Author:
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: November 26, 2007
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1071126/asp/foreign/story_8592442.asp
Biggest protest in a decade against government
discrimination exposes deep racial divisions
Police today used tear gas and water cannons
to crush a banned rally by more than 10,000 ethnic minority Indians - a rare
street clash that exposed Muslim Malaysia's deep racial divisions.
Slogan-shouting protesters hurled water bottles
and stones at the police, who chased them through streets surrounding the
famous Petronas Twin Towers and doused them repeatedly with tear gas and chemical-laced
water for more than eight hours. There were no immediate reports of injuries.
Witnesses saw people being beaten and dragged
into trucks by the police. Shoes and broken flower pots littered the scene
after protesters scattered to hide in hotels and shops. Organisers said hundreds
of people were detained by the time the protesters dispersed.
The rally - rooted in complaints that the
ethnic Malay Muslim-dominated government discriminates against minorities
- was the largest protest in at least a decade involving ethnic Indians, the
country's second-biggest minority after the Chinese and the most underprivileged.
"This gathering is unprecedented,"
said protest leader P. Uthayakumar. "This is a community that can no
longer tolerate discrimination."
It was the second such street protest in Kuala
Lumpur this month. A rally on November 10, that drew thousands of people,
demanding electoral reforms was also broken up with similar force, but lasted
only a few hours.
Street demonstrations are extremely rare in
multi-ethnic Malaysia, which prides itself on its communal and political stability.
The two protests indicate that Malaysians are becoming bolder about venting
their frustrations publicly against a political system that concentrates power
and influence in the hands of the Malay ruling elite.
Today's rally was meant to support a $4 trillion
lawsuit filed in London in August by the Hindu Rights Action Force, a Malaysian
rights group, demanding that Britain compensate Malaysian Indians for bringing
their ancestors to the country as "indentured labourers" and exploiting
them.
Ethnic Indians say discrimination continued
after Malaysia's independence in 1957 because of an affirmative action policy
favouring Malays, who form about 60 per cent of the country's 27 million people.
Ethnic Chinese, who comprise a quarter of the population, have similar complaints.
Activists say more than two-thirds of ethnic
Indians, who constitute about 8 per cent of the population, live in poverty,
with many trapped in a cycle of alcoholism and crime.
Samy Vellu, the government's top ethnic Indian
politician, denounced today's protest as "an Opposition ploy to smear
the government's image".
"We do not support street demonstrations,"
Samy said in a statement. "We have been working within the system to
resolve the problems faced by the Indian community."
Today, thousands of ethnic Indians - some
of whom carried pictures of Mahatma Gandhi and banners that read "We
want our rights" - gathered before dawn near the Petronas towers.
Thousands more gathered in Batu Caves, a Hindu
temple in a limestone cave on the city's outskirts, hoping to join the others
in a march to the British high commission.
"If they push us against the wall, we
don't know what will happen," demonstrator Lingam Suppiah said. "The
day must come when the time bomb will explode. We cannot be patient forever."
The police had obtained an unprecedented court
order prohibiting the public from rallying. On Friday, three of the Hindu
group's leaders were arrested and charged with sedition.
Kuala Lumpur police chief Zulhasnan Najib
Baharudin declined to say how many people were arrested today.