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President George Bush Should Not Only Earn Americans’ Trust To Reunify The Deeply Divided Country But Also The World’s Trust On The Basis Of Truth, Multilateralism, Democracy And Economic Justice  To Defeat Terrorism  Press Statement by Lim Guan Eng (Petaling Jaya, Thursday): President George Bush’s victory speech sought to earn Americans’ trust to reunify his deeply divided nation after a bitterly contested election with Democrat challenger, John Kerry. But George Bush should also make an effort to regain the world’s trust to work together with and not against the USA to defeat terrorism. Even Europe as the natural allies of the US is unable to find common ground.  The failure of finding weapons of mass destruction and providing a justifiable cause for the invasion of Iraq has underlined the importance of truth, multilateralism, democracy and economic justice in the conduct of international affairs. The world must fight terror with bullets but bullets alone can not destroy terrorism.   Military might must be accompanied with democracy and economic justice. Events in Iraq has borne out the fact that the most powerful military in the world is powerless in the face of Iraqis willing to die fighting for freedom from foreign occupation.   Sadly George Bush’s victory has delighted fundamentalist from his own evangelical Christian supporters as well as the extremist Islamic terror groups that are sworn enemies of the United States. Bush should reappraise his tactics and policies which have the unfortunate consequences of harming innocent civilians that has ironically made him the best recruiting agent for the very terror groups he wishes to destroy.   For democrat activists in Asia, the concern is that America under Bush will continue to downgrade the importance of human rights to secure support in its fight against terror. Bush has turned a blind eye towards democratic reforms and human rights abuses thus encouraging dictatorial tendencies, greater injustices, corruption and a less freer world.   It is also unfortunate that former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamed tried to interfere in the United States’ electoral process by asking all Muslim Americans to vote for Kerry to defeat Bush. Clearly Kerry’s defeat showed that Mahathir has no influence with Americans. However such blatant interference in the domestic affairs of a foreign nation is contrary to Malaysia and Mahathir’s previous policy of non-interference in the domestic affairs of another country.     DAP congratulates Bush on his re-election for a second four-year term and hopes he can acknowledge that his mistakes has made the world a more dangerous place. Bush must act to correct the mistakes made not only to make the world safer but also make the United Sates of America a more trustworthy and reliable partner for peace. (4/11/2004) * Lim Guan Eng, DAP Secretary-General