Lee warns SE Asia of growing 'anti-Zion' Islamic crusade
Lee warns SE Asia of growing 'anti-Zion' Islamic crusade
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Southeast Asia's elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew wrapped up a four-day visit here Wednesday warning the region to be on alert for growing "anti-Zion" Islamic crusade spawned by fighting in Aghanistan.
The Singapore Senior Minister said there had been "a kind of Islamic globalization" in the past 20 years, with many Muslim volunteers taking up arms in Afghanistan and training to be mujahideens.
"It's become a kind of internationalized anti-Zion, anti- crusade," Lee told a press conference.
"I think there would be a flow of this and we have to watch it carefully because if they take root in Indonesia, come up to Malaysia and come up to Johor, then we're vulnerable."
Johor is Malaysia's most southern state neighboring Singapore.
Lee, speaking at the end of a four-day visit to Malaysia, said that Singapore could not afford "disinterest," as it was vulnerable to events in neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia, both predominantly Muslim nations.
"The fighting in Afghanistan was not just done by the Afghans," he said. "There were a lot of volunteers from all over the world who also went there and trained in the art of guerrilla war and terrorism. Now, they are spreading worldwide."
Lee expressed fears that Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's government, which claims that religious militancy is rising in Malaysia, would lose ground in future elections to the fundamentalist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, or PAS, the country's biggest opposition group.
"It is not unlikely that (Mahathir's party) may lose a few more seats and a few more states to PAS," Lee said. "It's not a disastrous outcome, but it could be an erosion of the (government's) moral authority."
The Islamic party shocked Mahathir's party in 1999 when it won control of a second of Malaysia's 13 states and tripled its Parliamentary seats, though the governing coalition retained a two-thirds majority.
Lee, who struck a deal with Mahathir after talks Tuesday to settle a number of longstanding contentious issues, said Singapore had to compromise more than expected in tough negotiations.
Singapore's request for 750 million gallons of water from Johor state after 2061 when a water contract expires has been reduced to 350 million gallons, with water prices to be drastically increased.
The city-state, which obtains half of its daily water needs from Johor state, also has to give Malaysia 12 parcels of land as a "bonus" for the water.
It also resolved a long dispute over prime land owned by Malaysian railway firm by agreeing to exchange it with another piece of land. It also agreed to Malaysia's plan to build a rail tunnel linking the countries.
"We gave way on the railway land, we pay more for the water and got half of what we ask for in water," Lee said.
He said Singapore could have stood firm and wait to see how the situation develops but was worried it may later have to deal with a "government that will not deliver."
"We have not given in so easily but we have to decided to make a deal, even though it's not one I would say is balanced... it could have been better but a deal's a deal, so let's move on."
Asked about his feelings, the 77-year-old Lee laughed and said: "You want to be my pscyhologist."
Meanwhile, warming ties between Singapore and Malaysia could help Southeast Asia compete for investment with China, analysts said Wednesday.
Greater cooperation could also bring more stability to the 10- member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, which is trying desperately to portray a stable image as China attracts more and more foreign investment.
Singapore founding father Lee Kuan Yew's visit to Malaysia this week marks a significant shift in relations between the notoriously bickering neighbors.