Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi should stop the Federal Government campaign to “whitewash” an already “very white-washed” Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Illegal Immigrants in Sabah (RCIIIS).

Last week, Zahid said there was no “Project IC” to issue blue identity cards to tens or hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in Sabah to change the political demography of the State.

This denial of a “Project IC” flies in the face of the finding of the RCIIIS which concluded “that it was more likely than not that ‘Project IC’ did exist” – or to quote the conclusion and answer of the RCIIIS after a 14-page discussion of the question whether “Project IC” really existed:

“In short, there is a probability that such a Project did exist at all material times.” (p.300)

At the “closed” launch of Report of the RCIIIS in Kota Kinabalu on December 3, the Chief Secretary and the Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail also played their role in trying to “white-wash” an already “very white-washed” RCIIIS Report – which was probably why the DAP MP for Kota Kinabalu, Jimmy Wong and DAP Sabah State Assemblyman for Kepayan Edwin Bosi as well as NGO representatives were barred from the launching ceremony.

Hamsa said that the government was not involved in the “Project IC” and Gani said dubious names registered in the electoral roll had been removed.

Zahid has moved one step further from Hamsa’s statement that the government was not involved in “Project IC” to total denial of the existence of a “Project IC” to issue blue identity cards to illegal immigrants.

Would the RCIIIS Commissioners from Chairman Tan Sri Steve Shim to the other four members Tan Sri Herman Luping, Datuk Seri Dr. Kamaruzaman Hj Ampon, Datuk Henry Chin and Datuk K.Y. Mustafa publicly endorse these three statements made by the Home Minister, Chief Secretary and the Attorney-General as representing the findings and position of the RCIIIS?

Of course not, because Zahid, Hamsa and Gani are only trying to “whitewash” an already “very white-washed” RCIIIS Report, which never said the things the trio claimed.

In the light of these attempts to “whitewash” an already “very white-washed” RCIIIS Report, the failure to make public the 5,000 missing pages of notes of evidence, public memoranda, statutory declarations and exhibits take on a rather sinister light.

Is there nobody who could answer why the 5,000 pages are missing from the 368-page RCIIIS Report, when the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Lingam Videotape Scandal comprise 2,365 pages in four volumes: Vol 1 – 191 pages; Vol 2 Notes of Evidence 1,187 pages; Vol 3 Statutory Declarations 513 pages and Volume 4 Exhibits – 474 pages?

I would like to ask whether Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan, as Chairman of the Working Committee on the RCIIIS Report, and other members of the Working Committee have access to the 5,000 missing pages of the RCIIIS Report?