Government Using Police To Create Traffic Jams in KL To Provoke Public Anger Towards Protesters

BolehGeneral, November 23, 2007

English, Side notes |

By The Malaysian

As you may be aware the cops have set up road blocks all over KL and Selangor since yesterday resulting in traffic jams in an ostensible bid to prevent people from entering the capital to attend the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) rally scheduled to take place on Sunday at the British High Commission.

Another ‘reason’ given by the police is they have ‘received information’ that there will be criminal activities taking place right up to Sunday’s gathering. From the wonderfully efficient police intelligence gathering, the cops have found that riots and fights had been planned and are therefore taking ‘precautionary’ measures.

For those of you who had been caught in these jams did you notice any thugs being arrested or at least being held for questioning? Were cars carrying several Indian adults stopped and their occupants thoroughly checked and interrogated?

The situation today is very much the same as yesterday and reportedly there are massive traffic jams again in various parts of the Klang Valley.

More than merely trying to keep the influx of protesters into KL to a bare minimum or fulfilling a sudden honourable desire by our men in blue to ‘prevent crime’, the apparent police strategy is to cause as much inconvenience to the public in general so that they would reflexly condemn and abhor protests of whatever nature. It is probably their hope that in artificially creating such jams, thereby raising temperatures and blood pressures, the organisers of this and future protests against government corruption and abuse would be considered as troublemakers by the public.

It is an age-old dirty trick employed by unpopular and shrewd dictators - if the people do not act in a manner which pleases the ruler, then the ruler will make things so stranglingly difficult and unbearable, without the obvious use of brute force, that the average citizen is coerced into behaving as the dictator deems fit. Our kerajaan is no different. This is their tactic, to wear down the peoples’ patience and put a full stop to public expression of the citizens’ anger and disappointment.

Sometimes such a sneaky strategy will succeed admirably, especially when the average citizen would rather fight a ghost than protest against official abuse and corruption. In our context, hopefully the public would not be deterred by this nuisance the cops are creating in the form of unnecessary traffic jams.

The police, under orders from ‘above’ are at the same time desperate to make an example of those responsible for this Hindraf protest. In fact a few minutes ago the cops announced that they have a court order to restrain anyone organising or participating in Sunday’s gathering. The police have also arrested lawyer P. Uthayakumar, Hindraf legal advisor under the Sedition Act and he will be charged in court this afternoon. What is the point though? The nation’s reputation has already been torn to shreds by the earlier protests and by the increasingly forthright and accurate reports from here and abroad about government sponsored racism and discrimination.

Of course the danger always remains in Malaysia that in the event such dirty tricks don’t produce the desired results, government leaders or those holding extra-constitutional authority like a certain son-in-law, would unleash the thugs from Umno youth along with illiterate kampung boys who would do their bidding for a small monetary incentive. Manufacturing a crisis is the easiest and most effective way to temporarily or permanently shut the avenues available to those who can think and express clearly on what is terribly wrong with this country.
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