ASEAN told to make tougher laws to combat rise in transnational crimes

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The 24th General Assembly of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Organization (AIPO) concluded on Thursday with a call for countries in the region to make tougher laws to combat the increase in transnational crimes.

House Speaker Akbar Tandjung, who presided over AIPO this year, handed over the organization's presidency to the leader of the Cambodian delegation at the meeting's closing ceremony at Mulia Hotel in Senayan on Thursday.

AIPO's next meeting will be held in September 2004 in Cambodia.

The call to fight transnational crime was one of several resolutions that were made during the four-day meeting.

"The resolutions will be brought home by all delegates to be followed up and all parliaments in the region are expected to pressure their own governments to implement them," Akbar said at a press conference after the meeting's closing ceremony.

Akbar expressed his pessimism that all the resolutions made during the meeting would be followed up by all delegations because of different political systems among ASEAN-member countries.

"AIPO meetings have issued numerous resolutions to cope with common problems in the regions but none has been fully implemented," he said.

Only eight of ten ASEAN members sent their delegations to the meeting. The eight were Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, The Philippines, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and host Indonesia. Brunei Darussalam and Myanmar sent only observers.

Also attending the meeting were observers from Canada, China, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Russia.

Burhan Djabir Magenda, chairman of the committee on political matters during the meeting, regretted that ASEAN countries were slow to react to the increase in transnational crimes in the region.

"The resolution is made to follow up the 30th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur in July 1997 that stressed the need for strong cooperation in addressing the increase in transnational crimes such as terrorism, people and drug trafficking, arms smuggling, piracy and money laundering," he said, citing that ASEAN countries were yet to have their own laws to curb such crimes.

So far, ASEAN countries have discussed several times regional cooperation but have yet to take concrete measures to combat the transnational crimes in the field.

"We want all members to have their own measures so as to enhance regional and bilateral technical cooperation to minimize such crimes, especially terrorism, and people and drug trafficking," he said.

Imam Addaruqutni, chairman of the committee on economic matters, said his committee proposed two resolutions adopted in the plenary session. They are ASEAN common legislation to implement the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) that has begun since early this year and on economic cooperation and comprehensive partnership between ASEAN and East Asia.

Imam said the delegates from Thailand proposed the establishment of an ASEAN Parliament, but delegates from other countries needed more time for further discussion in their own countries before making a decision to accept the proposal or not.