This following article was published in The Star this morning so must be written before the so called independent Bersih 3.0 probe panel was announced. Knowing Marina, she must be shocked with the selection of the panel members - 1Christians
Marina Mahathir
All perpetrators of violence, no matter who they are, must be brought to book.
I
GREW up with a healthy respect for the police, as did most Malaysians. I
always saw them as protectors whom I could turn to if I was in danger.
Unlike places like Mexico where people have reasons to worry about the police, our country has never been like that.
Which is why I can walk in the streets and not expect to be harassed by the police.
In some countries, you can get arrested just for loitering. If we had that in Malaysia, our jails would probably be full.
But
generally as citizens, we can expect to have no need for the attention
of the police unless we’re in trouble, such as if we’re in an accident,
got our bag snatched or someone assaulted us.
So it was not
unreasonable for the tens of thousands of Malaysians who went walking
two Saturdays ago to expect a nice and peaceful day out.
They
trusted that, after last year, their Government would have learnt how to
better manage a large crowd and would not want to repeat the violence
that happened. And indeed there was nothing to indicate otherwise.
My
friends and I alighted our car in Brickfields amidst swarms of
policemen and women, all of whom looked benignly at us and the hordes of
people, many dressed in yellow, who were also making their way in the
same direction.
There was not a single hostile glance from either
side towards one another. We were all there in the heat, on a Saturday,
in our city.
This atmosphere continued for many hours afterwards. At the Central Market car park, the participants and the police mingled.
There was no harassment of each other at any point.
Once
I saw a young policeman carry a whole box of mineral water bottles to
his colleagues, just as Bersih participants did the same for theirs. It
was hot; everyone was thirsty.
When we finally started walking,
it was orderly but festive. People chanted and sang, waved balloons and
took photos. The police stood on the sidelines and simply watched. It
was no different from any other crowded event in town.
Our
instructions were simply to walk to the barriers, stop and sit down. My
friends and I got to the nearest one on Lebuh Pasar where just before
the bridge crossing the river, plastic highway barriers and razor wire
had been placed across the road. The idea was to stop us from reaching
Dataran Merdeka. On the other side of the barrier stood a line of
policemen and women.
This was the first time that the police
looked unfriendly. Even that would be an overstatement. They looked
neither unfriendly nor friendly. They just looked. But the razor wire
signified something else.
Since that day I have begun to notice
barbed wire everywhere. In most places it is used to keep intruders and
burglars out of private property.
It assumes that those who are
to be kept out are criminals. So the razor wire at the barriers seemed
to assume that we were the same.
Still there was no overt hostility.
When
people talk about the violence at Jalan Tun Perak, they fail to mention
the peace that was at Lebuh Pasar and elsewhere before the tear gas
came out.
The young people at the barriers did nothing more than sit down and chant.
The police watched us and when I spoke to one of them, he nodded politely. There was no indication of anything to come.
Then,
rather like the prelude to a tsunami when the waves recede, the police
suddenly withdrew. Trucks and helmeted and be-shielded men appeared.
Why exactly was unclear to us. We were well behind the barricades; nobody had done anything to provoke anyone on either side.
What happened not long after on the other streets is now well known although the causes are still fuzzy.
Everyone
is busy blaming everyone. But the violence, especially from those meant
to protect us, is impossible to deny, what with the thousands of
videos, photographs and eyewitness accounts.
I have been puzzling
over this for a while. How is it that the police turned from benign to
hostile seemingly without much reason?
And, if as our Home
Minister insists, nobody ordered the police violence, what made them do
it, and to such a disproportionate extent? Sixty-five people wound up in
hospital, out of which only two were policemen. Surely this says
something.
We all need to get to the bottom of this for everyone’s sake.
The only way to do that is through an independent commission of enquiry.
All perpetrators of violence, no matter who they are, must be brought to book.
Otherwise what will happen to the trust that we had that our police would never harm us?
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