Watch out for the neighbors
Watch out for the neighbors
SINGAPORE: From the thicket of recent writings on
transnational terrorism, one paper is prominent for its
postulation about the involvement of a strand of radical Islam in
the world's ethno-religious hot spots. The contention breaks no
new ground but, as a departure point from the author's theme, the
linear progression of this movement into disputes with religious
overtones should ring alarms in Southeast Asian countries with
unresolved problems.
The paper's author, Reuven Paz of the International Policy
Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel, suggests that one
decade after the Iranian revolution which dislodged the pro-
American Shah, "the war against the Soviet Union was seen as the
next stage of the global war between Islam and Western culture".
The USSR's eventual collapse was regarded as a consequence of the
Islamic mujahideen's defeat of Soviet occupation forces in
Afghanistan.
The paper suggests that the bombing of New York's World Trade
Center in 1993 and the participation of Muslim volunteers in
conflict zones with an Islamic flavor (Bosnia, Albania, Kosovo,
Chechnya, Dagestan and Kashmir) throughout the 1990s marked a
fundamental shift in direction: a move from fighting "heretic"
regimes in their backyard to a global theater.
The author says that this involvement in other nations' fights
has led many observers to see the phenomenon of "Afghan Arabs" as
an Islamic International, quite similar to the International
Brigades of Socialist and Communist Volunteers in the Spanish
Civil War of the 1930s.
A disclaimer has to be reiterated. This newspaper, in common
with fair-minded opinion elsewhere, rejects as dangerous the
notion that the global alliance being formed by the United States
to fight international terrorism is a clash between the Judeo-
Christian and Islamic civilizations.
It cannot, should not, be so framed. But, as noted, there does
appear to have been ideological infiltration in a number of
Singapore's neighbors. The probability has to be faced up to, and
the appropriate means employed to combat it. Thailand and the
Philippines have long-standing problems in their southern regions
and these bear watching.
The internecine warfare in Indonesia's Spice Islands and Aceh
are of more recent vintage, but susceptible to exploitation by
outside forces -- if that has not already happened. Malaysia is
in a slightly different category, with the opposition PAS Islamic
party trying by political means to encroach on the Malay middle
ground long held by the United Malays National Organization.
Recent arrests and an ongoing hunt for underground operatives
alleged to have undergone armed training in Afghanistan have,
however, put a different complexion on the matter.
No one knows for certain whether separatist movements in
Indonesia and Thailand, and the Moro liberation organization and
Abu Sayyaf outfit in the Philippines, have links with, or are
part of, Middle Eastern pan-Islamic terror networks. The global
mania unleashed by last week's attacks on the U.S. -- believed to
be the handiwork of Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda organization but,
it should be stressed, not proved yet -- behooves those
governments to get on top of the situation on two related fronts.
The first is to neutralize illegitimate organizations, with or
without international support in the form of shared intelligence.
The second is to deny malcontents the conditions which make
unconstitutional methods appealing, terror tactics included. That
would entail ending policies of economic neglect, and to
negotiate an end to grievances if these are legitimate.
-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network