Fri, 2 Feb 2001 12:01:22

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 2 (Reuters) - A Malaysian opposition party on Friday slammed publicity for a planned weekend rally on Malay rights as highly provocative and could stoke tensions between ethnic groups.

The opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP) urged Malaysia's police chief and attorney-general to prosecute rally organisers, the Malay United Front (MUF), for posters and banners depicting a drawn keris or dagger.

It labelled the material promoting the rally, calling for "Malays to unite" and "love the Malays", as "most offensive, insensitive, provocative and taboo in multi-racial Malaysia".

DAP said opposition parties had complained to police about posters and banners "suggestive of a drawn keris in a sea of blood".

MUF says 10,000 people may gather on Sunday to protest against any watering-down of special privileges for Malays, resented by many in the country's Chinese and Indian minorities.

Last month, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and other Malay leaders scolded critics of the privileges for the country's largest ethnic group, saying it was too early to end a policy introduced in 1971 after bloody racial riots of 1969.

The rally is seen as a calculated step to drum up Malay support for Mahathir's dominant United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), using as a spring-board recent calls by a Chinese lobby group to end Malays' privileges.

The conservative Malay population were shocked and deeply divided by Mahathir's sacking in 1998 of his former deputy and protege, Anwar Ibrahim, now serving a 15-year jail term for corruption and sodomy offences he says are trumped up.

But organisers of the rally, billed as "The Malays Will Never Perish From The Face of This Earth", said the gathering would not promote any political group or faction.

Malaysian Chinese and Indians make up 30 percent and 10 percent respectively of the 22 million population.