She said one of the most obvious things to her was her inability to remember names ever since she was detained.
“During my detention, the police kept asking me whether I knew this person or that person and would mention names of people I only knew in passing,” she said.
“But then I would start thinking hard about those names the police mentioned and I would start to remember every detail about those people.
“I did everything I could to forget those names and as a result, up till today, I still have trouble with names.”
Xavier was speaking at a forum featuring several former detainees which was held to commemorate Ops Lalang at the Kuala Lumpur Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall here today.
She added that she did not know how else the Ops Lalang had affected her mind.
“Their purpose is to make you psychologically dependent on them so you would do anything they told you to do.
“I fought this by repeatedly telling myself that I would stand my ground.”
PSM chairman Nasir Hashim, who was also a panellist, said he found that it was important not to show his weakness.
“I’m very soft. I would cry at times but I made sure never to show the police that because if they know you have weaknesses, then they would push at those weaknesses.”
Ops Lalang was carried out supposedly to prevent the occurrence of racial riots in the country.
The operation saw the arrest of over 100 people, including NGO activists, opposition politicians, intellectuals, students, artists, scientists and others, detained without trial under the now repealed Internal Security Act (ISA). It was the second largest ISA swoop in Malaysian history since the May 13 riots.
The crackdown took place at a time when Umno was split into two opposing groups, one led by Mahathir, and the other by Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Musa Hitam.
Among the more prominent ISA detainees were then DAP secretary-general Lim Kit Siang, DAP deputy chairman Karpal Singh, MCA vice-president and Perak chief Chan Kit Chee, PAS Youth chief Halim Arshat, Umno Pasir Mas MP Ibrahim Ali, and Umno Youth Education chairman Mohamed Fahmi Ibrahim.
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