Racism 'plagues' Australia
2005-12-13 17:05
Kuala Lumpur - Mahathir Mohamad, former Malaysian prime minister and a staunch critic of Australia, said on Tuesday that riots in Sydney involving whites and youths of Middle Eastern appearance show that racism still plagues that country.
Mahathir's comments were to reporters while he attended a business gathering at an Asian summit in Malaysia hours before Australian Prime Minister John Howard arrived in the country and condemned the riots in strong terms.
"There is still racialism in Australia," said Mahathir, who in the past has made clear that he considers Australia a racist country. "Every now and again, it is going to explode."
The conference culminates on Wednesday with the East Asia Summit, a gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian nations plus other countries from the region that originally was proposed by Mahathir in the 1980s.
At the time, he was adamantly against Australia joining the bloc, saying it was essentially a European country - not an Asian one.
Mahathir's personal enmity with Australia goes back to 1993 when then-Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating described the Malaysian leader as "recalcitrant".
'Violence is never acceptable, never'
Separately, Howard told reporters at the summit in Kuala Lumpur that all parties involved the violence would face justice regardless of their background or grievances.
"The incidents were appalling. There is no doubt about that. Violence is never acceptable, never," Howard said. "And people who indulge in violence are breaking the law and they should be punished."
Youths in cars rampaged through southern suburbs of Australia's largest city Monday night, smashing store windows and attacking parked cars. Seven people were injured and 11 arrested.
The young men appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin, indicating they were taking revenge for a riot on Sunday when a mob of 5 000 white men, many drunk and wrapped in the Australian flag, attacked several people of Middle Eastern appearance near Cronulla beach.
Sunday's fighting came in retaliation for the beating a week earlier of two volunteer life guards by men described as being of Lebanese descent.
"The law has to be enforced with equal rigor on everybody irrespective of what their grievance may be or what their background may be," Howard said.
Howard said that he was discussing with state officials possible legislation to stiffen sentences for people involved in such unrest, but that the first priority was to calm down the situation.
- AP