Australia's Howard dismisses RI VP's comments on US
Australia's Howard dismisses RI VP's comments on US
Agencies, Canberra/Wellington
Australia's prime minister, a key U.S. ally, on Friday shrugged off comments by Indonesia's Vice President Hamzah Haz accusing the United States of terrorism for attacking Iraq.
In a speech to Muslim teachers this week, Hamzah, a vocal critic of the U.S.-led war on terror, branded U.S. authorities terrorists.
"Who is the real terrorist, who is against human rights? The answer is the United States because it attacked Iraq. Moreover, it is the terrorist king as it makes war," Indonesia's Antara news agency reported Hamzah saying.
Prime Minister John Howard told Melbourne radio station 3AW on Friday that Hamzah's comments were not worth making a fuss about.
"He would have been, in my estimation, saying that in the context of domestic Indonesian politics," Howard said, adding he did not agree with Hamzah and he expected that Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri also would not.
Hamzah made the remarks while calling on foreign governments to stop criticizing Indonesia's judicial system for its leniency with the Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir who was sentenced to four year's jail for sedition by a Jakarta court on Tuesday.
Howard also criticized the sentence, saying Wednesday he was "disappointed," that the court ruling didn't find that Ba'asyir was head of the Southeast Asian terrorist group, Jamaah Islamiyah (JI).
New Zealand foreign minister Phil Goff has also expressed concern over the "short" four-year jail term handed down to Ba'asyir this week after his trial in Jakarta.
"The inability of the Indonesia prosecution to satisfy the court that Ba'asyir was leader of Jamaah Islamiyah did not produce the definitive outcome and the ability to impose a long, deterrent sentence for terrorism, which many had hoped for," Goff told Parliament.
Answering questions, he added, "I would not go so far as to say that the outcome of this court trial represented a lack of commitment by Indonesia to dealing with the organization and with terrorism.
"After all, the major country in which these terrorist activities are taking place is Indonesia. It has badly damaged its economy and most of the victims - for example, 11 out of the 12 victims in the bombing of the Marriott Hotel by JI were Indonesian workers.
"I think the failure was the failure to produce the level of evidence needed to get the conviction that most people wanted to see."