Indonesia Pushes OIC to Move on Conflicts in Myanmar, Syria

Indonesia has urged the Organization of the Islamic Conference to take action to help stop bloody conflicts in Myanmar and Syria, the Foreign Affairs Ministry said, as the international organization prepared for an emergency summit on Tuesday.

The OIC has scheduled an emergency summit to implement recommendations formed after OIC foreign ministers met on Monday in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, to discuss issues facing the world's Muslim community.

Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said on Tuesday that Indonesia had urged the ministers to devise a concrete strategy to stop the violence and killings in Myanmar and Syria.

“Just condemning various problems faced by Muslims is not a policy,” he said. “The OIC should take concrete and constructive steps to overcome the various problems of the ummat [Islamic community].”

In Myanmar, he said, the OIC should act to help stop the killings of the Rohingya Muslim minority, who have been targeted by violence in the state of Rakhine. Human Rights Watch has accused Myanmar security forces of opening fire on Rohingyas, committing rape and standing by as mobs attacked each other.

“As a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multicultural country, just as Myanmar is, Indonesia understands and has experience overcoming horizontal conflicts that are not easy to solve,” Marty said.

Indonesia has also urged the OIC to stand together to help end the violent conflict in Syria, he said.

“The OIC has to come out with a unified message so the UN Security Council can immediately act to stop the violence in Syria, if necessary using chapter seven of the UN charter,” he said, referring to a chapter governing action against threats to peace, breaches of peace and acts of aggression.

He said Indonesia proposed that the OIC send peacekeepers to Syria if the United Nations needed extra support, and added that the main aim should be to stop the violence and killings there.
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