Mon, Jun 02, 2003 page5

• Relations turn sour as Mahathir bates Bush

  G8 SUMMIT The Malaysian prime minister was an ally of the US president in his war on terror, but remarks made recently have placed the partnership under pressure

  • AP
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  A year ago, Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was welcomed to the White House and was praised by US President George W. Bush as an anti-terror ally.

  Now, as both leaders attend the G8 summit in France, the smiles have been replaced by frosty exchanges between Mahathir and senior US officials over Iraq.

  Today, Bush will see French President Jacques Chirac and other European opponents of the US-led invasion in meetings that will be closely watched for signs of reconciliation.

  No such meeting is planned with one of Asia's most vociferous critics of the war, Mahathir, who'll attend the summit's broader dialogue along with other non-G8 leaders. The Malaysian leader, who has long championed Third World and Islamic causes, is currently chairman of the 118-strong Non-Aligned Movement. He and Chirac, the summit's host, were scheduled to hold talks yesterday.

  "The situation in US-Malaysia relations appears to have reversed itself," Abdullah Ahmad, a senior member of Mahathir's party and editor-in-chief of The New Straits Times newspaper, wrote in a recent column. "I think they are their lowest ebb in years ... the reason is Iraq."

  The two countries keep strong economic and business ties, but diplomacy have long been uneasy because of human-rights concerns in Malaysia and Mahathir's stridently voiced suspicion of US-dominated globalization.

  When security came to outweigh social concerns in US foreign policy after Sept. 11, 2001, Mahathir's stock rose in Washington. Malaysia arrested scores of Islamic militant suspects and let FBI agents question one detainee linked to al-Qaeda operatives passing through Malaysia.

  Mahathir capitalized on the new US mood. His visit last May to the White House was a powerful symbol at home he had been vindicated for his treatment of former deputy Anwar Ibrahim, jailed in 1998 on charges Anwar claims were fabricated to prevent him mounting a leadership challenge.

  But recently, relations have spiraled downward over Iraq, producing sharp exchanges and a warning from US Ambassador Marie Huhtala that "rhetorical hostility" could turn into something more harmful.

  Mahathir, 77, ruler of this moderate, mostly Muslim Southeast Asian country since 1981, opposed the Iraq invasion before it began, arguing it would distract from the fight against terrorism, kill thousands of innocents and spur Islamic resentment of the West.

  Four weeks before the invasion, Mahathir stunned US observers at a Non-Aligned Movement meeting when he compared victims of Sept. 11 and last year's nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, with Afghans killed in the US-led offensive there and Iraqis who died as a result of hardship caused by UN sanctions.

  "If the innocent people who died in the attack on Afghanistan, and those who have been dying from lack of food and medical care in Iraq, are considered collaterals, are not the 3,000 who died in New York and the 200 in Bali also just collaterals, whose deaths are necessary for the operations to succeed?" Mahathir said.

  Mahathir was on leave and largely out of the public eye during the Iraq war. On his return, he described the invasion as a bid to "out-terrorize the terrorists" and said the UN could not protect any country from attack by the US or Britain.

  When the US State Department renewed a warning that terrorist attacks were still possible in Southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Mahathir dismissed it as unjustified and accused Americans of being "afraid of their own shadow."
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