Anwar sees West conspiracy

Anwar sees West conspiracy

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has accused the West of ganging up against Malaysia to thwart the building of a massive dam, stiffly opposed by environmentalists.

Anwar told Malaysian students at a meeting in London at the weekend that the Bakun dam was necessary to cope with an expected shortage of power by 2003, the year the dam in the eastern state of Sarawak was due for completion.

"The Western world is ganging up against us," Anwar was reported saying in the New Sunday Times. "I heard a CNN (Cable News Network) report last night in which a member of a Malaysian non-governmental organization was asked what he thought of the Bakun dam.

"He said Bakun is a peninsular project, that the company is owned by peninsular Malaysia and that the government is exploiting those in Sarawak," Anwar, currently on a week-long visit to Britain and Ireland, related.

Anwar pointed out that the dam developer, Ekran Bhd, is a Sarawakian company and Sarawak holds a major stake in the project.