Security issues in Straits of Malacca

Security issues in Straits of Malacca

The Straits Times, Asia News Network, Singapore

Deterring terrorist strikes in the Straits of Malacca was the
issue given the most useful airing at the Asian security
conference here. Not, it should be prefaced, because agreement on
a form of military presence and searches of suspicious craft is
anywhere close, as the passageway's three littoral states and a
host of nations with merchant navies using it are interested
parties.

Each of them will frame the issue in its own contextual
interests, as noted fairly by Admiral Walter Doran, commander of
the United States Pacific Fleet. These could be piracy, drug and
gun-running, people trafficking and support for insurgencies,
aside from the common factors of the oil and merchandise trade.
Now, there is borderless terrorism to galvanize them.

Whatever the nuances of the U.S. congressional testimony on
the waterway's security given by Admiral Thomas Fargo, commander
of U.S forces in the Pacific, it has now been made clear by his
boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, that a U.S. military
deployment to monitor shipping is getting ahead of the
probabilities.

Rumsfeld said certain aspects of the testimony had been
"misreported" and widely accepted as fact in South-east Asia.
Admiral Fargo had suggested U.S. naval forces could provide
protection. He added that Singapore favored an effective maritime
security plan to deter terrorism, as indeed the Republic does as
a broad principle and has consistently advocated, well before he
spoke.

Malaysia and Indonesia, the two states most concerned about
sovereignty infringements, are entitled to wonder whether
Rumsfeld's remarks were clarification or spin, to take note of
their objections to U.S. military intervention. But he was
categoric when he spoke these words: "Any implication that it
(the maritime security proposal) would impinge in any way on the
sovereign territorial waters of some countries would be
inaccurate. It just wouldn't."

He noted that the U.S. would consult its friends, the plan
was in its infant stages, and nothing could be assumed. By
logical deduction, this must mean nothing could be foreclosed
either -- including the use of U.S. forces. If it came to that,
it must be consistent with international law and have the
unqualified concurrence of all three littoral states. Anything
short can be hazardous to regional relations.

Rumsfeld's move arguably has defused untoward tension over an
anti-terrorist deterrent that no country in the region could
possibly reject. His intervention had the virtue of making
maritime security a universal undertaking which Malaysia and
Indonesia, in particular, would want to be part of as a matter of
self-interest.

Malaysian Deputy Premier and Defense Minister Najib Razak did
well to amplify for conference delegates the reason for his
country's objection to the Fargo formulation. Foreign troops
patrolling the straits would "set us back in our ideological
battle against extremism and militancy", he noted.

Mindful of how the stationing of U.S. forces in Saudi Arabia,
Islam's hallowed ground, prior to the first Gulf War was turned
into "Osama bin Laden's principal recruiting device" (U.S. Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's words), Malaysia's
reservations possibly are more than about sovereignty.

Najib says he is open to suggestions on how the U.S. could
help in the region.There is a sense momentum is building up to
some form of cooperation. It has to be a substantive plan to be
of use in prevailing against efficient killers.