Kilgor
07-05-2004, 10:36 PM
An iron curtain is descending between the West and the Muslim world, Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has warned.
Political injustices, poverty and illiteracy are fuelling religious fundamentalism and terrorism, he said in a speech while on a visit to Sweden, urging rich countries to help Muslim nations with investment and socio-economic reforms.
"A new iron curtain seems to be falling," he said.
"This iron curtain somehow is dividing the Muslim world on one side and the West on the other side. This is very dangerous," he told ******* in an interview after the speech.
Mr Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless military coup in 1999, is a staunch ally in Washington's war on terrorism.
Most of Pakistan's 150 million people are Muslims, and a third of them live in poverty.
Many people in the Islamic world "feel deprived, hopeless, powerless" and could be "indoctrinated by distorted views of Islam", Mr Musharraf said.
"Muslim states are seen as the source of terrorism," he said, warning of new "depths of chaos and despair" and more "terrorism and an impending clash of civilisations" if the West, particularly the United States, and Muslim countries failed to eradicate the root causes of anger and resentment.
A solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seen as just by mainstream Muslims might end 75 per cent of global terrorism, Mr Musharraf said.
Creating a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel behind the pre-1967 war borders would likely require "political coercion" from Washington, he said.
Around 600 Al Qaeda militants have been captured in Pakistan, he said, dismissing criticism from domestic Muslim hardliners that his military's crackdown on suspected fundamentalist militants was done to please his US masters.
"I am not doing it at the behest of the United States, but it happens to suit them also. It is in our national interest."
Mr Musharraf last year narrowly escaped two assassination attempts by what he says were Al Qaeda terrorists.
"We will not allow terrorism to exist in Pakistan. We will root them out wherever they are," he said.
But he warned that that was not enough.
"If we are just killing terrorists, we are not achieving anything ... I call them the leaves of a tree. As long as the tree is there, the leaves will keep growing."
"If you manage to finish off one organisation like Al Qaeda ... you've chopped off a branch of that tree, but the tree will still grow. You must identify the root, and the root happens to be political disputes ... the root happens also to be illiteracy and poverty."
-- *******
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200407/s1147472.htm
Political injustices, poverty and illiteracy are fuelling religious fundamentalism and terrorism, he said in a speech while on a visit to Sweden, urging rich countries to help Muslim nations with investment and socio-economic reforms.
"A new iron curtain seems to be falling," he said.
"This iron curtain somehow is dividing the Muslim world on one side and the West on the other side. This is very dangerous," he told ******* in an interview after the speech.
Mr Musharraf, who took power in a bloodless military coup in 1999, is a staunch ally in Washington's war on terrorism.
Most of Pakistan's 150 million people are Muslims, and a third of them live in poverty.
Many people in the Islamic world "feel deprived, hopeless, powerless" and could be "indoctrinated by distorted views of Islam", Mr Musharraf said.
"Muslim states are seen as the source of terrorism," he said, warning of new "depths of chaos and despair" and more "terrorism and an impending clash of civilisations" if the West, particularly the United States, and Muslim countries failed to eradicate the root causes of anger and resentment.
A solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seen as just by mainstream Muslims might end 75 per cent of global terrorism, Mr Musharraf said.
Creating a Palestinian state side-by-side with Israel behind the pre-1967 war borders would likely require "political coercion" from Washington, he said.
Around 600 Al Qaeda militants have been captured in Pakistan, he said, dismissing criticism from domestic Muslim hardliners that his military's crackdown on suspected fundamentalist militants was done to please his US masters.
"I am not doing it at the behest of the United States, but it happens to suit them also. It is in our national interest."
Mr Musharraf last year narrowly escaped two assassination attempts by what he says were Al Qaeda terrorists.
"We will not allow terrorism to exist in Pakistan. We will root them out wherever they are," he said.
But he warned that that was not enough.
"If we are just killing terrorists, we are not achieving anything ... I call them the leaves of a tree. As long as the tree is there, the leaves will keep growing."
"If you manage to finish off one organisation like Al Qaeda ... you've chopped off a branch of that tree, but the tree will still grow. You must identify the root, and the root happens to be political disputes ... the root happens also to be illiteracy and poverty."
-- *******
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200407/s1147472.htm