Govt moves to calm people over Iraq

Evi Mariani and Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post Jakarta

Worried about a possible backlash from the impending Iraqi war, the government has moved to assure the public that such an war is not directed against Islam or the Iraqi people as a whole, but against all of humanity.

Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Jusuf Kalla held a meeting with the country's religious leaders on Wednesday, in which he said that Indonesia opposed any unilateral United States attack on Iraq.

"The war on Iraq is a war against humanity," said Kalla, reading out a statement drafted during the meeting, which was also attended by Minister of Religious Affairs Said Agiel Husein Al-Munawar and Minister of Social Affairs Bachtiar Chamsyah.

Religious leaders participating in the meeting included Muhammadiyah chairman Ahmad Syafii Maarif, Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) representative Nathan Setiabudi, a representative of the Indonesian Bishops' Conference (KWI), and Indonesian Orthodox Church representative Anastasia.

Noted Muslim scholar Azyumardi Azra and popular Muslim preacher Abdullah Gymnastiar, as well as education observer Arief Rachman, also attended the meeting.

The United States, angered by president Saddam Hussein's refusal to step down, has given the Iraqi leader a 48-hour ultimatum to leave the country or face the full force of the world's only superpower's military might.

Saddam has rejected the ultimatum, which will expire at 8 a.m. Jakarta time.

Speaking to reporters after a coordinating meeting of people's welfare ministries on Wednesday morning, Kalla said the imminent U.S.-led attack on Iraq was not a war against Islam but against humanity.

"We acknowledge that the majority of Iraqi people are Muslims, but we also know that the military bases of the U.S. and its ally Britain are all located in Muslim countries," Kalla said.

He added that Saddam Hussein was not a good example of a Muslim. He did not elaborate.

The U.S. and its close ally Britain have amassed hundreds of thousands of troops in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, a city-state that Iraq invaded in 1991.

"The government has clearly stated in the Non-Aligned Movement conference, in the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and on many other occasions, that Indonesia rejects the planned attack on Iraq. Now, we assert that we oppose the actual attack," Kalla said.

The participants at the meeting between religious leaders and scholars, as well as the Cabinet ministers, according to Kalla, agreed that the Iraqi war was not against Islam as some 20 percent of the Iraqi population were Christians.

The religious leaders and scholars also urged the government to be firm in expressing its stance against the war.

The government and the religious leaders also called on the people at large to voice their opposition to the war through peaceful means and to avoid violence.

"The people must not be violent in expressing their protests against the war," said Gymnastiar, a noted Muslim preacher, popularly known as Aa Gym.

Before and after the U.S. and its allies attacked Afghanistan in November 2001, various militant groups took to the streets around the country condemning what they described as U.S. hegemony over the world.

In some places, a number of groups threatened to expel U.S. citizens and those of countries helping the U.S. in invading Afghanistan, which earned the ire of the U.S. for harboring Muslim cleric Osama bin Laden, who was blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington and New York that killed more than 3,000 innocent people.

The threatened expulsions forced a number of foreign companies to suspend their operations and evacuate their foreign employees to neighboring countries.

Minister Kalla appealed to the public at large on Wednesday not to target foreigners as this would only harm the country's interests.

"Don't do anything that will weaken the national economy. We already have enough difficulties," Kalla said.