Why Pakatan Cried “Wolf” Over Lynas

The Lynas rare earths plant in Gebeng, Pahang, is perhaps the best example of how a concerted political campaign attempted to stall an environmentally safe project with half-truths and scaremongering.
Pakatan Rakyat and its friends in the media decided sometime last year that they would target the RM2.5 billion project to make the Barisan Nasional Government look bad, even though the technology was shown to be safe by scientific experts.
A clean chit from the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was not enough for pro-Opposition groups, who launched a vicious misinformation campaign against the Lynas plant to scare the Malaysian public into thinking that the plant was somehow 'unsafe' and its waste was 'radioactive'.
Even a nuclear expert from within Pakatan who pointed out that the plant was indeed safe – PAS' Dr Che Rosli Che Mat – was issued a gag order to silence voices in favour of the project.
The Australian firm correctly stood its ground in the face of this online frenzy, and its stand was vindicated when pro-Opposition website Free Malaysia Today publicly apologised last July, admitting that its allegations did "not have a scientific basis".
"We refer to the articles previously published by us which claim that the Lynas plant may be unsafe. We apologise for these publications as such claims do not have a scientific basis. The regulatory review of the Lynas plant has been thorough and diligent," FMT said in its apology.
It's obvious that the Opposition-supported media attack on the Lynas plant was orchestrated without any scientific basis.
On the other hand, the BN government responded to public concerns over safety by ensuring that the plant met all global safety requirements. The government also made sure that Lynas would remove the waste from any proximity to habitation to assuage any last fears that the local community may have.
Yet when the anti-Lynas brigade failed to stall the project and the plant began operations last November, Himpunan Hijau chairman Wong Tack called upon a mob to "burn down" the plant if BN retains power in GE13.
Instead of criticising Wong for his threat, Pakatan rewarded him by naming him as the DAP candidate for Bentong, Pahang. So much for the coalition's much-vaunted focus on law and order. When it comes to politics, Pakatan welcomes candidates who call for burning down legitimate businesses.
The Lynas plant, meanwhile, has produced its first products for customers and is expected to reach a rate equivalent to 11,000 tonnes of output per year by the second quarter of 2013.
The project is expected to generate jobs and income nationwide for 30 years or more, helping Malaysia to break China's monopoly on rare earth metals and broaden our fast evolving mining technology base.
So here is an environmentally safe plant that will generate jobs and boost the national economy. Naturally Pakatan finds itself in an awkward position. How can it oppose such a project without being subject to public ridicule?
Add to that the huge penalty the country would have to pay the Australian firm if a future Pakatan government closes down the plant, and you can understand why the coalition is now tying itself into knots.
In its election manifesto, Pakatan threatened to "halt operations" at the Lynas plant if elected. But in a major flip-flop, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim tried to backpedal on the issue barely two weeks later – claiming to an Australian newspaper that the plant would only be shut down if it was shown to be unsafe, something he knows will not happen.
Yet Anwar was contradicted almost immediately by hardline voices within his own party, calling for the project to be scrapped.
By riding the wave of anti-Lynas protests to score political brownie points, Pakatan now finds itself unable to get off it – even in the national interest.