STUDENTS’ POLICY

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32050, 26 July 1969, Page 7

STUDENTS’ POLICY

Malays Want All Power YN.Z.F.A.-Buuier— Copyright) KUALA LUMPUR, July 24. Student leaders claiming to : represent as many as 25,000 Malay students said this week I the only condition under which they would allow ChinI ese to remain in Malaysia was | an apartheid-style government • with all power and privileges in Malay hands. If the Chinese, who make I up 38 per cent of the country’s population, resisted, the alternative was all-out racial war, they said. In an interview with four ' foreign correspondents, the ' nine student leaders said the would fight to the I death for a Malayan Malaysia. Their main immediate demand is that the Prime Min- ; ister (Tunku Abdul Rahman) step down in favour of a younger and stronger Malay leader. “The Tunku is a great man who should have retired long ago in glory,” they said. “Now he is regarded as a traitor by the Malays and is a hero only to the Chinese.” The average age of the students was 22 years. They come from a variety of backgrounds and from areas all over Malaysia. They represented the National Union of Muslim Students, the National Union of Malaysian Students, and the Mara Institute of Technology Students’ Union.

The combined membership of the three bodies is more than 27,000, and the student leaders claimed near-unani-mous support of members.