The surprise is not that the Mahathir government has once again employed the Internal Security Act (ISA) - which allows for detention without trial indefinitely - against its opponents and critics, this time mainly from Keadilan, the political party headed by Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, wife of the imprisoned former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.

In Malaysia, over the past 40 years, opposition politicians, social critics and dissidents have always faced the Sword of Damocles in the form of the obnoxious ISA hanging over their heads.

The question is: why now, and why on these individuals closely related to Anwar and the 'Free Anwar Campaign'?

The last big crackdown on opposition leaders, critics and dissidents by the Mahathir government using the ISA was in October 1987, in an operation called ' Operasi Lalang '.

In that exercise, more than a hundred opposition leaders, social activists and others were detained, and many were subsequently held without trial for two or more years.

At the time, Umno, the dominant party in the Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition government, was seriously split by the rivalry between Mahathir and Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, his former finance minister.

Mahathir's fiercest critics then included Tunku Abdul Rahman Al-Haj and Hussein Onn, the country's first and third prime ministers respectively.

Umno's corporate links were also exposed and challenged in the courts then. Mahathir was a man besieged. ' Operasi Lalang ' was Mahathir's way of getting a breather and a diversion from the problems which surrounded him and Umno.

Still haemorrhaging

A crackdown on some of the leading lights of Keadilan must have been on Mahathir's cards since the November 1999 general elections. Keadilan, although only about seven months old, did fairly well by winning a few parliamentary and state assembly seats whereas many of their candidates lost by a very narrow margin.

More significantly, in the Lunas state assembly by-election in the state of Kedah late last year, Keadilan won by a narrow but convincing margin and that this took place in Mahathir's home state must have aggravated him and compounded Umno's worries.

Equally, if not more significant, is the parliamentary by-election in the state of Negeri Sembilan some months earlier. Although the Keadilan candidate lost, he however succeeded in reducing Barisan Nasional's (BN) majority in this coalition's traditional stronghold for the past two and a half decades.

More shockingly for Mahathir's ruling coalition, the Keadilan candidate obtained more of the postal votes than the Barisan Nasional candidate - probably the first time something like that has happened in the history of elections in this country since 1955, when the first parliamentary elections were held in the then Malaya, two years before the country's formal independence. These postal votes were from members of the armed forces.

In other words, public disenchantment with Mahathir and his government, particularly over the Anwar saga, has been growing despite the authorities, and their obedient media, spinning otherwise about it.

Added to this, is the fact that Umno hasn't actually recovered political ground lost in the November 1999 general elections to PAS and Keadilan.

In terms of political credibility and support, it appears to be haemorrhaging still, not to mention the cancer of money politics which is eating into its bones and marrow, even as every Umno man and woman pays the usual lip-service to the virtue of being clean.

Fun and entertainment

To completely understand the full extent of the malaise in Umno, all one has to do is consider the desperation shown by Mahathir in the proposed Malay unity talks with PAS.

Consider also the sorry state of the Umno Youth, whose leader ran away from an open debate challenge from his counterpart in PAS. And what about the recent bombshell thrown at Umno secretary-general Khalil Yaakob by Beserah state assemblyman representative Fauzi Abdul Rahman?

With apologies to Yeats, Umno's centre may not hold, when the best lack conviction and the worst is full of ignorant passion, in a party where one person with greedy interests is far more important than 99 with some conscience and principles left.

It is not just the Malays whom Mahathir is berating for being 'ungrateful' as though Malaysia and her wealth are his own personal property to give, but also the Chinese who in recent months have been angered by Mahathir's ill-tempered accusations.

It is against this background that we could perhaps better understand the ISA arrests last week. Given also the economic slowdown, the growing public anger over the MAS shares scandal and increasing workers' unease over the use of the Employees Provident Fund (EPF)) to help private companies on the slumping market, the worries among the powers that be are real enough.

The recent sights of the Kuomintang losing power in Taiwan after more than 50 years, of the PRI losing power in Mexico after 71 years, the disgraceful flight from power by Fujimori from Peru to Japan, the electoral humiliation of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and the fall of Milosevic, cannot be fun and entertainment for uneasy heads in Malaysia.

Terrible, terrible crimes

Whenever the ISA is employed to repress dissent, the first casualty is invariably the truth. The first lie came from Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that the ISA arrests were purely and solely a police action and had nothing do with the government.

Unless they believe their own lies, they cannot be serious about this. If the government had nothing to do with the arrests, why are the prime minister and the his deputy talking so much to justify them?

If the ISA arrests were carried out to prevent an outbreak of violence, as claimed by Mahathir, Abdullah and the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), one wonders why it hasn't been used against the police force itself which has become in recent years, violent against ordinary citizens and trigger-happy against criminal suspects.

Why shouldn't a public demonstration stay peaceful and civilised, unless it is harassed by the police and disrupted by agents provocateur ? How many countries in the world today still ban peaceful demonstrations and processions? The Palestinians were doing it, until they were shot at by the Israelis. Our Asean neighbours, the Philippines, do it massively without violence, thanks to a police force which is not politicised

What is wrong with thousands of Malaysian presenting a memorandum to our Human Rights Commission (Suhakam)?

It is a cruel irony that just wanting to present a memorandum to Suhakam can end up with ISA arrests - what next? The ISA arrests are a big insult to Suhakam, undermining completely its credibility and its very raison d'etre . Self-respecting Suhakam members should tell Mahathir this by resigning in protest.

Without giving those arrested the fundamental human right of a trial in an open court of law, the ISA is a most convenient weapon of tyrants and cowards. Do not be surprised when we next hear that some of the detainees have 'confessed' to their 'terrible, terrible crimes against national security, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah ...'

FAN YEW TENG is a former member of Parliament and former consultant to the United Nations. An author and lecturer, he is retired from active politics and is currently nearing completion of another book.