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DAP opposes National Service Training Council decision to take legal against 10,000 youths who failed to report for the training programme and calls on the Council to hold emergency meeting to revoke the decision Media Conference Statement (2) - after the opening of the DAP 2004 General Election Post-Election Conference of DAP MPs, State Assemblymen and candidates by Lim Kit Siang (Kuala Lumpur, Sunday): DAP opposes the National Service Training Council decision to take legal action against 10,000 youths who failed to report for the training programme and calls on the Council to hold an emergency meeting to revoke the decision. Something is very wrong about the maturity and soundness of judgment of the National Service Training Council members if they could give priority to institute legal actions against 10,000 youths who absented themselves from the national service training programme, when the immediate top challenge and priority is to end the mounting public crisis of confidence of parents and trainees over lax discipline, gangsterism and crime in the national service training programme. All energies of the National Service Training Council should be focused on resolving the increasing spate of breakdown of discipline in the national service training camps as reflected by the rising incidence of fights, assaults of trainees and even trainers, gangsterism, extortion, sexual harassment, etc. The council decision to put the “bullies” of the national service trainees in a special camp is a very swift admission of the failure of the programme aimed at instilling discipline and social values. Will the Council next set up a special camp for “super bullies” if the special camp for “bullies” should produce a new breed of “super bullies” of the national service trainees? It is most unsatisfactory that the National Service Training Council members do not understand the root causes for the failure of the national service training programme to achieve the very objective it was conceived – to instill discipline – and is resorting to ad-hoc solutions, trying to cure the head when there is headache and tackling the foot when there is foot pain. * Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman & Member of Parliament for Ipoh Timor |