During the winding-up of the Broadcasting Amendment Bill in the Dewan Rakyat on October 17, the Deputy Information Minister, Dr. Suleiman Mohamed, claimed that he had a letter to rebut my contention that the ASTRO satellite broadcasting services are illegal until the Broadcasting Amendment Bill 1996 becomes law, and that whatever licences for the Information Minister had issued for satellite broadcasting had been done without legal basis.
This is what the Deputy Minister said from the Hansard of Oct. 17, 1996: “Yang Berhormat, sebenarnya memang ada kuasa untuk memberi lesen. Berkaitan dengan lesen, kalau boleh saya yakinkan Yang Berhormat bahawa saya ada surat disini untuk menyatakan bahawa peraturan sekarang meliputi lesen satelit”. (p. 51)
When I kept pressing for the content and author of this mysterious letter, the Deputy Minister kept evading the issue, at first asking “Apakah saya perlu membaca sekaping surat?”, and ending up with his promise “Saya bagi dialah” after his speech. I even thanked the Deputy Information Minister in advance.
I immediately waited for the Deputy Information Minister to come out of the Chambers after his speech, but when he emerged, he said he left the letter inside the Chamber and would give it to me later. The letter never came that day, or in the intervening seven weeks.
This is most disappointing and unbecoming of any Minister or Deputy Minister to break a solemn promise inside the House.
What has the Deputy Information Minister got to say about the reneging of his promise in Parliament to show me the letter, to prove that the Information Minister has the powers under the Broadcasting Act to issue satellite licences to ASTRO?
Since the Deputy Information Minister has not been able to produce the letter which he said backed up his claim that ASTRO satellite broadcasting services are legal under the Broadcasting Act, is the Information Minister, Datuk Mohamed Rahmat going to admit that he had acted illegally in issuing a satellite broadcasting to ASTRO before the Broadcasting Amendment Bill had become law?
I welcome the report in yesterday’s press that ASTRO would not be collecting its monthly subscription fees for November and December, for it is clearly illegal for ASTRO to collect any fees before the Broadcasting Amendment Bill becomes law, getting the Royal Assent and being gazetted after passing both House of Parliament.
I had said that going by past practice, the Broadcasting Amendment Bill would not become law until early next year, and until that time, the Information Minister cannot issue a satellite broadcasting licence to ASTRO, and ASTRO cannot collect fees under the Information Minister’s licence - although the Minister for Energy, Telecommunications and Posts has the power to issue a licence to ASTRO under the Telecommunications Act.
I find it very disturbing that recently, the Ministry of Information has again been warning the owners of parabolic antennaes in Sarawak and Sabah that action would be taken against them unless they dismantle their “illegal” anttennaes.
It is estimated that there are some 40,000 parabolic antennaes, mostly Sarawak and Sabah. These parabolic antennaes were installed before there was satellite broadcasting like ASTRO, and the owners must be commended for ahead of the government in the Information Technology era. It is short-sighted and wasteful for the government to demand that all these 40,000 parabolic antennaes should be dismantled and thrown into the rubbish bin because they have become “illegal”.
The Information Ministry should allow the owners of these 40,000 parabolic antennaes to continue to use them until they become obsolete because of advances in satellite broadcasting - and not because of an order of seizure and destruction by the Information Minister. I am sure the owners of these 40,000 parabolic antennaes would not mind if a token fee is imposed for the use of the 40,000 parabolic antennaes. I call on the Information Minister that the government adopt an enlightened attitude towards the 40,000 parabolic antennaes and to stop issuing threats or treating the owners as if they are criminals.
On the government’s information programme, it is important that the ministry should not distort what had happened in the country.
The glorification by government leaders of the lawless and gangsterish break-up of the peaceful and private Second Asia-Pacific Conference on East Timor (APCET) in Kuala Lumpur on 9th November 1996 is an example.
The Minister of Information, Datuk Mohamed Rahmat at the signing of memorandum of understanding between the Listeners, Viewers and Readers’ Group of Kampung Belimbing Dalam, Malacca and the Viewers, Readers and Listeners’ Group of Melati Putih, South Sumatra at Palembang, Indonesia last week said the success and rapid development of both nations had made several groups very unhappy, especially the foreign media and non-governmental organisations.
As an example, he said, several NGOs had made an attempt to hold the Second Asia Pacific Conference on East Timor in Kuala Lumpur recently, despite the Malaysian Government imposing a ban on the conference.
He said that Malaysia was of the opinion that the East Timor was an Indonesian internal affair.
“Malaysia believes in the wisdom of Indonesia, under the Golkar administration, led by President Suharto, to resolve the problem in their own way.
“If the Indonesian people had no confidence in the present administration, surely Golkar would not have been given a further mandate to rule the country”.
It was reported that Mohamed Rahmat was given a “thunderous applause” by the more than 300 guests who witnessed the signing ceremony.
Mohamad’s Palembang speech is most unfortunate, for it has given rise to two undesirable impressions. Firstly, that the Malaysian Ministers have no sense of shame or remorse at the lawless and gangsterish manner in which the peaceful and private APCET II meeting was broken-up, giving Malaysia a bad name in the international arena.
Secondly, which is worse, the impression that a Malaysian Cabinet Minister is grovelling to another country instead of explaining with dignity the reasons why the Government is against the holding of APCET II in Kuala Lumpur. The impression is further reinforced by the untruth that the government had banned APCET II - for this was not the case.
The Malaysian Government is entitled to hold the view that the APCET II meeting should not be held in Kuala Lumpur in the interest of Malaysia-Indonesia relations, but if Malaysia is a democratic and sovereign country, there must be room for dissent and the right for the holding of a private and peaceful meeting in Kuala Lumpur to discuss peaceful solutions to the 21-year East Timor conflict.
The Chairman of the Barisan Nasional Backbenchers’ Club, Ruhanie Ahmad had said in Parliament on Oct. 21 in connection with the issue of illegal Indonesian immigrants that Indonesia should not have a “Big Brother” attitude in the Malaysia-Indonesia relations.
Malaysia must cherish and safeguard good neighbourly relations with Indonesia but we must not compromise our sovereignty or national self-respect by any grovelling behaviour - which unfortunately is the impression which had been created from Mohamed Rahmat’s Palembang speech.
(4/12/96)