"A special committee on how to restructure the OIC is to meet in one year time," Musharaf said

By Kazi Mahmood, IOL South East Asia Correspondent

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia , October 18 (IslamOnline.net) - A special committee set up to review the restructure of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) will submit its report to a select committee of the OIC in 2004 to implement the necessary changes.

"A special committee on how to restructure the OIC is to meet in one year time," Pakistani President Parvez Musharaf told a press conference Friday, October 17, after the conclusion of the tenth OIC summit.

"Thanks God the committee has been accepted by the Summit and it will submit its proposals on restructuring the OIC in a special meeting on that matter," he added.

"We have to meet in one year time. Three years to review the changes and proposals is too far. We hope the changes in the OIC will be positive for the Ummah and the world altogether," said the Pakistani leader.

There are no details on who are sitting on the committee but the available information indicates several Malaysian, Pakistani and Arab experts were delegated to carry out the reshuffling work.

One of the committee’s aims is to give the OIC a better coordination structure in times of crisis so that the organization and its member states may act swiftly to halt any anti-Muslim agenda and prevent anti-Muslim bashing by the western world, in particular the U.S.

Officials at the Putrajaya Conference Center (PCC) told IslamOnline.net the special committee, composed of experts in the fields the OIC Summit deemed necessary to review, were already put to task to gather the necessary information on the matter.

"The committee now has the task to gather all the data and information as well as the ideas proposed by the members of the OIC for the restructure of the organization," said an OIC official attached to the media center.

"There are a plethora of proposals by several head of states and by their delegates, not all the ideas are workable but the OIC special committee will present a document outlining the necessary changes during a special meeting of the OIC in 2004," he added.

It is clear, however, that the OIC will remain non-military and will gear itself to become a major platform for Muslims in the global world, an official from the OIC Secretariat said.

The committee will handle different issues too, such as enhancing trade between the Muslim nations, work towards a free press in the Muslim world and look into the possibility of a unified Muslim currency.

Malaysia , Pakistan and the Palestinians spearheaded the creation of the special committee, which will be in constant liaison with Saudi Arabia and Malaysia .

Senegal , which will be hosting the 11th OIC summit in three years, will also play a role in representing Africa in the committee, another source close to the Senegalese delegation told IOL.

Most of the speakers at the OIC summit agreed that the organization needed a change of structures and policies as well as an approach to handle the growing crises within the Islamic world.

The restructuring of the OIC also figured high in the 12-point Putrajaya Declaration, read out Friday by Malaysian Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar.

The Declaration provided a blueprint for collective action by the OIC and will help in its restructure.

It would altogether offer guiding principles and implemental action plans to chart the performance of the 34-year-old grouping in the coming years.