Kit Siang reaffirms stand for RCI into Memali tragedy

DAP parliamentary leader and long-time opposition politician Lim Kit Siang stands by his stand that a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) should be established on the 1985 Memali tragedy.

“Yes, definitely. I stand by my call for an RCI into Memali, as with all my calls for RCIs in the past (on other matters),” the Gelang Patah MP told Malaysiakini when contacted today.

In 1985, a clash broke out between police and villagers of Kampung Memali in Baling, Kedah, when the police tried to arrest Ibrahim ‘Libya’ Mahmood, a PAS leader suspected of heading a ‘deviant’ religious sect.

Eighteen people - Ibrahim, 13 villagers and four police officers - died in the fighting.

Few details are known about the conflict and there have been multiple accounts of the tragedy.

In 2014, Lim published a piece in the DAP mouthpiece Roketkini, arguing that an RCI was needed to determine, once and for all, the details of what happened in Memali in 1985.

His call came after a revelation the same year - 29 years after Memali incident - by Dr Mahathir Mohamad, who was prime minister at the time of the tragedy, that he had in fact been in the country when the deaths occurred.

Lim then said that an RCI was needed to show if there was political interference in the police action during the Memali tragedy, and to bring justice to the survivors.

Mahathir has since become chairperson of Opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan. Together with Lim, they have become some of the most vocal critics against Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s administration.

Lim told Malaysiakini that there were other matters that preceded the Memali tragedy in order of importance.

“The most important thing now is to have an RCI into the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal, instead of an RCI into Memali or the forex (Bank Negara foreign exchange) scandal,” he said.

The Memali tragedy re-entered public consciousness when Mahathir had slippers hurled at him when answering a question on the matter at the Nothing to Hide 2 forum in Shah Alam on Sunday.

PAS has since re-ignited calls for an RCI to conducted on the tragedy, while the son of a survivor has come forth to say Mahathir had the blood of the victims on his hands.

Mahathir has explained that the Memali villagers were the ones who first attacked the police with parang (machetes).

He has maintained that all responsibility for the entire tragedy should be on the shoulders of Musa Hitam, his deputy and acting prime minister when the conflict took place. He has also blamed the then home minister, who had been the one in charge of the police force. - Mkini

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