JAKARTA, Oct 21: When US President George Bush meets Indonesia’s leading Muslim figures on Wednesday, they will tell him US policies in the Middle East are one of the root causes of terror attacks in Asia.
But most of the leaders in the world’s most populous Muslim nation don’t expect the leader of the globe’s sole superpower to listen.
“I will tell it like it is. In Indonesia, the majority are not happy with the US stance in the Middle East conflict,” Hasyim Muzadi, leader of the country’s largest Muslim group, the 40-million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), said on Tuesday.
“But I will not pretend that the president will listen to me. I mean, who am I anyway? Just a representative of some group, when even the UN is being ignored,” he said by telephone from Surabaya, the capital of East Java.
Mr Bush’s four-hour visit comes at a time when anti-American sentiment in Indonesia is at its highest in decades over the US-led invasion of Iraq and Washington’s support for Israel, academics say.
About 250 students rallied outside the heavily fortified American embassy in Jakarta on Tuesday afternoon chanting “Bush is a terrorist”, and throwing tomatoes at the complex.
More than 100 extra unarmed police could be seen lined up outside the embassy, which is permanently fronted with huge coils of barbed wire and secured by armed officers.
Mr Bush’s visit to the resort island of Bali comes slightly more than a year after militants blew up two nightclubs there, packed with foreign tourists. The attack killed 202 people and put the spotlight on Indonesia’s militant fringe.
Washington’s policies in the Middle East were unjust and had become a contributor to terror, said Syafii Maarif, head of Muhammadiyah, the second-largest Muslim group in Indonesia, speaking by telephone from Bali.
“The foreign policy of the United States is very pro-Israel... The sufferings of the Palestinians are growing more acute by the day and desperation or disappointment can lead to irrational actions,” Syafii Maarif said.
NU and Muhammadiyah run an extensive network of religious boarding schools and charitable institutions across the vast Indonesian archipelago.
“ALL IN THE SAME BOAT”: Mr Bush is set to meet several moderate leaders as well as President Megawati Sukarnoputri during his stopover in Bali, a mostly Hindu island about 1,000kms east of Jakarta.
Indonesia’s secular government has been an ally of the United states in its efforts to battle militants, but critics have accused it of failing properly to explain the dangers of militancy to its 210 million people.
“As for the terrorism issue, we will tell the US that we are all in the same boat. We are here to fight terrorism because terrorism, whoever does it, is against civilization,” said Mr Maarif, who once called Mr Bush a “madman” for invading Iraq.
Maarif’s largely moderate Muhammadiyah claims a membership of around 30 million, including some key government figures.—Reuters