SANDAKAN, March 28 – Efforts to beef up the country’s defense in the eastern region of Sabah shows that the government makes appropriate decisions to look after the people’s safety from external threat. Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad(Pic) said that the government had taken the incident as a lesson to protect the people from whatever threat.
“We can use it as a lesson so that we can always provide protection to the people and ensure that the country continues to be stable and can develop rapidly,” he said in an interview with Radio Sandakan FM which was aired today.
He said the country could handle the challenge posed by the incident because it had the experience in facing guerrilla warfare. Dr Mahathir said the security forces had fought against the communist terrorists previously and had defeated them although the world community had said that the guerrillas could not be beaten.
Commenting on the action by individuals using the social media to question the action of the government in tackling the incident, he said the people were now wiser and better trained to master knowledge at the tertiary institutions. Thus, he said, they were more mature in their thinking and the government should take into consideration the people’s maturity in political, economic and social matters.
“The government can use tools such as the social media to have dialogues and communications with the people. I am certain that the people’s achievements in terms of knowledge and efficiency as well as their professionalism can contribute towards national development,” he said.
Nonetheless, Dr Mahathir said the people should be given guidance so that they would not forget the aspiration to become a developed nation.
BERNAMA
