As the United Nations continued to keep mum on calls for it to retract its report which claimed that several organisations here are linked to the al-Qaeda terror network, MCA today added to the mounting criticism against the international body.

In an open letter addressed to UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, the MCA Youth Wing expressed its concern over "errors" made by the monitoring group on Afghanistan in its second progress report which was submitted to the UN Security Council on Sept 19.

"As a component party of the ruling coalition (Barisan Nasional), the MCA is deeply upset by the errors in the report. (We) view the mistakes seriously as the document would be studied by member countries," said Fam Lee Ee, chairperson of the International Affairs Bureau of the wing.

The letter was handed over this morning to Deputy Foreign Minister Leo Michael Toyad for submission to the UN secretary-general's office in New York.

Last week, Malaysian leaders expressed shock after finding out that the monitoring group had included in its report a chart linking several organisations including BN, PAS, the Islamic Youth Movement of Malaysia (Abim) and the Indian Muslim Congress of Malaysia (Kimma) to al-Qaeda via their alleged connection with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

MILF was an organisation that fought for an independent state in Southern Philippines.

The chart was said to be based on a book, Inside al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror , by a researcher on terrorism, Dr Rohan Gunaratna.

Offensive report

According to Fam, the interpretation made by the UN monitoring group of material in Gunaratna's book is "offensive" since the Malaysian government has "a long proven track record in combating radical groups".

"The MCA Youth Wing has also continuously voiced its support to the government in fighting Islamic radical groups in Malaysia and overseas," he said.

In addition, Fam urged the UN to be wary of "so-called terrorist experts" who may be out for "personal glory" in the wake of media interest in terrorism-related issues.

"Many of such self-declared experts such as Gunaratna have no proven credentials in Islamic movements. He may have academic background on the Tamil Tigers movement but he has no background on al-Qaeda.

"Thus, we find it difficult to understand how the UN could use his work as a reference source," he said.

Gunaratna (photo) has come under fire by several Malaysian leaders for the content of his book although Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad conceded yesterday after reading the book that the author had not linked Malaysia directly to al-Qaeda.

However, the premier added that the government is still the process of studying the contents.

Fam also called upon the UN Security Council to delete the controversial sections of its report to ensure credibility and accuracy of its records.

Contacted earlier, the executive secretary of MCA Youth, Kiea Kuan Nam, said the Foreign Ministry will compile all complaints against the UN and forward them to New York.

Wait for UN

"We decided to send our protest letter to the Foreign Ministry instead of the UN secretariat as the ministry had said that it would collect all complaints and send them in together," he said.

Meanwhile, the ministry's UN desk officer Jazri Johar said as of today, only the protest letter by MCA Youth had been submitted.

According to him, the UN had still not responded to an earlier protest submitted by Hasmy Agam, Malaysia's Permanent Representative to the UN.