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.