PROFESSOR WIMAR WITOELAR, COMMENTATOR AND JOURNALIST: Well, that's the formal way to express it, I guess. The fact is that these deranged people obviously explode the bombs to disrupt peace, to make trouble and that could be construed as going against the government but maybe it's not as formal as that. They are just anti-social.

GEORGE NEGUS: Alexander Downer on the other hand, the Foreign Minister, goes as far as to say that their aim, whoever they are, and I'll ask you about that in a moment. Their aim is to actually replace the existing government with a Taliban-style tyranny. Is that feasible? Is that what's going on?

PROFESSOR WIMAR WITOELAR: Well, he must be clairvoyant because I don't think that's possible. I mean if you see people destroying the World Trade Centre in New York you couldn't say they are out to make a Taliban government in the US or people, you know, putting bombs in London, they're not out to make England a Taliban state so why should anyone think Indonesia could become a Taliban state.
In fact Indonesia is the safest from being a Taliban state because it has a large majority of moderate Muslims which are the best guarantee against fundamentalism.

GEORGE NEGUS: Would you put a figure on that majority of moderate Muslims out of what 250, 280 million, we're not quite sure.

PROFESSOR WIMAR WITOELAR: I cannot put an official figure but you know what people always mention, out of 240 million, those who are members, officially members of moderate Muslim organisations such as the NU and the Mohammedan would total about 60 to 70 million.
So compared to Jemaah Islamiah which probably has a few hundred thousand, it's a vast majority. Unfortunately it's the small majority that can create trouble. In fact three people can make more impact on a society than 30 million people if the three people, if the three persons, are destructive.

GEORGE NEGUS: Yep, exactly. You actually talk about Jemaah Islamiah as though it exists, is it actually a body, an identifiable body as such or is it an idea, an anti-Western ideology.

PROFESSOR WIMAR WITOELAR: When I mentioned Jemaah Islamiah, I'm just now conforming to the trends in the media that insist that it exists so for me to keep saying that I don't know would be just like being very stubborn. So it's more like assuming these people do exist, their membership is not that large.
There is an organisation which is called Jemaah Islamiah and I don't know how much involvement they have in the bombing. They do have members or ex-members who have been arrested, who have been caught, and some of them are at large now, involved in bombing. But whether the organisation as a whole has that kind of strategy and technique I don't know, but be that as it may, they don't number that much but of course they have large impact because of what they do and even larger impact because they're always covered in the news.

GEORGE NEGUS: Kim Beazley, the Opposition Leader here in Australia and others, of course, have been suggesting that JI should be banned. Are we talking here about wrestling with a column of smoke. Is it possible to ban an organisation as ephemeral as the one you've just described?

PROFESSOR WIMAR WITOELAR: It wasn't even possible to ban the communist party of 40 million people or to ban Golkar who consist of 50 million corrupters. So banning is a good political motion but how it deals with the problem. The problem is one of crime that needs intelligence, that needs security experts.
We are fortunate we do have the cooperation from Interpol, from maybe six, seven countries. And of course the Australian Federal Police has been working very well with the Indonesians. That's the kind of technique to go about this matter. But if politicians want to ban organisations then maybe that's what they are capable of.

GEORGE NEGUS: Wimar, at this point we're talking on the first day of Ramadan, for Muslims this is a holy period, a month of fasting, how can it be the case, you tell me, as a Muslim yourself, how can it be the case that some Muslims, or people calling themselves Muslims, can justify killing innocent people and being suicide bombers and other Muslims, the moderates that you've been talking about, abhor the whole idea as much as the rest of us. What is it about Islam that makes that incredible dichotomy possible?

PROFESSOR WIMAR WITOELAR: I don't know, I'm not fasting today because my diet doesn't allow it. Moderate Islam's diet, fast or not fast, on the basis of the personal preference but they're extremist who will portray themselves in the light of a certain religion just like you have people in the Bush Government, for instance, out of religion of destroying countries like Afghanistan and Iraq while professing to be Christians.
What is it about Christianity that allows people to bomb other countries. So it might seem a ridiculous question in your context but for us, it's the same. Why should you identify fasting, Muslims with terrorists?
Let me tell you a different story. When we went to the book store, I guess you heard this on another TV show in Australia yesterday. When I went to the book store on the day before fasting, the book store was filled with Muslim books and 60% of them, was about how to deal with terrorist and how to help the fight against it and totally condemning terrorists.
So Muslims, the majority of Muslims, are the double victims. First they get killed in the bombings, secondly they get blamed for somehow being the conducive element in the growth of terrorism. I think it's just a ridiculous idea.

GEORGE NEGUS: I understand you say dealing with terrorism. I mean do you have any better idea or do those books you're referring to have any better ideas than the rest of us on how terrorism can be dealt with? I know you talk about people-to-people contact but how do we deal with something as indefinable as impossible to predict as terrorism?

PROFESSOR WIMAR WITOELAR: At least you've got more terrorists than the US Government has than maybe the Australian Government has. Although they speak a lot about Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida they haven't caught a single one of those guys.
We and the Australian police have arrested a lot of people. We need to go many steps further and one concrete thing that they are trying now is to involve more of the public of the society, the neighbourhoods to alert people, you know, which kind of strange types enter the neighbourhood or go to the chemical stores, report who is buying strange chemicals or go to CCTV, closed circuit television. So we are going about this in a very technical matter.

GEORGE NEGUS: Let me interrupt you there because we are running out of satellite time. Is it possible there are other elements in Indonesian society, in the military, in the intelligence and security area, even in politics itself, are there people who are taking advantage, if you like, of the fear and paranoia surrounding the terrorists for their own political end?

PROFESSOR WIMAR WITOELAR: I cannot imagine anyone with such cruelty in the legitimate political world. This is the work of deranged people and they can only invite as equally as deranged to join them.

GEORGE NEGUS: Wimar, thank you very much for your time, sorry we couldn't talk longer. Thank you again.

PROFESSOR WIMAR WITOELAR: Thank you.