Use this line to generate the Makefile before running "make":
LANG=C perl Makefile.PL |
or alternatively,
unset LANG perl Makefile.PL |
or alternatively,
Edit your /etc/sysconfig/i18n file and change the "LANG" value from "en_US.UTF-8" to "en_US"
This will work around this bug in the RH9 perl package.