Racial harmony Singapore's main worry

Racial harmony Singapore's main worry

Martin Abbugao, Agence France-Presse, Singapore

Singapore can ride out the current recession but faces a more
pressing task of combating security threats and preserving racial
and religious unity, the prime minister said on Monday.

Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's remarks coincided with a report
in the Straits Times that Indonesian intelligence officials had
discovered a document giving detailed plans for coordinated
terrorist bombings in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta last
December.

The paper said it obtained a copy of the document entitled
Jihad (Holy War) Operations in Asia which said that the bombings
using satchels full of C-4 explosive were to have been carried
out last Dec. 4.

The prime minister said in a Lunar New Year's message that,
despite the crippling of a local terror network in December,
Singapore would remain vulnerable to terrorists as long as their
regional networks were not wiped out.

"The most pressing concern for us ... is not the economy. The
recession, though painful, is a short term problem," Goh said,
stressing that Singapore has the resources to ride out the
downturn.

"Our greater worry is the threat to our security, and to our
racial and religious harmony, following the discovery of
terrorist activities in our country," he said.

Gross domestic product is projected to grow between 1.0 and
3.0 percent this year, buoyed by signs of a recovery in the U.S.
economy. The original forecast was for between minus 2.0 and 2.0
percent.

Goh said the suspects were being directed by foreign
masterminds.

"Their handlers came from outside to teach and direct them to
inflict terror in Singapore," he said.

"So long as global and regional terrorist networks continue to
exist, Singapore will continue to be exposed to terrorist
activities. We should therefore be vigilant, but we must still go
about our lives normally," he said.

Goh said "all Singaporeans have a responsibility to prevent
such a crack in our inter-communal solidarity from happening."

He urged non-Muslim Singaporeans not to think that the actions
of the 13 suspects represented Islam, calling them a "small group
of misguided extremists."

Singapore Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, in an interview with
CNN at the weekend, said that for Singapore to be safe, terrorist
"nests" from neighboring Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines
must be cleared.