KL urges Southeast Asia not to join fighting

KL urges Southeast Asia not to join fighting

Associated Press, Kuala Lumpur

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad urged Southeast Asian
countries Tuesday not to participate in any fighting that might
break out following the terror attacks in the United States.

"We should really not participate in war," Mahathir said in a
nationally televised interview. "If we do, it will only help to
escalate the problems, because an all-out war is the wrong
solution, because many innocent people are going to be killed."

Mahathir, Asia's longest-serving ruler, said that efforts to
purge terrorism must center on identifying its root causes - not
with using military action, battling other countries or killing
suspected terrorists.

"We must look into the causes - why is it some people are
willing to kill themselves to achieve something that they believe
in?" he said. "If we don't remove the causes, we are going to see
terrorism forever."

Mahathir said that Southeast Asian heads of government would
discuss the issue and measures to ensure that the region's
economy is not crippled because of the attacks in their annual
meeting in Brunei next month.

Mahathir, who has led this predominantly Muslim country for 20
years, said it was unfortunate that the suspects in the Sept. 11
attacks were Muslims, since this has caused some to assume that
all people with "a Muslim name could be potential terrorists."

"There has been terrorism in Japan. There are Hindu
terrorists, Jewish terrorists, too," the Malaysian leader said.

"In this case it happens to be Muslim terrorists ... yet there
are terrorists who are non-Muslims, who are maybe even
Christians."

Mahathir urged Americans to think rationally about what should
be done, saying that this would make their actions "much more
constructive."

Mahathir's comments came a day after he spoke by telephone
with President George W. Bush, who expressed hopes of talking at
greater length with Mahathir at an upcoming economic summit in
China and assured him that the global anti-terrorism campaign was
against evil, and not Islam.

The Malaysian leader has condemned the attacks and agreed to
support a global anti-terrorism coalition, but has said the
United States should not act unilaterally or launch strikes which
could injure innocent people.