A Doctor in The House: A Memoir of Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad (107 page)

I now had to bring Anwar’s case to the UMNO Supreme Council. Since the Menteri Besar and Chief Ministers who I had already taken into my confidence were all also members of the Supreme Council, I expected strong support from them. But Anwar was also a party member, indeed, its Deputy President. That meant he would be present at the Council meeting—in fact, he would be sitting at my side.

The meeting was convened a few days later at UMNO Headquarters in the Putra World Trade Centre to decide Anwar’s fate. I began by explaining in as much detail as I could why I had to dismiss him from the Government. With the subject of my exposition sitting right beside me, the situation was tense and I felt very uncomfortable. But I had no choice—I could not send him out since, as a member, he was entitled to attend the meeting. After I finished, I said that the UMNO Deputy President could now answer the allegations against him and state why he should not be dismissed.

During his long explanation, Anwar never once referred to the question of homosexuality, focusing only on the affairs with women. He declared that he had done nothing unusual and insisted that everyone, including all the members of the Supreme Council, had done such things. He banged the table once or twice to show his anger. The Council members listened to him attentively and I did not try to interrupt or stop him.

When he finished, the first to speak was Datuk Paduka Ibrahim Ali. Ibrahim said he had known Anwar for a long time, since the 1970s when they had both been detained at the Kamunting Detention Centre.
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 He criticised Anwar for banging the table and said that he was inclined to believe what I said because he had read Khalid Jafri’s book and had seen Ummi Hafilda’s letter (copies of the letter were apparently being publicly circulated). Ibrahim said he believed Anwar should not only be dismissed as Deputy Prime Minister, but also as Deputy President of UMNO and even as an UMNO party member.
 

As was my custom, I allowed everyone to speak. The majority of them did, mostly against Anwar, though none as strongly as Ibrahim. They supported my earlier action in dismissing him as Deputy Prime Minister, and some now voiced support for the suggestion that Anwar also be removed from his UMNO position. A few went further to urge that his UMNO membership be revoked.

I was not ready to discuss the action to be taken. After everyone had spoken I asked Anwar to respond to the views expressed by the Council members. He refused—he just got up and left. I then asked the Council what was to be done. I reminded them that there had been two suggestions: dismissal as Deputy President and expulsion from the party. The majority favoured his expulsion, which of course meant Anwar would also cease to be the party’s Deputy President.

It was almost midnight by the time the meeting ended, but I stayed back to sign some papers while the other members left. I was told Anwar’s supporters had gathered on the ground floor but the police would ensure nothing violent would happen. When I later went downstairs, I found about 60 of his followers in an ugly mood. They threw plastic water bottles at me before I could get into my car. They shouted angrily, hurling words like
zalim
(unjust or unfair) and “dictator”. Anwar had apparently brought this group of loyalists with him and had spoken to them after the meeting. Protected by my bodyguards and the police, I knew that these people could not hurt me and that the situation was under control.

Up until that night I had been used to people being polite to me wherever I went, but this was a different experience entirely. I was surprised to see Anwar’s supporters there. Others had been sacked before him, including Datuk Harun Idris, Aziz Ishak and even myself, but nothing like this had ever happened. In my experience, this dramatic excess was vintage Anwar.

After his sacking, he continued to play to his admiring gallery. He went all over the country, telling people that his dismissal was part of a conspiracy to prevent him from becoming Prime Minister, that it had been a purely political machination. He made no mention of any involvement in immoral activities. PAS, which had condemned Anwar when he was in UMNO, now rallied to his cause. The PAS Member of Parliament Mohamad Sabu, who in his previous speeches had hinted at Anwar’s homosexual activities, was now delighted and literally embraced him. PAS members organised and attended rallies, some as large as 30,000 people, where Anwar spoke. Most members of the audience were from PAS or were supporters, but many UMNO members also attended.

I did not want to make a major issue of his national barnstorming campaign because the Commonwealth Games were by then in full swing and I could not go around the country to explain the situation. It was a delicate matter and not one that was easily explained to a large audience. I did, however, call in our UMNO grassroots leaders to give them the details. Most believed me but a few shouted incoherent words and left. It was difficult to convince people that Anwar was not the underdog, nor was he the paragon of virtue that he had made himself out to be. He had spent much time ingratiating himself with UMNO division leaders and branch members, because I had left it to him to maintain the leadership’s connections and lines of communication with the party activists and rank and file. But he had used these visits to promote himself, especially among the kampung people. He was able to lead Muslims in public congregational prayers and to give persuasive sermons. Given this, it was difficult for people to believe that he could commit acts which were absolutely against the teachings of Islam. In their thinking, if he was good, then as his adversary, I must be bad. This kind of simplistic logic, craftily personified by a master orator, is not easily countered. As a result I appeared to be unjust in the eyes of many pious Muslims.

A few days after Anwar’s dismissal from the Government, Lim Kit Siang, the Parliamentary Opposition Leader, issued a Press statement requesting that I as the Prime Minister owed the country and the international community an explanation for Anwar’s dismissal. The President of Aliran,
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 P. Ramakrishnan, also said that the public had a right to know the reasons for Anwar’s dismissal. Furthermore, 14 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) issued a joint Press statement calling on me to “account properly” for Anwar’s dismissal.
 

With these growing calls for an explanation from various quarters, I held a Press conference at my office on 22 September. At this conference, a journalist asked me why I had dismissed Anwar as Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Finance and Deputy President of UMNO. I explained that I had initially disbelieved the allegations of homosexuality made against Anwar when they first surfaced, but I was later convinced when I personally interviewed Anwar’s partner. Anwar then launched a defamation suit against me claiming RM100 million in damages.

The High Court later struck out Anwar’s defamation suit on the basis that I was protected by the defences of justification (truth) and qualified privilege. Justification or truth is a complete defence in a suit for defamation. The High Court said that as Prime Minister, I was under a legal, moral and social duty to inform the nation of the matters concerning Anwar and his fitness for the public offices he had previously occupied. It had become a matter of public interest. I was under a duty to explain to the nation the response of the Government and UMNO to the several attacks made by Anwar. All these were matters of general public interest, which the public had every reason and an interest to know about. The High Court said that I had acted bona fide (in good faith) and bore no malice when I spoke those words concerning Anwar. Therefore, I was protected by the defence of qualified privilege. The Court of Appeal dismissed Anwar’s appeal and again said that I was sheltered by the defences of
justification and qualified privilege. The Federal Court also dismissed Anwar’s application for leave to appeal and upheld the High Court decision.
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Meanwhile, events in Indonesia seemed to encourage Anwar and his supporters. On 21 May 1998, President Suharto had been overthrown through massive and sustained street demonstrations. Taking a leaf from the Indonesian anti-Suharto campaign, Anwar began to talk about Reformasi (Reformation) and made me out to be corrupt and in favour of cronyism. On 20 September, the day before the Games closed, Anwar called a massive rally to be held at Dataran Merdeka in central Kuala Lumpur, at the historic site where we had proclaimed our national Independence in 1957. To him and his sympathisers the choice of location may have been symbolically shrewd; but to those who thought like me and felt as many UMNO members did, it was a travesty. His rally was timed to coincide with Queen Elizabeth II’s visit to St Mary’s Cathedral, adjacent to that historic site. This was an outrageous act of disrespect to a visiting head of state but Anwar did not care. We stationed police personnel in the area and made sure that Queen Elizabeth would not be in any danger.

He went as far as to urge his followers to burn down my house and the UMNO headquarters. One group actually did manage to break into the UMNO building and vandalise some rooms. Another group came within a kilometre of my house, but at that point the police arrived and managed to disperse them. The police, however, could not ignore Anwar’s demonstrations any longer; Games or no Games. On the evening of 20 September, they arrested him at his house.

I knew there would be more problems but I hoped they would not unfold while the Games were still taking place. The many foreign journalists who were there to cover the event saw in Anwar’s rebellion an opportunity to condemn Malaysia for arresting an Opposition leader. That is the kind of news they love. Local journalists who knew the background confined themselves largely to reporting on the progress and results of the Games, especially Malaysia’s sterling performance. Their reporting on the demonstrations was factual. But when we gave a lunchtime reception to the Press at the Mint Hotel, which was the Press Centre during the Games, a woman journalist from Australia asked about Anwar. She was cynical about the accusation of immorality against him. I had forgotten that in most ethnic European societies, homosexuality and sodomy between consenting adults was normal. For them, Anwar had done nothing wrong.

At that time I was still overseeing the implementation of currency controls. Foreign journalists and observers said that the differences I had with Anwar over the handling of the currency crisis were also among the reasons why I dismissed him, but this was simply not true. Our differences were worth a good argument in the Cabinet, but they did not merit such drastic action. It was not necessary anyway, for as a member of the NEAC, Anwar agreed with my ideas on currency controls, at least outwardly. Some people also suggested that he was behind the resignations of the Governor and Deputy Governor of Bank Negara, but at that time I suspected nothing. The claim that I dismissed Anwar because of our differences in the handling of the currency crisis is flawed. Nor was he removed for political reasons, such as for his attempts to undermine party support for me—I could easily handle that as well without having to resort to dismissal.

When the IGP informed me that the police had decided to arrest Anwar for incitement to violence, I was apprehensive. I knew his sympathisers would not take the arrest quietly and, moreover, it would make a political martyr of him. I advised the IGP not to use violence or to handcuff Anwar when arresting him. Instead, the police did what they always do—they followed standard procedures and went to his house wearing hoods, broke the door down and handcuffed him. He was thrown into a police van and taken to police headquarters.

I expected him to be charged in court immediately but for several days, nothing happened. Then I was told he was being held under the Internal Security Act. I asked the police repeatedly why he had not yet been charged, but they only gave me vague answers. Finally, I learnt he had sustained a black eye during his detention and the police wanted it to heal before producing him in court in front of the cameras. The bruise, however, was taking a long time to fade away and as I was also anxious that he should not be detained under the ISA, I told the police that we simply could not wait any longer.

Anwar was charged on 29 September 1998, nine days after his arrest. It was his first appearance in public and the black eye was still clearly visible. As a doctor, I know how easy it is to get a black eye so I initially thought he had knocked his head. I never imagined that someone would assault him. It angered people when I suggested that his injury may have been self-inflicted, but I honestly did not think the police would beat him up, particularly after I had personally instructed the IGP to be careful.

As it turned out, it was IGP Rahim himself who was responsible for the black eye. He had allowed Anwar to provoke him and had lashed out, but in the process he handed over long-term political capital that Anwar and his supporters were able to use to great advantage. Rahim did me no favours politically—in fact, he did much harm to Malaysia’s international standing. Anwar’s supporters and the Opposition parties were glad to have tangible evidence of my “dictator-like” ways, and they displayed posters of Anwar and his black eye all over the country. His supporters made it seem like I was personally responsible for this brutal treatment, even though I had tried to ensure that no such thing would happen.

Anwar was charged separately with corruption and sodomy but both charges were related to allegations that he had asked a senior police officer, Datuk Mohamad Said Awang, the Director of the Special Branch, to threaten Ummi Hafilda and cause her to withdraw her first letter to me. The corruption trial, which started on 2 November 1998, lasted more than five months. There was much excitement in the court during Mohamad Said’s testimony when he related how Anwar had instructed him to “turn over” Ummi Hafilda and get her to withdraw and deny the contents of her letter to me. This constituted corruption and abuse of authority and the court found him guilty. Despite all of Anwar’s legal efforts since then, all the appellate courts have upheld this conviction.