Baradan Kuppusamy and Kg Buah Pala

ARCHIVES 2009

By admin-s On Jul 7, 2009

By Dr. Rafick

1. Today (Monday, July 6th) an article in the “The Star” under the headlines “DAP under extreme pressure” on page N19 written by Baradan Kuppusamy (BK) attracted my attention.

The half a page article is basically an empty articulation of Mr. BK where he was trying to link the Shah Alam Seri Mariaman temple demolition with Kg Buah Pala, the politics and so called lack of compassion by the Penang Government. Indirectly BK is making this into a racial and political issue which is actually not the case. That is I why I said that it was an empty articulation.

2. BK in his writing ruminates along the line of compassion, politics and trying to imply that if the state government does not have compassion in dealing with the Kg Buah Pala residents. What BK has failed to do is to put forward a workable solution to all the stake holders. It has also failed to highlight explicitly on what he expect the State Government to do.

3. From what he wrote in between the lines, it appears that BK expects the state government to acquire the land and give it to the 26 families. I am not sure what is actual value of the land but personally if the state government can buy back the land at the price it was sold, I suppose the State Government can close one eye and create precedence by buying such property and give it to the 26 families. Personally I do not support on this close one eye action. Setting precedence has its implications. Among others it would mean that in the future, any squatters can put forward such a request and government will be trapped again.