DAP chairperson Lim Kit Siang called on the government today to get its act together and not send out confusing and conflicting signals about the threat of terrorism in the country.

Referring to various news reports in several dailies today, he said Malaysians are now greatly confused at what had been said by politicians and the police on the issue in recent days.

For instance, Lim said The Star today front-paged a report with the headline "PM: Show Proof Malaysia very disappointed with travel alert to German citizens" while the Chinese press highlighted the "terrorist alert" issued by the Kuala Lumpur City Police to hotels and nightspots frequented by foreigners, with Nanyang Siang Pau carrying the front-page headline: "Nightspots may be attacked KL Police strengthens anti-terrorist measures".

The DAP chief added that what is surprising is that no English or Malay media published the "terrorist alert" of the Kuala Lumpur City Police to hotels and nightspots, when any such terrorist attacks on areas frequented by foreigners would be a matter of general and grave concern to Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or area.

Police alert the answer to PM's poser

"In fact, the "terrorist alert" issued by the KL City Police would be a sort of answer to the front-page story of The Star , where Mahathir said he was very disappointed that Germany has put Malaysia on a "highest caution" alert in its latest travel advisory, in the wake of other similar travel advisories by other countries such as Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom" Lim said.

"This is not the first time that the Malaysian Government has sent out conflicting and confusing signals about the threat of terrorism in the country the most unfortunate episode being the artificially-inflated political storm over Rohan Gunaratna's book."

Lim added that the government should take Parliament, all political parties including the opposition, the civil society and all Malaysians into its confidence by giving a clear and unvarnished account of the terrorist threat in Malaysia.

He also repeated his call to establish an all-party Conference on Terrorism to demonstrate the government's preparedness to transcend all partisan considerations and would not exploit any short-term party political advantage to ensure a terrorism-free Malaysia.