Mahathir under pressure on eve of APEC summit
Mahathir under pressure on eve of APEC summit
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters): Protesters and indignant foreign leaders piled pressure on Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Sunday as he prepared to host a Pacific Rim summit against a backdrop of smoldering civil unrest.
Anti-government protesters mounted three demonstrations in the capital in less than 24 hours, underscoring the depth of discontent with Mahathir's rule and his opponents' determination to defy a police crackdown on public gatherings.
Police fired teargas and water cannon to break up a demonstration on Sunday by about 200 supporters of Mahathir's ousted deputy Anwar Ibrahim who were clamoring for the prime minister's resignation after 17 years in power.
The crowd waving anti-government banners and shouting slogans had assembled at the foot of the world's tallest buildings in the heart of the capital.
Earlier on Sunday, about 300 human rights activists shouted slogans denouncing a Pacific Rim summit and Mahathir in a demonstration outside the Petronas Twin Towers that ended peacefully.
The towers are next to the hotel where leaders of the Asia- Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum's 21 member economies are scheduled to dine together on Tuesday night at the end of the first day of a two-day annual summit.
The buildings are up the street from the hotel complex housing the U.S. delegation to APEC, near the intersection where Anwar supporters torched a policeman's motorcycle on Saturday during a demonstration by about 1,000 people.
Two plain clothes policemen fired warning shots during Saturday's protest in the first gunfire since anti-government demonstrations erupted in September. No one was injured.
Two Canadian ministers met Anwar's wife on Saturday in a show of solidarity with the detained former deputy prime minister and a snub to Mahathir ahead of the APEC summit.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Sunday met Anwar Ibrahim's wife in a show of solidarity with Malaysia's sacked finance minister.
Azizah Ismail and her eldest daughter Nurul Izzah met the visiting U.S. official in a hotel in the Malaysian capital on the sidelines of a meeting of Pacific Rim leaders.
"The purpose of her visit to Wan Azizah is to express our concern about his treatment and the importance we attach to due process in the trial," State Department spokesman James Rubin said.
Anwar is on trial on corruption and sexual charges, which he denies.
U.S. President Bill Clinton decided on Saturday to skip the APEC summit to keep watch over Iraq. He had planned to avoid any bilateral meeting with Mahathir during the APEC summit to show his concern over Anwar.
Anwar has said he was the victim of a high-level political conspiracy to destroy his career and prevent him from ever succeeding Mahathir.
After he was arrested in September under the Internal Security Act (ISA), he appeared in court with a black eye he said he suffered in a beating while in police custody.
"We have expressed our concerns about the process, the lack of due process, what looks like his beating in prison, his detention under the ISA, the fact that he was initially prevented from seeing his wife and children, though that's no longer the case," a senior State Department official said.
Mahathir shrugged off the foreigners' desire to meet Azizah on Malaysian soil. "I don't know whether it is appropriate or not," he told reporters. "But if other people think that interfering in other people's affairs is legitimate, they are welcome to do so."
Mahathir has said Anwar's supporters, backed by foreign elements, want to spark Indonesian-style riots to topple his government in the same way that unrest led former Indonesian President Soeharto to step down in May.