Thousands back Palestinian freedom
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Thousands of members and supporters of the Muslim-based Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) took to the streets of Jakarta on Sunday to denounce Israel and show support for an independent Palestine.
The rally started at midday at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta and moved past the UN building on Jl. M.H. Thamrin before ending up in front of the U.S. Embassy, causing traffic congestion in surrounding roads.
The protesters, many of whom wore Muslim attire, carried banners proclaiming, "Free Palestine from colonial occupation," and "Israel is the real terrorist." Some of them carried Palestinian flags, aside from party flags and Indonesia's red and white flag.
Addressing the high-spirited protesters, PKS deputy chairman Almuzzamil Yusuf said that the Israeli "colonization" of Palestine had to be stopped because Palestine was part of the world community, and was entitled to sovereignty and control over its own land.
He also called on the Indonesian government and the world community to take concrete steps to support Palestinian independence.
"The United Nations has been silent over Palestine's cause," he said.
Although the organizers had earlier said that the protest would focus on the independence of Palestine, many in the rally expressed anger at Israel's threat to remove the Palestinian president, Yasser Arafat.
"This is further proof that Israel is an uncivilized state," said one of the protesters.
Earlier, the party's spokesman, Suryama, told reporters that the plan to expel Arafat was only a ruse to divert the world's attention from the real problems in Palestine.
"The most pressing problems there are murders, atrocities and the suppression of Palestinians' basic human rights," he said without elaborating.
He was quick to add that Sunday's rally was organized to put pressure on President Megawati Soekarnoputri's administration to become more active in supporting the Palestinian cause.
"The Megawati administration has been passive and almost completely silent over Israel's colonialist drive against Palestine," he said.
The Israeli government recently threatened to forcefully oust the Palestinian president, saying that Arafat represented an obstacle to reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. It also accused him of backing militant groups in the region.
Israeli commentators said that the move by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government was an expression of outrage over recent suicide bombings.
The United States government has aligned itself with Israel in shunning Arafat, but its ambassador to the Jewish state, Daniel Kurtzer, has reiterated his country's opposition to expelling the Palestinian leader.
The Indonesian government condemned the plan over the weekend and warned that such a move would only further destabilize the volatile security situation in the region.
It also expressed the country's readiness to mobilize support from member countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to oppose the move.
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation with close to 90 percent of its 214 million people adhering to Islam, has no diplomatic relations with Israel.