Mahathir admits mistakes, no regrets after 20 years<\/p>\n
KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir
\nMohamad racked up 20 years in power on Monday, while over 30
\ncountrymen waited to be charged for protesting outside a
\ndetention camp where leading opposition activists are being held.<\/p>\n
The milestone puts 75-year-old Mahathir in the same longevity
\nclub as Cuba's Fidel Castro and a clutch of African leaders.
\nAsia's longest-serving elected leader has discouraged
\ncelebrations of his two decades in power, and there was little
\ncomment on the anniversary by the pro-government mainstream
\npress.<\/p>\n
\"I hope Malaysia will remain stable and grow strongly,\"
\nMahathir said at seminar on the power industry on Monday.<\/p>\n
Strong growth and stability were hallmarks of his rule until
\n1998, when the Asian crisis struck and his deputy Anwar Ibrahim
\nwas jailed.<\/p>\n
The former finance minister, popular among Muslim Malays, is
\nserving a 15-year jail term on sex and graft charges he says were
\ncooked up to thwart his challenge to Mahathir.<\/p>\n
Mahathir is the last survivor of a formidable generation of
\nSoutheast Asian strongmen, which included Singapore's Lee Kuan
\nYew, Indonesia's Soeharto and the Philippines' Ferdinand Marcos.<\/p>\n
Mahathir said while he may have made some mistakes during his
\nrule, he had acted for the good of the country.<\/p>\n
\"I think I may have made some mistakes, but I can't regret the
\ndecisions that I have made although they may have been unpopular,
\nbecause they lost support,\" Mahathir said.<\/p>\n
\"But I believe I did those things for the good of the country,
\nand not for my own (good), because I'm going anyway. I can't stay
\nforever.\"<\/p>\n
Columnist Karim Raslan told Reuters the dearth of newspaper
\ncomment might be because Mahathir realizes his popularity ranking
\nis too low to warrant creating a jubilee. A jovial Mahathir
\nappeared to share similar misgivings with journalists.<\/p>\n
\"If you didn't remind me, I would probably have forgotten. If
\nyou talk too much about it people might feel you've been around
\ntoo long,\" he commented on the significance of the anniversary.<\/p>\n
The only eulogy appeared in the New Straits Times.
\n\"There are those who (would) like to see him leave the political
\nscene, but there are also an equal if not greater number who want
\nhim to continue leading the country,\" it said.<\/p>\n
More arrest<\/p>\n
Mahathir has frequently pointed at the political chaos in
\nneighbors such as Indonesia and the Philippines to justify
\ncrackdowns on opponents.<\/p>\n
On Sunday, riot police with water cannon broke up a
\ndemonstration outside a detention camp in central Malaysia by
\nabout 500 people protesting against the use of a tough security
\nlaw to lock up six Anwar supporters without trial.<\/p>\n
Thirty-seven people pleaded not guilty on Monday to illegal
\nassembly charges stemming from their arrest at a protest outside
\na prison camp where six opposition activists and leaders are
\nbeing held without trial.<\/p>\n
The defendants were among 41 people arrested in Sunday's
\nprotest. Four juveniles were released without charges.<\/p>\n
The 37 who were charged were told to pay 1,000 ringgit ($262)
\nbail and were slowly being released Monday, said Badarudin
\nIsmail, an activist with the Malaysian human-rights group,
\nSuaram.<\/p>\n
Police sprayed the 500 protesters with chemically laced water
\nand charged the crowd with batons on Sunday outside the Kamunting
\ncamp, some 250 kilometers north of Kuala Lumpur, where the six
\nopposition figures are being held under the Internal Security
\nAct.<\/p>\n
\"This is a new culture -- you have to protest against
\neverything. We find universities these days no longer function as
\nuniversities,\" Mahathir said of the latest protest.<\/p>\n
Mahathir has said the November 1999 election was his last. The
\nnext election is due in 2004 but he has given no hint when he
\nwill stand down.<\/p>\n
He is struggling to regain the popularity he enjoyed before
\nAnwar was jailed. The opposition is banded around an increasingly
\nbold Islamic party, Parti Islam se-Malaysia, which spreads its
\nmessage through mosques and quasi-religious lectures.<\/p>",
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