After Bersih 3.0 and its numerous pictures, videos and reports, do we look back in anger or sometimes, with amusement?
Just because Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square) was mentioned as the place to have Duduk Bantah (Sit-in Demonstration), the Mayor of KL was chosen to be the representative (or fall guy) of the government (PM and DPM were busy in East Malaysia, while Home Minister tried to be nice (no security problem) but actual left it to the Police), to issue a statement that Dataran Merdeka is out of bounds and anyone who enters on that day will 'face the music' and we knew later, what that phrase, as well as Hishamuddin's 'police acted with restraint' meant. This was aptly put by Bernard Khoo: http://zorro-zorro-unmasked.blogspot.com/2012/05/orchestrated-and-brutally-performed_02.html
As someone mentioned, the security was disproportionately tight (with razor wire and many policemen armed with batons, tear gas and water cannons) for the purpose of disallowing (there was even a court order!) people to get into an empty piece of land, as though it was filled with gold! Now, there are arguments over who made the signal or order telling the people they could get into the square, and Anwar and Azmin are expected to be made scapegoats for the breach. Why didn't the authorities allow such a simple request to sit in for two hours? Why did the authorities attack the unarmed people like they were criminals when they were there to express their support for a universally acceptable cause - for a clean and fair election? Why are the authorities afraid of pictures and cameras?
To put it simply, either our leaders could not learn from past mistakes or they are afraid of a clean and fair election which is likely to put them out of office.
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Just because Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square) was mentioned as the place to have Duduk Bantah (Sit-in Demonstration), the Mayor of KL was chosen to be the representative (or fall guy) of the government (PM and DPM were busy in East Malaysia, while Home Minister tried to be nice (no security problem) but actual left it to the Police), to issue a statement that Dataran Merdeka is out of bounds and anyone who enters on that day will 'face the music' and we knew later, what that phrase, as well as Hishamuddin's 'police acted with restraint' meant. This was aptly put by Bernard Khoo: http://zorro-zorro-unmasked.blogspot.com/2012/05/orchestrated-and-brutally-performed_02.html
As someone mentioned, the security was disproportionately tight (with razor wire and many policemen armed with batons, tear gas and water cannons) for the purpose of disallowing (there was even a court order!) people to get into an empty piece of land, as though it was filled with gold! Now, there are arguments over who made the signal or order telling the people they could get into the square, and Anwar and Azmin are expected to be made scapegoats for the breach. Why didn't the authorities allow such a simple request to sit in for two hours? Why did the authorities attack the unarmed people like they were criminals when they were there to express their support for a universally acceptable cause - for a clean and fair election? Why are the authorities afraid of pictures and cameras?
To put it simply, either our leaders could not learn from past mistakes or they are afraid of a clean and fair election which is likely to put them out of office.
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