Security issues in Straits of Malacca<\/p>\n
The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore<\/p>\n
Deterring terrorist strikes in the Straits of Malacca was the
\nissue given the most useful airing at the Asian security
\nconference here. Not, it should be prefaced, because agreement on
\na form of military presence and searches of suspicious craft is
\nanywhere close, as the passageway's three littoral states and a
\nhost of nations with merchant navies using it are interested
\nparties.<\/p>\n
Each of them will frame the issue in its own contextual
\ninterests, as noted fairly by Admiral Walter Doran, commander of
\nthe United States Pacific Fleet. These could be piracy, drug and
\ngun-running, people trafficking and support for insurgencies,
\naside from the common factors of the oil and merchandise trade.
\nNow, there is borderless terrorism to galvanize them.<\/p>\n
Whatever the nuances of the U.S. congressional testimony on
\nthe waterway's security given by Admiral Thomas Fargo, commander
\nof U.S forces in the Pacific, it has now been made clear by his
\nboss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, that a U.S. military
\ndeployment to monitor shipping is getting ahead of the
\nprobabilities.<\/p>\n
Rumsfeld said certain aspects of the testimony had been
\n\"misreported\" and widely accepted as fact in South-east Asia.
\nAdmiral Fargo had suggested U.S. naval forces could provide
\nprotection. He added that Singapore favored an effective maritime
\nsecurity plan to deter terrorism, as indeed the Republic does as
\na broad principle and has consistently advocated, well before he
\nspoke.<\/p>\n
Malaysia and Indonesia, the two states most concerned about
\nsovereignty infringements, are entitled to wonder whether
\nRumsfeld's remarks were clarification or spin, to take note of
\ntheir objections to U.S. military intervention. But he was
\ncategoric when he spoke these words: \"Any implication that it
\n(the maritime security proposal) would impinge in any way on the
\nsovereign territorial waters of some countries would be
\ninaccurate. It just wouldn't.\"<\/p>\n
He noted that the U.S. would consult its friends, the plan
\nwas in its infant stages, and nothing could be assumed. By
\nlogical deduction, this must mean nothing could be foreclosed
\neither -- including the use of U.S. forces. If it came to that,
\nit must be consistent with international law and have the
\nunqualified concurrence of all three littoral states. Anything
\nshort can be hazardous to regional relations.<\/p>\n
Rumsfeld's move arguably has defused untoward tension over an
\nanti-terrorist deterrent that no country in the region could
\npossibly reject. His intervention had the virtue of making
\nmaritime security a universal undertaking which Malaysia and
\nIndonesia, in particular, would want to be part of as a matter of
\nself-interest.<\/p>\n
Malaysian Deputy Premier and Defense Minister Najib Razak did
\nwell to amplify for conference delegates the reason for his
\ncountry's objection to the Fargo formulation. Foreign troops
\npatrolling the straits would \"set us back in our ideological
\nbattle against extremism and militancy\", he noted.<\/p>\n
Mindful of how the stationing of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia,
\nIslam's hallowed ground, prior to the first Gulf War was turned
\ninto \"Osama bin Laden's principal recruiting device\" (U.S. Deputy
\nDefense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's words), Malaysia's
\nreservations possibly are more than about sovereignty.<\/p>\n
Najib says he is open to suggestions on how the U.S. could
\nhelp in the region.There is a sense momentum is building up to
\nsome form of cooperation. It has to be a substantive plan to be
\nof use in prevailing against efficient killers.<\/p>",
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