Hardliners do not represent majority Muslims: Hamzah

Hardliners do not represent majority Muslims: Hamzah

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Vice President Hamzah Haz played down on Thursday the presence of
Muslim hardliners in the country, saying they did not represent
the majority of Indonesian Muslims.

Hamzah said he had held talks with leaders of Laskar Jihad,
Indonesian Mujahiddin Council (MMI) and Islamic Defender Front
(FPI), which are known as Muslim hardline groups, to inquire
about alleged links to international terrorist networks.

"I met the so-called hardline leaders such Jafar Umar Thalib,
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir and Habib Rizieq. After talking to them, I
still cannot find any proof that terrorist groups are present in
the country," Hamzah told a group of Islamic teachers who paid a
courtesy call on him.

Hamzah, who also chairs Indonesia's largest Muslim-based
party, the United Development Party (PPP), urged all Muslims to
promote peace and show the world that Islam does not threaten
other religions.

"There are always hardline groups within a religious
community, but they do not represent the majority. We must show
the world that we are not Muslims who like to destroy
everything," he said.

"Islam is no threat to other religions."

Indonesia has been in the spotlight after a series of arrests
of its citizens in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The latest came on Sunday, when Muslim activists Agus
Dwikarna, Tamsil Linrung and Abdul Jamal Balfas were arrested at
Manila's Ninoy Aquino airport for possession of material to make
a bomb.

Hamzah said the arrests could tarnish the image of both
Indonesia and Islam.

"That is why we have to maintain peace. Our country is already
suffering from the prolonged crisis and needs security and
political stability to recover," Hamzah said.

Also on Thursday, hundreds of FPI members staged a protest in
front of the Philippines embassy in Jakarta over the arrests of
three Indonesians in Manila.

Some of the protesters met with embassy officials to accuse
the Philippines of violating human rights and to demand the men
be released.

The embassy was also the scene for a protest by 10 members of
the Indonesian Society Against International Discrimination
(MIADI) earlier in the day.

Before staging the rally, the FPI members appeared at South
Jakarta District court to support Muslim cleric Abu Bakar
Ba'syir, who is suing Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew
for defamation.

The trial was postponed until April 4 as Lee's representative
from the Singaporean embassy failed to attend court.

In Manila, local police said the three suspected Indonesian
terrorists were linked to another detained Indonesian, who is
accused of being an explosives expert for the al-Qaeda terrorist
network.

A senior Philippines police official told AFP that all three
had reportedly met with associates of Fathur Rohman al-Ghozi, an
Indonesian self-confessed bomb expert working for the Jemaah
Islamiyah.

The Jemaah Islamiyah is touted as the Southeast Asian wing of
al-Qaeda, the network led by Saudi militant Osama bin Laden and
blamed for the September 11 terror attacks in the United States.

Dwikarna "has admitted membership with Jemaah Islamiyah" while
the two others claimed they came to the Philippines to establish
contacts for possible coal and tuna fish investment ventures, the
police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Although Linrung and Balfas could provide documentary proof of
their investment mission to the southern Philippines "what we
suspect is that they were brought by Dwikarna to familiarize
themselves" with some suspicious activities, the official said.

"This is based on our monitoring," the official said,
declining to elaborate.

Jemaah Islamiyah's key leaders allegedly received military and
religious training in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as the
southern Philippines, scene of a 30-year Islamic separatist
rebellion.