Countries react coolly to Malaysian push to define terrorism<\/p>\n
Agencies
\nKuala Lumpur<\/p>\n
Southeast Asian security ministers reacted coolly on Monday to
\nMalaysia's latest call for a formal definition of terrorism.<\/p>\n
Singaporean Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng said such a
\ndefinition should be left to the United Nations, rather than
\nministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
\nwho were meeting in Kuala Lumpur to discuss regional
\ncounterterrorism measures.<\/p>\n
Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim country, has been pushing for
\ndelegates at international meetings to officially define
\nterrorism.<\/p>\n
\"I think the job of doing this should be left to esteemed
\norganizations such as the United Nations, or we can leave it to
\nthe linguists or the lexicon,\" Wong said at a news conference.<\/p>\n
\"Even without a definition, I think we all know who are the
\nones who commit terrorist acts,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, the three countries
\nwith the region's largest Muslim populations, signed an accord
\nthis month to fight terrorism and crush a militant network they
\nsay is bent on turning all three into a single Islamic state.<\/p>\n
Thailand, and possibly Myanmar, may join the pact later while
\nthe mostly ethnic Chinese island state of Singapore, wedged
\nbetween Malaysia and Indonesia, has pledged to increase
\ncooperation with its neighbors.<\/p>\n
Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had
\nopened the two-day meeting on counterterrorism on earlier Monday
\nby telling the ministers it was a \"great irony\" that the world
\ncannot define terrorism.<\/p>\n
\"We all know it exists and we are all engaged in a fight
\nagainst it,\" Abdullah said. \"But we will not commit to a
\ndefinition of what it is.\"<\/p>\n
Abdullah said it was tough to get a common definition as ASEAN
\nwas \"not in one mind on certain issues.\"<\/p>\n
\"I did bring up the subject of legislation. What to one
\ncountry is terrorism may not be to another. This may present some
\ndifficulties, even obstacles to bringing about an ASEAN-wide
\ncooperation that we would like to have,\" he told reporters.<\/p>\n
But Abdullah, who is also home minister, said this was not a
\nmajor impediment as all 10 ASEAN members were committed to
\nfighting terrorism.<\/p>\n
\"I don't think at the moment it is completely prohibitive to
\neffective ASEAN cooperation,\" he said.<\/p>\n
\"We should not be distracted by the need to have a common
\ndefinition but we should be focused on the need to have a common
\nprogram of action.<\/p>\n
\"As we begin to expand our areas of cooperation, our areas of
\nconcern, and begin to realize what are the forms of terrorism,
\nmaybe we will get closer to defining terrorism.\"<\/p>\n
Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad first offered his
\ndefinition of terrorism - any attack on civilians - earlier this
\nyear at a meeting of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic
\nConference. It was rejected because Arab countries resisted
\ncondemning Palestinian suicide bombers.<\/p>\n
Abdullah blamed a \"politics of language\" for the global
\nstalemate in defining terrorism, saying some countries disagreed
\non including freedom fighters and state terrorism which would
\nimplicate Israel.<\/p>\n
He reiterated Malaysia's stand that \"armed and other forms of
\nattacks against civilians\" by any individual, group or state
\nshould be regarded as terrorism, including those by Palestinian
\nsuicide bombers.<\/p>\n
Abdullah said there were Islamic groups out to create a
\n\"regional cellular structure with franchised terror operatives
\nand groups stationed in different countries\" within ASEAN.<\/p>\n
Bomb attacks in the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, and
\nthe discovery of militants in Singapore and Malaysia believed
\nlinked to Osama bin Laden, have raised fears that the region may
\nbecome the new battleground in the international war on terror.<\/p>\n
U.S. forces are already helping the Philippine military to
\nfight the Abu Sayyaf, a militant group linked to Saudi-born
\ndissident bin Laden, and have joined war games in Thailand with
\nThai and Singapore forces.<\/p>\n
In the past 12 months, Malaysia has detained dozens of
\nmilitant suspects, while Singapore arrested in December members
\nof a cell it said planned to attack U.S. targets on the island.
\nIndonesia has drawn flak for its lack of arrests as neighbors,
\nnotably Singapore, say ringleaders of a suspected regional
\nnetwork are based there.<\/p>\n
Apart from developing a modus operandi to fight terrorism, he
\nsaid ASEAN must seek to debilitate terror support structures,
\nresolve discontentment among its people and promote better
\ncooperation in early detection.<\/p>\n
He urged ASEAN to step up efforts to cripple terrorists'
\nfinancial networks by freezing assets, condemning countries that
\nsponsor terror and implementing laws to halt the proliferation of
\ncybercrimes and bioterrorism.<\/p>",
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