The Grand Saga of Bandar Mahkota Cheras
Reading the Bandar Mahkota Cheras "Barricade" Fracas articles and viewing accompanying pictures of physically-assaulted citizens make me feel compelled to mention something about it.
Seeing headlines like BMC fracas: Police beat up youth ( Malaysiakini ) makes me feel really bad. There is another more shocking news in Night of violence at the Cheras barricade . Accordingly, there is a group of 15 unidentified men (meaning, not the police) who assaulted demonstrators. Now, when we thought that is the end of all these, Grand Saga, the company behind the construction of the multiple times reconstructed barricade, announced that it is not behind the violence propagated by the 15 men, in fact condeming the attacks. I am definitely shocked by this announcement as well. If Grand Saga, the constructor of the barricade is not behind the violence, then there is one important question going through my mind : Who are these 15 men working for or rather what is their personal motive , that they feel the need to assault demonstrators against the barricade construction? Hahahaha... well, it is not really that hard to answer, isn't it? Goodness gracious.
Other than that, the second thing which causes a great dismay to me is the lack of understanding on which government is supposed to shoulder the responsibility of this issue. Federal (Barisan majority) or State (Pakatan majority) ? Otherwise is that a combination of both? Is this within the jurisdiction of the Works Minister (from BN)? I believe that is no longer Samy Vellu. It is all vague to me.
From what I am able to decipher, it is a legal matter between companies but can any responsible persons from the above do something fruitful to help ease the matter as soon as possible. 2006 to 2008 is 2 years. Wondering how many more years would that take.
Perhaps due to these uncertain conditions, desperate people of Cheras took one step further in dismantling the barricade. Imagine, in this time of rising fuel costs, these people having to travel additional kilometers (I have heard it is a 6) instead of 1 km without the blockade.
Article published in http://www.malaysia-today.net/2008/content/view/8191/84/
