Opposition leaders today supported PAS for its stand in postponing the PAS-Umno unity talk, which was to have been held today. Yesterday, PAS set a number of pre-conditions which should be met by Umno before the talks can take place.

They include the return of the oil royalty taken from the state of Terengganu by the federal government, lifting of restrictions on the circulation of party organ Harakah and a retraction by Umno of its proposal to drop the word 'Islam' from the names of political parties.

"Barisan Alternatif repeats its stand that we as a united front are prepared to hold talks with Barisan Nasional on national issues as we have stated in our media statement on Feb 9," said Keadilan vice-president Dr Chandra Muzaffar, who was speaking on behalf of the opposition front leaders.

The BA leaders - PAS' Fadzil Noor, Keadilan's Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, Parti Rakyat Malaysia's Dr Syed Husin Ali and DAP's Lim Kit Siang - had met earlier today to be briefed on the issue by Fadzil and head of the PAS technical committee Nasharuddin Mat Isa.

Fadzil said among the latest incidents that have marred the situation to hold the talks include the police action on the ceramah crowd in Gurun, Kedah, last night, and the crowd at the courts in Kulim yesterday morning.

"This showed that there is no conducive environment for unity talks. Even though Umno says that these are actions by the police, they cannot run from the fact that the party controls the government (which controls the police).We want the police to stop their actions on all ceramah and on peaceful gatherings," said Fadzil.

Take responsibility

Syed Husin said that the Home Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi should take responsibility for the acts taken by the police against peaceful gatherings.

"We ask that police permits be given as soon as possible for peaceful gatherings and we condemn the police who are becoming more violent. We have sent three letters to the Inspector-General of Police to hold talks with them, but to this day, there has been no response from them," said Syed Husin.

Fadzil added: "We have to hold ceramah to get our message across to the public. The government, on the other hand, has the media which they can use 24 hours a day."

He said that if Umno is sincere about the talks, it will address the pre-conditions that have been set by PAS.

Chandra said that it has been BA's belief that up till now, BN is not sincere in holding the "muzakarah" (discussions).

Wan Azizah added that although Keadilan had rejected Umno's invitation to the Malay unity talks, her party believes that it is PAS' right to sit down and talk with Umno.

"As a partner in the alternative front, we only hope that if this is really a muzakarah , there should be a sincere intention and that the fields are level," she said.

No conducive atmosphere

According to Lim, there is no basis for a conducive atmosphere at present as "the police seem to have been trigger-happy".

"Even people taking part in walkathons are considered a threat to law and order. Something is very wrong in the society when this happens," said Lim.

Police arrested 47 people yesterday while they were taking part in a walkathon to save the controversial primary Chinese school in Damansara.

"We would like to know if Abdullah has given any directive for the renewed repression by the police. BA wants those arrested in the past three days to be released and the police to stop the escalation of the repression on gatherings," said Lim.

When asked whether there are parties out to undermine the unity talks between PAS and Umno, Fadzil replied, "We do not have any agents to check this out."

On Umno Youth chief Hishammuddin Hussein Onn's statement that there should not be any pre-conditions for the Malay unity talks, Fadzil said that it is the prerogative of others to say what they want.

Although PAS first decided to include Terengganu's oil royalty as one of the issues to be discussed in the unity talks, it however made the issue as a part of a number of pre-conditions to be met by Umno before the talks.

Fadzil said that the decision was decided by the PAS central committee at its meeting yesterday.

Central issues

Earlier last week, PAS submitted four central issues to be discussed at the talks. Among them is the issue of the independence of the judiciary, especially concerning the sodomy and corruption trials of jailed former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Besides the Anwar issue, PAS also wanted to talk about the relationship between the federal government and the two states under PAS control (Kelantan and Terengganu); the misuse of public funds to bail out selected companies; and Umno's call for the word 'Islam' to be dropped from PAS' name.

Fadzil will be leaving for Mecca at the end of this week to perform the haj , and should there be no breakthrough regarding PAS' demands this week, it is not likely that the talks will happen in the coming month.

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