CRACKDOWN | Anwar Ibrahim and his associates are arrested as Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad harshly lays down the law

ASIAWEEK 2 Oct 1998
FOR A "MINOR DISTRACTION," it certainly required some major action. For weeks, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had insisted that his onetime deputy's reform - and increasingly anti-government - movement was a peripheral matter of little significance. But when time came for Anwar Ibrahim to be arrested, the unfolding events resembled less a detainment of an inconsequential figure than a full-blown anti-terrorist operation by a crack commando unit.

It all began on Sunday evening, Sept. 20, when the authorities stationed baton-wielding riot police outside Anwar's residence. Two police helicopters hovered overhead, bathing the area with powerful searchlights. Then at around 9 p.m., balaclava-clad men with bulletproof vests and submachine guns broke down the front door and stormed into the house, where Anwar, 51, was conducting a press conference. The raiders, who belonged to the elite Special Action Force, manhandled some of the journalists and confiscated their notebooks and tape recorders before throwing the hacks out of the house.

The arresting officer told Anwar he was being detained under the charge of unnatural sexual acts. The police stayed in the house for an hour while they wrangled with the former deputy PM's lawyers. Anwar told his supporters present to be calm and packed his clothes. While his faithful jostled with the police and chanted slogans, he was bundled into a police van with his wife, Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, and children. Before the vehicle had traveled far, it was stopped and Anwar was transferred to an unmarked police car. Wan Azizah was told she could go home; Anwar was taken to a maximum-security prison outside Kuala Lumpur.

The dramatic arrest, if long anticipated, still came as something of a surprise. After he was sacked on Sept. 2 under a cloud of accusations ranging from sexual misconduct to sedition, Anwar charged that a political conspiracy had been behind his ouster and vowed to fight what he claimed was a corrupt, repressive government. While leaders of Mahathir's United Malays National Organization (UMNO) and the government-controlled media lined up behind the PM, the former student firebrand took his cause to the people, traveling across the country in a bid to mobilize grassroots support. Throughout, Mahathir, 72, steadfastly ignored his erstwhile heir apparent's agitations, maintaining he would not make a political martyr out of Anwar by arresting him. Many observers believed him, reasoning that the PM would at least wait until the country had finished hosting the Commonwealth Games.

The arrest, which came a day before the Games closed, put an end to all such predictions. Mahathir, for all his penchant for thumbing his nose at international opinion, probably did not plan to crack down on Anwar at this time, certainly not with Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in town to close the Games. But his hand may have been forced by events earlier that day on Sept. 20.

That afternoon, a pro-Anwar demonstration was scheduled to be held in Merdeka (Independence) Square in downtown Kuala Lumpur. The rally was intended to coincide with Queen Elizabeth's visit to St. Mary's Cathedral just across the street. But the Anwar venue was switched to the National Mosque, three-quarters of a kilometer from the square - to avoid trouble with police.

By about 4:30 p.m., some 30,000 to 50,000 people had gathered in front of the mosque. Speaking from the building's balcony, Anwar denounced the administration and called on his former mentor to step down. "Malaysians have waited long enough," he told the cheering crowd in English. "We have given Mahathir enough time. Enough is enough. He should resign!" He then switched to Tamil - "Mahathir, go!" - using the word podah, not the politest form of the verb.

Anwar then called on the crowd to march to Merdeka Square. Chanting "Reformasi [Reform]!" and "Allah-o-Akbar [God is supreme]!", the demonstrators made their way north, up the main thoroughfare of Jalan Sultan Hishamuddin, as traffic policemen frantically tried to control the resulting gridlock. When asked why he came, a student replied: "I want to hear what Anwar says. That is the real story. We want change." What about Anwar's alleged sodomy and adultery as reported in the newspapers? "We don't believe the damned papers. They all lie. They think we're stupid."

The protesters pushed their way into the square, trampling over police barricades erected around it. Red-helmeted riot police present at the scene withdrew, making no attempt to stem the human tide. Amid shouts for reform, Anwar was hoisted on the shoulders of some of his supporters and carried around the field to meet the people. Meanwhile, other supporters distributed yellow postcards with a large black question mark and a cheeky question to the PM (who is a physician by training): "What's up, doc?"

IT WAS PERHAPS NOT so much a case of unequivocal support for Anwar as deepening discontent over the government's perceived heavy-handedness. At the scene was Mohamed Nasir, a former professor of medicine at the National University of Malaysia. The demonstration, he said, "is the culmination of the frustrations of ordinary people. I have never seen a crowd like this. It is mixed; all strata of society are here." He accepted that unrest has tended to follow economic downturns. "But this is big." Queen Elizabeth, though, was not there to witness it, having left the church an hour earlier.
The Merdeka rally wound to a close as dusk was approaching. Most participants dispersed peacefully, though a group of around 3,000 demonstrators broke off to head north toward UMNO headquarters to continue their protest there. (They then traveled several kilometers southwest to Mahathir's residence.) Anwar was whisked home on a motorcycle.

Peaceful though the exercise was, it was apparently the last straw for UMNO leaders. Instead of fizzling as they had hoped, Anwar's movement seemed to be going from strength to strength. With the Merdeka rally, Anwar showed himself to be a force that could no longer be ignored - and the gloves had to come off, Games or no Games. A few hours later, in their first show of force, police used batons, tear gas and water cannons to disperse the protesters who had reached Mahathir's house. Meanwhile, two kilometers away, Anwar was arrested.

As the day came to a close, many observers were left with a sense of shock. The clash at the PM's residence, says history professor Khoo Kay Kim of the University of Malaya, was "quite unusual. We were all taken aback. This has never happened before."

There was more to come. On the morning of Sept. 21, some 1,500 demonstrators returned to Merdeka Square, congregating outside the adjacent federal courthouse where Anwar was due to appear to be charged. This time, the riot police showed none of the restraint they had displayed the previous afternoon. Firing tear gas and water cannons, they engaged in running battles with the protesters, as well as any unfortunate bystander who happened to be in the way. "The crowds did not attack the police," says a social activist. "They were protesting the arrest of Anwar and were violently dispersed." Around 50 people, including some hapless office workers in designer ties out for lunch, were taken away in police vans. Later that evening, young supporters of Anwar staged a march to the National Stadium, where the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games was being held, but police managed to prevent them from disrupting the proceedings.

Meanwhile, the government began cracking down on Anwar's people in earnest. Even before the former deputy PM was arrested, two of his associates were convicted of "gross indecency" and each sentenced to six months in prison. In two separate trials, Anwar's adopted brother, Sukma Darmawan, and former speechwriter, Munawar Anees, pleaded guilty to allowing themselves to be sodomized by Anwar. Anwar, who has denied all charges - sexual or otherwise - against him, maintains that the two men were forced to make false confessions.

For his part, Mahathir insisted in a Sept. 22 press conference that he had personally interviewed the people Anwar allegedly sodomized. "I cannot accept a man who is a sodomist to become the leader of this country," he intoned. The issue is a crucial one. If Malaysians are convinced Anwar engaged in homosexual acts, his political career would be effectively over in what is largely a conservative Muslim society. Mahathir added that Anwar "instigated his followers to riot. He was working up emotion to develop the situation found in Indonesia. They hoped that they could overthrow the government."

The day after his arrest, Anwar - and 11 key allies - were officially held under the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for the detainee to be held without being charged. (The visiting Queen might have reflected on the fact that the ISA was introduced to Malaysia, as well as Singapore, by the colonial British, who used it against communist insurgents.) This was Anwar's second detention under the ISA, the first being in 1974 when he was, as he is now again, an anti-government activist.

In the beginning there were conflicting statements from the police over his arrest, giving the impression that they disagreed over what to charge Anwar with. Initially, it was understood that he would be charged with sexual indecency - a logical enough progression given the sodomy convictions of Sukma and Munawar. Then the police public-relations department said he had been arrested under laws governing civil unrest. But Anwar never appeared in court on Sept. 21 to be charged on either count, and it was later announced that he was being held under the ISA. The authorities now say they will bring specific charges -such as the sodomy ones - against Anwar very soon.

NOW THAT ANWAR AND his key associates are behind bars, the leadership of the reform movement has passed to Wan Azizah, who has vowed to carry on her husband's work. She has agreed to police demands that she refrain from holding public meetings, but she remains defiant. "This evening three police officers came to my place and told me not to have rallies," she told reporters on Sept. 21. "That is why I am not using a microphone. Yet I must have the right to speak on behalf of my husband." Since then, the authorities have sought to tighten their grip, threatening Wan Azizah with arrest if she did not comply, surrounding her home with policemen and officially banning all pro-Anwar demonstrations.

For now, the government appears to have control over the situation - but it has come at a huge price. The Commonwealth Games, which was supposed to be a coming-of-age event for Malaysia, took a back seat to the disturbances. Lost amid the news and pictures of riot police swinging their clubs at protesters was the fact that Malaysia won 10 gold medals and came fourth in the medals table. The government did not help its case by jamming broadcasts of the clashes, thereby earning the ire of foreign TV networks. The international press, never known for their warm relations with Mahathir, were predictably critical of the PM. The Jakarta Post called the events a "disgrace for Mahathir," while the Sydney Morning Herald wrote that the PM was risking "turning his country into a mini-Indonesia and himself into a poor man's Suharto." Indonesians of course know plenty about repression, and prominent lawyer Adnan Buyung Nasution, head of the recently formed Indonesian Solidarity for Anwar Ibrahim, pledged his moral support for the detained politician. "The ISA is more cruel than Indonesia's subversion law," he declared.

There were more international reactions. Canberra warned that Malaysia's political crisis could jeopardize the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit scheduled for November in Kuala Lumpur. Other governments, Tokyo and Bangkok among them, were more judicious in their comments, but nevertheless voiced their concern over the situation. Even China stated its wish to see Malaysia restore political stability.

Malaysia's standing and credibility are of course not the only things hit by the unrest. The economy, already subject to a slew of financial controls, may be another victim. Chia Yew Boon, head of research at Santandar Investments in Singapore, says that the recent events may drive away overseas investors: "The Anwar arrest and the unrest have dramatically raised the political risk premium in a country whose big plus point was its political stability."

The main question revolves around Mahathir's own future. The political machinery backing Mahathir cannot be easily overcome. "Going by history, [the unrest] should simmer down," predicts history professor Khoo. "People have found that if you take on the government, you can't win." Even Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who over the years has repeatedly upset Malaysia (most recently with his memoirs), has placed his bet on Mahathir's survival. "I am prepared to wager five to one," he said. "I am not saying Anwar Ibrahim has not got a following. What I am saying is that there are institutional checks and balances and systems that will not allow civil order to be upset."

Likewise, Harold Crouch, an East Asia expert at the Australian National University, feels that Mahathir will survive. "Malaysia is not Indonesia," he notes. "It is much more prosperous." He also thinks that conditions are not ripe for the kind of middle-class uprisings experienced by South Korea and the Philippines a decade ago. But Crouch predicts that Mahathir's credibility will gradually erode and that his party peers will increasingly view him as a liability.

Mahathir insists that the "vast majority" of Malaysians are happy with the government. The recent events suggest, however, that the country is somewhat divided over the matter. If that is the case, Mahathir may still be able to lead the country. But it doesn't say much for his mandate - and it doesn't yet put an end to the spirit Anwar unleashed.

- With additional reporting by Arjuna Ranawana and Santha Oorjitham