Author: Patrick Chalmers, Reuters
News Agency
Publication: The Globe and Mail
Date: November 17, 2001
URL: http://www.globeandmail.com/generated/hubs/20011117/internationalAsia.html
Indonesia, Malaysia and their neighbours
take united front against Muslim militants
KAMUNTING, MALAYSIA -- Mohamad,
a retired soldier living near Malaysia's high-security Kamunting detention
centre, is unimpressed by talk of rising Islamic militancy.
Wearing the skull cap and long robes
of a devout Muslim and declining midday food or drink as he prepares for
the holy fasting month of Ramadan, Mohamad talks quietly under the gaze
of nearby riot police and their two water cannon.
"The biggest problem we have is
with freedom of speech," he said, pausing to watch the roundup and arrest
of a few dozen opposition party supporters who had come to protest against
the detention of family members and friends in the camp up the road.
But the countries in the region
put a very different spin on the dangers of a growth in Muslim militancy
in a world increasingly obsessed with radical Islam.
Indonesia, the world's most populous
Muslim nation, mainly Muslim Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand have
all linked bomb blasts or attacks to Islamic militants.
The Sept. 11 suicide attacks on
the United States put the spotlight back on Muslim militancy in the region,
home to more than one-fifth of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims.
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir
Mohamad says the world's more than 50 Muslim countries face threats from
militants who are exploiting Islam for political ends.
"These people feel, believe, that
they can overthrow these governments and set up what they call a Muslim
country. Malaysia is not excepted," he said in a speech at the launch of
an electronic version of the Koran, the Muslim holy book.
Malaysia has acknowledged that some
of the suspects in the U.S. hijackings visited as tourists. Indonesia and
Malaysia are among 25 Muslim or mainly Muslim states whose young men Washington
plans to subject to longer checks before issuing them U.S. visas.
A November summit of leaders from
the 10 members of the Association of South East Asian Nations in Brunei
agreed terrorism was one of its biggest challenges.
They issued instructions to enhance
co-operation and intelligence-sharing between their security agencies to
counter transborder crime and terrorism.
Southeast Asian army chiefs signed
a declaration in Manila on Nov. 15 pledging to combat terrorism.
"We are all mindful of the recent
global incidents and we view terrorism as a threat to the region," Philippine
army chief Lieutenant-General Jaime de los Santos said at the signing.
Since early August, Malaysia has
arrested more than a dozen supporters of Parti Islam se-Malaysia, known
as PAS, its main opposition party, accusing them of forming an Afghan-inspired
militant group to overthrow the government and set up a purist Islamic
state.
Mr. Mahathir alluded to wider ambitions
among those arrested, saying they planned an Islamic union incorporating
Indonesia and the Philippines.
In mid-August, Indonesian police
blamed a small group of Malaysian Muslim hard-liners for bombings in Jakarta,
including attacks on two churches, which wounded 70.
However, there has been no firm
evidence produced to link that group with PAS supporters arrested in Malaysia.
Despite the existence of several
Islamic separatist movements, Southeast Asia's half dozen countries with
Muslim majorities or large minorities have produced no evidence of pan-Islamic
militancy.
Diplomats and security analysts
say ties between militant groups are more likely to be indirect.
Thousands of Southeast Asian Muslims
have attended the madrassas or religious schools of Pakistan often associated
with Afghanistan's hard-line Taliban.
