Western companies, expatriates in Asia on alert as war nears

Western companies, expatriates in Asia on alert as war nears

Jason Szep, Reuters, Singapore

Expatriates in Indonesia are dusting off evacuation plans. Air
travel for some is off limits in parts of Asia. Security checks
at offices for Western companies in Malaysia and China are
getting tougher.

The prospect of war in Iraq is forcing multinational companies
in Asia, home to the world's largest Muslim population, to review
security plans amid fears of reprisals by extremists.

"There is a concern about a possible increase in terrorism,"
said Marcus McRitchie, Asia-Pacific security director at
Singapore-based International SOS, which helps companies plan for
evacuations or to make other contingency security arrangements.

"Terrorist groups in the region might use this opportunity,
while attention is focused on the Middle East, to increase their
activity," he said. "Generally, companies are brushing up on
their various response plans."

Most companies in Asia strengthened security after the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks on the United States, and bolstered those plans
after bomb blasts on Indonesia's resort island of Bali killed 202
people, nearly all Westerners, in October.

In Pakistan, where the search for terror mastermind Osama bin
Laden has intensified in recent weeks, most expatriates working
at multinational companies left immediately after Sept. 11 and
the subsequent war in Afghanistan.

One of the few remaining in the capital, Islamabad, expressed
confidence in his company's contingency plans. "We are staying
put at the minute, but we have our evacuation tickets, and we are
standing by ready to move," he said.

Westerners in Indonesia, many accustomed to intermittent
unrest since the ouster of strongman Soeharto in 1998, doubt war
in Iraq will herald fresh instability in the world's most
populous Muslim country. But they are reviewing safety plans in
case.

"We have security advisers who are giving us regular updates
on the situation," said a senior official at a European bank in
the capital Jakarta. "We are dusting off evacuation plans.

"But we all feel more relaxed than we did during the other
times of crisis in Indonesia," he said.

A Western security analyst in Indonesia said people were
concerned about the possibility of a terrorist attack, but there
was little that could be done about that.

"Big companies here have pretty elaborate contingency plans in
place and have had for the last couple of years...the real
concern seems to be related to the potential for a terrorist
attack and people can't do very much to anticipate that, except
keep a low profile," the analyst said.

About 85 percent of Indonesia's 210 million people are Muslim.
Most of them are moderate but opposition to a war in Iraq is
widespread.

Indonesia has long been a close ally of the United States and
a supporter of its war on terror but the government has
repeatedly said it would not support an attack on Iraq.

In the Philippines, which saw a bomb attack on a U.S. embassy
library after the first Gulf War in 1991, American executive Alan
Boyd said he felt comfortable.

"There is a general feeling that nothing big is going to
happen from a local standpoint," said Boyd, a finance director at
U.S. technology company Texas Instruments who has lived in the
Philippines for three years. "I feel a lot more comfortable here
than I would in Indonesia."

U.S. investment bank J.P. Morgan Chase said their security
arrangements were strengthened after the Sept. 11 attacks and the
Bali bombing, and were tightened again ahead of a war in Iraq.

"As we head into a potential conflict in the Middle East,
obviously the threat level has increased," said Peter McKillop,
the bank's head of Asia-Pacific corporate communications.

A spokesman for Citigroup, the world's largest bank, said it
had ample security across Asia, including Singapore where the
government broke up a plot by Islamic extremists in 2001 to bomb
Western targets including embassies and companies.

An official at another international bank based in Hong Kong,
who declined to be identified, said its staff were banned from
traveling to Afghanistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Jordan,
Kuwait, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudia Arabia and Syria.

"We have various levels of travel bans. That's the first
level," he said. "The second level is a very cautious level and
that includes Turkey, Morocco, northern India and Indonesia."

In mostly Muslim Malaysia, the American Chamber of Commerce
recently established a security council, which meets regularly to
discuss, along with embassy officials, what U.S. companies can do
to minimize risks.

Executives in China are also noticing some tougher security.
Jonathan Dong, a spokesman for U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing
Co, said security was tightened at his building in eastern
Beijing. "Our property owner is checking identity cards
downstairs, but Boeing is operating as usual," he said.