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.