MALAYSIA HAS HAD INTERNATIONAL press coverage in the past week it could never have expected in normal circumstances. I dare say there is more coverage of Malaysia in decades but of a time Kuala Lumpur could do without. For this coverage throws even more doubt in the world of a country of great democratic promise and economic growth that quickly descends into the gutter of pariahdom, adding to the current stereotyping of this global war on Islamic terror. Its crackdown of the Internet newspaper, malaysiakini, has made the world aware, through radio, television, the internet and the media, that Malaysia can equal the worst abuses of Third World nations against the media, not for any wrongs malaysiakini had committed, but from a perceived belief that it could pose a threat to its continuance in office.

This sudden glare of unwelcome publicity, coupled with the incredible amateurishness and childishness with which it targetted malaysiakini, makes Kuala Lumpur angry and frustrated. Whatever political advantages it thought it could gain by trying to destroy malaysiakini by other means, it lost more when, in this epoch of globalisation and instant news, the world reacted even before Malaysians had heard or read about it.

The police has been, as usual, high-handed. But it could not have moved against malaysiakini last week without a nod from the home minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. As usual, no one in government thought through the consequences, and dangers, of attacking malaysiakini as it did, nor how to do damage control if it went awry. The police provided the world's media with a blow-by-blow account of how the Malaysian government would brook no opposition from any media organisation, and why freedom of expression, for all the lip service it pays to it, is only allowed those who praise it. Sedition is the office malaysiakini allegedly committed for printing a letter which incensed UMNO Youth to lodge a police report. Whatever the merits of the letter, the police acted swiftly, within days, and seized the computers and services from the malaysiakini office, insisting it needed them to find out who wrote the letter.

But if the letter was seditious, and malaysiakini refused to say who wrote it, under Malaysian laws, it could have been charged. If it did, the government calculated it would have raised the hackles of the international community and Malaysians at large. And it decided on raiding its offices instead. However good or bad malaysiakini is is no more the question. The government could not allow an independent media, which it cannot control, to survive. So it decided to humiliate, and cripple malaysiakini instead. But the international and local pressure was such that the police almost immediately returned several of the computers and servers even before it had investigated its contents. The police clearly overreacted.

No one, amongst mainstream newspapers and media, raised a single voice of support. A foreign correspondent who interviewed the editor-in-chief of an UMNO-controlled newspaper was in no doubt that the attack on malaysiakini was planned. The editor-in-chief spoke of how "we" were incensed at malaysiakini and its anti-national coverage. He talked of discordant voices in the country which was bad for its development, and malaysiakini was not "responsible" in what it did. He saw malaysiakini not as a competitor but as one which challenged the "national imperatives" and therefore should not be allowed to exist. He of course does not like malaysiakini second-guessing his news coverage with stories that he routinely throws into the waste-paper basket. But it is not that which bothered him. It is malaysiakini's refusal to conform to report only what UMNO and the BN wants it to.

Now comes another silly threat. The landlords, a government-owned computer company, ordered Malaysiakini to vacate by the end of February because the online website "had been found to be involved in activities which contravene the laws of the country". Attempts by malaysiakini to talk to the landlords, PC Suria, are referred to their lawyers. Interestingly, as the police try to wrangle itself out of the mess it created, PC Suria has decided malaysiakini is guilty as charged, and takes steps to evict. But one sees a hidden hand behind it. And is part of the network, cobbled on the run, to see the end of malaysiakini.

It does not matter now if the offending letter is seditious or if malaysiakini is guilty as charged. As President Bush would tell you ad nauseum that President Saddam Hussein is guilty as charged, so the deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi. It is the demonisation which both think is needed for the world to accept what is demanded of it: Saddam Hussein is an evil man, and malaysiakini is anti-national and both must be destroyed. The two men have a common hidden agenda: how to stave of internal dissension and possible electoral defeat in the elections to come. One with forethought and the other without and both fell into traps of its own making. And both will have much difficulty to extricate from the mess they created.

For all the special efforts the Election Commission makes to ensure a runaway victory for the National Front (BN), which acts on only government orders, and distinguishes between government and opposition parties, it is not assured. The fine-tuning of the electoral rolls is not fine-tuned enough: the Anak Bukit and Pendang byelections put a spanner in the works, and as cabinet ministers freely admit, surprises cannot be ruled out. Since the next general election will make or break Dato' Seri Abdullah, who would be, by then, prime minister, he must ensure that no discordant media voices be allowed.

When panic dictates policy, things go awry. As it now has. Malaysia has acquired a reputation for the kind of media bashing that President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and many a Third World and Muslim country is noted for. It would appear it was deliberately done so the Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Mahathir Mohamed, would take the blame. But it guessed wrong. It is Malaysia that would pay the price. Especially if she does not move swiftly to damage its international reputation that lumps it with countries with horrible human rights records and media suppression. Now whenever Malaysian ministers travel abroad, they should expect questions about freedom of expression in Malaysia, and other "irritating" questions like these about human rights.

Why did this happen? It had nothing to do with malaysiakini or sedition or even its role as an alternate medium of news. It had all to do with internal doubts, in government and UMNO, about the future. The dissensions and fears within are real. There is doubt about Dato' Abdullah as prime minister and UMNO president. There is apprehension of how he could resolve the massive problems and debts Dato' Seri Mahathir will leave behind when he retires this year. The BN's and UMNO's invincibility and sure-footedness spawns an arrogance that, insists upon Malaysians being grateful for what they elected it to do, and react stupidly, by blaming them for ungratefulness for questioning it, and in the malaysiakini affair, to undercut the government's legitimacy. For Dato' Seri Abdullah, the malaysiakini is as unsettling to his claims to be the next prime minister as Memali was to the former deputy prime minister, Dato' Seri Musa Hitam. For UMNO it is the frightening reality that it cannot survive in a vaccuum, and if its leaders do not move with the times, they would be discarded and UMNO destroyed. They could buy time by using the paraphernalia of the state to frighten and demonise those they do not like. But at a cost neither Malaysia, UMNO nor Malaysians could afford.

M.G.G. Pillai