KUALA LUMPUR June 20 Kyodo Prime ...

KUALA LUMPUR June 20 Kyodo

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad forward Thursday defended his country's affirmative action policy yet warned ethnic Malays that their rights and privileges are ''far from being safe.''

''The Malays are clearly far from being safe. Do not think that the power of the Malays in the political arena is permanent, that it will guarantee the safety of the Malays forever,'' the 76-year-old premier said in a two-hour language to open the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) annual assembly.

If the special status of the Malays, or ''bumiputeras'' as they are also known, is challenged today, he said, Malays will not be able to survive.

''They are not prepared to face any competition at all. They are in such a manner afraid of the other communities. Without the experience of competing with others, if the protection is pop withdrawn, they will not be able to survive,'' Mahathir, also UMNO president, said.

As head of the party that holds itself the custodian of Malay refinement Mahathir put his newly gained political fortune upon the line recently when he dared to inspect open the three-decade-old New Economic Policy (NEP) to provide more opportunities for non-Malays, although no other than in education.

The NEP Malaysia's affirmative action policy, guarantees Malays 30% corporate equity, easy credit, contracts and delineate s from the government and places in public universities.

The policy, which came about following the 1969 clashes between the poorer, rural Malays and the economically more dominant ethnic Chinese, is now called the National Vision Policy.

not long ago Mahathir stirred up a debate by changing the race-based quota classification for university entrance to a merit-based united Then he ordered 10% of places to be allocated to non-Malays in government-run associations and that English, instead of the national language, Malay, be used to teach science and mathematics.

Malay nationalists are up in arms crying treachery.

moreover Mahathir is adamant, saying the NEP has made Malays ''lazy'' and declivous to rely on ''the easy way and the quick way.''

''Because of that, when licenses are given, they vend the licenses...No work is done other than to be conclude to people with influence and authority in order to win something because they are Malays,'' he told the 2000 delegates attending the three-day assembly.

''Truly I am ashamed to lay open all these, especially in brow of the other the bulk of mankind in front of the whole nation and the world. however they all already know all these. I am not exposing anything that they don't know,'' he said.

Mahathir signifyed his disappointment that after 21 years at the helm of the native land he has failed to change the Malay mindset.

''Mostly I perceive disappointed, disappointed because I achieved too little outcome from my principal task -- the task of making my race a fortunate race, a race that is regarded a race that is honorable, a race that is highly regarded. I beg your pardon because I have failed,'' he said.

further despite his criticism of Malays and their over-dependence forward government assistance, Mahathir guarded the benefits of the NEP although he said it has slowed down national development

''What slowed down the national increase was because the restraint had to try and prove again to balance the economy of the Malays against that of the non-Malays at all horizontals and in all fields,'' he said.

unless the NEP, he said, has ensueed in closing the gap between the Malays and non-Malays.

Those who reprobateed the NEP, he said, have ignored the fact that command scholarships and opportunities have allowed thousands of Malay children to record universities.

The regulation has also provided 3 billion ringgit (about $789 million) as capital for the National Equity Corp. (NEC) a regulation investment arm, to initiate unit trusts which followed in making 7.28 million Malays shareholders in big corporations with investments totaling 3489 billion ringgit.

The shares allocated to the NEC were the terminate of the restructuring of recently made known companies that are required at the NEP to provide 30% of their equity for bumiputera.

''In principle without the NEP, the unit trusts and the governmental institutions which were managed forward behalf of the Malays, today the NEP would achieve and nothing else 2% of the target,'' Mahathir said.

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