Fight poverty, terrorism will stop, NGOs tell U.S.
Fight poverty, terrorism will stop, NGOs tell U.S.
Tantri Yuliandini, The Jakarta Post, Nusa Dua, Bali
Representatives of civil society and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) lodged strong criticism against the United States following its claim that its war against global terrorism "can do nothing but help sustainable development".
Speaking at an open dialog on terrorism here over the weekend, Indonesian delegate at the Bali UN Meeting Djumala Darmansyah said that the root of the cause of terrorism was poverty.
Instead of financing for various military operations and procurement of weapons, the U.S. should tackle the problem of poverty by providing both social and economic assistance, said Djumala.
"If the money is there and the commitments are there, the challenge is now to urge donor countries such as the U.S. and the European Union to spend funds for social economic development purposes," he said.
Djumala added that the U.S. could particularly focus its aid on areas where terrorist activities were suspected to emerge.
"If we allocate money to that area, we can say we contribute to the sustainable development concept and at the same time combat terrorism," he added.
Speaking at the same session, U.S. delegate John Davison argued that the States viewed there was a close link between sustainable development and antiterrorism action.
"The fight against terrorism is the fight against poverty, which is in fact advancing development to the people," claimed Davison.
The open dialog was organized by the Indonesian People's Forum (IPF) on the sidelines of the fourth Preparatory Committee for the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
On the other hand, Teddy Casino, the secretary-general of the NGO Bagong Alyansang Makabayan of the Philippines, disagreed and charged that the U.S.-led war against terrorism was causing people to suffer more.
Casino said that the launch of U.S. military action against the Abu Sayyaf group in the Philippines had brought about various disturbances and harassment to the movements of people that worked on the forefront of sustainable development.
"Yet, these are the very same organizations that are now starting to be labeled as terrorist groups and they are subjected to military harassment because (they are) suspected of having links with Al-Qaeda or whatever groups that the government wants to link them with," he added.
Casino further said that the Abu Sayyaf group, now the U.S. target after Al-Qaeda and the defunct Taliban in Afghanistan, was only a bandit group involved in kidnappings, robberies and extortion.
"This is hardly the terrorist group that we are being made to believe," he said, adding that the Abu Sayyaf was a group that should be subject only to police action and not a large-scale military operation.
He said the scale of the U.S. military operation on Mindanao Island consisted of 160 combat troops and 330 engineering brigade or CB members. They were working with between six and 7,000 soldiers of the Philippine Armed Forces, the police and local paramilitary troops.
"And it's so amazing considering that they are going after only a bandit group of less than 100 people," he said.
Kel Dummet from Friends of the Earth Indonesia also charged that the U.S. policy of indiscriminately freezing the funding resources of suspected Al-Qaeda links in many countries had also contributed to poverty.
"The U.S. attack to freeze the funding resources of terrorists not only affected banks in Saudi Arabia where most of Al-Qaeda's financial resources are located, but it affected also the operation of banks in poor countries like Somalia," Dummet said.
Emmy Hafild, executive director for the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), voiced fears that antiterrorism laws that some countries, including Indonesia, had been drawing up would only be an excuse for governments to repress people's rights.
Furthermore, she questioned the U.S.'s sincerity in supporting sustainable development.
"Billions of dollars are being allocated to the war (on terrorism), but the U.S. is obstructing any attempt to chart a time-bound action plan on sustainable development," Emmy said.
As the dialog came to a close, Davison quickly left the venue. "I came here to have a dialog and it was a good one," he said.