When Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang raised the issue of Paya Mengkuang in Parliament today, little did he realise that he would be opening the doors for verbal punches being traded by his party MPs and Umno representatives.

The veteran parliamentarian started by talking about the plight of the pig farmers in Malacca who have been forced to scale down their farm sizes by the state government.

Yesterday was the deadline for that order and a stand-off ensued when the farmers were unwilling to reduce their pig population. Only a last-minute intervention by MCA eased the tension.

"What does the 50th independence mean and what is the use of excessive expenditure for the celebration when the ruling party cannot solve the problem of Paya Mengkuang in a civilised manner." Lim asked in the Parliament today.

He then questioned why was there a need to deploy anti-riot squads (FRU) and large numbers of police officers in a "confrontational manner" against the farmers.

He also claimed that an elderly person had died of heart attack following the stand-off.

MCA also did not escape the clutches of Lim's attack and the BN component party was labeled as cowards for allegedly not reacting when the party first realised that the mobilisation of police and riot squads was done almost two weeks before the incident occurred.

Joining him, Fong Po Kuan (DAP-Batu Gajah) stood from her seat to attack the ruling party, Umno especially, orally slapping them with accusations of being racists.

"Why until now, after the nation has celebrated its 50th independence, the policy of divide and conquer still persist until this very day. Look at the allocations for non-national schools and you have evidence of racial discrimination." she said.

"No power sharing as promised by Umno can be seen in their coalition and what about the meritocracy system for our education?

"We have seen the fleeing of non-Malay students to other countries because they are not provided space here in local varsities." she added.

The BN retaliation

It didn't take long for the government backbenchers to come out defending the government.

In a firm and stern voice, Mohd Said Yusof (BN-Jasin) started the retaliation by stating that "Malacca (state government) has not once prohibited the breeding of pigs on its soil.

"We have a law that allows only 48,000 pigs to be reared in this state and in the case of Paya Mengkuang, the law was not respected because the breeders have not only 48,000 pigs, but three times the amount of that," he charged.

"This is not a race issue, it is an environmental one and the opposition has malicious intentions here," said Mohd Said.

The Jasin MP also told the opposition to get their facts right.

"These people (breeders) are not even qualified (not licensed). They are financed by Singaporean tauke (owners) and the pigs are meant as supplies for Singapore. Are you (DAP) championing them?"

At this juncture, noises emanated from both the ruling party and opposition and the temperature was about to fall with Chong Eng (DAP-Bukit Mertajam) rising and rebutting Mohd Said's statement as incorrect and factless.

Mohd Said, favouring an all out assault claimed "Our leniency gives victory to DAP".

He went on to prove his point by saying: "They have promised the chief minister of Malacca they will remove the pigs and reduce it to the required number, yet this is nothing but empty promises. We are not racists, we are responsible to all races, even the Orang Asli (indigenous).

"We don't want to kill all the pigs, but we just want it to be reduced to 48,000 just as the law says. You must remember Paya Mengkuang is not the only vicinity affected but also Ayer Molek and Bukit Beruang and 80 percent of the residents there are Malays. What about their sensitivity?

"Did they demonstrate? No they didn't. They came to Umno leaders and asked the matter be solved. We have been negotiating with them for 50 years now but they (the pig farmers) have betrayed our trust," said Mohd Said.

One pig, one human

Joint-offensive on behalf of the ruling coalition then took place as Idris Haron (BN-Tangga Batu) raised to complement Mohd Said's point.

"The Alor Gajah Local Council informed me that three negotiations have taken place before the pig breeders were given Aug 31 as deadline. In the meeting, it was positive but the breeders did not fulfil their promises to reduce the number of pigs.

"There are currently 130,000 pigs there and there are 130,000 residents in Alor Gajah. The ratio of the pig to a resident is one to one. This is not sensitive to the Malays there."

"I even received reports that they were armed with sharp weapons," he said, to which Chong interrupted and accused Idris of bias as she believed that Idris had no evidence to support his allegations.

Idris then retaliated by saying that Chong and Lim too had no evidence when making allegations because of the fact that opposition leaders only used Chinese newspapers as evidence.

"You only use newspapers as evidence, and even using newspapers of language which we (Malays) do not understand," said Idris

He then ended the argument by saying: "Do not question the spirit of our tolerance."

The heat then subsided as the speaker managed to calm them down and another MP diverted the attention to other matters.