Dr M takes blame for Ops Lalang

PETALING JAYA: Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has accepted the blame for the arrests of 106 people during Ops Lalang but stopped short of apologising.

In a blog post yesterday, Dr Mahathir repeated that it was the police who had insisted on keeping the law, adding, however, that he took responsibility for the arrests.

“I accept the blame even though the detention was not my decision,” he said, expressing his regret that some of the detainees had been subjected to torture.

“I am now told that detainees were tortured. I regret that the detainees in Ops Lalang were tortured. This is against the law,” he said.

Ops Lalang began after 19 people were arrested on Oct 27, 1987.

By late November that year, 106 people, including Barisan Nasional and Opposition politicians, academics and leaders of NGOs, were nabbed under the Internal Security Act (ISA) while three newspapers – The Star, Sin Chew Daily and Watan – were suspended.

Dr Mahathir, who was both the Prime Minister and Home Minister at that time, had signed the detention orders.

However, he firmly maintained that he was not supportive of the use of ISA.

“The first thing I did when I became Prime Minister was to order the release of 21 political prisoners under ISA.

“I did that because I did not like detention without trial ever since Aziz Ishak was detained,” he said, referring to the detention of politician and journalist Abdul Aziz Ishak in 1965.

Abdul Aziz, who was detained until 1966, had been accused of collaborating with Indonesian agents to form a government-in-exile during the Indonesia-Malaysia confrontation.

“I had hoped that during my tenure as prime minister, I would not have to detain anyone,” Dr Mahathir added.