Bukit Pelanduk tourism proposal in bad taste

The government's plan to convert Bukit Pelanduk and its neighbouring areas in Negri Sembilan, where the deadly Nipah virus once killed dozens of pig farmers, into a tourism spot reflects an obsession with tourism that has gone amok, defying human decency.

NS state assemblyman Yeow Chai Thiam was quoted as saying that he hoped that the tourism project would "attract tourists from the region, including China, India and Japan, (as well as) the United States and Britain."

Are we to conclude that a sense of compassion, let alone remorse, has been lost in the government's unrelenting drive to attract the tourist ringgit?

Surely we can all draw some meaningful lessons - instead of trying to make money - from this dreadful tragedy, which caused misery, suffering and death.

Aliran therefore calls on the authorities concerned to drop this shameful proposal.