Islamic leaders voice anger at Islamophobia in West
Thu 13 Mar 2008, 22:01 GMT
By Alistair Thomson and Lamine Ghanmi
DAKAR (Reuters) - The leaders of the world's Muslim states on Thursday
criticized a rising wave
of "Islamophobia" in the West and pledged to combat Islamic extremism,
which they said was
partly to blame.
Heads of state of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) met in
Senegal for talks on
making the 57-nation body more effective in combating poverty in Muslim
states in Africa and
Asia. But the talks were overshadowed by hostilities between two members,
Chad and Sudan.
In an embarrassment for Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who billed
the summit as a chance
for a definitive peace deal between the two neighbours, Chad accused Sudan
of launching a rebel
attack on its territory. Sudan called this "nonsense".
Chadian President Idriss Deby was due to meet his Sudanese counterpart
Omar Hassan al-Ba****r on
Thursday, but any lasting reconciliation seemed unlikely after Ba****r
failed to attend talks
the previous evening.
Efforts to revamp the OIC's unwieldy 40-article charter also ran into
problems after foreign
ministers broke off their discussions without agreement on Wednesday,
despite having extended
their two days of talks by an extra day.
But delegates were unanimous in voicing fury at Israeli military strikes
against Palestinian
territories, and at the negative ****trayal of Islam and discrimination
against Muslims in the West.
"In our relations with the Western world, we are going through difficult
times," said OIC
Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, calling for Israelis to be tried
for war crimes.
"Ignorance about Islam and calculated animosity with deep historic roots
on the part of a
minority in the West, as well as our failure to defend the true values of
Islam, are the reason
for the increasing wave of Islamophobia."
Caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad printed by European newspapers have
sparked anger across
the Muslim world. Some western human rights groups have accused the OIC of
trying to limit
freedom of expression and belief.
"Should freedom of expression mean freedom to blaspheme? There is no such
thing as limitless
freedom," Wade told delegates, while criticising those who carried out
attacks in the name of
Islam: "They deserve only our contempt."
AFRICA SEEKS ARAB AID
criticized as being ineffective and bureaucratic, OIC officials hope
revamping the body's
charter can speed decision making and commit wealthy oil-rich Arab states
to foster development
in poor regions like sub-Saharan Africa, where al Qaeda extremists are
gaining a foothold.
A key reform would allow decisions to be taken by a two-thirds majority,
instead of by
unanimity -- which has proven difficult in a diverse body grouping a
quarter of the world's
population spread across Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Founded in 1969, the Organization has decided at past summits to establish
an Islamic
peacekeeping force, university, common market, and investment fund, but
most of these decisions
have never been implemented.
A $10 billion fund for Islamic development set up by the Organization has
so far received
pledges for only $2.6 billion.
"We are on the point of adopting the charter and we hope this adoption
will come today," Wade
said. "It's up to the heads of state to make the decision."
Some members are pu****ng to make OIC member****p conditional on a state
having a "majority"
Muslim population, but this has been resisted by mixed-religion nations
like Uganda.
Pakistan was also insisting the new charter should make potential members
resolve their
conflicts with existing members before being allowed to join -- reflecting
its long-running
dispute with neighbour India over the Kashmir region.
With several prominent leaders not present -- from Saudi Arabia's King
Abdullah to Libya's
Muammar Gaddafi and Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf -- some delegates had
called for a decision on
the charter to be postponed until a Cairo summit in three years.
(Writing by Daniel Flynn; Editing by Pascal Fletcher)
(For full Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues,
visit:
http://africa.reuters.com/
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