According to a May 11 report in the Sin Chew Daily , MCA Youth chief o­ng Tee Keat called o­n the police to " thoroughly investigate the "source(s)" and "contents" of the poison-pen letter accusing MCA vice president O­ng Ka Ting of having "links" with a triad group.

Tee Keat, who is also deputy Youth and sports minister, also reportedly said that the police should also "deal with the case fairly, sternly and without bias".

He claimed that he himself has also been a "victim" of many poison-pen letters for the past 12 years. According to the Tee Keat, who is also a former deputy Parliament Speaker, those poison-pen letters targeted against him were even more "vicious and venomous", attacking and smearing "even eighteen generations of my ancestors".

Bitterness and hatred

Accusing someone of attacking and smearing o­ne's "eighteen generations of ancestors" is a literary device in classical Chinese usually to express personal bitterness and hatred.

However, it still cannot be ascertained if Tee Keat's bitterness and hatred were directed specifically against Ka Ting and/or MCA president Dr Ling Liong Sik.

Tee Keat was first elected as a member of Parliament in the 1989 Ampang Jaya by-election. Before that he was a political secretary to Lee Kim Sai, an ex-deputy president of MCA who attempted to challenge Ling for the party presidency thrice but failed to act decisively each time.

After Lee was dropped from the top party leadership dominated by Ling, Tee Keat became increasingly isolated and marginalised until the emergence of Team B in 2000. Since then, he has become a staunch critic of Ling and his group, popularly known as Team A.

After officiating the MCA's 54th anniversary celebration organised by the Selangor/Federal Territory MCA Youth grassroots at the Thean Hou Temple in Kuala Lumpur o­n May 9 this year, Tee Keat told reporters that the party has been "quite substantially infiltrated by triads."

He also claimed that triads are "accepted and condoned by certain party leaders and triadism has also become the root cause of money politics in MCA."

Natural suspect

His public assertion led him to immediate condemnation by MCA leaders from Team A, including the usually reticent president. Tee Keat has also since been referred to the Ling-controlled disciplinary board but so far, no action has been taken against him.

After the emergence of a poison-pen letter accusing Tee Keat's political opponent and personal nemesis o­ng Ka Ting of having "working and financial links" with triads, Tee Keat became a "natural suspect" as the author of the letter.

The youth chief, of course, denied that he is responsible for the letter which written in very fluent Chinese. However, he did not condemn those responsible for writing and circulating the letter, unlike party veep and Team B comrade Chan Kong Choy who did so.

Ka Ting, who is also the Minister for Housing and Local Government, has also denied the allegations made in the letter. He lodged a police report o­n May 7 in Kuala Lumpur.

Tee Keat claimed he has written a letter to Inspector General of Police Norain Mai and also personally briefed Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and his deputy, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi o­n the matter. He also revealed that he has given a list of names of MCA leaders with alleged links to triad groups to the top BN leaders.

However, Ka Ting also claimed he has given an explanation to Mahathir and Abdullah. But whether Mahathir and Abdullah are satisfied with Ka Ting's explanation is not publicly known.

Full probe necessary

According to DAP national chairperson and former parliamentary Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang who claimed to have read o­ne such poison-pen letter in Penang, the three-page letter refers to the two names which Tee Kiat had given to Abdullah to substantiate his allegation of triad and money politics in MCA.

Kit Siang, a lawyer and former journalist, also opined in a press statement o­n May 7 that "public interest demands full and thorough investigation not o­nly into the 'perpetrators' of the poison-pen letters but the truth or otherwise of the detailed and specific allegations of triad and money politics in MCA and the allegation against o­ng Ka Ting as its ring leader".

According to a May 7 report in the New Straits Times , two other MCA leaders who are implicated in the poison-pen letter are MCA central committee member Yew Teong Look and youth vice chairman, Han Chin Pheng. Yew and Han are staunch supporters of Ling and Team A.

Yew is also an appointed Senator.

The poison-pen letter also cited two other names who were linked to a Chinese secret society and claimed that they were "close associates" of Ka Ting.

It alleged in what purported to be details that Ka Ting, while being the deputy home minister from 1995 to 1999, had abused his ministerial powers to "help" the duo when they ran into trouble with the law.

They were said to have been made MCA divisional chiefs in Penang and Selangor respectively, and had allegedly helped recruit gangsters as party members.

The letter also alleged that the duo were involved in various illegal businesses such as illegal money-lending, illegal gambling and prostitution.

The MCA divisional leader from Selangor was later killed in a triad feud, while the o­ne from Penang has allegedly fled the country.

Moreover, when the latter's father passed away several years ago, Ka Ting's name appeared in the a message of condolence together with that of Ling, offering their sympathies.

In an Oriental Daily News report o­n May 7, Ka Ting did not deny that his name was in the condolence message but clarified that it was used unwittingly and that he did not know the two triad leaders named in the poison-pen letter.

Two issues

At this point, it is clear that there are actually two issues at hand:

One, who is the author of the poison-pen letter and who organise and finance the distribution of the letter? This question is more of partisan interests in MCA's o­ngoing and protracted power struggles between Team A and Team B.

Of course, the allegations and counter-allegations made by the factional partisans in MCA would certainly continue to tarnish the image of the party in the run-up to the general election.

Two, are the purported details in the poison-pen letter factually true or false? If the details are found to be false, the letter is certainly defamatory but if proven otherwise, the details could be used by the police to institute the necessary actions to preserve or restore governmental security against undesirable elements in the administration.

Moreover, if the purported details in the letter are found to be factually true, then the author, whoever he or she is, is actually doing a service to the society by whistle-blowing to alert the authorities and attempt to restore the integrity and security of the government.

And since Mahathir and Abdullah have been informed publicly, as well as from both sides of the controversy, they have to make their own judgements and decisions o­n resolving the matter.

It is interesting to see how they are going to handle the issue of the letter's contents. Will they sweep it under the carpet until after the general election, or will they make public interests a priority over partisan politics and interests?