried to attach the so-called propaganda to win 16 seats in parliament.
The first factor is that the opposition itself does not have a competent leader who can convince rakyat.
He has weird face.
Kalau betul kenapa tidak mengaku saja?
Kebodohan yang nyata.
All he did is truly embarassing
Tolong lah berlaku adil.
Umno Puteri chief Datuk Rosnah Abdul Rashid Shirlin said the ongoing Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on immigrants should not be politicised to the extent of creating dissatisfaction and hatred among different ethnic groups in Sabah.
The Papar member of parliament said it was regrettable that certain opposition leaders were manipulating the facts from the inquiry to play with the sentiments and the feeling of the people with the hope of gaining political mileage and support from certain groups.
“The fact that the RCI was set up shows that the government is sincere and committed in dealing with the issues pertaining to the illegal immigrants in Sabah,” she said.
“The right thing to do now is for everyone to let the commission do their job objectively without too much political pressure,” she added.
“Let the RCI make its own conclusions, we do not need unnecessary assumptions from the opposition parties in regards to what has transpired in the inquiry.
“The witnesses who have testified before the commission have given their own personal accounts and views of the things being probed, the truth has yet to be determined. There are about 100 more witnesses who have yet to give their testimonies.
“So let the inquiry be concluded and not make our own conclusions to suit our interest just because election is nearing,” she said yesterday.
What was important, said Rosnah, was to ensure transparency in the whole process of the inquiry, not only in investigating the issues of immigrants in Sabah but also formulating necessary measures to overcome the problems to be identified.
“Perhaps they (opposition) have forgotten that it was the government who set up the RCI. The moment the commission was established they started to take advantage, even claiming credit for the inquiry.
“If they really are responsible, they should let the RCI finish its job before jumping to conclusion and try to influence public opinion; let the witnesses give their statements.
“I was made to understand that DAP Sabah will organize demonstration and so on … such action is really not necessary. The right thing to do is to wait for the inquiry to be completed and to accept whatever it decides,” she said.
She stressed that politicizing every statement made by the witnesses would not help the proceeding of the inquiry, the ultimate objective of which is to find effective solutions for the long standing illegal immigrant problems in Sabah.
Menyesal kemudian memang tidak berguna. Dulu masa melakukannya tak pula fikir kesannya. huhu
She added that it was irresponsible and cowardly for the opposition to take advantage of the good intention of the RCI to ignite friction and hatred among the people just to promote their narrow political agendas.
Tengoklah apa yang berlaku sekarang, siapa yang susah? Rakyat juga kan.
Betul atau tidak dakwaan ini hanya empunya diri saja yang tahu. Semuanya terpulang kepada rakyat untuk menilai sendiri kebenarannya.
Dengan pergolakan yang berlaku sekarang pasti ramai yang tidak sabar menantikan keputusan RCI. Jadi tidak hairan jika makin banyak spekulsai yang timbul.
Apapun, saya yakin semuanya akan kembali tenang dan aman seperti sedia kala.
perlu ada bukti kukuh dakwaan ini
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