Datuk Mohd Puad Zarkashi should be sacked as Department of Special Affairs (JASA) Director-General and be made to personally bear the costs of the JASA booklet “Uprising of the Red Shirts, Sept. 16” distributed at the UMNO General Assembly or he should be charged for the offence of criminal breach of trust if the booklet is paid for from public funds.

UMNO Secretary-General Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor said Putrajaya does not support the Sept. 16 “Red Shirt” rally and if this is the case, how can JASA, a government department, be the publisher and distributor of the booklet, especially as JASA functions as a disseminator of government polices and propaganda?

Or is this another case of an increasingly fractured and schizophrenic UMNO/BN government, where the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing, or the right hand is not allowed to interfere with what the left hand is doing even if aware of what is happening?

JASA is a unit under the Communications and Multimedia Ministry.

In view of Tengku Adnan’s denial, the new Minister for the portfolio, Datuk Salleh Said Keruak should declare whether he has knowledge of the publication of the JASA booklet and whether he had given authorization for its publication and distribution at the UMNO General Assembly.

Or did Puad get special permission and dispensation directly from the Prime Minister, by passing the Minister for Communications and Multimedia as well as the UMNO Secretary-General, on the publication of the booklet and its distribution at the UMNO General Assembly?

The 104-page pictorial booklet, titled “Kebangkitan Baju Merah” (The Rise of Red Shirts) glorifies the Sept. 16 rally purportedly to reclaim Malay dignity which the organizers said had been insulted by the Bersih 4 rally in August.

It is heavy on photographs on the Bersih 4 rally and the “red shirt” gathering, including photographs of previous Bersih rallies fraudulently passing off as being held in Kuala Lumpur on August 30 and 31 this year.

The introduction of the booklet said the “red shirt” rally was initiated by patriotic Malaysians against those who wanted to create chaos and provocations through street rallies.

This is a contemptible distortion of history and shameful attempt to rewrite history, for the real patriots are the hundreds of thousands of Malaysians, regardless of race, religion, region or politics, who peacefully attended the Bersih 4 rallies to express their patriotic desire to have clean, free and fair elections and not the UMNO racialists who organized the Red Shirts rally and paid and bussed crowds from various parts of the country to counter widespread nation-wide perception of a serious erosion of public support for the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak and the UMNO/BN government.

Will non-UMNO Ministers and justice-minded UMNO Ministers raise this issue of outrageous JASA booklet distributed at the UMNO General Assembly at the next Cabinet meeting and ensure Paud is sacked and made to personally bear the costs of the booklet or will these Ministers continue to play the role of the three monkeys with eyes that see not, ears that hear not and mouths that speak not?

(Speech at the fourth of six whistlestop “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang & Mana RM2.6 billion?” campaign in Johor in Batu Anam, Segamat on Saturday, 12th December 20145 at 3 pm)