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RELIGION-POLITICS: Islam Is not Terrorism, African Muslims Say

''It's really a pity,'' he says, ''that whenever there is a bomb attack somewhere in the world, it's considered to be the work of Islamic terrorists.''

''The Americans and their Western allies have propagated this idea in the international media. It's unfair,'' adds Zakari. ''That must stop otherwise there could be tension between the Muslim communities and the other peoples worldwide with which they are coexisting.''

Zakari was referring to the Aug. 7 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, blamed by the United States on Saudi businessman Osama ben Laden who, Washington says, heads a network of Islamic terrorists.

He was also referring to retaliatory strikes by the United States on Aug. 20 against what the U.S. said was a ''terrorist'' training camp in Afghanistan and a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan which the U.S. alleged was manufacturing precursors to nerve gas. Washington claimed that both facilities were linked to ben Laden.

Few African states condemned the attacks, but the continent's Muslim communities have slammed the U.S. action and the tendency to diabolise Islam.

That tendency has, however, not been limited to the West.

In mid-August, a Kiswahili-language daily in Kenya, 'Taifa Leo' carried a cartoon showing a terrorist kneeling on a prayer mat besides his camel, thanking God for killing 247 Kenyans and 10 Tanzanians in the embassy bombings. The same week, the 'East African Standard'', an English-language daily carried a similar cartoon portraying Islam as religion of violence.

Such negative portrayal of Islam and Muslims angered Kenyan Muslim leaders, prompting them to hold a press conference to set the record straight.

Muslims in West Africa, too, are concerned. In Senegal, more than 80 percent of whose eight million people are Muslims, Islamic experts say they wonder why the United States always blames Muslims for terrorist acts in the world.

Baraham Diop, president of the Federation of Ulemas of Senegal, stresses that Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance and dialogue that is against any violence and any form of terrorism, whatever its objective. ''Invoking Islam in using the weapon of terrorism runs counter to the recommendations of the Holy Qu'ran,'' he says.

Similarly, Sani Aladji, head of the Yaounde chapter of Cameroon's opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) notes that ''generally Islam advocates negotiation and compromise''.

Since last month's attacks, security has been beefed up at U.S. diplomatic representations worldwide. In Lome, capital of Togo, a score of heavily armed U.S. marines protect the U.S. embassy, which was been closed to the public. The reason, says U.S. Information Service Lome Director James O'Callaghan, is that Islamic groups have threatened to retaliate against the raids on Sudan and Afghanistan by targetting U.S. installations.

Analysts in Lagos, Nigeria, are among the many who feel that the U.S. government has failed to give conclusive proof that Sudan or Afghanistan was involved in the Aug. 7 attacks.

In an article in the Aug. 23 edition of the 'Sunday Guardian', a Nigerian paper, commentator Reuben Abati, a non-Muslim, charged that the world had reached the stage where it accepts the U.S. version as an absolute truth and simply looks on at the acts Washington commits in its so-called fight against terrorism.

Dr. Ganiyou Salami, a Togolese Muslim, says a distinction has to be made between Islam and Islamic fundamentalism. ''There is nothing violent about Islam as a religion,'' he says, ''but the seeds of violence crop up when religious sects gravitate around Islam.''

''The link can thus be established between these fundamentalist groups and violence,'' says Ganiyou, who chairs the Togolese chapter of the Research Group on Democracy and Economic Development (Gerddes-Togo). ''It's not something limited to Islam, the same problems can be found in Christianity.''

However, Clement Ekoue, an Arts teacher in Lome, argues that ''when the Qu'ran allows for the waging of a holy war, that paves the way for severe violence.''

Thomas Wotodzo, a math teacher at a Lome school, feels much the same way. ''Usually, Muslim chiefs are not very tolerant. We still remember the fatwa (edict) issued against the writer Salman Rushdie for his work on the Satanic verses,'' he says. ''We see such behaviour among some of our compatriots who resort to violence over simple discussions on the Qu'ran or Islam.

''Laws should be drawn up to fight the creation of religious sects of a political nature,'' he says. ''The activities of Islamic associations that advocate fundamentalism and which have links with the outside world should be closely monitored.''

Generallym, though, it's much easier to find people who disapprove of the U.S. action.

''The U.S. strikes were not justified,'' says law expert Souleymane Omourou, a legal advisor to many Muslim associations in Togo. ''Disputes between states are settled within the UN and the Americans know it well.''

''No country should take the place of the (UN) Security Council, which is the authority charged with maintaining international peace and security,'' says Kodjo Nulugbe of 'Lawyers without Borders', a non-governmental organisation here. ''The United Nations asks the entire international community and not just one country to agree on anti-terrorist measures.''

For Lome resident Izoto Tchagodoumou, ''destroying a medicine factory and killing innocent people is an indication of the extent to which Americans hate the poor countries of the Third World''.

''They want to behave like policemen at the international level,'' he adds. ''They have no right to do what they have been doing on this earth.'' (END/IPS/YTHB/NO/SM/EHYD/NRN/KB/98)