Asia Times Online
10 November 2000

Malaysia risk

While world attention is absorbed by the inconclusive US presidential election outcome, events in Malaysia took a turn this past Sunday that warrant close scrutiny. With the second conviction in August of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim on sodomy charges and continuing positive news on the economic front, consensus opinion of political observers was that Anwar's and the opposition's fate was pretty well sealed, at least for the time being, and that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was safe in his position. The Sunday anti-Mahathir demonstrations at Jalan Kebun which involved 10,000 or more opposition supporters (though probably not the 50-100,000 claimed by the organizers) may not have overturned such consensus opinion, but certainly made a dent in it. The prior surface calm has been ruptured, and both the size of the demonstration and the nervous overreaction of the riot police have revealed that not all is well in the country. 

What never fails to amaze us is how harsh police intervention and quick-draw reactions from Mahathir and other Umno leaders can manage to coalesce passionate opposition when the opposition itself gives the impression of being disorganized and lacking purpose and direction. This time around what appears to have incensed Mahathir and his cohorts and, in turn, encouraged the opposition to call the November 5 rally was an October 27 US congressional resolution tabled by Representatives Chris Smith (Republican, New Jersey), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (Republican, Florida), Tom Lantos (Democrat, California), Dana Rohrabacher (Republican, California), Ed Royce (Republican, California), Neil Abercrombie (Democrat, Hawaii), and Robert Wexler (Democrat, Florida), and referred to the House Committee on International Relations to find and resolve "That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that - (1) the Government of Malaysia should provide Dato Seri Anwar with due process of law either by offering him a new trial under fair and transparent procedures or by dismissing all charges against him; and (2) all Malaysians should be allowed to exercise their fundamental right to peaceful expression of political opinion, without fear of arrest or intimidation, and should be afforded due process of law in all cases." 

Commented Mahathir: "Actually, these people should not be congressmen. They are not fit to become congressmen in the most powerful country in the world. If that is the kind of congressman they [Americans] have, I am sorry for them." And if that statement wasn't silly enough, Mahathir compounded such folly by claiming that the actions of Parti Keadilan Nasional youth wing leader Mohamed Ezam Mohamed Noor during a recent trip to the US, where he contacted US congressional offices to rally support for the release of Anwar, constituted "treachery". 

But you have to hand it to the opposition leaders: they know how to wind up Mahathir, where his raw nerves are, and how to get him to spout some nonsense or other that can inspire the opposition to jump into action. That, apparently, another opposition figure, "Free Anwar Campaign" director and keADILlan media coordinator Raja Petra Kamarudin, had also been in the US and talked to congressmen and to certain "friends of Anwar" who hired a Washington public relations firm, Janus-Merritt Strategies, to create awareness of the Anwar case, got Mahathir riled up even further. According to Malaysian news agency Bernama, he criticized the move by Anwar supporters, saying, "Doing something to discredit one's own country is treason to the country no matter what their [the Anwar supporters'] frustration is." And still not enough, he surmised that the opposition figures' actions could cause investors to lose interest in Malaysia. 

While opposition leaders' activities in the US and elsewhere (Australia, Hong Kong, Korea) may have had the (desired?) effect of getting Mahathir to rise to the occasion and say things that in turn catalyzed wider layers of opposition, it's actually in and of itself rather puny stuff. It has been reported that they also talked to Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Jesse Helms and to the arch-conservative Heritage Foundation. And, of course, some of the US congressmen who filed the resolution are not exactly our idea of who one wants to be associated with in the international arena. Chris Smith is known for his visceral opposition to Permanent Normal Trade Relations between the US and China; Rohrabacher has been on the warpath against the Chinese communists for decades; Wexler, Ros-Lehtinen and Lantos are convinced that Mahathir is some kind of horrible anti-Semite. And one of the principal causes of public relations outfit Janus-Merritt is to lobby in favor of Internet gambling. Wonderful bunch. 

Perhaps if Mahathir did his homework instead of letting his mouth run away with him, he wouldn't find it so difficult to deal with an opposition that doesn't really have the sort of international support that will take them very far. But that's not Mahathir, and thus the opposition has a cause. Our concern is that its cause - other than deposing Mahathir - is ill-defined, that it encompasses the Islamist Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS) whose causes we deplore, and that demonstrations have little purpose if their only purpose is a negative one. 

Anwar should be freed. His trial was a travesty of justice. Malaysia's political system should permit greater freedom of expression and association. The disgustingly servile press should give way to a press that provides news and information, not just boring state propaganda. But the opposition should more clearly define its goals, and as long as it doesn't mind making common cause with PAS, we're not so sure it's a credible and desirable alternative to Umno.