Malaysia PM says opposition running hate drive

Mahathir

July 26, 2000
Web posted at: 9:58 a.m. HKT (0158 GMT)

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (Reuters) -- Malaysia's prime minister on Tuesday accused the opposition of running a hate campaign against the government and feared it could divide the nation.

"This hate campaign by the opposition has reached a very dangerous level," Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said after a meeting of the top governing body of his ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.

"The campaign could cause people to take action which brings much destruction to themselves and the nation," the prime minister said.

The opposition has criticized the government, saying the real intention of a crackdown on extremist Muslim groups is to discredit the powerful PAS Muslim party by linking it to an embarrassing arms heist.

PAS, a fundamentalist opposition Islamic party, controls two states and has a strong following in the Muslim majority country.

The government launched the crackdown after members of the Al-Ma'unah cult, posing as senior military officers, stole more than 100 rifles, thousands of bullets and explosives.

The gang later took four hostages in a jungle hideout, killing two of them before surrendering after a five-day stand-off with security forces. It was Malaysia's biggest security scare in years.

Several PAS members were later found to members of the cult.

Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang said on Tuesday that Mahathir's coalition was exploiting the incident to reap political mileage.

Lim said the coalition's objectives included implicating PAS in the arms heist and "stoke the worst fears of non-Muslims and liberal-minded Muslims that Islam is associated with violence, extremism or fanaticism."

Malaysia has large numbers of Muslim, Christian and Buddhist believers.

PAS on Tuesday condemned moves to link the arms heist with the party's Islamic struggles.

"It is unreasonable to implicate PAS just because a few of its members were found to be members of the Al-Ma'unah group," PAS youth leader Mahfuz Omar said.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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