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Malaysia Opposes Military Attacks on Afghanistan
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 29 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has urged the United States not to mount a war on Afghanistan, as thousands of innocent people would be killed in such attacks, reports said Saturday.
While Malaysia supports U.S. moves to hunt down terrorists following the September 11th terrorist attacks on Washington and New York, Mahathir said terrorism would persist even if the West occupied Afghanistan.
"We have to object to any intended war as we do not see it as a solution," he was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency.
"...Terrorists are everywhere... even if Afghanistan is defeated and occupied by the Western powers, this does not guarantee terrorism is defused, perhaps the terrorists may strike again elsewhere."
Mahathir called on the United Nations to organize an international conference on terrorism to determine its causes and formulate measures to deal with it in a more substantive manner.
He said a lasting solution could only be found if the world came to understand what provoked the fury that led to the attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington.
The Prime Minister also said that oppression must first be eradicated before terrorism can be overcome.
"Hunting terrorism with weapons alone will not solve the problem completely as long as the anger among the oppressed still exists," he was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.
Mahathir said Islamic countries were oppressed because they were weak.
"If [we] want to wipe out terrorism, the problem in Palestine must be eradicated, as well as that in Iraq and Chechnya. Only when there is no fresh oppression will the problem of terrorism be overcome," he added.
Meanwhile, Mahathir came under fire after the opposition in Malaysia urged his government to come clean and make public meetings conducted by terrorist groups in Malaysia.
National Justice Party leader Wan Azizah Wan Ismail on Saturday said the government should make public information available on bank accounts connected to such groups in this country.
"Why did the government conceal the meetings or activities of alleged terrorists in Kuala Lumpur until it was exposed by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations [FBI]?" she asked.
In conducting its investigations into Saudi dissident Osama Bin Laden's various links, the FBI said that it had obtained videotape showing a meeting of two alleged terrorists in Kuala Lumpur last October.
Khalid Al-Midhar, suspected as a hijacker involved in ramming a plane into the Pentagon, was seen on a surveillance tape meeting with a man whom American officials suspect played a hand in the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole warship docked in the Yemeni port of Aden.
Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi has said that immigration authorities allowed the suspects to enter the country, as they did not have any criminal records.
Abdullah also pledged to cooperate with the U.S. and stressed that Malaysia does not shelter groups engaging in terrorism.
U.S. media has also claimed that bin Laden maintained bank accounts in Kuala Lumpur under a false name. Mahathir Mohamad, who said there was no evidence that terrorists had stashed money in local financial institutions, has denied this.
"Perhaps they could have already closed their accounts but the information we have gathered so far shows there is no terrorist money in Malaysia," said the Prime Minister.
Wan Azizah said that it was inadequate for Mahathir to merely deny or decry these issues.
"He must come clean and explain to the people the extent of the government's knowledge and involvement in this matter," added Wan Ismail.
She also called upon Mahathir not to use the U.S. tragedy for his domestic political agenda.
"His comments that violence will be the inevitable result of suppression and oppression, alluding to the U.S. foreign policy when all this while he has been responsible for stifling legitimate dissent at home."
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