THIS article was lifted off the soc.culture.malaysia newsgroup and only slightly edited in the interest of speed.

Hope this will clear things up. There've been a lot of rumours and reports, but here's my own account of the Sept.20 demo in KL:

At first, there were around 50,000 people gathered in Merdeka Sq and the nearby National Mosque (where Anwar gave a fiery speech - his last before being arrested hours later). Later the crowd swelled to around 100,000 then probably around 200,000. I say this because from Merdeka Sq., they marched by thousands, all the four-lane highways were crowded with people for miles and miles leading to Parliament.

Before reaching Parliament, the crowd marched past the city centre. They then marched towards the UMNO hq building sometime around Maghrib, where thousands stormed into the building. Windows were smashed and doors forced open. After prayers, the crowd marched for about 5 km towards Sri Perdana, Mahathir's official residence. (Most still had not heard of Anwar's arrest). They marched and were cheered and honked all along the highway by motorists who were stuck in a traffic jam so huge - never before I've seen in Malaysian history! The crowd then began shouting "Mahathir resign!" and "Death to Mahathir!" as they neared his official residence. The FRU (the notorious riot police,

Federal Reserve Unit) members were seen in full force all heavily armed.

At the junction leading to PM's house, they police and FRU made a huge barricade. The crowd began nearing them when suddenly the FRU turned violent and began attacking with tear gas and water canon. Thousands scattered all over the highway while others began throwing objects at the FRU. A helicopter was seen circling the scene. Two man were dragged accross the highway when the FRU caught hold of them. Their fate is unknown. At the same time, hundreds of military jeeps began arriving, but they were cheering the crowd and shouting REFORMASI. The crowd began cheering the army back. (It appears that the army is on the people side?). FRU fired more tear gas (I was already blind and started to breathe with difficulty, running for my life, dehydrated and exhausted).

END