Terrorist threat imperils SE Asian prosperity: S'pore

Terrorist threat imperils SE Asian prosperity: S'pore

Agencies, Bangkok

Southeast Asian nations must unite against the terrorist threat
if they hope to lift the region out of its lingering economic
malaise, Singapore's Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng said on
Sunday.

Wong told a conference of Asian parliamentarians that the
region was facing tough times, ignored by investors and dogged by
the 1997 economic crisis which it has failed to shake off.

"Any hope for a gingerly recovery as we turned around the last
century was dashed when a new threat confronted the world on
September 11 last year," he said.

And illusions that the specter of terrorism was confined to
the Middle East or targets in the Western world were smashed by
last month's bombings in Bali, which "painfully punctured all
such self-denial and self-delusion."

"So long as our collective regional security is at stake, the
road to our economic recovery is paved with land-mines. None of
us can really pull ourselves out of the gloom which threatens to
hang over the region," he said.

Wong said that as the long battle against terrorism in the
region began, each country had to find ways to avert the threat
of violence and check religious extremism within Islamic
communities.

Every country had a "responsibility to ensure that terrorism
in its domain is not exported to threaten the lives of the
citizens of other nations or to undermine the security and
stability of the region."

With a nod to the region's policy of non-interference in other
nation's affairs, he urged Singapore's neighbors to take
"concrete and direct collaborative action" against terrorism.

"We have to cooperate. Our economic recovery and security are
intertwined. If we handle our security issues right, we will be
able to present to the rest of the world a region which is stable
and effective in coping with any threat.

"Then economic and political confidence in the region will be
strengthened and the prospect of our coming out of the woods will
be a more certain and confident outcome... Otherwise, our region
will be simply overlooked and by-passed."

Singapore is a key U.S. ally in Southeast Asia in the fight
against global terrorism and provides logistical support to the
U.S. navy.

It has arrested 31 suspected religious militants in connection
with an alleged plot to bomb targets in the city-state, including
the U.S. embassy, other foreign missions as well as the Singapore
defense ministry.

Neighboring Malaysia and the Philippines have also made
similar arrests while Indonesia has toughened its stance on
extremists following the Oct. 12 car bomb massacre in Bali, which
killed more than 190 people.

Meanwhile, the political parties from 25 Asian nations on
Sunday voiced opposition to unilateral armed action in fighting
terrorism, stressing that the United Nations should play the lead
role.

"We all support a multilateral approach to resolving the issue
of terrorism or to combating terrorism and not a unilateral
action," Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai told a press
conference concluding a conference of 77 Asian political parties.

Economic and political issues, terrorism and the possibility
of a U.S.-led attack on Iraq were on the agenda of the three-day
International Conference of Asian Political Parties, which aimed
to increase cooperation among Asian political parties.