Five opposition legislators who have disguised themselves as "champions of democracy" and acted as if they are willing to sacrifice themselves for their cause have tendered their resignation to the Legislative Council.

A farce has had its curtain drawn amid intense political wrangles, and it is not known how it will end.

The resigning legislators, who are barristers and street fighters, are more stubborn than Don Quixote, and the fire they have set is spreading out of control.

Initially they adopted the slogan "general resignation in five geographical constituencies as a de facto referendum". Although the term "referendum" was included in the slogan, their proposed resignation was generally viewed as a move to express their dissatisfaction with the election reform and had nothing to do with a referendum in its true sense.

If they were not happy and wanted to resign, nobody could or would stop them. Many people advised them against it, but the most severe criticism was that the exercise was a waste of taxpayers' money.

Perhaps feeling ignored by the community, they changed "general resignation" into "referendum movement". That went too far.

Since "referendum" implies "self-determination", proposing it touches the bottom line of national sovereignty. Hence the condemnation by the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office, the Central Government's Liaison Office in Hong Kong and the local community at large.

Hong Kong is a local administrative region of the People's Republic of China. "A high degree of autonomy" does not mean "total autonomy". How could they try to introduce a referendum into the SAR?

If these legislators still had some sense left, they ought to have retracted the term "referendum". Not only did they fail to do that, they went even further to add "general uprising" to their slogan in addition to "referendum movement". That is even more ridiculous!

"Uprising" means overthrowing the existing ruling regime, which may involve bloodshed. The meaning of this term is understood even by primary school students. How could it have escaped the barrister-legislators?

In face of overwhelming denunciation, they have resorted to sophistry to defend themselves, thereby moving further away from the people.

If they think they can hijack and inflame public opinion and threaten the Central Government by proposing a "referendum" and an "uprising", they are either crazy, naive or otherwise ignorant of the law and the prevailing sentiments of the people of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong people are not puppets. They will not join them in playing with fire and in their political self-immolation.

The "referendum" farce can have only one possible ending - tragedy for the opposition camp.

(HK Edition 01/28/2010 page1)