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.