(27 Jun 2000) English/Nat
XFA
Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad is urging Muslims to set aside quarrels that weaken them against the West.

He wants Muslim nations to embrace the Information Age but to guard against globalisation making them "banana republics."

The Malaysian leader's comments came as he opened a four-day meeting of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (O-I-C).

Around one-thousand delegates from 56 Islamic countries around the world gathered in Malaysia on Tuesday for the opening of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (O-I-C).

The organisation is aimed at promoting Muslim unity in a world where Islamic states feel increasingly marginalised by dominant Western powers.

In keeping with that theme, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad opened the conference in capital Kuala Lumpur, with a keynote speech calling on Muslims not to get left behind in the age of globalisation and information technology.

He says that Muslim countries - often divided and at war with each other - risk being left in the dark ages if they do not master new technologies already adopted by the West.

On a typically anti-Western note, Mahathir warned the delegates that non-Muslim countries still sought to exploit the Islamic world's internal squabbles to further their own hegemony.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"We are not able to challenge (or) face the challenges of the Industrial Age. We are even less able to face the Information Age. Technologically backward and economically poor, we will slide further and further into depending on others for everything that we need. And we will be bullied and harassed and divided against ourselves."
SUPER CAPTION: Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia

Mahathir went on to say that Muslim religious and political leaders should not try to stand in the way of such progress for fear of losing authority.

He also mentioned how failure to acquire new technologies and skills will leave Muslim countries disenfranchised in the new world order and encourage extremist movements amongst those resentful at their marginalisation.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"In frustration, some of our people, or even some of the Muslim nations, will resort to indiscriminate and wild acts. We will be called terrorists and our countries condemned as the bases for terrorists attacks."
SUPER CAPTION: Dr Mahathir Mohamad, Prime Minister of Malaysia

One such insurgency movement on the conference's agenda is that of the southern Philippine Moro Muslims.

Rebel groups such as the Abu Sayyaf, who made global headlines by kidnapping foreign tourists from Malaysia, are demanding a separate Islamic state.

The Moro National Liberation Front spent 20 years fighting for a separate state in Mindanao, the second-largest island in the Philippines but managed to sign a treaty with the government four years ago resulting in their leader, Nur Misuari becoming governor of a four-province Muslim semi-autonomous area.

However, Misuari says the Philippine government's reluctance to uphold the 1996 accord with the M-N-L-F - which promised a large measure of autonomy and economic development aid - had prevented the largely Muslim areas of Mindanao from rising above poverty.

He says the continuing insurgency in the South was a direct result of the government's failure to develop the region in line with its 1996 peace agreement.

SOUNDBITE: (English)
"People are worried, people are becoming impatient. As a matter of fact, the Abu Sayyaf organisation is a direct affect of the dilly-dallying with the implementation of the peace agreement."




SOUNDBITE:(English)


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