By IPS Correspondents
PENANG, May 30 2006 (IPS)

After the brutal suppression of weekend demonstrations in the Malaysian capital, against hikes in fuel oil and electricity prices, stunned civil society groups are revising a view that there would be more room for dissent under Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi’s administration.

Sunday’s protest in Kuala Lumpur were the latest in a series of periodic weekend demonstrations mounted ever since fuel oil prices were first hiked at the end of February.

Last Wednesday, the Cabinet approved a 12 percent hike in electricity tariffs, sparking concern even though 60 percent of consumers – those who use less than 200kWh a month – would not be affected.

Opposition parties and civil society groups have said they fear that higher electricity tariffs will raise the production costs for manufacturers, which in turn will lead to higher prices of essential items. The government argues that the impact is likely to be minimal.

For many, it was going to be just another Sunday protest against tariff hikes in the vicinity of the Petronas Twin Towers, the capital’s imposing landmark. About 500 demonstrators turned up to listen to now familiar speeches, wave placards and chant slogans.

But they were taken aback when water cannons and riot police moved in, mid-way through the speeches, after an order to disperse went unheeded. Eyewitness testimony and video footage revealed heavy handed action by the police in dispersing the gathering.

Baton-swinging police moved into the crowd and roughed up a few demonstrators. One riot policeman was photographed swinging the butt of his gas canister rifle towards the head of a demonstrator.

“The manner in which the police used violence on the crowd which resulted in about three persons suffering head injuries is deplorable and completely unacceptable,” said Charles Hector and N. Surendran in a statement released by Malaysians Against Death Penalty and Torture (MADPET). They said that one victim was kicked and beaten by police in front of his two young daughters.

Photographs showed a demonstrator with blood streaming from his head and neck. Another demonstrator, who later appeared with a plaster cast, said he had broken his hand. Demonstrators were also reportedly kicked and manhandled. Eighteen men and two women were detained.

“Clearly, the blatant police violence showed today is in stark contradiction with the international image of the Malaysian government, which was recently elected into the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. It is a complete betrayal of the international pledge made by the Malaysian government to promote and protect human rights,” said Yap Swee Seng, executive director of the Malaysian human rights group, Suaram in a press statement released on May 28.

“Just seeing those people being beaten – it’s unacceptable and unconscionable,” says political science professor Johan Saravanamuttu. “How can this country, which claims to be a democracy, not allow for a peaceful gathering of citizens, legitimately bringing to notice issues of great concern to their livelihood?”

In many ways, the batons and water cannons brought back vivid memories of the repressive measures used against ‘reformasi’ demonstrators protesting against the excesses of autocratic former premier Mahathir Mohamad during the turbulent 1998-2001 period.

This time, it appears that the authorities are concerned that the regular protests against the higher fuel and energy tariffs may tap into growing discontent over the rising cost of living. The mainstream English-language press either ignored or marginalised news of the protests.

Although the economy is expected to grow by 6 percent this year (up from 5.3 percent last year), inflation reached 4.8 percent in March – the highest level in seven years. The gap between the rich and the poor has also widened slightly over the last few years.

Last week, the opposition made significant inroads in elections in the state of Sarawak, a ruling coalition stronghold, even though the coalition won comfortably. The inroads in a state where the chief minister has held power for 25 years triggered alarm bells in ruling coalition circles.

The hike in electricity tariff hikes has added to a general sense of disenchantment. It has also cast an uncomfortable spotlight on the country’s private independent power producers (IPPs), who have profited from lopsided agreements with national power corporation Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB).

Critics argue that the latest tariff hike may not have been necessary if the agreements had been renegotiated to reduce TNB’s “capacity charge” payments to the IPPs for their excess capacity. The hike in tariffs will generate an additional 1.5 billion ringgit (414 million US dollars) but TNB pays the IPPs 2.5 billion ringgit (690 million dollars) for their 40 percent excess capacity.

The Abdullah administration is obviously taking no chances with the protests, but in the process the prime minister risks ruining what remains of his reformist credentials.

“The violence by the police in beating up peaceful demonstrators has highlighted the need to quickly establish an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) to stop abuses of human rights by the police,” said Lim Guan Eng, secretary general of the opposition Democratic Action Party in a statement.

The IPCMC that Lim referred to was a key recommendation of a Royal Commission on the operations and management of the police. But the upper echelons of the police force are believed to be unhappy about having such a watchdog body set up. The result: the government appears no closer to setting up the IPCMC, much to civil society’s dismay.

The suppression of the protest in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday stands in contrast to the way another demonstration was handled in Penang on May 14. A group of 300 protestors, made up largely of Muslim groups, disrupted a civil society forum on the Constitution that aimed to look at the overlapping jurisdictions of civil and shariah laws. Police negotiated at length with the protestors outside and then advised the organisers of the forum to cut short the event, saying they were worried the demonstrators might storm the building.

‘‘We practise very stark double standards,” observed Saravanamuttu. He said there were any number of occasions when groups of people gather in public places in support of projects or programmes promoted by the ruling party and “nobody would say they are holding an illegal assembly”.

But, he noted, when it comes to something which is against a particular government policy, the government is prepared to use violence against its own citizens, sliding towards brute force using “universally unacceptable, highhanded ways of dealing with legitimate civil protests”.

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