Mahathir vows to fire lecturer for antigovt activities
Mahathir vows to fire lecturer for antigovt activities
KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has vowed to sack university teachers involved in recruiting students for underground, Islamic anti-government movements.
The Malaysian leader, who has said that Islamic fundamentalists have whipped up hatred of his government, told reporters Sunday that Malaysia risks being destabilized if such movements turn to violence.
"We must get these people out," Mahathir was quoted by the national news agency Bernama as saying. "If they are part of the university, we have to put a stop to their activities."
Education Minister Musa Mohamad ordered the vice chancellors of Malaysia's public universities Monday to conduct a probe into the reports, based on a press interview with an alleged underground member, that 2,500 students were involved in such movements. Musa said that he considered the figure high and that it would need to be verified.
For the past month, the government has been claiming that Islamic militants with links to Indonesia and the southern Philippines have been plotting to install a hardline Islamic state.
Political organizations are banned at Malaysian universities, but the campuses have taken on a much more overt Islamic tone in recent years.
The fundamentalists seek support from the dominant Malay Muslim ethnic group, long the bedrock of Mahathir's secular United Malays National Organization, which has stressed rapid economic development.
Mahathir accused his opponents of leading the students "into thinking that the present government is unIslamic, infidel and led by the devil. It is a terrible allegation with no basis whatsoever"
"When we go against these people, they will say at once that we are against Islam," Mahathir said.
Meanwhile in Manila, the Philippine government on Monday backed up Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's claim that militant Islamic groups were linking up with local separatists.
Manila has received "intelligence reports several months back that fundamentalist groups based in Malaysia (have) been trying to link up with our own Islamic groups," President Gloria Arroyo's spokesman, Rigoberto Tiglao told reporters.
Tiglao said Philippine authorities have been instructed to "really check on visitors from other countries to make sure that they are not identified with Islamic groups."
A Malaysian newspaper on Sunday quoted Mahathir as saying that a group calling itself the "Malaysian Mujahideen Group" has forged links with Philippine and Indonesian Muslim separatists waging war with their governments.
"Their objective is so ambitious -- to set up Islamic governments in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines through force -- but it will not be that easy," Mahathir was quoted as saying.
Tiglao said the presidential palace has received reports that the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country's main Muslim rebel force, enjoyed close links with Malaysian fundamentalists.
But the spokesman said the report should not affect ongoing peace talks with the 12,500-strong MILF, which has been waging a 23-year Islamic rebellion in southern Mindanao island.
In another development, Singapore's elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew also voiced concern Monday in Kuala Lumpur that a "worldwide phenomenon" of growing Islamic militancy had crept into Malaysia and threatens neighboring countries.
Lee, on a four-day visit to Kuala Lumpur, met Defense Minister Najib Razak, who briefed him on a local group that the government claims learned guerrilla tactics in Afghanistan and has staged robberies and murders in Malaysia to install a hard-core Islamic state.
"He's concerned because it will affect not only Malaysia, it will affect Singapore as well," Najib told reporters.
"He sees this as a worldwide phenomenon - what's happening in the Middle East, in Afghanistan, Kashmir," Najib said. "There is a growing trend toward more radical, more militant interpretations of Islam."
Najib said that Lee, who did not speak to reporters, "appreciates the fact that the Malaysian government is very moderate, tolerant, and our interpretation of Islam is much more enlightened."
Malaysian police have arrested at least 10 members of the so- called Mujahidin Militant Group, which officials have linked to extremists in neighboring Indonesia, where four Malaysians allegedly took part in bombing a shopping mall and in sectarian fighting against Christians.
Some of those arrested include members of the fundamentalist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, the country's biggest opposition group, which Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has accused of misinterpreting Islam and fanning hatred against the government.
Lee, Singapore's founding father, recently said that if the Islamic Party triumphs over Mahathir's ruling United Malays National Organization, "that will present another difficult problem for the region."