Demonstration Was Largest in the Capital's History : Malaysia Police Seize Anwar After Anti-Mahathir Protest 
International Herald Tribune
September 21, 1998
Charles Wyplosz

Malaysian policemen wearing black ski masks and carrying submachine guns smashed their way into the house of Anwar Ibrahim, the country's former deputy prime minister, late Sunday night and arrested him, just hours after he had led the largest political demonstration in this city's history.

Mr. Anwar, who had been holding a press conference when the police entered, was allowed one hour to pack his clothes and consult with his lawyers before being escorted past a phalanx of policemen holding back a crowd of hundreds of angry supporters, who jeered the police and shouted "Allah Akhbar!" or "God is Great."

"There will be further arrests, especially the movement leaders," Kamaruddin Ali, the police chief of Kuala Lumpur, said just outside police headquarters after Mr. Anwar's arrest.

Mr. Anwar, the anointed successor before Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad fired him this month, will be indicted Monday on sex-related charges, his lawyer said. In recent weeks, the police have said that Mr. Anwar was under investigation for, among other things, corruption, sedition, treason and sexual indecency.

Mr. Anwar, 51, has spent the last two weeks addressing large crowds around the country about the need for political reform and, more recently, calling for Mr. Mahathir's resignation. He says he is the victim of a political conspiracy.

But his conviction on sex-related charges seems almost certain. Two men whom Mr. Anwar is accused of sodomizing — Mr. Anwar's adopted brother and a former speechwriter — were each sentenced to six-month prison terms Saturday. Mr. Anwar could face a much longer sentence if convicted as the initiator under the British colonial-era law. Mr. Anwar has repeatedly denied the charges. Mr. Mahathir dismissed Mr. Anwar as deputy prime minister and finance minister Sept. 2, calling him morally unfit.

The arrest of Mr. Anwar Sunday concluded an improbable day in Kuala Lumpur. It was a mix of water cannon, tear gas, policemen with bamboo poles and, by chance, the visit of Queen Elizabeth II, who is in Malaysia to officiate over the closing ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games on Monday.

The timing and proximity of the events — the queen's visit and an afternoon rally by Mr. Anwar's supporters — was striking. The queen was present for the climax of what was one of Malaysia's most open and public political battles ever, 41 years after the country's independence from Britain.

The queen's visit started with a trip to St. Mary's church in central Kuala Lumpur. As she pulled up in a stretch Bentley to the church's white stone facade, less than a kilometer away a large crowd was congregating at the turquoise-domed National Mosque preparing to hear Mr. Anwar talk.

And as the queen sat in the first pew of the small, colonial-era church listening to readings from 1 Timothy and the Gospel of Mark and singing the hymn "Slaves of Christ," some 50,000 people at the mosque were chanting "Resign now!"

With Mr. Anwar in detention, Mr. Anwar's wife, Azizah, is expected to lead the movement that her husband has led since being leaving government. Mr. Anwar and his wife have five girls and a boy.

At the rally Sunday, Miss Azizah stood next to Mr. Anwar on the balcony of the mosque as her husband called for Mr. Mahathir to step down.

"Malaysians have waited long enough," Mr. Anwar boomed into a microphone as he looked out onto a sea of supporters. "We have given Dr. Mahathir enough time. Enough is enough!"

After Mr. Anwar finished addressing the crowd, he and his supporters walked to nearby Merdeka Square, the historic heart of the city. Mr. Anwar spoke to the crowd again from a grandstand that had been set up for the Commonwealth Games.

Once the speech ended, thousands of supporters marched, without Mr. Anwar, to the official residence of Mr. Mahathir, but they were repelled with water cannon and tear gas.

Other supporters gathered at Mr. Anwar's house and watched as police entered.

While such street politics are standard fare in places like Indonesia and the Philippines, the events of the last few weeks have stunned Malaysians — street politics like this have not happened in the country since the early 1970s, perhaps not coincidentally when Mr. Anwar led a radical Islamic student movement.

Mr. Anwar's support base is among Muslims who find Prime Minister Mahathir's views too secular — symbolized, perhaps, by the fact that Mr. Anwar's wife wears a headscarf and Mr. Mahathir's wife doesn't.

And in multiracial Malaysia, Mr. Anwar's movement has — perhaps inevitably — stirred racial and religious sentiments of all kinds.

During a news conference Saturday Mr. Anwar compared the Malaysian police to the Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. A handful of Mr. Anwar's Islamicist supporters yelled: "Yedudi! Yehudi!" the Malay word for Jews. Mr. Anwar did not acknowledge the shouts.

Mr. Anwar tried to steer clear of racial politics, saying Sunday that he wanted to "ensure that there is freedom, honor and dignity for all Malaysians."

"We cannot allow one dictator to rule us," he added.

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