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."