Call on Musa Hitam  to end the eight-month  Suhakam inertia on the most serious human rights violations since its establishment and hold a public inquiry into the Kampung Medan riots which killed six and severely injured 78

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Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang 

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Among the Suhakam findings of widespread police human rights violations were:
 

• unnecessary use of excessive force,  tear gas and  water cannon;
• force was used to stop persons from attempting to get away from the scene rather than to overcome the resistance to the order to disperse;
• police chased people trying to run away, caught them and assaulted them;
• unnecessary use  of excessive force on persons waiting for the traffic jam to clear;  in one incident, policemen pulled off the veil of a young woman before beating and  kicking her;
• police caused injury to persons in detention and delayed and failed in the provision of medical  treatment and medication to those injured;
• police carried out the cruel and inhuman treatment of detainees and took advantage of their  situation for the purpose of forcing them to confess or otherwise to incriminate themselves.

The ball is now in the court of the government, in particular the Deputy Prime Minister cum Home Minister, Datuk Seri  Abdullah Ahmad Badawi as to whether they could pass the human rights test posed to them by the Suhakam inquiry report by accepting its findings, implement its recommendations as well as act on the report.

Suhakam itself, however, had not fully passed the  test on its commitment to its statutory duty to “protect and promote” human rights” because of  its eight-month inertia on the most serious human rights violations since its establishment in April last year -  the Kampung Medan riots in March this year which claimed the lives of six persons with 78 others severely injured.

The Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad referred to the Kampung Medan tragedy in his 2002 Budget speech in Parliament last Friday when he said:

“Recently, the nation has been jolted by unprecedented acts of violence.  The Kampung Medan incident has  marred the unity that we have so painstakingly built up”.

Unfortunately, there has been no painstaking inquiry into the rampant human rights violations in the Kampung Medan incident.

The  Kampong Medan tragedy in Petaling Selatan, Selangor represented the quadruple failures in nation-building, development planning, law enforcement and mass communications -but it is a   greater tragedy that there had been a total lack of will to conduct a full and impartial investigation into the blatant and brutal violation of the human rights of a completely innocent, oppressed and marginalised community to ensure that there would be  no recurrence.

Fair-minded Malaysians are both  disappointed  and distressed that some eight  months after the Kampung Medan tragedy, Suhakam has not decided whether or  how to discharge its statutory duty to “protect and promote” human rights,  "inquire into complaints" and "study and verify" infringement of human rights with regard to this dark episode in the nation’s history..

Suhakam  should not delay any further to institute a full public inquiry into the  human rights violations in the Kampung Medan  tragedy as it should  be mindful of legitimate criticisms that it had been selective in its decisions  whether to take  up complaints and to hold public inquiries into   human rights violations.

Malaysians had been unsparing in their commendation of the Suhakam for its public inquiry into the Kesas Highway human rights violations but it should realise that  its inaction in the past eight months to hold a public inquiry into a much  more serious case of rampant human rights violations in the Kampung Medan tragedy where six persons were  killed and 78 severely injured, when there was no a single fatality in the Kesas Highway incident, is not only inexplicable, unsatisfactory but a blot on  the Suhakam record.
I call on the Suhakam Chairman, Tan Sri Musa Hitam, to give his personal attention to end the eight-month  Suhakam inertia on the most serious human rights violations in the country  since its establishment and to convene an urgent Suhakam meeting to institute a public inquiry into the rampant human rights violations in the  Kampung Medan tragedy. Otherwise, the first two-year term of Suhakam might  be associated with its greatest failure rather than its greatest success.

(24/10/2001)