'Indonesia must initiate anti-terror drive'

'Indonesia must initiate anti-terror drive'

The policy statements coming from the United States amounts to
"unilateralism" in the ears of many outside the country. Former
defense minister Juwono Sudarsono shared his thoughts on the
issue with The Jakarta Post.

Question: What are your thoughts on President George W. Bush's
current unilateral foreign policy?

Answer: President Bush is riding high in the polls at home
since Sept. 11 and the successful military campaign in
Afghanistan, averaging 80 percent approval ratings. He has just
got Congressional support for a US$2.3 trillion defense budget
for the next five years. He wants to carry this momentum well
over to the presidential elections in 2004.

The big question is whether he can carry this stance long
enough to overcome possible hurdles in the U.S. economy. American
public opinion is behind him now, but whether this unilateralism
-- in speechmaking if not always in the nuances of actual policy
-- can be sustained throughout the next two years is an open
question.

Q: Critics have said that the U.S. hard-line on anti-terrorism in
Southeast Asia will create more problems than resolve them. What
do you have to say?

A: Governments of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have
exchanged intelligence about region-based terrorist groups since
the mid-1970s and especially after 1993. September 11 heightened
the concern over global terrorism, compounded by high profile
media reports about U.S. demands for a world-wide concerted
effort.

The more relevant issues are: First, pinning down
incontrovertible legal evidence of terrorist activities -- the
planning, financing, abetting, executing of terrorist acts by
individuals or groups in Southeast Asia that are manipulating
perverted Islamic precepts "linked to" or "associated with"
(suspected terrorist) Osama bin Landen and his cohorts.

Secondly, defining and delivering appropriate responses so
that governmental action will be perceived as being fair,
accurate and measured, not based on a knee-jerk stance easily
misperceived to be against the interests of the larger Muslim
community.

This has nothing to do with whether a country has internal
security acts or not; it is a simple matter of political acumen.
Third -- and most important in the case of Indonesia -- any
American assistance should be carefully calibrated so that the
scope of anti-terrorist policies and actions should first and
foremost be an Indonesian government initiative rather than
perceived as being conducted at the behest of American pressure.

Recent agency reports that U.S. intelligence plans to initiate
a campaign to slant international media coverage in favor of
U.S. policy can only work against the interests of the government
assisted, as well as against the interests of American foreign
policy in the long-term. It would be unfortunate if the U.S. Safe
Harbor Act, for example, be held against Indonesia "for not being
cooperative enough." Nothing could be further from the truth.

Indonesian authorities have questioned and arrested several
suspected terrorists and there are any number of moderate
Indonesian Muslims, including those in the Muhammadiyah and
Nahdlatul Ulama (largest Indonesian Muslim organizations) who
openly oppose groups who hijack and manipulate Islamic precepts
to justify violent and radical change, Al Qaeda or no Al Qaeda.

Q: What about the response of Indonesian officials to the
comments of Singapore's Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew recently?

A: If you read Lee Kuan Yew's comments in context, there really
was no need to react in the way some Indonesian officials have
done. Lee was concerned about reported Al Qaeda cell operatives
in Southeast Asia being "loose around" in Indonesia and
endangering the security of Singapore. In my reading, Lee was not
being provocative.

Rather, Indonesian officials and media made it out to be
provocative. If they had been consistent, they should have
protested (U.S. Ambassador to Singapore) Frank Lavin's comments
the week before when he claimed the Indonesian government was not
doing enough in the campaign against international terrorism. Or
the Singapore Straits Times report from Jakarta about an
"intelligence finding" on the triangular link of terrorist
Islamic groups working together in Singapore, Malaysia and
Indonesia in October last year.

In any case, time will tell whether Lee Kuan Yew's voiced
concern was right or whether the Indonesian government's response
was the more appropriate.