By Shareem Amry
 

                       THIRTY years may have passed since the infamous riots of May 13, 1969, but the ghosts of this
                       bloody episode in Malaysian history remain alive, forever entrenched in the national psyche.

                       Kuala Lumpur and pockets throughout the country were turned into a terrified shells of
                       themselves, how over a hundred people lost their lives and how homes and vehicles were set on
                       fire and left smoking on the streets. Perhaps no one should.

                       But now memories are being turned into political weapons in the run-up to the upcoming general
                       election, which are widely believed to be held this year.

                       During a Sept 29 speech in Penang, Keadilan vice-president Marina Yusof allegedly said Umno
                       leaders and members led by former Selangor Menteri Besar Datuk Harun Idris had planned and
                       carried out massacres of the Chinese community during the incident.

                       For these reasons, she reportedly said, the Chinese community should not vote for the Barisan
                       Nasional when general elections are called.

                       It is true that the Chinese community suffered the heaviest death toll during the riots. Of the 196
                       lives lost, 143 of them, or an overwhelming 73 per cent, were Chinese.

                       But documents about the May 13 incident, and accounts from Malaysians who lived through the
                       riots, don't point accusing fingers in that direction.

                       In the immediate, stunned aftermath of the riots, then Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman
                       penned a book entitled May 13: Before and After, in which he blamed Malaysian Communists
                       and Opposition parties for events which eventually triggered the bloodbath.

                       In April of that year, the general election campaign was in full swing and Communists keen to
                       exploit tensions between competing political parties began to wage their own campaign for an
                       election boycott.

                       In the jittery days that followed, on May 4, police killed a 24-year-old Chinese male after he and
                       other men in his group, who had been painting signs on the road, refused to follow instructions
                       and put up a fierce struggle.

                       The Tunku wrote that the man's funeral on May 9, the day before the nation went to the polls,
                       "became one of the largest ever seen in Kuala Lumpur. The Communists made sure of that."

                       "It was not a funeral at all in the accepted sense, but was turned into a Communist political
                       demonstration of the most hostile nature," he added of the day-long affair.

                       Just days later, when results from polling began trickling in, it became clear that the ruling Alliance
                       Government had suffered heavy losses.

                       On May 12, to celebrate their unexpected election success, the then Opposition Gerakan party
                       held a victory procession in the city, an event that was eventually join by members of the DAP.

                       Eyewitness accounts of the procession speak of procession members repeatedly hurling insults at
                       Malays and figures of authorities, such as police. While Gerakan leaders made a public apology
                       for the debacle the next day, the damage had been done.

                       "...It is clear that the Gerakan leaders had now lost control of the elements and emotions they had
                       unleashed...After dispersal, their supporters split up into various groups, going to different areas
                       to carry on," the Tunku wrote.

                       May 13 dawned, by which time racial and political tensions were at an all time high.

                       That evening there was a fracas along Jalan Raja Muda in which some Chinese were assaulted,
                       sparking a communal bloodletting that haunt Malaysians to this day.

                       Four months later, the National Operations Council, which took over administrative rule after
                       Parliament was suspended in the wake of the violence, issued a report entitled "The May 13
                       Tragedy."

                       The report outlined the same complex and racially-charged background that it said helped
                       prepare the grounds for such unthinkable violence. But no one person was fingered for blame.

                       As far as the NOC was concerned, May 13 was not a carefully-planned plot engineered by a
                       mastermind, but a chain of events which cascaded straight into disaster.

                       Some Malaysians who lived through those bleak days, and who have grown weary of its
                       re-appearance in headlines over the years, wish the spectre of May 13 would be laid to rest,
                       once and for all.

                       "I think references to it irritate a lot of people," said former Deputy Health Minister Datuk K.
                       Pathmanaban, who was then a 32-year-old senior officer with the Economic Planning Unit.

                       "They see these references as threats and using ominous fears of what happened, but that is
                       totally unneccessary. There's no reason to revive old ghosts _ it's not healthy and doesn't confer
                       any benefits," he said.

                       Historian Prof Datuk Khoo Kay Kim, who had just joined the Universiti Malaya's faculty in
                       1969, also expressed frank exasperation at how some quarters insisted on stirring up old
                       memories.

                       "I personally don't like to think about what happened, about how terrified people were and how
                       many were killed. And I think that we have done well since that time."

                       Khoo remembered that he had been especially saddened by the riots, as he had hoped
                       Malaysians would have learned their lesson from similar riots which broke out in 1945.

                       "But I was sadly mistaken. People have such short memories."

                       As for the specific allocation of blame, Pathmanaban said the complexity of the situation at the
                       time made the question far too complex to answer "in a factual way."

                       "The situation created the riots. The elections had been tense, there was a lot of anxiety, and
                       finally everything just blew _ it doesn't really matter who threw the first stone," he said.

                       Datuk A. Nelson agreed: "When emotions were aroused, people just went off the handle. So
                       how can you say who is to blame?"

                       Nelson, who was acting head of publications at the Information Department at the time, found
                       himself stranded in his office at Jalan Tun Perak (formerly Jalan Mountbatten) for 48 hours after
                       curfew was imposed.

                       He dismissed allegations that Government leaders had been behind the ugly incident, and said that
                       Harun, the man at the centre of Keadilan's charge, was not deserving of any blame either.

                       "That is hogwash. In fact, he tried to stop the riots, but when he was trying to calm everyone
                       down, some party members locked him in a room and said 'bye-bye.'"

                       "Why bring this up after 30 years? What is the motive? It will only revive old feelings. Have these
                       people got unassailable proof?"

                       Khoo said he didn't believe specific blame should be assigned.

                       "In a general sense, everyone shares some blame for what happened. It's better not to point
                       fingers because it solves nothing and can aggravate the situation."

                       "We should be looking at the root of what happened, and take it from there."

                       In his book, the Tunku had written of his despair at seeing Malaysians turn against each other,
                       and how their fury had consumed everything around them.

                       "Kuala Lumpur was a city on fire," he wrote. "I could clearly see the conflagrations from my
                       residence at the top of the hill and it was a sight I never thought I would see in my lifetime."

                       For Malaysians like Pathnaban, Nelson and Khoo, the passage of thirty years has done much to
                       dull the anguish of those terror-filled days.

                       Rather than dragging those events back to the light of the present day, in order to hang it around
                       the necks of those whom some may believe are responsible, they would rather that Malaysians
                       studied the lessons yielded by history.