Discovery of terror cells a blow to ASEAN's investment chances
Discovery of terror cells a blow to ASEAN's investment chances
Bernice Han, Agence France-Presse, Singapore
The discovery of alleged terrorist cells in Southeast Asia with links to Saudi militant Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network could damage regional efforts to recapture foreign investors' confidence, analysts say.
The terror scare could not have come at a worse time for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) -- which was already facing a stiff challenge from China in the economic arena -- but regional security cooperation could boost confidence, they say.
Evidence uncovered by the region's security officials allegedly showed that suspected terrorists under detention in Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines belonged to well- organized cells plotting attacks on U.S. and other foreign targets.
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, is now under pressure to take a firmer position against Islamic extremists.
Defense publication Jane's Intelligence Review said the al- Qaeda network in Southeast Asia remains largely intact even as its operations in the United States, Europe and East Africa are unraveling under pressure from investigations and widespread arrests.
"Certainly it will hurt ASEAN in the short term there," Bob Broadfoot, managing director of the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy (PERC) thinktank, told AFP.
"It just makes that trend faster when you combine it with China getting into the WTO (World Trade Organization)," said Broadfoot, referring to China's rising share of the foreign direct investment (FDI) pie over the last decade.
China, along with its territory Hong Kong, captured 80 percent of the FDI in 2000 in the Asian region outside of Japan.
This left the 10-member grouping ASEAN with a miserable 8.6 percent, down sharply from its 33.5-percent share of the FDI in 1996.
Since the 1997-98 financial crisis, ASEAN has been struggling to regain its luster in the foreign investment community, whose massive funds inflow into the region in the 1980s played a key role in building up its industrial base and raising living standards.
Singapore's elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew said over the weekend that the danger of a terrorist attack persists in Southeast Asia despite arrests of suspects.
The senior minister told CNN that some suspects were able to escape after the city-state cracked down on alleged terrorist cells, and their leaders will now have to start new groups and adopt more complicated methods.
"So it's a battle that goes on, but the critical thing is to clear the nests around us. The big nest was in Afghanistan, that's not quite cleared, then there are nests in the Philippines, there are nests in Indonesia," Lee said.
ASEAN secretary general Rodolfo Severino said cooperation and intelligence sharing among ASEAN countries that led to the capture of the suspected terrorists was a confidence booster to the region.
"Of course there are concerns about the kind of activities that these people are up to," Severino said.
"The way to look at this is the arrests prove that the security and intelligence agencies are on top of the situation and are cooperating in this in much the same way that Spain and France are arresting terrorists," he said.
Ultimately, a lot will depend on whether ASEAN can remove the perception that it is incapable of working together to stamp out terrorism in the region.
"The real issue is perception. Will the Southeast Asian governments be able to convince foreign investors that they are working together ?" said Broadfoot at PERC.
Jose Tongzon, a regional economist at the National University of Singapore, said he was encouraged by the measures taken so far.
"Certainly the impression that we have shown to the world is the governments in Southeast Asia are doing something to stamp out terrorism," he said, citing the cooperation between the Philippines and the U.S. military against alleged Filipino allies of the al-Qaeda network.